Steve Hamilton - Blood is the Sky

“Where are you calling from, Constable?”

“We’re at the Hearst Detachment. It’s about fifty miles east of the lodge.”

“You think we could come back up there and talk to you in person?”

She hesitated. “Mr. McKnight, if you want to come up here, you can do that. But first I want that name.”

“Thomas LeBlanc,” I said.

“That was the fifth man on the hunting trip.”

“Yes. I’m here with his brother, Vincent LeBlanc.”

“Okay,” she said. “See, that wasn’t so hard.”

I let that one go. As soon as she ran the name, she’d find out just how hard it really was.

“Listen,” she said, “we’re on our way over to the lodge right now. As long as you’re still in Wawa, why don’t you come back up and talk to us?”

“I think that would be a good idea.”

“Okay, Mr. McKnight. We’ll see you at the lodge. Drive carefully.”

“You, too,” I said. “Watch out for moose.”

I switched the phone off. Vinnie slept in perfect peace, oblivious to what I’d just done. Like I had any choice.

“Wake up,” I said.

He made a noise.

“That was the police.”

He lifted his head. His left eye was still swollen. “What?”

“Albright never got home. His wife called the police down in Detroit.”

He pulled himself up until he was sitting on the edge of the bed. “Man,” he said. “My head hurts.”

“That was the OPP,” I said. “They’re going to the lodge. I told them we’d meet them there.”

“Okay.”

“They wanted Tom’s name. I figured it was time to come clean.”

He looked at me. “You figured that, huh?”

“We’re going up to see the police, Vinnie. These men are officially missing now.”

He let out a long breath. Then he pushed himself up and for one second I thought he was going to jump on me. But instead he stumbled toward the bathroom. “I need to take a shower,” he said. “I can’t go see the police looking like a vagrant. It’s gonna be bad enough.”

An hour later we were both as cleaned up as we were going to get. We stopped in at a little coffee shop down the street, then at the gas station, and then we were on our way. The giant goose looked down on us one more time as we left town. It felt strange to be going north again.

The rest of the morning we spent retracing our route from the day before, through White River and Hornepayne, through miles and miles of lakes and trees. The air felt even colder. Vinnie sat on the passenger’s side and looked out the window.

“I didn’t have any choice,” I finally said.

“I know.”

“At this point, it’s got to come out.”

“You’re right,” he said without looking at me. “I’m not saying you did the wrong thing.”

“Okay,” I said, and then I settled in for two more hours on the road without one more word from him. I suppose if I had a brother and I knew he was probably on his way back to prison, I’d be just as talkative.

It was eleven o’clock when we hit the Trans-Canada Highway again. I knew to take the left, and to look for the unmarked road on the right. I kept the truck out of the mud this time. We didn’t see our friend the moose.

When we came around the last bend in the road, we saw the police car parked behind the other vehicles. It was white and clean, with the blue OPP seal on the door. We stopped and got out of the truck.

“They must be inside,” I said. The place looked just as deserted as the first time we had seen it. There was a wet wind coming in off the lake again. The air felt heavy.

We walked down to the main cabin. As we passed the butcher’s shed, I expected to see the man come out with the blood all over his gloves again. I couldn’t remember the man’s name, although I knew Helen had told us.

“The plane’s gone,” Vinnie said. I looked out at the dock. There was just the two aluminum boats, bobbing up and down in the waves.

We went up the creaky old steps and into the main cabin. The big moose head looked down at us. “Hello!” I said.

Nothing.

“That’s what I love about this place,” I said. “They always know how to make you feel welcome.”

We went back to the little office, but it was empty. A radio was on. A faraway station was barely audible through the thick buzz of static. It sounded like French.

“Where is everybody?” Vinnie said.

“Think they all went someplace in the plane?”

“They told us to meet them here, didn’t they?”

“They did,” I said.

We went back through the main room to the front door. It opened just as we got there. Helen St. Jean took one look at us and screamed.

“Oh, my goodness,” she said when she could breathe again. “You scared the life out of me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “The police told us to meet them here.”

“The police,” she said. “Yes. Hank flew them out to the cabin.”

“The cabin where the men were staying?”

“On Lake Agawaatese, yes. They wanted to see if the men left anything there.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking out the window at the sky. “Some kind of clue. Something that might tell the police where they were going when they left here. I can’t imagine what that would be.”

“How long have they been out there?”

“They flew out around eight. I’m surprised they’re not back already.”

“Albright’s wife called the police,” I said. “And the other wives. Those men never did get back to Detroit.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s what the constables said.”

We all stood there for a moment. I wasn’t sure what else to say. The door creaked open just then, and the man from the butcher’s shed came in. He stopped when he saw us.

“They’re still out there,” Helen said.

The man nodded.

“Ronnie, this is Alex and Tom,” she said. “They were here yesterday.”

Vinnie looked down at the floor and shook his head.

“Yes, we met,” I said. “You were butchering the moose.”

He glanced upward, past my shoulder. I turned and looked up at the moose head with him.

“Sorry,” I said. “Maybe we should change the subject.”

The man didn’t smile. He didn’t say a word. He gave Helen a little nod and then he went back out the door.

“You’ll have to excuse him,” Helen said. “He doesn’t say a lot, especially to strangers. Millie’s kinda the same way.”

“It’s a good place to live then,” I said. “How many strangers do you even see up here?”

She smiled. “Less and less every season. I don’t imagine we’ll be coming back next year.”

“That’s what Mr. Gannon told us yesterday. I got the impression it was a done deal.”

“I suppose it is,” she said. “It’s hard to believe we’ll be packing up for good this time.”

“Where do you go when you’re not up here?”

“We all live in Sudbury,” she said. “For the last fifteen years, we’ve been coming up here for the summer and fall. Business was good the first few years, then it started to taper off. This year was the worst, and now, with this-” She looked out the window again.

“I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am,” Vinnie said. “This isn’t good for anybody.”

She looked at him for a long moment. “You fellas want some coffee?”

“That would be nice,” Vinnie said.

As she left the room, Vinnie went to the window and stared out. “I wish we were out there,” he said.

“What do you think we’d find?” I said. “The men have been gone for five days now.”

“People leave things behind,” he said. “There’s always something.”

Helen came back out with a pot of coffee and three empty mugs. She poured it black and didn’t ask if we wanted cream or sugar. Which was fine with me. We all stood there looking out the window for a few minutes, until finally we heard the distant whine of the motor.