Steve Hamilton - Blood is the Sky

“That would be six,” his partner said.

He turned and looked at her. “Constable?”

“You need six men for hockey,” she said. “You forgot the goalie.”

“The goalie stays on the ice. That’s why I said ‘line.’”

“If you really meant a line,” she said, “then that’s only three. The defensemen come out separately.”

He gave me a little smile and a shrug. “How about basketball, then. That’s five.”

“The fifth man was the guide,” I said. “They picked him up in the Soo.”

“So you say, and yet the good people here at the lodge know nothing about it. As far as they’re concerned, he’s just another one of this gentleman’s business partners.”

“I don’t know for sure,” I said, “but I don’t imagine these people would have appreciated it if Albright had brought his own guide. They have their own man here.”

“You mean to say it’s either use their guide or none at all.”

“He was taking a job away from a Canadian,” I said. “I know you guys can get a little sensitive about that.” It was my turn to give him a smile.

“Okay, well, assuming that was the case, don’t you think it looks kind of funny when this mysterious fifth man turns out to be a felon on parole who isn’t even supposed to be in the country in the first place?”

“We’re back to where we started,” I said. “I already told you, I know it doesn’t look good.”

“So we agree,” he said. He leaned forward in his chair. His face was two feet from mine. “Four rich American men, one American felon. All missing. Two mystery men drive all the way up here looking for them, without even giving their names. The next day, two more men drive all the way up here. One of them happens to be the man who loaned the felon his identification, and the other is a nonpracticing private investigator who’s supposedly just along for the ride. And neither one of them can spend twenty-four hours in our country without getting into trouble.”

“What are you talking about?” I said. I was afraid I already knew.

Constable Reynaud flipped through her pad. “Big Tony’s Lounge in Wawa,” she said. “Does that ring a bell?”

“That’s the name of the place? Big Tony’s Lounge?”

“Let me guess,” she said. “The other guys started it.”

“How did you know?”

DeMers stood up and opened the door. “What’ll it take you, about nine hours to get home?”

“Eight if I break the speed limit.” I stood up and stretched.

“That’s not funny, Mr. McKnight. I hope you realize, we could have done this over at the detachment. Right now, I suggest you head directly home at a reasonable speed, and please make a point of not stopping at any bars, okay? We wouldn’t want anyone else to drag you into a fight.”

“We’ll go right home,” I said. “Believe me, it’ll be my pleasure.”

“As soon as you get there, you need to contact the Michigan State Police in Sault Ste. Marie. They’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

“I got it.”

He leaned forward again. I was waiting for another zinger. I didn’t get it.

“McKnight,” he said. From one second to the next, his voice had lost its edge. “Can I call you Alex?”

I hesitated. “Yes.”

“Now that I’ve read you the riot act like I’m supposed to do, can I talk to you like a human being?”

“Yes,” I said. I looked at Reynaud. She kept watching me.

“I understand why you came up here,” he said. “I really do. Your friend did something really stupid, and you were just trying to help him out.”

“That’s right.”

“But you know why we had to ask you these questions.”

I looked at Reynaud again. Dark green eyes. “Yes.”

“Okay, so now that it’s out in the open, you’ve got to go back home and let us do our job. Right?”

I nodded.

“Okay then,” he said. “Let’s get you on your way.”

He opened the door and led me back into the front room. Vinnie was standing alone at the front window, looking out at the dock, just as I had been. “That was quick,” he said.

“Alex is an old cop himself,” DeMers said. “He knows the drill.”

I followed Vinnie onto the front porch. DeMers was right behind me, until Reynaud took him by the arm. They had their little conference while Vinnie and I went down the steps. Hank Gannon was waiting for us, his arms folded across his chest. When we were two steps from the bottom, he still hadn’t moved.

“I’m surprised you’re not wearing handcuffs,” he said.

“Gannon, we’ve already had enough for one day,” I said. “Step aside.”

“Did you explain to the constables why you lied to us?”

“Yeah, we explained it. Now get out of the way.”

“You feel like explaining it to me?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

He shifted his eyes to Vinnie. “How about you?”

“Where’s Helen?” Vinnie said.

“She went for a walk. She couldn’t stand to be around here anymore.”

“I owe her an apology,” Vinnie said. “I hope you’ll give it to her for me.”

He shook his head. “You just don’t get it. She’s been working so hard to keep this place going.”

“That’s got nothing to do with us,” I said. I stepped down to put myself between them. “This place was in trouble long before those men went missing. You said so yourself.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” he said. “And this was just what we needed for a send-off-a bunch of drunken assholes from Detroit and a drunken Indian who didn’t even know his own name.”

The constables came out the door. A few seconds later and Vinnie might have found the end of his fuse again.

“Let them go, Hank,” DeMers said. “They’ve got to get back home.”

Gannon looked up at them, then at Vinnie, and then at me. After a long moment he stepped back. We walked up to the truck. Ron came out of his butcher’s shed and stopped dead in his tracks. He watched us walk by. He didn’t have to say anything to us. The look on his face was enough.

We got in the truck and I fired it up. Only then did Millie come out of the shed. She walked up toward us, moving quickly, like she wanted very much to tell us something. Ron caught her from behind and led her away, casting one last look over his shoulder at us, like even this sudden impulse on his wife’s part was somehow our fault.

“Let’s get away from this freak show,” I said. “I hope I never see it again.”

“They’re packing up,” he said. “Nobody will see it again.”

I pointed the truck down the service road and punched it. “We’ll go home,” I said. “We’ll get a good lawyer for your brother. Sooner or later, they’re gonna turn up, and Tom’s gonna be in big trouble.”

Vinnie shook his head.

“As soon as he gets home and you know he’s okay and you’ve got him hooked up with the lawyer, that’s when you can kick his ass.”

I got us down the twisty damned service road without incident. No moose, no running into the mud. When I hit the highway I took the left and headed back to 631. It appeared a few minutes later. I put on my right-turn signal.

I turned. Then I stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Vinnie said.

“Is there a reservation around here?”

“I think so,” he said. “They call them reserves up here.”

“Okay, reserve. Where is it?”

“Let me think… There’s one on Constance Lake. That’s probably the closest.”

“How far away?”

“Maybe twenty, thirty miles.”

“Which direction?”

“East. It’s just north of a little town called Calstock.”

I swung the truck into a U-turn and went back to the highway.

“I take it we’re going there?”