Steve Hamilton - Blood is the Sky

I saw the empty fireplace in my mind. I heard the moaning sound it made when the wind rushed over the chimney.

“He’d sit there,” she said, “and try to come up with the best way to get those men, every one of them. He knew he could find them. He knew he could go down there and ring their doorbells and see their faces. It was just… what to do next. I thought I finally convinced him, he’d just ruin his life, what was left of it. Or whatever life we might be able to have together. I thought he was getting over it. Finally, I thought maybe he had let it go. And then they called us, just like that. Albright himself. This man. This voice on the phone. Back when our phone was working. He called us.”

“Of all the places to go hunting in Canada,” I said, “they called you?”

“They got tired of hunting deer and they wanted to try something bigger. They heard there were some good moose lakes up here, and there aren’t that many lodges left. Ours just happened to be the one they chose. After all these years, just when I thought Hank was getting to be himself again… He told me it was just a twist of fate. But that maybe it was supposed to work out that way. Like God sent them up here. He actually said that. Like we were finally being given the chance to see the men who killed our children.”

I knew it wasn’t that simple. They may have burned down their business, whether they had been charged for it or not. The fire spread into the hotel, which may or may not have been up to fire codes. It was a whole chain of events that might have turned out a hundred different ways. But I wasn’t going to say that to her.

“I know what you must be thinking. I know how it sounds. But you can’t understand what it feels like until it happens to you. I’d have dreams about my daughter. About the fire. I couldn’t get to her.”

Her voice was ragged now.

“I can’t make you understand,” she said. “The dreams-”

We heard the rumble of a car passing by outside. The sound got farther and farther away, and then it was quiet again.

“When those men got here, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was afraid to even look at them. But Hank, my God, he was out there shaking their hands, looking each one of them in the eyes. If I had done that-”

She stopped. She looked back at Vinnie.

“If I had done that, I might have seen your brother. I might have known he wasn’t one of them. I might have seen that he didn’t belong.”

Vinnie didn’t say anything. The light from the fire was reflected in his eyes.

Five men. That’s all Hank had seen. Albright and his business associates.

Five men.

“Hank flew them out to Lake Agawaatese. It’s the farthest away. There aren’t even many moose up there. Just bears.”

She kept looking at Vinnie.

“I didn’t know, Vinnie.” She said it like she was still trying to convince him. “I didn’t know what he was going to do.”

“You knew he was going to kill them,” Vinnie said.

“Vinnie-”

“How could you not know? All of you.”

“Ron knew. He was there with Hank, out at the lake. He and Hank… They were there. They did it together. And then Ron and Hank took the Suburban out that morning, the morning they were supposed to have flown back. They took the Suburban and Hank’s truck, I mean, and left the Suburban in the woods. I didn’t know at the time. I wasn’t there. Hank told us to go away, me and Millie. We came back that Saturday. The Suburban was gone. At first I thought-”

“What?”

“I thought the men were gone. I thought maybe… I don’t know… maybe they didn’t do anything. Maybe they flew them back. Then Hank told me. It’s done, he said. That’s what he said to me. It’s done.”

“You knew, Helen.”

She picked her hands up out of her lap. She held them up for a moment and then let them drop again.

“Yes,” she said, in a voice so low I could barely hear her. “Yes, I knew.”

“What about DeMers?”

“He didn’t even know those men were up here. Not until after. They came out to the lodge, Claude and his partner-what was her name?”

“Reynaud,” I said. “Natalie Reynaud.”

“They came out here that morning, when the call came up from Detroit about the missing men. That’s when Hank took him aside and told him what had happened. I thought Claude would strangle him.”

“What was he going to do about it?” I said. “He was a police officer.”

“Yes, and he had taken an oath. He said that to Hank. He had to turn us in. All of us. But then-”

“What?”

“He didn’t. He just didn’t.”

I thought about DeMers, about the way he had treated us. The hot and cold act, and everything he had said and done to convince us to go home and to stay there. It all made sense now. It was tearing him up. And the two of us digging around up here was the last thing in the world he had wanted.

“What about later?” I said. “When he flew up there with Hank?”

“I was there when Claude came over. He didn’t have his partner this time. He said that you and Vinnie had flown up to the lake, and that you were still up there. Hank got his rifle and tried to put it in the plane, and Claude asked him what the hell he was doing. Hank said he’d have to take care of things if you and Vinnie had found out what he and Ron had done. Claude told him that wasn’t going to happen. They were going to fly up and bring the two of you back. And if you had found out, then we’d all just have to deal with it.”

She looked back at Vinnie again.

“Claude said there was already one innocent man dead. He wasn’t going to let it happen to two more.”

Vinnie nodded his head once.

“I swear to God,” Helen said. “I thought that was going to be the end of it. I thought Claude would take care of it and it would all be over. But Hank must have sneaked that rifle onto the plane somehow. They flew up there… And Hank, he must have-”

She started crying.

“He was protecting us,” she said. “That goddamned fool. He didn’t want any of this to touch us. Now he’s gone. Claude is gone. Ron and Millie are gone. Everybody’s gone except me.”

Maskwa got up from his chair and went to her. He stood over her and gently placed one hand to the side of her face. Vinnie stayed in the corner. He was looking up at the ceiling now, blinking away the tears.

“You weren’t coming up here for revenge,” Maskwa said. “You came up here to help them.”

“I had my friend at the News run their names,” Vinnie said. “It was so easy to find that article. I knew it would be just as easy for anybody else. Alex was there when Albright’s brother stopped us. He saw the look in his eyes. And the way they both seemed to think about it, like they had some idea… I knew they’d find them sooner or later.”

“Would you have done the same for Ron?” I said. “If you had gotten to him in time?”

He closed his eyes. “It has to stop somewhere, Alex. Okay? Those kids died in that fire. Hank and Ron, they killed Albright and those other men. And my brother with them. They burned them up. So Albright’s brother came up to kill some more. More fire. More goddamned fire, Alex. What am I supposed to do? Go burn some more of them?”

Maskwa kept his hand on Helen’s face. Vinnie opened his eyes again and watched the two of them.

“No more,” Vinnie said. “This is where it ends. Helen has to go away. She has to go somewhere where they won’t find her.”

“I know where we can go,” Maskwa said. “I can get the plane ready.”

I didn’t have to ask what they were talking about. I knew there were a dozen places they could take her, like maybe Moosonee, on James Bay. Once she was there, she could either go to one of the other reserves on the Ontario side of James Bay, or take the ferry over to Quebec.