Steve Hamilton - The hunting wind

After a couple hot showers and some aspirin, we were new men. We headed out into another Michigan April day, with gray clouds and a cold wind whipping down Michigan Avenue. We went east to Woodward, then north toward the library. We stopped at a flower shop and Randy went in to pick out something nice for the lady at the library who had been so helpful to Leon. Randy came back out with enough flowers for a wedding reception.

“First-class all the way,” he said. I just shook my head and kept driving. A few blocks later, we parked in front of the Detroit Public Library. It was a massive building of stone, the same shade of gray as the sky. When we walked into the main lobby and asked about the Burton Historical Collection, we were sent to the opposite side of the building, where the doors opened onto Cass Avenue, on either side of a huge globe. We took a right and found the room. The collection itself, mostly reference material from an entire century, was stored in bookshelves both here on the ground floor and above, on a balcony that ran along three of the walls. The fourth wall was all windows. Across the street, we could see the Detroit Institute of the Arts. There were flags advertising a van Gogh exhibit. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered reading that van Gogh was left-handed. Another crazy southpaw.

We found the librarian who had worked with Leon over the phone. She was a trim black woman in her fifties, with the eyeglasses and the hair in the bun that all librarians are required to have. But there was a sparkle in her eye that said something a little different. Randy buried the poor woman in the flowers before I could even tell her who we were.

When she had jungle-chopped her way out of the flowers, I introduced ourselves and gave her Leon’s warmest regards.

“Such a nice gentleman he was,” she said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more helpful.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “You gave him a lot of information.”

“Yes, but I promised I’d keep thinking about it,” she said. “I took it as rather a personal challenge. Finding someone you haven’t seen in thirty years. And with such a rare last name like Valeska, I was sure I’d be able to find something. I’m afraid the only other option I have left is to go through the old newspapers to find a birth announcement. As Mr. Prudell and I were discussing, if we had the parents’ names we’d have a good chance of finding some immigration records.”

“We tried to find her birth certificate,” Randy said.

She laughed at that one. “Not in this state,” she said. “You wasted your time.”

A few minutes later, we were both sitting in the microfilm room, looking through all of the birth announcements from September 1951 to October 1952. If she was nineteen in September of 1971, we figured her birth would have to be in there somewhere. I took the Detroit News and Randy took the Detroit Free Press.

A couple hours later, we both emerged, blinking like mole rats, into the light of day. We had found nothing.

We went back to the desk to thank the woman. She had found half a dozen vases from somewhere and was busy subdividing Randy’s flowers.

“I’ll keep thinking about it, boys,” she said. “A good reference librarian doesn’t sleep until she finds what she’s looking for.”

On our way out to lunch, I gave Leon a call. I didn’t have much to tell him, but I was sure he was sitting there in the Upper Peninsula, wondering what we were doing.

“Mr. Shannon hasn’t lived in the house for long,” I told him. “And he didn’t have any leads going back more than a couple years. We’re going to go try the rest of the neighborhood after lunch.”

“You guys must be having a great time,” he said. “Working the leads, trying to pick up a trail that’s thirty years old. God, I wish I was down there with you.”

“It’s a thrill a minute,” I said. “We just got done looking at a year’s worth of old newspapers, and now we get to go knock on strangers’ doors and ask them if they remember a fortune-teller and her family from 1971.”

“That’s what a private investigator does, Alex. He digs in the dirt until he finds the bone.”

“That’s beautiful, Leon. I’m gonna write that down.”

“Go get it, partner,” he said. “Go find that bone.”

With those inspirational words ringing in my ears, I was ready to face the rest of the day. “Come on, Randy,” I said. “Let’s go get dirty.”

We grabbed a quick lunch at a little restaurant down the street, then headed back to Leverette Street, parking the truck against the curb, right in the middle of the block. “How do you wanna do this?” I said. “You wanna split up or stay together?”

“Let’s split up,” he said. “I want this side.” He pointed out at the side where Maria had lived. “For old time’ sake.”

“Good enough,” I said. “Don’t bother hitting that house next door.”

“That lady who thought you were trying to solve the case of the missing staircase? I thought she was great.”

“Fine,” I said. “You go have tea with her. I’m gonna go do this and try not to think about how stupid I sound. If somebody asked me if I remembered a fortune-teller who used to live across the street thirty years ago, I’d slam the door in his face.”

“Alex, you live in a cabin in the middle of the woods.”

“You do this on purpose, don’t you?” I said. “Just go.”

I went down to the end of the block and knocked on the first door. A black teenager answered. He had headphones on. I started talking. When I got to the first question, he just stood there looking at me. Then he took the headphones off. I started at the beginning again.

“I’m looking for someone who used to live on this block in 1971,” I said. “I know you weren’t even born yet, but is there anyone else living here who might have been around then?”

“We just moved here,” he said. “Last year.”

“Is one of your parents around? Can I ask them if they remember who lived here before you?”

“Nobody else here,” he said. “They all gone until Monday.”

“Okay,” I said. “Can I leave a card?”

“Sure,” he said. He took the card from me and looked at it. “You’re a private investigator, it says?”

“Sort of,” I said.

“Do you carry a gun?”

“No.”

“You’ve got two guns here on the card.”

“That wasn’t my idea,” I said. “Look, I’ll let you get ready for the party. I appreciate your time.”

“Party?” he said. “What party?”

“You said your family’s gone until Monday. A teenager alone in the house, I figure the party’s gotta start at sundown, right?”

“Oh man,” he said. “Is that what this is about? My mom’s sending around a private investigator to see if I’m having a party when she’s gone?”

“No,” I said. “Please. I’m just looking for somebody. I swear.”

By the time I left there, he still wasn’t convinced. Which would probably ruin his party, because he’d be expecting me to spy on the place. So having spoiled one person’s day, I went on to the next house.

This time, I got an older black man, and felt better about my chances. He certainly looked old enough to have been around in 1971. But it turned out he had just moved there in 1994. And he didn’t remember who had lived there before him. I thanked him and moved on, and by the time I got done with the next house, I was beginning to see a trend. Everybody was new to the neighborhood. Within the last ten years at least. Nobody had any ties to the place before 1990.

When I got through my entire side of the block, I walked back to the truck and waited for Randy. He took a lot longer to do his side, because of course he’s gotta stand there and talk about the weather and the tattoo on his arm and the Detroit Tigers, and for all I knew, he’d tell every last person the story of his one inning in Tiger Stadium.