Steve Hamilton - Winter of the Wolf Moon

“Then why did she open the door?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “The way she talked about him last night, I just don’t know.”

I looked down at the table leg that had been broken off, almost bent over to pick it up before I stopped myself. Then I noticed something else.

“Look at this floor,” I said.

The troopers stopped and looked at me.

“There’s too much melted snow here,” I said. You could see the faint imprints of snow puddles all over the room.

“She had to walk through snow to get here, didn’t she?” the man asked.

“Yes, of course,” I said. “And I did, too. I even had to go around back and turn the water on. But I remember thinking about the floor as I came back in. I always try not to track too much snow in here. The white pine, it gets dirty fast. I’m sure there wasn’t this much snow on the floor when I left. Not all over the place like this.”

“So he did come in,” the man said. “She definitely had company.”

“I can’t believe it,” I said. “I can’t believe she’d let him in here.”

“How would Bruckman know to find her here, anyway?” he said. “Does he know where you live?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Even if he did, how would he know which cabin she was in?”

“Could he have been following you?”

I tried to remember, tried to put myself back in my truck that previous night. Were there lights behind me? “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t say for sure. I didn’t notice anybody following me, but I can’t swear that it didn’t happen.”

“Could it have been somebody else?” he said. “Maybe she called somebody.”

“There’s no phone here,” I said. “And she couldn’t have called anyone from the bar before I got there. She hadn’t even met me yet. Although…”

“What is it?”

“At the bar,” I said. “I remember having this funny feeling. Like we were being watched.”

“Bruckman?”

“No. I would have noticed him. But maybe somebody else was there. One of his hockey goons maybe.”

“Well, let’s call in what we’ve got,” he said. “Whatever little that may be.”

The brief window of sunlight had disappeared. The sky was clouding over again and it suddenly felt twenty degrees colder. From behind the cabin we could hear the whine of a snowmobile. It grew louder and louder as the machine came closer.

“A snowmobile,” I said. “That’s how he could have gotten here.”

“How do you know?”

“There’s a trail that runs right behind these cabins,” I said. “On the state land. That’s why there were no tire tracks this morning.”

“Makes sense,” he said. “Let’s see that trail.”

I walked them around the cabin, deep into the pine trees. We had to work hard at it. In spots where the snow had drifted it was almost up to our waists.

“Here,” I said, fighting to catch my breath. The trail ran parallel to my road. As long as he had a general idea where I lived, he could have done it this way. Maybe he didn’t even know which cabin she was in. Maybe he just skipped mine, started with hers, and got lucky.

The deputies looked up and down the trail. “Lot of tracks out here,” the woman said. “We’d never know which one was his.”

At that moment a snowmobile came through the trees. I winced at the noise. The driver slowed down when he saw us. Both of the deputies raised their hands for him to stop.

“What’s the problem, guys?” he said after flipping his visor open. “I wasn’t going too fast, was I?” I recognized the man. He was staying in the farthest cabin with a few other guys from Saginaw.

“Were you on this trail last night?” the male deputy asked him.

“Yes,” the man said. I could hear the apprehension in his voice. “But I was taking it easy, I swear. I know there are cabins nearby.”

“There’s no problem,” he said. “We’re just wondering if you saw any other snowmobiles. Like around…” He looked over at me.

“Any time between, say, one A.M. and this morning,” I said.

“We got back a little after one,” he said. “I don’t remember seeing any other machines on this trail. Besides the guys I’m with, I mean.”

“We should probably talk to the rest of your party,” the deputy said. “Are they in the cabin right now?”

“Most of them, probably,” the man said. “We’re supposed to be leaving today. Some of them might still be out on the trails.”

We made our way back to the car, wading through the snow again. We spent the next hour going to each of the cabins, asking the renters if they had seen anything suspicious.

Nothing. No leads, no information at all. I started to feel tired and hungry, sitting in the back of the car. And now that we had done everything we could possibly do, I could feel the despair gathering inside me. It was hopeless. Dorothy asked me to help her get away from him. And I let Bruckman or his buddies or whoever it was just come and take her away. They could be anywhere now. I knew the sheriff was looking for her, but what could he do? Find out where Bruckman’s living, go check it out. If he’s gone, then what? Put it on the wires. Keep working on it for a few days, then file it away.

The deputies rode in silence down the access road from the farthest cabin, back to mine. I could have guessed what was in their minds. They weren’t talking about it, but they would be as soon as they got rid of me. Maybe she wasn’t abducted. Maybe her boyfriend talked his way into the cabin, made a scene, threw some furniture around, then got down on his knees and begged her to forgive him. He loves her so much it makes him crazy, but it’ll be different from now on, and all the usual crap a guy like that says. And then she leaves with him. It happens all the time.

But I knew. I knew he took her against her will. And I knew it was my fault. I knew I’d lie awake all that night thinking about it.

“We’ll let you know if we come up with anything, Mr. McKnight,” the young man said. He slowed down in front of my cabin.

“Let’s take a ride down to the Glasgow Inn,” I said. “See if the bartender noticed anything last night. Or maybe somebody else did.”

He nodded. “It’s worth a shot.”

We went around the bend toward the main road. As we passed Vinnie’s place, I noticed that his car still wasn’t there. “Damn, that’s right,” I said. “I forgot about Vinnie.”

“Is there a problem?” he said.

“No, it’s just that my friend Vinnie hasn’t been home for a couple nights. He’s a member of the Bay Mills tribe, probably just spent the night there.”

The other deputy looked out the passenger’s side window. “Vinnie,” she said. “Vinnie what?”

“Vinnie LeBlanc,” I said.

“Vinnie LeBlanc,” she said. “That name rings a bell.”

“There’s a lot of LeBlancs around here,” I said.

“Yeah, I know, but I think I saw that name somewhere this morning.” She thought about it for a long moment, then picked up the radio. “I think I know where I saw it,” she said. She called in and asked for the front desk. When she had the man on the air she asked him if there happened to be a Vinnie LeBlanc on the premises.

I heard the answer myself. But I couldn’t believe it. Vinnie was being held in the county jail on a 415, 148 and a 240.

“Oh, is that the guy who-” the driver said.

“Yeah, he’s the one,” she said as she put the receiver back. “I thought I recognized that name.”

“What’s going on?” I said. “Those numbers, what are they again?”

The deputies looked at each other again. That same look that had been driving me crazy. Now I didn’t care anymore.

“I know I should remember,” I said. “It’s been a long time. Just tell me.”