A Stolen Season (8 page)

Vinnie knocked again. From deep inside the house we heard somebody yelling.

“Sounds like he said, ‘Come in,’ doesn’t it?”

“Sure, why not?”

He opened the door and stepped in. As I followed him, I picked up the smell of cigarettes and beer, as well as something that had burned in the oven. There wasn’t much to the living room. An old couch, a coffee table that should have been taken apart and put in the wood stove, two folding chairs. The television was on, but nobody was there to watch it.

“Hello?” Vinnie said.

“Who’s there?” It was a man’s voice, from the kitchen.

Vinnie went around the corner without answering. The man was sitting at the kitchen table, an open beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other. A cloud of smoke hung just below the ceiling.

“What are you doing here?” he said. He was wearing an old blue bathrobe, his bare legs just visible below the table. I didn’t know if he was white, or Indian, or some of both. He looked thirty years old going on fifty.

“I’m looking for Caroline,” Vinnie said. It was obvious he knew this man, but I didn’t get the feeling he was going to introduce me to him.

“She’s at work.”

“No, she’s not. This is her night off, remember?”

“I guess you’d know better than I would.” The man stubbed his cigarette in the ashtray.

“You don’t know where she is?”

“If she ain’t at work, and she’s not with you…”

“Why would she be with me, Eddie?”

He didn’t answer. Instead he took a long pull off the beer. “You want one?”

“You know I don’t drink.”

“Pardon me. It slipped my mind.”

Vinnie stood there. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t move a muscle. The man sat at the table and wouldn’t look him in the eye.

“Eddie,” Vinnie finally said, “are you working?”

“In this weather?”

“There are other jobs.”

“Get out.”

“Are you even looking for something else?”

“I said get out.”

Vinnie kept looking at him. I knew all about Vinnie’s long fuse. I figured it was already lit, since maybe late last night when he threw those guys out of the casino. I was wondering how much longer it would burn. Finally, he turned away and went to the door. I followed him outside.

When we were back in his truck, he started it and put it in gear.

“I take it you and Eddie have a history,” I said.

“Not really.”

“What about you and Caroline? This whole thing is starting to make a little more sense now.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“You got her the job at Bay Mills, didn’t you?”

“She’s a good friend of mine, Alex. She always will be. I was just trying to help her out.”

“So what now?”

“I want to check one place.” He was heading to the water, to the locks and the heart of town.

“You think you know where she is?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. There was a time you could always find her at the Palace.”

There are at least a dozen bars in Sault Ste. Marie. There are eight of them on Portage Avenue alone. The Palace is just a couple of doors down from the Ojibway Hotel. Vinnie parked the car on the street.

Right behind a black Cadillac Escalade.

It wasn’t a surprise. Not at all. I already had a gut feeling we’d be running into these guys again. If we had jumped in an airplane and flown to Anchorage, they would have been parked outside the first bar we walked into.

“Before we go in,” I said, “just tell me one thing.”

“What is it?”

“Who are these guys? I’ve never seen them before. Have you?”

“No.”

“So what are they doing here? You don’t have to come all the way up to the U.P. just to buy some pills.”

“I don’t know why they’re here, Alex. I don’t care.”

We got out of the truck. Behind the bar, a great freighter was moving slowly through the locks. I didn’t have time to look twice at it, because Vinnie was already opening the door. When we were inside the place, it didn’t take long to find them. There was a table for six in the back corner, between the jukebox and the pool table. There were three men at the table—the two we already knew so well, and now a third, his head wrapped up in so many bandages it looked like he was wearing a white turban. It had to be the driver of the boat. Alive and well, or alive at least. And out of the hospital.

There were three women at the table. They all looked enough alike they could have been sisters. But only one of them even noticed us as we stood there. She started to smile, probably reflex. Then all the color drained out of her face.

“Vinnie,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

Vinnie said two words to her. Slowly.

“Leave. Now.”

She took the two other women with her. Most of the other drinkers left as well. That was a very good idea, it turned out. Because Vinnie’s long fuse had just burned to its end.

I can make a long list of all the bad things that have happened in my life. My mother dying when I was a kid, a partner dead, a bullet next to my heart, a failed marriage. Those would be the items on the top of the list. Somewhere below those would be never getting an at-bat in the major leagues, never telling my father I loved him, and, oh yeah, getting talked into becoming a private investigator. I’m not sure exactly where spending a night in jail would rank, but it would probably make the top twenty.

There are three holding cells in the basement of the City-County Building. When Vinnie and I were brought down here, there was already one man in the cell. He was sleeping on one of the three beds, and the loud clang of the metal door didn’t wake him. The poisonous smell of alcohol hung all around him, so it wasn’t much of a mystery.

My hands hurt like hell, but Vinnie’s hands looked even worse. He sat on one of the beds with his back against the concrete wall, his hands tucked under his armpits. He didn’t say much all night. I knew better than to try to talk to him, so all I could do was count the hours until sunrise. Eventually, I lay down and tried to sleep. When I closed my eyes I saw Vinnie going at it with the man named Cap. He was going at it like I’d never seen him before, like he seriously didn’t want his man to walk away alive.

I was having my own problems with the big man named Bruce. If he had had two good hands, he probably would have taken me apart. But his taped-up strained right wrist didn’t help him much, especially after I grabbed onto his thumb and twisted it backward. Funny how a large dose of pain will take the fight right out of some guys.

The drunk slept. Vinnie stared straight ahead at nothing, lost inside his own head. I just sat there and wondered how this would get written up in the paper. They have this senior reporter at the
Soo Evening News
who likes to get creative with the police blotter. For this particular item, he’d probably describe a “violent altercation” at a “local watering hole.” Or perhaps even a “spectacular melee” at an “after-hours drinking establishment.” Whatever words he used, it would go on to say that Vincent LeBlanc and Alex McKnight, both of Paradise, were taken into custody and spent the night at the Chippewa County Jail. And that the other participants were all released.

The time passed. There was no way to see if the sun was up yet. But somehow I knew it was morning. The guard was nowhere in sight, so I had no choice but to use the toilet in the middle of the cell. A new low in my life, to be exceeded one minute later when the drunk finally woke up and threw up on my shoes. Then it got even worse.

Chief Maven showed up.

The chief and I already had a colorful history, of course. For some reason we had taken an almost instantaneous chemical dislike to each other. The only thing going for me was the fact that everyone else seemed to hate him, too.

He stood at the bars and looked through at both of us.

“Good morning, Chief,” I said.

“What happened to your shoes?”

“Are you going to let us out of here now?”

“I got to see you in this very cell once before, remember?”

“Chief—”

“I never thought I’d get to see it again.”

“If you’re not going to let us out, then—”

“I will,” he said. “Eventually. Just give me a chance to burn this image into my mind. It’ll keep me warm all winter.”

Some days I could almost understand why he had such a big chip on his shoulder. He was the chief of police for the second-biggest town in the Upper Peninsula, but he had to share a building with the county guys. He didn’t even have his own jail. The state police down the street got most of the serious cases, not to mention the U.S. Customs office at the bridge and the Coast Guard on the locks. He was low man on the totem pole and it had to eat at him every time he went into his little cement box of an office.

Yeah, some days I could actually feel for the man. But today was not one of those days.

He slid the key into the lock and opened the door. Vinnie and I both stepped out. I was surprised at how good it felt to be out of the cell, even if Maven was responsible for it. As he led us down the hall, I looked back at the drunk. He was back on the bed, fast asleep.

“This way,” Maven said. He led us up the stairs and right to his office. I knew it all too well, especially the crappy little waiting area just outside it, with the hard plastic chair and the magazines a decade out of date.

He opened his office door and waved us inside. There were two more hard plastic chairs waiting for us, facing his desk. “You gentlemen have a seat. I’ll be right back.”

“Come on, Chief,” I said. “You don’t have to play the waiting game today, all right?”

“I can take you back downstairs to the cell if you’d rather wait there.”

We sat down. He closed the door and left us there.

Chief Maven had never wasted much effort decorating his office. It had four gray cement walls. There were no pictures. There wasn’t even a window. How the man could ever spend time in this room, I didn’t know.

“I got you into this,” Vinnie said.

“He speaks.”

“I’m just saying I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. Seriously. I think I owed you a few.”

“I’m in no position to ask,” he said. “But I’ll ask anyway.”

“Shoot.”

“If we tell him everything, it’ll put Caroline in a tight spot.”

“Potentially.”

“You know it will.”

“So what do you want me to say?”

“Just put it on me. It was my fault.”

“Vinnie, does this woman mean that much to you?”

“I told you before. She’s a good friend.”

“Let me guess. There was a time she was something more.”

“You could say that.”

“When was this?”

“A long time ago. Before you came up here.”

“You were kids, then.”

“Pretty much, yes. It didn’t feel like it at the time. We were pretty heavy there for a while. I guess you could say we were engaged.”

“What happened?”

“We were both drinking back then. All the time. I decided to get straight, but she didn’t. I mean, maybe she tried, but…”

“You had to end things.”

“I tried to help her,” he said.

“I’m sure you did. But if she was still drinking…”

“I feel like I failed her, Alex. It’s like I could only save myself. I had to leave her behind.”

“So even now, when she makes this problem for herself…”

“I think you’d do the same. I know you would.”

I didn’t try to argue. He had me dead on that one.

We didn’t say anything else until Chief Maven came back a few minutes later. He sat down behind his desk like it was a hugely painful inconvenience for him to be there.

“Why were we held overnight?” I said.

“Because you trashed a bar. I’d call that a no-brainer.”

“Neither of us was drunk.”

Maven looked back and forth between us. “So I understand. Mr. LeBlanc, you were quite sober as well, right?”

“Yes,” Vinnie said. It occurred to me that Vinnie had probably never had this pleasure before, a personal visit to the legendary Chief Roy Maven’s office. From the sound of his voice, it sounded like Vinnie was taking to it about as well as I had my first time.

“We spent the night in jail,” I said. “The other guys were released at the scene.”

“The bartender said you guys came in and attacked them. What were they supposed to do?”

“There’s more to it than that.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured there might be, McKnight. That’s why you’re sitting here.”

I hesitated.

“I’m all ears,” he said.

“They were harassing people at the casino,” Vinnie said. I was surprised when he jumped in, but now there was no stopping him. “A couple of nights ago. I had to throw them out. Yesterday, they came up to Paradise and tried to pick a fight with Alex. Even though he helped save their lives the night before, when they wrecked their boat.”

“Those were the guys on Waishkey Bay?” Maven said. “Where that old bridge runs through the water?”

“The old pilings, yes.”

“So why did they try to pick a fight?”

“Who knows? They thought Alex took something valuable from the wreck. Some kind of box that was in the boat. Which he didn’t, of course. But instead of being thankful, here they were threatening him. I showed up at the Glasgow Inn just in time.”

“Is that right, McKnight? This man saved your ass? Probably not the first time, eh?”

I wasn’t sure what to say.

Maven didn’t wait for me. “So how did this whole thing end up here in my town?”

“Like I said, I threw them out of Bay Mills. I figured they’d end up at the Kewadin. I recognized their vehicle outside the Palace.”

“So you went in and attacked them.”

“I confronted them, yes. They were going to come back, Chief. It was only a matter of time. You should have seen these guys. You should have heard what they were saying to Alex. I was just trying to look out for my friend. I take full responsibility for what happened.”

“Now wait a minute—,” I said.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Maven said to me. “You don’t deserve to have a friend like this.”

“Just hold on.” Count to three, I told myself. Don’t leap over the desk and strangle him.

“I will grant you one thing,” Maven said. “There is something not quite kosher about these boys. Besides being stupid enough to run a boat into an old bridge.”

“Who are they, anyway?” Vinnie said. “Where are they from?”

“All three are from downstate, from around Detroit. I’d say they’re just up here for vacation, but hell, with the weather we’ve been having?”

“They’re from Detroit? Where are they staying up here?”

Maven looked at him. “Just hold on right there, Mr. LeBlanc. That’s the kind of trick McKnight would pull. You’ve got to understand, this whole thing has to stop right here. Somebody’s going to get seriously hurt, or even killed.”

“All they have to do is leave,” Vinnie said. “Just go on back home.”

“They may do just that. I hope they do. But at the same time, I have to warn you. If you go after them again, I’ll throw away the key. Do I make myself clear?”

“You’re not charging us?”

“I could. Your friends had no interest in filing assault charges, but I could still ring you up for disturbing the peace, destruction of property…Which reminds me, the Palace has a list of damages here. I trust you guys will take care of that?”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

“Good. Do we have an understanding on what you’re
not
going to do next?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Mr. LeBlanc?”

Vinnie thought about it. “Yes, Chief.”

“I keep telling myself,” Maven said. “The next time I have McKnight in my office, that’s the day I retire.”

“Maybe you should,” I said. “Go someplace where they actually have summers.”

“That would make you happy, wouldn’t it. Seeing me leave.”

“I think you’d miss me.”

“It’s always a pleasure, McKnight.” He stood up and opened the door for us. “Now get the hell out of here.”

We did. We went outside, each of us taking a deep breath of fresh air. It wasn’t raining, but there was a cold wind coming off the lake. The Palace was close enough to walk to. We got in Vinnie’s truck, still parked on the street from the night before, and then he took me over to the Kewadin.

“You need to get some ice on your hands,” I said. As he drove I could see how cut up and swollen they were. Both of them.

“I will.”

“You surprised me in there. You played Maven like a drum.”

“It wasn’t hard. He obviously dislikes you so much. Anything that makes you look bad he’s gonna fall for.”

“Yeah, good thinking.” I shook my head and looked out my window at the miserable day.

When we got to the Kewadin, he pulled up next to my truck. The parking lot was still half empty.

“What are you going to do now?” I said.

“I’m not sure. Maybe go see if Caroline’s okay.”

“You’re not going after them, are you?”

“How could I? I don’t know where they are.”

“Vinnie…”

“I’ll see you later. If you’re around, maybe we can get some work done.”

“I’ll be there,” I said. I started to get out. “Please don’t do anything.”

“I’ll see you at the Glasgow.”

I closed the door and watched him drive off. I could only wonder when I’d see him again, and if he’d be in one piece.

When I got
back to Paradise, I thought about stopping in at the Glasgow. I would have killed for one of Jackie’s omelets just then. But I went up to my cabin first and I was glad that I did. There was a message on my machine. It was from Natalie.

“Alex…You’re not there…I just wanted to see how you’re doing. You asked me to call you tonight. I guess you’re out. Anyway, things are getting hot here. We might be making a move soon. Finally. I’ll try to call you tomorrow. Have a good night. Bye.”

She sounded a little lost. Maybe a little pissed-off that I wasn’t there, after I bugged her to call me so much the last time I talked to her. I couldn’t blame her. She probably thought I was down at the Glasgow, drinking beer while my phone rang off the hook. Little did she know.

I got some ice out, wrapped it up in a towel, and put the whole thing over the knuckles on my right hand. I lay down on the bed. I could hear the wind blowing. I thought I heard it start to rain again, but couldn’t be sure. I was content to stay inside for now and wonder.

You don’t sleep well in jail. That’s one thing I had learned. I felt like I could stay right here on the bed for a week.

But no…

I should do something…

What? What should I do? What…

When I woke up, the ice had melted. I was holding a wet towel. My hand was still sore, and now I was hungry as all hell. I looked at the clock. I had slept for more than three hours.

I took a shower, put clean clothes on, and looked for anything edible I might have in my refrigerator.

You’re stalling, I thought. You’re looking for an excuse to stay here in case Natalie calls.