Blood Is the Sky: An Alex McKnight Mystery (25 page)

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Authors: Steve Hamilton

Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller, #Suspense, #Adult

BOOK: Blood Is the Sky: An Alex McKnight Mystery
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“What about the phone numbers?” I said, looking over Leon’s shoulder. “Are they listed on there?”
“No,” Leon said, “just the addresses, with the maps.”
“Can you print those out?”
“Sure.” He hit the print button. Vinnie’s printer woke up and started working. “Who are we talking about, anyway? I can look them up.”
“Helen St. Jean,” I said. “If it’s Sudbury, that’s got to be one of the addresses. The other is Ron and Millie something.” I thought hard, trying to remember their last name.
“I’ll try St. Jean.” He went to another Web site and typed in the name.
“Trembley,” I said. “Ron and Millie Trembley.”
“I’m not getting anything on Helen St. Jean,” he said. “Not in Sudbury. Of course, it’s not unusual for a single woman to be unlisted. I’ll try the Trembleys.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why would he go up there to see them?”
“Those were the other people at the lodge, right?”
“Right.”
“I’m not getting the Trembleys’ phone number, either,” he said. “I can get them, but I’ll have to go home and use
my database. We’ll stop there on the way.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We’re going to Sudbury, aren’t we?”
“Leon, I’m already in enough trouble with your wife. If I take you to Canada in the middle of the night, she’ll have my head on a stick.”
“You can’t go up there alone.”
“Sure I can. I’m just gonna find Vinnie and bring him home.”
“If it’s that simple, why don’t you just go in the morning?”
“Maybe I will,” I said. I didn’t want to tell him how worried I was—how confused and shook up, and how much I wished I was already on the road that second.
“You’re a terrible liar, Alex. Just get going. I’ll go home and find the phone numbers and call you on your cell phone.”
“Thanks, Leon. Once again.”
He gave me the two maps he had printed out, and sent me on my way. He drove home, and I headed straight for the bridge. It was after ten when I reached Canada. The man in the customs booth gave me a quick once-over, asked me what I would be doing in his country. I told him I was hitting one of the clubs in the Soo. He asked me the standard questions about drugs or firearms in the vehicle. I answered no to both. He told me to drive safely.
I took the Queen’s Highway east this time, instead of north. It ran through downtown Sault Ste. Marie, then out along the shore of the North Channel, passing through small towns like Bruce Mines and Iron Bridge. The phone rang just after eleven.
“It’s Leon. Sorry I took so long.”
“Don’t worry about it. Did you get the numbers?”
“Yeah, finally. Here they are.” He read me two phone
numbers. I wrote them down on my pad, keeping one hand on the wheel.
“Thanks, Leon.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m coming up to Serpent River,” I said. “I’ve got another couple of hours to Sudbury.”
“You’re making good time,” he said. “You gonna try calling them now?”
“Might as well. If this is all a big mistake, then I guess I’ll just be waking them up.”
“Well, just in case it’s not a mistake, I left a little present for you in your truck.”
“What?”
“You’ll have to reach inside your rear bumper, toward the driver’s side.”
“Leon, you didn’t.”
“I’m just taking care of my partner,” he said.
“Is it your Luger?”
“No, that gun’s just for show, Alex. I gave you my Ruger P90.”
“Luger, Ruger. How did you even get it in my truck?”
“When I came over to Vinnie’s cabin. You were parked outside, remember?”
“I assume it’s loaded.”
“No, it’s empty, Alex. I put an empty gun in your truck.”
“Leon, I swear to God …” I thought about the customs booth I had just rolled through, the lie I had told the man about not having a firearm, and then about all the other crazy things Leon had done in the short time I’d known him.
“Take care of yourself, Alex. I’m sorry I’m not there to cover you. Call me when you’re on your way home.”
He hung up before I could say anything else.
I put the phone down for a moment, shook my head,
then picked the phone back up and called the two numbers Leon had given me. I got a recording on the first number—Helen St. Jean’s voice telling me she couldn’t come to the phone. The machine beeped and I froze for a second. “Helen,” I finally said, “this is Alex McKnight. Remember me? If you’re there, please pick up.”
I waited a few seconds. Nothing.
“I’m sorry I’m calling so late. This is an emergency.”
Nothing.
I gave her my cell phone number and asked her to call me. Then I dialed the second number. The phone rang seven times. The Trembleys apparently didn’t have an answering machine. I let it ring a few more times, then hung up. I kept driving.
It was almost one o’clock in the morning when I saw the Super Stack looming in the distance. It was over twelve hundred feet high, the tallest freestanding smokestack in the world, with the lights at the top so planes wouldn’t hit it. I drove through the great slag heaps that dominated the western part of town. In the eerie light it looked like the surface of the moon. I had read that Sudbury was coming into its own lately—it wasn’t just a big hole in the ground anymore, but it looked like it still had the heart of a mining town. Most of the new houses were being built to the north, up by the lake, but down here by the highway it was still mostly working-class neighborhoods with small houses and a bar on every corner. I cut in off the highway, passing a big ice arena, and then off that road to another, leaving any traffic behind me.
I rolled down a residential street, past dark, quiet houses. I saw two men walking on the sidewalk. They opened the door to a bar and the light made a long fan on the street and then it was gone as they stepped inside.
I stopped for a minute, switched on my interior light, and looked at the maps. The Trembleys’ house was closest.
I hit the light and kept going south, looking for a street on the right. A streetlight was out and I almost missed it.
When I turned, I started looking for the numbers on the houses. It was after one-thirty now. The street was deserted.
Two-twelve, two-fourteen, two-sixteen.
I pulled over in front of the house and got out. The air was cold, and it had a slight metallic taste. Around here you probably got used to it.
The house was dark. I went up to the front door. Why the hell not, after driving all the way up here. A dog barked in somebody’s backyard, a few houses away.
The front door was slightly open, just a couple of inches. I knocked lightly.
Nothing.
“Hello,” I said. “Anybody home?”
Silence.
Why was the door open? I pushed on it. It swung open a few more inches. There was a light on inside, in the back of the house.
I smelled gasoline. And something else. A smell I knew.
I should have left then. I should have turned and gone back to my truck and driven all the way home.
I didn’t. I stepped into the house. A small table was turned over on its side. A plant was lying sideways on the floor, dirt all over the carpet. I walked through the room, saw a single tiny red light in the kitchen. A coffeemaker, sitting there keeping the time as if everything was quiet and normal in the house. My eyes were adjusting to the dark. A hallway. A thin stream of light under a door.
The smell.
Where are you, Vinnie? Are you here?
I went down the hallway. Quiet and normal.
Vinnie, please.
I stopped at the door. The smell, the smell.
I put my shoulder against the door and slowly pushed it in. It opened a few inches and then stopped. I pushed a little harder, felt something give way. It was something heavy, leaning against the door.
There was just enough room to poke my head through the door. I knew what I was going to see in that room. The second I had opened the front door, the second that smell had hit me, I knew what I’d find. So why did I go in?
“Oh, sweet God,” I said as I looked around the door. “Oh, no, please.” If I thought I was ready for the sight, I was wrong. Not in a million years.
It was a bathroom. The lights were on. It was so bright it hurt my eyes after the dark hallway, the cruel whiteness of it all, the unholy sight of burned flesh on the white, white floor.
I saw the wallpaper half burned off the wall, hanging in strips. The scorch marks on the ceiling. The remains of draperies, thin as spider webs. Smoke in the air.
Two bodies. One in the bathtub, the woman, her head on the edge, one arm hanging. The other body right below me, by the door. I was pushing against his legs.
He had been trying to get out. He had made it this far.
I backed away from the door. It closed slightly, not all the way. I turned and went down the hallway, to the front door. I was blind now, after the bright light in the bathroom. I walked into one wall, and then another.
Careful, Alex. Take it easy. The door is this way. Get to the door.
I made it to the front room. I felt the dirt under my feet, from where the plant had tipped over. I kicked something hard, then I was out the door and onto the front walkway, stumbling over something else I couldn’t see,
then finally to the truck, opening the door, the light coming on, closing the door, putting the key in the ignition and turning it. The engine came to life with an explosion of noise. I dropped it into gear with a heavy clunk, lurched away from the curb.
Drive. Drive slowly. And breathe. I kept the lights off, driving by the dim light of a half-moon covered by clouds, a street lamp burning in the distance. I drove straight to it. Breathe, Alex.
Dead end.
“Shit shit shit shit,” I said, turning in the cul-de-sac and going back the way I had come. I passed the house again, that evil house. I tried not to look at it as I rolled by it one more time.
God, get a hold of yourself. What do I do now? Do I call 911? Do I call them anonymously and tell them what’s in that house? Can they trace 911 calls from cell phones? Fuck, do they even have 911 in Canada?
I can’t call it in. What’s the use, anyway?
Yes, I’ve got to. I can’t let somebody find that by accident.
I’ll go to Helen’s place first. Then I’ll call it in.
When I got back to the main road, I stopped the truck and sat there for a moment. I pulled out the other map and turned on the light. My hands were shaking. Helen’s house was on the other side of town, maybe five or six miles away. I knew I had to go there. Instead of taking a left and driving back to the highway and all the way back to Michigan, I took the right.
Finding her house gave me something to do, at least. It was something real and almost mundane, looking for the street signs, instead of thinking about what I had just seen in that house.
Ron and Millie. Together they had said maybe ten words to me. But I could see them at the lodge, standing
out on the dock, Ron putting his arm around his wife’s shoulder.
Somebody made them get in the bathtub. He soaked them with gasoline and set them on fire.
Take this street, Alex. Watch for the next one. Keep watching.
No, they didn’t just get in. Who would do that? They had to fight back.
Where is the street? Where is it?
Blood. There was blood on the floor. I had seen it, but it didn’t hit me until now. Were they shot first? Were they cut?
Another street. Not the right one.
Ron tried to get out of the tub. Or maybe not. He was facing the other way, away from the door. The door hit his feet.
Is this the street? No. Keep going.
A towel. There was a towel on the floor. Another detail. Something else my mind didn’t have time to process.
This street. Turn here. I’m getting close.
A towel on the floor, under his hand. He tried to get out and grab a towel. He tried to save her. He tried to grab that towel and wrap it around her burning body.
I rolled the window down, let the fresh cold air slap me in the face. I was in a little better neighborhood now. The houses were a little bigger, with longer driveways and more dead grass between the houses and the street. I passed the Beer Store. The red sign glowed in the dark, although the store was closed. It was coming up on two in the morning now.
Where are you, Vinnie? Where are you right now? I know you didn’t kill those people. No matter what happened to your brother, you are not capable of doing something like this. But where are you?

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