Die a Stranger (32 page)

“Okay, then. I can’t wait to hear about it. You’re coming down, right?”

There was a knock on the door.

“Yes,” I said. “It’ll be good to see you again. I should have come down by now, taken you to dinner like I promised.”

“Alex—”

“I have to go. Somebody’s at the door.”

“Do not hang up, God damn it.”

“I’ll come down, Janet. Not tonight. But soon, okay? It’s good talking to you.”

I hung up the phone and unplugged it from the wall. Then I answered the door. It was Lou. He had obviously gone back to the other cabin for a shower and some clean clothes himself. Between the two of us, we looked almost like regular humans.

“Is Vinnie in his cabin?” he said.

“He is. He said he’d meet us down at the Glasgow a little later.”

I could tell he was about to say something about how we were supposed to be watching him closely for any signs of PCS, but he let it go. If I knew Vinnie at all, I knew he’d want a few hours to himself.

“Alex, what’s going on? Who were you talking to?”

“My friend in Detroit,” I said. “I thought maybe she could help us.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to contact anybody. Wasn’t that one of the things they made very clear to you?”

“Look, I’m an ex-cop,” I said. “I had it drilled into my head, all those years. Call for backup. Do things by the book. But you know what? I’m just realizing tonight … even if I still had a badge and a gun, I don’t know if I’d even believe in the book anymore.”

Lou stood there in my cabin, his wet hair slicked back, looking tough and old at the same time, like he’d seen everything there is to see in life, most of it bad. He listened carefully to every word.

“The rules are all gone now,” I said. “They’ve been torn up. People do things that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. I mean, when those guys told me that they’d kill everybody … not just us but every family member they could find … Meaning
your
family, Lou. All of them. When they said that, I believed them. I know they weren’t just talking. I
know
it. I saw their eyes when they told me what would happen. You understand what I’m saying?”

He nodded slowly.

“But still, I figured I had to try, you know? Just take one chance to get somebody else on our side. ”

“There’s nobody,” he said. “Not for something like this. I could have told you.”

“We can’t run, either. Not forever. So yeah, that leaves one choice. We go down there and we take it to ’em.”

“I’m with you,” he said. “But it’s just you and me, right? We leave Vinnie out of this?”

“I think he has the right to know what’s going on.”

“No, Alex. We can tell him afterwards. I’d like to keep Buck out of it, too. Maybe for different reasons. I mean, we’ve already seen how he functions under pressure.”

“I hear what you’re saying, but come on, we don’t have much time left. Tomorrow’s the deadline.”

“We’ll have time. How ’bout we all have a meeting over breakfast? See who’s really up for it?”

“I’m just thinking, if Vinnie’s feeling better tonight…”

“You gotta promise me,” Lou said. “He gets one more night to recover. No talking about this until tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, I promise.”

“Thank you,” he said, grabbing my shoulder. “We’ve got a deal. But right now, I think I need a drink.”

*   *   *

The sun had gone down on another tough day. At least I knew that Vinnie was in his cabin as I drove by. That was one thing that was right in the world. Lou and I drove down to the Glasgow in his rental car and sat at the bar. Jackie broke out the cold Molsons for both of us from my personal fridge. A Tigers game was on the television over the bar, the sound turned low. It was cold outside tonight. Legitimately cold. Logs burned and crackled in the fireplace.

“I can see why you like this place,” Lou said to me. “I think I’d be here every night myself.”

“For the love of God,” Jackie said, bringing the beers over and looking at the bandages on my face, “what the hell happened to you?”

I didn’t want to get into it. I just asked the man for a plate of his beef stew and hoped he’d let me be for the rest of the night.

Vinnie came in a little while later. He could have chosen to sit next to Lou or next to me. He chose the stool next to me.

“At least you did come down,” Lou said. He was staring at the label on his beer bottle and he didn’t so much as glance in Vinnie’s direction. “Even if you’re not going to talk to me.”

Vinnie didn’t respond. Jackie fixed him a plate of beef stew and slid over a 7UP. I was pretty sure I’d never see him drink another drop of alcohol.

“I did what you asked me to do,” Vinnie finally said. “I covered for you at the station. I also realize that we all owe you some gratitude for what you did today. So you have that from me.”

“Okay, then,” Lou said. “I’m glad I was able to help.”

“I’m afraid I can’t give you much else. But that’s the choice you made thirty years ago.”

“Just tell me this much,” Lou said, his eyes still fixed on the bottle. “I brought some things with me from Vegas to give to your sisters and their kids. How many are we talking about?”

Vinnie stopped eating.

“I just want to know how many grandchildren I have,” Lou said. “Is that so much to ask?”

“My sisters have two kids each,” Vinnie said. “But I wouldn’t call them your grandchildren. Not if you don’t even know how many there are.”

“There we go,” Lou said. “Now we’re getting somewhere. You got anything else to say to me?”

“Yes. You shouldn’t have come here.”

“You just got done thanking me.”

“I changed my mind,” Vinnie said. “On second thought, I’d rather be back on that island than owe you anything.”

“You’re saying you’d rather be getting sliced up like those people at the farmhouse? Is that what you’re saying? He’d probably be doing that to you right now, as we speak.”

“Gentlemen,” Jackie said, “I’m not sure this is appropriate dinner conversation.”

I looked at him and shook my head. Jackie let out a huff and walked away.

“I’m your father,” Lou said. “I made enough mistakes for ten men, and I paid for them, believe me. But I’m still your father.”

“Fathers don’t leave,” Vinnie said. He was holding on to the rail of the bar and I could practically hear the fizzing sound as his extralong fuse burned away.

“Sometimes fathers
have
to leave. Sometimes they have no choice.”

“You beat your wife,” Vinnie said. “My mother. That makes you the lowest kind of man on earth.”

Lou took a long breath, nodding his head. “I laid my hands on Nika in anger exactly one time. One time in my life and I had a reason.”

“Don’t say her name. I don’t want to hear her name pass your lips.”

“They made me leave, don’t you understand? Everyone on the rez turned against me. I was driven out. They told me to never come back.”

“A solid idea,” Vinnie said. “I wholeheartedly agree with them. I should go find every person on the rez past a certain age and thank them.”

“Which is it, Vinnie? You can’t have it both ways. Am I supposed to stay away or am I supposed to try to come back? Tell me what I should have done.”

“You should have come back for your son’s funeral,” Vinnie said. “That’s what you should have done. Oh no, wait, you couldn’t do that because you were in prison for murder.”

Lou stood up from his bar stool. Vinnie stood up to face him.

“Vinnie, you’re supposed to be taking it easy,” I said to him, figuring it was finally time to step in. “I don’t think this qualifies.”

“Stay out of this, Alex.”

“You’re right,” Lou said. “I couldn’t come to Tom’s funeral because I was in prison. Not that it would have mattered. I wouldn’t have been welcome, anyway.”

They stood there looking at each other. A log shifted in the fireplace and let out a loud pop.

“He wasn’t my son,” Lou said. “Nika was sleeping with Henry Carrick.”

There’s that moment. The fuse burns out. You don’t hear the fizzing anymore. There’s one second of silence, maybe two. You think the bomb might not go off.

“I know it’s hard to keep a secret on the rez,” Lou said, “so it’s kind of ironic. The biggest secret of all, and only me, Nika, and Henry know about it.”

“No,” Vinnie said. “No.”

“I shouldn’t have hit her. I admit that. They made me leave and I accepted it. I kept the secret all of these years. But now you know the truth. It was your mother who destroyed our marriage.”

Then it happens. The bomb goes off.

He was on him before I could get off my stool. Vinnie hit him once in the face and then drove him to the floor with his shoulder. He got a few more shots in and it looked like Lou wasn’t even trying to defend himself. I tried to pull Vinnie off of him and we both went crashing against the bar rail. I got the worst of it, taking the rail right in the ribs, the same spot where I’d been jabbed twice with a gun barrel when I was being driven to the swamp. I had to hold on and wait for my breath to come back. Instead of launching at his father again, Vinnie walked out the door.

Lou took a while getting off the floor. Jackie stood there watching us and for once in his life he had the good sense not to say anything.

“It’s okay,” Lou said as he slid back onto the bar stool. “He needed that.”

“What in God’s name are you talking about?” I said. “What happened to taking care of him? Letting him recover from his goddamned concussion?”

“It was eating him up, Alex. I wanted him to get mad at me. He needed to get that out of his system.”

“Oh, well then excuse me. I guess you played that just right.”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “I had to do that while I had the chance. Who knows where we’ll all be after tomorrow.…”

He picked up his bottle and drained it.

“Was all of that stuff true?” I said. “About his brother?”

“Ask Henry Carrick. Next time you see him.”

“You’re gonna have a hell of a black eye tomorrow,” I said, looking at him. “He really caught you.”

“Good. Like I said. It was a long time coming.”

“You are absolutely insane,” I said, picking up my beer. The muscles in my side were finally beginning to relax.

“I’m going to go. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He stood up before I could say another word. Then he was out the door, even quicker than Vinnie. I heard him start the motor of the rental car. I finished my beef stew, watching a little of the ball game and listening to Jackie complain about things. It almost felt like a normal night for a change. I should have known it wouldn’t last.

I left around ten o’clock. An early night, but probably just what I needed. Until I realized that I had no way to drive home. So I started walking up the road. Good thing it was late summer, so it was only cold and not brutally cold.

As I walked up my road, I saw Vinnie’s truck parked by his place. I considered stopping in and then thought better of it. Instead, I went up to the second cabin, figuring I’d see what Lou was doing. Smoking a joint, no doubt. But when I got there, I didn’t see the car.

He might be on the rez, I thought. He might have dropped in on his daughters. Which would be quite a sight, especially with the newly added bruises on his face, courtesy of Vinnie.

I went back to my cabin, wishing that I could sleep for the next week straight. That brought me back to Corvo’s deadline and guaranteed I’d be lying awake for at least a few hours, staring at the ceiling.

Around ten thirty, my cell phone rang. It took me a moment to find it in the filthy pants I had taken off and thrown on the floor of the bathroom. I finally wrestled it free and answered it.

“Janet, is that you?”

“No, it’s Lou. I need some help.”

“What are you talking about? Where are you?”

“I’m in Sault Ste. Marie. In the jail. You gotta come get me out.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The City-County Building in Sault Ste. Marie, perhaps the ugliest building in the entire Upper Peninsula, is where you find the county holding cells, along with the county sheriff’s office and the Sault Ste. Marie Police Department. It’s all in that one gray rectangle on Court Street. They talk about renovating the place, or moving out the city police, or a dozen other things, but they never talk about actually knocking it down with bulldozers, which is what they should have done a long time ago.

It was getting close to midnight when I walked through the door. In this city there are few people working at midnight, unless they happen to be serving alcohol on Portage Street. I walked over to the desk and rang the little bell. A county deputy came out and I asked him if I could see someone in the holding cell. He told me I should come back the following morning.

“I really need to see him,” I said. “I’d appreciate it.”

“And you really need to come back tomorrow morning,” he said. “I know we’ve got a few gentlemen down there right now. They all need to settle down and dry out a little, if you know what I mean. We’ll sort them out in the morning.”

I wasn’t sure what to try next, but that’s when I saw Chief Roy Maven walking past the front door. He must have come out a side entrance, and he was probably on his way to his car now after a long night in the office. Something special must have kept him here. I didn’t care what, I was just happy to see him.

An incredible statement to make, I realize. After a full week of dealing with law enforcement officials at every level, from that state trooper I talked to out at the airport, to my friend and maybe now former friend Janet Long, the FBI agent in Detroit, to Chief Benally of the Bay Mills Tribal Police, here at last was the man with whom I had the longest history. Chief Roy Maven of the Sault Ste. Marie Police Department, known affectionately around here as the Human Buzz Saw, known unaffectionately by a number of other words, some of which correspond to parts of the male anatomy. We’d taken an instant chemical dislike to each other, the very first time we met, and things had gone downhill fast from there.