Thunder Bay (6 page)

“And you’ll get an audience with the brother how?”

“The watch. I’m banking on it opening the door.”

“Four-hour drive up, four-hour drive back. Could be all for nothing.”

“Not for nothing. It’s for Henry. And you have a better idea?”

She put the manila folder on the nightstand, leaned over, and kissed me. “You’ll be leaving early. Get some sleep.”

I
stopped by the hospital on my way out of town. I spoke with Dr. Wrigley, who was pretty familiar by then with my association with Meloux, though he didn’t know anything of what the old man had requested of me. There’d been little change in Meloux’s condition. When I asked what exactly that condition was, Wrigley couldn’t give me an answer.

“There doesn’t seem to be any occlusion. We’ve run all the tests we can run here. I’m thinking of transferring him down to Saint Luke’s, in Duluth. Their heart people might be able to figure this one out.”

Meloux was awake. He smiled weakly when I entered his room. “How you doing, Henry?”

“I don’t sleep so good. I don’t crap so good. Mostly my heart is heavy. Like a bear on my chest.”

“I’m going up to Thunder Bay today, try to talk to the man who may be your son.”

“The watch?”

“I have it.”

I’d put it in a small white jewelry box Jo had given me. I opened the box, took out the watch, and handed it to Meloux. His fingers were brittle-looking things, thin sticks, but they handled that watch gently. He opened it and studied the photograph inside.

“She was beautiful,” I said.

The old Mide looked up. “Her beauty was a knife, Corcoran O’Connor.”

He handed the watch back.

“You will bring me my son,” he said.

*   *   *

I followed Highway 1 southeast and reached the North Shore in an hour. I turned left at Ilgen City and took Highway 61 north along Lake Superior.

It was a beautiful August day. The lake looked hard as blue concrete. Sunlight shattered on its surface into glittering shards. Far to the east, where the pale wall of the sky hit the water, the horizon was a solid line, the meeting of two perfect geometric planes. To the west rose the Sawbill Mountains, covered with second- and third-growth timber. The road often cut along steep cliffs or ran beside a shoreline littered with great slabs of rock broken by the chisel of ice and time and the relentless hammering of waves. I drove through Schroeder, Tofte, Grand Marais, and finally Grand Portage, small towns full of tourists come north for the scenery and to escape the sweltering Midwest heat farther south.

I crossed the border at the Pigeon River, and less than an hour later, I entered the unimpressive outskirts of Thunder Bay.

Thunder Bay is really the modern merging of two rival municipalities, Fort William and Port Arthur. As I understand it, the French fur traders started things rolling with a settlement protected by a rustic fort near the mouth of the Kaministiquia River, which emptied into a bay on Lake Superior the French called Baie de Tonnaire. The British, when they took over the fur-trading business, built a more impressive outpost they named Fort William. A few years later, when the new Canadian government wanted to build a road through the wilderness, a site a few miles north of Fort William was chosen. It was christened Port Arthur, and the two towns began trading verbal potshots, something that went on for the next hundred years or so, until they shook hands, erased the borders, and took to calling the new union Thunder Bay. The truth is, it didn’t end the rivalry. Ask anyone who lives in the city where they’re from and no one says Thunder Bay. Either they’re from Port Arthur or Fort William.

The city’s an old port. Like a lot of towns on the western side of Lake Superior, it’s long past its heyday. But it’s trying.

The bay is created by a long, southerly sweeping peninsula dominated by an impressive geological formation called Sleeping Giant, so
named because that’s what the formation resembles. The Ojibwe story is that it’s Nanabozho, the trickster spirit, turned to stone when white men learned the secret of the peninsula, which was that a rich silver mine was hidden there.

From what I’d gathered on the Internet, Henry Wellington lived on a remote island called Manitou, which was just off Thunder Cape, the tip of Sleeping Giant. Manitou is an Ojibwe word that means spirit. That’s exactly what Wellington seemed to be. More spirit than flesh, more spoken about than seen.

I made my way to the Thunder Bay Marina, which was at the eastern edge of the downtown area, just off Water Street. The city’s old railroad station had been remodeled into shops and a little restaurant/bar. There were three main docks. Most of the slips were filled with modest sailboats and large motor launches. I walked to the end of the first dock and stared out across the bay toward Sleeping Giant, dark gray in the distance.

“Interested in a tour?”

I glanced back. A woman stood on the deck of a sailboat docked not far away, a can of Labatt Blue in her hand. She wore white shorts, a yellow tank top, a red visor. She looked maybe sixty—a healthy, tanned, fit sixty. The kind of sixty I hoped to be when I got there.

“Nope. Just one island. Manitou.”

“Hunting Henry Wellington,” she said and took a drink from her beer. “Where’s your camera?”

“I don’t want a picture.”

“Good. Because the chances of getting one are next to nothing.”

“I just want to talk to the man.”

She laughed. “Hell, that’s harder than an audience with the pope. Everybody knows that.”

“Where’s Manitou Island?”

She pointed toward the enormous landform on the far side of the bay, miles away. “At the base of Sleeping Giant. Too far to see from here.”

“I understand the only way to get there is by boat.”

“There’s a helipad.”

“The man likes his privacy.”

“The man’s obsessed with it. You’re not a reporter, eh?”

“Private investigator.” I walked to her boat, reached across the gunwale, and gave her my card. It was the first one I’d given out since I had them printed. I got a thrill from it. “Hired by a family member to deliver a piece of information. You seem to know a lot about Wellington.”

“Mostly what everyone in Thunder Bay knows. But with my slip right here, I pretty much see who comes and goes to the island.”

“Could you get me out there?”

“Wouldn’t do you any good. Wellington’s got dogs, men with guns.”

“Ever seen him?”

“Every once in a while if I’m passing near the island at sundown, I see a wisp of white moving among the trees. More like a ghost than a man, eh. I figure that’s got to be Wellington.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. You decide you want a tour, you know where to find me.”

“What do you charge?”

“A six-pack and conversation, sweetheart.” She winked and went back to her beer.

Northern Mining and Manufacturing headquarters were on a campus just north of the city. There was a tall central structure of modern design—a slanted box of polished girder and smoked glass— surrounded by several smaller buildings of similar but less striking construction. I parked in the visitors’ lot, put on a tie and sport coat, and went inside the grand, central structure. At the reception desk in the lobby, I was directed to the fifteenth floor, the top.

The waiting area was large enough that if the floor had been ice, I could have played hockey. There was a plush sofa of nice chocolate brown leather and an easy chair of the same color and material. There was a large aquarium with darting fish in psychedelic colors and patterns. And there was a desk with a secretary who turned from her computer and watched me cross the room.

“I’d like to see Mr. Wellington,” I told her.

She was young—twenty-seven, maybe thirty—nicely made up and wearing a dark blue suit over a cream-colored blouse. A thin gold chain looped her neck. The nameplate on the desk read MS. HELPRIN.

She looked up at me, pleasant but professional.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“I don’t. Could I make one?”

“What’s the nature of your business?”

“It’s personal and rather urgent.”

“Mr. Wellington is extremely busy.”

“Of course,” I said, very understanding. “It concerns a family heirloom that’s recently come into my possession. I believe he’d be interested.”

“What is the heirloom?”

I took out the watch, opened it, and handed it to her. “That’s a photograph of his father’s first wife, Maria. My guess would be that there’s significant sentimental value in it.”

“And you simply want to give this to him?” She seemed to think it was a sweet idea.

“Not exactly.”

“Do you wish to offer it for sale?” This seemed to strike her as not such a sweet idea.

“No. I’d like to tell him a story that goes along with it, and to ask him something.”

“Ask him what?”

“That’s between him and me, Ms. Helprin.”

She looked at the watch, then at me, her face young and uncertain.

“If you could just show him the watch,” I said, “I’m betting he’ll see me.”

Betting? That was a long shot.

“Mr. Wellington is currently in a meeting. If you’d care to wait, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.”

It was a waiting room without reading material. I sat in the easy chair and stared at the exotic fish shooting through the water in the aquarium. For a long time, the only sound was the click of Ms. Helprin’s keyboard as she typed and the burble of the aerator in the fish
tank. I thought about what I might say to Wellington:
Your brother’s history isn’t what it seems.

Or maybe it was. Maybe it was a well-known and well-kept family secret that Henry Wellington had been sired by a Shinnob. On the other hand, maybe it was all a horrible coincidence, and Henry Wellington had no connection whatsoever with Meloux.

Fifteen minutes passed slowly. Without any apparent indication that her boss was free, Ms. Helprin stood up and said, “I’ll be right back.” She disappeared through another door. A couple of minutes later, she returned. “Mr. Wellington will see you now.”

The man at the big glass desk in the inner office stood up to shake my hand. From what I’d learned on the Internet, I knew he was sixty-two years old, though he looked a decade younger. He was small and fit, with a crown of silver hair around a balding center. He wore an expensive gray suit, white shirt, red tie. His eyes were earth brown and sharp in their appraisal. In our conversation, he was succinct without being rude.

“I appreciate your time, Mr. Wellington,” I said.

“I can only spare a minute, Mr. O’Connor. Have a seat.”

I sat in a chair with a curved, gray-metal back and a soft leather cushion that molded perfectly to my butt and spine. The office had a rich, spare feel to it. Not much furniture, all of it modern and well made. The wall behind Wellington was all glass, with a beautiful view of the bay and Sleeping Giant in the distance.

“The watch, of course, intrigued me. You have a story that goes with it, I understand.” He folded his hands on his desk and leaned forward.

“The photograph is of Maria Wellington, yes?”

He nodded. “My father’s first wife.”

“She wasn’t your mother, correct?”

“That’s right. After her death, my father remarried. Do I get to hear the story?”

“Only if your brother chooses to tell it to you. The man who gave me that watch and its story asked me to share it only with Henry Wellington.”

“Ah.” He sat back and looked disappointed. “So it’s really my brother you’re trying to see.” His eyes narrowed. “Mr. O’Connor, my
brother wants to be left in peace. A simple request. Yet he’s hounded mercilessly by people like you. I’m tired of all the schemes concocted to try to get to him. Exactly what tabloid do you work for?”

“I’m not a journalist. I’m a private investigator.” I hauled out my wallet and handed him a business card. “I’ve been retained by the man who gave me that watch to deliver it and its history personally to Henry Wellington. This is important. My client is dying.”

“The man’s name?”

“That’s for the ears of Henry Wellington.” It was my turn to lean forward, not an easy thing in the curved chair. “Look, for a lot of years I was the sheriff of Tamarack County, down in Minnesota. If you need a character reference, I’d urge you to call the sheriff’s office. I’m not trying to scam you. It’s simply an unusual and pressing situation. Keep the watch for the time being. All I’m asking is fifteen minutes of your brother’s time. I guarantee that what I have to tell him, he’ll want to hear. It’s important to him. And urgent as well.”

A man in his position, I figured, had to be able to size up circumstances—and people—quickly. Wellington considered for all of ten seconds, staring at the watch in his hand.

“I can’t guarantee anything, Mr. O’Connor. Henry has the final say as to whether he sees you or not. And I can tell you right now, he sees almost no one these days.”

“I can’t ask any more than that. Thank you.”

“How can you be reached?”

“My cell phone. The number’s on my card.”

He stood up and offered his hand in parting.
A gracious gesture,
I thought. “Again,” he cautioned, “I make no promises.”