Blood Is the Sky: An Alex McKnight Mystery (4 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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“You gotta excuse those boys,” the bartender said. “They had a little run-in yesterday and they’re still buzzing.”
“I noticed the broken nose,” I said.
“A couple strangers came in here. One of them had a real nose on him so these two clowns start making jokes. You know, like ‘Tell us another lie, Pinocchio,’ real intelligent stuff like that. These guys take it for about two minutes before the guy with the nose stands up and hits Stan right in the face. Says ‘Here, let’s see what your nose looks like tomorrow.’ And the other guy, hell, he’s about twice as big, so Brian wasn’t gonna step in.”
“Yeah, I’m so lucky having somebody to watch my back,” the man with the broken nose said. “He’s a real friend.”
The other man just stood there with a bottle of beer in his hand. He still hadn’t said a word.
“And this game is a piece of shit, too.”
“Will you two knock it off?” the bartender said without turning around. “I swear, I’m gonna throw that machine out on the road.”
“We need more sawdust,” Broken Nose said. “This thing ain’t sliding.”
“Open up your brain and dump some out.”
“Haw haw, that’s funny.”
“They got nothing better to do, eh?” the bartender said, apparently to us. “They gotta torment me every day of the week. Get in fights with the customers.”
“We don’t got ‘other business’ to do like these fellas,”
the man said. “We’re not ‘other business’ kind of guys, you know what I mean?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” the bartender said, finally turning around.
“Ask the Lone Ranger and Tonto here,” the man said.
I turned on my stool and looked at him. He and his buddy went back to their game. Vinnie sat next to me as cool as an ice sculpture. I knew he had a fuse about seven miles long, and that no matter what they said, it would get to me a hell of a lot sooner than it would get to him.
“Don’t mind those morons,” the bartender said as he served up the cheeseburgers. “They’re the only two in town, believe me.”
“Just our luck,” I said. We ate our burgers. I drank my beer and had another one. Two cold Canadian beers were the easiest part of the day so far.
I could feel their eyes on our backs. When we were done, I turned around again and watched them slide their stupid little puck down the board. “Who’s winning?” I said.
“Machine’s broken,” the man said. “It don’t keep score anymore.”
“Why don’t you keep score yourself?”
They looked at me like I was from Mars.
“You know,” I said, “when we came in, I was wondering why you guys weren’t playing pool. Now I understand. Pool’s too complicated.”
“You wanna try me, old man?” he said. He looked like he meant it, even with an already broken nose. His partner was obviously not so sure.
Before I could say another word, I felt Vinnie’s hand on my shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “We’re leaving.”
“That’s right,” the man said. “Go do your ‘other business’ with your Indian boyfriend.”
I would have taken him apart right there, but Vinnie
had other ideas. “You wanna spend the rest of the day in the Wawa jail? Come on, it ain’t worth it.”
He steered me out of there and into the truck. “I didn’t pay,” I said.
“I left some money on the bar,” he said. “Put the key in and drive away.”
I did as he said, sending a spray of gravel behind us. We had to double back through town to get back to 17, so the giant goose was there once again to say goodbye to us.
“Vinnie,” I said, a couple of miles later, “doesn’t it even bother you when people say stuff like that?”
“Who says it doesn’t? I just don’t get in fights over it.”
“I was sticking up for you, you know.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re the one they were insulting. That Lone Ranger and Tonto business.”
“That was for both of us,” he said.
“No, the Lone Ranger was a hero.”
“So was Tonto.”
“He was the trusty sidekick,” I said. “Believe me, this is one thing I know about. That was my favorite show when I was a kid.”
“Of course,” Vinnie said. “The Lone Ranger. That explains a lot.”
 
 
An hour and a half after we left Wawa, we came to a little town called White River. The Canadian Pacific Railroad crossed the road here. We sat and watched the freight cars go by for ten minutes.
Route 17 turned west in this town, heading back to the upper shores of Lake Superior. We took a right turn on 631. We had to keep going north, as far as the roads would take us, deep into the heart of Ontario.
“I’m gonna try home again,” Vinnie said. “See if he showed up.”
“Wouldn’t that be something,” I said. “We’re way the hell up here and he walks through the front door back on the rez.”
“Right now I’ll take it.”
He punched the numbers and waited for the answer. “It’s Vinnie,” he said. “Just checking in.”
He listened for a while. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll be there in a couple more hours. I’ll call you back.”
He hung up and sat there looking at the phone.
“No sign of him,” I said.
He shook his head.
“Everybody okay back home?”
“They want to call the police.”
I didn’t say anything. I kept driving.
Another hour and a half passed. We went through more trees, and then the trees would open up to a wide meadow, or a marsh thick with tall grass and the cold remnants of cattails. We’d see another vehicle maybe once every thirty minutes. My eyes were getting tired.
Vinnie tried calling Albright’s number again. No answer. He left a message this time, letting him know that we were in Canada. He left my cell phone number and told him to call the second he got in.
“I hope that went through,” he said as he hung up. “The signal’s getting pretty weak up here.”
We finally came to a small town called Hornepayne, where another railroad crossed, this time the Canadian National. The train had just passed as we came to the crossing. As we bumped over the tracks, we could see the last car disappearing into the west.
“This line goes all the way to Vancouver, doesn’t it?” I said.
“I believe it does.”
“Hell of a long trip.”
He let out a breath. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“For dragging you all the way up here.”
“You’re not. I always wanted to visit Hornepayne, Ontario.”
He laughed. “I think that was it already.”
He was right. The road was empty again. It was another hour north, past a lonely lake called Nagagamisis, until we finally reached the end of the line, which in this case was the Trans-Canada Highway. We could turn left and head west to Longlac and then Geraldton, or we could turn right and head east to Hearst and then Kapuskasing. After eight hours of driving, we had gone as far north as we could go. From here it was nothing but wilderness, all the way up past the Albany River, then the Attawapiskat, then the Ekwan, through the Polar Bear Provincial Park, to the shores of Hudson Bay. There were small outposts here and there, but from this point on they were accessible only by plane.
“Which way?” I said.
“I think left.”
“You think?”
“I know it’s not too far,” he said. “Either way. That much I remember. And I’m pretty sure Tom said west.”
“So how were you supposed to find this place?” I said. “I mean, if you were with these guys—”
“If I was with them, they’d know exactly where to go. I’m sure Albright had the exact directions.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I get it. Let’s give it a shot.”
I took the left and drove west down the Trans-Canada. There were lots more trees. This was officially the most goddamned trees I’d ever seen in one day. About twenty minutes later, we saw a gravel road heading off to the right.
“Think that’s it?” I said.
“There’s no sign,” he said. “Don’t you think there’d be a sign?”
“I can keep going.”
“Go a little while more. If we don’t see something soon, we’ll come back.”
We drove ten more minutes. There was nothing but a sign telling us that Longlac was a hundred miles away. I stopped in the empty road, did a three-point turn, and headed back the other way.
“Let’s try it this time,” he said when we came back to the road. “If it’s not this one, then it must have been east instead of west.”
I took the gravel road, and held on tight as it twisted its way through the forest. It was one blind turn after another as I fishtailed the truck on the loose gravel.
“Take it easy, Alex.”
“Who are we gonna hit?” I said, turning the wheel hard.
“Look out!”
I slammed on the brakes, and felt the truck start to slide.
“Son of a bitch!”
We came to rest with all four wheels in half-frozen mud. The moose stood there in the middle of the road, all gangly legs and long nose, looking at us with mild interest.
“That would have been great,” I said, as I put the truck in reverse. “We come all the way up here and get killed by a moose.”
“Can you get out of this?”
I gave it some gas. The wheels spun. I tried putting it back in drive, to see if I could rock our way out. The wheels spun again. I turned the key, and we sat there for a while, listening to the engine cool off.
“Now what?” he finally said.
“Try the phone.”
He turned it on. “It’s not getting a signal now.”
“I was afraid of that. We’re too far north.”
“We’ll have to walk,” he said. “Maybe the lodge is right up this road.”
“I’m sure it is,” I said as I opened my door. “The Lone Ranger never got lost when Tonto was around.”
As we got out of the truck, the moose stepped slowly off the road and into the woods.
“That’s a big one,” I said. “For a female.”
“Yep. I’m glad you missed her.”
“Which way you think? North to the lodge, or south back to the highway?”
“Let’s try north first.”
We started walking north. The air was a hell of a lot colder up here. I zipped up my coat.
“What’s the Ojibwa word for moose?” I said.
“Moozo.”
I nodded. “Wawa and moozo. So far, it’s a pretty silly-sounding language, Vinnie.”
“I just realized what your Ojibwa name should be,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Madawayash.”
“What’s it mean?”
He smiled. “I’ll tell you later.”
We walked. The road twisted its way through more trees and more marshland with grass growing eight feet tall.
“Tire tracks,” Vinnie said, kicking at the ground.
“Recent?”
“Looks like it.”
“What kind of vehicle?”
He looked at me. “One with tires.”
“Was the driver right-handed or left-handed?”
“You’re funny.”
“Come on, you’re the Indian guide. Where are the tracking skills?”
We had walked maybe two more miles, and were about to give up and turn around. But then we went around a bend and the road ended. There were three vehicles parked among the trees—one jeep and two pickup trucks—and then through the trees we could see blue water.
“I’m guessing this is Lake Peetwaniquot,” I said.
“I think we found it.”
“They don’t need a sign on the road. Either you know how to get here or you don’t.”
I looked at my watch. It was almost five o’clock. There was some daylight left, but the sun hung low enough in the west to cast long shadows. As soon as we had stopped moving, the air felt cold again.
“Let’s go see who’s here,” Vinnie said.
“Lead the way.”
We walked down the path, the trees opening up to a clearing and a large cabin overlooking the lake. As we got closer we could see a couple of smaller sheds set back in the woods, and a long dock. There was a floatplane tied up to it, and two aluminum boats with outboard motors.
“Hello!” Vinnie said. The sound died in the cold wind. Nobody answered.
“There’s got to be somebody here,” I said.
We walked down closer to the lake. The wind was just
strong enough to kick up a light chop in the water. The floatplane bobbed up and down.
“Hello!” Vinnie said again.
Nothing.
We walked out onto the dock, passing a large weighmaster’s scale and several propane tanks. There was no sound but our heavy footsteps on the wood, the wind blowing in off the lake, the hollow clunk when the boats came together, and the plane’s left float working up and down against the rubber bumpers on the dock.
“It’s a nice lake,” I said. It was maybe a half mile across, with nothing but trees on the far shore.
Vinnie wasn’t looking out at the water, but at the dark, seemingly empty window of the cabin. “Let’s see if anybody’s in there,” he said.
We were halfway there when the man stepped out from the shed.
Blood.
That’s all I saw at first. The man was covered in blood.
“Whatcha boys need?” he said.
“You own this place?” Vinnie said.
That broke the spell. I saw the man clearly, with the full-length canvas apron, the gloves. He was a little guy, not more than five feet tall. And he must have been about my age, which made me wonder why he called us boys.
“Nah, you want Helen,” he said. “I just work here.”
“You’re butchering something?” Vinnie said.
The man looked down at his gloves. “A moose,” he said. “What a goddamned mess.”
A woman peeked her head around the door behind him. She was the same size as the man, and you could tell in a second they’d been married forever. “Who is it, Ron?”
“Couple of men,” he said. He didn’t introduce us to her. Instead he just turned around and went back to her. They disappeared into the shed and closed the door.
“What’s the matter with you?” Vinnie said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“It’s nothing,” I said. “I’m fine.”
Just a little blood, I thought. No problem.
“I take it that woman in the shed wasn’t Helen,” he said. “You suppose she’s in the main cabin?”
“Let’s go see,” I said. “I thought they’d never stop talking.”
We went up the path to the front door of the cabin, climbing a set of wooden stairs that desperately needed a new coat of paint. The whole place had a run-down look about it, from the cracked foundation to the porch ceiling overrun with spider webs. We knocked on the front door. Nobody answered.
Vinnie looked at me, knocked on the door again, and then opened it. The room we stepped into was a lot nicer than what I expected, based on how the place looked from the outside. A big wooden table stood in the center of the room, with eight hand-carved chairs. There was a stone fireplace on the back wall that my old man would have approved of, and a great moose head looking down at us, its rack of antlers as wide as a piano.
“Hello!” Vinnie said. “Anybody here?”
“Back here!” a voice said. “Come on in!”
There was a door in the far wall of the room. As we stepped around the table, I looked up at the moose head. He seemed to stare right back at me.
Vinnie pushed the door open slowly and peeked inside. It was an office, with a rolltop desk and a big window overlooking the lake. The woman inside was fiddling around with the antenna on a small television. Where she expected to get a signal from, I couldn’t even guess. Maybe a CBC station out of Timmins.
“We’re sorry to bother you,” Vinnie said.
The woman turned around and looked at us. “Oh!” she
said. “I thought you were the men back from town.”
“We’re sorry to bother you, ma’am,” I said.
“It’s all right,” she said. “You just surprised me.” She had brown eyes, that was the first thing I noticed. She was about my age, maybe a couple years older, with brown hair just starting toward gray, and she was wearing a red flannel shirt a couple sizes too big. My overall impression was a nice lady who was a little tough, too. I suppose that’s what it took way the hell up here.
“The couple outside told us to come see you,” I said. “They said you owned the place. We tried calling you, but I think you have a problem with your phone.”
“I’m Helen St. Jean,” she said, standing up. She shook Vinnie’s hand and then mine. “Yeah, that phone’s been out for a week. If it wasn’t so late in the season, I’d get it fixed so it could go out again.”
Vinnie spoke up. “My name is Tom LeBlanc,” he said. The old switcheroo was apparently alive and well. “This is my friend Alex McKnight.”
“That was Ron and Millie you met outside,” she said. “He was probably still working on that moose.”
“He seemed to be up to his elbows in it,” Vinnie said.
She frowned at that. “I don’t know how many mooseburgers those men are gonna take home,” she said. “They didn’t seem too happy, is all I know. I don’t imagine they’ll be coming back next year. Not that we’ll even be here next year.”
“Who are we talking about?” Vinnie said. “You see, we’re sort of trying to track down my brother. We know he came up here.”
“I think I hear them now,” she said. “Hank took them over to Calstock when they got back from the lake. You know how it is. Seven days in the woods and you need pizza.”
Vinnie went to the window and craned his neck, trying
to see who was outside. “I don’t see him,” he said. “Which party is this, ma’am?”
Before she could answer, a man came stomping into the office. “Son of a freaking—Helen, do you have the sheet for these clowns, eh? The sooner we can get rid of them—” He stopped when he saw us standing there. “Let me guess,” he said. “The truck that some idiot ran off the road back there.”
“That would be me,” I said. “There was a moose.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ve got the bill all made up,” Helen said, ruffling through the papers on the desk. “Let me just put one more thing on here. Gentlemen, this is Hank Gannon. He’s usually in a better mood. Hank, this is Tom and Alex.”
He stood there looking at us. He was a tall man, with a firm jawline and a commanding air. His name fit him perfectly. With the leather coat and wide-brimmed hat, he looked like the Canadian version of a Texas Ranger. “You boys need something here? Aside from a tow out of the mud?”
It was the second time in ten minutes we’d been called boys. It wasn’t sounding any better.
“I’m looking for my brother,” Vinnie said. “He was with the Albright party.”
Helen stopped writing and looked up at us.
“Christ, Albright,” Gannon said. “You guys are looking for him, too?”
“Was there somebody else looking for him?”
“Yeah, two other guys, just yesterday.”
“Did they say who they were?”
“Nah, they just wanted to know where Albright was. I told them the same thing I’ll tell you. The Albright party came and left. And good riddance.”
“Albright and his men were here, then,” I said. “Last week.”
“That’s right. I flew them back down on Saturday morning. They were gone by noon. Biggest bunch of jackasses I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting. Even worse than these guys out here. I swear, Helen, it’s just not worth it anymore.”
She finished up her bill and gave it to him. “Here, send them on their way,” she said. “So we can have some peace. Did you see Ron down there? He’s probably done with the butchering.”
“He’s just wrapping it all up,” Gannon said.
“These men who were here looking for Albright,” I said, a sudden thought hitting me. “Did one of them have a big nose?” I was wondering if the two men who caused the trouble at the bar in Wawa were the same men who were here at the lodge.
“Yeah,” Gannon said. “Matter of fact. He had a real smart mouth, too.”
“Sir,” Vinnie said. “Please. What can you tell me about Albright and the men he was with?”
“Ain’t much more to tell,” he said. “We flew them out to Lake Agawaatese and then we flew them out a week later.”
“Right here,” she said, pointing to a map on the wall above the desk. “See, we’ve got seven different lakes. Agawaatese is up here.” She stretched to put her finger on the upper right corner. “Good lake for moose, although the cabin could use a little work.”
“There were six men, right?” Vinnie said.
“No, five.”
That stopped Vinnie for a second. “I thought there were six, but somebody might have canceled at the last minute.”
“There were five of them,” Gannon said. “Albright and his partners. What did he call them? His ‘executive partners.’ I was expecting a bunch of hotshots with cell
phones and hundred-dollar loafers. But when they got here, eh? They were such thugs. My God, Helen puts up with a lot of shit from all the men who come up here, but these guys—”
“Needless to say,” she said, “I passed on their offer to take me up to the lake with them.”
“That just got them even more riled up, eh? They were ready to kill something. I couldn’t get them out of here fast enough. And when I flew them back, hell, I made sure Helen wasn’t even here at the lodge. She shouldn’t have to put up with guys like that.”
“Hank, I had to go into Timmins anyway,” she said. “Don’t make it sound like you were protecting me.”
He waved that one off. “Bunch of clowns. President Albright and his executive partners, my ass.”
“They weren’t all partners,” Vinnie said. “My brother was with them.”
He shook his head. “The man said they were all partners.”
“My brother was the guide.”
He looked back and forth between us. “Let’s get a couple of things straight here,” he said. “Number one, if those men were gonna use a guide, they’d use
our
guide. We got an Indian fellow out there who knows these lakes inside and out. You don’t need to be bringing in your own guide from the states to hunt our moose, okay? If you’re dumb enough to do without any guide at all, that’s a different story. Number two, when this Albright called us, he made it crystal clear that he was bringing up four men who worked with him. And that they wouldn’t be needing a guide. I tried to talk him out of it, but he dug in his heels. No guide necessary. He said they were all experienced hunters, and they didn’t need our help. So I said, suit yourself, sir. If you don’t want to actually find any
moose, you go right ahead up there by yourselves. And that’s what they did.”

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