Paul and Abby approached the desk and Paul spoke up. “We’d like to talk with an officer.”
The man looked them over. “And why’s that?”
“We have some information about a crime that we’d like to tell the police about.”
“Okay, take a seat. As soon as Officer Cameron is done speaking with Officer Nash he’ll be right with you.”
Paul and Abby looked at each other and tried not to react. The man went over to speak with the two officers while Paul and Abby sat down in the waiting area.
“Officer Nash? That’s the same officer who was pounding on Mr. Brunner’s door!” said Paul.
“Yes – and it looks like he’s pretty close with the officer we’re supposed to talk with,” said Abby. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
They were the only ones there. They sat in silence, until Officer Cameron came over. He nodded in the
direction of Paul and Abby, so they got up and followed him through the door. The officer led them down a hallway, turning into a cramped office and grabbing stacks of paper from two wooden chairs. He dropped them onto his desk and Paul and Abby sat down in the now-vacant seats. The officer leaned back in his chair and took off his matching navy blue hat with pudgy fingers.
“What have you got to tell me?” He took out a pad of lined paper and a pen, scrawling the date along the top line. “I’m assuming you know everything you say in here must be true.”
“Yes.” Paul gulped. “We have some information about a serious crime that we heard about on the news. We think it will really help you.”
“Which crime?” He kept his eyes fixed on the paper.
“It’s about the Owen Richardson murder,” Abby said, watching him write in thick block letters.
“What about it?”
“We think we know who did it,” she said. “We found evidence that proves that a man living in Colchester killed Owen Richardson.”
“Colchester?” His voice was flat.
“Yes, the cottage town outside of Windsor,” Abby confirmed.
“I know where Colchester is. Why do you think this?”
“We found a pair of jeans,” Paul said. “We know that the police found a piece of denim at the scene of the crime and we found jeans in this man’s home with a hole in the knee.” At this, Officer Cameron looked up slowly from his notes.
“Is this the evidence part?” His sarcasm went with-out comment so he looked back at his pad of paper. “Describe the jeans, please.”
“They were pale blue. Very worn jeans,” Abby answered. “The hole was in the right knee.”
“Would you say the placement of the hole is critical?”
Abby and Paul looked at each other. “Uhhh.”
“I’ll put ‘not sure.’” He wrote again in the margin. “And where did you say you found the jeans?”
“In the man’s home,” Paul answered cautiously.
“Who is this man – do you have access to his home?”
“Not exactly – we kind of sneaked into his house.” Paul bit his tongue and willed his words to come back into his mouth. “His name is Bud Brunner.”
Paul thought he saw a flash of recognition in the officer’s eyes but it quickly left. Instead, he opened a deep drawer and took out a thick book. He flipped pages past his wide index finger. “Yes. Breaking and entering. Still deemed a criminal offence, according to the Criminal Code.”
“We didn’t take anything,” Abby countered. “We just looked around.”
“The act of breaking and entering is illegal even if no burglary takes place.” Officer Cameron closed the book. “I’ll let you off this time, but I’ll have to put it on the file. Would you like me to add anything else?”
“We just think that the jeans we found should be compared with the piece found at the murder,” Abby said.
“Yes, the Windsor Police Force will look into that. Thank you for the information.” He smiled with yellow, crooked teeth.
Paul and Abby stayed rooted to their chairs. “That’s not the only reason we’re here,” Paul said.
Officer Cameron didn’t pick up his pen.
“Our friend’s gone missing,” Paul continued. “He was living with my family and disappeared last night without telling us. The man with the jeans told us that he had gone back to Walpole Island Reserve, but –”
“The reserve?” The officer said. “I can’t help you there. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to file your account.”
They reluctantly got up and slowly walked down the hallway. Paul looked behind him and nudged Abby in time for them both to see Officer Cameron rip off the notes he had been recording and toss them in the garbage. They walked straight out of Police Head-
quarters and sat on the curb of the road, their shoulders hunched.
“Now, what are we supposed to do?” Abby asked, watching cars whiz by. “He didn’t take us seriously.”
“I don’t know what we can do,” Paul sighed. “No one’s going to believe us. It’s true. All we have for evidence is a pair of ripped jeans. And, we have absolutely no idea where Tom is.”
“We need more evidence,” Abby said. “And the only place I can think of for that is another place where we’re not allowed.”
“Where?” asked Paul.
“The bar where Owen Richardson was found murdered – Dirty Kate’s.”
Chapter 17
Downtown
“My parents never let me go downtown by myself,” Abby said, as they trudged along Sandwich Street. “But I’m sure we’ll be able to find our way.”
“I’ve been to my dad’s office around here.” Paul watched as a huge lake freighter navigated itself underneath the Ambassador Bridge, a Canadian flag flapping its red ensign proudly atop the signal mast, its Union Jack clearly visible in the corner.
“Let’s go down here,” Abby said, turning them onto Ouellette Avenue, a major road in downtown Windsor. They turned their backs on the river, walking up a sizable hill. “My parents are always talking about how much Windsor has grown, especially with the auto
industry here.”
“And then, a lot of people have immigrated here since the war, with all the jobs here.”
“Yeah, my parents say it’s become a lot more diverse.”
Paul nodded and looked around. They had arrived in the heart of the downtown.
“I think we’re in the right place,” Paul said, looking up and seeing a cluster of taverns.
He and Abby avoided the tough-looking people who were sharing the sidewalk. Dirty Kate’s was nowhere in sight.
“Let’s try down here,” Paul said, pointing to an alleyway between two buildings that veered off the main road.
Abby looked at him dubiously. “Why would we want to do that?”
“I’m starting to think that maybe Owen Richardson wouldn’t have had a blind pig right on the main street. Overall, downtown Windsor’s pretty nice. If something illegal was going on, he’d want to have it somewhere out of the way, where the police wouldn’t intervene as much.”
“Like down a dark alley?”
“Come on, Abby. If you were running an illegal business, would you really decide to open it up on Ouellette Avenue?”
“Okay, fine,” Abby agreed. “Let’s see if the bar is down there. One quick look and we’re gone.”
As they walked further, the hum of the downtown quieted until all they could hear was the crunch of gravel under their feet. With the light cut by the narrow alley, shadows darted out of strange corners.
Suddenly, Abby stopped, reaching out and touching a thick, metal door. The bottom had turned brown with age and rust.
“Do you think this could be it?” Paul whispered, scanning the doorway for a name
. There was nothing.
“I’m not – ” The door swung open, interrupting Abby’s sentence and a short, grizzled man stepped out, wearing a dark jacket.
“What have we here?” The man surveyed Paul and Abby, his lazy eye rolling in the other direction. “Lost, are we?”
“No, not lost,” Abby said, her stomach churning. “Is this Dirty Kate’s?”
“It isn’t,” the man said, closing the metal door and moving closer to Paul and Abby. “But you’re trespassing on my property. Do you know what happens to people who trespass around here?”
Paul grabbed Abby’s arm, slowly backing them up. “Not really,” Paul said, stalling. “We were just leaving, though. Always wondered what was down here, that’s all.” They shuffled farther and farther backwards, until they could turn around and sprint down the alley and out onto the main street.
“Let’s get out of here,” Paul said. “Back to my grandma’s.”
“Okay.” They began sprinting, occasionally looking behind to see if the man was following them. “I don’t even know why we came here in the first place. I mean, what, were we just going to walk into the bar? And what did we think we were going to find anyway?”
“I know. It wasn’t too smart,” Paul agreed.
They walked as quickly as possible and avoided looking into the windows, until they reached the river once again.
“Oh, no,” Paul said, staring at his watch. He started to run.
“What’s wrong?” Abby called out, keeping up with Paul.
“My mom. I just realized that she said she would be back in one hour. Which means, that she will be back in exactly one hour. And we’ve been gone for at least two hours. How are we going to explain this?”
“We can’t tell them what we were really doing, Paul. We’d be grounded until we’re old – like thirty. We can’t tell them about the police, because your dad warned us not to get involved in any of it. They’d be so angry. And we definitely can’t tell them about searching for Dirty Kate’s. We aren’t even supposed to know about that.”
“I guess we can just say that we went downtown.” They turned onto Moy Street, still running as fast as humanly possible.
“We wanted to explore,” Abby elaborated. “We can just tell them that. They’ll still be mad, that’s for sure, but not as much.”
“We’re in so much trouble, Abby.”
They passed an abandoned hockey net from the road hockey game that had been in full tilt before. They passed the neat gardens and the porches and the brick homes. But this time, everything didn’t seem quite so lovely and quaint.
“Here goes,” Paul said, when the white stucco house materialized before them and they were forced to face the inevitable. They ran up the driveway, past the Martin car and up to the porch where Mrs. Martin and Paul’s grandmother were sitting.
“Paul Edgar Philippe Martin,” Mrs. Martin stood up. “Where in God’s name have you been? We came back one hour ago and we looked inside to see if you were there. When you weren’t there, we went to the park. We searched the park, in fact. And you weren’t there, either. I’ve been worried sick. I was going to call the police.”
“Mom, I’m really sorry,” Paul said. “We were playing at the park and then we got a bit bored. So we decided to go downtown for a while.”
“You didn’t have permission to go downtown.”
“It was my idea,” Abby blurted out, not wanting Paul to take all of the blame. “I thought we could just explore. Once we were there, we lost track of time, so that’s why we’re late.”
“We know now that we shouldn’t have ever done it. But nothing happened and we’re okay,” Paul pleaded.
“Haven’t I raised you any better than that? You know you can’t just run off without permission.”
Paul’s grandmother spoke up. “I’m just going to tell you that it was a very inconsiderate thing to do,” she said. “Your mother and I have been so worried about you two.”
“I’m so sorry, Grandma. We didn’t mean to ruin your afternoon.”
“Now, get into the car. We’re going straight back to Colchester.” She turned to her mom. “Bye, Mom. I’m sorry about all of this.”
Paul and Abby walked back to the car, their heads hanging, and climbed into the back seat. Mrs. Martin got in and started the engine, pulling out of the driveway.
“I’m not impressed,” she said simply.
They sat in complete silence for the World’s Longest Car Ride. Paul watched the minute hand of his watch inching its way around, as he thought about how their efforts had turned out to be for nothing.
“There you go, Abby.” Mrs. Martin stopped the car in front of Abby’s cottage, when they finally arrived at Colchester. “I’m going to be calling your parents to tell them what happened.”
“Yes, Mrs. Martin. Thank you for the ride.”
“Bye, Abby,” Paul said. “See you later.”
Mrs. Martin continued driving up to their place and they walked into the cottage without a word.
“Go up to your room, Paul. And stay there until I tell you otherwise.”
Paul straggled up the stairs and sat down on his comforter, looking at the empty twin-sized cot beside him.
Chapter 18
A Secret Space
Paul flipped through an action-packed comic book, the words and pictures not really registering. He had just eaten dinner with his family, received another scolding – this time from his dad – and then had been told to go back to his room. He put down his comic and reached into his pocket, taking out the small pouch of sacred tobacco and placing it on the bedside table. He hadn’t been able to return it to Tom and it didn’t feel good at all.
Downstairs, Paul heard Mrs. Martin’s voice talking on the phone. “Completely unacceptable...” she was saying. “We had no idea where they had gone.”
Paul closed his comic book and started rummaging through the junk on the bedside table. They had to be missing something. Some sort of a clue. Paul flung his comic at the floor, letting its pages sprawl out like a work of origami.
No clues here, though.
He thought about the evidence they had collected: the lack of actual fishing, the expensive Cadillac, the conflicting tales about work hours, the hole in the jeans, the list of names and addresses, the ledger book.
The ledger book.
They hadn’t been able to figure out the mystery behind the ledger book. Paul pictured the July 1950 page that he had discovered that day: three columns, specific dates, the cryptic markings. CC-DET and CC-DK. What in the world did they mean?
“DET, DET, DET,” he mouthed to himself. Paul sat up as it finally hit him.
It has to be an abbreviation for Detroit.
Paul then thought about their recent visit to Windsor, seeing Detroit right on the other side of the river. He thought about going to Walpole Island and ending up in the United States after a very short boat ride.
A boat ride...that’s it!
Paul had to search Bud Brunner’s fishing boat. If his other form of income involved Detroit – as the abbreviation suggested – then he would surely have been using his fishing boat to get there. Maybe even leaving behind evidence of what he had been up to. He had to get to his property tonight. Paul looked over at the alarm clock. A bit before eight o’clock.
Downstairs, he heard Mrs. Martin saying goodbye to Abby’s mother and hanging up the telephone.
Paul threw on a black t-shirt, old sneakers and grabbed a flashlight. He tiptoed down the stairs, avoiding the step that always creaked. He peered around the corner and saw that his mom was in the kitchen, while the door to his dad’s study was closed. Paul inched along the hardwood floor to their back door and quietly turned the handle. He slipped through the doorway, sucking in his s
kinny frame. Then he broke into a flat-out run once he was outside.
Paul stopped at Abby’s cottage and sneaked to the side where he knew her bedroom was. He scraped up the ground, finding small stones and throwing them lightly at her window. They clinked against the glass, until the outline of her face peered down at him and Paul gestured with his hands to come down. He mouthed, “It’s important.”
A few moments later, Abby crept out the back door, meeting Paul.
“What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain as we go,” Paul said, jogging off the property and out onto the road with Abby following.
“Paul, I’m grounded. Aren’t you too?”
“I don’t have time to be grounded,” said Paul. “Just listen for a second. I figured something out about the ledger book.”
“What?”
“I realized that DET must mean Detroit. Which means that Mr. Brunner is somehow making money in Detroit and the way he would likely get there is...”
“By boat,” Abby finished for him.
“Right, that’s why we have to go and search Mr. Brunner’s boat. I just know that we’ll find something.”
Paul and Abby reached the ‘No Trespassing’ sign, marking the beginning of Bud Brunner’s property, and scaled the fence. This time, when they landed in the forest, trees loomed, blocking out what remained of the evening sunlight. They darted between the trees, staying in the wooded area until they reached the lake. Paul looked over his shoulder and his heart sank as he noticed that a light was on in Bud Brunner’s bungalow.
“Now what?” said Abby, seeing the same light on.
“It’s dark enough down here that he probably won’t be able to see us,” Paul said, looking over at the fishing boat floating near the dock. The sun was beginning to set over Lake Erie’s sullen waves.
“Okay, let’s get on there and look for anything strange or out of place.” Abby sneaked out onto the grass.
“And, if we can, let’s bring it back as evidence.” Paul was right behind her, as they climbed up onto the dock. It swayed over the water, revealing washed-up seaweed between the cracks.
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