Die a Stranger: An Alex McKnight Novel

by Steve Hamilton

  “He’s a good-looking man,” Jackie said. There was a soft tone in his voice, something we hardly ever heard. “They look like a nice couple here.”

  Vinnie took the photograph back and looked at it. He closed his eyes and let out a long breath. Then he put the photograph back in his pocket.

  “I need that drink now, Jackie.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” I said. “Let’s go up the road. I finished up the work on the cabin and you need to see it.”

  He stood there, not saying anything.

  “I’ve got a bottle,” I said. “We’ll pick it up on the way. I’ll show you the cabin and then we’ll have another drink.”

  He thought it over for another moment. Then he nodded his head and followed me to the door.

  “Good night, guys,” Jackie said. “Vinnie, I hope you feel better.”

  Vinnie put up one hand without turning around. Then we were outside, in the warm night. He climbed into the passenger’s seat of my truck and we were off.

  “It was too hot today,” he said, laying his head back against the seat. “This place is not supposed to get hot. Ever.”

  I nodded and drove. The town was empty. I turned and went down our road. We whipped through the trees and kicked up gravel. We passed his cabin, then mine. I saw lights on in my second cabin. The third, fourth, and fifth were dark. As was the sixth, but I knew it was empty. I pulled up in front and turned off the ignition.

  “Let’s see this paint job,” he said, getting out of the truck. But when he went inside he sat down at the table and seemed to forget all about checking out my painting or anything else about the place. He took the photograph from his back pocket and put it on the table. I sat down across from him and looked at the two smiling young faces again.

  “You said you had a bottle.”

  “Sorry, I forgot. I should have stopped at my cabin.”

  “What are you doing, Alex? You guys don’t have to treat me like a child.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I apologize. We’ll go get the bottle. Just tell me why this picture bothers you so much.”

  “Look at him.”

  “I know. I get it. You look like him. But he is your father. It’s not so surprising.”

  “I’m the only one who really remembers him. My sisters were like, what, three and four years old. Tommy was only a baby. No, I was the only one who could go out and try to throw a ball to him, or…”

  He stopped.

  “What?” I said.

  “I’m supposed to be thinking about my mother this week. She’s the one who raised us. She did everything. Now she’s gone and I can’t stop thinking about my father, and all the things he didn’t do.”

  “You’re thinking about them both. It’s natural.”

  “You should have heard her, lying there in that bed, the last time I saw her. Thinking I was him. Calling his name like she was so glad to see him, like he finally came back after all these years.”

  “You know the mind does some funny things at a time like that. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe that wasn’t even so bad. Maybe it was a good feeling for her to have.”

  “I wish it was me she was saying goodbye to,” he said, looking down at his lap. “Not him.”

  “She was,” I said. “Come on. You know she was saying goodbye to all of you.”

  “He doesn’t deserve to be remembered.”

  This is getting a little heavy, I thought. I could actually use that drink myself right now. But at least he’s talking. That has to be good.

  “Tell me again,” I said. “Just one more time. So maybe you can leave it right here in this room.”

  “He left. Just gone. Never saw him again.”

  “He’s in prison?”

  “Yes. Rotting away in a cell on the other side of the country. He might as well be dead. I kinda wish he was.”

  “Did you ever try to contact him? Try to find out why he left?”

  He shrugged. “No. Why bother? Just like we didn’t look at the old photographs. We just … we just moved on. What else were we gonna do? He obviously didn’t want to be with us. That’s all we needed to know.”

  He folded his hands and put them on the table.

  “He’d already done a few short stints,” he said, “even before the DWI and the vehicular manslaughter.”

  “For what else?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I think it was burglary, receiving stolen goods. A whole bunch of chickenshit crimes like that. Until they had to start locking him up. Like I said, my mother never talked about it, but other people on the rez would find some excuse to mention it to me. There’s more gossip on the rez than any sorority, I swear.”

  “When did he go away for good?”

  “It was right around the time I moved off the rez. I think I was just starting work on the cabin.”

  “So right before I moved up here. You were just about done with your roof then.”

  He picked up the photograph one more time. Then he closed his eyes and spun it across the room. It hit the wall and fluttered to the floor.

  “Vinnie, what is it? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “Don’t you see? I’m just like him.”

  “No, you’re not. Just because you look like him—”

  “I’m exactly like him, Alex. I’m a carbon copy.”

  “You didn’t leave anybody.”

  “Yes, I did. Hello, what were we just talking about? I move off the rez and build my own place up here.”

  “That’s not leaving. You’re right down the road. You go back all the time.”

  “Yeah, I go back all the time. Then I leave again. Every time I go, that’s how I feel. Like I’m doing a miniature version of my father’s routine.”

  “Oh, come on, that’s nonsense.”

  “Actually, I did him one better.”

  “How? What do you mean?”

  “I’m just talking about my mother and my sisters and my little brother, right? What about my family? My wife, and my kids?”

  I looked at him. Like what the hell.

  “I don’t have that, right?”

  “Yeah, no kidding.”

  “Okay then. There you go. I live all by myself and I don’t even have a girlfriend right now. I’ve totally avoided the whole family thing altogether.”

  “Vinnie…”

  “My father would be proud. Just don’t even have a family in the first place.”

  “You’re not making any sense now.”

  “Yeah, well, your father didn’t run out on you.”

  I leaned back in my chair. On most days I would have called him on the bullshit, but this wasn’t most days. He was still one-quarter drunk and three-quarters grieving, so I figured I could give him a break.

  “Okay, I’ve been a patient man,” he said. “Where’s that bottle?”

  *

  I drove him down to my cabin and produced a bottle of Jim Beam and two glasses. I was about to sit down at my kitchen table, but he grabbed the works and took it outside. When I caught up to him, he was back in the passenger seat of the truck.

  “Where are we going?” I said as I got behind the wheel.

  “I don’t know. I just don’t feel like being inside anymore.”

  “Fair enough.”

  I turned the key and backed out. When I got to the main road, he had me go north. Which could only mean one destination. We rode in silence, until he opened up his window and let the night air rush into the truck. He took the cap off the bottle and took one long pull, to hell with the glasses. Straight Jim Beam for a man who doesn’t drink, that should’ve rung him good, but he didn’t even make a face.

  “Take it easy,” I said, but he ignored me.

  Twenty minutes later, the road ended. We were at Whitefish Point. The Shipwreck Museum was to our left, the old lighthouse rising high above us. To our right was the birding station. The whole point was deserted. One single light burned at the base of the lighthouse but otherwise there
was nothing but darkness. He opened his door and got out, taking the bottle with him. The glasses he left behind him on the seat.

  I followed him out onto the wooden walkway. He took the stairs down to the beach. The night was still warm. Freakishly warm, here at the edge of the world, the one night all year when it might be warm enough to do this without wearing a jacket. Before I could say another word, he ran down to the water. There were light waves. He went in to his waist, still holding the bottle. He looked up at the stars. Then he took another drink and fell backward into the water.

  “For God’s sake,” I said to nobody.

  By the time I got to the water’s edge, he was already sitting up, the waves hitting him neck-high. He was doing all he could to keep the bottle dry.

  “Vinnie, come back, okay? I’m serious.”

  “It feels so warm,” he said. “I can’t believe it.”

  I was about to take off my work boots, but then he went down again. I didn’t see him come up this time, so I went in after him. I just about tripped over him, grabbing him by the back of the neck and pulling his head above the water.

  He was right, though. You wouldn’t mistake it for bathwater, but it wasn’t even close to being deadly cold. For this lake, that’s saying something.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, holding up the bottle. Somehow he had replaced the cap.

  “Can we get out of here, please? Before one of us drowns?”

  “We used to come up here. My whole family. In fact, I think I even remember my father coming up here. Like one time.”

  “Okay. Good. Can we remember on dry land?”

  He shook me away and stayed where he was, sitting there on the rocks and sand and letting the waves hit his chest and spray his face. He uncapped the bottle and took another drink. I took the bottle from him and drank from it. He took it back. That’s how we spent the next few minutes, draining the bottle and watching the waves come at us, one after the other.

  “Okay,” I said when the bottle was empty, “it’s time to get out of the lake.”

  “I want to go see her.”

  “See who?”

  “My mother. I can’t go back home without seeing her. Just one more time.”

  He started to cry, each wave washing the tears from his cheeks. I let him sit there for a while, then I reached down and picked him up by the armpits. I felt the strain in my back and we were both soaking wet now, but it was the warmest night of the year and we had one more place to go.

  We walked up the beach to the wooden walkway, then back out to the parking lot. To my truck, and then we were both sitting in the cab, getting the seats wet. I turned the truck around and headed south. Back toward Paradise.

  When we hit town, I saw the lights still on inside the Glasgow Inn. We passed by, going through the blinking yellow light at the center of town. Down to Lakeshore Drive and around the rim of Whitefish Bay. Past the abandoned railroad car that sat at the fork of the road, like an eternal marker for something long forgotten.

  We drove through the reservation, the quiet houses and the cars and trucks all parked outside. Everything supported by the casinos. Every last thing.

  I took the right turn and started climbing Mission Hill. This thin road hugging the side of the hill, with no guard rails and nothing but trees to stop us if we went over. It had been such a busy place just a few days ago, all of the mourners gathered up here. The whole reservation and people from all over North America, all here to celebrate the life of this one remarkable woman. Now the road was dark and empty and as we came to the top we were the only living souls.

  I parked the truck and turned the lights off. Vinnie got out, and I left him alone to walk through the graveyard, to find the stone next to the freshly turned earth. I went over to the edge and looked down at the two lakes—Monocle Lake, a single flat oval, and Spectacle Lake, looking more like a pair of lenses. Beyond them both, the part of Lake Superior that narrowed from Whitefish Bay into the St. Marys River. The night was clear enough for me to see all the way across to Canada. I saw a dozen of the great wind turbines, each one with a blinking red light to warn away any aircraft.

  When Vinnie was done with his visit, he came up behind me and stood looking out over the edge. His hair was still wet and plastered to the side of his face.

  “My sisters want me to move back here,” he said. “To the rez. They want me to take my mother’s house.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “I was just talking to my mother about it.” He nodded back toward the graveyard. “I told her I couldn’t. I told her I needed to stay in my cabin.”

  “You built that place,” I said. “With your own hands.”

  “Yes,” he said, pushing my shoulder. “Exactly. Right?”

  He started to lose his balance then. I caught him and held him up straight until his head cleared.

  “You do realize,” I said, “that tomorrow morning’s gonna be a little rough.”

  “My first day back at work, too.”

  “Ouch. Take the day off, eh?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’ve been away long enough. I’ll get through it.”

  I took him home then. He went to his cabin and I went to mine. I dried off and went to sleep and he tried to do the same.

  A few brief hours of rest before Vinnie Red Sky LeBlanc began the longest day of his life.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When I got up the next morning and went down to the Glasgow for breakfast, I didn’t see Vinnie’s truck parked outside his cabin. That was a surprise. I figured he’d be down for at least ten or twelve hours. You’re a younger man than I am, I said to him in my mind as I passed by, but you’re not that much younger. I know you wouldn’t lose your job at the casino if you slept in one morning, so you must have some kind of attendance streak going. Either that or you’re completely insane.

  Jackie gave me two seconds after I walked in the door. Then he was all over me. “So what the hell happened last night?”

  “What do you think happened? We drank a bottle of Jim Beam and talked about life.”

  “An entire bottle?”

  “Half a bottle, two-thirds, I don’t know. He’s the one who drank most of it. Did he stop in on his way to work?”

  “He’s actually working today?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s his first day back. His truck is gone, so I just assumed…”

  “And you had to go get him wrecked the night before. What’s the matter with you?”

  “I didn’t get him wrecked, Jackie. He got himself wrecked. I just made sure I was the one driving.”

  “Driving where? I thought you guys went back to your cabin.”

  “We went up to Whitefish Point. You wouldn’t believe how warm the water was.”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” he said, slapping down his bar towel. “You guys got drunk and went swimming? What are you, a couple of high-school kids?”

  “I told you, I wasn’t drunk. And he’s the one who jumped in the water. I was just the lifeguard.”

  “Madness,” he said. “Absolute madness. You should have your head examined.”

  “Are you sure he didn’t stop in? Just for a quick bite or something?”

  “I think I would have noticed him. Are you sure you even brought him back last night? He didn’t drown in the lake?”

  “No, he did not drown in the lake. Now can you make me an omelet, please?”

  “Unbelievable.” He picked up his towel just so he could throw it back down on the bar. “You’re a piece of work, you are.”

  “He’ll be fine,” I said. “Although I’m sure he’ll be having a tough day. You better have a good hangover cure ready for him. You got some Bloody Mary mix?”

  “You really are trying to kill him, aren’t you.… You don’t give a man with a hangover a Bloody Mary. You give him gin with lemon and a little Tabasco sauce.”

  “And you’re calling me crazy? That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “I�
��ll take care of him,” he said. “In fact, I don’t even want you in the building when he gets here. I think you’ve done quite enough damage to the poor man.”

  We went on like that for another few minutes. My tried-and-true hangover cure versus his horrible mixture of death. I mean, anything that starts with gin. Just forget it. Then more about what a supposedly irresponsible friend I was in the first place.

  I finally did get my omelet. I always do. But some mornings, I really have to earn it.

  *

  I had some renters leaving that morning, and with new renters coming in the next day, I wanted to make sure I had fresh supplies in the kitchens. That meant a drive to Sault Ste. Marie. “The Soo,” as the locals call it. It’s a good fifty miles away, but that’s nothing up here. People drive a hell of a lot farther just to get to a real grocery store.

  I have this bad habit of driving insanely fast when I’m on the open road. It’s hard not to do when you see maybe one car every ten minutes. On top of that, every law enforcement official up here knows me by now. At least every Chippewa County deputy and every Michigan State Trooper who happens to be stationed up here. They know that I was a Detroit police officer for eight years. They know I took three bullets on the job, and that I still carry one in my chest, just behind my heart. It’s not like I told every cop personally, but word gets around. This guy got shot on the job, he’s still even got one slug in his chest, right next to his heart, and now he happens to drive a little bit over the speed limit once in a while. So if they happen to see a certain old F-150 truck coming down the road, they make a point of leaving me alone.

  Reason enough right there never to buy a new vehicle. But lately I’d been trying to tone it down a little bit. Like maybe speed limit plus twenty, no matter where I was driving.

  I thought about stopping in at the casino, just to see how Vinnie looked. But then I figured no, if the roles were reversed I wouldn’t want him coming into the place just to see what shade of green I was. So I kept driving down that straight empty road. That’s right about when the first county car came screaming toward me, going the opposite way. Lights flashing, siren on, the full treatment. About a minute later, a state car came down the same way, again with the lights and the siren. I was thinking an accident. More than one car if both the state and county were responding. I kept going.