Die a Stranger: An Alex McKnight Novel

by Steve Hamilton

  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.

  Then, finally, we got to work on something together. Something terrible. It’s funny how going through something like that with another person will make you see him differently. I wouldn’t exactly call us best friends now. But we had made our peace.

  “Chief!” I yelled as I went out the door. “Wait up a minute!”

  He turned and looked around with all the good humor you’d expect from a man who’d just worked about eight hours of overtime. “McKnight? What the hell’s going on?”

  “I’ve got a friend in one of the holding cells. I need to get him out.”

  “I don’t have anybody down there right now. I can’t help you.”

  He shares the cells with the county. He pretty much shares everything with the county, and he usually doesn’t get the best of any of it. His office, for instance, somehow doesn’t have a window.

  “It’s not one of yours,” I said. “It’s county. Some guys got picked up at the Cozy. Out in Brimley.”

  “I know where the Cozy is, McKnight. I was drinking there when you were still a beat cop in Detroit. And thank you for answering your own question. You have to talk to the county guys.”

  “They say I have to wait until morning. I was hoping you could just let me go see him, at least. Find out what happened. That’s all I’m asking.”

  He was standing there with the door to his car open. Just a few minutes away from a late dinner and a bed. He looked up at the sky, shaking his head like somebody up there owed him an explanation.

  “Why did you move up here?” he said to me. “Seriously, why?”

  “Just a few minutes,” I said. “I’d really appreciate it.”

  He owed me, that was the thing I wasn’t saying. He owed me and he knew it, and I knew it, and that’s why he finally slammed his door shut and led me back into the building. A few minutes later, the master door to the holding cells was opened and I was let inside.

  “Five minutes,” he said to me. “Knock on the door when you’re done. The deputy will let you out. I’m going home now.”

  “Thanks, Chief.”

  His response to that was the dull clang of the jailhouse door closing. I walked down the line of cells and found the last two occupied.

  There were five men in all, and whoever split them up obviously didn’t understand the history. The three men in the one cell were all old-timers from the rez, more faces that I vaguely recognized, either from events at Vinnie’s mother’s house or from just seeing them walking down the road. If it was winter, they were sure to be so underdressed you’d wonder how they didn’t freeze to death.

  These were men who grew up on the rez, who remembered how it was before the casinos came. These were men who knew Lou LeBlanc from way back when. They all knew about Lou being banned from the rez forever. They were all there to answer the call when he came back, thirty years later.

  In the second cell sat Lou and his old nemesis, Henry Carrick. Henry was sitting against the back wall. Lou was up front by the bars. They both had scraped-up faces that would look much worse by the next morning.

  I stood in between the two cells, so I could see them all at once. “Aren’t you guys a little old for this?”

  The three men on my left started laughing. Henry and Lou just sat there like they were made of stone. I went down to the end of the cell closest to him and knelt down on the floor.

  “Okay, so what happened?” I said. “Or is it already pretty obvious?”

  “I stopped in at the Cozy,” Lou said. “My old pal Henry over here, he was sitting at the bar. He told me I had to leave. I tried to point out to him that I wasn’t actually on the reservation, but that didn’t seem to matter. He made some calls and next thing you know he’s got three of his buddies and they’re all trying to start something with me. I figured I’d already given Vinnie enough free shots tonight. So yeah, this time I fought back. When the owner of the Cozy couldn’t get us to take it outside, he called 911 and that’s how we ended up here.”

  “Did the Bay Mills cops bring you?”

  “No, there was a regular county car down the road. I tried to explain to them that I was just defending myself. I might have gotten a little belligerent at that point.”

  “Lou, did you hit a cop?”

  “No, I didn’t. I swear. I was just trying to make them understand. But they didn’t want to hear it. They just called another car and they brought us all down here.”

  He dabbed at the corner of his eye and looked at the trace of blood on his fingers.

  “So it sounds like you need to spend the night,” I said. “That’s pretty standard around here. They don’t have enough manpower to do much else after hours unless they absolutely have to.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “I think you’ve done a lot worse,” I said. “A night in the county jail, you can do that standing on your head.”

  “You don’t understand. They took down our names before they dumped us down here, but they didn’t really process us. You know what I mean?”

  “At this hour, I’m not surprised. Like I said…”

  “Alex, do remember what I told you earlier today? About being on parole?”

  “Yeah, but this is just a routine disturbance at a bar. They’ll just kick you out in the morning.”

  “I didn’t tell you everything today,” he said. “I didn’t tell you that I wasn’t supposed to leave the state under any circumstances. Technically, I violated my parole as soon as I got on that airplane.”

  “Okay, is there anything else you want to tell me?”

  He lowered his head and his long hair fell down to cover his face.

  “I’ve done a lot of really bad stuff in my life,” he said. “You don’t even know the half of it. I’ve had this feeling that the next time I see a jail cell, it’ll be the only thing I ever see for the rest of my life. Just being here right now … I can’t take it, Alex.”

  “Just take it easy. I know I owe you one today. Let me figure this out.”

  I owed him one, all right. Never mind the rest of the week, I owed him a huge debt just from what he’d done in that swamp alone.

  Speaking of debts …

  “Just sit tight
,” I said, standing up. “I’ve got one card I can play.”

  *

  I knew exactly where to go. I knew exactly how well I’d be received when I got there. But I went anyway.

  Chief Maven’s house was a raised ranch over on Summit Street. I parked on the street and walked up to his door. It was the ass end of midnight, but I rang the bell and waited for a minute. Then I rang it again.

  The door opened and Maven looked out at me with something that I probably wouldn’t call excitement or delight. He had obviously gone right to bed when he had gotten home. Now he was wrapped up in a bathrobe and blinking in the glare from the porch light.

  “What in goddamned hell,” he said slowly. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  “I need one minute, Chief. Then I’ll leave.”

  “You’re seriously standing here right now. I’m not dreaming this.”

  “One minute,” I said. “Please let me come in.”

  It was so outrageous, I think he was kind of stunned. He just stepped back and let me come through the door. Once I was in his front hallway, I just stood there and told him what I wanted.

  “There’s one man in the holding cells,” I said. “His name is Louis LeBlanc. He needs to be released immediately.”

  “You have lost your mind, McKnight. I knew it would happen eventually.”

  “It was just a stupid bar fight. Four guys jumped him and he wouldn’t take his beating like a good boy. That’s it. He’ll never be charged with anything. None of them will. They’ll just get kicked out tomorrow morning.”

  “Then why—”

  “Because I’m asking you. That’s why.”

  “He’s in county custody. You know I can’t do anything.”

  “If you call the sheriff and ask him yourself, he’ll do it. You know that.”

  “Are you kidding me? Call the sheriff in the middle of the night? Wake him up and ask him to go down to the office?”

  “He doesn’t have to go anywhere,” I said. “He can call it in and go back to bed.”

  “I can’t believe this,” he said, turning from me and walking halfway down the hall. “Of all the bizarre, stupid things I’ve ever heard.”