Blood Is the Sky: An Alex McKnight Mystery (Alex McKnight Mysteries)

by Steve Hamilton

  I thought about giving Leon a call. I decided not to. If Eleanor answered, I’d just upset her again. So I decided to do something even worse. I called the Hearst OPP Detachment and asked for Constable Reynaud.

  It took a minute for somebody to find her, and then I heard her voice. The distant static on the line made it sound like she was on the moon. “McKnight? What’s the matter?”

  “I just wanted to ask you something,” I said. “Tom’s body came home yesterday. I assume that means you’re done with the forensics.”

  “Is there a question in there?”

  “Constable, please. Can I call you Natalie?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  I held the phone away from my mouth and counted to three. “Look,” I finally said. “Have you ever been to an Ojibwa funeral?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “It lasts four or five days. So I’ve had all that time to think about it. Isn’t there anything you can tell me?”

  “McKnight, I suppose there’s one thing you might want to know. This is something you can share with the family, when the time is right. Tom was shot first, and then burned. He wasn’t alive when they set him on fire.”

  “What about the others?”

  For a moment there was nothing but the faraway static. “The others weren’t so lucky.”

  “He must have struggled,” I said. “They had to shoot him.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “Do you have any more information on why this happened?”

  “I can’t really say, okay? I will tell you that we’re not close to anything.”

  “And how are you doing?” I said.

  “I’m just fine, McKnight. You don’t have to ask.”

  “I told you before, I’ve been there. I know how it is.”

  “Yeah, you told me. Thank you very much. Now if that’s all …”

  “Nobody’s looking you in the eye, are they,” I said.

  She didn’t say anything. More static, humming on the line.

  “Your partner was killed,” I said. “Nobody is gonna come right out and say they blame you.”

  “Is this supposed to be helping me, McKnight?”

  “There’s nobody else you can talk to about this, okay? Trust me, nobody else is gonna understand what you’re going through.”

  “But you do.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, aren’t I lucky then? If it gets to be too much for me, I’ll give you a call. My own personal psychiatrist.”

  “Constable, come on. I’m just trying to—”

  The phone went dead.

  “Well, that was brilliant,” I said. “I’m such a big help.”

  I tried to forget about it, but it put me in a bad mood that lasted the rest of the day. I didn’t even go down to the Glasgow for dinner. As if I didn’t have enough problems—for whatever reason, whether I wanted to admit it to myself or not, Natalie Reynaud had gotten under my skin.

  Another day passed. Vinnie was still with his family. I thought about going over to the rez and finding him. But I didn’t do it.

  Leon finally called me back. His friend at the paper had run Hank Gannon and the Albright brothers through LexisNexis. “He got nothing at all on Gannon,” Leon said. “On the Albrights, he found a few things. Some civic awards, something else about a car dealership Red had owned for a while, then sold. Oh, and a ballpark they both rededicated. I guess it was named after their father.”

  “Albright Field,” I said. “Of course. That’s where I’ve heard that name before. It was over on the east side.”

  “It sounds like an old Detroit family with a little bit of money,” he said. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “I don’t know, Leon. Dallas and one of his buddies came all the way up here to stick guns in our faces. Does that sound like an ordinary businessman to you?”

  “Maybe he’s done a real good job keeping his name clean,” he said. “Either that or he just went a little crazy.”

  “Who knows? I don’t think we’re getting anywhere.”

  “Well, I’ll let you know if I find out anything else.”

  “No, Leon. You don’t have to do that. You’ve already done too much, believe me. Your wife probably wants to kill me.”

  He laughed at that. “She loves you, Alex.”

  “Give her my best,” I said. “And tell her I’m sorry. Thanks for everything, partner.”

  I hung up the phone and sat there looking out the window. At that point, I wasn’t even sure what I was doing. Maybe it was just the fact that I was doing something. After having to fight so hard in the woods, I couldn’t just sit still now and relax.

  Reynaud was right, I thought. I sound like a psychiatrist.

  I headed down to the Glasgow. A couple of hours with Jackie and I’d be myself again. I passed Vinnie’s empty cabin yet again. I never had a brother before. That’s what I thought as I drove by. I never knew what it felt like.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon with Jackie. It was a Sunday, so that meant football games on the television above the bar. We sat by the fire and watched the Lions find another way to lose a game. I finally read the newspaper Jackie had saved for me. The story had made the AP wire—five bodies found on a remote fly-in lake, way up in the wilds of northern Canada. A constable from the Ontario Provincial Police dead on the scene. The apparent killer also dead, with two men from Michigan the sole survivors. It surprised me that nobody had called me, looking for the inside story.

  “How’s Vinnie doing?” Jackie asked.

  “I’m not sure. He’s with his family.”

  “Tell him I’m thinking about him.”

  “I will,” I said. “If I ever see him again.”

  “Alex, what’s going on?”

  “It’s nothing, Jackie. Just a little disagreement.”

  “Disagreement, my ass. They’re taking care of him and you’re feeling left out. Am I right?”

  “There’s more to it than that.”

  “Yeah, I bet. Why don’t you just go over there and find out how he’s doing? Instead of moping around here, making me miserable.”

  I didn’t have much of an argument. Deep down, I knew he was right. So what the hell, I thought. I’m going over there. I drove down to the reservation, taking Lakeshore Drive around the bay. The wind was kicking up, just in time for the change of seasons. November would be here soon, and Lake Superior would turn into a monster.

  I felt the truck rocking, saw the whitecaps on the water in the dying light. When I got to the reservation, the snowflakes were flying through the air like tiny bullets. I pulled up in front of Vinnie’s mother’s house.

  Vinnie’s truck wasn’t there.

  I got out of the truck and rang the doorbell. Mrs. LeBlanc opened the door. Her eyes were red and she looked like she had aged twenty years.

  “Alex,” she said, letting me in.

  “I was just stopping by,” I said. “I wanted to see how Vinnie was doing. But it looks like he went home.”

  She frowned. “Vinnie went home a couple of days ago,” she said. “He went home the day after we buried Tom.”

  “That can’t be,” I said. “His truck’s not there. You mean you haven’t even heard from him?”

  She shook her head. “I just thought he needed some time to himself. You know how he is. He’s always been that way.”

  I stood there watching a dark cloud pass over her face, this woman who had already been through so much.

  “Mrs. LeBlanc, I’m sure you’re right. After all that time at the funeral, he probably doesn’t want to be around anybody for a few days. Even me. Or even—”

  “What is it, Alex?”

  “His cousins,” I said. “Could he be with them somewhere?”

  “I don’t think so. Most of them were here today.”

  “They didn’t say anything about where he might be?”

  “No, they didn’t. They thought he had gone home, too.”

&n
bsp; “You know what? I bet he’s at the casino. He’s either back on the job, or maybe he just got a room for a couple of days. I’ll go check on him, okay?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Please check, Alex. Will you call me?”

  “Of course I will. You just relax.”

  I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and left. When I was back in my truck I fired it up and pulled out hard, ready to bury the accelerator. The only problem was I had no idea where I was going. I had told Mrs. LeBlanc he was probably at the casino, but it sounded weak even as I was saying it. But what the hell. I drove over to the Bay Mills Casino and looked for Vinnie’s truck in the parking lot. It wasn’t there. I doubled back and hit the Kings Club. No luck there, either. So I gunned it down Three Mile Road into the Soo and checked the Kewadin. It was a bigger casino with a much bigger lot, so it took me a few minutes to cover the whole thing. There was no sign of Vinnie’s truck.

  I drove over to the Big Bear Arena, thinking maybe he was there playing some hockey or just skating. It seemed like the kind of thing he’d do to clear his head. But he wasn’t there, either.

  I didn’t think I’d find him at a bar. Not with eight years of sobriety under his belt. But I couldn’t help taking a look through the couple of parking lots I passed on my way back to the reservation. I rolled past his mother’s house again, hoping he’d be there now. He wasn’t.

  I was running out of ideas. It was getting dark. I drove past the road that led up to Mission Hill, turned around and went up. I wasn’t even sure why. Maybe he was up there, I thought, sitting next to his brother’s grave. At this point, it was about all I had left.

  It was a steep climb up that road, and the wind and the snow racing around in the air didn’t help me. There was no guardrail on the road. It just snaked up to the top of the hill, with nothing to the right but a long drop into Waishkey Bay. I put the truck into low gear and ground my way up, swearing at the wind. When I got to the top, I didn’t see Vinnie’s truck anywhere. It was just an empty graveyard and the overlook. I was about to turn around when something came back to me. A memory of Vinnie looking out over the cliff the day he buried his brother, that beautiful high view where you could see forever.

  And then another memory, something he had said to me before, when he was telling me the story about Tom, about finding him as he was about to hang himself.

  “If you’re gonna kill yourself, you go up to the old graveyard on Mission Hill, you say hello to your ancestors and then you jump off the cliff. Just walk right out into the sky. That’s how you kill yourself.”

  That’s what he said.

  I parked the truck. I got out and walked over to the edge of the overlook. This was where he stood, right next to the little shelter, with the message painted in yellow about respecting this land where the spirits of your ancestors live. I went up to the very edge of the cliff and looked down at the rocks and trees far below. It was too dark to see. I couldn’t tell if Vinnie’s truck was lying down there in a broken heap. Or his body. My friend. My brother.

  “God damn it all,” I said. “You didn’t do it. I know you didn’t.”

  The wind caught me. It almost took me right over.

  “How could I even think it? There’s no way, Vinnie. I know you’re not down there.”

  I put one knee down on the ground. I looked out at the few lights scattered along the shoreline. Beyond that there was only the dark mystery of the lake.

  “So where the hell are you?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I had a tough call to make. The last thing I wanted to do was get Mrs. LeBlanc even more worried than she already was, but if I was going to figure out where he was, I’d have to start with her. I had no other choice.

  She looked surprised when I showed up on her doorstep again. “Alex?” she said as she let me back in. “You found him already?”

  “No,” I said. “Mrs. LeBlanc, I have to talk to you.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I think Vinnie went somewhere to be by himself for a while. I’m sure he’s okay.” It sounded reasonable. Hell, for all I knew, it was the truth. Maybe I was totally wrong.

  When she let me in the house, I saw Buck sitting at the kitchen table. He stood up and came into the front room.

  I looked him in the eye. “Do you know where he is?”

  “If I knew he was going to leave, do you think I’d let him go alone?”

  “What about his other cousins? Could somebody else be covering for him?”

  He was staring right back at me. “Of course not.”

  “You said you were gonna take care of him.”

  “You can blame me for this later,” he said. “Right now we’ve got to find him. You got any ideas?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve got one idea. Does Vinnie know anybody in Detroit?”

  “Why would he go down there?”

  “There are a couple of men down there. They might know something.”

  He thought about it. “There’s the casino. A lot of Sault members go down there to work.”

  Of course. Detroit had three casinos, and one of them was partially owned by the Sault tribe. There was a busload of Sault Ojibwas going down to Detroit every week.

  “Can you find out if he contacted any of them?”

  “I will.”

  “Will you let me know if you get anything?”

  “Yes, Alex. Give me your number.”

  He gave me a piece of paper, and I wrote down my cell phone number.

  “I’m gonna go do that now,” he said. “I’ll call you.” He put one big hand on Mrs. LeBlanc’s shoulder, then he stepped in front of me, hesitating for one instant, and then he opened the door.

  Mrs. LeBlanc watched him go out into the night. Then she looked up at me. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  “Please don’t worry,” I said. The expression on her face was enough to turn my stomach inside out. “I’ll find out where he is. I promise.”

  She looked back out the door. A car rumbled by. It was Buck on his way home to make phone calls, or maybe over to the Sault Reservation to make the rounds in person.

  “His cabin,” I said, an idea coming to me. “Do you have a key?”

  She nodded her head, turned and went down the hallway. A minute later, she came back with a single key.

  “Here,” she said. “I’ve never given it to anyone before.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. LeBlanc.” I kissed her on the cheek again and left. For the second time that month, I went out to find one of her sons.

  Detroit. I said it over and over in my mind as I drove back to Paradise. It was once my hometown, at least in the sense that I lived right next to it and grew up rooting for the Tigers and Lions and Pistons and Red Wings. People ask you where you’re from and you say Detroit, because that’s the simple answer. You don’t tell them that you never actually lived in the city itself, that hardly anyone lives in the city itself if they can help it.

  Later, I worked in Detroit as a police officer. Eight years of my life. And even then I didn’t live there, which was technically illegal. But I knew the city inside and out, through hot summer nights and cold winter mornings.

  There is crime in Detroit. There is crime in Detroit like there are fountains in Paris, like there are canals in Venice. People all over the world know this about Detroit. It might not be fair to think that way. You can look at the art museum and the new ballpark and the casinos and restaurants and believe it’s all part of the Detroit Renaissance, and maybe you’d be right. You can even love the place like I do. But it’s still Detroit, and always will be.

  That’s where Albright came from, Red and his men, driving twelve hours due north to go hunting for moose in Canada, or whatever the hell they were doing. That’s where his brother came from, days later, driving up the same way, looking for some answers. The way it sounded, he went right back home thinking maybe the answers were all down there to begin with, that he didn’t have to leave town
to find out the real story.

  Now that Vinnie had buried his brother, it looked like he had gone down there, too. If he was looking for his own answers, it was the best place to start.

  And also the worst place.

  Which reminded me—I already had Dallas Albright’s address and phone number, courtesy of Leon and his computer. They were right here in the truck, in the manila folder Leon had given me. While I circled around Whitefish Bay, I pulled out the piece of paper and dialed the number. I got a recorded voice from the cell phone company—the party was not available and I could leave a message. I hung up.

  I drove past the Glasgow. The lights looked warm and inviting, but I had something else to do that night. I turned onto the access road, and then into Vinnie’s driveway. I kept the headlights on for a moment, got out, and looked at the ground. I would have had to see it in the daylight to be sure, but it looked like Vinnie had driven his truck around the side of his cabin.

  God damn you, Vinnie. You didn’t even want me to know you were here? Wherever you are, you better be in one piece, so I can personally kick your ass all the way home.

  I turned the truck off and used the spare key to open his front door. I felt bad about letting myself in for exactly half a second. “Okay, Vinnie,” I said out loud. “I hope you left something lying around here to let me know what you’re up to.”

  I picked up Vinnie’s phone to call Dallas Albright again. I stopped myself just in time. Instead, I hit the redial button to find out where Vinnie’s last call had gone. I got another recording. This time it was the Archive and Reprints Department of the Detroit News. Their regular business hours were 8:30 to 4:30, and I needed to either call back then or leave a message.

  I kept looking around his cabin. It was a great-looking place, small but perfectly put together. The bed was made, one of his mother’s quilts folded tight on top. The wood stove looked as clean as a rifle barrel, and the wood was stacked next to it in a perfect triangle. A copper kettle gleamed on the cooking plate. His place made mine look like a henhouse.

  This is why he moved off the reservation, I thought. This is why he left all that heat and noise behind, even if it was happy heat and noise. This is how he wanted to live—straight and sober and clean, and alone, with everything in its place.