The Hunting Wind: An Alex McKnight Mystery

by Steve Hamilton

  “Okay, good.”

  “I can’t believe it, Alex. I’m standing right underneath her window again.”

  “All right, I hear ya,” I said. “Now will you get off the man’s porch before somebody calls the police?”

  “So now what?” he said when he was back on the sidewalk. “You wanna start knocking on doors?”

  “We could do that,” I said. “Or we could see if Mr. Shannon gets home today, then cover the rest of the neighborhood tomorrow if we have to.”

  “What time is it, about four o’clock? Why don’t we hit the city office, see if we can get lucky on her birth certificate. Maybe we’ll get a human being this time.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it,” I said. “But it’s worth a shot.”

  “We could try the library, too,” he said. “You know where that is?”

  “I was a cop in this city for eight years, Randy.”

  “So lead the way,” he said.

  We walked back down the block, got in the truck, and headed east toward downtown. After turning onto Woodward Avenue, we were right in the middle of my old precinct.

  Woodward Avenue. As I said it to myself, I felt something jump inside me. Woodward Avenue. It shouldn’t have surprised me. It was just a gut reaction. Something I could never stop, no matter how hard I tried.

  Woodward Avenue.

  “You okay?” Randy said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “We’re just heading down memory lane here. And here we are. City-County Building.”

  The building was down at the end of Woodward, right next to the waterfront. From where we stood, we could see the five towers of the Renaissance Center, the great metal fist of Joe Louis, the fountain in Hart Plaza. On a nice day, the sidewalks would be full of people walking up and down the river. Today, it was empty. We walked into the building, past the statue they called the Spirit of Detroit. Or as my old partner used to say, “the great big green guy holding the sun in one hand and the people in the other hand.” When the Red Wings finally won the Stanley Cup in 1997, they put a giant jersey on him. My old partner would have gotten a kick out of that, if he had been alive to see it.

  “Why don’t you let me take a try this time?” Randy said.

  “It’s all yours,” I said.

  “Watch and learn, my friend.”

  As soon as we found the city clerk’s office, I knew he had an unfair advantage. With the big windows letting in the late-afternoon sun and an assortment of Tigers and Red Wings posters all over the walls, this room was a hell of a lot nicer than the State Office of Vital Records. The young woman sitting at her desk looked almost happy to be working there. “Can I help you?” she said. She was smiling.

  “Good afternoon,” Randy said. “We finally made it! Do you know how long we traveled to get here?”

  She smiled again. “What can I—”

  “What are they doing to this city, anyway?” Randy said. “Every road is closed! Construction everywhere!”

  “Tell me about it,” she said. “It takes me over an hour to get to work in the morning now.” This woman was much too friendly to be working as a public servant. How she ever got through the screening process was a complete mystery.

  “Last time I was here in town was 1971,” he said. “I was a pitcher with the Tigers.”

  “Really?” she said. Her eyes lit up.

  “I didn’t last very long in the majors,” he said. “But at least I got the shot, right?”

  “Are you serious? Did you really pitch for the Tigers?”

  “Long time ago,” he said. “So much has changed here. They got casinos coming in, too, isn’t that right?”

  “Ah,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Don’t get me started on the casinos. That’s all we need.”

  “Not a gambler, I take it,” he said. “Oh, I’m sorry. This is my friend Alex.”

  I woke up out of my trance. Watching the man do his routine was downright hypnotizing. “Good afternoon,” I said.

  “Alex was a Detroit police officer for—what did you say, eight years?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Back in the eighties,” he said. “Even Alex doesn’t recognize the place anymore. Ain’t that right, Alex?”

  “Like a whole new city,” I said.

  “I’ll tell you why we’re here,” Randy said. He moved closer to her desk and lowered his voice. “Alex is a private investigator now. Let me have one of your cards, Alex.”

  I took a card out and gave it to him. He put it down on her desk while he gave the room a quick onceover. “We’re trying to locate someone,” he said. “We’re trying to help her, you understand. This could be a matter of life or death.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “Her name is Maria Valeska,” he said, letting it hang in the air, as if she were an international agent.

  “That’s a nice name,” she said.

  “Indeed,” he said. “The problem is, the only information we have, besides her name, is an old address. And we think we she was born here in Detroit in 1952.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “What kind of records are you looking for, then? We have only four kinds here. Birth, death, marriage, and divorce.”

  “The birth certificate would be extremely helpful,” he said. “If we could possibly—”

  “You can’t see birth certificates,” she said. “Not unless you’re a parent or—”

  “Or an officer of the court,” Randy said. “I know that. I’m certainly not asking you to break the rules. But seeing as how this is such an important matter, I was hoping that maybe you could just take a look at her birth certificate, and tell us her date of birth.”

  “I don’t know about that,” she said.

  “And her parents’ names.”

  “Oh, no, I really don’t think—”

  “Teresa, I’m not asking you to get us a copy of her birth certificate. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  Teresa? How did he know her name?

  “I’m just asking you,” he said, “no, I’m begging you to just take a look at the record yourself, with neither of us around. We’ll go stand out in the hallway while you look at it.”

  There, on her desk. A coffee mug with her name on it. Some detective I am.

  “I’m kind of new here,” she said. “I’m not sure if I’m allowed to do that.”

  “Maria Valeska,” he said. “Probably born in 1952. In Detroit.” And then he just looked at her. I couldn’t see his face from where I was standing, so I’m not sure what he was doing, but somehow it made her stand up.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said.

  “We’ll wait here,” he said.

  “You wait here,” she said.

  “Right here,” he said.

  And then she disappeared into the back room.

  He turned around and winked at me. “What can I say, Alex?”

  “You’re the master,” I said.

  Randy’s reign as the master lasted another ninety seconds. Then Teresa’s supervisor came charging out of that back room, a woman who looked exactly like Alex Karras, the old Detroit Lions defensive lineman. Maybe Alex Karras on a bad hair day.

  By the time she got done with Randy, I was already out the door.

  It was almost five o’clock when we hit Woodward Avenue again. The rush-hour traffic was heavy, and it didn’t help that half the roads were being torn up.

  “Don’t say a word, Alex.”

  “I’m not saying anything.”

  “We were close,” he said. “We almost had it.”

  “Tackled at the one-yard line.”

  “You going to the library?” he said. “It’s gotta still be open now, right?”

  “We’ll find out,” I said.

  We were driving north on Woodward. Woodward Avenue. The library was up by Kirby Street. I could feel my stomach tightening up. A few more blocks north and we’d be driving right by it. The building where it happened.

  We drove by the new stadium, right acro
ss the street from the old Fox Theater. Comerica Park, they were gonna call it. Not quite the same ring as Tiger Stadium.

  “There it is,” he said. “Hell, you can see right into it.”

  “That’s the way they build them these days,” I said. “You’re supposed to able to see the city while you’re watching a game.”

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “It’s Detroit, for God’s sake.”

  I let that one go. When we got to the library, it was obviously closed.

  “How can a library be closed at five o’clock?” Randy said.

  “Budget cuts,” I said.

  “Maybe when the casinos open up, the city will have more money,” he said.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Those casinos will be a godsend to the library.”

  He looked at me. “You all right?”

  “It’s been a long day,” I said. “I could use a drink now, and some dinner. You still want to go to Lin-dell?”

  “Let’s go,” he said. “Then maybe later you can show me around.”

  “Around where?” I said.

  “Around Detroit,” he said. “Your Detroit. This is your hometown, right? You gotta have a lot of memories here.”

  I drove south, back to the motel. I didn’t say anything.

  Memories, he says. You gotta have a lot of memories here. If he only knew.

  CHAPTER 6

  Its full name is the Lindell Athletic Club, but I’ve never heard anybody call it that. It’s the Lindell AC. It used to be a few blocks east, over by the old Hudson’s department store; then they moved it to the ground floor of an oddly triangular-shaped building on the corner of Cass and Michigan Avenue. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear it had been there forever. The building itself looks like nobody’s touched it since World War II, right down to the old metal awnings over the windows. Next door there’s a barbershop where you can still get a shave with a straight razor and a splash of Royal Bay Rum.

  As soon as you step into the Lindell, you see fifty years’ worth of photographs and memorabilia all over the place. Right above the door, there’s a huge black-and-white photograph of an old-fashioned hockey brawl, back when everybody could come off the bench to join in. The caption read “Detroit vs. Toronto, 1938.” A lot of sports bars try to look like the Lindell AC, but they don’t pull it off. You can’t just open up a bar and try to stick all the sports crap you can find all over the place. It has to evolve naturally over time. A bat one week, a ball the next. The next week a jockstrap. Two thousand weeks later, you’ve got the Lindell AC.

  We sat in a booth in the comer, right under the picture of Mickey Stanley going over the left-field wall. We ate our world-famous grilled hamburgers while the sun went down outside. I didn’t say much. Randy was too busy soaking in the place to notice.

  “God, this place hasn’t changed at all,” he said. “There’s Johnny Butsakaris over there behind the bar. Think he remembers me?”

  “You were here a couple times almost thirty years ago,” I said. “You really think he’s going to remember you?”

  “You’re right,” he said, rubbing his mustache and goatee. “Not with this stuff on my face.”

  “I’m gonna go see if Mr. Shannon is home yet,” I said. I had his number circled on one of the sheets of paper Leon had given us.

  “You’re gonna call him?”

  “No. I’m gonna go walk back to his house,” I said.

  “Somebody’s a little grouchy,” he said. “I’ll get you another beer. Then we’re gonna go out and you’re gonna show me around, right? You promised.”

  “I didn’t promise that, Randy.”

  “I want to see where you grew up, Alex. I want to see the parking lot where you lost your virginity.”

  “I’m gonna go call him now,” I said.

  “Go,” he said. “Go do your thing.”

  I went to the pay phone and called the number. I heard two rings and then a rough voice saying hello.

  “Mr. Shannon?” I said.

  “Speaking.”

  “My name is Alex McKnight. I’m a private investigator. I’ve got a question for you, and it’s going to sound a little strange.”

  “A private who? What’s this about?”

  “Mr. Shannon, I’m trying to find somebody who lived at your address in 1971. I don’t suppose you know who owned your house back then.”

  “Nineteen seventy-one? Are you serious?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sorry to disturb you this evening. The family’s name was Valeska.”

  “No, no, stop. Nineteen seventy-one, I was nowhere near here. I’ve only been in this house a couple years.”

  “Perhaps the person you bought the house from?”

  “No, he only had the place for . . . a year, I think. And before he had it, I remember him telling me, the place was sitting empty here for a long time. . . .”

  “I understand, sir. Can I ask if you’re aware of an old staircase that used to run up the right side of your house?”

  “Matter of fact, yeah. It looks like there used to be something like that. They redid the whole place, knocked the back wall out. Looks like they put in a new staircase when they did that.”

  “That makes sense,” I said. “That’s kinda what we figured.”

  “If you know about that old staircase,” he said, “then I guess you really are looking for somebody from that long ago. You’re really a private investigator?”

  “Yes, sir, I am. If I can ask you just one more question . . .”

  “Ask away.”

  “Is there anyone on your block who may have been living there back in 1971?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. It’s changed a lot around here.”

  “Well, okay, then. I really appreciate your time.”

  “I wouldn’t swear to that. You could ask around.”

  “Perhaps I will, sir.”

  “Stop by the house if you do. I’ve never met a private investigator before. I’m here after three o’clock most days.”

  “We’ll do that, sir. And thanks again.” I hung up the phone.

  When I got back to the booth, something had changed. That smooth little look Randy always wore, like he was ready to be amused by something, was long gone. His eyes were wide open.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “I got us another round,” he said, sliding a draft my way. “No problem.”

  “There’s a problem,” I said. “What is it?”

  “There’s no problem.”

  “You’re lying,” I said “I told you, you can’t lie to me. You’re the world’s worst liar.”

  “I got into a little disagreement, that’s all.”

  I looked around the place. There were a couple of young men seated at the bar, watching us. White boys from the suburbs, slumming it in the Motor City.

  “With those guys over there, I take it?” They didn’t look too happy. They didn’t look too small, either.

  “A couple local gentlemen with some misinformed opinions,” he said. “They were talking about how badly the Tigers sucked, which is pretty much true this year, so I couldn’t disagree with them. But then they started going on about how it didn’t matter, because baseball wasn’t a real sport and anybody could play it.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You tried to straighten them out.”

  “I just asked them when was the last time somebody threw a baseball ninety-five miles an hour at them. That’s all I said. Then I just paid for our drinks.”

  “I meant to tell you,” I said. “Detroit’s not the best place to be flashing a big roll of bills.”

  “They asked me about the tattoo on my arm. I told them my cell mate gave it to me, the last time I was in prison. He also taught me how to kill a man using just my index finger.” He pointed to the ceiling with the finger in question, on his left hand, of course, and then brought it down on the table like he meant to break it in two. Somehow, the table stayed intact.

  “That’s quite a story,” I
said. “I bet that put them in their place.”

  “I think it was the slinky that really got them going,” he said, shaking his hand. Then he took a hit off a tall glass. Whatever he was drinking, it was brown and foamy.

  “You told them about your old pitch?” I said.

  “No, it’s a drink I invented,” he said. “I can’t throw them anymore, so I have to drink them now.”

  “I’m probably going to regret asking this, but what’s in it?”

  “It’s pretty simple,” he said. “One part vodka and one part root beer. You wanna try it?”

  “I’m gonna say no to that.”

  “Go ahead,” he said. “You’ll be surprised.”

  “No, Randy, nothing would surprise me now. I’ll probably never be surprised again in my entire life.”

  “You know what this drink is good for?” he said.

  “Killing rats?”

  “You see a really nice-looking woman at the bar, you go up and stand next to her and order a slinky. It never fails.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “The bartender doesn’t know what it is, so I have to tell him how to make it. The best vodka you got, preferably Charodei, which isn’t filtered through charcoal like other vodkas. And she’s standing there listening to this. Vodka and root beer? What kind of a man drinks vodka and root beer? She turns around to take a look at me, and I just give her this smile. Like I’m drinking the best vodka in the house because I’m sophisticated and successful, and I’m drinking root beer because I’m still a little boy at heart. And when she asks me why it’s called a slinky, I tell her I was once a major-league pitcher and that was my money pitch. It works every time.”

  “Uh-huh. Are you gonna try the same game when you find Maria? Order up a slinky?”

  “Come on, Alex, I’m just joking around. I drink it because I like the way it tastes. Here, try it.”

  “I told you, I’m not drinking that,” I said. “Vodka and root beer, for God’s sake. What next, Randy? Are you crazy all the time? Do you ever take a day off?”

  “You would have backed me up, right? If those guys tried something? Just like the good old days. Remember that brawl we were in that one game? Where was that, Evansville?”