North of Nowhere: An Alex McKnight Novel (An Alex Mcknight Mystery)

by Steve Hamilton

  “Tell me.”

  “I’ll tell you what it isn’t first,” I said. “The hardest part isn’t figuring out who did the crime. In fact, that’s usually the easiest part. The hardest part is making the case.”

  “Proving it, you mean.”

  “Yes. I knew a few detectives in my precinct, guys who had to build cases every day, and Lord knows I saw my share of guilty men. And women. Hell, mostly men, let’s be honest. If Franklin and I were out in the car, we’d usually be the first on the scene. Somebody dead on the floor, or in bad shape at least. We’d get backup in there, and an ambulance, and eventually a couple of detectives would show up. We’d hand it off to them at that point. The guys I knew, they’d come right up and ask me. First question was what happened. Second question was who did it. Because most of the time, I’d know. Inside of five minutes, it would be obvious. I’d know, Franklin would know, the detective would know as soon as he looked at the guy. All you got to do is look him in the eye and say, ‘Did you have anything to do with this?’ And they say, ‘No way, officer.’ It might as well be written on their forehead.”

  “So you’re telling me, all you’re gonna have to do is ask Swanson if he did this, and no matter what he says, you’ll know the truth, just like that.”

  “I don’t know that for sure,” I said. “But I’ve gotta give it a try, see what my gut says when I hear it from him.”

  “What if your gut is wrong? Hasn’t that ever happened?”

  “I suppose it has, once or twice.”

  “Once or twice? You want me to name a few times your gut’s been wrong, just the ones I’ve seen myself? Hell, I could make a good living betting against your gut, Alex. I could buy a new car and retire to Florida.”

  “You’re a funny man,” I said. “I’m so glad you made bail today.”

  “Alex, I’m begging you. Take your gut and go home, will ya? Go back to being a hermit for a while. You’re gonna get us all in even bigger trouble than we are already.”

  “All right, take it easy, Jackie. I know you’ve had a tough day…”

  “I need some Rolaids,” he said, patting his apron pockets. “Where the hell did I put my Rolaids?”

  Jackie’s stomach didn’t get any better that night. I didn’t get any less pissed off at him for being a stubborn, ungrateful jackass. Right after dinner, he did the unthinkable, going upstairs and leaving his son in charge of the place. I couldn’t remember him ever doing that, not when it was still light outside.

  I stuck around for a while and helped Jonathan clean up the place. “Hey, I was going to ask you,” I said, “have you noticed anything unusual around here? Anybody snooping around?”

  “Like who?”

  “I don’t know. Just anybody out of the ordinary.”

  “No, can’t say that I have. Although…”

  “What?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “It was just today, when we got back here,” he said. “I went in the back door and it was like, I don’t know, something didn’t seem right.”

  “You think somebody was in the house?”

  “Well, remember, we had the cops all over the place this morning, so I figured I was still just kinda weirded out, you know what I mean? But when we got back, I’m walking up the steps, and I’m thinking, what is that smell? It was like cigar smoke or something.”

  “Cigar smoke.”

  “Yeah, but it was sweeter. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “The door was locked,” he said. “How could somebody get in here?”

  “I don’t know, Jonathan. I just don’t know.”

  “Like we don’t have enough going on around here,” he said.

  “I hear ya.”

  “I know one thing,” he said. “I’m taking my deer rifle to bed with me tonight.”

  “Do me a favor,” I said. “Keep it on the floor. Don’t actually put it in your bed, okay?”

  He laughed at that one. I helped him finish up, said good night, and then headed out.

  As I was driving back up to my cabins, the cell phone rang. I hoped it was Swanson, calling to see what the hell I was harassing him about, but instead it was Kenny.

  “I just came home and heard your message,” he said. “What is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “Thanks for calling me back,” I said. “I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the other night.”

  “I don’t understand. We were both there. What would I know that you don’t already?”

  “You know Vargas a lot better than I do,” I said. “I was hoping you might have some better insight.”

  “I still don’t understand, Alex.”

  “Are you aware that Jackie, Bennett, and Gill were all arrested today?”

  There was a long silence on the line. “I knew something was up,” he finally said. “Win was in a pretty strange mood today.”

  “He was at work today? You saw him?”

  “Just for a few minutes. To tell you the truth, I’ve been avoiding him. Ever since that night, he’s been driving everybody crazy.”

  I wanted to keep him talking, but I knew it would be better if I could ask him my questions in person. “Is there any chance of me coming down there?” I said. “I’d really appreciate it.”

  “You really want to come all the way down here?”

  “You’re in Bay Harbor, right? It’ll give me a chance to see it for myself.”

  “I thought you hated this place.”

  “I’ve never been inside,” I said. “I should give it a chance, right?”

  “I don’t think you’re being straight with me, Alex…”

  “Kenny, I’ve got three friends who got put in a jail cell today, and I’m just trying to help them. A few minutes of your time is all I ask.”

  “All right, all right,” he said. “I’ll be here tomorrow morning. Just go to the front gate. I’ll give them your name.”

  “You don’t have to work tomorrow?”

  “I told you, he’s driving everybody crazy. It’s about time for a day off.”

  “Nine o’clock okay?”

  “Make it ten,” he said. “I’m going back out now. It might be a late night.”

  I thanked him and hung up. It’s not the order I wanted to do this in, I thought. I’d rather get to Swanson first, work from the top down. But there’d still be plenty of time tomorrow to take another shot at him.

  I stopped the truck in front of my cabin, sat there in the darkness for a while, listening to the engine cool down. The light from a three-quarter moon was shining through a break in the clouds, outlining the cabin against the woods behind it, this cabin built of pine logs thirty years ago by a retired auto worker and his baseball-player son. On this night it looked as lonely and forgotten as that abandoned railroad car over in Brimley.

  A light was on inside. That wasn’t right. I did not remember leaving a light on.

  I got out of the truck, went to the front door. It was unlocked. I pushed it open. The sweet smell of smoke hung in the air.

  I stepped inside. I waited to hear something, anything, the sound of a foot falling, a word spoken, even a breath. There was nothing. Nobody was there. At least not at that moment.

  There, in the center of the room, on my table…There were papers all over it. I took a step closer. I saw all of my bank statements, the stubs from my disability pension payments, my life insurance, even the deed to my land. It was all there, all of my financial records, my whole life, laid out on the table. Next to the papers was a saucer from my kitchen, with five cold cigar butts on it. They were those sickly sweet little cigars, the kind my father would take hunting to keep the bugs away. Somebody had been sitting right here in this chair, looking through these papers, smoking these cigars and using this saucer as an ashtray.

  And this time, he wanted me to know it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next morning, I got
up early enough to scope out Swanson’s office before heading down to Bay Harbor. I had put away all the papers the night before, and thrown away the cigar butts. But even with the windows open all night, there was still a hint of the smoke in the air. It was not a good way to start the day.

  Swanson’s office was in the business district of the Soo, not far from Leon’s office. It was an old brick building on Augusta Street. Somebody had spent a few bucks making the outside of the place look like something out of the 1920’s, right down to the ornate gaslight fixtures on either side of the front door. Either business was going well, or Swanson knew how to fake it.

  It was just before eight o’clock, so I didn’t figure to catch Swanson, not unless he was an early bird. I looked in through the door, hoping maybe I’d see his secretary, and really make her day by being the first person she got to talk to that morning. But no luck.

  I headed south, settling in for the two-hour trip to Bay Harbor. I-75 took me down to the Mackinac Bridge, and then when I crossed into the Lower Peninsula, I headed southwest on M-31, right down the Lake Michigan shoreline. When I hit Petoskey, I saw Vargas’s store in the middle of town. The sign read “The Vargas Custom Home Center.” I could see a big whirlpool tub in one front window, and in the other some kitchen cabinets made from dark cherry. Everything else was green plants and gold finishings and lots of mirrors. I would have stopped in to say hello, and maybe to ask him about who might have been in my cabin the night before, but I had that ten o’clock appointment and I was running late.

  When I left Petoskey behind me, it was just open shoreline again, with the lake on my right and the hills of sand and grass and low trees on my left. The sky was blue, the air was clear—it was a beautiful stretch of land to build on, no doubt about it. I couldn’t blame them for dropping their new town here. And at the same time, I knew the awful truth. Vargas was right. As beautiful as it was down here, it was even better on Lake Superior.

  It was only a matter of time.

  With that cheery thought in my head, I came around the last bend in the road and hit Bay Harbor. The yacht club was first, with the white gatehouse made to look like a lighthouse. Then the golf club. And then, God help us all, the huge Bay Harbor Equestrian Center high on the hill, overlooking everything.

  It was all new money, that was the problem. I already knew all about old money. Hell, the Fulton family had enough money to buy this whole town. They had a cabin not far from Whitefish Point, in fact, if you can call a six-thousand-square-foot building a “cabin.” The thing was, you never saw it. There was an unmarked road, at least a mile long, before you even knew it was there.

  I had heard of a place, out on the western side of the Upper Peninsula, called the Huron Mountain Club. The Fultons, and people like them, automotive money from Detroit, old money, they’d go to the club, do their hunting and fishing. You never saw them. Hell, I wasn’t sure I could even find the club if my life depended on it.

  That was the difference. Old money has always been around. They just know enough to be discreet about it. New money has to flaunt it. They have to put it right in your face. That’s what I was thinking as I passed the equestrian center and looked for the right entrance to get to Kenny’s place. Bay Harbor was new money at its worst.

  When I found the entrance, I pulled in and stopped at the gatehouse. It was surrounded by flowers and was so white it looked like it had been painted that morning. A man in a uniform came walking out. It said “Bay Harbor Security” on his hat.

  “Good morning,” I said. “I’m here to see Kenny Heiden.”

  The man looked my truck over.

  “A hundred and forty thousand miles,” I said. “And still going strong. It’s a lot more dependable than my Rolls Royce.”

  He gave me a look. I was really making his day. “Your name, sir?”

  “Alex McKnight.”

  He looked on his clipboard. “Mr. Heiden is number forty-two,” he said. “Take a left and go down about halfway. The house will be on your right.”

  I thanked the man, waited for him to press his button and raise the big white stick in front of me, and then I rolled through. As I looked back in my rearview mirror, I couldn’t help wondering if he was calling in the surveillance team. Dilapidated truck heading for unit forty-two, make sure he leaves without incident.

  On my way to Kenny’s place, I passed a few million dollars worth of houses on either side of the street. Every house was some sort of neo-Victorian, each more elaborate than the last, with lots of windows facing the lake. I saw one man outside his house, washing a black Mercedes. He barely glanced up at me as I passed him, probably thought I was there to work on somebody’s yard.

  Kenny’s house was as grandiose as the others on the street. He answered the door wearing blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt. He was barefoot.

  “Come on in,” he said. “You got through the gate okay?”

  “The guy didn’t look too happy about it,” I said. “But yeah, no problem.”

  “They get kind of fussy out there,” he said. “It comes with the territory.”

  He led me through the living room and into the kitchen. The place was an absolute knockout. The furniture was beautiful, the paintings were beautiful, the plants were beautiful, and not one thing was overdone or out of place. It all went together like something out of a magazine. When I looked out at his deck, it got even better. There were a lot more plants out there, some white wicker patio furniture, a huge green umbrella you could hold a wedding under, and a grill that looked like it could handle the reception afterwards.

  “Most of this is from Vargas’s store,” he said. “Do you like it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You obviously know how to put a house together. That’s what you do for Vargas, right?”

  “I’m his lead designer, yes.”

  “I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.”

  “Like I said, it’s kinda weird down at the store this week anyway. You want to sit out on the porch? Is it too early for a beer?”

  “Ten o’clock is not too early,” I said.

  His refrigerator was huge, and it had the same wooden finish as the rest of the kitchen. He grabbed a couple of bottles and led me out onto the deck. I had to stand at the railing for a few moments, just drinking it all in. There was a pristine beach just below us, and then the blue water of Lake Michigan sparkling in the sunlight. A stiff wind was coming in off the lake.

  “Is it always this windy?” I asked. My eyes were already starting to water.

  “This is nothing,” he said. “You know what somebody just told me? Apparently, the Indians never used to camp on this part of the shoreline, because the constant wind would blow their tents over.”

  “It’s gotta be tough on these houses. Were they built to stand up to it?”

  He smiled as he sat down under the flapping umbrella. “Wouldn’t that be funny if they weren’t?”

  I sat down across from him. “I won’t waste your time,” I said. “I want to ask you about the other night.”

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Ask me anything. I have nothing to hide.”

  I looked him in the eye. “Apparently, not that many people knew about the money in Vargas’s safe. Whoever put this thing together was obviously one of those people.”

  “So naturally you assume the queer did it,” he said. “Those men were three of my rough boyfriends.”

  “I’m not saying anything like that,” I said. “Not at all. I’m just asking if you have any ideas.”

  He kept looking me in the eye. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I thought it might have been you. You were the stranger there that night.”

  “I was the one man who didn’t know about the safe.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “But even so…”

  “Let me ask you this,” I said. “In all the time you’ve known Vargas…How long is that, anyway?”

  “Twelve years.”

  “Okay, but say in the last year or so, sin
ce he built that house, have you ever heard him tell anybody else about the safe?”

  “I haven’t,” he said. “In fact, I was surprised he said anything at all. I mean, I could see he was hammered, but still…Normally, he’s very private about his personal finances.”

  “Okay, so if it had to be one of the players, who do you think it is?”

  “That’s not up to me to say, is it? The police arrested those three men. I assume they had a good reason.”

  “What about Swanson?”

  “I don’t know the man,” he said. “Except that he’s a good poker player. He can bluff like nobody you’ve ever seen.”

  I leaned back in my chair, took a long swallow of cold beer. “Why do you play cards with Vargas, anyway?” I said. “He treats you like a trained monkey.”

  “He treats everybody like a trained monkey.”

  “So don’t you get enough of him at work?”

  He thought about that one. “You know, when I got out of school, I was living in Manhattan, in the tiniest little apartment. I was totally broke, trying to get jobs. There were a couple of men who could have really opened some doors for me, but I wouldn’t sleep with either of them. So I wasn’t going anywhere. Then I heard about this Winston Vargas out in Michigan of all places, looking for a New York City interior decorator. I figured what the hell. I called him up. The first thing he asked me was, ‘Are you really from New York City?’ I said yes. He said, ‘If you’re calling me from Ohio, I swear to God I’ll kick your ass all the way back home. I want somebody from New York City.’ I had to give him my phone number, with the Manhattan area code, so he could call me back and make sure. He flew me out here and showed me the store, told me what he was planning on doing with it, how I would be his lead designer and we’d all make a ton of money. Well…”

  He looked out at the water.

  “All my friends, they thought I had lost my mind. Michigan! They thought the whole Midwest was just farmers and bigots and homophobes, you name it. But I said, hey, I’m tired of living in a closet. I mean, in an apartment the size of a closet. I’m going out there for a year, see what happens. Twelve years later, here I am.”