“Haven’t seen you boys around here before,” I said. “You up here visiting?”
The driver just looked at me and then down at the man on the ground. “You got that hooked up yet?”
“I think so,” he said.
“Yeah, we’re just visiting,” the driver said. “See if that’ll work now.”
I took the other end of the chain and looped it around my trailer hitch. I got back into the truck and gave it a little gas. The chain pulled taut and then the car started to ease its way backward out of the snowbank. For a split second, I was tempted to punch it and drag the car behind me for a few miles. See if they’d chase me on foot. In a race, my money would have been on the guy with the snapped-up blue cap.
“That wasn’t so bad,” I said as I got back out of the truck.
The car had barely stopped moving before red cap was back on the ground unhooking the chain. He handed it to me and said, “We gotta get going.”
“Appreciate it,” blue cap said. They swung the doors open on either side, hopped in, and then sprayed me with snow as they left.
I stood there watching the car. It went into another death slide and almost ran off the road again. That man does not know how to drive in the snow, I thought. And the way they just took off like that with barely a word of thanks. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear those boys didn’t appreciate my help at all.
CHAPTER TEN
I kept driving to the Soo, wondering when I’d see my new friends in my rearview mirror again. The snow was coming down harder now, in big wet flakes that stuck to my windshield and made it hard to see where the hell I was going.
I called the sheriff’s department again. Bill still wasn’t in, and they still wouldn’t give me his home number. I left another message for him to call me as soon as he could. I didn’t want to try to explain to a deputy over the phone that two men were following me all over Chippewa County. I wanted Bill on the other side of a desk, or better yet a table in a bar, listening to me and writing it all down.
I made my way to the east side of town, over by the ice rink where this whole mess started. The address was in a neighborhood just off of Spruce Street, near the old Union Carbide site. The map calls it a “spoiled area” now. In the summer it’s a big field of weeds and sumac trees that nobody ever touches. In the winter it’s covered by a couple feet of snow like everything else so you don’t think about it. The houses are small, with windows sealed in plastic to protect them from the wind off the St. Marys River.
I found Leon Prudell’s little red car parked in the driveway of the house. The snowbanks on either side of the driveway were as tall as the car itself, so I almost missed it. I had just enough room to park my truck behind him and then squeeze my way between the car and the snowbank to get to the front door. When I rang the bell, it was answered by an elderly woman with thick glasses and the first real smile I had seen in days. How she could smile like that in the middle of winter was a mystery to me, but I instantly loved her for it. She was wearing a thick white sweater and holding a coffee cup in one hand while opening the door for me with the other hand. I could see Leon on the couch, holding a cup from the same set. “You must be Mr. McKnight,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “And you must be Mrs. Hudson.”
“May I offer you some coffee? Mr. Prudell and I have been having quite a party here waiting for you.”
“I apologize for being late,” I said. “As a matter of fact, some hot coffee would do me a lot of good right now.”
“Mr. Prudell and I just finished some apple pie,” she said. “Can I cut you a slice while I’m in the kitchen?”
“You gotta try this pie,” Leon said. Now that she mentioned it, I could see the crumbs all over Leon’s shirt.
“That sounds wonderful,” I said. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“You have a seat,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
When she left, I took a quick look around the place. There were a lot of old black and white pictures of children and color pictures of what must have been grandchildren. The room was small, but it looked comfortable and well-kept. There was a plastic slipcover on the couch Leon was sitting on. “What took you so long?” he said.
“I had to help out a couple guys who got stuck in the snow,” I said. I sat down on the other end of the couch. The plastic made a sound like popcorn popping.
“So I’ll brief you, Alex,” he said.
“Brief me?”
“Yes, bring you up to date on the information I’ve developed today.”
“Or you could just talk to me and tell me what’s going on,” I said. “Where was Bruckman staying, anyway? Upstairs?”
“No, there’s a big apartment out back, over the garage,” he said. “He’d been renting the place for about six weeks.”
“How did you find this place?”
Prudell leaned forward and sneaked a look around the corner at Mrs. Hudson in the kitchen. “I had to throw a few Franklins around, Alex, but it was worth it.”
“Franklins? You mean, what, fifty-dollar bills?”
“No, hundreds. Grant is on the fifty.”
“Leon, what are you talking about? Who did you pay to find out where Bruckman was living?”
“Hockey players, Alex. At the Big Bear Arena. You said you played against him on Thursday night, right? So that’s where I started. First I tried the office. I told them I wanted to find Bruckman and I knew he was on one of the teams that played there in the Thursday night league. I got nowhere with that, so I figured I’d just hang around with the players, see if I could get a lead on him that way.”
“You hung around with the hockey players?”
“Yeah, I just walked around in the locker rooms. Said hello, how’s it going, tried to act like I was playing in the next game or something.”
“Leon, no offense, but you don’t exactly look like a hockey player.”
“I told ’em I was a goalie,” he said. “That’s where they put the guy who can’t skate, right? Just like in baseball when they put the worst player at catcher.”
I counted to three in my head. “Okay, right,” I finally said. “So eventually you found somebody who knew Bruckman?”
“Eventually,” he said. He peeked into the kitchen again. “Alex, I believed you mentioned that this Bruckman fellow may have been involved in drugs?”
“Yes,” I said. “Very involved.”
“Well, it was certainly no secret to these players I talked to. It didn’t take me very long to see what angle to play. I pretended I was looking for him so I could buy some drugs.”
I tried to picture Leon Prudell in a locker room, pretending to be a hockey goalie looking to score some coke. The image didn’t quite work. “How long did it take you?” I said.
“I had to work several games,” he said. “Maybe seven or eight. There was a lot of… reluctance to tell me where he lived. I guess they figured that if I had really bought drugs from him before, then I should know where he lived. That’s where the Franklins came in. They can be very persuasive.”
“Leon,” I said, “just how many Franklins did you have to spend?”
“Four or five,” he said. “A couple of guys gave me bogus information. I had to go out and check the addresses and then come back again. But one guy finally came through for me. A real dopehead who was playing in the midnight game.”
“Here we are,” Mrs. Hudson said as she came back into the room. She set a slice of apple pie in front of me, along with a cup of coffee. “The cream and sugar are right there next to Mr. Prudell.”
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, ma’am,” I said. “I understand you had a man named Lonnie Bruckman staying in your apartment out back.”
“Oh yes,” she said, looking down at her hands which were folded in her lap. “As I was saying to Mr. Prudell, I’m afraid it hasn’t been a very pleasant experience, especially the past couple days. He seemed like a nice enough man when he first took the place, but then
there were all these people that started showing up. There was always loud music going on, and those snowmobiles that he and his friends would ride. I’ve always hated those things.”
A woman after my own heart. “Mrs. Hudson, I just have to say that this is the best apple pie I’ve ever tasted.” It was a perfect creation of apples and cinnamon and a flaky crust. It made me feel human again, if only for a moment.
“Oh, why thank you,” she said. “You have to know how to save the right kind of apples over the winter.”
“But go on,” I said. “He had all these people over. Was there one woman in particular who was staying with him?”
“Yes,” she said. “There was. I never found out what her name was. I didn’t see her much, but when I did… I don’t know. There was something about her. She always looked very sad and alone to me. Even when all those people were around.”
“The police were here on Friday night,” Leon said. “And then again on Saturday morning.”
“Friday night?” I said. “What time?”
“I called the police around two o’clock in the morning,” she said. “I heard all these noises back there. Woke up the whole neighborhood. Things crashing into the walls, glass breaking, like somebody was destroying the place.”
“Two o’clock,” I said. “The same night he… Okay, go on. Did you see who it was? Was it Bruckman?”
“I didn’t see anybody,” she said. “I was afraid to look out the window.”
“What happened when the police came?”
“Whoever was in the apartment was gone by the time the police got here. They just went up and looked around. The place was completely ruined. When I think about all the time Joe spent finishing that apartment-”
“Your husband?”
“Yes,” she said. “He’s been gone, my heavens, has it been seven years already?”
“You said the police were here again on Saturday morning?”
“Yes, they came back,” she said. “They were asking more questions, about the young woman who was with him.”
It made sense. He trashed the place Friday night, probably when he saw that she was gone. The next day, the police came back when they found out Dorothy had been kidnapped.
“Can I see the apartment, Mrs. Hudson?”
“I don’t see why not,” she said. “Let me just put my coat on here. Is it snowing yet?”
“It’s snowing,” I said.
“All my friends think I’m crazy,” she said as she wrapped herself up. “They’re all down in Florida now.”
“Ah, what’s in Florida?” Leon said as he put his coat on. “Besides sunshine and orange trees.”
“And old people waiting to the,” she said. “I’d rather live somewhere where you have to keep moving.”
She led us out through her back door, down a walkway with enough new snow to cover our ankles. The garage was bigger than the house, with enough room for three cars. There was an exterior stairway on the side, leading up to the apartment. “Careful on these stairs,” she said. “I didn’t get a chance to clean them off.” I wanted to hold on to her, help her up the stairs, but she went right up the snowbound treads before I could touch her. When we got to the top, she pushed open the door. The molding was splintered, like mine.
“Did this happen Friday night?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said. “It looks like somebody kicked the door right in.”
“But if it was Bruckman-”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe he didn’t have his key that night. Maybe the young woman had it.”
“I suppose so.” I took a look inside. “This looks familiar,” I said. The place was destroyed. All of the contents of the kitchen drawers and cabinets on the floor, all of the furniture slashed. But there was one difference: I counted three broken hockey sticks here.
“The police asked me not to clean it up yet,” she said. “They also asked me not to let anybody inside.”
“I understand,” I said. “I just wanted to take a look.” Leon stood next to me in the doorway, looking the place over like he was memorizing it.
“It’s killing me, not being able to clean this mess up,” she said. “If Joe had ever seen the place like this…”
“Looks like it was a nice place,” I said.
“You know the funny thing?” she said. “With all the trouble these people caused, you think this place was ever a mess before this? I came up here a couple times when I knew they were gone, you know, just to make sure everything was okay…”
“Yes?”
“I swear to God, Mr. McKnight, this place was spotless. Every single inch of this apartment. The kitchen, the bathroom. It was immaculate. All the noise back here, all the carrying on they did, all those people tromping through here. Say what you want about them, they kept this place clean. And now this. Isn’t that strange?”
“That is strange,” I said. “Although I suppose if something set him off-”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand people at all,” she said.
“Mrs. Hudson, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to help us like this.”
“I hope they catch that man,” she said. She looked me in the eyes for a long moment. “But you’re just looking for the girl, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. “We are.”
“Well, I hope you find her,” she said. “Like I said, she didn’t look like she belonged with those people…”
We both thanked her a few more times, for the help, for the coffee, for the apple pie. When we had seen her back into her house, I walked Leon to his car and took out my wallet. “How much did you say you spent at the hockey rink?”
“Forget it, Alex. We’re partners. It’s all part of the case.”
“Leon, there is no case.” The snow was coming down hard now. It had covered Leon’s red hair in just the few minutes we had been outside. “And we’re not really partners,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m not a private investigator. I told you that”
“You sure are acting like one,” he said.
“No, you are,” I said. “You’re the one who found this house.”
“But it doesn’t tell you much, does it?” he said. “You need more.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t even know what to do next.”
“When we were looking at that apartment,” he said, “what did you mean when you said it looked familiar?”
“He trashed my place, too,” I said. “Sometime yesterday.”
“Yesterday? But he took Dorothy on Friday night. Why would he come back?”
“To make a point,” I said. “Or to look for his lucky hockey puck. I don’t know.”
“His lucky hockey puck?”
“Gordie Howe signed it,” I said. “Dorothy gave it to me.”
“Okay,” he said. “His lucky hockey puck. That’s good. What else can you tell me? Tell me everything else you know, Alex.”
“There’s nothing else,” I said. “Except…” I let out a long breath into the cold air while I decided how much I wanted to tell him.
“Except what, Alex?”
“Except the fact that two men have been following me.”
“A-ha! That’s something.” He was trying to act smooth, but I could hear the excitement in his voice. “Have you gotten a good look at them?”
“Yes,” I said. “I don’t recognize either one of them. I don’t think they were playing on Bruckman’s hockey team the other night.”
“Interesting,” he said. “So what now?”
“I pay you and you go home before the snow gets any worse.”
“I’m not taking your money, Alex.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Give me something else to do,” he said. “I want to work on this with you. What else am I going to do? Go back and try to sell snowmobiles? Talk to guys from Detroit all day, pretend I give a fuck what kind of trails they like riding on?”
“Leon…”
“T
his is the only thing I want to do,” he said. “Let me help you, Alex.”
“If I think of something,” I said, “then I’ll call you. Okay?”
He thought that over. “Good enough,” he said. “We’ll stay in touch. You have my number, right?”
“Yes,” I said, walking to my truck.
“And my pager number, right?”
“I have it,” I said.
“Call me when you need me, Alex. Day or night.”
“Okay,” I said. I climbed into the truck and closed the door. If he said anything else, I didn’t hear it.
I fired up the truck and brushed the snow off my hair while I waited for the heater. Then I picked up the phone and called the sheriff’s office again. He still wasn’t in, and the woman still wouldn’t give me his home number. Instead of trying to leave him a message again, as long as I was in town I figured I’d just go to his office and write it myself.
I pulled out of the driveway and headed west toward the City-County Building. I didn’t see anybody following me, but the snow was bad enough now, they probably couldn’t even drive in it. I was an idiot myself for being out here, but what else was new?
It took me a good twenty minutes to travel three miles across town. I pulled in behind the building next to the sheriff’s office. The little jail courtyard was empty of everything but a waist-high drift of snow. As soon as I got inside the place, a deputy stopped me. “You shouldn’t be out, sir,” he said. “There’s a state of emergency.”
“I just have to leave a message for the sheriff,” I said. I asked for a piece of paper and pen, and wrote down everything I would have told him if he was there to hear it. My place was trashed yesterday. I know Bruckman’s place was trashed, too. Yes, I found out where he was staying. Two men are following me. Don’t know who they are. Here’s their license plate number. Please run it and call me as soon as you can. Beers are on me. Thank you. Signed Alex.
I put the paper in an envelope and pushed it under his door. “Please tell him there’s an urgent message for him,” I told the deputy.
“You’re not going back out in this snow, are you?”
“This is nothing,” I said. “I can still see my truck out there.”
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