Winter of the Wolf Moon: A Mystery

by Steve Hamilton

  “He’d want to meet you,” I said. “That’s all. I can’t imagine where he is.”

  “Probably drunk somewhere,” she said.

  “Vinnie doesn’t drink,” I said. It came out sharper than I expected. “I mean, you can’t say something like that if you don’t know the man. Even if you are an Indian yourself.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Here’s my cabin,” I said as we passed it. “The empty one is just up the road here.”

  I parked next to the cabin. When I turned the headlights off, the night reclaimed us. We sat there in the total darkness.

  “I’ll turn these lights back on until we get inside,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “Leave them off. I forgot how dark it gets up here. It’s one of the only things I like about this place.”

  “Too bad that full moon isn’t out tonight,” I said.

  “That’s one of my first memories,” she said. “Looking out a window and seeing the snow glowing in the moonlight.” She didn’t say anything for a long moment. The silence was as complete as the darkness. “I’m sorry,” she finally said. “You don’t want to hear all this. I start talking about the strangest things when I’m tired.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said. “But you’re gonna get cold soon.”

  We made our way through the snow to the front door. She shifted the bag on her shoulder.

  “I wish you’d let me carry that,” I said. It was all I could do to keep myself from wrestling it away from her.

  “No thanks, Sir Galahad.”

  I unlocked the door and let her into the place, flipping on the lights. It was the second cabin my father had built. He thought the first one looked a little too rough and dark on the inside, so he used unstained white pine for the interior walls. It made the place look a lot bigger than it was.

  “Wow,” she said. “This is nice.” There were two sets of bunk beds on opposite walls. She put her bag down on one of the lower bunks and climbed halfway up the ladder into the loft. “This place sleeps, what, about eight people?”

  “Six is comfortable,” I said. “Eight if everybody likes each other.” I started the woodstove. I had already had paper and logs in there, figuring I’d have paying guests from downstate that night. “I’ll get this fire going. There’s electricity for the lights and the water, but this is the only heat. There’s no phone. You can use mine in the morning if you want.”

  “No problem.” She poked her head into the bathroom. “You’ve really got hot water in here?”

  “Eventually,” I said. “It’ll take a few minutes to get going. I have to go turn the water on.”

  I went back outside and around to the back of the cabin. There was a little door that opened up to the crawlspace. All I had to do was shimmy my way under the cabin, wondering what sort of creatures were down there this time. I’ve seen plenty of mice under the cabins, along with a few bats, a raccoon, a possum. It’s not my favorite thing to do, but if I don’t keep the water turned off when the cabin’s empty, it freezes in the pipes.

  When I turned the water on, I backed my way out the door, brushed myself off, and went back inside. I tried not to drip snow all over the place, because the puddles dry on the white pine floor and it looks like hell. It was the only mistake my father ever made when he built these cabins.

  She was leaning against the sink, her coat unzipped. She didn’t look ready to get completely comfortable yet. I couldn’t blame her. No matter how much she said she trusted me, it must have felt a little strange to be here.

  “You got all dirty,” she said. She was holding something in her hand. It was round and black. It looked like …

  “Is that a hockey puck?” I said.

  “Yeah, here,” she said. She tossed it to me.

  I caught it and looked at it. There was a white circle on one side, and on it a red wheel with a wing coming off it. It was the Detroit Red Wings logo. Beneath the logo there was an autograph. Gordie Howe.

  “Is this real?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “Ever see him play?”

  “Sure, at the old Olympia Stadium.”

  “Lonnie says he was better than Gretzky.”

  “He’s right,” I said.

  “You can keep it,” she said.

  “I can’t keep this,” I said. “It’s probably worth a lot of money.”

  “I know,” she said. “It’s all I can give you right now for helping me.”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “It’s Lonnie’s,” she said. “It was Lonnie’s. The last thing I did before I left, in fact I was out the door already, then I came back in and took that stupid hockey puck. God, he wouldn’t even let me take it out of the little plastic case. Think how mad he’s gonna be now.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why did you take it?”

  “To hurt him,” she said. She folded her arms across her chest. “It’s the only thing I could think of. Pretty lame, isn’t it?”

  “Here,” I said. I put the puck on the table. “You should keep it.”

  She stared at it on the table and let out a long, tired breath.

  “Is he that bad?” I said. I thought I had had this guy pegged pretty well when I met him, the kind of guy who doesn’t want to do anything else but play his sport, and can’t deal with the fact that he’s not quite good enough. I saw it all the time in baseball, guys who got cut and then spent the rest of their lives taking it out on the rest of the world. There’s one on the end of every bar in every town in America. But the way her voice sounded when she said she wanted to hurt him, maybe there was something else. Something a lot worse. “I know it’s none of my business,” I said.

  “You know those wolves I was talking about?”

  “Well, yeah, I kinda figured you weren’t talking about real wolves and real moose.”

  “Let’s just say Lonnie’s the first wolf,” she said. “Not the worst wolf, just the first.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You shoot one wolf, there’s more behind him. Bigger wolves. With bigger teeth.”

  I let that one go. I figured she was just talking about the rest of his hockey team. I should have asked her about it. But I didn’t.

  The woodstove started to heat the place up a little bit. She felt comfortable enough to take off her coat and sit down at the table. She told me about growing up as an Ojibwa, getting out of the U.P. as soon as she could, going downstate for college, dropping out, working a lot of jobs. No matter how bad it got, she never thought of coming back up here. Then she met Lonnie. She didn’t tell me much more about him. She didn’t tell me what he had done to her, or why he had brought her back up here.

  She asked me about myself, about why I had so many long stories. I surprised myself and told her a couple of them. Not all of them. I guess it just felt good to talk to somebody. It was the first time since Sylvia left.

  “You’re the lonely man with long stories,” she said before I left. “If I could make you an Ojibwa, that would be your name.”

  “What’s your Ojibwa name?” I said.

  “I don’t have one anymore,” she said. “I gave it up a long time ago.”

  “It’s going to be cold tonight,” I said. “You better leave the water running a little bit. Just a trickle. It’ll keep the pipes from freezing.”

  “I’ll do that,” she said. She came to the door as I left. “There’s a good lock on here, right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Although you don’t have to worry. You’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Thank you, Alex,” she said. “Good night.”

  As she closed the door, I felt a vague, distant sadness for both of us. Standing there in the darkness, waiting for my eyes to adjust to it again, feeling a cold wind coming through the pine trees. We had both been through so much. Different problems but the bottom line was the same. People are bad for each other. And yet we keep trying. We can’t stand to be alone.

 
It was late. I needed to sleep so I could get up the next day and do everything I could to help her. It surprised me how much I wanted to help this woman. Maybe it was a chance to show myself I could still do something right, after all the mistakes I had made in the last year. Something meaningful besides splitting wood and plowing the snow off the road.

  I went back to my cabin and slept. In the middle of the night I thought I heard her voice, but when I lifted my head it was nothing but the drone of a snowmobile engine. All night long those idiots keep driving those things through the woods. I cursed the man who invented them and went back to sleep.

  The next morning, there was six inches of new snow on the ground. The fire had gone out in my woodstove, so I threw a couple of logs in and stood shivering before the window, looking out at the snow. I put on some clothes, drank some coffee, went out and started the truck. It didn’t even look like there was a road anymore, just a long gap in the trees. I plowed all the way down to the main road, past Vinnie’s cabin. There was still no sign of him. If he had come home during the night, if anyone had turned off onto our road, I would have seen the tracks. There were none.

  I started to worry about him. It was thirty-six hours since I left him at the bar after the hockey game. I could go look for him at the reservation, I thought, or go to the casino and see if he’s working. As soon as I help out Dorothy. It’s going to be a busy day.

  I plowed the other way, into the woods. I honked as I passed Dorothy’s cabin. Rise and shine. The other four cabins all had vans and trucks outside them, with trailers for the snowmobiles. The people who rented the cabins would probably never drive once they got here, just park the vehicles and ride their snowmobiles all week. But I liked to keep the road plowed just in case they needed to get out. On my way back I honked again. Here’s your snooze alarm. Time to wake up while I make breakfast.

  I stopped back at my cabin and picked up some eggs and cheese for omelets, some juice and coffee. I drove back around the bend to her cabin. Funny how you think that way. She spends one night there and suddenly it’s her cabin. I knocked on the door. There was no answer.

  “Dorothy?” I shouted. “Are you awake?”

  I pushed on the. door. It was unlocked, I opened the door and stepped inside.

  The table was turned upside down. One table leg broken off. Chairs scattered in every direction.

  Nothing else.

  She was gone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I went back to my own cabin and called the sheriff’s office. After I hung up, I stood there looking down at the phone book. It was still open to the first page. Right there under the Police and Fire and Ambulance, the number for Protective Services. I had seen how these people operate, down in Detroit anyway. They come and get you, take you to a shelter. If I had called that number last night, I told myself, then she’d be safe right now.

  I went back outside, the wind blowing snowflakes into my face. The sun had come out, one of those brief interludes when the clouds break and the light shines so brightly off the white snow, your eyes hurt just to look at it.

  I stood there for twenty minutes, going over it again and again in my mind. She was so scared. I should have done something, right away, instead of waiting for morning. Was I lazy or just stupid? I wanted to go back to the cabin, start searching for something, anything that might tell me what had happened. I wanted to do something. I felt so useless just standing there. But I made myself wait. Don’t mess it up, I thought. There might be tracks there, or footprints, or God knows what kind of evidence they might be able to find. Just stand here like the useless idiot you are and don’t mess things up any more than you already have.

  I couldn’t help thinking about a murder I saw firsthand in Detroit. It was my first year on the force. I answered a domestic disturbance call with my partner. He talked to the man in the kitchen while I sat with the woman in the living room. She didn’t say anything. She just rocked back and forth on the couch, hugging a pillow. I couldn’t sleep that night. I kept seeing her face. Three days later, I watched them carry her body out in a bag.

  She had tried to leave him. How many times did they tell us? When the woman decides to leave, that’s the most dangerous time. That’s the flashpoint. When a woman is murdered, the detectives always start with the same question: Where’s the husband or the boyfriend?

  “Bruckman followed us,” I said out loud. My voice sounded small in the winter stillness. “He had to. How else would he know she was here?” Was he at the bar? He could have followed my truck all the way down the main road, but then how would he know which cabin she was in? He couldn’t have followed me all the way down my access road, could he? Could I be that fucking oblivious?

  I didn’t call the police. I didn’t stay with her. I left her alone in a cabin with no phone.

  The county car pulled in then and saved me. A few more minutes alone with my thoughts and I would have killed myself.

  They came out of either side of the car, their Chippewa County hats worn just right, a young man and a young woman. The both of them put together weren’t as old as me.

  “Where’s the sheriff?” I said.

  “He’s busy,” the young woman said. Her dark hair was tucked up beneath her hat.

  “Call him,” I said. “I want him out here.”

  “I told you, sir,” she said. “He’s busy.”

  “Busy, my ass,” I said. “He needs to be here.”

  “Take it easy, sir,” the young man said. He had the standard-issue police buzz cut. He approached me with his hands up, the way you’d approach a dog you think might be rabid. “Are you Mr. McKnight?”

  “I told the dispatcher I wanted Bill himself,” I said. “And nobody else.” Bill Brandow was the county sheriff, if not exactly my best buddy then at least a friendly acquaintance. I had bought him a couple Canadians one night, traded a few cop stories. There was something fundamentally competent and trustworthy about the man. It was his face I needed to see right now, not these two kids who looked like they were on their way to a high school costume party dressed as deputies.

  “I told you, Mr. McKnight. The sheriff can’t be here. You’re gonna have to calm down a little bit here.”

  “A woman has been kidnapped,” I said. “Do you have anybody out looking for her? Is Bill going to do anything besides sending two teenagers out here to tell me to calm down a little bit?”

  “Has it occurred to you that maybe the sheriff is out looking for her right now?” he said. “And this guy, what’s his name?”

  “Bruckman,” I said. “Lonnie Bruckman.”

  “Where do you want him to be, Mr. McKnight? Out there looking for them or standing here in the snow making you feel better?”

  I clenched my gloved hands into fists, looked up into the winter sky, then I took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay,” I said. “You’re right. Let’s just …”

  “Tell us what happened,” he said. “Where’s the cabin she was staying in?”

  “This way,” I said. “Right around the bend.”

  We all got into the county car, the two deputies in the front, me in the back. It wasn’t more than a quarter mile to the first rental cabin, but we rolled slowly down the road, the tires scrunching over another half inch of snow that had fallen since I plowed. I gave them the quick version of what had happened. Dorothy meeting me at the bar, asking for my help. The way she talked about Lonnie. The genuine fear in her voice when she told me he’d kill her if he ever found her.

  We got out of the car and stood there a moment, the deputies looking up and down the road. Nothing to see but trees. “She stayed alone in this cabin last night?” the woman asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “I really don’t have much room in my cabin. And besides …” I didn’t finish it.

  The deputies traded a quick look at each other while they walked through the snow to the cabin.

  “No footprints here,” he said.

  “I didn’t see any,” I said. “It snowed too mu
ch last night.”

  “No tire tracks either?”

  “No,” I said. “None at all.”

  “Even with the snow,” he said. “You’d see something, wouldn’t you? It didn’t snow that much.”

  “When I plowed the road it looked totally untouched,” I said. “Like nobody had driven on it for days.”

  “This unlocked?” he said when he got to the door.

  “Yes,” I said. “It was unlocked this morning.”

  “Was it locked last night?”

  “Yes, she locked it when I left.”

  The deputies looked at each other again. I felt a sudden urge to knock their heads together. “Can we get something straight right now?” I said. “She slept in this cabin by herself last night. And I slept in mine.”

  “Nobody’s suggesting otherwise,” he said.

  “If we were in the same cabin,” I said, “then none of this would have happened.”

  “We hear you,” he said. “Please. Let’s work together on this.” The deputy pushed the door open and looked inside.

  “Careful,” I said. “Don’t contaminate anything.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I’m serious,” I said. “What if there’s evidence here?”

  “If we see something, we’ll bag it.”

  “No, I’m talking about hair or fibers or …”

  They both looked at me. He’s seen this stuff on television, they’re thinking. He expects us to set up a crime laboratory and start picking up little strands of stuff with tweezers.

  “I was a cop once,” I said. Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth. “Never mind. Go ahead.”

  “We’ll be careful,” she said.

  I followed them as they entered the cabin. There was a complete silence in the place that made me feel sick to my stomach.

  At least we’re not looking at a dead body, I said to myself. If he wanted to kill her that badly, he would have done it right here. It was the only positive thing I could think of.

  The troopers walked around the overturned table, looked at the scattered chairs. The young man stopped at the bed where the blanket had been turned back. “Looks like she went to bed,” he said. “Then got up later. Doesn’t look like she left anything behind. Did she have a backpack or a suitcase or something? You said she was running away from this guy.”