Winter of the Wolf Moon: A Mystery

by Steve Hamilton

  “Who’s ‘we’?” I said. “The county’s looking for him. He abducted a woman last night.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know all about it.”

  I leaned back in the chair and looked him over. “It happened in Paradise,” I said. “There’s no reason for you to be involved in this.”

  “You want to find her or not? The county needs all the help they can get.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Besides,” Maven went on. “Bruckman lives in the Soo.”

  There it was, I thought. He had to let that one out, just to flex his muscles. “Of course,” I said, “Dorothy was staying there, too.”

  “Naturally,” he said.

  “Bill told me about it. That place over on …” I let it hang.

  Maven just shook his head. “Nice try, McKnight. Like I said, this has nothing to do with you now.”

  “She was in my cabin,” I said. “He took her out of my cabin.”

  It was his turn to lean back in his chair. “Yeah, about that,” he said. “Let me see if I got this straight. The last guy you were protecting ended up on the bottom of Lake Superior. Now this woman comes to you and asks you to protect her, and you put her all by herself in a cabin in the woods so her ex-boyfriend can come kidnap her in the middle of the night. Have I got that right?”

  I just looked at him.

  “I got one thing to say to you, McKnight. I hope to God that you’re at least giving these people a nice discount on your rates.”

  “Are you done?” I said.

  “I’m done,” he said. “Now go home and stay out of the way. Let the real cops do their jobs.” And then he picked up his phone and waited for me to leave. Just like that.

  I got up and left. There was nothing I could say to him, nothing I could do short of going over the desk and strangling him. I just left him sitting there and went out and closed the door behind me.

  I walked up and down the hallway a few times, not even sure if I was more angry or confused. The whole exchange with Maven had a spin to it that just didn’t feel right. Besides the insults and the stonewalling and the whole tough guy act, that much I expected. There was something else. But I couldn’t figure it out.

  When I got back to the front lobby, I saw Leon Prudell coming in the door, shaking the snow out of his red hair. He had on a down coat that looked maybe two sizes too small on him. It probably fit him right when he wore it in high school twenty-five years ago.

  “Alex,” he said when he saw me. “I’m just on my way to the clerk’s office. I have the bail right here.”

  “How’d you get here so fast?” I said.

  “I was in town, anyway,” he said. Then after a long moment, “I’ve got a new job. For the winter, at least.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I sell snowmobiles,” he said.

  “Oh God,” I said.

  “In the summer, I’ll probably have to sell outboard motors. What can I say, it’s a job.”

  “I know,” I said. “Because I took your old private investigator job. We’ve been through this before.”

  “No, no,” he said. “That’s ancient history. We’re partners now.”

  I looked at the ceiling. “Prudell …”

  “Time’s a-wasting,” he said. “I gotta bail out our man. Vincent LeBlanc, right? City charges, you said?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Go bail his ass out while I go use the bathroom.”

  He went on his way while I found the men’s room. I walked in and found Bill Brandow standing at a urinal. I stepped up next to him.

  “You’re having a tough day,” he said without looking at me.

  “Bill, what’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?” He still didn’t look at me.

  “Something’s not right here. Maven’s acting funny. You’re acting funny.”

  “I wasn’t aware that I was acting funny,” he said. “It’s not the kind of day to be acting funny.”

  I didn’t know what else to say. I did my business and he did his, and then he washed his hands and left.

  I went back out to the lobby and looked out the front window at the snow. It was coming down in flakes as big as cotton balls. When I finally turned around, Prudell was leading Vinnie out through the door to the holding cells. I saw a nice purple bruise on Vinnie’s right cheek that I had missed before.

  “The trial is in seven days,” Prudell said. “I trust you’ll be here in court?”

  Vinnie looked at him without saying anything.

  “Please don’t make me come find you,” Prudell said.

  “He’ll be here,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Good enough, Alex,” he said. “I’ll leave him in your hands.”

  “Did you hear that, Vinnie?” I said. “You’re in my hands now.”

  Vinnie just stood there looking miserable.

  “Okay, partner,” Prudell said. “What’s next?”

  “What do you mean, what’s next?”

  “We have work to do,” he said. “We’ve got seven days to prove his innocence.”

  “He’s not innocent,” I said. “He broke a hockey stick over a police officer’s nose.”

  Prudell looked around the lobby and winced. “Jesus, Alex. Keep your voice down.”

  “It’s not a secret,” I said. “Just ask him.”

  Prudell looked at Vinnie, waiting for a reaction. He didn’t get one.

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay. But still. There must have been extenuating circumstances. Were there witnesses?”

  “Can we stop talking about me like I’m not even here?” Vinnie finally said. “And can we get the hell out of here?”

  We all stepped out into the snowflakes. There had to be nine inches on the ground already. I led Vinnie to my truck, kicking up clouds of white powder with every footstep. Leon followed us. “So what should I do, Alex?” he said. “Give me something to do.”

  I stopped next to the truck and thought of all the things Prudell could do. And then I felt bad, because the man had just done me a favor. “You want something to do?”

  “Anything, Alex. Let me help you.”

  “There’s a man named Lonnie Bruckman,” I said. I gave him the five-minute version of what had happened. Playing hockey, seeing him later at the bar. Dorothy coming to me for help. And then Bruckman taking her in the night. “I believe he lives here in Sault Ste. Marie,” I said. “Or at least, he was living here. I’m sure he’s gone now. But if you could find out where he was staying, that would help.”

  “Consider it done, Alex. I’m on the case.”

  “Okay, good.”

  “I’ll call you with a report,” he said.

  “Good,” I said.

  “I’ll find the place,” he said. “You can count on it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Go find it.”

  He finally turned to go.

  “Hey, and thanks,” I said. “For the bond.”

  “What are partners for?” he said. Then he was gone, shuffling through the snow to his car.

  Vinnie and I got in the truck and waited for the heater to warm things up, our breath fogging up the windshield.

  “Why did you tell that guy about what happened?” Vinnie said. “He’s an idiot.”

  “That idiot just bailed you out of jail,” I said. “Besides, what have we got to lose? He might find out where Bruckman was living, even if he has to bother everybody in town.”

  Vinnie shook his head. I pulled out of the parking lot and headed south toward M-28. The midday light was muted by the heavy clouds and snow, giving everything we saw a dreamlike quality. On a different day it would have felt peaceful.

  “When you gonna get this window fixed?” Vinnie said. He wrapped himself tight in his coat as the wind whipped at the clear plastic.

  “You sure have a lot of complaints for a man who just got bailed out,” I said.

  “I didn’t ask you to bail me out,” he said. “You should have left me there.”
r />   “Don’t start that again,” I said. “Just start talking. What else do you know about Dorothy Parrish?”

  “I told you everything.”

  “What about relatives? I looked in the phone book. There’s gotta be thirty Parrishes on the reservation.”

  “That’s her family,” he said. “They all are.”

  “I know that,” I said. “What about close relatives? What about her parents? Do you know her parents?”

  Vinnie hesitated. He looked out the plastic window at the snow as we barrelled through it. “Yes,” he finally said. “I know her parents.”

  “Do they still live on the reservation?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Good, then that’s where we start.”

  He nodded his head slowly. “Okay,” he said. “That’s where we start.”

  We made our way west, back toward the reservation. I couldn’t go more than thirty miles an hour in the snow. There weren’t many cars on the road, but I did notice one car following us all the way down M-28. Once again, I wondered for a moment if I was being followed. Once again I swore at myself for being stupid enough to wonder.

  When we turned north to go up to the reservation, the car kept going west toward Paradise. See, Alex, I said to myself, you’re gonna drive yourself crazy if you keep thinking like this. Why on earth would anybody be following you?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Bay Mills Reservation is just north of the town of Brimley, on the shores of Whitefish Bay where it starts to narrow into the St. Marys River. The tribe is just one of several that make up the Ojibwas, or the Chippewas as the white people call them. There was a time when you’d drive onto the reservation and see nothing but run-down little shacks. Now with the money coming into the Bay Mills Casino, those shacks are gone. The reservation is all ranch homes now, with yards and paved driveways and decorated mailboxes. If you didn’t see the sign on the way in, you wouldn’t know that you were on a reservation at all. You’d just think you’re in another modern subdivision.

  “Where’s the house?” I said.

  Vinnie had been silent for most of the trip, dozing against the side of the car despite the rattling of the plastic. Now he stirred and told me to stay on the main road all the way to the north end of the reservation.

  We went past the Bay Mills Casino, the bigger and newer of the two casinos on the reservation, then the health center and then the original Kings Club Casino. Then the gym and the community college, more fruits of the casino business. A little further down the road we saw a few children sledding down the road that led up to the graveyard on Mission Hill.

  Vinnie pointed out a house on the left. I pulled into a freshly cleared driveway. A snowblower sat in the open garage, still caked with slowly melting snow. Vinnie went to the front door and knocked. I stood behind him on the porch as Mr. Parrish answered the door. “Mr. Parrish, good to see you,” Vinnie said. “Do you remember me? My name is Vinnie LeBlanc.”

  “Vinnie,” the man said. “Of course. I know many of your cousins. I see them at the college”

  “Mr. Parrish, this is Alex McKnight. Do you think he could ask you a few questions? It’s about Dorothy.”

  Mr. Parrish looked at me for the first time with slow, careful eyes. He didn’t say anything.

  “Please, Mr. Parrish,” I said. “This won’t take long. It’s very important.”

  “Very well,” he said. He opened the door all the way and let us in. We stepped into the house, after stomping the snow off our boots. It was a nice place, pleasant and clean, simply decorated. Above the couch there was a painting of a crane. According to Ojibwa mythology, a crane came to this area where the lake tumbled down the rapids of the St. Marys River, laid her eggs and then brought the Ojibwa people to the same spot to settle there.

  When Mrs. Parrish came into the room, I could see Dorothy’s face in hers. The same eyes, the same mouth. Vinnie introduced me and I shook her hand. She offered us coffee. We declined. When they sat down on the couch together, Mr. Parrish glanced up into my eyes for a moment. Mrs. Parrish picked a spot on the far edge of the coffee table and sat, staring at it. Neither of them could have been more than five years older than I was. When I had first met Dorothy and told myself I was old enough to be her father, I was right.

  “I know this must be a difficult time,” I said. I was sitting in one wing-back chair, Vinnie in another, with the television between us. “I mean, I assume you know all that has happened.”

  “We received a call today from the tribal police,” Mr. Parrish said. The tribal police had recently been deputized under the Chippewa County Sheriff, so it made sense that they would handle this end of it. “We understand that Dorothy is missing.”

  “She was in my cabin last night,” I said. Mrs. Parrish looked up at me quickly and then back down at the coffee table. “Please don’t misunderstand,” I said. “She was not in the same cabin as I was. I own six of them up in Paradise. Dorothy came to me, asking for help. I let her spend the night in one of the guest cabins. This morning, she was gone.”

  Mr. Parrish nodded.

  “I can’t help but feel responsible,” I said. “I was a police officer myself once. Looking back at it, I should have done more to help her, right away. I should have called the sheriff’s office, or Protective Services.”

  Mr. Parrish lifted his hands from his knees and then put them down again.

  “I’d like to help in any way I can,” I said. “Is there any place you think she could be right now? Any place this man Bruckman may have taken her?”

  “We don’t know this man Bruckman,” he said.

  “You’ve never met him?”

  “No,” he said. “We haven’t seen Dorothy in several years.”

  I didn’t know what to say next. “You mean,” I finally said, “she came back up here with him for these past few months, but you never saw her?”

  “No,” he said.

  “But you must have known she was here.”

  “No,” he said. “Not until the police called this morning.”

  I let out a long breath and looked away from them. And then I noticed, on a set of shelves in the kitchen, a picture of a little girl, maybe seven or eight years old. Pigtails, front teeth missing. It had to be Dorothy. I looked around the rest of the room, but I couldn’t see any other pictures of her.

  A fragile silence settled on the house. There was only the faint sound of the snow ticking against the windows. Vinnie sat in his chair, as still as the Parrishes.

  I cleared my throat. “Is there anything you can think of,” I said, “anything at all, that might help me find your daughter?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Mr. Parrish said.

  “Can I give you my name and number, in case you hear from her?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  I asked them for paper and a pen, and then wrote down the information. I had a sick feeling that it was a completely futile gesture.

  “I’m sorry to have taken up your time like this,” I said. “I hope this …” I searched for the right words. I couldn’t even think straight anymore. “I hope this all works out.”

  “Thank you,” he said. I shook his hand and then Mrs. Parrish’s. She hadn’t said a word since offering us the coffee.

  It was dark already and still snowing when we went back outside. The day was gone.

  I started up the truck and got the heater going. We had been in there so briefly, it didn’t take long to warm up. I didn’t feel like talking, so we rode back most of the way to Paradise in silence.

  “What about your car?” I finally said. “Where is it?”

  “I’m sure my cousins took it back to my house,” he said.

  I nodded. There was more silence. A deer hopped through the snow and across the road in front of us.

  “Okay,” I said. “So what the hell happened back there?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Parrishes. Why were they acting so strange?”

  “
How were they acting strange?”

  “Come on,” I said. “Their daughter just got kidnapped. I could barely get them to blink.”

  “Alex,” he said, “you don’t understand.”

  “What don’t I understand? Explain it to me. Start with how they could go for years without even hearing from her. I thought family was everything to you guys.”

  “It is everything,” he said. “But you have to understand the way my people are. You know, when I was growing up, my mother used to ask me if I wanted to go to the dentist. She didn’t tell me I was going. She asked me. I would usually say no and I wouldn’t go. Does that seem strange to you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “The Ojibwa people do not believe in interfering with other people’s lives. Even with their own children’s lives. They believe we each have to choose our own path in life. Even if it’s the wrong path.”

  “That doesn’t explain anything,” I said. “Vinnie, she was kidnapped, for God’s sake! Shouldn’t that matter to them?”

  “Of course it matters,” he said. “What did you want them to do? Break down and start crying for you? They’re not going to show their emotions like that, especially in front of a stranger. And they’re not going to ask you to help them, either.”

  “No, of course not,” I said. “Not an outsider.”

  “No,” he said. “Not an outsider. It’s not the Ojibwa way.”

  “It’s not, huh?”

  “No,” he said. “And that’s all I can say.”

  “Vinnie, you know what?”

  “What?”

  “That’s a load of horseshit. Everything you just said.”

  “I’m sorry you don’t like it.”

  “They’re not aliens from fucking outer space,” I said. “They’re human beings. Their daughter is in trouble. She got mixed up with a very bad guy. Now she’s in big trouble. She might be dead, even. Excuse me for expecting them to seem just a little bit concerned by that.”

  “Excuse them for not showing it in a way that’s acceptable to you,” he said. “We are different. It’s that simple.”

  I should have stopped right there. I was worn out. I didn’t know what I was saying at that point. But I kept going. “And what’s with this ‘we’ business, anyway? I didn’t even think you were an Indian anymore. You moved off the reservation. You don’t hang out with them anymore, except to play hockey once a week.”