Blood Is the Sky: An Alex McKnight Mystery (Alex McKnight Mysteries)

by Steve Hamilton

  “Right. Their hunt was on a different lake, but they all take off from the same place. So he might have talked to them. Hell, maybe he did a little Indian bonding with your brother.”

  I headed due east on the empty highway. A sign told us that Calstock was fifteen miles ahead.

  “He had long hair,” Vinnie finally said. “He was maybe eighteen, nineteen years old. He was wearing jeans and a blue-and-white jacket. I think it had the Toronto Blue Jays emblem on it.”

  I looked over at him. “You saw him.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I saw him.”

  Chapter Eight

  We hit Calstock just after noon. There was a truck stop where the access road hit the highway. I pulled over and gassed up. The man behind the counter hesitated a moment over my American money, then said something in French.

  “No parlez français,” I said. “English?”

  “Of course,” the man said. “I was just asking you if you want your change in Canadian money.”

  “Whatever you got,” I said. “How far up this road is Calstock?”

  “About five miles. When you hit the sawmill, you’re there.”

  We got back in the truck and continued north, bound on both sides by the thick walls of white pine trees. The sawmill came into view, just as advertised, along with a power plant that obviously burned all the bark and wood waste. The hot smell hung in the air.

  Constance Lake appeared on our left just as we entered the reserve. There was a big wooden sign to let us know we were on Indian land.

  “Are these Ojibwa up here?” I said.

  “No, they’re Cree.”

  “You guys get along?”

  “Why wouldn’t we?”

  “Weren’t they your mortal enemies?” I said. “No, wait, that was the Dakotas.”

  “The Cree and the Ojibwa are like family,” he said. “It’s been that way for hundreds of years. Now more than ever.”

  We passed a little shop that sold Indian crafts. Soon after that we were in the heart of the reserve. The houses weren’t all brand-new like in Michigan. Most of the windows were taped up with plastic to keep out the coming winter winds. Thin spirals of smoke rose from the chimneys.

  “How do we find Guy?” I said.

  “There has to be a tribal center. Keep going.”

  We drove by more houses. Eventually we saw a school and beside that a big cement building that had to be something official. We pulled up next to a police car. There was a round seal on the car door that read NISHNAWBEASKI POLICE SERVICE.

  “Maybe these police will be a little more accommodating,” Vinnie said.

  “Those two weren’t so bad,” I said.

  Vinnie stopped and looked at me. “Just because one of them was attractive …”

  “Has nothing to do with it,” I said. “They could have been a lot worse, is all I’m saying.”

  He shook his head and smiled. “Come on.” He got out of the truck and went in. I followed him. The door opened to a large meeting room, with a great round table in the middle. A young woman was vacuuming the floor. We stood there for a few seconds until she noticed us.

  “Pardonnez-moi,” she said. She had an unmistakably Indian face, with dark eyes and dark hair tied in a ponytail down her back. She wore thick boots under her long skirt. They clunked loudly on the floor as she came over to us.

  “We’re sorry to bother you,” Vinnie said. “We’re looking for a young man named Guy.”

  “Guy Berard?”

  “I’m not sure what his last name is,” Vinnie said. He looked at me and I shook my head. “We know he works over at the lodge on Lake Peetwaniquot.”

  “Yes, that’s him. I haven’t seen him around in a few days.”

  “Can you tell me where he lives?”

  The woman looked at Vinnie, then at me, then back at Vinnie. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Vinnie LeBlanc. I’m a Bay Mills Ojibwa, from Michigan. This is my friend Alex.”

  “Guy lives in his mother’s house,” she said. “Go south, take the first right. It’s the last house on the left.”

  “Thank you,” Vinnie said. “I appreciate it.”

  “Is Guy in trouble?”

  “No,” he said. “But my brother is. I’m hoping he can help me.”

  She nodded her head slowly. “Tell Mrs. Berard that Maureen sent you.”

  “Thank you, Maureen.”

  I added my own thanks, and we left. We went back down the road, past the school, and took the right turn. The road ended abruptly. Beyond the road there was a field of rocks and weeds, with a path leading down to Constance Lake. The water stretched out at least a mile, with low hills in the distance.

  There were no other cars in front of the house. It was a small wooden affair the same size as its neighbors, and it had been bright yellow a few seasons ago. Now it needed paint.

  Vinnie knocked on the door. We waited. A cold wind picked up and hit us like it was trying to blow us off the little porch. Vinnie knocked again. The door opened a couple of inches and stopped. The top of the door swung back and forth, until finally, with a horrible sound of wood scraping against wood, it flew open the rest of the way. The woman behind the door was practically knocked to the ground.

  “Je regrette,” she said, and then I caught something about “la porte,” which I knew was the door. The rest I didn’t get.

  “We’re sorry to bother you,” Vinnie said. “Is Guy at home?”

  She looked at Vinnie. Her hair was long and dark, like the woman at the tribal center, but it was untied and cascaded over her shoulders. She looked a little too young to be Guy’s mother.

  “He’s not here,” she said. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Vinnie,” he said. “I’m from the Bay Mills Reservation in Michigan. This is my friend Alex.”

  She looked over at me without smiling.

  “Maureen sent us,” I said.

  “Bay Mills?” she said, looking back at Vinnie.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Please come in,” she said. She stepped back to let us into the house. There was a small living room, with barely enough room for a couch and a chair. The carpeting needed replacing even more than the outside needed the paint. The curtains were closed, and a television cast a pale blue glow over the room.

  “Can I get you something?” she said.

  “No, thank you,” Vinnie said.

  “Then please sit down.”

  She turned off the television and sat down on the chair. Vinnie and I sat on the couch.

  “Your son,” Vinnie said. He apparently had no trouble believing this was his mother. “He works at the lodge on Lake Peetwaniquot.”

  “Sometimes,” she said. “When they need a guide.”

  “Do you know when he’s going to be home?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Excuse me for asking,” I said. “How old is Guy?”

  She looked me in the eye for an instant, and then looked down. I remembered something Vinnie had told me, about how some Indians consider looking you right in the eye to be rude.

  “He’s nineteen,” she said.

  “Do you happen to know if he was out at the lodge yesterday?” I said.

  “He was gone yesterday,” she said. “But I really don’t know.”

  That was something else Vinnie had told me—this business of not interfering in other people’s lives, even your own son’s. It always seemed a little contradictory to me, how the Indian culture was so centered on family, and yet they believed that you chose your own path in this life, and that nobody should try to change it.

  Don’t try to understand it, Vinnie had said. That’s just the way it is.

  “Can we leave a message for him?” Vinnie said. “A number he can call when he comes home?”

  “You can do that,” she said.

  I had a pen in my coat pocket. I took it out and gave it to him, along with the receipt from the gas station. He wrote my cell phone number on the back.r />
  “My brother is missing,” Vinnie said as he gave it to her. “He was last seen at the lodge. I was hoping maybe your son might have some kind of information to help us find him. That’s all.”

  There was a noise in the room behind us. It sounded like something bumping into the wall.

  “That’s Guy’s grandfather,” she said. “I thought he was asleep.”

  “I hope we didn’t come at a bad time,” Vinnie said.

  “No, not at all,” she said. She stood up. It was our cue to do the same.

  “Please have Guy give us a call,” I said. “We’d really appreciate it.”

  “Of course,” she said. She didn’t look me in the eye at all this time. Not for a second.

  As she showed us out, I couldn’t help noticing the coats hung on hooks beside the door. One of them was blue and white, with the Toronto Blue Jays emblem. I didn’t say anything. I left with Vinnie and thanked her again. We watched her struggle with her sticky door. Then we left.

  “Did you notice the coat?” I said when we were back in the truck.

  “Yes.”

  “Did that whole conversation strike you as a little strange?”

  “I’m not sure it even qualified as a conversation,” he said. “But yeah, you’re right.”

  “What do you think? Was she lying?”

  “Indians make terrible liars,” he said.

  I drove south, away from the heart of the reserve, back toward Calstock. I was going very fast, because I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to leave.

  “What do we do now?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’d like to find out what’s going on with Guy.”

  “Maybe he just didn’t want to talk to a white man.”

  Vinnie looked over at me.

  “Maybe he saw me through the window,” I said.

  “Yeah, you are pretty scary-looking.”

  “I’m just saying, this might not mean anything at all.”

  “I suppose.”

  “We can look up the number for the tribal center,” I said. “If we don’t hear from Guy in a couple of days, we can give Maureen a call and see if she can help us.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Indians make terrible liars, huh? If I said something like that, you’d hit me in the mouth.”

  “It’s true,” he said. “As a general rule.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “What? You don’t agree?”

  “I’m hungry, all right? Let’s stop somewhere. I thought I saw a place in Calstock.”

  “Okay.”

  We drove by the last of the houses. The sign told us we were leaving the reserve. “They could use a casino,” I said. I shouldn’t have said it.

  “Why’s that?”

  “This place looks like Bay Mills before the casino,” I said. “That’s all.”

  “They’ve got tiny little houses. So what?” he said.

  “So maybe they wouldn’t mind having bigger houses. And a new school, and a health center. What’s the matter? I’m just saying—”

  “Never mind,” he said.

  We were back in the trees again. The sunshine was obliterated. It was so dark it felt like the end of the day.

  “I know, Indians don’t care about money like white men do. Just like they can’t lie.”

  “You’re saying that, not me.”

  “Yeah, just like the tribe in Saginaw. They’re putting on quite a show.” The Detroit News had done a whole series on them, and the fights they’d been having over the casino money. One word against the tribal leadership and you were out of the tribe forever. With no way to appeal.

  “Money makes an Indian act like a white man,” he said. He looked out the window. “I’m not denying that.”

  “You mean money makes everyone act the same,” I said. “It proves we’re all exactly alike.”

  “Alex, wait …”

  “Look, we don’t have to—”

  “Alex, stop!”

  I slammed on the brakes. “What is it?”

  “Back up,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  I put it in reverse and turned around to see where I was going. It was a good thing we were on one of the loneliest roads in the world. I backed it up about fifty yards before he told me to stop. The wheels were still rolling as he threw his door open and jumped out, the door catching him in the arm as he headed for the woods.

  I pulled the truck off the road and killed the engine. I stepped out into the cold air. There was a silence in the trees. All the birds had already left for the winter.

  “What’s going on, Vinnie?”

  “Come down here,” he said.

  I took a few steps over the gravel shoulder and stepped down into the drainage ditch. Vinnie had already pushed his way through the brush. There was a gap maybe ten feet wide in the line of trees.

  “What is it?” I said. “What do you see?”

  As I got closer, I saw for myself. There was a vehicle back in the thick undergrowth. To the right of it a small pine tree was leaning over at an angle.

  It was a black Chevy Suburban.

  Vinnie had already fought his way through and was standing on the driver’s side with his face pressed against the glass. I caught up to him and looked inside. In the dim light I could make out sleeping bags and boxes and long, leather cases that must have contained rifles. Vinnie was breathing hard next to me, making fog on the glass.

  “Do you think this is it?” I said.

  He didn’t answer.

  I pushed past him and tried the driver’s side doors. They were locked. Inside, I could see the keys hanging from the ignition. I moved around the front of the vehicle, feeling the sudden sting of thorns on my face. I ducked under the branch and got around to the other side. These doors were locked, too. I could see an empty beer bottle lying on the front passenger’s seat.

  I started to feel a dull sense of dread. This looked bad, and it didn’t even make sense. Why would the vehicle be here, miles off the main road? Unless—

  Before I could finish the thought, I heard the sound of breaking glass. As I looked through I could see Vinnie raising the rock in his hand again, and smashing it into the driver’s side window.

  “Vinnie! What the hell!”

  By the time I got back over to the driver’s side, the door was open and he had climbed inside.

  “Vinnie, you’ve got to get out of there!” I was already thinking ahead to the phone call we’d have to make, and what the police would think of this when they got here.

  Vinnie climbed over to the second row of seats. There was a pile of wallets on the floor. He started picking them up one by one. His hand was bleeding.

  I looked at the broken glass that had sprayed all over the front seat. I looked back at the road. It was still empty, still silent. When I looked back at Vinnie, he had stopped going through the wallets. He was frozen still, one wallet held tight in both hands. A drop of blood fell from his finger.

  “Whose is that?” I said.

  He didn’t say anything. He just opened it up and showed me the picture of himself.

  Chapter Nine

  A couple of constables showed up within three minutes of my call. They weren’t Reynaud and DeMers, that was for sure. They were both in their thirties, both rock hard if a few pounds overweight, the way cops get from sitting around too much. One had scar tissue laced through both eyebrows. An old boxer, I would have bet money on it. Probably a middleweight. The other guy had never been hit in the face, and he had a deep suntan, even by American standards. I was guessing a lot of time on a fishing boat.

  They pulled up behind my truck, radioed in the basics—exact location, license plate of the vehicle, our names—and then stood there for a moment, looking at us. The cop with the suntan took out a first-aid box and wrapped up Vinnie’s right hand, while Boxer Face took a few steps down into the ditch. He came back up and stopped right in front of me.

  �
��Did you break the window, sir?”

  “That was me,” Vinnie said. The man turned and looked at him, then addressed me again.

  “As of this morning, we’ve been trying to locate five men who didn’t make it back to America after a hunting trip.”

  “I know,” I said. “We spoke to two other constables this morning.”

  “So how did you end up finding this vehicle?”

  “We got lucky. We were driving by and we saw it.”

  “And the reason you broke into it?”

  “I told you,” Vinnie said. “I did that.”

  “I heard you the first time,” the cop said. “Maybe you guys shouldn’t say anything else for the moment, eh? I think we need to take you back to the detachment.”

  “Are we under arrest?”

  “Not at the moment,” he said.

  “This man had nothing to do with this,” Vinnie said. “It was all me.”

  “Vinnie, shut up,” I said. “Just cool it.”

  We all stood there while my man went to the car and talked on the radio. They’d need some more men down here, to set up a crime scene and to take over while they transported us to the detachment.

  Twenty minutes later, constables DeMers and Reynaud arrived. DeMers was driving. I saw his grim face through the windshield as he slammed on the brakes. He got out of the car and came over to us, probably moving faster than he had in twenty years. He looked at us without saying a word, then took a flashlight off his belt and climbed down the drainage ditch to the Suburban. After fighting his way through the brush, he shined the flashlight into the interior. He stopped short when he got to the shattered window. Constable Reynaud stayed up on the road. She looked at me and shook her head slowly.

  And this time around she looked even better. It was a hell of a thing to notice under the circumstances, but damn.

  As DeMers was fighting his way back, he tripped over something and ended up flat on his face. When he stood up again, both knees were soaking wet. “Son of a bitch,” he said. When he was finally back on the road, he tried brushing himself off. It didn’t do much good.

  He came and stood in front of me. “The window,” he said.

  “That was me,” Vinnie said. I wanted very badly to smack him in the face.