Ice Run (11 page)

It was a short trip down the road, heading due east. The wind was still blowing, but the bright sun from that morning was long gone. More snow was on the way.

“Later on, when I was growing up,” she said, “I’d come over here a lot myself. I remember that one time, when my mother was trying to move out, I ran over here and hid, so she couldn’t take me with her.”

She pulled into the driveway. It needed a good plowing.

“I always loved Mrs. DeMarco. She was always so glad to see me. I think maybe because she didn’t have any grandchildren of her own.”

“So Albert and your mother …”

“Never had any kids of their own, no. Thank God. I can’t imagine having Albert DeMarco as your natural father.”

“But his mother still lives here in Blind River? All by herself?”

“Yes,” she said. “I was stationed up at Hearst for so long … When I came back, I was surprised to see that she was still here.”

Natalie pulled up to the house. It was another farmhouse, but about half the size of Natalie’s, and in much more need of attention. I could see from fifty feet away that all the wood on the porch was rotten. The shutters didn’t look any better. The one hanging cockeyed from the hinges was the crowning touch.

“I’ve only been here once since I’ve been back,” Natalie said. “I know I should come more often, but God, it’s so hard seeing her like this. Apparently she has this nurse who comes to check on her every afternoon, but I haven’t met her.”

“Shouldn’t she be living somewhere else now?”

“She should be, yes. Most of the time she’s sort of living in the past. I don’t think she even knows what year it is.”

“If that’s true, then is she really going to be able to answer your questions?”

“Who knows?” Natalie said. She pulled the key out of the ignition. “If her mind is really stuck in the past, maybe she’s the best person of all to tell us about it.”

I couldn’t argue with that. I got out of the Jeep with her and walked up to the front steps. It looked like someone had made a halfhearted attempt to shovel the walkway.

“The nurse must have been here,” Natalie said. She knocked on the front door and peeked inside the little window. She pushed it open and stuck her head inside.

“Hello! Mrs. DeMarco?”

I didn’t hear any response, but she pushed the door all the way in anyway and went inside. I was right behind her.

“Mrs. DeMarco?”

I was expecting a shambles, based on the way the place looked from the outside, but it was surprisingly neat and well ordered. We passed a set of stairs with a great polished railing, an antique phone table next to the stairs, a faded Oriental rug over hardwood floors, then another larger rug as the hallway opened into the living room. There was more old furniture in fairly good shape, a sofa that probably would have been called a divan, and a long chair that I’d guess you’d call a settee. Stuff so old even the names had been retired. There were white lace curtains on the windows and a pair of portraits on the walls in oval frames. A man and a woman, taken a hell of a long time ago. The air was warm, and smelled of mothballs and something medicinal like liniment.

“Is that you again, Flo?” A woman came into the room from the kitchen, moving slowly. She was wearing a quilted robe and slippers. She looked all of ninety-six years, and maybe seventy pounds, if that. But what the hell. If you’re still on your feet at ninety-six, you’re doing pretty damned well.

“It’s me, Mrs. DeMarco. I hope I’m not bothering you.”

She came closer to us, holding on tight to the back of the chair. “Where did she go now, eh?” She certainly sounded like a lifelong Canadian.

“Mrs. DeMarco, this is my friend Alex,” Natalie said. “We’ve both come to visit you.”

She came closer. When I bent down to shake her hand, she stared into my face. Her thick glasses magnified her pale blue eyes, and her white hair was pinned up on her head. Around her neck was a long silver necklace with what looked to be one of those medical alert tags. One push on the button and the ambulance would be on its way, although way the hell up here, I couldn’t imagine how long it would take to show up.

“Alex?” she said. “Is that your name?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I took her right hand carefully in mine.

“That’s a good name,” she said. “What happened to your face?”

“It’s a long story, ma’am.”

“My son is named Albert. That’s close to Alex.”

“Alex and I would like to ask you a couple of questions,” Natalie said. “Would that be all right?”

“Of course, dear.” She put her hand on Natalie’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, dear.”

“Yes?”

“Tell me your name.”

“I’m Natalie.”

“Natalie! There’s a little girl next door named Natalie. Her grandparents are dear friends of mine.”

Natalie closed her eyes for a moment. She cleared her throat. “Mrs. DeMarco, I wonder if I can ask you something.”

“Please sit down, eh? Can I get you anything?”

“No, please,” Natalie said. “Let me. Have you eaten lunch yet?”

“Oh yes. Flo was here before. She comes every day.”

“Your nurse, you mean? I thought her name was Celia. When I was here before, remember? You told me her name was—”

“She’s the woman who comes over every day. Her name is Flo.”

Natalie took her by the hand and led her to the couch. “Are you sure I can’t get you something else? Maybe some tea?”

“No, I’m fine, dear. But thank you.”

She took her time sitting herself down on the couch. I offered my hand to her, but she waved me away.

“Sit down,” she said. “Please.”

I sat down next to her. Natalie knelt down on the floor.

“Mrs. DeMarco, you do remember me, right? I came over to visit you a couple of weeks ago.”

“You didn’t have your friend with you then,” she said, looking at me. “Him I’d remember.”

“No,” Natalie said. “Alex wasn’t with me.”

“You’ve got to learn how to duck, young man.”

I couldn’t help smiling at that. It had been a long time since someone referred to me as a young man.

“We have a question to ask you,” Natalie said. “It might seem kind of silly. Are you ready?”

“Yes, dear. Go ahead, eh?”

Natalie took the photograph out of her coat pocket. “Can you see this picture all right?”

Mrs. DeMarco took it from her and held it a few inches from her face. “Can you turn on that lamp, dear?”

Natalie reached over and pulled the cord on the tassel-shaded lamp on the end table. “Is that better?”

Mrs. DeMarco squinted and moved the picture back and forth a little bit. “Is that snow on the ground?”

“No, I think this was taken during the summer.”

“I remember that hat,” she said.

Natalie looked at me. “The hat? You remember it?”

“That was an expensive hat, eh? You have to take good care of a hat like that.”

“Were you here in the yard the day this was taken?”

“How much snow is there?” she said, looking closer. “This is right before New Year’s Eve.”

“No, Mrs. DeMarco—”

“I told them, New Year’s Eve you should spend with your family, eh? You shouldn’t be going out all night like that.”

“Mrs. DeMarco, I don’t understand. What New Year’s Eve are you talking about?”

“There wasn’t much snow, eh? It was a strange winter. And them going down there like that. There was no reason for it. You shouldn’t be away from home on New Year’s Eve. It gave me a bad feeling, you know. A woman knows these things.”

“Down there? Where’s down there?”

“It’s bad business. Any fool knows that, eh?”

“What’s the bad business about, Mrs. DeMarco? Can you tell me?”

“New Year’s Eve,” she said. “Of all the nights in the year, eh?”

“What happened on New Year’s Eve?”

Mrs. DeMarco looked at the picture again. “Luc Reynaud certainly knows how to wear a suit,” she said. “Who are these other men?”

“That’s my father,” Natalie said.

Mrs. DeMarco looked at her, shaking her head in confusion.

“Your father, dear?”

“I mean to say, this is Jean Reynaud.”

“No, dear. Jean’s just a little thing.”

“The other man was…” Natalie stopped. What could she say? Your dead son?

“Where did he go now?” Mrs. DeMarco said, looking around the room.

“Who, Mrs. DeMarco?”

“Albert. He’s always getting into things.”

“I don’t know,” Natalie said, blinking. “I don’t think he’s here.”

Mrs. DeMarco turned to me. “What was your name? Alvin?”

“Alex, ma’am.”

“Have you seen my son?”

“No, ma’am. I haven’t.”

“If you do, will you bring him home?”

I looked at Natalie. “Yes, ma’am. I will.”

“Good,” she said. She patted me on the hand. “You’re a good boy. You shouldn’t get into fights, though. It’s not a smart thing to do, eh?”

“You’re right about that,” I said.

We sat with her for a few more minutes. It was obvious she wasn’t going to talk any more about the hat or anything else from the past. She was getting tired, too, so we made our goodbyes and promised her that we’d come back again soon. She made Natalie promise to say hello to the Reynauds next door if she saw them, and she made me promise to keep an eye out for her son. And to not get into any more fights.

Natalie wrote out a note to the day nurse, asking her to call her. Then we left. The air felt painful after the warmth of the house.

“That was bad,” Natalie said as she got into the Jeep.

“I know.”

“I’ve got to do something to help her. I can’t just leave her in that house like that.”

“Isn’t there somebody you can talk to?”

She shook her head. “She doesn’t have any family left, Alex. And she doesn’t even know it.”

I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. She started up the Jeep and backed it down the driveway. When she was on the road, she gunned it and drove west, past her own driveway.

“Let me guess,” I said. “We’re going to Michigan now?”

“You up for it?”

“Yep.”

She nodded her head and kept driving. She didn’t say anything else for a while. The snow started to fall.

“Mrs. DeMarco couldn’t help us,” she finally said. “But I
am
going to find out. I want to know what happened.”

“If this man really did kill your father,” I said, “this Simon Grant, the man with the hat…”

“I know, Alex. They just buried him.”

“I’m just saying—”

“He’s gone now. I can’t touch him, I know. But I still have to find out.”

I heard the determination in her voice. It was something I recognized, the same thing that would be driving me if I were in her place. She’d have no peace until she got her answer.

I wanted to help her. I wanted to watch her back, wherever this thing would take her. And of course I wouldn’t mind finding out some answers myself. Why the hell I got triple-teamed behind the church, for starters.

I wasn’t quite sure where we’d begin, but I did know one thing. Sooner or later, we’d end up spending some more time with the Grant family.

The snow kept coming. We hit a bad patch on the road and for one instant I could feel everything moving sideways. Natalie slowed down just a little bit, but otherwise barreled right on through it. Then the snow stopped, just like that. Neither of us said anything about it. We didn’t want to jinx it. Or maybe we just didn’t feel like talking yet. A few minutes later, I picked up my cell phone and dialed Leon’s number.

“How old is that thing?” she said. “It looks like something from World War II.”

“It works,” I said.

“Do you have to crank it by hand first?”

“At least I have a cell phone.”

“Yeah, so anybody can call you, no matter where you are.”

“If I left it on, yeah.”

She smiled and shook her head. Before I could say anything else, Leon came on the line.

“Leon,” I said. “Are you at the store? I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“Of course not, Alex. What’s going on?”

“I’m just wondering if you could give me the name of your friend at the newspaper. We’ve got something we want to look up.”

There was a pause. “Why don’t you just tell me what you need? I can talk to him.”

“All right,” I said. Like there was any other way. “This is what we’re looking for. A man named Reynaud was murdered a long time ago, in Soo Michigan. Most likely in a bar.”

“What’s the full name?”

I pictured him getting out his little notepad, standing there among the snowmobiles with the phone to his ear.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Natalie. “Did you ever tell me his full name?”

“Jean Sylvain Reynaud.” She kept staring straight ahead. We had just driven through Iron Bridge, and now we were back out on the open road.

“Jean Sylvain Reynaud,” I said into the phone.

“When was the murder?”

“Natalie, do you remember—”

“Nineteen seventy-three,” she said, her eyes still straight ahead. Her voice was flat. “I don’t know what date. Sometime early in the year.”

“Leon, it was early 1973.”

“Do you have anything on the cause of death? Shooting? Stabbing?”

I looked over at her.

“Leon,” I said. “That should be enough to go on, shouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah. No problem. I’ll give my guy a call, see what he can find out. If it was here in the Soo, I know the
Evening News
will have a record of it.”

“Thanks, Leon. You’re the best.”

He told me he’d keep in touch. Then he was off to sell more snowmobiles. I put the phone down and looked out the side window.

“This Leon,” she said. “He’s good at this stuff, eh?”

“He is.”

“How long will it take him to find out?”

I looked at my watch. It was 3:15. “We’ll be down there by what, 4:30?”

“Before that.”

I looked over at her speedometer. With the snow stopped, the needle was back up to 120 on her Canadian dial, which meant she was going somewhere around 75 miles per hour. She was driving just like a cop.

“If his newspaper friend is in the office,” I said, “Leon will call me back before we get there.”

“That fast?”

“He’s like a pit bull when he wants to find out something. That’s why he’s such a good private eye.”

“And you’re not?”

“He loves this stuff,” I said. “He lives for it.”

“He sounds like the perfect partner. You ever think about trying it again?”

“Not really, no.”

“Why not?”

“You’re serious?”

“What else are you going to do? Sit around in your cabin all day?”

“With a blanket on my lap, yeah. In my rocking chair.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Actually, right now that sounds pretty good.”

She reached over and touched my arm. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

She kept driving. We hit Thessalon, and she had to slow down for a while. When the town was behind us, she blew by a big truck and got back to cruising speed again.

“So what do you want to bet?” she said.

“About what?”

“About whether Leon calls you back before we hit the bridge.”

“I don’t want to take your money,” I said.

“Who said anything about money?”

“Hmm, you might have something there.”

“Unless you’re too sore.”

I looked over at her. After everything that had happened that day, finding the picture of her father, having to think about his death, having to work up the nerve to call her mother of all people in the world, the visit to Mrs. DeMarco—after all that, here she was trying to pull herself out of a blue mood. She was
willing
herself to be happy again. It was something I needed to learn.

“We’re almost there,” she said. We were coming up to Bruce Mines.

“He’s got plenty of time,” I said. “All the time in the world.”

There was more traffic on the Queen’s Highway now. She passed three cars in a row and kept going.

“No fair,” I said. “You’re cheating.”

“Nobody said I had to drive like a civilian.”

“He’ll still make it. I know he will.”

We passed the Garden River First Nation. I looked at my watch. It was 3:45. Leon hadn’t been on the case for more than thirty minutes.

“I’ll take dinner first,” she said.

Then the phone rang.

“Hello, Leon,” I said as I picked it up. “What took you so long?”

“I’ve got something,” he said.

“What is it?”

“You said early 1973, right?”

“Right.”

“How about a few minutes into the year?”

“How do you mean?”

“It was New Year’s Eve. He died just as 1972 was turning into 1973.”

That stopped me cold. New Year’s Eve. I thought back over all the jumbled references Mrs. DeMarco had made to New Year’s Eve.

“It happened here in the Soo,” Leon went on. “Just like you said. You want to know exactly where?”

“Yes, tell me.”

“Right outside the Ojibway.”

“My God.” I looked at Natalie. She was back to her straight-ahead stare.

“I’ve got the old news article here,” he said. “Reynaud was found around the corner, right next to the building, on Water Street.”

“On the side overlooking the locks?”

“Yeah. He was shot in the back of the head. They never found out who did it.”

“No leads even?”

“No, at least there aren’t any mentioned in the paper. You’d have to talk to the police about it. Maybe somebody remembers the case.”

“Okay. Can I get a copy of that article?”

“Of course. You never bought a fax machine, did you?”

“Why would I buy a fax machine?”

“Just stop by the motor shop,” he said. “I’m here for another hour.”

“Thanks, Leon. I really appreciate it.”

I hung up the phone. I told her everything he had given me.

“So I lose,” she said. Then nothing else. She just kept driving.

We rolled through
Soo Canada, then crossed the International Bridge. High above the St. Marys River, I looked down at the locks and the thin stretch of rapids between the Canadian and American sides. The whole scene was cast in a gray, muted light, the clouds hanging low and dark over our heads. The snow would start falling again. It was just a matter of time.

When we cleared customs, I gave her directions to the motor shop on Three Mile Road. As soon as we got out of Natalie’s Jeep, I saw Leon coming out to meet us. I made the introductions.

“Pleased to meet you,” Leon said to Natalie. He bowed a little bit and did everything else but kiss her hand. “No wonder Alex is so loopy these days.”

“Leon, the only thing making me loopy is my concussion. Now who’s this guy over at the newspaper who can—”

I stopped and looked into the showroom.

“There’s like a dozen people in there,” I said. “Don’t you have to go back in?”

He took a quick glance behind him. “They’re fine in there. Everybody’s just looking.”

It made me feel a little guilty again, taking up his time like this. But he was already off and running.

“I’ve got a copy of the article right here,” he said. He took a piece of paper out of a manila folder.

I took it from him and started to read it.

“Leon,” I said. “This isn’t a fax. It’s a photocopy. How did you—”

“I ran over to the newspaper office and got it. Only took me a minute.”

I shook my head and kept reading. It was a front page article dated January 1, 1973, with the same lighthouse that had been on the masthead of the
Evening News
since forever. The headline read “Canadian Man Slain,” and the text went on to describe the discovery of a frozen body on Water Street, behind the Ojibway Hotel. The man was identified as Jean Sylvain Reynaud of Blind River, Ontario. His wallet was still on his person, robbery ruled out, no suspects at the time. It was all pretty straightforward reporting, and I wasn’t sure if it gave us anything we could use. Except for one detail.

“Leon, it says here he was seen drinking in the hotel bar that evening. I don’t remember there being a bar in the hotel.”

“There was, way back when. I remember my dad going in there when I was a kid.”

“Where the dining room is now?”

“Yeah, I think it was on that side of the building. They redid the place a couple of times since then.”

I passed the paper to Natalie. She read through it quickly and gave it back to me. “Shot in the back of the head,” she said, “behind the bar. That doesn’t sound like he was protecting somebody.”

“No,” Leon said. “Did you have reason to believe he was?”

“Just part of my mother’s story,” she said. “Another lie.”

“I’m sorry,” Leon said to her. “This can’t be easy.”

She pulled her coat closer to her body. “I’m okay.”

“Leon, how can we find out more about this?” I said. “You think the police record is still lying around somewhere?”

“I’m sure it is,” he said, “in some storage room. Probably take forever to find it. You know any old Soo cops who might have been around back then?”

“You don’t suppose …”

“One way to find out.”

“Sure,” I said. “This’ll be fun.”

“You know, if you’re talking about the seventies, you’re going back to a pretty strange time around here. Like I said, I was only a kid then, but I heard about it later.”

“What do you mean?”

“You gotta remember, the air force base was still open then. There were a lot of men stationed up here. You add up everybody, I think it was like ten thousand. That’s a lot of people, Alex. With a long hard winter. You can imagine …”

“So you’re saying, what, there were a lot of prostitutes around, and what else?”

“You name it,” he said. “You remember what happened to the chief of police up here.”

“No, what?”

“He was arrested by the state police for taking bribes from the Detroit Mafia. I forget what year that was.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said. “I was downstate back then.”

“What my grandfather said about this town,” Natalie said. “I guess he knew what he was talking about.”

I looked at the article again. “It’s hard to even imagine.”

A man stepped out of the shop and stared daggers at Leon’s back.

“I think you’re wanted inside,” I said. “Thank you again, Leon. You’re the best.”

“Yes,” Natalie said. “Thank you. Alex told me you were a good partner.”

That seemed to make Leon’s day, even though he was headed back inside to deal with an unhappy boss.

We got back in Natalie’s Jeep. “So now what?” she said.

“Take a right here,” I said. “It’s time for you to meet somebody.”

“Another friend of yours?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that.”

We went up Ashmun to the north end of town. When we hit Portage, we could see the Ojibway Hotel, three blocks down. The red awnings seemed to glow in the fading light.

“This way,” I said.

We turned right, away from the hotel. It was going on five o’clock when we got to the City County Building. We pulled around back, just in time to see Chief Maven leaving.

“Chief,” I said as I opened my door. “Can we have a minute of your time?”

“What is it, McKnight? I’m on my way home.”

“It won’t take long,” I said. “This is Natalie Reynaud of the Ontario Provincial Police.” I figured the official title wouldn’t hurt, but it probably didn’t matter. His face brightened as soon as he looked at her. Turns out he was human after all.

“Officer Reynaud,” he said, taking her hand. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise, Chief. If it’s not too much trouble, can we go back inside for a moment?”

“Certainly. Right this way.”

He opened the door and showed her into the building. I followed, watching this unnaturally charming clone of Chief Roy Maven asking Natalie which detachment she was based out of, and how long she had been in the OPP. We went straight to his office and he went a couple of doors down to get a comfortable guest chair for her. I sat in my usual rock-hard plastic chair.

“So,” he finally said when we were settled in, “what can I do for you? Alex, your face is looking a little better, at least. Relatively speaking.”

“About that,” Natalie said. “What’s happening to the men who assaulted Alex?”

She wasn’t wasting any time. Maven threw his hands up in surrender. “Let’s not get off on the wrong foot here,” he said. “I arrested all three of them, right after I saw Alex in the hospital.”

“How did you charge them?”

“Felonious assault, naturally.”

“What class is that in Michigan?”

“Well,” Maven said, “that’s actually a class three felony.”

“That’s one step away from a misdemeanor,” Natalie said. “Am I right? Is that how it works here?”

“It’s a mighty big step,” he said. “Believe me.”

“Three men beat him and left him for dead. You’re telling me that’s not a class two at least?”

“For a class two assault, you need intent to rob or else some sort of criminal sexual contact. For class one you need intent to kill or maim.”

“Chief Maven, if you’re telling me they had no intent to maim him …”

“I know what you mean, but you’ve gotta understand how it works around here. Intent to maim is strictly interpreted. With no weapon, and no admitted intent, it just doesn’t get prosecuted as class one.”