Winter of the Wolf Moon: A Mystery Read online

  “Leon, think. What good is it going to do to have them come out here and see what we’ve done to this place? It’s not going to do them any good. Gobi, and … it was a woman, right?”

  “Yes,” he said. “His wife maybe?”

  “We’ll both go home,” I said. “And then I’ll call it in, anonymously.”

  “I don’t know, Alex.”

  “Think about it,” I said. “Play it in your head, both ways. Think about what happens in the end.”

  He took a long breath and sniffled. “Let me call,” he said. “They might know your voice.”

  I looked at him. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ll call. I’ll wait about an hour after I get home.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, Leon. I’m sorry I dragged you out here.”

  “Don’t worry about it, partner.” He took one more breath and let it out. “Okay,” he said. “I’m good now.” He got out and went to his car. I followed him down the driveway, both of us backing our way down through the trees. He hit the road and went south. I went north.

  When I was back on M-28, heading toward Paradise, I tried not to think about what I had seen. I couldn’t keep the image out of my head.

  The waitress. Bruckman said something about Gobi working on the waitress from the Horns Inn. That’s who the woman was.

  I pulled over, kicked the door open. I threw up all over the road, everything I had until I was heaving up nothing but air. I tried to breathe. So cold it hurt. I closed the door and kept going.

  By the time I got to Strongs, I was having second thoughts about our plan. I’ve got to call the police myself, I thought. I can’t just go home and let Leon do this, pretend we weren’t there.

  I picked up the phone, put it down, then picked it up again. I dialed 911.

  Then to my left, something flashing by. A vehicle. It pulled over into my lane, cutting me off. I hit the brakes, started to skid on the icy road. I saw the car in front of me sliding sideways, then straightening out again. It was a Jeep. Champagne and Urbanic.

  The Jeep was coming to a stop. I pumped the brakes. I wouldn’t be able to stop in time. Closer, closer. Goddamn it, stop! I swerved to the right, hitting the snowbank. The impact sent me bouncing off the steering wheel and then back against my seat.

  When everything finally stopped moving, I looked up at the Jeep in front of me. They must know about what happened, I thought. This is going to take some explaining, why I’m driving back home, why I didn’t call it in.

  Maybe if I can cut Champagne out of this, don’t even talk to him. I’ll have a better chance with Urbanic.

  I winced as I got out of the truck. The sudden stop hadn’t done my ribs any good.

  Go right to Urbanic and throw yourself at his mercy, I thought. Pretend Champagne isn’t even here.

  The Jeep’s doors opened. Two men stepped out.

  It wasn’t them.

  I reached for my gun. It wasn’t there. My right pocket was empty. I never got it back from the police.

  The road was deserted. Nothing to see in any direction but trees and snow. No sound but the wind.

  “Good evening, Mr. McKnight,” the driver said. “At last we meet. You’re a hard man to find.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I sat in the back seat, directly behind the driver. I could see the back of his head, the fur on his collar, and nothing else. The other man sat next to me, wearing the same kind of coat. Fur on the collar, maybe sable. He had a strong chin and a nose that might have been broken once or twice. He kept looking straight ahead. He did not turn to look at me. He did not speak.

  You’re a hard man to find, they said. The words rang in my head. You’re a hard man to find.

  The driver had opened the door for me. He had stood there waiting for me. It would have been a perfect imitation of a chauffeur, except for the gun in his hand. The other man stood on the other side of the car, waiting patiently for me to accept the invitation. He had a gun, too.

  I had gotten into the car. What else was I going to do?

  You’re a hard man to find. It didn’t make any sense.

  The driver kept going west on M-28. He turned north on the road to Paradise. I cleared my throat. “You’re Pearl and Roman,” I said.

  They said nothing. The man sitting next to me didn’t even turn his head.

  “You trashed my cabin,” I said. “Saturday.”

  “We will not talk now,” the man said. He looked straight ahead.

  We kept going in silence. When we came into Paradise, I saw the lights on all along the road, all the places that made up my town. The gas station. The post office. I tried to keep the fear down, someplace deep inside me, in a little box where fear can have its place without controlling you. I knew if I let it out of that box, I would have no hope of thinking clearly.

  You’re a hard man to find. Meaning that they had been looking for me, but could not find me until tonight? They broke into my place on Saturday. How many days have passed since then? What day is it today? Think, Alex.

  We came into the center of town. I could see the Glasgow Inn up ahead. Jackie is in there right now. He has a cold Canadian waiting for me. But no, we’re turning.

  The driver took a left at the blinking light, taking 123 west out of town. “Where are we going?” I said.

  “We will not talk now,” the man said.

  We kept going west. The driver held the steering wheel with hands in black gloves. He was a good driver. He was confident in the snow, but he never drove too fast.

  You’re a hard man to find. It’s starting to make sense now. They trashed the place on Saturday. I didn’t sleep in the cabin that night. I was in the other cabin. The next day Bruckman put me in the hospital. I spent four nights there, then most of yesterday at the Glasgow, then I went over to Canada last night, spent the rest of the night in jail. I haven’t been in my cabin more than ten minutes at a time since Dorothy disappeared. That’s why I’m a hard man to find.

  But now they’ve found me.

  These men took Dorothy, I thought. They probably killed her. They killed Gobi and that woman. The nightmare I saw in that cabin, they did that. Now they’re going to kill me. They’re going to drive me deep into the woods and then kill me.

  I closed my eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. Think.

  I could open the door, try to make it into the woods.

  They’d shoot me down like an animal. I’d have no chance.

  If they wanted to kill me, they could have done it when they stopped me on the road. Nobody would have seen them. Maybe they want something else.

  Yeah, maybe they want something else first. And then they’ll kill me.

  Okay, then. If they’re going to kill me, they’re going to kill me. As long as I’m still alive, I have a chance. Hold on to that.

  We kept going deeper into the woods, past the turn-off for the Tahquamenon Falls. The road was getting narrower, the snow deeper. The driver kept a steady hand on the wheel, working the Jeep through the snow.

  I kept talking to myself, trying to make myself believe that I was going to live to see another day.

  A small sign told us that we were leaving Chippewa County, entering Luce County. I knew this road. It went through nothing but forest until it finally hit Newberry, a good thirty miles southwest. Just as I started to wonder how much farther we would go, the driver slowed down. There was an access road running north. It had been plowed recently, by whom I could not imagine. As far as I knew, there were no cabins in this part of the woods, just small lakes and snowmobile trails. We went up the road for three miles, maybe four. The driver had to work a little harder to keep going. The wheels started to slip in the snow.

  Then we stopped.

  The man next to me spoke. “We get out now.”

  The driver opened his door, got out and then opened mine. The other man stayed where he was until I st
epped out of the car. It was dark. With the headlights off it took a while for my eyes to adjust. The driver took out a flashlight and turned it on.

  “This way,” he said. I saw his face for an instant. His features were more delicate than his partner’s.

  “Where are you taking me?” I said.

  “This way,” he said again. He turned and walked down the road. The other man was behind me. Neither of them had their guns out. They didn’t jab the barrels into my back and tell me start walking and to not try anything funny. They didn’t have to. It was an unspoken understanding between us that as long as I came with them, they would not pull the guns out of their coats and shoot me.

  We walked down the road, following the thin beam from the driver’s flashlight. The road ended. The snow got deeper. It was almost up to my waist. I fought my way through it, pulling one leg out and then the other. It wasn’t long before I was breathing hard. The other two men moved through the same snow, but it didn’t look like they were working nearly as hard as I was.

  “I’m too old for this,” I said. But my words were lost in the cold night

  We came to a clearing and walked toward its center. Finally, I started to see a building ahead of us. It was small, no bigger than a shed. It’s an ice shanty, I thought. We’re walking on a lake now. I tried to picture a map in my head. It could be Little Two Hearted Lake, or it could be one of a hundred other lakes whose names I could not remember. Wherever we were, I knew that we were alone. If there was another building within five miles of us, besides other empty ice shanties, I wouldn’t know how to find it.

  We walked the last hundred yards to the ice shanty. There was a faint glow coming through the cracks. The driver opened the door and held it open for me. Another polite gesture. Right this way, sir.

  I stepped inside. The building was made like most ice shanties I had seen. Unfinished walls and ceiling, bare two-by-fours everywhere, one small window. A rough wooden floor with a square hole in the middle, where someone had opened up the ice to expose the dark water. I saw the fishing line first, traced it up out of the water to the pole and then to the man who was holding it. I saw a long fur coat. The same fur as on the two men’s collars. Black leather boots and gloves. The man’s face was like something carved from stone. He looked up at me with eyes as dark as the square of water at his feet. A propane lantern sat on the bench next to him, casting its pale light. “Mr. McKnight,” he said. “Welcome.”

  “Is your name Molinov?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Please come in and join me. I believe you’ve already met Mr. Bruckman.”

  I stood there in front of him, wondering what the hell he was talking about.

  And then I saw Bruckman.

  He was behind Molinov, huddled against the back wall near a kerosene heater. He was completely naked, his skin like blue steel. I didn’t know if he was dead or alive until I saw him move. He was shaking.

  “Sit down,” Molinov said. He gestured to a rough wooden bench to his left. I sat down on it, moving slowly as if I were in a dream. I looked down at Bruckman again. His face was turned away from us.

  The other two men sat on the bench across from me. Molinov picked up a cigar, took a long puff, and then put the cigar back on the bench. The smell of cigar smoke mixed with the smell of burning kerosene. “Perhaps you will answer a few questions for me,” he said. “As long as you are here.” I didn’t hear much of an accent in his voice, but he said each word as carefully as a man drawing notes from a violin.

  He took out a handheld tape recorder from his coat pocket and pressed a button. The tape began playing, filling the room with Bruckman’s voice. “This is Lonnie. Leave a message.” That was all he said. There was a long silence, and then the messages came one by one.

  “Yo, Lonnie, this is Miles. You coming over here or what? Give me a call, man.”

  “Yeah, Bruckman, this is Charles. Patty gave me your number, said I should hook up with you. I’ll be at the ice rink tomorrow around ten o’clock. Maybe I’ll see you there.”

  “Hey, Lonnie, this is Gobi …” Molinov looked at me. He held the machine up a little higher. “You ain’t gonna like this, man, but I think you got a problem. I’m over at the Horns Inn here and I saw your girlfriend come in here. She was up at the bar asking about that McKnight guy who was playing goal against us last night. Turns out he’s some sort of private investigator or something. I don’t think she saw me there, but I didn’t know what I should do, you know? She had a white bag with her. If that’s what I think it is, you better get over there and find her, man. I got something going with that waitress who works here, and it’s like a lot colder out there than it is in here, you know what I mean? So if you want to find him, he lives up in Paradise. That’s all I heard. I’ll talk to ya later, man.”

  He hit the stop button and took the tape out. “Do you know where this tape came from?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  He put the tape back into the machine and then put it back in his coat pocket. “This girl, Dorothy Parrish,” he said. “She came to you that night, did she not?”

  “Yes.”

  “I understand that she was gone the next morning.”

  I looked over at the two men. I still didn’t know which was Pearl and which was Roman. They looked back at me without an ounce of emotion between them.

  “Yes,” I said. “She was gone.”

  “Perhaps you could tell me where she went.”

  The words hit me like a slap in the face. “I don’t understand.”

  “The girl,” he said. “Where is she?”

  “You’re asking me? You kidnapped her.” I pointed at the men. “They kidnapped her.”

  “That is not true,” he said. “By the time these men inspected your cabin, she was already gone.”

  “Inspected my cabin? Is that what they did?”

  “It was necessary,” he said.

  “I don’t know where she is,” I said. “I swear.”

  Bruckman made a noise behind him. It was a low, gurgling moan that made me bite my lip to stop from shaking. Pearl and Roman looked over at him as casually as you’d look at the family dog whimpering in the corner.

  “Mr. Bruckman seems to be feeling a chill,” Molinov said. “Perhaps you’d be so kind as to give him your coat.”

  I looked at him. Was he serious?

  “Please,” he said. “Your coat.”

  I stood up and took my coat off. Nobody moved, so I figured the rest was up to me. I went behind Molinov, to where Bruckman was huddled against the wall. He had his face next to the kerosene heater, so close I could smell the singed hair. “Bruckman,” I said. He didn’t respond. I touched his back. His skin was so cold, I couldn’t see how he could still be alive. I put the coat over his body.

  “Thank you, Mr. McKnight,” Molinov said. “I’m sure Mr. Bruckman appreciates that.”

  “Why did you do this to him?”

  “Come back to the party, Mr. McKnight. I’ll explain.”

  I sat back down on the bench. I could barely feel the warmth from the kerosene heater. The cold air came rattling through the cracks in the shanty, making me shiver.

  “Mr. Bruckman took something that belongs to me,” Molinov said. “This is the result.”

  “He’ll die,” I said.

  “I’ve been fishing for quite a while now,” he said, pulling his line out of the water. A metal lure, the kind you’d use for trolling in the middle of summer, gleamed in the lantern’s light. “Perhaps I’m not doing it correctly. Would you like to try?”

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  “Perhaps Mr. Bruckman would like to try,” he said. “Why don’t we find out?”

  Pearl and Roman stood up in unison. They picked up Bruckman from the back wall, one arm apiece, and lifted him over to the bench they were just sitting on. I saw his face for the first time. His eyes were swollen shut. I could barely recognize him. My coat slid off of his naked, blue body.

  “Plea
se, his coat,” Molinov said. “We wouldn’t want Mr. Bruckman to catch cold.”

  The men pulled his arms away from his body and somehow managed to get my coat on him.

  “Much better,” Molinov said. “Now, Mr. Bruckman, perhaps you’d like to try your luck at some ice fishing?”

  Bruckman started to fall sideways. One of the men caught him.

  “I think Mr. Bruckman needs some more assistance,” Molinov said.

  With one smooth motion, the two men picked him up and dropped him head first into the water. The splash hit me across the front of my shirt and across my face, as cold and shocking and painful as a thousand icy needles. Bruckman’s body hung against the edge of the opening. It was barely big enough for him to fit through. But then as my coat soaked up the water it pulled him down until only one foot was left above the surface. And then that too was gone.

  I kept staring at the water. I could not move.

  Pearl and Roman sat down. Molinov looked at his wet cigar for a moment and then threw it behind him. “Mr. McKnight, I can understand your reluctance to reveal her whereabouts.”

  The surface of the water was still trembling. I kept expecting Bruckman’s head to come bursting back up through the hole.

  “But I should think at this point you see how important it is to me that I find her, as well as a white bag that was in her possession.”

  “I don’t know where she is,” I said. “I don’t know where the bag is.”

  He nodded slowly. “When I found out that Miss Parrish had come to you, naturally I was curious about who you were. The man on the tape states quite clearly that you are a private investigator. I made some inquiries and discovered that yes, you do in fact have a license. I was surprised to find, however, that you have no office, you have no listing in the phone directory, you apparently make no attempt whatsoever to advertise your services. I thought that rather odd, until I learned more about your recent past. Is it true that your last clients were the Fulton family?”

  I looked up at him.

  “It’s a very wealthy family, is it not? I understand they have a vacation home on the lake, just north of your cabin. I actually paid the house a visit today, did you know that? It’s an impressive building. Of course, it’s empty now. I couldn’t imagine living here in the winter if one had a choice. We have places just like this where I come from, you realize. I can assure you, though, that nobody ever builds a vacation home there.”