Blood Is the Sky Read online

  I knew it wasn’t that simple. They may have burned down their business, whether they had been charged for it or not. The fire spread into the hotel, which may or may not have been up to fire codes. It was a whole chain of events that might have turned out a hundred different ways. But I wasn’t going to say that to her.

  “I know what you must be thinking. I know how it sounds. But you can’t understand what it feels like until it happens to you. I’d have dreams about my daughter. About the fire. I couldn’t get to her.”

  Her voice was ragged now.

  “I can’t make you understand,” she said. “The dreams—”

  We heard the rumble of a car passing by outside. The sound got farther and farther away, and then it was quiet again.

  “When those men got here, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was afraid to even look at them. But Hank, my God, he was out there shaking their hands, looking each one of them in the eyes. If I had done that—”

  She stopped. She looked back at Vinnie.

  “If I had done that, I might have seen your brother. I might have known he wasn’t one of them. I might have seen that he didn’t belong.”

  Vinnie didn’t say anything. The light from the fire was reflected in his eyes.

  Five men. That’s all Hank had seen. Albright and his business associates.

  Five men.

  “Hank flew them out to Lake Agawaatese. It’s the farthest away. There aren’t even many moose up there. Just bears.”

  She kept looking at Vinnie.

  “I didn’t know, Vinnie.” She said it like she was still trying to convince him. “I didn’t know what he was going to do.”

  “You knew he was going to kill them,” Vinnie said.

  “Vinnie—”

  “How could you not know? All of you.”

  “Ron knew. He was there with Hank, out at the lake. He and Hank … They were there. They did it together. And then Ron and Hank took the Suburban out that morning, the morning they were supposed to have flown back. They took the Suburban and Hank’s truck, I mean, and left the Suburban in the woods. I didn’t know at the time. I wasn’t there. Hank told us to go away, me and Millie. We came back that Saturday. The Suburban was gone. At first I thought—”

  “What?”

  “I thought the men were gone. I thought maybe … I don’t know … maybe they didn’t do anything. Maybe they flew them back. Then Hank told me. It’s done, he said. That’s what he said to me. It’s done.”

  “You knew, Helen.”

  She picked her hands up out of her lap. She held them up for a moment and then let them drop again.

  “Yes,” she said, in a voice so low I could barely hear her. “Yes, I knew.”

  “What about DeMers?”

  “He didn’t even know those men were up here. Not until after. They came out to the lodge, Claude and his partner—what was her name?”

  “Reynaud,” I said. “Natalie Reynaud.”

  “They came out here that morning, when the call came up from Detroit about the missing men. That’s when Hank took him aside and told him what had happened. I thought Claude would strangle him.”

  “What was he going to do about it?” I said. “He was a police officer.”

  “Yes, and he had taken an oath. He said that to Hank. He had to turn us in. All of us. But then—”

  “What?”

  “He didn’t. He just didn’t.”

  I thought about DeMers, about the way he had treated us. The hot and cold act, and everything he had said and done to convince us to go home and to stay there. It all made sense now. It was tearing him up. And the two of us digging around up here was the last thing in the world he had wanted.

  “What about later?” I said. “When he flew up there with Hank?”

  “I was there when Claude came over. He didn’t have his partner this time. He said that you and Vinnie had flown up to the lake, and that you were still up there. Hank got his rifle and tried to put it in the plane, and Claude asked him what the hell he was doing. Hank said he’d have to take care of things if you and Vinnie had found out what he and Ron had done. Claude told him that wasn’t going to happen. They were going to fly up and bring the two of you back. And if you had found out, then we’d all just have to deal with it.”

  She looked back at Vinnie again.

  “Claude said there was already one innocent man dead. He wasn’t going to let it happen to two more.”

  Vinnie nodded his head once.

  “I swear to God,” Helen said. “I thought that was going to be the end of it. I thought Claude would take care of it and it would all be over. But Hank must have sneaked that rifle onto the plane somehow. They flew up there … And Hank, he must have—”

  She started crying.

  “He was protecting us,” she said. “That goddamned fool. He didn’t want any of this to touch us. Now he’s gone. Claude is gone. Ron and Millie are gone. Everybody’s gone except me.”

  Maskwa got up from his chair and went to her. He stood over her and gently placed one hand to the side of her face. Vinnie stayed in the corner. He was looking up at the ceiling now, blinking away the tears.

  “You weren’t coming up here for revenge,” Maskwa said. “You came up here to help them.”

  “I had my friend at the News run their names,” Vinnie said. “It was so easy to find that article. I knew it would be just as easy for anybody else. Alex was there when Albright’s brother stopped us. He saw the look in his eyes. And the way they both seemed to think about it, like they had some idea … I knew they’d find them sooner or later.”

  “Would you have done the same for Ron?” I said. “If you had gotten to him in time?”

  He closed his eyes. “It has to stop somewhere, Alex. Okay? Those kids died in that fire. Hank and Ron, they killed Albright and those other men. And my brother with them. They burned them up. So Albright’s brother came up to kill some more. More fire. More goddamned fire, Alex. What am I supposed to do? Go burn some more of them?”

  Maskwa kept his hand on Helen’s face. Vinnie opened his eyes again and watched the two of them.

  “No more,” Vinnie said. “This is where it ends. Helen has to go away. She has to go somewhere where they won’t find her.”

  “I know where we can go,” Maskwa said. “I can get the plane ready.”

  I didn’t have to ask what they were talking about. I knew there were a dozen places they could take her, like maybe Moosonee, on James Bay. Once she was there, she could either go to one of the other reserves on the Ontario side of James Bay, or take the ferry over to Quebec.

  Nobody would ever find her. Not the police. Not the men from Detroit.

  I knew Vinnie had done this once before. A woman was in trouble and he took her into his family, a family that extended for thousands of miles, across all borders. And he made her disappear. Now I was seeing it firsthand.

  “No,” Helen said. She took Maskwa’s hand away from her head. “You’re not taking me anywhere.”

  “Helen, you have to—”

  “No, Vinnie. I waited until Alex and Maskwa got here, so they could hear the whole story. Now it’s time for you and me to go to the police.”

  “I don’t think you want to do that,” Vinnie said.

  “I’m not going to run away,” she said. “I’m going to tell them everything that happened.” She hesitated. “Everything except Claude. There’s no reason to pull him into this. He died a hero. Let him stay a hero.”

  “They’ll find out eventually.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” she said. “But I don’t have to tell them.”

  “Helen . .” Vinnie said. He tried to find some words but couldn’t.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “Let’s go do this right now.”

  They tried to talk her out of it, but it was obvious her mind was made up. A few minutes later, we were standing outside in the cold dead yard, watching Vinnie and Helen drive away. Helen looked at us through her window, then lifted her ha
nd and put it flat against the glass.

  I said my own goodbyes to Maskwa, this incredible man, and to Guy and his mother. I got in my truck and started down the road. There were snowflakes in the air. I drove down the empty highway, all the way to the station in Hearst, and parked next to Vinnie’s truck. I knew it would be a long wait, so I settled in and went to sleep.

  A couple hours later, I picked my head up and saw Vinnie coming out of the station. He was alone, and he looked as tired and miserable as any man I had ever seen.

  He gave me a nod and got in his truck, and then I followed him all the way home.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  That winter came in as if it wasn’t really sure of its mission. It would snow a few inches, then stop. We never got buried. It would go down to zero at night, but we didn’t have any of those thirty-below nights where you worry about your pipes freezing.

  I spent Thanksgiving with Jackie and his son, the three of us alone in the Glasgow. The place was open that night, but nobody else came in until after nine o’clock. I left the place and drove over to Vinnie’s mother’s house and finished up my Thanksgiving night with my new adopted family.

  We had one big snow in early December, but aside from that the winter stayed mild and some of the snowmobilers even canceled their reservations. That meant a little less noise and fewer drunken fools running into each other. Somehow I adjusted.

  When Christmas came, I had my busiest holiday in years. I started out over at Vinnie’s mother’s house again, had lunch with Jackie, and then I headed over to Leon’s house for dinner. I gave toys to his kids and a bottle of wine to Eleanor, and they actually seemed to enjoy having me around this time. It helped that I wasn’t asking Leon to do any private eye work.

  Until after dinner.

  Eleanor was putting the kids to bed when I told him what I was thinking about. I had seen what Vinnie had done for Helen. I was thinking maybe I could do something for somebody, too.

  “And maybe a little bit for yourself?” Leon said.

  “Okay, maybe. Just a little bit.”

  He called me a couple of days later. I sat on the whole idea for a couple more days. Maybe I was trying to talk myself out of it. I woke up on New Year’s Eve day convinced that it was a bad idea.

  Sometime late that afternoon, I changed my mind.

  I had a bottle of champagne in my fridge. I had been saving it for God knows what, for drinking by myself again on another New Year’s Eve. This year I might have shared it with Vinnie and his family. Or Jackie and Leon. I had more family now than ever.

  But that wasn’t enough. For some reason, after what I had been through, I felt like I needed something more.

  I put the bottle of champagne in the truck, drove out into the cold day. I had the plow on the front of the truck, the cinder blocks in the back for traction. Even with no snow on the ground, I was ready. That’s the way I am.

  I drove over the bridge. The man in the customs booth looked my truck over and asked me if I had heard something about a snowstorm. I told him no, but the minute I took the plow off we’d get dumped on. He thought that was funny. He wished me a Happy New Year and sent me on my way.

  I had the directions on the seat next to me, courtesy of Leon. It wasn’t that far away, that was the crazy thing. I figured I’d have to drive all day again. But the address was in Blind River, a little town on the North Channel, maybe an hour and a half east of Sault Ste. Marie.

  I took the Queen’s Highway out of the Soo and followed it through all the small towns on the coast. I had come down this same road on the way to Sudbury, when I was looking for Vinnie. This time there was a lot less at stake. So why did I feel so nervous?

  The sun was going down when I hit Blind River, the days so damned short now. I found the intersection in the middle of town, took a left and headed north. The town gave way to wetlands and empty fields spotted with thin traces of snow. I went over a little bridge and found the farmhouse on the right, set back from the road. I pulled up the gravel driveway and stopped. There was a car pulled up in front of a small barn, but the house looked dark.

  I got out and went to the front porch. There was a Christmas wreath hanging on the door. I rang the bell and waited. Twenty seconds passed. I rang the bell again.

  The door opened. Natalie Reynaud stood there in the light of the doorway. She was wearing jeans and a white cotton shirt, and she looked at me like I was the last person she ever expected to see standing on her porch. Which I suppose I was.

  “McKnight?”

  “Good evening.”

  “What are you … What is this?”

  “I’m here to give you something. May I come in?”

  She didn’t move. “What are you talking about?” She looked down at the bottle in my hand. “Did you come here to give me a bottle of champagne?”

  “No,” I said. “Something else. The champagne is just …” I ran out of words. At that moment, I started to feel like an idiot and I might have left if she hadn’t opened the door all the way for me.

  “Come on in,” she said. “You’re letting the warm out.”

  “My father used to say that,” I said as I stepped inside. “You’re letting the warm out.”

  She stood in front of me with her arms folded. “I’m not on the job right now,” she said. “I took a leave.”

  “I know,” I said. “I mean, I don’t know, but I’m not surprised. I did the same thing myself.”

  She kept one arm folded around her and ran the other through her hair. “McKnight, I don’t know how you found me, or why you came all the way out here, but—”

  “Here,” I said. I gave her the piece of paper.

  She took it from me. She held it for a moment like she was unsure what to do with it. Then she unfolded it and read the article. She read it quickly and then she looked up at me. “What’s this about?”

  “Can we sit down?”

  “Over here,” she said. She led me to her dining room table. It was an antique oak table with ornate claw feet, and it matched the rest of the room perfectly. There was a hutch with china plates displayed in rows, and an old pie cabinet with the air holes in the metal panels. A chandelier hung from the ceiling with five crystal bowls.

  “It’s a nice house,” I said.

  “It’s my grandparents’ house.”

  I looked out into the next room. “I hope I’m not disturbing them.”

  “I doubt it. They’re both dead.”

  I sat down at the table. My collar felt hot around my neck.

  “Look,” she said, “are you going to tell me what this article means?”

  “Please sit down,” I said.

  She let out a long breath and sat down across from me. I couldn’t help but notice what the antique light did to her eyes. And for the first time I saw a hint of red in her hair.

  “Read the names again,” I said.

  She looked at the article. The expression on her face changed. “Gannon. St. Jean. Trembley.” She looked at me. “Where did you get this?”

  “Someone at the newspaper ran a search with those names. It was easy.”

  “I know what happened up at that lodge,” she said. “I read your statement. Was that the way it really went?”

  “I thought you said you were on leave.”

  “I’m getting a little concerned here. Maybe you should go.”

  “There’s another name in that list,” I said. “Olivia Markel.”

  She looked at it again. “I see it. What about her?”

  “Her father was your partner.”

  It took a few seconds for that to sink in. “Claude had a daughter? He never said anything about her.”

  “It was a long time ago. Before you even knew him, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t get it. What does this have to do with … with anything?”

  “They were all together,” I said. “Those people at the lodge, and Claude. They’ve been together ever since that fire in Detroit.”

  “
But Gannon—” She thought hard about it. “Gannon was the one who killed him.”

  “In the end, yes. When Vinnie and I found out what they had done to those men, Claude apparently wanted Gannon to come clean.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I assume you have something like the Fifth Amendment up here in Canada?”

  “Just tell me.”

  “I have to know I can trust you.”

  She looked at me forever. Somewhere in the house, a grandfather clock chimed nine times.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  I told her about Helen, and what Vinnie and Maskwa had done for her. And my own part in it. I told her the whole story. When I was done, she sat back in her chair and closed her eyes.

  “They’ll find out eventually,” she said. “Someone else will make the connection.”

  “Someday,” I said. “Maybe. But it doesn’t have to come from you.”

  “So is that why you came here? To tell me the truth about Claude? Is that going to change anything?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It changes everything. He left you behind for a reason. You don’t have to blame yourself anymore.”

  She shook her head.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I understand what you’re trying to tell me. But—”

  “Why are you here?” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “In this house. It looks like it hasn’t changed in fifty years.”

  “When I took the leave,” she said. “I came back here.” She looked up at the ceiling, like she could see through it to the farthest corners of the house. “This place means a lot to me, but I’m wondering if maybe it’s time to do something with it.”

  “Just like me,” I said. “For me, it was my father’s cabins.”

  She put her elbows on the table. She leaned forward and looked at me close. “I’ll give you one thing,” she said. “You were right about the people at work. Nobody would even look me in the eye anymore.”

  That was all I needed, just the way she had moved toward me. It was a little thing, just a few inches. But it was enough. I was building another bridge over another chasm, this one maybe the biggest of all. Another bridge, another connection. Another step for me on my way back into the human race.