Die a Stranger: An Alex McKnight Novel Read online

  “No, I’m sure you’re right,” the chief said. “But it does make you wonder just what the hell’s going on around here.”

  “Yeah, well, I just wanted to let you know about Buck. That’s all I had.”

  “I appreciate it, Mr. McKnight. Why don’t you let us take it from here now? We’ll have our officers looking out for them, like I said. We’ll put in some calls to the other reservations in the state, in case they’re both off visiting somebody.”

  “Okay,” I said. “That makes sense.”

  “Okay, then. Yes. Thank you.”

  I left the place. I got back into my truck and drove off the reservation. These past couple of days, I was really feeling like a stranger here. You forget about it for a while, but then a few things happen and people say things to you in a certain way, and it all adds up. You may be welcome here, but at the end of the day, you’re not part of this. You never have been and you never will be.

  *

  Back to Paradise for the rest of another long day. Dinner at the Glasgow. Jackie fussing with things at the bar and clearly more worried than he would admit.

  They went on a trip, I told him. Vinnie and his cousin Buck. They got into his truck and drove somewhere to see somebody. Somebody we don’t know. They didn’t tell anyone because it didn’t even occur to them. When they get back, they’ll be surprised we let ourselves get this worked up about it. In the end, we’ll even laugh about it.

  That’s what I told Jackie. That’s what I told myself.

  It was late when I drove back up my road, past Vinnie’s cabin. Dark and empty. I went into my own cabin, got undressed, and lay down on the bed. I tried to sleep.

  I was just dozing off into some sort of half dream when a knock on my front door jarred me awake. It took me a second to find my bearings. I got up, put on some clothes, and went to the door.

  When I opened it, I saw Chief Benally standing there. He was holding his hat in his hands, and in that one instant I flashed back to my own time as a cop and how I’d felt compelled to take my hat off while I was standing on a doorstep in Detroit, waiting to deliver the worst news imaginable.

  “Chief, what’s going on?”

  “Sorry to bother you again. Can I come in?”

  I backed up and he stepped inside. He’d been here the night before, so I didn’t have to point out where the furniture was.

  “Mr. McKnight, have a seat,” he said. “I need to tell you something.”

  I sat down and waited for him to take the chair across from me. I was already anticipating his words. I was wondering exactly how he’d say it. Would he give me the preamble and ask me to prepare myself? Or would he launch right into it? Vinnie LeBlanc’s body was just found about an hour ago.…

  “Before I say anything,” he said, “I have to ask you something.”

  “Okay…”

  “What I’m about to tell you must remain in complete confidence. At least for the time being.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m asking you to promise me that nothing said here will leave this room.”

  “I promise,” I said. “But what—”

  “We heard from Vinnie. He’s with Buck, and apparently they’re all right. So obviously that’s good news.”

  “Wait. How did you hear from him? Where are they?”

  “Well, that’s the strange thing about this. You see, all he did was leave a message on the voice mail at the station. He said they were fine and that they’d try to call back again later. He didn’t say where they were.”

  “Come on, Chief, he had to say something else. Nothing about why they left? Or when they’d be back? Or anything?”

  “Well, he did ask me to let his sisters know that they were okay. So I’ve just been to see both of them. To let them know. Even though it’s a pretty vague message, I realize. And then of course he also mentioned you.”

  “He mentioned me.”

  “He did, yes. Tell my sisters. Tell Alex. We’re both okay. We’ll be back as soon as we can. Don’t worry.”

  “That’s it. That’s all he said.”

  “Yes, and because he mentioned you specifically, I made a point to come and tell you.”

  “Because if it was just up to you, I’d still be in the dark, right?”

  “You’re not being fair now. I would have told you.”

  “Okay, so then why the big secret?” I said. “If they’re okay, why can’t I tell anyone else?”

  “It’s kind of a delicate situation right now. With this business at the airport and all. Them disappearing the same night.”

  “So it’s definitely connected.”

  “I don’t know that for sure. Nobody does. But I think we need to keep a lid on things until we can get them back home.”

  “Meaning that they’re definitely not okay. That’s what you’re really telling me.”

  “No. You’ve got this all wrong.”

  “Tell me the truth,” I said, staring him straight in the eyes. “Where are they and what the hell is going on?”

  He stared straight back at me. “I honestly don’t know where they are,” he said. “All I know is that they’re safe, and … Well, I think somebody is helping them.”

  He put his hand up before I could speak.

  “I don’t know exactly who is helping them. I’m not going to speculate. But I think I heard a voice in the background. Somebody who didn’t sound like Buck. That’s all I can say right now. When I know something else for sure, I’ll tell you. I promise.”

  I leaned back in my chair. I wasn’t sure what else to say.

  “Look, you’re an ex-cop,” he said.

  “Yes. Long time ago.”

  “Doesn’t matter how long, you still think like a cop. I get that. Believe me, I’ll probably be the same way myself when I finally hang it up. But right now, I need you to stay here close to home, and to keep your eyes and ears open. Are we clear?”

  “I’m not sure what I’m gonna see or hear. Aside from Vinnie’s truck coming up that road…”

  “I’m dead serious, Mr. McKnight. If you see anything suspicious. Somebody you’ve never seen before. You know, just nosing around maybe.”

  “Nosing around.”

  “Yes. Nosing around. You see somebody like that, I need you to call me.”

  “Chief, who are we talking about that would be—”

  I stopped myself. I waved it away and made myself take a breath.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll call you if I see anything unusual.”

  “Thank you. I’m going to go now. For right now, I’m afraid all we can do is wait.”

  He got up. He shook my hand. He put his hat back on and then he left.

  I went outside and stood there in the night air. I listened to him drive away. That word still ringing in my ears. Wait. My least favorite word ever.

  “Vinnie LeBlanc,” I said. “Wherever you are, you might want to think about staying there. Because the next time I see you I’m going to kick your ass.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  There was a time when Vinnie and I weren’t speaking to each other. A young Ojibwa woman had asked me to help her, and I tried to do that. But because she was a member of the tribe, it was the tribe who came to her in the middle of the night. They took her away, they helped her, and yeah, I suppose she was probably better off with a whole community on her side instead of one aging ex-cop.

  But they didn’t tell me. That was the thing that burned me. I still haven’t forgotten it, and I don’t imagine I ever will. Vinnie wasn’t one of the men who actually stole her away, but he knew about it. He had to know. Even now, if he were here, I could ask him about it one more time and once again he’d try to deny that he had one hundred-percent knowledge of what had happened. But there would be no point in doing that because it would just push us back, closer to that point where we couldn’t be in the same room together.

  In the end, we got over it. We got over it the way men get over things, not by talking th
ings out heart to heart but by working on something together. He showed up one day to help me rebuild the cabin at the end of the road. The next day he showed up again. By the time the walls were up, we were talking again and eating dinner at the Glasgow. Which is a good thing because it’s hard to avoid a man when he’s your one and only neighbor.

  That feeling, though … Damn it all. That feeling of being the outsider, of being totally excluded from everything that’s going on around you, even if you want to help. Even if you know you can help. That’s the feeling that always stayed with me.

  Now here was Vinnie, hiding away somewhere with his wayward cousin. Obviously in some sort of trouble. If the situation were reversed, he’d be the first person I reached out for. We’d been down enough roads together over the years. We’d faced so much trouble. So much death and brutality. Hell, the man had once taken his own blood and painted stripes on my cheeks. Like we were brothers.

  So when it’s his turn to be in a real jam, what does he do? He sends a message to the rez. I get it thirdhand, almost as an afterthought. Tell Alex I’m okay. Tell him not to worry. As if he’d even think for one second that would be possible.

  Not to worry. I mean, come on.

  *

  When the chief’s taillights disappeared down the road, I went inside and sat back down in that same chair. I ran over everything in my head. Finally, when I thought I might punch a hole right through the table, I got up and went through my desk instead and found a business card. I dialed the number.

  “Agent Long. What.” The voice of a woman who had been in a deep sleep just a few seconds ago.

  “Hi,” I said. “It’s me, Alex. I woke you up, didn’t I?”

  “Alex? What time is it?”

  “It’s about midnight, I think. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I have to be up in five more hours anyway.”

  She laughed, and something came all the way through the phone line, over all those miles, and went right through me. Agent Janet Long of the FBI, stationed in Detroit. We’d spent all of two weeks together, when she had come up here to help track down a killer. When she had left, I had promised to call her sometime. I never did, until now.

  You are a goddamned fool, I told myself. All this time you could have reached out, and you pick now, in the middle of the night. Just because you can’t think of anyone else.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have called. I mean, I should have called. But not like this. I should have—”

  “It’s okay, Alex. What’s the problem? I can tell you’re upset.”

  “I just need to talk to somebody. I’m going to go crazy if I don’t.”

  “So talk.”

  “You remember Vinnie LeBlanc,” I said.

  “Your friend, yes. I met him at that bar.”

  “He’s gone. He and his cousin. They’re in some sort of trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “I just broke a promise, by the way. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. But I figure you don’t count.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “No, I mean, being on the job and all. Which, by the way…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell me everything you know about this thing that happened up here. At the Newberry airport.”

  “Whoa,” she said. “Time out. Are you serious?”

  “I’m not saying they’re involved. I’m just asking you to tell me what you know, beyond what was in the paper. I know five men were killed, but—”

  “Alex, if they’re not involved, why are you asking me this?”

  “I can’t see Vinnie having any connection to this, but as far as his cousin goes…”

  “Do you think he was there? At the airport?”

  “I can’t rule it out. I mean, I didn’t think it was possible, but I guess I don’t know him that well. If he was actually there, well, let’s just say it would explain some things if he was.”

  “You need to talk to somebody up there,” she said. “Right away. If you have any information that could—”

  “I already have, okay? There’s a new police chief on the rez up here. He was just sitting right here at this table. He knows everything I do, and in fact, hell, he’s the one who received the message from Vinnie.”

  “What kind of message?”

  “Just that they’re both okay. As if they were, I don’t know, hiding out and figuring out what to do next? I’m not really sure, but that’s the only scenario I can imagine.”

  “So you’ve had no contact with Vinnie yourself?”

  “No,” I said, tapping my fingers on the table.

  “And that bothers you,” she said. “You want to go get yourself right in the middle of it, don’t you?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time. We seem to do that for each other.”

  She laughed again.

  “This is so weird,” she said. “I was just thinking about this case when I went to bed, and then you wake me up to talk about it. I’m not dreaming, right?”

  “So you do know about it.”

  “Of course I do. Marijuana flying in from Canada in the middle of the night? People shooting each other?”

  “So it did come from Canada. I was reading about that last month. This isn’t the first time, right?”

  “No, I should say not. It’s almost impossible to stop them, unless we want to station somebody at every tiny little airport in Michigan, every single night.”

  “They fly in, drop it off, fly right back.”

  “They’re on the ground for five minutes,” she said. “Ten minutes tops. It’s kind of ingenious.”

  “Wait, didn’t they actually handcuff some people to the fence last time?”

  “They did, yes. We found them a few hours later. Good thing it was summertime or they would have frozen to death. Not that things ended up any better for them.”

  “What, are you saying—”

  “I didn’t just tell you that,” she said. “But yeah, we ended up letting them go. They weren’t in possession of anything, after all. The drugs and the money were long gone by the time we got there. As well as the airplane and the hijackers. All we had were two men handcuffed to a fence. We figured they’d be good leads to follow, anyway. So that’s what we’d been doing. Up until this week.”

  “They didn’t get the message, you’re saying. So this time around they ended up in a shootout.”

  “Just like the good old days,” she said. “Only replace the booze with marijuana.”

  “So who were the other guys? You must have them ID’d by now.”

  She didn’t say anything. There was nothing but a distant hum on the line.

  “You know I can’t go there,” she said. “But I can tell you this. The pilot was Canadian. The receivers were just your average local dealers. Maybe a little bit above average, because it was a pretty big quantity we’re talking about. And maybe a little bit crazy, because after what happened last time—”

  “Local as in where?” I said. “Were they from up here?”

  “No, from downstate. That’s one of the mysteries, why they’d go so far north to do this. It’s the first time they’ve connected in the Upper Peninsula, as far as we know.”

  “Okay, so what about the hijackers?”

  “That’s where I have to stop you,” she said. “I can’t talk about them at all.”

  “You’re saying, what? It’s not just some other group of pot dealers who found out about the party and decided to crash it?”

  “No, this isn’t just another bunch of pot dealers. Look, Alex, you know how bad it’s been getting down on the Mexican border. This is a long way from there, but the idea is still the same, right? Even if those cartels are not directly involved in this, you have to know that they’re setting a standard for how you run a drug trade. Other groups see how well it works and then use the same approach. One warning, then absolutely no mercy after that. Just flat-out appalling violence. That’s how you move in and take over.”
/>   “So these new people, they’re from where again?”

  “I didn’t say, and I’m not going to. I’m dead serious.”

  “Okay. I understand. You can’t talk about it.”

  I heard her let out a long breath. “Just be careful. That’s the one thing I can say. If your friends really are mixed up in this…”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “Yes,” she said. “As bad as it gets.”

  We both let that thought hang in the silence for a while.

  “It’s good talking to you,” I said. “I’m sorry I called so late.”

  “It’s okay, Alex. It’s good talking to you, too. No matter what time it is.”

  I wished her a good night. She wished me one right back but I think we both knew that was impossible at this point. I certainly wasn’t going to sleep through any of it.

  *

  I may have dozed off for an hour. Maybe two. But I snapped awake around eight in the morning with a sudden thought. I took a shower and got into the truck. As I drove by Vinnie’s, I took a quick look, knowing exactly what I’d see but hoping against hope anyway. I shouldn’t have bothered.

  When I got to the reservation, I drove right to the Waishkey Building. I had been running through my conversation with the chief, over and over again. I kept feeling like I had missed something important. Maybe something we had both missed. But I couldn’t put my finger on it. I figured if I talked to him again, it would come to me.

  I parked by the police department entrance and went inside. The officer on duty told me Chief Benally was unavailable. That got my mind racing again. He’s with Vinnie right now, I thought. Vinnie contacted him again and the chief has raced off to go help him.

  “Just tell him to call me,” I said to the officer. “As soon as he gets back.”

  I left my cell phone number. I thanked the man. The whole transaction was perfectly polite and reasonable, but as I walked out, there were two other officers coming in. They held the door open for me. I know I was just imagining it, but it felt like they were giving me a little extra space. Like right this way, sir. Have a good day and don’t hurry back.

  *

  I am my own worst enemy. I realize that. I get something in my head and I can’t let go of it and I drive myself and everyone else around me absolutely crazy. Even when I know I’m doing it, I just can’t stop. That’s what led me to drive into the Soo and to stop in at the multiplex. I wasn’t there to see a movie, God knows. I was there to see Leon Prudell.