North of Nowhere

Chapter Ten

I drove the few blocks from the City-County building to Leon’s office on Ashmun Street, parked the truck on the street, and climbed the narrow set of stairs to his office. Through the window I could see he wasn’t there. There was no sign on his door indicating when he might be back.

I went back down to the street, got in the truck, and thought about what to do next. Leon’s probably with Vargas, I thought. I wasn’t sure I was ready to knock on Vargas’s door and ask for him. The hell with it, I thought. If that’s what it takes, I’ll do it.

I drove over to the east side of town, to Vargas’s house on the river. There was a blue Miata in the driveway, a Saab in the open garage. Leon’s little piece of crap red car was nowhere to be seen.

Okay, so I don’t have to go knock on Vargas’s door, I thought. Not yet, anyway.

Instead I went back through the middle of town and caught I-75 going south. A few miles later, I got off at the Rosedale exit, made my way over to Leon’s house, near the Chippewa County Airport.

As soon as I was on his street, I saw him come out the front door of his house. He put a briefcase into his car, and then got in himself. He started to back down his driveway. I pulled the truck in behind him, blocking his way.

I got out of the truck. He didn’t move. He stayed in the car, staring straight ahead. His windows were already down, so I didn’t have to rap my knuckles on them to get his attention. He was not only wearing a tie today-the man actually owned a suit.

“Leon,” I said. “We have to talk.”

“I have to go meet my client.”

“You can do that. Right after we talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Alex.”

“Oh yes,” I said. I leaned my forearms on the hood of his car, my face not more than twelve inches from his. “Yes, there is.”

“What are you going to do?” he said. “Are you going to assault me now?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you’re upset. That’s what you do when you’re upset.”

“Leon, I don’t assault my friends.”

He looked up at me for the first time. “I’m sorry it worked out this way,” he said. “The other day, when you came to see me, I had been sitting in that chair for two hours straight. I was trying to figure out the right thing to do.”

“And you decided what?”

“That I had to give the tape to my client. I expected him to take it right to the police. It looks like he waited a day to do it, but eventually he did.”

“What else have you done for your client? Did you search my cabin, for instance?”

“No,” he said. “Of course not.”

“Somebody did.”

“I wouldn’t do that, Alex. Even if he asked me.”

“Does he have anybody else working for him?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Okay, never mind,” I said. “It’s not important. So what’s on the tape?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” I said. “You can show me.”

“I gave the original to Vargas,” he said. “I don’t have it.”

“Show me the copy.”

“Who says there’s a copy?”

“You just did,” I said. “You wouldn’t have said ‘original’ if there wasn’t a copy.”

He shook his head. “I can’t show it to you, Alex.”

“Okay, I guess I’ll have to assault you then.”

He looked up at me again.

“I’m kidding,” I said. “That’s not why you’re going to show it to me.”

“Why am I?”

I let out a long breath. Two squirrels chased each other up the tree in Leon’s front yard. “Jackie’s in jail,” I said. “He’s down there right now, waiting for Maven to get through with him, then he’ll be arraigned, and bail will be set. Assuming this isn’t all just a nightmare, there’ll be a trial. Whatever’s on that tape will come out then. I’ll be in that courtroom, watching it along with everybody else…”

I let that one hang. After a moment, Leon cleared his throat and said, “And?”

“And nothing. None of that’s going to happen. You don’t want it to happen, for one thing. Because you know it’s not right. To hell with Vargas and Maven and anybody else. You know they couldn’t have done this.”

“That’s not up to me,” he said.

“Yes, it is. It is up to you. You have the tape. You’re gonna show it to me right now. Not because I’ll beat you up if you don’t. Not because you’re my friend, or because you used to be my partner. None of that matters. The reason you’re going to show me that tape is because it’s the right thing to do. I can’t help those men unless you help me first, Leon. You don’t have to make me a copy of it. You don’t have to tell anybody about it. You just show me the tape once and then I’ll leave.”

“You make it sound so simple,” he said. “It’s the right thing to do. Like that’s all there is to it. Never mind my responsibility to my paying client. Or the oath I had to sign about cooperating with the police and the courts. None of that counts, huh?”

“Right this second it doesn’t,” I said. “And you know it.”

He thought about that one. “Alex, get out of the way,” he finally said.

“I’m not leaving.”

“Get out of the way of the door,” he said. “So I can get out.”

I let him out of the car. I followed him into his house. He brought his briefcase with him.

“Where’s Eleanor and the kids?” I said.

“They’re at a birthday party. I would have gone, but things are a little crazy right now.”

“Tell me about it. She’s worried about you, you know.”

“I know.”

He led me into the family room, where his television sat in the middle of a wall unit, one of those huge, particle board things with the imitation wood grain. There was one VCR on top of the television, a second one on the floor.

“I just finished making one more copy,” he said. “I was on my way over to Vargas to deliver it. I had given him the original-it was actually a compact VHS tape-about this big.” He showed me about three inches between his thumb and forefinger. “You ever see one?”

“No.”

“You put it in an adapter box to play it on a regular VHS machine. Vargas tried to make his own copy of it, but he couldn’t figure out how to do it. You see, you need to play the tape on one VCR, and then feed it into the second…”

“Okay,” I said. “Skip that part. If I ever need to do it myself, I’ll call you.”

“Yeah, well, this is actually a copy of the original,” he said, holding up a regular VHS tape. “So I had to make him a copy of a copy. I don’t know how good the quality is going to be. I suppose I should give him the good copy. Anyway, here it is…” He turned the television on, put the tape into one of the VCRs, then hit the play button.

After a few seconds of snow, an image came onto the screen. It was jumpy and hard to focus on. It was tilting, too, from one side to the other, enough to make you seasick if you watched it too long. It was a hallway of some sort. There were many doors.

“It’s a hotel?”

“Yeah, sorry about all the movement here. I’m walking while I take this. I’m gonna just fast-forward through this…”

“No,” I said. “Let me see the whole thing.”

“There’s no reason to,” he said. “Let me just-”

“I want to see the whole thing, Leon. Just let it go.”

He rubbed his forehead. “Oh God. All right.”

“What’s happening now?”

“This is the Best Western,” he said. “Down on the loop. I followed Vargas’s wife there. Swanson’s car was already in the parking lot. I’ve seen it a lot lately, so I certainly recognized it.”

A face appeared on the screen, taking up every inch of it. I didn’t recognize Leon at first-probably because I’ve never seen him with curly black hair and a long mustache.

“Leon, what the hell are you wearing?”

“I’m in disguise.”

Before I could say anything else, Leon’s urgent whisper began on the tape. “This is Leon Prudell at the Best Western Hotel in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. I’ve observed Mrs. Cynthia Vargas checking in at the front desk, and then coming here to room one-seventeen.” The camera swung back to the hallway, the doors passing by as Leon made his way to the room in question.

“What are you doing, a newscast?”

“I’m just establishing time and place,” he said. “It’s important if it ever becomes evidence.”

“You’re really walking down the hallway with a video camera?”

“No, not really,” he said. “It was hidden in my wristwatch.”

“Your wristwatch? Are you kidding me?”

“There’s a wire running up my sleeve,” he said. “It connects to the recording unit, which is hidden under my jacket.”

“I don’t believe this,” I said. “Why does he need a video? If you’ve already caught her sneaking off with Swanson…”

“Mr. Vargas is sure his wife will be filing for divorce soon. With Swanson as her lawyer, no doubt.”

“You told me yourself once that Michigan is a strong common-property state. Fooling around on your husband isn’t going to change much when they split up the assets, is it?”

“I told Mr. Vargas that,” he said. “He didn’t seem to mind. I think he wanted the tape for other reasons.”

“Such as?”

“Such as embarrassing the hell out of both of them at the divorce proceedings.”

On the TV, the camera swung to Leon’s face again. “I am standing in front of room one-seventeen. I will attempt to document the presence of both Douglas Swanson and Cynthia Vargas in this room.”

“What are you wearing there?” I said.

He cleared his throat. “I’m dressed as a room service waiter. I’m bringing them a complimentary bottle of champagne.”

“Oh my God…”

“Here we go,” he said, pointing at the screen. “Here’s where things sort of go haywire.”

The hotel room door opened. Counselor Swanson appeared, wearing a white bathrobe. He did not look happy to be interrupted. “What is it?”

“Champagne, sir. With our compliments.” The voices all sounded distant.

“We didn’t order any champagne.”

“With our compliments, sir. It’s on the house.”

“For what? Why do we get free champagne?”

There was a voice in the background. You could barely hear it. It sounded female, and just from context you assumed she was asking who was at the door.

“It’s a man with champagne!” Swanson turned to look back into the room. As he did, he pulled the door slightly more open. There was a flash of white in the background, another bathrobe. Then something obscured the image, taking up the whole screen. There was the sound of impact, then of someone yelling. The camera swung around wildly, then seemed to settle on the ceiling. After a couple of seconds, the screen went black.

“What happened?” I said.

“I tried to get a good shot of Mrs. Vargas,” he said. “I turned the camera in my watch and dumped the tray right on Swanson’s head.”

“Leon, on another day, this would be the funniest tape I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m so glad it has entertainment value,” he said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get a solid shot of Mrs. Vargas. All it does is make me look like an idiot.”

“So what happens next here?”

After a few more seconds of blackness, another image came onto the screen. It was nighttime, but with all the lights he had on, there was no mistaking whose house we were looking at. Leon hit the pause button and froze the image.

“Let me tell you what’s going on here,” he said. “Before you see this.”

“That’s Vargas’s house,” I said. “This is the night that-”

“Yes. This is still the same night. After my little mishap, I figured I’d check in with Mr. Vargas, see what he wanted me to do next. I called him on the cell phone again. It rang a couple of times, but then the signal went out. I knew he was dying to hear how I made out, so I tried again. But I didn’t get through. The battery on my phone was just about dead-damned thing never did hold a charge-so I figured I’d just call him from a pay phone, although I didn’t want to go back into the hotel to do it. Anyway, I’m trying to think where the nearest pay phone would be. Then I figured what the hell, I was ten minutes away from his house.”

“So you drove up.”

“I parked in the driveway. Right behind this Ford Explorer you see here.”

“That’s O’Dell’s. He gave me a ride in it yesterday, in fact.”

“It’s O’Dell’s vehicle, yes. Anyway, just before I got to the front door, I heard a loud noise, like a window breaking. Instead of knocking, I went around to the side of the house. I saw a telescope flying out one of the back windows.”

“You were there,” I said, “when it was all going down. Did you call the police?”

“Well, I didn’t have my phone right there with me, assuming it would even work. The first thing I did was, I snuck around to the back porch, and tried to get a look inside. I saw a man come right up to the window. It looked like he was wearing a surgical mask. And he had a gun.”

“Yes. The two men who stayed downstairs-while they were waiting, one went and looked out the back window.”

“I ducked down so he wouldn’t see me. Then I made my way back to the car. The first thing I did was back out of the driveway and down the street a little bit. I turned the lights out. Then I tried the phone again. It didn’t work, Alex. It just didn’t work. You know that stupid little cord that plugs into your cigarette lighter? The one that recharges your batteries?”

“Yeah, I’ve got one.”

“I’ve got a two thousand dollar miniature video camera hidden in my wristwatch, but I don’t have the cord that recharges my cell phone.”

“So what did you do?”

“I knew I had to get to a phone. But I had this idea. I took my watch off, and I put it on the dashboard, so it was pointed at the house. There was another house just down the road-I figured I could get out and run down there…”

“And your magic little watch would record whatever happened at Vargas’s house. At least on the outside…”

“Exactly. So I take the watch off, and put it on the dash, get it pointed just right…And then they come out. Just as I’m getting ready to open the door.”

“The three men?”

“Three of them, yes. So now I have a choice to make. Do I wait for them to leave, and then go call the police? Or do I follow them?”

“Oh Leon, you’re not serious…”

“It was a gut call at that point,” he said. “I knew you’d be calling the cops yourselves, once they were gone. I thought the best thing I could do for everybody was to follow them.”

“Okay, so this has to be their getaway car here, right?” I pointed to the car on the left side of the driveway, right behind Jackie’s Lincoln.

“No, I believe that’s Gill LaMarche’s car,” he said.

“Okay, that makes sense. He got there after we did. But if that’s not their car, where is it?”

He hit the pause button again and set the whole thing in motion. What I was about to see would make my head spin.

At a distance of thirty or forty yards, with less than ideal lighting, it was hard to make out exactly what was happening. But not so hard that you couldn’t get the general idea. Three men leaving the house-maybe they still had the masks on, maybe they didn’t. It didn’t matter, because you wouldn’t see their faces anyway. All three of them got into the Ford Explorer, the lights came on, the vehicle backed out of the driveway, and took off down the street.

“That’s O’Dell’s car,” I said. “What are they doing?”

“They’re driving away, Alex. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that it was O’Dell’s car. I was just glad that my car wasn’t parked right behind them anymore.”

“This doesn’t make any sense. Did they steal it?”

“Did he happen to mention that his car was stolen?”

“No, he didn’t. And like I said, he had it yesterday, when he drove me over to the marina.”

On the videotape, Leon’s car was in motion now. O’Dell’s Explorer was about a hundred yards ahead. You could see the arc of the headlights, the glowing red taillights, the lighted rear license plate.

“Wait a minute,” I said, watching the screen. “Who says that’s O’Dell’s car, anyway? You know what? Come to think of it, I don’t even remember seeing his car in the driveway when we got there.” I thought about it. I put myself back in Jackie’s car, pulling into the driveway, wondering why I was coming to this stranger’s house to play poker. I open the passenger’s side door and step out…

“No, I’m almost positive,” I said. “O’Dell was already there when we got there. But I don’t think his car was there. That’s not his car they’re driving, Leon.”

“Keep watching,” he said.

The image on the screen moved from one pool of light to the next. As the car ahead passed under each street lamp, it confirmed that Leon was following the same car, and doing a good job of it.

“Where are they going?” I said.

“You’ll see,” he said. “Soon.”

I looked over at him. He was sitting very still, watching the tape with no expression on his face.

“Here it is,” he finally said, as the brake lights on the Explorer glowed bright red. The vehicle was pulling into a parking lot.

“Where is this?”

“Look closely,” he said. “Do you recognize it?”

I looked. It was a two-story building. There were beer signs glowing in the windows. “That’s O’Dell’s place.”

“Yes it is. And here’s where I had to make another decision. Watch what happens.”

Two men got out, opening up both passenger’s side doors. I still couldn’t see their faces, although it looked like they had taken the masks off. The two men got into a car parked right next to the Explorer. Before they could even start it, the white reverse lights on the Explorer came on, and it started to back up.

“Our men are separating here,” Leon said. “So who do I follow?”

“The Explorer,” I said.

“That’s what I figured. It’s still the ‘object’ vehicle. I did make sure to get the plate number on the other car, though.”

“You gave that to the police, too.”

“Yes,” he said. “It was an Ontario plate, by the way.”

“I thought one of the men might be Canadian. So I’m not surprised. Did they trace the number yet?”

“I’m sure they have,” he said. “Why don’t you ask Maven about it?”

“I’ll do that. I’ll bring it up the next time we go out drinking together.”

“In any case, we lose both those men here. They probably just went over the bridge. I continue following the original driver. And here’s where I’ll start fast-forwarding a little bit. It’s just more of me following him.” He pushed the button and everything started flying past.

“You taped every second of you following him?”

“I didn’t want a break in the tape,” he said. “It’s a stronger document that way, in case it becomes evidence.”

I gave him a look. I had become absorbed in watching the tape, and had forgotten about the implications. Hearing the word ‘evidence’ brought it all back.

“Okay, here’s stop number two,” he said. “Recognize where we are?”

A huge building came into view, with a lot of lights and the distinctive triangular design on the roofline. “That’s the Kewadin Casino,” I said.

“Yes. We’re going to go to a private residence here, just a couple of blocks away.”

There was a street lined with houses, the Explorer turning into a driveway.

“I’m gonna pull up a few houses down, like I’m parking on the street. As you can see, the driver’s getting out to do something, but it won’t take long.”

It happened just as Leon said. The door opened, the driver got out, went to the side of the house, then returned to the vehicle and backed it out the driveway.

“You never got a good look at his face?” I said.

“Never did.”

“I don’t suppose I have to ask you whose house that was.”

“Gill LaMarche,” he said.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about what’s going to happen next.”

“I’ll fast-forward again,” he said. “This is a long haul, all the way out of town.”

“Just tell me, Leon. His next stop is Jackie’s?”

“That’s where he went next, yes. Do you want to see it?”

“Yes,” I said. “Keep going.”

We watched the whole trip in fast motion, out M-28 to M-123, all the way up to Paradise. He put it back to normal speed just as the Explorer hit town.

“What time was it at this point?” I said.

“Maybe midnight, or a little after.”

“So we’re still at Vargas’s house, talking to the police.”

The Explorer came to a stop in Jackie’s parking lot, over by the side where Jackie parks his own car. As the driver got out, he paused for a moment and looked around the place.

“You can almost see his face here,” I said. “Damn it, if there was only more light.”

“I think he’s getting a little spooked at this point,” Leon said. “It’s not easy to follow somebody all over Chippewa County.”

The man disappeared from view for a short time, maybe fifteen seconds. Then he was back in the vehicle and on his way.

“What did he just do there?” I said.

“It looks like he’s just dropping something off,” Leon said. “But that’s just what we’re assuming. We don’t actually see it happen.”

“If he did drop something off, he must have just left it on Jackie’s doorstep. He didn’t have time to go into the house.” Which didn’t seem to help Jackie too much, not if whatever was dropped off was found underneath his bed.

“I’m trying to be careful here,” he said, as both vehicles left Paradise and went back on the lonely stretch of road. “I don’t want to give myself away, so I’m staying back a little bit.”

“Where does Santa Claus go next?” I said.

“Well, a couple of things happen here. First of all, the tape runs out. Those little compact VHS tapes only hold so much. So we’re not going to see much of anything else here. In fact, right about now…”

The screen went blank.

“But you kept following him?”

“Yes, I did. But like I said, I gave him some more distance this time. A couple of other cars got between us. I lost him for a while, so I figured I’d go right back to O’Dell’s. When I got there, the Explorer was parked in the lot. But there was no sign of the driver.”

“The place was still open?”

“Yeah, I think it was around one-thirty.”

“Did you go inside and look around?”

“I did, yes. There might have been, I don’t know, ten or twelve men in there. But I had no idea who I was looking for.”

“Who was behind the bar? O’Dell’s wife? His son?”

“Both of them were. I knew it wasn’t either of them driving the car. It was definitely a man, for one thing. And O’Dell’s son is what, six foot six?”

“Thereabouts.”

“It wasn’t him.”

“So you gave this tape to Vargas when? Two days ago?”

“Yes. I told you-”

“It’s all right, Leon. You don’t have to give me the speech again. I understand, you did what you thought you had to do. You gave Vargas the tape, and I understand he asked you some questions about me.”

“You were on the list, Alex. You were there that night.”

“He thinks I was in on this,” I said. “He thinks I was the inside man. Did you know that?”

“That’s news to me,” he said. “I’ll have to persuade him otherwise.”

“While you’re persuading him, why don’t you persuade him that this whole thing was a setup? I’ll have to talk to Bennett about his vehicle, but I’m sure something’s not adding up there. And as for Jackie and Gill, hell, that guy could have just been planting evidence. Even if Jackie did take it into his house, so what? It’s an honest mistake. I still don’t even know what it was they found. That’ll be the first thing I ask him when I see him.”

“Who’d want to set them up like that?”

“Off the top of my head, how about Swanson? He knew about the safe, he knew Vargas would be there all night-hell, he’s already got his wife in a hotel room, why not make the evening complete? And because he’s not a complete fool, he makes it look like Bennett, Jackie, and Gill were behind it.”

“That seems a little far-fetched.”

“It’s less far-fetched than those three guys really doing it. What do you say we go talk to Swanson, and see how he reacts when we lay that on him? If he passes the test, we can try Kenny.”

“How are ‘we’ going to be doing anything, Alex?”

“I thought you might want to be my partner again,” I said. “Help me find out what really happened.”

“You mean, help undo the mess I’ve already made for your friends?”

I looked at him. “This isn’t about you, Leon. This is about Vargas. And about the police having the wrong guys in that jail.”

“Vargas is still my client, Alex.”

“Your client is probably a little pissed off that the police didn’t pick me up, too. I’m fighting back, Leon. Whose side are you gonna be on?”

“I want to get to the bottom of this, too,” he said. “I’m not on anybody’s side.”

“Meaning I’m on my own.”

“Hey, I showed you the tape, didn’t I?”

“Do one more thing,” I said. “Write down all the information you’ve got on Swanson and Kenny, will you? For God’s sake, what’s Kenny’s last name, anyway?”

“It’s Heiden.”

“I’m sure you’ve got their phone numbers. They’re on the master list of suspects, after all. Right under McKnight.”

“If you really want to talk to them, I can’t stop you.”

“And when you see your client today, give him a message for me, okay?”

“What’s that?”

“Tell him that whoever really ripped him off is laughing at all of us.”