Starvation Lake

twenty-eight

Tillie was standing at my desk when I walked into the Pilot. She wore a dress of faded turquoise that drooped to her knees, a white silk scarf, and rubber boots still slick with melting snow. She was slightly stooped, her shoulders gathered into her chest. I forced myself to look at her. She was no more or less Blackburn’s tool than Soupy or Teddy. She’d kept watch over those films. She’d called Kerasopoulos to stop Joanie’s story. Maybe she had loved Blackburn, too.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Your big-city friends keep calling,” she said. She handed me two pink While You Were Out slips. “This from Chicago, and this Trenton man again. And Jim Kerasopoulos. He said he got cut off before.”

“I see your wrestling story made the front page.”

“I really haven’t looked at the paper yet.”

“Looks like someone in Traverse killed Joanie’s story.”

“Well, maybe somebody with some sense read it and decided it didn’t belong in a family newspaper.”

I went to my desk. After my earlier conversation with Kerasopoulos, I figured I wasn’t long for the Pilot. Maybe I had another day or so to get some truth into the paper. Starvation Lake had to hear it. How Blackburn really died. What happened in the billets. How the new marina, if Boynton really planned to build one, would be anchored in an ugly past. Some would say there was no use in revealing these secrets. I wondered if a few of those people already knew, or at least suspected. I blamed them for not knowing and for not putting a stop to it long ago. I suppose I blamed myself, too. Kerasopoulos had one thing right: I had been there. Why hadn’t I seen it for myself? In a matter of a few days, all these people I’d thought I’d known-Coach, Leo, Tillie, even Soupy-had been transformed. Now I saw strangers walking around in my memory. Maybe they’d been there a long time and I’d refused to see. No more, I told myself.

I had a problem, though. The state cops were ready to pounce if I didn’t reveal my source’s name. I’d never get Blackburn’s story into the Pilot from jail. But I still didn’t know if I could bring myself to give up the source. I was in this mess because I’d broken the rules of my trade. Now I had to break yet another to get out of it? In my head, I kept going over what Soupy had told me. It was all beginning to follow its own perverse and disgusting logic. But did I have it exactly right yet? Was Soupy telling me the whole truth? He’d held out on me for years and might be holding out still. Or maybe he just didn’t know everything.

I had twenty-three minutes to decide what to do. I looked at the Tribune message slip and considered again whether that woman was calling about my Detroit problems. Maybe she could help. I dialed her number. While her phone rang, I gazed idly at what I’d scratched on my blotter earlier: “Richard Ltd.”

“ Tribune. Sheryl Scully.”

“Hello. It’s Gus Carpenter at the Pine County Pilot. ”

Richard, I thought. Or, as any hockey player might see it, REE-shard, the French pronunciation.

“Thanks for returning my call,” Sheryl Scully said. “I called to ask about one of your reporters: M. Joan McCarthy?”

“Joanie,” I said. But I was still thinking REE-shard. Like the great Montreal Canadiens Maurice “The Rocket” Richard and Henri “The Pocket Rocket” Richard.

“Are you her direct supervisor?”

“I’m her only supervisor,” I said, but I was barely listening. I was thinking that Blackburn had named his mutt Pocket for Henri Richard, his favorite NHL player.

“I see,” Sheryl Scully said. “We’ve got a position in one of our suburban bureaus we’re considering her for. What can you tell me about her?”

An image of the dog popped into my head. I saw him sitting on our bench watching us practice, his head swiveling back and forth with the motion of the puck.

“Mr. Carpenter?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Are you going to hire her?”

“She’s a candidate. Her clips look promising.”

Joanie really was out of there. I should have felt the envy then. But in my head the image of Pocket now was jumping and yelping. REE-shard, I thought. Like Blackburn’s mutt, like his favorite player, like Ree-shard Ltd., the company in Virginia that owned Blackburn’s property.

“Oh my fucking God,” I gasped.

“I’m sorry,” Sheryl Scully said. “We’re really not here to steal your reporters, Mr. Carpenter. Is that-is that an endorsement?”

“Ms., um, I’m sorry?”

“Scully.”

“Ms.Scully, I’ll have to call you back. I’m on deadline.”

I went to Joanie’s desk and riffled through the documents I’d seen earlier on the floor. I found the one listing Richard Ltd., with an address and phone number in Springfield, Virginia. I went back to my desk and dialed the number.

It was disconnected.

I grabbed the front page of the Pilot and looked again at the dates that had bothered me beneath the photo of Blackburn. “January nineteenth,” I said to myself. His birthdate. I rummaged through the junk on my desk and located the phone bill with all those long-distance calls. I ran my finger down the list. The call I was looking for went to a place called Fairfax, Virginia, with a 703 area code. The charge was $57.28, for 176 minutes. The date was January 19.

I wanted to call the Virginia number immediately. But the clock said 11:51. I dialed Trenton. I could not get arrested now.

“Got to push it, don’t you?” he said.

Tillie appeared. “Hang on,” I told Trenton. “What?”

“Joanie said to tell you she’s over at Audrey’s,” Tillie said.

“OK,” I said. I watched until she left the room. “Scott?” It was eight minutes to noon. “You want a name? Here’s your name.”

“Hold on,” he said. “I know what I’ve advised you, but are you sure?”

“What choice do I have?”

“You say it could cost you your career.”

“Going to jail isn’t going to help it much either.” Seven minutes to noon. “Got a pen?”

“Yeah.”

“OK,” I said. “The name”-I hesitated for just a second-“is Durnan. D-dog, U-underwear, R-Robert, N-Nancy, A-apple, N-Nancy.”

“First name?”

“William. Regular spelling.”

“Middle initial?”

“No idea.”

“How about a title?”

“The deal was for a name.”

“All right. I’ve got about three minutes to call Superior. Sit tight. You did the right thing, Gus. This guy’s a sleaze.”

“Do me a favor,” I said. “Tell the Hanovers I wish them well. Tell them everything in my stories was true, and I’ll come and testify to it if they want me to.”

“Will do.”

“And tell them I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For their loss, Scott.”

I didn’t want Tillie to hear, so I went up to my apartment to call the Virginia number. It rang once then burst into the middle of a recorded announcement.

“…located just off Route 50 in Fairfax. For directions, press one. For the pro shop-”

I pressed zero. It rang another four times before I heard the cracked, indifferent voice of an adolescent boy.

“Fairfax,” he squawked.

“Hello,” I said. “What’s Fairfax?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry, what’s this place I’m calling?”

“Fairfax Ice House.”

“You mean a rink?”

“Uh, yeah. Can I help you?”

“Like a hockey rink?”

He paused, probably thinking how stupid is this guy. “Yeah, a hockey rink.”

“When are you open?”

“We’re open now.”

“No, I mean, what time do you open?”

“Seven on weekdays, six Saturdays and Sundays.”

“So you’re open tomorrow at seven?”

“Yeah.”

I hung up and dialed my mother. Her answering machine picked up. Of course I could barely make out her message, but I heard enough to remind me it was her bowling day. After the beep, I said, “Mom, I’ve got to make a little trip. You might hear some things, but don’t worry, OK? I love you.”

Back down in the newsroom, I grabbed my coat and swept past Tillie and out as if she weren’t there. After closing the front door behind me, I patted the pocket that held Perlmutter’s photograph. I was filled with a strange mixture of excitement and dread. Leo had told my mother that he did a terrible thing on that night in 1988. It was terrible, all right. Worse than if he’d just put that bullet in Blackburn’s head. But that bullet was never shot.

Crossing Main Street, I saw two blue-and-gold state police cruisers parked front to back near the marina. The officers had their driver’s-side windows down and were talking. Instinctively, I ducked my head.

Inside Audrey’s, Joanie was at the counter digging into a grilled Swiss on pumpernickel. Behind her hung the old photo of Audrey’s girlfriend’s uncle, the great Gordie Howe. I sat down next to her and whispered, “I’m going out of town.”

She stopped chewing. “Now? Where?”

“Keep it down, please,” I said. Elvis Bontrager was sitting at his usual table nearby. “Just for a couple of days. I’ve got an emergency to attend to.”

“For the story?”

I couldn’t tell her yet, certainly not in Audrey’s. “Sort of,” I said. “I’ll have to fill you in later. Hey, Audrey.”

Audrey poked her head out of the back. “Hello, Gussy.”

“Could you wrap me two tuna fish on whole wheat to go?”

“Toasted?”

“No, thanks.”

Joanie grabbed my arm. “You better not be going to Detroit. You’re not going to give up your source.”

“No. But you’ve got to take over for now. I’ve made arrangements for Traverse City to handle our copy, but I need you to get a Blackburn story in shape. It probably won’t run tomorrow, but Saturday for sure.”

“Gus-”

“Your best story, Joanie. Everything you know. Put it all in. File it directly to Traverse. Then I want you to call Kerasopoulos directly and tell him what you’ve filed. Make sure you get him on the phone.”

“I’m not talking to that stiff.”

“Just do it. Which reminds me.” I leaned closer. “See if you can find a guy named Jeff Champagne. He used to live here. Played for Blackburn with me.”

“Champagne? Like bubbly? Where is he?”

“Like bubbly. And I have no idea.”

“Why do I care?”

“Think Brendan Blake.”

“No.”

“Yes. And the Perlmutter story-get that ready too.”

“Didn’t we promise him-”

“Not a damn thing. Get it ready.”

“What about the lawyers?”

“Fuck the lawyers. Even if it doesn’t run, you can show it to the Chicago Tribune. A woman from there called me today. I’ll call her as soon as I get back, and I’ll say good things.”

Joanie blushed. “Um, thanks.”

“One more thing,” I said. “I think I know what Perlmutter was trying to tell us.”

“Let me guess: Bigfoot killed Blackburn?”

“There were only two bullets.”

“I know that, Gus.”

“No, you don’t know. There were only two bullets-the one he found in the tree, and the one in the snowmobile.”

“What about Blackburn’s head?”

I stood. “Write your stories. You’ll hear from me.”

“I’d better.”

The coming storm had turned the afternoon to dusk. The state police cruisers now were parked at either end of Main. As I crossed, exhaust plumed from the back of one car. Don’t hurry yet, I told myself.

The bells on the door jangled as I stepped into the Pilot. Tillie was out. I turned around and reached up and tore the bells off in one staple-popping rip. I stuffed them in my pocket. At my desk I stopped for a fresh notebook and two pens. Tillie had left me another message from Trenton. URGENT, it said. I tossed it in a wastebasket on my way out the back.

Outside, snow had begun to fall again. I tied the bells to the radio antenna on my truck, hopped in, turned the key, and swung out onto South Street toward the lake. I checked the rearview mirrors for state cops. None yet. I smiled when the truck hit a pothole and the bells jangled. I thought of the photo of Gordie Howe in Audrey’s. He was winding up to shoot on a goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens. The goalie was one of the best ever. During the 1940s, he won two Stanley Cups and made the NHL All-Star team six times. He once went 309 minutes, including four entire games, without giving up a goal. His name was William “Bill” Durnan.

At the lake I turned left on Beach Drive. Walls of snow closed me in on both sides. I flicked my brights on. I’d hoped to get half an hour’s head start before it dawned on Superior that I hadn’t ratted my source out after all. But as the road crested just before Mom’s yellow house, headlights blinked in my rearview mirror. They were fuzzy pinpoints, probably a mile back but gaining. Passing Mom’s, I felt an urge to pull over and surrender. Instead I tapped the horn twice.

The headlights in my rearview had closed to half a mile when I spied another pair behind them. Without slowing, I veered left onto Jitters Trail. The back of the truck fishtailed on the snow, so I gave it a little gas and it swung back straight. The road dipped and swerved to the right and I had to slow down so I wouldn’t miss the narrow opening in the trees. The two-track road burrowed through a canopy of snow-laden pines. As I slowed to turn, I saw the twin sets of headlights weaving erratically toward me. First one, then the other turned on the red-and-blue flashers. As the sirens began to wail I felt a surge of adrenaline like I’d felt a thousand times when a shooter bore down on me, alone in my goal.

My truck crashed down to Jitters Creek, the axles hammering the ground, my head banging off the cab ceiling as I bounced along. The sirens grew louder. Just short of the creek bank, I hit the brakes, put the truck in park, and left it running. Jitters Creek flowed too fast to freeze thick. At this spot, not far from where Darlene’s bike had floated away, the water was deep enough to sink a pickup truck.

I reached into my glove box for the roll of hockey tape I kept there. The engine revved as I taped the gas pedal as far down as it would go. I didn’t really know what I was doing; I’d seen it on TV. The grinding engine drowned out the sirens for a few seconds, but then I could hear them again, nearer still. The cops were probably having trouble getting their cars down the snowy two-track. I was hoping they’d have even more trouble getting back up.

I should have felt desperate. I should have felt afraid. Instead I felt calm and in control. It was like my best nights in goal, when everything was chaos around me, shooters flying back and forth, the puck zipping at me from every direction, and I could slow it all down to where the skaters looked like they were running underwater and the puck grew as big as a Frisbee and no matter where I looked through the tangle of legs and arms and torsos in front of me, I could always find it and stop it. I grabbed the sandwiches off the dash, stepped out of the truck, and snatched the duffel bag I’d packed out of the flatbed. I hadn’t pictured myself leaving Starvation Lake this way. I was about to throw the truck into drive when I glimpsed Eggo on the passenger seat. The glove barely fit into the duffel bag.

The bells jangled one last time as my truck plunged into Jitters Creek. I heard the cops screaming from up the hill, “Stop right there, you’re under arrest.” The truck listed on its left side and began to sink, burbling. The bells came unfurled and drifted away. A cop cried out, “Oh, Jesus, he’s in the river,” but by then I was scrambling down the bank with my bag under an arm, ducking beneath pine boughs for cover. I followed the bank until it swerved right. I veered left and angled my body into the hill, sidestepping upward as fast as I could in the snow. I crested a ridge atop a meadow of untrammeled snowdrifts. I had to get to the other side of the meadow and then it would be a short dash to my destination. The cops probably didn’t know these woods as well as I did, but I couldn’t take chances, so instead of crossing the meadow I skirted it to stay in the trees. On the other side I stood behind an oak and surveyed where I’d come from. There were no cops in sight, but I could see the glow of their flashers blinking against the sky.

On the roof of Dad’s garage the tree house was invisible beneath snow. As I approached the side door, I automatically reached for my keys, but they weren’t there. They were in my truck ignition at the bottom of Jitters Creek. I grabbed the doorknob, knowing I’d locked it when I’d come to start the car on Sunday. It refused to turn. “Dumb shit,” I said aloud, and for the first time that afternoon I felt a twinge of fear. I hurried around the garage and looked back again at where I’d come from. Still nothing but trees and falling snow. “OK,” I said to myself. I snapped a branch off a dead tree and poked it through the lower left corner of the window. Delicately I brushed the glass shards away then reached in and unlocked the door.

I raised the big garage door and climbed into the Bonneville. It started easily. In the rearview mirror I saw my escape route buried in a foot of snow. How would the Bonnie plow through that? I didn’t have time to shovel the entire driveway, but I hoped I could clear enough snow to give the Bonnie a chance. I grabbed a snow shovel hanging on a pegboard and cleared two parallel tracks extending about thirty feet from the garage. That would have to be enough.

I tossed the duffel bag in the backseat and got back behind the steering wheel. I had to gather enough momentum before I hit the downslope so the big fat Bonnie might make it over the fifty yards to the plowed road below. And I had to do it in reverse. At least that meant the rear-drive wheels would be going down first. I slipped the car into gear and eased the back wheels out of the garage. I twisted my body around to see out the back and slammed my foot down on the accelerator.

The Bonnie leaped out, gathering speed. Dad had told me many times that it was loaded with power, but I hadn’t really understood until now. I clung to the steering wheel to keep the car on the tracks I’d dug before it plowed into the deeper snow. The two-track dipped down and the Bonnie plunged down with it, churning snow left and right, the roof scraping against pine branches. “Come on, baby, you can do it,” I yelled. I let up a little on the accelerator, then punched it, then let up again, trying to keep the car moving without setting the wheels to spinning in the snow. Out the rear window I could see Horvath Road. The county plows had cut an opening there where the snow was shaved down to just a few inches deep. If I could just get there, I’d be out.

“Come on!” I screamed. With twenty feet to go, I felt the left rear tire sink and grab and then spin in the snow. The Bonnie lurched out of my control and swerved left until the car was perpendicular to the two-track. I hit the brakes, rammed the gearshift into drive, and jammed the accelerator as I swung the steering wheel to the right. The Bonnie pitched forward a few feet and stopped, the left rear tire whirring.

I was stuck.

Leaving the car running, I stepped out and looked up and down Horvath Road, barely ten feet away. Nothing. But the cops wouldn’t be long.

The Bonnie’s front wheels had made the snow shallower, but the left rear tire spun in the deeper stuff when I tapped the accelerator. The right rear wheel had fetched up on a bump that gave it some purchase. I’d been stuck like this before and escaped by rocking the car between drive and reverse. A push helped. But there was no one to push. I squatted next to the left tire. If I had something solid to stick beneath it, it might give me enough traction to get unstuck. On hands and knees I dug out as much snow as I could from under the stuck tire.

I retrieved Eggo from my duffel bag. For old times’ sake I slipped my hand inside and waggled the glove as I had so many times. Then I jammed it under the tire until it was wedged tightly between rubber and packed snow. “Sorry, old pal,” I said. “One more save, OK?”

As the Bonnie popped out onto Horvath Road, I saw my glove fly up behind the car in shreds. I thought about going back for it, but only for a second. The snow was falling harder. The road was slick. I pushed the speed to thirty-five and hung on. Whenever the Bonnie started to fishtail, I dropped my speed a little and tapped my brakes and prayed I’d stay out of a ditch.

The quickest way out of Michigan was I-75, but the state cops would be lying for me there. I decided I’d take Old U.S. 27 as far south as I could and then wing it. The way the snow was blowing, I’d be lucky to make Ohio by 7:00 p.m. First I had to get to Old 27. I couldn’t chance Route 816, because the cops would be waiting there, too, so I figured I’d zigzag along some back roads they probably wouldn’t know. The falling snow enveloped me in a white cocoon. I pushed the Seger tape in and turned the volume up:

Go ahead and call me yellow

Two plus two is on my mind…

The snow let up south of Clare. I drove all night, stopping only for gas and coffee. A little after five the next morning, I pulled the Bonnie into the snowless parking lot behind the Fairfax Ice House. The trees in Virginia were still mostly bare, but the grass was beginning to turn green. I stretched out across the enormous front seat of Dad’s dream car and fell instantly to sleep.