The hunting wind

CHAPTER 19

Whitley surprised me. I figured he’d work his way east, back to one of the interstates. Instead, he drove north, right up M-31, the little two-lane highway that runs all the way up the shore of Lake Michigan.

“Where are we going?” I said finally.

“North,” he said.

“Can you be a little more specific?”

“Will you put the gun away, for God’s sake? Why do you have to turn this into a kidnapping?”

“I’m not pointing it at you,” I said. “Just relax and drive. And slow down, eh? If you’re thinking about trying to get pulled over, think again. I’m sure the police would be very interested to hear what you were doing back there.”

“I was doing my job, friend.”

“You broke into her house and planted a bug,” I said. “You were eavesdropping on her.”

“It sounds like such an ugly thing when you say it that way.”

“Why were you doing it?” I said. “I don’t get it. I know Harwood was looking for her, so okay, you found her. Good for you. Why were you following her around and listening to her conversations?”

He let out a long breath, then rubbed his face. “The client wants you to follow the mark around, you follow the mark. You know how it is. He wants you to spy on her, you spy on her. You sit there and you listen and you tell him what she’s saying. I’d have the phone right there with me. She’s talking to her brother; she’s talking to her kid. It didn’t mean anything to me. It’s just her talking, you know. But the client wants to know this stuff. As long as he’s interested, and he’s paying, you go along with it.”

I shook my head. I didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t tell me you don’t do crap like that,” he said. “What’s the worst thing you ever did as a private eye?”

“I’m the wrong guy to ask,” I said.

“I’m just reaching for my pills here. Don’t get excited.” He went down between his legs and pulled a plastic pill bottle off the floor. “Here, open this,” he said, tossing it to me.

I read the prescription as I opened it: Miles Whitley, one pill four times daily, as needed. A red sticker warned against driving or operating heavy machinery.

I took out one of the pills. It looked familiar. It was a Vicodin, the same pill I’d once had a little problem with. After the shooting, I’d use them on the bad nights. For a while there, they were all bad nights.

“Hell of a job to have with a bad back,” he said as he took it from me and popped it in his mouth. “Sitting around for hours. And then having people jump in my car and scare the piss out of me.”

I thought about taking one of the pills myself. Instead, I put the cap back on and threw the bottle in the backseat.

“How long have you been a private eye?” he asked.

“I’m not a private eye,” I said.

“You said you were, on your message.”

“I was just pretending.”

“Pretending, my ass,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for a lot of years. More than I care to admit. The business has changed, let me tell you. They got guys who do nothing but look at computers all day now. Christ, they got women private eyes now. There aren’t many of us old-timers left. It was a tough business back then. It took a special kind of man.”

“For God’s sake, Whitley…”

“Are you a private eye or aren’t you?” he said. “Do you have a license?”

“Yes,” I said. “But it was an accident.”

“What the hell does that mean? You’re working for this lady, aren’t you?”

“She asked me to help her,” I said. “So I am.”

“A private eye by accident,” he said, looking out his window at the lake. “And he gets clients that look like that. While I get-”

“Harwood,” I said. “I know who hired you.”

“I cannot divulge the identity of my client.”

“Give it up,” I said. “We’ll see him soon enough. How long do we have to drive, anyway?”

“Little over an hour,” he said.

“That’s it? Where is he?”

“This way.”

“This way, where? Are we going to his house?”

“Nope. Don’t know where he lives.”

“What, he’s staying in a motel up here? So he can be close to her?”

“Not a motel,” he said.

“Stop jerking me around. Where are we going?”

“He owns some land up here,” he said. “That’s all I know.”

“The partnership land. That’s where he’s staying? How long has he been up there?”

“Not long,” he said. “Just since he found out where she was.”

“The name Randy Wilkins mean anything to you? Or to Harwood?”

“Who would that be?”

“He’s the man you followed.” I said. “From her brother’s house.”

“Is that his name?”

“Yes,” I said. “You followed him, and now Harwood knows where she is.” It helps to be mad at somebody when you’re making them do something at gunpoint. The thought of this clown staking out the house in Farmington, and then tailing Randy all the way out here so he could find Maria. It helped me build up steam again.

“It’s what he paid me to do.”

“Yeah, I know. Just doing your job.”

“Look, I don’t get to ‘accidentally’ dabble in being a private investigator, okay? This isn’t my hobby.”

“Just drive,” I said.

He shook his head and kept driving. We stayed on M-31 all the way up to the outskirts of the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. They were calling this whole area the “Gold Coast” now, or the “Michigan Riviera.” With all the new resorts going up, it was a good time to own land.

Unless somebody wanted to kill you over it.

“What are you going to do, anyway?” he said. We hit the little town of Beulah; then the highway turned east into the heart of the state forest.

“I’m going to talk to him,” I said.

“While holding a gun to his head.”

“Hey,” I said. “I’m just doing my job. Just like you.”

The woods opened up and we saw a golf flag in the middle of a green, and then, soon after, the lights of a ski lift running upward. By Michigan’s standards, it was a long slope. Golf in the summer, skiing in the winter. The place didn’t look too busy now, but in another month, I knew it would be booked solid.

As we drove past the place, the pine trees reclaimed the land, thick enough to deepen the night into total darkness. Whitley slowed the car. I couldn’t see why. There was nowhere to turn. Just trees as far as we could see.

He swung the car through a gap in the trees. I didn’t even see it until the headlights swung around. The trees towered over us on either side.

“Is this the place?” I said.

“No,” he said. “I just thought I’d drive down this deer trail here, see where it goes.”

“There’s no reason for anybody to get hurt, Whitley. So don’t do anything stupid when you get there, okay? Don’t try to tip him off or anything. All I want to do is talk to the man and then leave.”

“How do you plan on leaving?”

“You’re gonna drive me back,” I said. “It’s not far.”

“Now I’m a chauffeur. My life is improving by the minute.”

He drove down through the trees for a good mile. There was nothing but the shaggy bark of pine trees on either side of us, and the sound of the weeds whipping at the bottom of his car. Finally, he came to a clearing and swung his car hard to the right. The headlights passed over something large and white.

They used to call them campers. My father had one for a couple years, back when he was heading up to the Upper Peninsula every weekend to work on his first cabin. Now they call them RVs, and they’ve got kitchens, bathrooms, color televisions, you name it. The better ones run well over $100,000. The only difference between a small house and an RV is that the RV gets about three miles to the gallon.

As we got out, I told Whitley to leave his keys in the ignition. “I’ll drive back,” I said. “It’s only fair.”

“Not sure you want to do that. There’s still piss all over the seat.”

“Leave the keys in anyway.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. As he got out, he reached down and pulled out a wooden cane.

“What’s that for?”

“I need it,” he said. “For my back.” He winced with every step, making slow progress over the rough ground. There were lights on inside the vehicle, and one good exterior spotlight that lighted up the entire clearing. I walked behind Whitley, told him to knock on the door. He did.

No answer.

“Where is he?” I said.

“It takes him a while,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s coming. Just give him a minute.”

I started imagining the worst. Harwood had spotted me through the window, or else they had some kind of secret code. Two knocks means everything is okay, three means trouble. I pictured him inside, loading his gun. Probably another shotgun, the way my life had been going.

“Whitley, what the hell is going on?”

Finally, the door opened. The sudden light from the interior blinded me. Then I saw a metal grate. There was a sound like the bolt of a rifle. It made my heart race for a moment, until I realized what was happening. The sound was a gear being engaged. Then a platform slowly extended itself from the doorway.

The man who must have been Harwood rolled his wheelchair out onto the platform. This was the demon Maria had been running from for so long.

There was a console mounted on one of the arms of the wheelchair. He pressed a button and the platform lowered itself with an electric hum. When it hit the ground, he rolled off. Then he turned the wheelchair to face me. He appeared to be about sixty years old, with eyes the color of ashes. His body had the top-heavy look of man who had spent many years rolling himself around. His forearms could have belonged to a lumberjack.

“Who’s your friend?” he said. He was looking at me, but he could only be talking to Whitley.

“This would be Mr. McKnight,” Whitley said. “He’s another private investigator. Sort of, anyway. He works for Ms. Zambelli.”

“Is that right,” Harwood said. “And this gun in his hand?”

“Would be mine,” Whitley said. “Fully loaded, I’m afraid.”

“Very unfortunate,” Harwood said.

“I just want to ask you a couple questions,” I said. “I have no desire to shoot anybody.”

“That’s very reassuring.”

“First of all, do you know a man named Randy Wilkins?”

He thought about it, or at least made a show of thinking about it. “Randy Wilkins. Not offhand. Randy Wilkins. It might be ringing a very faint bell, but I can’t remember where I’ve heard the name.”

“Any chance that bell can get a little louder? He was running some real estate scams out in California. All of a sudden, he decided to come back to Michigan to look for Maria. The fact that you’re in real estate, more or less, and also looking for Maria, it seems like too much of a coincidence.”

“I’m sorry. I still can’t place him.”

“All right,” I said. “Now do you feel like telling me why you’re doing all this?”

“Doing what, exactly?”

“Don’t play games with me, Harwood. You killed her husband, and you tried to kill her. You’ve been hounding her for what, eighteen years?”

Harwood just sat there. Whitley stood behind him, looking useless. The wind kicked up and rocked the trees above us, but it was just background noise. We couldn’t even feel it in the shelter of the clearing. It was April, so there weren’t any mosquitoes out yet. In July, it would be hell.

“Are you going to say anything?” I said.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think I will. Go ahead and shoot me if you want. Shoot Whitley, too. He deserves it.”

“That’s not funny,” Whitley said.

“What would it take to get you to stop?” I said. “To leave her alone. And her whole family.”

“That’s an interesting question,” he said. “You have no idea how interesting.”

“What if she signed an agreement to give you complete control of the property, and the eighty percent cut you seem to want so badly?”

“Did she tell you to say that?”

“We talked about it,” I said.

“You came all the way out here to try to cut a deal?”

“She wants this to be over. This is a way to end it. What’s wrong with that?”

“Mr. McKnight,” he said, “can I ask you something? Do you have any idea how ridiculous you look right now?”

I didn’t say anything. None of this was going as planned, because Harwood held the ultimate trump card. There was no way I could intimidate him physically. What was I going to do? Hit him in the face? Tip his wheelchair over? Let the air out of his tires?

“Men are amazing,” Harwood said. “Don’t you agree, Whitley?”

“Sure,” Whitley said. “Whatever you say. Men are amazing.”

“A man will commit crimes. He’ll kidnap somebody, which is what you did. Mr. McKnight. And then threaten somebody else with a gun, which is called menacing, I believe. Also a felony. For what? Just to impress a woman. Maybe get her to go to bed with him. Absolutely amazing. Am I right, Whitley?”

“Incredible,” Whitley said. “Although I gotta admit, after seeing this woman…”

I should have shot them both right then just to shut them up. “All right,” I said. “Can we cut to the chase here? I’m not leaving here until I know you’re gonna stop harassing her.”

Harwood looked up at the sky for a moment, then back at me. “What do you think of this property, Mr. McKnight?”

I let out a breath. “It’s dark, Harwood. All I see are trees.”

“You must have seen the resort,” he said. “On the other side of the hill.”

“I saw it.”

“Do you have any idea how much seven hundred acres of forestland are worth right now? Up here on the Gold Coast?”

“She mentioned something about twenty million.”

“I bought this land in 1976,” he said. “Arthur and I bought it together, I mean. Even then, I knew it would be a jewel someday.”

“This would be the partner you killed,” I said.

He stared at me. The light was coming from behind him, so I couldn’t see his face very well.

“Whitley, can you get me a piece of paper?”

Whitley stuck his hand in his pocket. Without even thinking about it, I leveled the gun at him.

“I’m just getting the man a piece of paper,” Whitley said, pulling out a pad. “Private eyes always gotta have some paper, am I right? Tell me you at least carry a pad of paper with you.”

“Here,” Harwood said, taking the pad from him. “Show this to Mr. McKnight. I think this may help solve our problem.”

When Harwood was done writing, Whitley took the pad and hobbled over to me. One man in a wheelchair, another man holding himself up with a cane. Me with a gun in my hand, deep in the forest on a cold April night. Life couldn’t get any stranger.

But then it did. Just as I was wondering what this piece of paper would say-some kind of dollar figure maybe, some kind of deal he wanted to make for the land-I saw Harwood’s right hand move. There was a little console attached to the armrest on his wheelchair. There were buttons on it. He pushed one of them.

Whitley’s cane was already whistling through the air when the lights turned off. The pain was instantaneous as he caught me on my right wrist, just above the thumb. My hand went numb. The gun dropped to the ground. As I went down for it, a gunshot ripped through the night. The bullet must have gone right over me. The flash from Harwood’s gun was a single frame of light, enough for me to make out Whitley’s foot coming my way fast. I got a forearm up just in time to block it. I rolled before the next shot could find me.

You let your guard down, Alex. Harwood wrote it out for him, right there on his little private eye’s notepad. When I turn out the lights, hit him! Or something else just as brilliant And you fell for it.

The cane caught me again, this time on my right shoulder blade. I went to the ground facefirst and tasted pine needles.

This is it, Alex. They’re gonna kill you right here. They’ll dig a grave in the woods and bury you.

“Don’t shoot!” Whitley said. “He’s right here!”

“Well, get out of the way!” Harwood said.

“Turn the lights on!”

“Damn this thing!” Harwood said. “I can’t see what I’m doing!”

I got up on my hands and knees and crawled. Something stopped me. It was Whitley’s leg. Before he could kick me with it, I grabbed and pulled. I was already on my feet and running when I heard him screaming something about his back. I didn’t stop to help him.

The lights came on just as I was about to run into a tree. A thoughtful gesture on the part of my host. Then a bullet hit the tree and sprayed bark in my face. So much for thoughtful gestures.

I ran for the car. The hell with zigzagging, or whatever you’re supposed to do when somebody’s shooting at you. I just ran as fast as I could make myself go, a forty-nine-year-old ex-catcher who never had any speed anyway. Not even in his twenties.

I went down behind the car. Harwood fired a couple more shots at me. That’s right, use up those bullets. How many does he have left? Did he shoot five times? Six? Clint Eastwood asking the punk if he feels lucky. Hell of a thing to think of at a time like this, but it rang true. It was time to see how lucky I was.

I opened the door and got in. Piss or no piss, I was taking Whitley’s Cadillac for a ride. I turned the key and listened to the engine grind.

And grind, and grind. Then it caught. I flipped the lights on, gunned it forward. I had no choice. There was no way I could back it up all the way down that trail. As I swung the car around, I saw Whitley in the glare of the headlights. He was still on the ground, flat on his back.

Then Harwood in his chair. The gun pointed right at me.

I swung hard to the left. The window on the passenger’s side exploded. The wheels spun, kicked up dirt, and then I was finally moving in the right direction. I took that big white boat right down the alley through the trees, making myself breathe. In, out. You’re in the clear now. Relax and drive.

When I got back to the main road, I took it west and then south, back toward Orcus Beach. And Maria. The cold air rushed in and made my eyes water.

The same damned thing had happened to my truck. Somebody had shot at me and blown out the window on the passenger’s side. What are the odds against that happening twice in a lifetime? What a strange and terrifying world this is, I thought, and how glad am I to live to see another night of it?

If I had only known. The night wasn’t through with me yet. Not by a long shot.