Thunder Bay

SEVENTEEN

Later that afternoon I returned to Sam’s Place. The rush was over, and the girls were listening to the radio. Jenny wasn’t there.

“Sean picked her up a little while ago,” Anne said. “We’re doing fine without her. So how’s Henry?”

Kate Buker and Jodi Bollendorf, the two girls helping out that day, leaned against the serving counter and listened as eagerly as Anne.

“Confused,” I said.

“We heard the dead guy’s from Canada,” Kate said.

“Yes.”

“He, like, followed you back, right?” Anne said.

“That’s how it looks.”

She scrunched her freckled face in bewilderment. “Dad, why would anyone try to kill a nice old guy like Henry?”

The question of the day. I told them the police on both sides of the border were working on that one.

“What about you, Mr. O’Connor?” Jodi asked. “Anne said you’ve got a license to be a private investigator. Like that old Rockford Files show, right? This is your kind of thing.”

“And Henry’s your friend,” Anne added.

“Customers,” I said, pointing toward the people spilling from a blue van in the parking lot.

The rest of the afternoon turned out to be full of folks who were as interested in what happened out at Meloux’s cabin as in ordering food. I deflected their questions as best I could, but it amazed me how much information was already abroad in Aurora.

Around five thirty, Wally Schanno pulled up in his red Ford pickup. He stepped out, holding a leash. A little black-and-white puppy leaped down from the seat after him and immediately peed on the truck’s front tire. Schanno waited patiently. The little dog finished and began sniffing its way across the lot toward the Quonset hut. It caught the scent of the Dumpster and tried to pull Schanno that way, but Wally held back. Eventually they both made it to the serving window.

Annie leaned out and cooed, “What a cute puppy. Is it yours, Mr. Schanno?”

“Yeah,” Schanno said. He didn’t sound ecstatic. “Her name’s Trixie.”

“What is she?”

“A mutt. Part border collie, part greyhound, part God knows what. I got her from Sally Fellows. She’s a handful, all right. Say, Cork,” he called past Anne. “Talk to you a minute?”

“Meet you round back,” I said.

When I stepped outside, Trixie was all over me. She barely reached my knees, but she kept trying to jump higher.

“She’s got a lot of energy, Wally.” I knelt down to pet her. Her face was a black mask on a white background, with a couple of soft brown eyes staring out. “Did you get her for security or companionship?”

“Security I can take care of on my own. I figured I was spending too much time by myself in the house. I thought maybe a dog’d help. Hey, Cork, I heard about what went down at Henry Meloux’s place. Is he doing okay?”

“He’s fine, Wally.”

We stood in the sun. Trixie nosed at the gravel in the lot. Schanno scratched his neck with his huge hand and squinted. He was getting around to something, taking his time.

“Sounds like trouble followed you down from Thunder Bay. Going back?” he asked.

“Meloux’s pushing me to. He wants to go with me.”

“True he’s got a son up there?”

“Where’d you hear that?”

He shrugged. He was wearing a short-sleeved khaki shirt, pressed jeans, a belt with a big silver buckle, looking almost natty. It was good to see him taking an interest in his appearance again. And in having company around. I watched Trixie tug at the leash, eager to get at the Dumpster.

“So, are you going back?” he asked.

“If Meloux had his way, we’d already be on the road.”

“But?”

I looked up at him and said impatiently, “There’s an international investigation under way. Do you think I want to step into the middle of that?”

“Come on, Cork. Across borders, nothing moves fast.”

“Including me. Look, I’m guessing you’re here thinking that there’s something major in the works and maybe you can help with it. Well, I’m telling you that’s not the case. I’ve done what I promised for Henry Meloux, and I’m finished. The police will take it from here, and that’s fine with me. All right?”

He eyed me, surprised. “You’re not even curious?”

“Of course I’m curious. Hell, I feel responsible. That guy followed me out to Meloux’s. Damn, I should have spotted him.”

“Give yourself a break,” Schanno suggested. “You had a lot on your mind.”

“I’m not about to make matters worse by wading in any deeper. I’ve got a business to run. I’ve got a family to think about. We’re not cops anymore, you and me. Let’s let the people who’re wearing the badges do their jobs, okay?”

A grasshopper banged against the side of the Quonset hut and fell into the gravel at our feet. Trixie tried to attack it and yanked Schanno hard. The grasshopper took an enormous hop. Trixie leaped at it, hit the end of the leash, and fell back with a pained yelp.

“All right, then,” Schanno said curtly. He turned away and walked Trixie back to his truck.

I watched him go, feeling not at all good about how I’d treated him, but wondering, too, resentfully, why it was that everyone else seemed to have such a clear idea of what I ought to do.

Sheriff Marcia Dross drove into the parking lot of Sam’s Place in the brittle blue light well after sunset. In town, the streetlamps and the shop lights had come on. I don’t have a big lighted sign for the Quonset hut, just a tall pole with a halogen lamp on top that brightens the area in front of the serving windows. Dross got out of her cruiser, came up to the windows, and asked to see me outside. That’s never a good sign.

We walked to the picnic table under the big red pine near the shoreline. We were out of the light there. A warm wind blew across Iron Lake and small waves slapped near our feet. The moon wasn’t up yet, and the other side of the lake was sliding into restless black.

Dross got right to the point.

“Cork, you said Morrissey worked for Henry Wellington.”

“That’s right.”

“According to the Canadian authorities Ed Larson spoke with, Morrissey runs a guide service, takes hunters and fishermen up into the wilderness of northern Ontario.”

“The only place he guided me was out to Manitou Island.”

“Where, according to the Ontario police, Henry Wellington is not currently in residence. They say they’re trying to talk to Rupert Wellington, but he’s been unavailable.”

“Unavailable?”

“Whatever that means.”

“He was in Thunder Bay yesterday and quite available. And Henry Wellington was definitely on Manitou Island. Are you getting good information?”

Even in the dark, I could see the consternation on her face. “It’s all being done by fax and phone. They’re sending an investigator down to talk to us, maybe tomorrow or the next day.”

“Why doesn’t Ed pay them a visit?”

“They haven’t exactly invited us. Ed thinks we’re being stonewalled.”

“What do you think?”

“Why would they stonewall us?” she asked.

“Pressure from powerful people, maybe. The Wellingtons are powerful. Or maybe a little territorial posturing. They’re not always happy with their neighbors to the south. Maybe they’re just busy and doing things as they’re able. The shooting didn’t occur in their jurisdiction.” I stood up and stretched my back. The place where Morrissey had sucker-punched me was feeling pretty sore. “Did Morrissey have family?”

“Not that we’ve been able to identify so far. The Ontario police are still checking.”

“So maybe in the end he’s the kind of man nobody cared much about alive or dead.”

“And maybe the kind of guy who’d kill an old man over an antique watch? I don’t know.”

“Neither do I. Care to speculate?”

“I don’t know enough.”

“So what are you going to do?” I asked.

She stood up and stared out at the lake that was almost fully black now. “Just be patient, I guess. I’ll see what the Ontario investigator has to say and go from there.” She turned to me. “But, Cork, if Morrissey wasn’t acting on his own, the people who sent him still don’t have what they want, whether it’s the watch or Henry Meloux dead.”

“He’s with his nephew, Ernie Champoux, out on the rez. Strangers come looking for him, word’ll get out fast, and nobody’s going to give them directions.”

“All right,” she said. She headed back to her cruiser.

After the sheriff left, I went inside. “Let’s close up early,” I told the girls. “You guys have had a hard day.”

“Like you haven’t,” Anne said.

I called Jo and told her I was going out to the rez to check on Meloux.

“Cork, Jenny’s here. She wants to talk.”

“Can it wait until after I see Meloux?”

“Will you be long?”

“I don’t think so.”

“We’ll wait up,” Jo said.