“Right, I forgot. The ring!” Alan exclaimed. And as soon as he said it, a piece of the dream came back—me reaching for something gold in the water, deciding I needed to get it back to the person who owned it.
“You have been lying to me since you opened your mouth, son,” Strickland said.
“No! Well, okay. I have to say, I did lose my ring, I don’t know how I knew it was Alan Lottner. But you have to listen to me, Sheriff. I did have this dream, really, I did!” I closed my eyes briefly, remembering just how extraordinarily clear everything had seemed.
He’s dead.
No, I’m not.
When I opened my eyes I saw Strickland regarding me, considering. He could sense some truth leaking into my narrative but wasn’t sure what it was.
“I think I’ve got enough to charge you with accessory after the fact right now as it is, McCann. This is a murder investigation and you’d do well to remember that.”
I swallowed.
“I do not know how to say it more plain than this: You do not want me and you to wind up on opposite sides of this thing.”
“No, sir, I do not.”
I watched him watch me, feeling like I should be holding my breath. Probably it was only the fact that he’d already arrested me once that week that kept him from sending me back to his cells for what my mother always called “a little time out.”
He eased back in his chair, shaking his head at me. He gestured at the file on his desk. “I wasn’t here then, but about the time Alan Lottner disappeared, there was a fire bombing at a nursing home there in East Jordan. Apparently the ATF was called in, and they took a real interest in Lottner for a while.”
“Why?” I asked, shocked.
Strickland shrugged. “Seemed odd, him disappearing and then a month later we’ve got thirty-two people dead.”
“For God’s sake, I was murdered. And I wouldn’t have the first idea how to set a bomb,” Alan protested.
“Oh, but Alan wouldn’t do something like that. I mean, come on. What does he know about bombs?”
Strickland gestured toward the file. “Says here it was a pretty simple thing, really. Dynamite, blasting cap, a digital kitchen timer, and lots of gasoline to accelerate the flames. Place went up like a matchstick. Whoever did it padlocked the front and rear doors of the place—he wanted those people to fry. Never caught the guy, never came up with a motive, never uncovered a single witness.”
“Well, it wasn’t Alan.”
“Oh, I don’t think it was. Your reaction is interesting, though. So you knew the victim really well.”
“Ah, no, not all that well,” I said uncomfortably.
Strickland just looked sad. He regarded his watch. “Well, that’s about all the horse manure this old man can stand to see a person shovel in a single day without choking on it. I’m going to tell you right now that you’ve used up your marker with me over that little fiasco in the jail the other day. You do know what I’m saying here, don’t you.”
It wasn’t a question. “Yes, sir.”
“You ever had a polygraph exam?”
I shook my head. There’d never been any reason; I’d admitted my previous crime.
“You willing to take one now?”
“Maybe you should ask your attorney about that,” Alan suggested worriedly.
I licked dry lips. “Sure.”
Strickland grunted. “My polygraph examiner is on vacation in South Carolina. He decides to come back to our winter paradise, I’m going to send a car to collect you for another little chat. That be okay by you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You lie to me again, I’m going to place you under arrest for obstruction and anything else I can think of. Clear?”
I nodded.
Once in my truck, I pounded my steering wheel in frustration. “Dammit, Alan! See what you’ve gotten me into!”
“Me? I think you’re forgetting who the victim is, here.”
I started the truck. “And I think you’re forgetting that if I’m arrested, you’re arrested. If I go to prison, you go to prison,” I said agitatedly.
“Well, whose idea was it to say it came to you in a dream? I never told you to say that.”
“Well, what was I supposed to do?”
“So are you going to tell him about me?”
“About you what, hanging out in my head like some sort of talking brain virus? No, I do that and he’ll be locking me up for my own good.”
“So what are you going to say?”
“You know what, Alan? Figuring that out should be your job.”
The idea of evading Strickland’s questions while wired up to a lie detector gave me cold sweats. I spent the next several days spastically turning my neck anytime I spotted someone out of the corner of my eye, expecting to see one of Strickland’s deputies bearing down on me with a pair of handcuffs. At home I’d jump to the window and peer out whenever a car passed, gulping audibly when it was a patrol car. My new tenant, Jimmy, picked up my nervousness and would peer out at traffic even if I forgot to.
Jake, however, was impervious to my mood. He enjoyed having Jimmy around, and would lie next to Jimmy’s chair when the TV was on, giving me a pointed look as if to say, “I like this guy; he doesn’t drag me on forced marches in the cold.”
When Jimmy opened the back door to head up the outside stairs to his room for the night, Jake always followed as far as the threshold, but that staircase looked like it wasn’t worth the effort. Jake would sigh, glancing at me in disappointment, before collapsing back on his blanket.
“You have to like me best,” I informed him testily. “It’s in the Dog Manual.”
Another side effect of digging up Alan’s corpse: I was back to being Kalkaska’s most notorious citizen. I decided to evade the Black Bear after it became evident that all everyone wanted to talk about was me walking in the woods and seeing a skeleton lying there with a bullet in its head. The inference that Alan had been exposed to the elements made him angry, as if it implied he was somehow lazy. I was just glad the story about the dream hadn’t gotten out.
Milt called me at home and asked if maybe we should go writ of replevin on Einstein Croft—sue him, in other words, to get the pickup back. I begged him to give me a few more days. A writ of replevin would mean the sheriff would pick up Einstein’s ride, and I’d get paid nothing unless I served the summons for fifty dollars. “Any movement on Jimmy’s paper?” Milt asked softly.
Jimmy looked up from the pizza we’d put on the coffee table, sensing we were talking about him.
“You know he lost his job at the hotel, Milt. He hasn’t got any money.”
“I need to see something pretty quick, Ruddy. That motorcycle has bad piston rings; it’s not worth even a grand. Why did he buy the thing—what was he, drunk?”
“No, he was just being Jimmy. I’ll get right on it, Milt. Got anything for me?”
“Nope, been pretty quiet. Just Croft.”
“Okay, okay.” I hung up and Jimmy gave me an anxious look. “You go down to the dealership, ask Claude if the shop is hiring like I told you?”
He nodded. “And the gas station. Nothing.”
I knew it was the truth. It was the second week of May. The snowmobilers had quit coming, the summer trade was more than a month off—everyone was just hanging on, waiting for the change of season. The saying up here is that we go from mud to mosquitoes with only a week in between.
“I’m going to head over to the Black Bear in a little bit, help out Becky,” he told me.
“She can’t afford to pay you anything,” I snapped.
Jimmy looked hurt. “Yeah, I know that. Just to help out, I meant.”
“Sorry, Jimmy,” I muttered.
“We need to go talk to that bank president’s wife, find out why she’s sending the checks,” Alan advised, which irritated me because I’d just been thinking the same thing.
* * *
The next morning I was on the Blanchards’ doorstep at nine
A.M., lifting the brass knocker and letting it clank several times. Jake, who’d joined me for the ride, solemnly watched me from the side window of my pickup. I waved at him and his floppy ears twitched. I loved when they did that. A woman answered, regarding me curiously.
“Mrs. Blanchard?”
She nodded. Mrs. Blanchard looked to be in her late twenties, a pretty woman with light-brown hair. Her cheekbones were high and her legs were thin. I felt like a big dumb repo man standing on her front porch. I glanced over and Jake, bored, had already stopped watching in favor of a nap.
I told her my name and the fact that I worked for Milton Kramer, letting the details of how I made my living flow out one at a time to see what she reacted to, which turned out to be absolutely nothing. She remained cool, leaning on the door a little as if ready to slam it on me.
“She’s pretty impressed with you,” Alan remarked dryly.
“Bad checks, things like that,” I was saying. Still nothing.
“Tell her you’ve got a voice in your head,” Alan snickered. When I was finished here I was going to find a river and drown myself just to punish him.
“Mr. Kramer cashed some checks for a guy named Jimmy Growe.”
There! Just for a moment, something passed through her eyes, the faintest hint of darkness. Then a forced blandness took over, her eyebrows arching up questioningly.
“It seems the checks were taken from the bank when you were working there. I just came by to talk to you about that.”
“Why? What makes you think that I know anything about it?”
“She looks like she’s enjoying herself,” Alan observed. Her grip had relaxed slightly on the door, and though we were both still standing she seemed in no hurry to be rid of me.
“Well, you were issuing starter checks at the bank, weren’t you, Mrs. Blanchard? You had access to the packets.” I was honor bound not to tell her that Maureen at the bank had recognized her handwriting.
“So?”
“Ma’am, may I ask you what your maiden name was?”
A faint flush spread across her cheeks. “Adams,” she answered faintly. “Why?”
“Most people choose variations of their own names when they assume a pseudonym,” Alan informed me sardonically. “Hence Adams becomes Wilenose.”
“I … Ma’am, I might as well tell you, I know that you were the one who sent Jimmy Growe the checks. What I don’t understand is why you did it.”
“And this Mr. Growe attempted to cash these checks?” She responded with a forced casualness.
“Yes.”
“Is there a … can he go to jail for something like that?”
I stared at her, making her wait for a reply, and her eagerness showed itself just a little before she regained control. “Maybe,” I told her, but she had her satisfaction wrapped down tight and didn’t share any of it with me.
“Well, I’m sorry I can’t help you with any of this, Mr. McCann.”
I tilted my head. “You didn’t know he’d cash them. You sent them for some other reason.”
“There is no point in this conversation. I’m sorry I can’t help you.” She shut the door firmly, the brass knocker lending solid punctuation to the action.
Jake lifted his head when I got back in the cab of the truck, his soft ears swaying. His look seemed to say “what a dumb way to make a living.” I kissed him on the nose.
“I’m sorry that I can’t earn enough lying on a blanket with you all day,” I told him. To a large degree, I meant it.
Much to Jake’s disappointment, Jimmy wasn’t home when I trooped in a few hours later, feeling defeated. I opened the refrigerator and scanned the nearly empty insides, reflecting on how much electricity I was using just to keep some mayonnaise cold.
Jimmy had continued Becky’s initiative, picking up after the both of us. He’d even vacuumed the carpet. I had to admit I liked having him around. Me, Jake, Jimmy, and Alan—our own little dysfunctional family.
“Mrs. Blanchard clearly sent those checks to Jimmy. Did you see her expression? She was toying with you,” Alan observed.
“She was not ‘toying’ with me,” I retorted. “I agree, though—she’s the one. I just can’t for the life of me figure out why.”
I moodily picked through the stack of bills on the kitchen table. It was still all quiet on the repo front, and I had something like four bucks in my wallet. The sense of being in the middle of a famine was even affecting my body; my pants were fitting more loosely, as if I were dropping weight.
“Maybe we should go up to East Jordan and stake out Nathan Burby, see if he makes contact with the shovel guy,” Alan suggested.
“Well, that would take gasoline, Alan. I need to preserve gasoline so that when I get a repo assignment I don’t have to walk to it. I had Milt apply the money for the sunken Toyota to my outstanding debts to him.”
“Well, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know, Alan!” I exploded in frustration. I heaved myself off the couch and put on a jacket. Becky would feed me.
17
You and Me, Kermit
The Black Bear was like an easy chair in my mind: worn, comfortable, familiar. When I opened the door the shock made me blink. Becky had been busy.
She watched me approach her across the floor with apprehension seeping into her eyes, but when I glanced pointedly at the curtains, the new paint, and the hardwood flooring that had replaced the linoleum, she straightened a little, her jaw firming in resolve.
“Hi, Ruddy,” she greeted.
“What’s all this?” I demanded.
“All what?”
“What are you doing? What’s with all the artwork, and the curtains?”
“I told you I wanted to spruce the place up, use a warmer color palette.”
“But this looks ridiculous!” I railed. “Can you imagine what Dad would say about windows covered with—with lace?”
“Oh, Ruddy.”
“Come on. This is the Black Bear. Next thing I know, you’ll want to get rid of Bob.”
She glanced over at the stuffed bear, then back at me, her eyes unreadable.
“Becky, no.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to get rid of the bear.”
“But can’t you see what you’re doing? You’re changing the, the…”
“Ambience,” Alan suggested.
“The ambience of the place!”
“Exactly.” Her eyes glared at me through her smudged lenses.
“But don’t you understand that the beauty of this place is that it never changes? You drive through Kalkaska and there’s a McDonald’s now, and a Burger King, and just when you think the whole place has lost its charm, there’s the good old Black Bear Bar and Grille, thank God. Why, we’ve got people who’ve been coming here since we were little kids! What are they going to think when they see you’re playing dollhouse?”
“Wow, what an asshole you can be,” Alan noted.
Becky fixed me with the sort of unhappy, mournful expression she had mastered through a lifetime of practice. “What do you think, that nothing in life will ever change?”
“Just not the Black Bear,” I told her forcefully.
She shook her head slightly, and I found her unwillingness to fight back infuriating. “It’s that goddamn Kermit,” I stormed, attacking from another direction.
That got her. “What about him?” she murmured.
I gestured at her sweater, which was stylish and feminine. “He’s got you all…” I groped for words.
“Hot,” Alan suggested. “Sexed up.”
“Jesus!” I snapped at him.
“Ruddy, don’t you dare even think of going near him. If you do…” Becky warned.
I leaned forward almost eagerly, bearing down on her. When we were growing up my physical bulk so overwhelmed her frail frame I regularly bullied her just by staring her down, and I was doing it now. “Or you’ll what?” I taunted.
She backed away from me. “I’ll get
an injunction and banish you from the Bear. I’ll get the judge to say you can never come in here again.” She folded her arms.
I sat down on a bar stool as if sucker-punched. “Oh.”
“This has got nothing to do with him, Ruddy, except maybe that he’s given us a way to make the money to buy some things.”
“Running numbers,” I muttered glumly.
“Using our nonswipe account to help another vendor,” she agreed.
“Would you really do that? Get a judge to have me banned from a place I’ve been coming to since I could crawl?”
“Would you really hit my boyfriend?”
“Your boyfriend?” I shouted.
“Hush,” Becky warned, glancing at our only customers—a couple of guys sitting in the corner. The flush on her cheeks looked less like embarrassment than sheer pleasure. Becky McCann has a boyfriend.
“So what else are you going to do around here? Put in a conveyor belt with sushi on it?” I inquired sullenly, not quite giving up.
Her gaze turned unreadable again. “You’ll see,” she promised.
Jimmy came out of the men’s room at that moment and stopped dead, looking as if I’d caught him in bed with another guest at the hotel. He was wearing an apron, the pockets stuffed with a notebook and some napkins. “You’re a waitress?” I demanded.
Jimmy swallowed. “Becky said I shouldn’t tell you until we saw how it went, but she gave me a job as a waiter. You know, serving food and drinks.”
“I know what a waiter does, Jimmy.” I tromped off and sat under Bob like a soldier determined to give his life to defend his bear. I moodily drank a Vernors ginger ale, occasionally holding my hand up to cover my mouth so I could talk to Alan.
“I’d say she pretty much handed you your balls in a paper bag,” he observed.
“You just don’t know. These changes would drive my father crazy.”
“A lot of friends of your father still come in here, do they?”
“All the time,” I affirmed.
“Any here now?”
I looked around. “No.”
“Last time you were here, big bunch of them come in?”
“Well, no.”
“Previous week? Two weeks? Even one of them show up?”