“So it did come from Canada. I was reading about that last month. This isn’t the first time, right?”
“No, I should say not. It’s almost impossible to stop them, unless we want to station somebody at every tiny little airport in Michigan, every single night.”
“They fly in, drop it off, fly right back.”
“They’re on the ground for five minutes,” she said. “Ten minutes tops. It’s kind of ingenious.”
“Wait, didn’t they actually handcuff some people to the fence last time?”
“They did, yes. We found them a few hours later. Good thing it was summertime or they would have frozen to death. Not that things ended up any better for them.”
“What, are you saying-”
“I didn’t just tell you that,” she said. “But yeah, we ended up letting them go. They weren’t in possession of anything, after all. The drugs and the money were long gone by the time we got there. As well as the airplane and the hijackers. All we had were two men handcuffed to a fence. We figured they’d be good leads to follow, anyway. So that’s what we’d been doing. Up until this week.”
“They didn’t get the message, you’re saying. So this time around they ended up in a shootout.”
“Just like the good old days,” she said. “Only replace the booze with marijuana.”
“So who were the other guys? You must have them ID’d by now.”
She didn’t say anything. There was nothing but a distant hum on the line.
“You know I can’t go there,” she said. “But I can tell you this. The pilot was Canadian. The receivers were just your average local dealers. Maybe a little bit above average, because it was a pretty big quantity we’re talking about. And maybe a little bit crazy, because after what happened last time-”
“Local as in where?” I said. “Were they from up here?”
“No, from downstate. That’s one of the mysteries, why they’d go so far north to do this. It’s the first time they’ve connected in the Upper Peninsula, as far as we know.”
“Okay, so what about the hijackers?”
“That’s where I have to stop you,” she said. “I can’t talk about them at all.”
“You’re saying, what? It’s not just some other group of pot dealers who found out about the party and decided to crash it?”
“No, this isn’t just another bunch of pot dealers. Look, Alex, you know how bad it’s been getting down on the Mexican border. This is a long way from there, but the idea is still the same, right? Even if those cartels are not directly involved in this, you have to know that they’re setting a standard for how you run a drug trade. Other groups see how well it works and then use the same approach. One warning, then absolutely no mercy after that. Just flat-out appalling violence. That’s how you move in and take over.”
“So these new people, they’re from where again?”
“I didn’t say, and I’m not going to. I’m dead serious.”
“Okay. I understand. You can’t talk about it.”
I heard her let out a long breath. “Just be careful. That’s the one thing I can say. If your friends really are mixed up in this…”
“Is it that bad?”
“Yes,” she said. “As bad as it gets.”
We both let that thought hang in the silence for a while.
“It’s good talking to you,” I said. “I’m sorry I called so late.”
“It’s okay, Alex. It’s good talking to you, too. No matter what time it is.”
I wished her a good night. She wished me one right back but I think we both knew that was impossible at this point. I certainly wasn’t going to sleep through any of it.
I may have dozed off for an hour. Maybe two. But I snapped awake around eight in the morning with a sudden thought. I took a shower and got into the truck. As I drove by Vinnie’s, I took a quick look, knowing exactly what I’d see but hoping against hope anyway. I shouldn’t have bothered.
When I got to the reservation, I drove right to the Waishkey Building. I had been running through my conversation with the chief, over and over again. I kept feeling like I had missed something important. Maybe something we had both missed. But I couldn’t put my finger on it. I figured if I talked to him again, it would come to me.
I parked by the police department entrance and went inside. The officer on duty told me Chief Benally was unavailable. That got my mind racing again. He’s with Vinnie right now, I thought. Vinnie contacted him again and the chief has raced off to go help him.
“Just tell him to call me,” I said to the officer. “As soon as he gets back.”
I left my cell phone number. I thanked the man. The whole transaction was perfectly polite and reasonable, but as I walked out, there were two other officers coming in. They held the door open for me. I know I was just imagining it, but it felt like they were giving me a little extra space. Like right this way, sir. Have a good day and don’t hurry back.
I am my own worst enemy. I realize that. I get something in my head and I can’t let go of it and I drive myself and everyone else around me absolutely crazy. Even when I know I’m doing it, I just can’t stop. That’s what led me to drive into the Soo and to stop in at the multiplex. I wasn’t there to see a movie, God knows. I was there to see Leon Prudell.
When I did my little ill-fated stint as a private investigator, working for a local lawyer, Leon was the man whose job I took. He paid me a visit at the Glasgow one night and tried to take me apart in the parking lot. From that auspicious beginning, a strange sort of friendship grew. I hated being a private eye, even before the whole thing blew up in my face. On the other hand, being a private eye was the only thing Leon ever wanted, ever since he was a kid. He even tried to set up his own practice in a rented office on Ashmun Street. There just isn’t enough business around here, even if you double as a bail bondsman. He’d been working a string of odd jobs ever since. His latest was right here at the multiplex, serving popcorn with yellow sludge on top to teenagers.
You look at him and you see an overweight local guy in a flannel shirt, with that wild orange hair on his head, and you might think this kind of job is the only thing he’s qualified to do. But he has a nose for investigation. He still knows how to break down a situation and look at it from every angle. That’s why I still go to him whenever I need help.
The lobby was pretty much empty, with another sunny July day going on outside. I asked the kid at the ticket booth if Leon was going to be around today, but he seemed not to know who I was talking about. We circled around that point for a while, because how many orange-haired adult men could actually work there? Eventually, I got passed off to a manager who told me that Leon had quit about a week ago.
Good for him, I thought as I walked out. I got back into the truck and drove out of town, just south to Rosedale. I pulled up in front of the Prudell house, with that tire swing in the front yard, hanging from the lowest branch. The car was gone, but I knocked on the door anyway. Nobody answered. As I stood on the front porch, I looked around. Something seemed out of place. That’s when I remembered the camper that was usually parked next to the driveway. One of those fold-up things you tow behind your car. It was gone now, which could mean only one thing. Leon and his entire family were on vacation.
After I got back into the truck, I just sat there for a while, staring out the windshield at nothing. If Leon was really your friend, you’d already know he was on vacation. You would have talked about it. He would have told you where he was going and how excited his kids were. You would have wished him a great trip. Maybe you’d even be stopping by his house just to make sure the mail was stopped and the newspapers weren’t piling up at the front door.