A few minutes later, Lou came barreling back out the front door. He didn’t look happy. He got into the car, slammed the door, and started the ignition. As soon as it was in gear, he laid down tracks and we were out of that parking lot in seconds.
“Slow down!” I said. “What the hell happened?”
“We’re supposed to be one people,” he said, sounding more like he was talking to himself than to me. “One big family, no matter what.”
“Lou…”
“One people. That’s what the word means, right? Anishinabe. The people. One people. That doesn’t mean anything anymore?”
I let him burn it off on his own. A few minutes later he had stopped talking, but he was still driving a little bit too fast.
“I take it that didn’t pan out,” I finally said.
“I just asked them if anybody from Bay Mills had come down to the clinic. I told them there were two men, and that one of them was my son. ‘He’s my son,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for my son.’ You think that would evoke a little empathy, right? But no. As soon as I walked up to the desk, that woman is already looking up at me like I’m some kind of criminal or something. I didn’t even get to finish explaining and she had already called security.”
“Are you serious?”
“A few more seconds, hell, I might have been arrested in there. Just because I was looking for my son.”
“You mentioned that part about them being from Bay Mills,” I said. “You said that before she called for the goons?”
“Why does it matter?”
“I’m just asking. Did you mention Bay Mills at the beginning of the conversation?”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“Somebody got the word out,” I said. “You remember how antsy everybody got when you were asking about Vinnie yesterday? We might just get that same reaction on every other reservation in the state. If anybody comes snooping around, asking about two men from up north…”
“You might be right,” he said. “I should have had you come in after all.”
“Where are we going, anyway?”
He was driving back toward the center of town. But then as we were about to pass the entrance to the casino, he made a hard left.
“What are we doing here?” I said.
“You got any better ideas? This is where half the tribe is, probably. Somebody might know something. At the very least, we can put your theory to the test, see if every Indian in Michigan is really looking out for suspicious strangers. Besides, I could use a drink about now.”
We parked in a lot filled with at least a thousand other cars. It was the heart of the afternoon, on a gorgeous Michigan summer day, so what better place to spend it than inside a casino, pumping money into a slot machine? We took the long walk across the hot pavement and went inside, feeling the sudden icy chill of the air conditioning. Lou found the bar in twenty seconds and the bartender in twenty-one. He ordered a shot and a beer. I asked the man for a Coke.
“You’ve been driving all day,” I said. “When we go back outside, it’s my turn, okay?”
He looked at me over his shot and then he downed it in one swallow. The bartender filled him back up and he downed that one, too. The beer was apparently just for show.
“Hey, friend,” he said to the bartender. “How long you been working here?”
“Five years.” The man had the wide face of an Ojibwa, along with the calm eyes and the black hair.
“You ever been up to Bay Mills?”
“Nope.”
“You don’t know anybody from up there?”
“Don’t believe so.”
“I was born there myself. Haven’t been around for a while, but if I came down here looking for help, where would I go?”
“I don’t follow you, sir.”
“I’m just saying, if I was in trouble and I needed somebody to help me out. You know, patch me up and send me on my way?”
“I think I know what you mean,” he said, sliding right into an acting job so blatant it was like he was reading his lines off a cue card. “I’m gonna go get somebody to help you. Wait right here.”
He disappeared through a door at the far end of the bar. Lou took out a twenty-dollar bill, threw it onto the counter, and took off for the door. When I caught up to him in the parking lot, he was taking the keys out of his pocket. I grabbed them from his hand and got into the driver’s seat before he could say a word. He got in on the other side and told me to get going. A minute later we were out on the main road, heading back toward town. I couldn’t remember the last time I had driven a car instead of a truck. It felt strange to be so low to the road.
“You were right,” he said. “The word is out. Anybody looking for two men from Bay Mills is an automatic red flag.”
“I don’t know what we can do now. Next place we stop, we’re likely to be arrested.”
“You don’t carry an old badge or anything?”
We were back on Pickard, heading right back to the Five Guys. Presumably there was nowhere else to go but back to the freeway. And back home.
“I technically have a private-investigator license,” I said. “But I don’t use it.”
“Excuse me?”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t have it with me.”
“You never told me you were a private eye. We could have-”
“Look, it doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t have helped, believe me. It never does.”
“I don’t even understand what you’re saying. How can you not-”
I hit the brakes and nearly sent him through the windshield. There was a horn blaring right behind me and the screech of tries, and I suppose I almost did get us killed right there. But I didn’t even notice.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Lou said.
“Look there,” I said, pulling off the road. “We didn’t even notice it the first time we came by here.”
It was a low, squat building made of brick, not unlike a dozen other buildings all up and down the street. The thing that set this one apart was the statue of a dog out front. It was painted white with black spots, like a Dalmatian, and it was wearing sunglasses.
“I bet they take the glasses off that dog when it rains,” I said, “and put on a raincoat.”
He just looked at me like I had lost my mind.
“You still don’t know why I stopped.”
“No, I most certainly do not.”
“Read the sign.”
“Isabella County Animal Hospital.”
“Keep reading.”
“What, it’s just the names of the-”
He stopped.
“Ronald Carrick, DVM,” he said.
“You can practically smell the hamburgers from here,” I said, nodding toward the Five Guys. “Perfect place to stop after you leave this office. And if I’m not mistaken, there aren’t a whole hell of a lot of Carricks running around who don’t belong to Bay Mills.”
It was one of the family names that dominated the reservation, right up there with Parrish, Teeple, and LeBlanc.
“You realize,” Lou said, “this means Buck got fixed up by a vet instead of a doctor.”
“A vet is a doctor. What do you think the D in DVM stands for?”
We got out of the car and went inside. There was a diploma from Michigan State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine on the lobby wall. Next to that were some newspaper clippings, all to the effect that Ronald Carrick was one of only a handful of Ojibwa tribal members in the state with such a degree. We didn’t have to read any further. We knew we were in the right place.
“Can I help you guys?” The voice came from the receptionist. She was sitting behind a high counter, and she looked young enough to be a student at the local college, Central Michigan.