The ferry was slow. Two hours to go thirty-two miles. We had plenty of time to sit there in the indoor lounge, feeling the gentle rhythm of the boat, seeing the water just outside the window as it moved past, inch by inch.
Buck hadn’t said a word yet that whole morning. Neither had Vinnie, but for Buck it was out of character. I figured he must have been thinking about the day ahead, and how it would be one of the longest of his life.
“So what’s our story?” he finally said.
Vinnie just raised an eyebrow at him.
“I mean, what are we going to tell everybody when we get back? We should get on the same page here.”
“Why don’t you just tell the truth?” I said.
“Well, think about it. Everybody who was at the airport is dead now. There’s nobody who can even put me there.”
“I picked you up,” Vinnie said. “I can put you there.”
“But if you didn’t pick me up there? That’s what I’m saying.”
“If I didn’t pick you up there, how would you explain the gunshot wound?”
“What gunshot wound?” Buck said, raising both arms and waving them around. “I sure don’t see any gunshot wounds, do you?”
“Your cousin treated you,” Vinnie said. “We drove you all the way down to Mount Pleasant to have him patch you up.”
“We did go down there, yeah,” Buck said, frowning. “We can’t ask him to lie about that. That’s why I’m saying we should work this out now.”
“Just tell the truth,” I said again. “You never have to be on the same page if you do that. Makes life kinda simple.”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” he said. “I was at the airport. Vinnie picked me up. Ron fixed me. Everybody’s got the same story there. But as far as me being at the airport in the first place… That’s just my story, right? You see what I’m saying? Nobody else needs to corroborate it. Is that the right word? Corroborate?”
“Cut to the chase,” Lou said. “What are you going to tell them?”
“I don’t know exactly. I’m just saying. If those guys came to my house to pick me up, and up until then it was just an abstract idea… Then here they are and all of a sudden I’m having second thoughts… I mean, I’m actually being honest about that. I did have some second thoughts. But they didn’t seem too interested in giving me a choice at that point, you know what I’m saying? In hindsight, it kinda feels like I was being forced to go along with them.”
Lou was nodding at every word. A fresh reminder that this was a man who had spent some long years in prison. It was only natural he’d be looking for the angle here. It was practically hardwired into his brain now.
“You were on the scene when five men were murdered,” he said to Buck. “But if you were there against your will…”
“Just tell the truth,” I said one more time, even though I might as well have opened the window and told it to the squawking seagulls.
“Come on,” Lou said to me. “Give the man a break. He’s just trying to be prepared for what’s coming today. You never give these guys the rope if you don’t have to. That’s what any good lawyer would tell you.”
“Okay, so you were kidnapped,” I said. “You were taken to the airport and everybody got killed. Now you’re free. You should have called the police right then.”
“I panicked,” he said. “It was a natural reaction.”
“So you had Vinnie drive you all the way down to Mount Pleasant. Then, the next day, you willingly went to the Kaisers’ house. These same people who were supposedly behind your ‘abduction’ the day before. Hell, you even came out to the island with them. I assume that was voluntary, too. Unless they put you in the trunk.”
“They totally fooled me,” Buck said. “Vinnie, too. They’re like the world’s best con men, and you have to admit, once they got us out here, everything got turned upside down pretty quick. You think we wanted to be tied up in that boat and left out there?”
“No,” I said, raising both hands. “I’m sure you didn’t. See how convincing you sound? Because you’re telling the truth now. Just do that from the beginning.”
“I’m getting a headache,” Vinnie said. “There’s too much noise out here.”
He tried to stand up, but then he had to hold on tight to the back of the chair. Lou and I got up to help him and he waved us away. When he got his bearings, he left us and went down the hallway to the “quiet room,” where people could read or just close their eyes for a while. Lou followed him. I wasn’t sure if that was such a great idea, but what the hell. He and Vinnie hadn’t talked to each other yet. At some point, they’d have to get into the father-son business, no matter how strange that would be.
“Vinnie’s truck is still at the Kaisers’ house,” Buck said. “We should go get it while we’re down here.”
“Actually, it’s at an auto-glass shop in Cadillac,” I said. “But it’s still an hour and a half out of our way.”
“We’d have to come down again and get it anyway. That’s three hours down, three hours back. This way we take care of it today.”
“You’re stalling, Buck. You don’t want to face this stuff. I get it. I wouldn’t, either.”
He stopped talking and looked out the window. I got up and was just about to walk down the hall to see how Lou and Vinnie were doing. Then I thought, no, better to just go up and get some air on the deck. Let them work out whatever it was they had to work out. It was something only the two of them could do.
We ended up going to Cadillac after all. Vinnie wanted his truck, although there was no way we were going to let him drive it. Not until we knew he was a hundred percent better. We got the rental car off the ferry and we all piled in and drove down to Cadillac. I was driving. Buck was in the front seat with me. Lou and Vinnie sat in the back. Neither of them said anything. I had no idea what they may have said to each other back in that quiet room on the ferry. Maybe they hadn’t said anything at all. It was the quiet room, after all.
The ride seemed longer because of the silence, but an hour and a half later, we were close to Cadillac and I realized that we were about to drive right by the Kaisers’ house. I knew that Corvo would have had plenty of time by now to get the boat back to Chicago and then drive up here. Or hell, even just take the boat right to Charlevoix. He could have practically met them as they were getting off the ferry.
So I wasn’t sure what to expect as were rolling down that same road. Police cars? A burned-out, still-smoking building? But as I came up to the driveway, everything looked calm and quiet.
“This is their house,” Buck said.
“Yeah, I know. I told you we were here before. That’s how we got Vinnie’s truck over to the shop.”
“So why are we stopping here? If his truck is in Cadillac…”
“Yeah, this might not be a great idea,” Lou said.
Vinnie had his head back against the seat. His eyes were closed.
“I can’t just drive by,” I said. “I have to see.”
I pulled into the driveway. As we broke into the clearing, we saw the house. The same vehicles were parked inside, plus one more. A beat-up old clunker that looked like something Buck would drive. This must have belonged to Sugarpie and Dumpling. I remembered Jo Kaiser telling them she would pick up their car in Charlevoix. Now it was here, parked in front of their house, and I wondered if maybe I should turn the car right around and get the hell out of here.
But Lou was already out his door. He had the gun ready. I put the car in Park and followed behind him. He went to the front door of the house. It was closed tight. I took a look through the window, into the kitchen. Some of the cupboard doors were still off the hinges, but most of the mess on the floor had been cleaned up. I drew back and did a quick scan of everything I could see from where I was standing.