Cold (27 page)

Warren and Norman came and went—driving back and forth to Sipson’s Lake where a seaplane would put down to deliver and pick up men, or back to North Eicher for supplies of food and liquor.
 
Norman went about his duties quietly, deliberately, while Warren spent much of the time trying to be one of the boys.
 
Out here he could bullshit with some auto execs and pull it off.
 
They were all so drunk it tended to level the field.

And Daddy was at the center of the whole event.
 
This was his realm and he wanted to bring them into it, and be well compensated for it—though never appearing to be interested in the money.
 
That was the trick; that was the real game.
 
These downstate fools—trolls, they were often called, because they lived below the Mackinac Bridge—were willing to pay huge sums for the authenticity of roughing it.
 
They were willing to pay so they could go back to Farmington Hills or Brighton or Gross Pointe and tell people they had been way the fuck up north.

They all requested Raymond Yates as guide.
 
One night at dinner a Ford executive asked, “You really know these woods.
 
Where you from?”

“Born in L’anse.
 
Lived out here my whole life.”

“A real Yooper, eh?”

Raymond, who was about the same age as these men from downstate, continued to cut his meat.
 
The exec must have been accustomed to having people answer his questions.
 
He kept staring at Raymond.
 

“Off-season, what do you do for work?” the exec asked Raymond.

Raymond jabbed a forkful of venison into his mouth.

Finally, Warren said, “Work?”
 
He looked as though he’d never heard the term.
 
He turned to Norman.
 
“Isn’t that that thing Uncle Toivo used to do.
 
Go down in da mine dere and work?”

“You betcha,” Norman said.
 
“He did do dat.”

“Until it kilt him,” Warren said.
 
“Got da black lung dere, eh?”

Everyone at the table laughed.

“No, no,” the auto exec said.
 
He spent a lot of time trying to reach people long-distance on his cellular phone, which was not easy out here. “I’m serious.
 
What do you do for employment up here?”

“Oh, em
ploy
ment,” Warren said.
 
“Pronovost makes sure we got plenty of dat.”

Noel knew the look on her father’s face.
 
She’d seen it all her life.
 
What she never got used to was the stillness in his eyes.
 
They just didn’t move—no more than the glass eyes in his mounted trophies.

“What kind of employment?” the auto exec asked.

The table was quiet.
 
Raymond appeared confused by the fact that on one hand these men seemed to be having a laugh at his expense, and on the other he’d been asked legitimate questions.
 
“I hunt,” he said.

“You hunt.
 
You just hunt, eh?” the exec asked, and everyone laughed.

Finally, Daddy pushed away from the table, letting the scrape of his chair legs bring the party back to order.
 
“Raymond’s the best guide there is.
 
No one knows these woods like him.”

“So,” the Ford executive said.
 
“You’re a professional hunter.”
 
Raymond simply wouldn’t return the man’s stare.
 
“Gentlemen, a toast.”
 
The exec stood up and raised his glass.
 
“A toast to the last of a dying breed:
 
the true hunter.”

The other men stood and joined in the toast.
 
Warren beamed as though he were the birthday boy, while Raymond stared down the table toward Daddy.

•

As they drove north in the Land Cruiser, Warren Haas drank his peppermint schnapps and did most of the talking.
 
Del was sure that something essential was being left out.
 
What, he didn’t know.

In his experience as constable of Yellow Dog Township, where most of the crimes committed were motivated by domestic discord, Del knew that the truly dangerous individuals were those who were driven by one clear desire.
 
Often it was revenge.
 
It could be love or deep regret or simply wanting something back.
 
Whatever, it was almost always impossible to steer the perpetrator, usually an angry male, away from the source of his anger, usually a woman, or, in some cases, another man who had taken the woman, physically, emotionally, or both, from the perpetrator.
 
On many occasions Del had stood in front yards, on porches, in living rooms, facing an angry man, who couldn’t see him at all, who kept looking past him at the object of his anger, standing a few feet behind Del.
 
Often Del would be able to get through enough to persuade the perpetrator to desist for the time being; and usually it was only a matter of time, just a day or two, before Del was called back to the house where a beating, sometimes even a shooting, had finally taken place.
 
He knew that you never really talked a perpetrator out of the desire to harm the object of his anger because the perpetrator always felt justified, that the wife, the girlfriend, the guy doing the wife or girlfriend—the
object
—deserved what it got.
 
Some perpetrators were so locked into their desire—and drugs and alcohol often came into play here—that no matter what Del did or said they could not really see him standing there in front of them, could not comprehend what he was supposed to represent.
 
He was not the law; he was simply in their way.
 
In such cases they would make some move, some attempt to go around or through Del, and then he would have to subdue and handcuff them.
 
He had done this on his own many times, though in recent years he and Monty tried to answer such calls together.

Del thought that he had a better understanding of Norman’s desire.
 
He had been sitting in prison gnawing away at the fact that his brother and his former fiancé had married.
 
Warren wasn’t just sleeping with her, which would be bad enough; he’d married her.
 
That wasn’t something most men could tuck away and forget.
 
It was the kind of thing that caused erosion inside, until one day when there’s a chance you just walk away without considering the consequences.
 
Norman was beyond the consequences.
 

However, as Del drove north and Warren talked about his brother, Warren’s desire couldn’t be so easily determined.
 
He had said something about wanting to insure the safety of his ex-wife and their three-year-old named Lorraine.
 
But Del suspected that there was more to it.
 
He wondered if Warren felt the need to defeat Norman in order to prove that what he had done to his brother—taking his fiancé, marrying her, having a child with her—was justifiable.
 
No matter how twisted their logic, perpetrators always maintain a deep sense of personal justice.
 
One of the difficulties here was that it was hard to determine which brother was the real perpetrator.

The going was slow; Del could hardly maintain a speed of thirty miles-per-hour.
 
There were few lights and the road ahead was pitch black.

“We’re headed toward Muskie Bay?” Del asked.

“We are.”

“Woods, rivers, lakes.
 
No towns.”

“I know, it’s perfect.”
 
The peppermint schnapps smelled cheap, like an air freshener.
 

“You’re sure they’re out there?”

“I’m not wrong.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know how my brother and Noel
think—
that’s how I fucking know.”

“This is someplace her father owns?”

“Right.”

“He owns this piece of land, with cabins for hunters and fishermen, right?”

“Right.
 
It’s some piece of land too.”

“How do you know which cabin they’re in?”

“Who the fuck said they’re in a cabin?”
 
Haas’ leather coat creaked as he shifted in his seat.
 
“I’m hungry.
 
You hungry?
 
In a few miles we come to a little roadhouse.
 
Let’s stop and get something to eat.
 
It’ll be our last chance.”

They didn’t speak again until they reached a place called The Bucksnort Tavern, with pickup trucks and snowmobiles parked out front.
 
Inside, Warren ordered a venison burger and a beer; Del the whitefish sandwich and a Vernors ginger ale.

“This could be an on-duty thing,” Haas said, nodding toward Del’s glass. “Or it could be serious alcohol remission.”

“A little of both,” Del said.

 
“Divorced, right?”

After a moment, Del said, “Wild guess?”

“I don’t see no ring.”
 
Haas snorted.
 
“What are the odds that you’re not?”

“Right.”

“Kids?”

“No.”
 
Then Del said, “She had a couple of miscarriages early on.”
 
It felt as though he were offering a form of self-defense.

“She remarried?”

“Sure.”

“Still sometimes, you think of her as your wife.”

“Not too often.”

“But sometimes.
 
I know I do.”

Del didn’t answer.

“Of course you do.
 
We
all
do.
 
We think of them, you know, in the act—fucking another guy.
 
And we avoid it as much as we can, until eventually it creeps up on you and grabs you by the
cojones.
 
See I picked up a little Spanish when I was stationed in San Diego.”
 
Haas grinned, then took a large bite out of his burger and put it back on his plate.
 
“Noel, she’s always liked it—she likes men, has a thing about them.
 
You ask me, I think it has something to do with her daddy, but I’m not professionally qualified to say for sure.
 
I do know this:
 
sometimes when she’s working nights at the motel, a guy will check in and she’ll come on to him.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“I have observed this, yes.
 
I know her gestures, her looks—remember, I’ve been a victim myself.”

“And you’ve observed this at the motel.”

Haas put both elbows on the table and ran his hands through his hair, feeling his scalp as though he were inspecting it for a lump or a cyst, some physical evidence of disease.
 
This examination occupied him for at least a minute, until he picked up his burger again.
 
“Nights that she’s working I often park across the street by Jacques’ Diner and watch the motel office.”
 
He took a bite out of his burger.
 
In the dim light from the bar, his face resembled a large knot as he chewed.
 
“Voyeurism, it does strange things for you.
 
It’s naughty.
 
It’s sneaky.
 
But, shit, it’s
fun.
 
People always prefer to watch, even when it’s painful.
 
I know she
wants
to go down to a guy’s room.
 
Sparks the imagination.”

 
“The schnapps helps,” Del said.

“Especially when it’s accompanied by a decent blowjob.”

“I imagine it would.”

“The pleasures of a small town, right?” Haas said.

“Uh-huh.”
 
Del ran a French fry through ketchup.
 
“This why you’re splitting up?”
 

“No,” Haas said, “What gets to you is the whole thing.”
 
He finished his beer and stared up at the television.
 
The Red Wings were playing in Boston and the second period was just starting.
 
“I love their away uniforms, don’t you?
 
All that red.
 
Has to have an effect on the other team.”

“What ‘whole thing’?”

“Oh, the routine, you know.
 
The kid.
 
The mommy and daddy shit.
 
And then there’s her father.”
 
Haas watched the game a moment.
 
Del waited.
 
“Pronovost.
 
Jesus, the guy, he has all this property up there—calls it Big Pine Lodge.
 
And he has this
hold
on her.
 
Takes care of her—pays for her apartment, her bills, her car—I mean she works nights at this motel he owns a piece of and in fishing and hunting season she comes up here to cook for his corporate cronies.
 
She’s totally dependent on him.”
 
Haas leaned back and finished the last of his beer.
 
“You ever notice how you can tell a lot about a girl’s father by they way she sucks your cock?”