Die a Stranger (18 page)

“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.

“I need to speak to Dr. Carrick,” Lou said. “It’s very important.”

“I’ll see if he’s free.”

She left the room and I started to wonder how we should play this. That’s when the doctor came out. He stepped around the counter and came right up to us. He was wearing the standard white coat, and he had that same barrel chest that Buck had. He was a Carrick, all right. Maybe even a first cousin.

He took one look at Lou, saw that old LeBlanc face, and all of a sudden we had a new version of the eyeball test, one that told us everything we needed to know.

*   *   *

He put us in a back room, like we were a couple of dogs who needed our annual checkup. As we sat there, I couldn’t help wondering if the whole thing was a ploy to call the tribal police, no matter how much it seemed like the doctor was buying Lou’s story out in the lobby.

We waited and we waited, until finally the doctor came in and closed the door behind him.

“I apologize,” he said. “I had to finish up with some patients. But I don’t have any appointments now, so we should be able to talk.”

He sat down in the only remaining chair and smoothed his white coat over his knees. He looked rattled.

“Dr. Carrick,” I said. “We need to find Vinnie and Buck. They were here, weren’t they?”

He nodded, looking down at the floor for a moment.

“Buck must be your cousin, right?”

“One of many,” he said, smiling. “I barely remembered him.”

“They came to you for help,” I said. “Buck was injured?”

“Right here,” he said, pointing to his underarm. “In the axilla. He was shot once. The bullet passed right through. He was very lucky.”

“Did they say how it happened?”

“If I had any idea they were in serious trouble,” he said, “I would have acted differently. You have to believe me.”

“It’s okay,” Lou said. “You helped them. We understand, and we appreciate it. Please just tell us what happened.”

“Okay,” he said, taking a long breath. “I’m sworn to secrecy, but I figure if you’re really Vinnie’s father … And it’s not like I have any official doctor-patient confidentiality here.… Anyway, this was what, three days ago? They came down here, it was late at night. Like really late. I live in the house just behind the practice here. They knocked on the door and I was thinking it must have been an animal emergency. A dog hit by a car or something. I get calls like that all the time, but usually they don’t come to the house. Anyway, I open the door and there’s my old cousin Bucky, holding his arm against his chest. I can see that he had been bleeding. Vinnie was with him. I recognized his name, but I don’t think I ever met him before. Although I guess technically Vinnie’s my cousin, too, like a second cousin or once removed, or whatever. I only went to college for eight years and I still don’t know how that works. Anyway, they came in and they told me that Vinnie was cleaning a gun at Buck’s house and it accidentally went off. And that they were afraid to go to the hospital because they’d have to report it and Vinnie would get in big trouble. I guess he’s been in jail before.”

“Is that true?” Lou asked me.

“No. Not really.” I was thinking of the one time Vinnie got charged with assault, when he went after somebody in the parking lot with his hockey stick. Somebody who definitely had it coming. But the charge was later dropped.

“It was just part of the story,” the doctor said. “I see that now. At the time it made a certain amount of sense. In a bumbling sort of way. But anyway, I told him I was a vet and he said he didn’t think it was serious, and fortunately he was right. The shell might have just grazed one of his upper ribs, but otherwise it was basically skin damage. I was able to patch him up pretty easily and I even had some antibiotics to give him. People pills, not animal pills. I thought it was the right thing to do.”

“When did that feeling change?” I said.

“Well, they stayed at my house overnight. Buck was just lying around the next day, resting, while Vinnie was outside cleaning his truck. I guess there was a lot of blood in it. That’s when I started wondering, I mean, it’s like three hours to get down here. If he was really bleeding that much, it was a really stupid thing to do, no matter how much trouble you thought Vinnie might get into. I even asked him, I said, ‘Is this really what happened?’ He said yes, but I could kinda tell he was lying.”

“Vinnie’s a terrible liar,” I said.

“Yeah, well, apparently he called somebody at the rez, told them everybody was okay and that they’d be home soon.”

“When was that?”

“That was the next day. He asked if he could use the phone in my office, instead of at the house. Which sorta seemed weird. It’s like he didn’t want Buck to hear it.”

“But you were there? You heard him on the phone?”

“I heard some of it. He just said, you know, we’re both okay. Tell our family. Tell somebody else. I don’t remember the name.”

“Alex.”

“Yeah, that’s it. He said, tell Alex not to worry. Tell him not to do anything stupid. We’re okay and I’ll explain everything when I get home.”

He stopped and looked at me.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “This was all kind of a shock when you came in. I know you told me your name, but I don’t think I caught it. So are you—”

“Alex, yes. Doing something stupid. But go on.”

“Okay, so, later that night, it was Buck’s turn to get on the phone. I don’t know who he was talking to, but it was all about these people who wanted Buck and Vinnie to come see them, how they were going to take care of everything.”

“That’s gotta be the Kaisers,” Lou said. “Harry and Josephine Kaiser. Do you recognize those names?”

“No, I didn’t catch the names, sorry.”

“But they said they were going to take care of everything? What were they going to do?”

“He didn’t say. I was thinking maybe they must have had a good lawyer or something. But then I was thinking, no, not if it’s just an accidental shooting. So I guess I really had no idea what he was talking about. They were just going to take care of everything, he said. That’s it.”

“Vinnie went along with this?”

“No, not at first. But I think Buck wore him down. They ended up leaving yesterday morning, and I know they weren’t going home.”

“What time did they leave?”

“Eleven thirty? Noon, maybe? They were just hanging around for a while, then Buck went to make a phone call. He came back and said they had to get going right away.”

“Did he say why?”

“No. But all of a sudden they were in a hurry, and off they went.”

I looked at Lou. I could tell he was thinking the same thing. Yesterday must have been the day when everybody involved in this situation got their wake-up call. It was time to run and not look back.

“So they left in a big hurry,” Lou said.

“Yeah, they did. I guess that’s when I sort of knew for sure. Not only was their story complete bullshit, but they were obviously in some kind of serious trouble. Vinnie kept saying they should just go home, but Buck was saying, no, these people were their only hope. Heck, I wanted them to stick around and have some lunch at least, but they just took off.”

“Well, they stopped at the Five Guys down the road for some hamburgers,” I said. “Something tells me Buck doesn’t go that long without eating, no matter how much of a hurry they’re in. But if you can think of anything else they might have said…”

Lou was pacing back and forth in front of the lab sink now. He pounded on the counter a few times before finally speaking again.

“If you were convinced they were in such big trouble,” he said, “why did you let them go?”

“Take it easy,” I said to him. “What did you expect him to do, tackle both of them?”

Lou put his hands up. “I’m just saying.”

“I should have tried harder to stop them,” the doctor said in an even voice. “I realize this now.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Lou said, rubbing his forehead. “It’s been a hard day.”

“Please go on,” I said. “Is there anything else you remember from yesterday? If you can add one more little piece to the puzzle, it might be helpful.”

We waited around for a few more minutes while he thought about it, but he came up empty. I gave him my phone number and asked him to call me if he remembered anything else. He told us to make sure we took care of Buck and Vinnie, assuming we ever found them. Then we thanked him and left.

“We need to find out more about the Kaisers,” I said as we got into the car. “Find out where they might have taken Vinnie and Buck, once they were all together.”

“Someplace safe, right? I mean, if they were nervous enough to be in such a big hurry yesterday…”

“So where is that? What’s the safest place they’d go?”

“No way to know. We’ve never even met these people.”

“I can only think of three people who
have
met them,” he said. “Buck, Vinnie, and—”

“And the person who sent us down to that house in the first place,” I said. “He’s our only lead right now.”

He nodded and looked out the window. “Sounds like it’s time for one more visit.”

*   *   *

That’s how we ended up back on that same street in Sault Ste. Marie. It was almost dark by the time we got there. It was late and we were both hungry, and we had spent six good hours in the car running all over the state. The last thing we wanted to do was talk to Andy Dukes again. I don’t imagine he felt much like talking to us, either. With or without his next-door neighbor, Eddie. But Dukes was the one man who might have more information about Harry and Josephine Kaiser. If we were finally due for that one lucky break, he would think about it for two seconds and then say, “Oh yeah, they must all be at their summer place. Here, let me write down that address for you.”

But that lucky break was apparently still lost in the mail.

We made our way back to Hursley Street, taking that same turn just before the power canal. We pulled up in front of his house. It looked dark and empty, but that wasn’t a surprise. We knew the drill. He was officially long gone, already in Texas by now. Just ask his neighbor.

The lights were on next door, and once again we saw the blue flickering glow from the television. We rang the bell and waited. I heard faint voices but figured they could be coming from the television. We rang the bell again.

“It’s almost like they’re not happy to see us again,” Lou said. “Go figure.”

“At least he won’t be armed this time.” I thought of the revolver we had taken from him, currently locked up, unloaded, in the rental car’s glove compartment. Then I thought how foolish it would be to assume that was the only firearm Dukes owned.

Lou opened up the outside patio door before I could tell him what a bad idea that was. He went to the interior door and started pounding on it. I was already picturing the wooden door breaking apart, a thousand scraps of wood flying in the air as the gun blast turned everything inside out.

He stood there pounding on the door until finally he peeked inside through the front window.

He froze.

“What is it?” I said.

He didn’t answer.

I went up the steps and moved him out of the way. I looked through the window and saw exactly what he saw.

I saw the two bodies on the floor. I saw the blood. I saw the damage that somebody had inflicted on both of these men.

Everything we had done that day, everywhere we had gone, it had all led up to this single moment.

“I knew it,” Lou said. “I knew it. I knew it.”

“Knew what?” I said, barely able to speak.

“This is what these people do,” he said. “You screw around with these people, and this is what they do to you.”

I came down off the steps. I tried to breathe. The sun was finally going down.

“We have to find them,” he said. “We have to find Vinnie and Buck. Don’t you see, Alex? We have to find them. Or they’ll be next.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

He pulled me to the street. I tried to push him away, not for any coherent reason, just a reflexive reaction to what I’d seen through the window.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said through clenched teeth. “Right now.”

“We have to stay here,” I said. “We have to call somebody.”

“Like hell we do.”

I took him by the arm and was halfway into a wristlock, pure muscle memory from all of those years on the force. A suspect resists and you twist that arm right around and turn that wrist. All of a sudden he’s a lot more cooperative.

“I’m calling the police,” I said. “Then we’re going to wait until they get here.”

“Don’t be an idiot. If we call the police, they’ll lock us both up.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because that’s what they do.”

I knew that was the reality for him, at least. That was his own personal experience.

“No, Lou. Come on.”

“We came here earlier today,” he said, “and now we’re back and those two guys are lying in there in a lake of blood. What do you think they’re gonna do?”

“They’re gonna talk to us, and we’re gonna tell them everything we know.”

“So you want them to take us down to the station, is that what you’re saying? Best case, they put us in a room for the next twenty-four hours. Ask us the same questions over and over, which won’t do anybody any good. Meanwhile, whoever it was who did this is getting closer and closer to Vinnie.”

“He wasn’t there, you realize that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Vinnie’s not involved in this. He’s never had anything to do with Dukes or these people from downstate, and he wasn’t even at the airport that night. He just picked up Buck and—”

“And helped Buck get away,” Lou said. “He’s been with Buck ever since. Go ask Dukes’ neighbor in there, what’s his name? Eddie? Go ask Eddie how that one works. You think Eddie was a big player in this whole thing?”

I took a quick look up and down the street, expecting somebody to be watching us. Two men standing in the yard, having an argument. But the street was empty.