Free Blood Is the Sky: An Alex McKnight Mystery by Steve Hamilton Page B

And now that the police were officially involved, I figured it was time to end it. “You see,” I said, “it’s kind of a long story.”
    “If you’re telling me I’ve got a fifth man missing who the families in Detroit didn’t even know about, I’m going to need that name right now.”
    “Where are you calling from, Constable?”
    “We’re at the Hearst Detachment. It’s about fifty miles east of the lodge.”
    “You think we could come back up there and talk to you in person?”
    She hesitated. “Mr. McKnight, if you want to come up here, you can do that. But first I want that name.”
    “Thomas LeBlanc,” I said.
    “That was the fifth man on the hunting trip.”
    “Yes. I’m here with his brother, Vincent LeBlanc.”
    “Okay,” she said. “See, that wasn’t so hard.”
    I let that one go. As soon as she ran the name, she’d find out just how hard it really was.
    “Listen,” she said, “we’re on our way over to the lodge right now. As long as you’re still in Wawa, why don’t you come back up and talk to us?”
    “I think that would be a good idea.”
    “Okay, Mr. McKnight. We’ll see you at the lodge. Drive carefully.”
    “You, too,” I said. “Watch out for moose.”
    I switched the phone off. Vinnie slept in perfect peace, oblivious to what I’d just done. Like I had any choice.
    “Wake up,” I said.
    He made a noise.
    “That was the police.”
    He lifted his head. His left eye was still swollen. “What?”
    “Albright never got home. His wife called the police down in Detroit.”
    He pulled himself up until he was sitting on the edge of the bed. “Man,” he said. “My head hurts.”
    “That was the OPP,” I said. “They’re going to the lodge. I told them we’d meet them there.”
    “Okay.”
    “They wanted Tom’s name. I figured it was time to come clean.”
    He looked at me. “You figured that, huh?”
    “We’re going up to see the police, Vinnie. These men are officially missing now.”
    He let out a long breath. Then he pushed himself up and for one second I thought he was going to jump on me. But instead he stumbled toward the bathroom. “I need to take a shower,” he said. “I can’t go see the police looking like a vagrant. It’s gonna be bad enough.”
    An hour later we were both as cleaned up as we were
going to get. We stopped in at a little coffee shop down the street, then at the gas station, and then we were on our way. The giant goose looked down on us one more time as we left town. It felt strange to be going north again.
    The rest of the morning we spent retracing our route from the day before, through White River and Hornepayne, through miles and miles of lakes and trees. The air felt even colder. Vinnie sat on the passenger’s side and looked out the window.
    “I didn’t have any choice,” I finally said.
    “I know.”
    “At this point, it’s got to come out.”
    “You’re right,” he said without looking at me. “I’m not saying you did the wrong thing.”
    “Okay,” I said, and then I settled in for two more hours on the road without one more word from him. I suppose if I had a brother and I knew he was probably on his way back to prison, I’d be just as talkative.
    It was eleven o’clock when we hit the Trans-Canada Highway again. I knew to take the left, and to look for the unmarked road on the right. I kept the truck out of the mud this time. We didn’t see our friend the moose.
    When we came around the last bend in the road, we saw the police car parked behind the other vehicles. It was white and clean, with the blue OPP seal on the door. We stopped and got out of the truck.
    “They must be inside,” I said. The place looked just as deserted as the first time we had seen it. There was a wet wind coming in off the lake again. The air felt heavy.
    We walked down to the main cabin. As we passed the butcher’s shed, I expected to see the man come out with the blood all over his gloves again. I couldn’t remember the