“How long have they been out there?”
“They flew out around eight. I’m surprised they’re not back already.”
“Albright’s wife called the police,” I said. “And the other wives. Those men never did get back to Detroit.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s what the constables said.”
We all stood there for a moment. I wasn’t sure what else to say. The door creaked open just then, and the man from the butcher’s shed came in. He stopped when he saw us.
“They’re still out there,” Helen said.
The man nodded.
“Ronnie, this is Alex and Tom,” she said. “They were here yesterday.”
Vinnie looked down at the floor and shook his head.
“Yes, we met,” I said. “You were butchering the moose.”
He glanced upward, past my shoulder. I turned and looked up at the moose head with him.
“Sorry,” I said. “Maybe we should change the subject.”
The man didn’t smile. He didn’t say a word. He gave Helen a little nod and then he went back out the door.
“You’ll have to excuse him,” Helen said. “He doesn’t say a lot, especially to strangers. Millie’s kinda the same way.”
“It’s a good place to live then,” I said. “How many strangers do you even see up here?”
She smiled. “Less and less every season. I don’t imagine we’ll be coming back next year.”
“That’s what Mr. Gannon told us yesterday. I got the impression it was a done deal.”
“I suppose it is,” she said. “It’s hard to believe we’ll be packing up for good this time.”
“Where do you go when you’re not up here?”
“We all live in Sudbury,” she said. “For the last fifteen years, we’ve been coming up here for the summer and fall. Business was good the first few years, then it started to taper off. This year was the worst, and now, with this-” She looked out the window again.
“I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am,” Vinnie said. “This isn’t good for anybody.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “You fellas want some coffee?”
“That would be nice,” Vinnie said.
As she left the room, Vinnie went to the window and stared out. “I wish we were out there,” he said.
“What do you think we’d find?” I said. “The men have been gone for five days now.”
“People leave things behind,” he said. “There’s always something.”
Helen came back out with a pot of coffee and three empty mugs. She poured it black and didn’t ask if we wanted cream or sugar. Which was fine with me. We all stood there looking out the window for a few minutes, until finally we heard the distant whine of the motor.
“That’ll be them,” she said. “I’d know that sound anywhere.”
We followed her outside. She went down to the dock and stood there watching the northern sky. A speck appeared above the trees. It got larger as the sound of the motor grew louder. The plane seemed to bob up and down in the wind as it cleared the tree line. Then it hit the water, touching down as smoothly as a loon returning to its nest. The plane cruised in across the length of the lake, slowing down as it approached the dock. I could see Hank Gannon’s face through the windshield.
He cut the motor. The sound kept ringing in my ears. Helen stepped up and caught the plane with one hand, then looped two ropes around the cleats on the float, front and back. The door popped open, a small ladder came out, and Hank climbed down to the dock.
“Isn’t this cozy?” he said, looking right at me. I was still holding my mug. “Did you bake them a cake, too?”
“The police told them to come back up,” she said.
“Yeah, no kidding. It sounds like they’ve got some real good questions to ask them.”
A woman stepped out next. This had to be Constable Natalie Reynaud, wearing the distinctive blue uniform of the Ontario Provincial Police. She had dark hair pinned up under her hat, and I would have put her age around thirty-five if I had to guess. She hopped off the last step of the ladder like it was nothing.
The man who followed her took a lot longer to get down that ladder, and he sure as hell didn’t jump off the last step. He was wearing the same uniform, but aside from that he was everything his partner wasn’t. He looked like he was in decent shape for a man in his sixties, but I knew that was old for a man on active duty.
“That was a bumpy ride,” he said. “Feels good to be on the ground again.”
“Did you find anything?” Helen said.
“Just a big mess,” the old cop said. “Those boys don’t know how to clean up after themselves.”
“I tried to clean it up a little bit,” Hank said. “Sorry we took so long.” He looked at me again, and then at Vinnie. “We shouldn’t have left you here, Helen.”
“One of the windows was knocked in,” the older constable said. “Looks like a black bear did it. Probably smelled the garbage.”
Constable Reynaud came up to me and looked me in the eye. “You must be Mr. McKnight,” she said. “And this must be Mr. LeBlanc.” She had a nice face, and green eyes. But you could tell in a second she was all business. “This is my partner, Senior Constable Claude DeMers.”
He shook out the kinks as he came over to us, and he shook my hand. “Thanks for coming up,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind if we ask you a few questions.” All of a sudden, he didn’t look so old anymore.
“Yeah,” Gannon said from behind them, “start by asking them why they didn’t give us their real names.”
DeMers turned and gave him a look. “Hank, I told you. Let us handle this. I’m sure there’s a good explanation.”
Gannon just turned away and gave him a wave of his hand. He climbed back into his plane, grabbed a big trash bag from inside, and threw it down onto the dock. It landed with a heavy thud.
“Helen,” the cop said, “is there someplace we can have a chat with these gentlemen?”
“Use the office,” she said.
“You should send Hank back out to fix that window,” he said. “You don’t want any more bears in that cabin.”
“Doesn’t matter much now,” she said. “They can move in for all I care.”
DeMers shook his head at that. “Hell of a thing,” he said. “I hope we find those boys soon so we can put an end to this.”
“Where are you looking?” Vinnie said. “They’ve been missing for five days. Are you covering all the roads back to Detroit?”
DeMers looked at him. For one long moment the only sounds were the wind and the waves. “My partner tells me your name is Vinnie,” he finally said.
“Yes.”
“Not Tom.”
“No, Tom is my brother.”
“Well, Vinnie, like we said, we need to ask a few questions. What do you say we start with you? I mean, now that we’ve established your real name-”
“Vinnie,” I said, “you don’t have to say anything right now. I think maybe we should talk to a lawyer first.”
“I’ll tell them what they need to know,” Vinnie said. “I’ll tell them the truth.”
The whole thing went downhill from there. They took Vinnie into Helen’s office for questioning. I sat by myself in the main room, trying not to look up at the moose head.
An hour passed. It felt like a day. I got up and went to the window, watched Gannon cleaning out his plane. The other man appeared on the dock, the silent one. What was his name? Ron, that was it. He took the big bag of garbage away, then he came back with a broom and swept the dock. The man’s wife appeared. Millie. She went to the end of the dock and looked out at the lake. Ron stopped sweeping and went out to stand next to her. He put his arm around her. She put her head on his shoulder.
I heard a noise behind me. The door to the office was closed. I heard the noise again-it sounded like… like a low wailing. Like somebody moaning. I stood still, holding my breath, listening.
There’s nobody here, I told myself. Nobody but-
The moose, for God’s sake. It sounds like it’s coming from the moose. That would make this day complete. A haunted moose head.
I went over and stood below it. The sound came again, this time a lot louder. But not from above me. I bent down and looked in the fireplace. The moaning sound was the wind passing over the chimney. The updraft was so strong I could feel the air rushing past me.