They made the long drive back to Port Martin in silence, each of them lost in thought. Sorting out the bits and pieces of the puzzle, trying to reshape it into a new reality.
“Do you believe him?” Sara said at last.
“Yeah, I do,” Puck said. “What he said lines up with the rest of it. Besides, he’s Métis. I wouldn’t question his word lightly. What did you make of him?”
“The same,” Sara nodded. “I think Max Novak almost certainly died on that ice through his own selfish stupidity. You were right about him all along, Mr. Paquette. I was wrong, and I apologize. My God, what am I going to tell the council?”
“How about nothing?” Shea offered. “We’ve heard some interesting stories, but we don’t actually know anything.”
“We know Red Max escaped by bribery, not daring.”
“But the important thing is, he did escape,” Puck said. “His vanishing act made him as famous as Jimmy Hoffa or Judge Crater. And this monument isn’t about the real Max, anyway, only his legend and those times. Nineteen sixty-nine. The Days of Rage. To remind folks that if things get too far out of whack, wild-eyed psychos like Red Max start coming out of the woodwork.”
“But the tunnel—”
“Leave the tunnel to us,” Shea said. “The place is so overbuilt it’s practically a fortress. We can brace the beams and take a short section out. Tourists will be able to crawl through it without ducking their heads.”
“But Novak didn’t really go out that way.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Puck said drily. “Maybe he skinnied right under them beams. From what we’ve heard, he’d have no trouble getting low enough.”
They dropped Sara off at the city hall, watched her disappear through the double doors. But even after she’d gone, Shea left the truck in neutral, idling, drumming his fingers on the wheel.
“What?” Puck asked.
“That was a nice speech,” Dan said, shifting in his seat to face his partner. “Thanks for saving our job. Too bad it was total horse hockey.”
“How do you mean?”
“Max Novak died on that ice, but it was no accident. Old Kennedy sent him out there with a Métis dope dealer, and promised that dealer a lot of money to get rid of him. Max dies, the Métis collects the blood money. Do the math. You don’t need Ellery Queen to figure out what happened.”
“You think Roanhorse murdered Max out there?”
“Don’t you?”
“I... did, at first. Except for one thing. Back when I was loggin’, I saw guys lose fingers and toes to frostbite. Knew a fella once who passed out drunk in an alley. Froze both ears and half his nose off. Had to wear a phony rubber nose after, made him look like Bozo the Clown. Pitiful damn sight.”
“What’s your point?”
“Frostbite’s an ugly injury, like being chewed up by a Rottweiler. A guy losing all ten fingertips? Each one lopped at the first joint, neat and even? That’s something I’ve never seen. Have you?”
Shea started to answer, then closed his mouth again. Getting it.
“Sweet Jesus,” he said softly. “Novak wore a mask in Toronto to conceal his plastic surgery. But maybe they remodeled more than his face. What the hell happened out there?”
“Probably what Roanhorse told us, or something close to it. The snowmobile cracked up, the Métis got bad hurt, and Max left him to die. Or maybe the Métis tried to earn his money and came out second best. Either way, I think Novak was the one who made it off the ice, minus some fingertips. And realized they were his ticket home. As Red Max Novak, he’d be running the rest of his life. But with plastic surgery, he could cash in the rest of his fingertips and come back as Bobby Roanhorse, a drifter with no family. He waited for things to cool down, came back to collect his blood money, and stayed on in the last place they’d look for him. Hiding in plain sight.”
“You think that Métis might really be Red Max?”
“I honestly don’t know. Don’t even know how you could prove it now. Certainly not by fingerprints. And after all this time, I’m not sure it matters which one of those boys came off the ice. One was a murderer, the other meant to be, and the survivor’s serving a life sentence, hiding out in that backwoods shack. And he can’t pick up a salt shaker or manage a cell phone. If that ain’t justice, sonny, it comes damn close.”
“Either way, he’s a murderer, and like the man said, there’s no statute of limitations on that.”
“You’re right. And back in the day, it would have been an easy call. I hated hippies and radicals like Red Max for what they did to my country, and to my nephew. But nobody involved in the breakout really got away with anything. It destroyed some, and still haunts the others after all these years. Even if we knew for certain what happened, and we don’t, I don’t see the point in tearing those old wounds open again. The truth is, a jail’s a perfect monument to those times. Because some people will never be free of them. So let’s do what they hired us to do, Danny. Build their damned memorial.”
“To Red Max?”
“Hell no,” Puck said flatly. “To Nineteen Sixty-Nine Main Street. To the Flower Children and my nephew. And the Days of Rage.”
Work on the rejuvenated civic building raced on through the fall, taking on a small-town rhythm of its own. The crew began attending local football games on Friday nights and hosting walk-throughs for grade-school kids. For many, it was the first time they’d seen manual laborers up close, men wielding hammers, rivet guns, and power saws with skill and great gusto.
The job was still a lightning rod for controversy, though. While remodeling the basement cells, Maph Rochon had a flash of inspiration. Using the photo of Red Max as a template, he reshaped scrap bars of cast iron to form a larger than life outline of an AK-47 assault rifle, raised in the air.
Sara loved the elegant simplicity of the symbol, but when she suggested adopting it as the 1969 Main Street logo, it set off another ferocious debate at a city council meeting, complete with shouted threats and curses. And reams of free publicity.
In the end, the outrageous symbol was adopted by a single vote, and the mayor stormed out of the hall in a huff.
By late October, the lease list was at full occupancy, with tenants clamoring to move in, desperate to cash in on the Christmas rush.
Off the record, Sara met with the council’s planning committee and told them about the tunnel, and what had come to light about it. They thanked her politely for her efforts, then voted to continue on with the historical facts in evidence. Verities like photographs, police reports, and news stories far outweighed the ramblings of a disgraced alcoholic.
When a legend plays better than the truth, go with the legend every time.
Swamped with the bull-work of a major reconstruction job, neither Shea nor Puck ever discussed that day at the tree farm. Or what it meant.
But as the project moved into its final phases, Puck felt a leaden weight gradually lifting from his spirit. He’d expected to hate every minute of this job, but seeing it through, seeing the bogus cell display and the posters of a ranting Red Max Novak every single day seemed to slowly drain away his resentment. Sometimes, familiarity only breeds... familiarity.
The final days of the project swept down on them like an avalanche. Shea, Puck, and the crew were putting in twenty-hour days, desperately wrapping up the last details: wiring and Internet hookups, smoke alarms and emergency lighting; custom-building shop displays and shelving that were being stocked with merchandise even as they worked.