I drove down to the southern edge of town, past Sanderson Field, one of the two old air command centers that had been turned into commercial airports. I followed the numbers on the mailboxes as they got smaller, until finally I found what I was looking for. It was a raised ranch sitting all alone in a wide open field, the snowdrifts climbing to the windows on one side. The driveway was covered by the drifts as well, with a serpentine set of tracks barely visible, where someone had fishtailed all over the place on their way to the garage. I put my plow down and pushed the snow off as I went. In this part of the world, it’s the kind of thing you do for your neighbor, or even a stranger. You do it without even thinking about it.
I came up to the garage and pushed the snow to the side, then I got out of the truck and went to the front door. The walkway wasn’t shoveled. When I rang the doorbell, nobody answered. I rang one more time. Just as I was about to turn around and leave, the inner door opened. I saw her face through the thick glass of the storm door, this woman with red eyes and a handkerchief pressed to her mouth. She was forty years old, maybe forty-five, and she was wearing a bathrobe.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said.
She just looked at me.
“Are you Mrs. Woolsey?” I had to speak up to be heard through the glass. She was making no move to open the storm door.
She nodded her head.
“Is Chris here? His roommate said he might be.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Alex McKnight. I just want to ask him something.”
She looked back in the house for a moment. “Ask him something about what?”
“He was working at the Ojibway Hotel last night,” I said. “I just want to ask him a couple of questions about something that happened there.”
She closed her eyes.
“He’s not in any trouble, ma’am. Believe me. I just want to ask him if he-”
She slammed the door shut. That was two doors in one afternoon. And it made me wonder. I just wanted to ask this kid if he knew anything about the old man, but maybe I had stumbled onto something more significant. Either that or my chemically altered hair was scaring everybody.
I took out one more business card. “Chris,” I wrote on the back, “please call me. I was at the hotel last night, and I just want to ask you if you know anything about Mr. Grant. That’s all! Thank you. Alex.”
I wedged the card into the doorjamb and left, slogging my way through the deep snow on the walkway and nearly killing myself on a hidden patch of ice. I got in the truck and plowed my way back down the driveway. What the hell, I thought. Maybe a little good deed will help.
I had a couple more slices of pizza on my way back home. There were thick clouds in the sky, and it was already getting dark. Somewhere in the world it was warm, and the sun stayed out for hours at a time. But I was here on the long straight road back to Paradise, thankful that the county trucks had thrown down some sand. Even more thankful that I’d be giving Natalie Reynaud a call when I got home.
I ran the plow down my road and back. When I got inside, I saw the light blinking on my answering machine. It was a quick message from Leon, asking me to call him when I got in. So I did.
“I found out a few things about your man Mr. Grant,” he said.
“Leon, I hope you didn’t spend too much time on this.”
“Not at all,” he said. “It occurred to me, this is going to hit the newspaper tomorrow, so I just called my friend over at the Sault Evening News.”
“Yeah? What did he tell you?”
“Just some basic stuff for right now. Simon Grant was eighty-two years old, he was born in the Soo and lived in the area his whole life. Two sons, one daughter. He had a hundred different jobs, from shoeshine boy to union representative. He worked on the old railroad docks for a long time, right on the river.”
“Yeah, the woman at the hotel told me she thought he’d lived around here for a long time. He used to come into the hotel fairly often, it sounds like, but then he stopped a few years ago.”
“He might have been in some kind of senior care,” Leon said. “Maybe he sneaked out and went back to one of his old familiar places.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “That would explain why they hadn’t seen him for a while. There was one weird thing, though…”
“What’s that?”
“I thought the doorman at the hotel might be able to help me out. So I tried to find him. He seems to have disappeared.”
“What?”
I gave him the whole rundown. Chris Woolsey not showing up for work today, going to his apartment, and then his parents’ place.
“That’s a little strange,” Leon said. “It might not be a coincidence.”
“Well, I left a card at both places. Maybe he’ll call me.”
“You know, Alex, for a man who has no interest in being a private eye, it sure sounds like you’re acting like one.”
“I just want to know what happened,” I said. “If I don’t try to find out, it’ll just keep bothering me, why this man would go to all that trouble, thinking that he knew me. Wouldn’t you be doing the same thing?”
“I’d be all over it, yes.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah, I have no doubt about that.”
“My friend at the paper said he’s working on the obit this evening, so he may have some more information. If he calls me, I’ll call you.”
“You can stop, Leon. You don’t have to do any more.”
“It’s no big deal, Alex. I’ll let you know what he says.”
“All right,” I said. “Thank you.”
“What are partners for?” It was an old line I had heard before, back when it meant something. It almost made me wish it still did.
When I was done with Leon, I called Natalie. Her answering machine picked up before she finally got on the line herself.
“Sorry,” she said. “I was going through the stuff in the basement.”
“You’ve got a lot down there.”
“A whole lifetime’s worth. It’s gonna take me a long time to go through it all.”
“Just let me know if you want help. My rates are cheap.”
She didn’t say anything.
“What’s the matter, Natalie?”
“It’s just too much sometimes. That’s all.”
“Okay,” I said. “I can imagine.”
“I’m sorry, so what did you do today?”
“I gave the hat to Chief Maven. Then I wandered over to the hotel.” I gave her the same rundown I had given Leon-Chris Woolsey disappearing, and me trying to find him.
“Maybe he’s just a little freaked out, Alex. This man was in the lobby all day, and then suddenly he’s dead.”
“I hear what you’re saying. It’s just kinda strange. And the way his mother looked today…”
“You went to his mother’s house?”
“I just wanted to talk to him. I wanted to make sure he’s all right, too.”
“I don’t know, Alex.”
“Well, anyway, Leon will let me know if he finds out anything else.”
“Who’s Leon again?”
“My sort of ex-partner, remember? He’s the one who found out your address.”
There was a silence on the line.
“Okay, that sounds a little weird,” I said. “What I mean is, when I decided to contact you, Leon helped me do that. That’s all.”
Another silence. Then she said it. “Alex, I can’t do this.”
It was my turn to be quiet for a while. “Natalie,” I finally said, “what are you talking about?”
“All of this, Alex. I’m sorry, I just can’t right now.”
“Wait a minute-”
“No, please, Alex. I’ve got to say this, okay?”
“Go ahead.”
“I don’t know why you came looking for me,” she said. “I’m not saying I’m sorry you did. Because I’m not sorry. It was… The way things happened, it was like a miracle. I was in such a deep hole, Alex. You reached down and you pulled me out of it. I didn’t even want you to do it, but you did. I’ll always love you for that, Alex. I hope you know that. But right now…”
More silence. I didn’t have any words to say. I just waited to hear the rest of it.