I walked up Water Street, past the Ojibway Hotel. This was one of the original buildings in town, with a formal dining room overlooking the locks. All the new hotels, they were out on the Business Spur, close to the highway.
Vargas had said something about one of those hotels, about his wife being there with Swanson the lawyer. And his private investigator documenting every move. I thought about that and laughed out loud. Then I replayed my little meeting with Chief Maven and laughed out loud again.
Hell, I was in town anyway. I had to see for myself. Ashmun Street, the Chief said. His office had to be right here in town, with Ashmun running perpendicular to the river, through what passes as a business district and then across the old power canal. I didn’t figure it would be too hard to find. Hell, I knew it would be the only private investigator’s office in this part of the state, let alone this particular street.
I started at the intersection with Portage Street, and worked my way south. There were gift shops on either side of the street, where you could buy your postcards, your imitation Indian headdresses, and of course your little iron-ore freighter replicas, with “Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan” embossed on the side of the hull. There was an ice cream shop after that on one side, a bookstore on the other, another gift shop, this one specializing in crystal jewelry and those little ceramic figurines that people collect. A restaurant, one more gift shop, and then it crossed Spruce Street. I knew I was getting warmer, because I was seeing serious business going on now. A three-story bank on one side, an accounting office on the other, then a travel agency and a place where they’d make you a sign for your business in twenty-four hours.
I almost missed Leon’s door. It was set between the sign place and a car insurance office. The lettering on the door read “Prudell Investigations, Second Floor.”
I opened the door and went up a narrow flight of stairs. There was a small hallway at the top, with a couple of different offices that looked empty. I stood in front of the last door on the left, looking through the glass at my old partner Leon Prudell. He was sitting at his desk, looking out his window at the street below. He was the same man I knew, fifty pounds on the heavy side, and that hair, so red it was orange and pointing in every direction. He didn’t have his flannel shirt on, though, or his hunting boots. He was actually wearing a white shirt and tie. For a moment I just stood there watching him, remembering the night he had come out to Paradise and waited at the Glasgow Inn for me, drinking Jackie’s whiskey and working up the courage to fight me in the parking lot.
I had taken his job-or so he thought. He’d been doing some work for Lane Uttley, a lawyer here in town. Lane found out that I had been a cop once, that I had been shot and still had a bullet in my chest. He came to me and talked me into trying out the private investigations business. I was dumb enough to give it a shot, just long enough for some truly horrible things to happen. Leon was the odd man out. To this very day, as I stood in front of his office door watching him sitting at his desk, he still didn’t know what a great favor I had done him.
After that, being a private eye was the last thing in this world I wanted-or even worse, being a private eye and also Leon’s partner. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He started acting like my partner, and damned if he didn’t help me out of a couple of tight spots. He even saved my life. So I told him, okay, I’ll be your partner. Your silent partner. Your occasional, call me if you really, really need me partner. He helped me out of another tight spot, but this time I figured it was time for me to stop getting into tight spots in the first place. I asked him to take my name off the business, and off the Web site he had made up. No more Prudell-McKnight Investigations. No more business cards with the two guns pointed at each other. I hadn’t talked to him much since then. I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty about it.
It doesn’t take a hell of a lot to become a private investigator in the state of Michigan. All you need is either three years as a law enforcement officer, or a college degree in police administration. Leon went the college route, right here in town at Lake Superior State. He should have left, though. He should have gone south and started his business down by Detroit, or any other city downstate. Somewhere where there was enough business, somewhere where everybody didn’t remember him from school, that goofy fat kid with the glasses who always sat in the back row and got in trouble for reading the private eye novels during class.
I rapped my knuckle on the glass. Leon twirled around and looked at me. He looked puzzled for just one second, and then he smiled. “Come on in, Alex,” he said. “The door is open. What do you think of my office?”
I stepped in, looked around the place. It was small, maybe ten feet by twelve. There were some file cabinets, Leon’s desk. Two guest chairs in front of it. He had a calendar on one wall, with the Lake Superior State hockey team on it. “Go Lakers!” it said. There was a print on the other wall, the International Bridge shrouded in fog. And then the window, looking down at the street one story below. It looked exactly like what a private investigator’s office would look like, if somebody had gotten the crazy idea of putting such an office in Sault Ste. Marie. “It’s perfect,” I said. “It’s you.”
“Thanks. It’s good to see you.”
“I was over seeing my old friend Chief Maven,” I said, sitting down in one of the guest chairs. “He told me you had an office now. I thought I’d stop by and say hello.”
“Chief Maven, huh? I bet I know what the two of you were talking about.”
“Yeah, about this guy Vargas…”
“My client,” he said. “Winston Vargas.”
“Yeah, your client.”
“You were present at his residence last night,” he said. One of the things I’ve always loved about the guy is the fact that he’ll say I was “present” at a “residence,” instead of just being in a house.
“I was there,” I said. “He happened to mention that you were working for him. Something about his wife.”
“As long as he told you I was working for him, yes, I can confirm that.”
I looked at the ceiling. Confirm that, he says. “Leon, what’s the deal? Are you following his wife around, trying to catch her fooling around with the family lawyer? What was his name, Swanson?”
“My activities on his behalf are strictly confidential, Alex. You know that.”
“Leon, for God’s sake, it’s me, okay? I was your partner.”
“You were my partner, yes.”
“Look, I told you-”
“It’s okay, Alex. I don’t hold that against you. I’m just saying, you know I can’t discuss this with you.”
“Leon, I don’t care what-” I stopped, made myself slow down. Maven was right, it’s all in how you react to things. Leon’s putting on his one-man show, which always drives me nuts. So I should just stop letting it get to me. “I’m just making conversation,” I said. “I wouldn’t ask you to divulge any information that would jeopardize your relationship with your client.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Thank you.”
“But I was there last night, when you called him. He told us that you had followed them to a hotel. And then I think he was getting ready to accuse us of covering for Swanson. Or accuse Jackie and Bennett and Gill, anyway. I was just the innocent bystander. Me and Kenny.”
Leon took a manila folder off his desk and opened it. “Those were the five other players at his house last night.”
“Yes,” I said. “Until the men with the guns joined us.”
“I’ll ask Chief Maven for a copy of the police report. I understand you were the only man who could help them with physical descriptions.”
“I sort of figured Vargas would ask you to look into it,” I said. “I told Maven to expect to hear from you.”