“The only thing Vargas did was get himself robbed at gunpoint,” he said. “We served a search warrant to your friend Mr. Connery a couple of hours ago. We’ve already found one of the stolen items hidden in his bedroom.”
“What? What did you find?”
“At this very moment, we’re also executing search warrants against Bennett O’Dell and Gill LaMarche. All three of them will be taken down to the station and charged within the hour. As a material witness I should advise you that you’ll be contacted soon for more questioning. I think that’s about all I need to say right now.”
It took a little while to absorb that. All three of them, arrested. “Why are you here?” I finally said. “The other two are in your town. Why are you out here in Paradise? To rub my face in it?”
“This is a Soo case, McKnight. You know that. I came out to this one because I knew you’d show up eventually. You’d want to know what the hell was going on and nobody would tell you. Which means you’d get all tangled up with some poor trooper and you’d end up getting arrested yourself. With me here, I can at least tell you what you need to know, and save you some embarrassment. That’s why I’m here, McKnight, not because I’m getting any enjoyment out of telling you this.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure this is breaking your heart.”
“Hey, I’m trying to give you something here. I know this must be frustrating, seeing your best friend arrested.”
“If you’ve got a warrant,” I said, “you had to have something to give you probable cause. What is it? What did Vargas come up with?”
“I told you, this isn’t Mr. Vargas’s doing. Beyond that, you know I can’t discuss the details of this case.”
“Tell me,” I said.
He let out a long breath, took his hat off, and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “Well,” he said, “I suppose you’re gonna find out pretty soon anyway.”
“Find out what?”
“We’ve got a videotape, McKnight. We’ve got the whole thing, in living color.”
“What are you talking about? How in the world did you-”
I stopped. Somehow, I knew what he was going to say, before he said it.
“We got the videotape from your ex-partner,” he said. “Good old Leon Prudell.”
Chapter Nine
I wanted to do something, get in the way, demand to talk to somebody, tell them they were making a mistake. But I knew I’d be about as effective as Vargas’s little dog, barking and nipping at their heels, without changing a damned thing. So I just sat there waiting in my truck, the windows down so I didn’t suffocate in the heat, watching the cops go in and out of Jackie’s place. At one point, Jackie was led out the front door. He was blinking in the sudden glare of the sun, his hands in cuffs. I got out of the truck and stood there watching as they took him to one of the Soo police cars. What could I do?
They opened the back door for him. He looked up just before he got in, caught my eye, and gave me a look that I couldn’t quite figure out. I’ve seen a lot of people taken away in a squad car. First-timers look completely stunned and defeated, the way an animal looks when a lion has it by the throat. Career criminals, on the other hand, try to look cool about it, like it’s no more than a taxi ride. Jackie didn’t look like either one of those. Hell, he almost looked like he was amused by it all. He gave me a little smile and a nod before he bent his head down and slid into the car.
I resisted the urge to follow them all the way to the police station. I knew it would take a while to process him, and even longer if they tried to question him. The best thing I could do at that moment was stick around and try to find his son, make sure he was okay, and ask him if Jackie had a good lawyer.
The cops were there about another hour. The state troopers left first, then the Soo police. The last man out apparently had the key to the place. He locked the door and tested it to make sure it was shut tight, and then he and his partner got in their vehicle and kicked up some gravel on their way out of the parking lot. With everybody gone, the place had an eerie calm to it. The only sounds came from the bees buzzing in the wildflowers on the edge of the parking lot, and the waves breaking on the rocks a hundred yards away.
I got out and went to the front door. There was a handmade sign stuck on the inside. It read “Closed for the day.” I looked in. It was dark. I knocked on the door.
Nothing.
I went around behind the building, to Jackie’s private entrance. I knocked. I knew that Jonathan was keeping a room just above that door. He’d be sure to hear me if he was there.
Nothing. Where the hell was he?
As I walked back to my truck, a car pulled into the parking lot. A man got out, somebody I’d seen at the bar a few times but had never talked to. “What’s going on?” he asked me. “Is Jackie open?”
“Jackie is closed,” I said. “Come back tomorrow.”
“Why is he closed?”
“Come back tomorrow.”
The man huffed at me and got back in his car. On his way out, he kicked up even more gravel than the cops.
As I drove into the Soo, I called Leon’s office. He wasn’t there. I left a message for him to call me as soon as he could. I called his home number next-no Leon, no Eleanor. I left the same message.
Then I called Jackie’s number and left a message for his son. I’ll be at the station, I said. Come on down when you can.
When I got to the City-County building, Jonathan was already there.
“Alex!” he said when he saw me. “I’ve been calling you!”
“How’d you get here?” I said. “I didn’t see you at the Glasgow.”
“At first they told me I should stick around,” he said. “Then later they told me to leave. They said to call the station later to find out his status. But hell, where was I gonna go? I’d be going crazy. So I just came down here.”
“I must have missed you,” I said. “Tell me everything that happened.”
“Let’s see,” he said. He took a long breath and ran his fingers back through his hair. “They came this morning. I don’t know, maybe nine o’clock, nine-thirty. There were half a dozen Soo policeman, and half a dozen state troopers. Chief Maven was with them. He said they had a warrant to search the entire building. There were a couple of guys there having breakfast-Maven chased them out, told them we were closing down for the rest of the day. They had my father sit down at one of the tables with a Soo man watching him the whole time. Then, God, they went through everything, Alex. They started in the bar and just worked their way through the whole house. My room. My father’s room. Maven came down-that’s when he told me to leave. I think the official arrest happened as soon as I was gone.”
“What did they find?” I said. “Do you have any idea?”
“No, Alex. I can’t even imagine.”
“Have they told you anything about what’s happening to him right now?”
“They said he’d be here a while. I don’t know if they’re questioning him now or what.”
“If they are, I hope he has the sense to keep his mouth shut.”
“He didn’t do anything, Alex.”
“I know that,” I said. “Even so, he should keep his mouth shut for now. What about a lawyer? Does he have a lawyer, do you know?”
“There’s a man in Brimley,” he said. “He’s done work for my father before. You know, a will, stuff like that. I gave him a call but he wasn’t in, so I left him a message to get down here.”
“Okay, good,” I said. “If all goes well, they’ll set bail by the end of the day.”
“We’re gonna bail him out, right? We don’t want him spending the night in jail.”
“We’ll bail him out,” I said. “Don’t worry. We’ve got to get a bondsman down here. Problem is, I think Leon is still the only bondsman in town.”
“So we get him.”
“No, we can’t do that,” I said. “I’ll explain later. I’m trying to remember-when Leon got into that business, he told me that the next closest bondsman was all the way down in Mackinaw City. There’s a phone book over there-go look up ‘Bail Bonds’ in the yellow pages and see if you can find him. I want to go talk to Maven again.”