She looked at Bill and could see he was nervous, unsure of himself. “Bill, what do you think?”
“You make a good point,” Bill said to Kate. Now he glanced at Del. “If Luke was kidnapped, why hasn’t there been a ransom demand?” He hesitated, like he didn’t know what he was going to say next, and turned back to Kate. “But there’s got to be something to what these boys are telling you. If he’s not back at the lodge and he’s not out here, where’s he at?”
She could see Bill was out of his element. He was used to pulling over tourists, writing tickets and keeping order at the cherry festival, not solving crimes.
“We’re going to find him,” Bill said with fake enthusiasm. “That’s a promise.”
Bill took out his cell phone, punched a number in the keypad and said, “Earl? Bill. I need you to do an all-points on Luke McCall, age sixteen, five nine, brown hair-hell, you know what he looks like.”
NINETEEN
Kate got back to the lodge at ten thirty, after four and a half hours in the woods. Bill offered to stay with her, keep her company until she heard something. She said she wanted to be alone and that she’d call him if anyone tried to contact her. She still didn’t believe Luke was kidnapped, in spite of the tree stand and all the tracks Johnny and Del found and their collective speculation. None of it made sense until she walked in the kitchen and saw the ransom note on the refrigerator, held there by a Detroit Tigers magnet.
The note was cutout pieces of newsprint centered on a white eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheet of paper. It looked amateurish, like a grade school art project. It said:
WE HAVE LUKE. CALL THE POLICE AND YOUR NEVER GOING TO SEE HIM AGAIN EVER
Kate splashed cold water on her face at the kitchen sink, trying to hang on to her emotions. She stared at her reflection in the window glass, wondering what to do. She dried her face and hands with a paper towel and picked up the phone and called Jack-got his voice mail and left a message. “Listen, something’s happened. I need your help.”
She walked in the main room and wondered where Leon was, thinking they’d done something to him. She called him, then saw his big head looking down at her through the slats in the railing on the second floor. He came down the stairs and she slid off the chair onto the Persian rug, hugging him, glad to see him, glad he was okay. Leon, the worst watchdog ever. If somebody knocked on the door-instead of getting up and barking, he’d yawn.
She looked out the window at the tree line and had a strange feeling that someone was watching her and ran upstairs to the bedroom and took her Beretta out of the gun box in her closet and checked the magazine. It was full-twelve nine-millimeter rounds ready to send some kidnappers into oblivion. She slid the gun in the waist of her jeans, felt the coolness of the metal against her stomach and moved across the room.
Owen kept binoculars on his nightstand next to the bed. She picked them up and looked out at the yard behind the lodge to the lake. The water was calm. She watched a couple gulls flying in low, searching for fish. She panned the beach to the tree line on the east side of the lodge. She crossed the room and looked out the side window, adjusting the focus, moving the binoculars slowly along the wall of trees, stopping, holding on a trunk, a branch, a section of ground cover. She zoomed in on the big maple, saw the tree stand-looking up at it forty yards away. She’d always thought the place was so secluded and private, but not anymore.
She moved down the hall to Luke’s room. From the window she checked the yard in front of the lodge, then slowly panned the woods along the perimeter. The phone rang and it startled her. She ran downstairs and picked up the extension in the main room on the third ring.
“Hello,” Kate said, thinking it would be Jack.
“You know we’re not fucking around,” the voice said, “don’t you?”
“Where’s Luke?”
“Right here. He cool. But he ain’t going to be cool if you talk to the police.”
It was a man’s voice, distorted, like something was over the mouthpiece.
“You want to watch him grow up, capture the Kodak moments, it’s going to cost you two million dollars-spare change for somebody in your tax bracket.”
Kate said, “I want to talk to him.”
“Get the money.”
“How do I know you have him?”
“Got thirty-six hours before we start to cut him up and send him to you. What you want first-finger or a ear?”
He hung up.
Kate told herself not to panic, keep it together. They were saying that to scare her, make her believe they were serious. And it worked. She felt helpless, frantic. After everything Luke had been through, what would this do to him?
Of course, she’d get the money. But how was she going to get two million dollars in cash? Walk into a bank and make a withdrawal? She thought about talking to Dick May, ask his advice, but decided against it. She couldn’t risk telling anyone but Jack.
She called the Traverse City Bank and Trust and asked for Ken Calvert, the manager. He’d handled the transaction when they bought the property in Cathead Bay.
He picked up the phone and said, “Kate, I’m sorry about Owen. My condolences.”
He’d sent a note after the funeral and Kate thanked him for that and said she was in the process of buying a piece of land for two million, but the seller wanted cash. She looked out the kitchen window at the woods.
“Cash?” Calvert said. “You’ve got to be kidding. What’s he going to do with it?”
She could hear him breathe through his nose.
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s planning to put it in shoeboxes under his bed,” Kate said. “Draw comfort from the fact that it’s there if he needs it.”
Calvert said, “Hey, you know, that’s why banks were invented, eh?”
She could hear his Canadian accent now.
“You don’t have to convince me,” Kate said. “I’m dealing with an elderly gentleman who doesn’t trust technology.”
“This wouldn’t be Myron Cline, would it? I could see him doing something crazy like this.”
Kate said, “I can’t tell you.” She glanced at the ransom note on the counter.
“That’s a lot of money,” Calvert said, stretching out the vowels: a lot coming out like a loot.
Kate remembered Calvert telling her he was from Sudbury, Ontario, when they’d met at his office to sign the papers for the Cathead property.
Kate had said, “Where exactly is Sudbury?”
Calvert said, “It’s aboot a hundred kilometers from Tilbury.”
He’d grinned, showing teeth that were the size of Chiclets. He was being funny, Kate realized-making a joke-a real Canadian zinger.
Calvert also said he’d played hockey for the Sudbury Wolves during the Bob Strumm-Wayne Maxner era and knew Todd Bertuzzi. “Our most famous Sudburian,” Calvert said, beaming with pride. “If you’re ever in Sudbury, be sure to see the big nickel. It’s a replica of the Canadian five-cent piece. Largest coin in the world-nine meters high and sixty-one centimeters thick.”
Kate said, “I guess it doesn’t fit in a pop machine, huh?”
Calvert grinned again.
“I’ll have the money wired to you tomorrow,” Kate said. Leon walked in the kitchen and bumped her and she patted his head.
“You can wire all you want, the problem is cash. We don’t keep that much on hand,” Calvert said. “I’ll have to order it from the Federal Reserve in Chicago.”
“So it’s not illegal to withdraw two million?”
“No, it’s not illegal. It’s not safe, either. I’d have a sheriff ’s deputy escort me if it was my hard-earned dollars.”
She heard him sneeze.
Kate said, “How long does it take?”
“I don’t know-couple days. They’ll put it on the regular delivery, which, as you can imagine, is confidential information.”
He sneezed again.
“Are you okay?”
“Got a cold,” Calvert said.
“I’ve got thirty-six hours to close this deal.” She glanced out at the lake.