“The balm of spring,” she said. They both laughed.
Endora leaned to the side and whispered to me, “I think my mother shares a secret life with that man.”
“I’ll bet it’s marvelous,” I said.
She grinned.
McNulty didn’t fight the waves; he used them, so expertly that in no time he slowed his engines, approaching the faint lights at the shore.
I stepped forward. “Someplace secluded, and as far away from the ferryboat dock as you can,” I said. The man who’d killed Arnie Pine would still be back on Eustace Island, but there was no knowing if he’d left a sharp-eyed accomplice in Mackinaw City to watch the piers. Theodea looked at Ma, then at me. I shook my head. Better to have Ma wait in the rain for me to pick her up than to chance us all walking through town, even though it was past midnight.
McNulty nudged the side of his boat against a small pier two hundred yards from the ferryboat dock. Endora and I jumped out, and while McNulty revved his engine to keep the boat solid against the dock, we helped Ma up onto the deck. McNulty tried to give Theodea his handgun. She shook her head, gave him a kiss, and jumped onto the dock.
“I miss our chess games,” he shouted.
“We’ll play when I get back,” she called back.
“And here all I thought you did on that rock was read poetry,” Endora said to her mother.
“McNulty’s that most enjoyable of the male species, a quiet one.”
Only Ma Brumsky didn’t try to laugh.
My genius for avoiding a tail, tarnished though it was by leading a killer to Eustace Island, offered up a new inspiration: Endora would drive the LTD out of Mackinaw City. I’d follow immediately behind. Gradually, I’d lag back, increasing the distance between us, until she was at least two miles ahead. That way, I could keep watch for anyone attempting to join us. If no one did, she could continue safely south, or east, when I turned west to go back to Chicago.
“What if your bulky friend does tuck between us?” Endora asked.
“I’ll run him off the road,” I said.
“In a short-wheelbase, lightweight Jeep?”
“The theory needs polishing.”
“We’ll shoot him, then,” Theodea said to her daughter, patting the hip where her holster was. I had no doubt that she was serious.
Endora and I walked quickly through the deserted town, got the two cars, and drove back to pick up Theodea and Ma. They piled into the LTD, I stayed in the Jeep, and we rolled out of town a little before two in the morning. The temperature had risen enough to change the sleet over to rain and keep ice from building on the roads.
We maintained a steady sixty miles an hour, keeping track of the mile markers by cell phone. By the time we got ten miles south of Mackinaw City, I was passing their markers a full two minutes behind, which meant two miles separated us.
Thirty minutes after that, the rain stopped. I could see more clearly behind me now, but it didn’t much matter. It must have been the bulky man who followed me down to Center Bridge, and he didn’t mind running without lights. I dropped back another half mile. The road stayed free of cars.
“This is working well,” I said into my cell phone.
“Unless we’re being tailed by someone running without lights, like that car in Center Bridge you told us about?” Endora asked.
“I’ve been thinking about that, yes.”
“Have you also been thinking about what you’re going to do when you get back to Rivertown?”
“My head is already being bombarded with more inspirations.”
“Meaning you don’t have a clue about your next step?” she asked.
“It’s a long drive back to Rivertown. Surely it will be productive.”
When she got to Grayling, where 75 veered southeast, she made her last call, as agreed.
“You’ll stay on 75 to points unknown to me?” I asked.
“My mother has thought of a place. Not even I know where we’re going.”
“You won’t return to Illinois until I give the all clear?” I asked. I needed to be sure.
“Find Leo, Dek.”
I told her that surely would be a piece of cake.
Fourteen
The adrenaline that had been propelling me since I’d first gotten to Mackinaw City vaporized like steam in a strong wind just west of Kalamazoo. I pulled into a McDonald’s drive-through for coffee and a McMuffin, drove to the back of the parking lot to eat, and fell asleep before I could touch either.
When I awoke, it was after ten. I drank the cold coffee, ate the cold McMuffin, and called Jenny as I pulled onto the interstate.
“Nothing so far, Dek, except a record of his birth, in Champaign,” she said. “I called three different sources, including one with the FBI. No Edwin G., no Snark. But don’t forget, juvenile records get expunged. One thing I do know, and don’t ask how: He hasn’t filed an income tax return under that name, either. Maybe he changed his name.”
“Or he really is dead, as I heard.”
“No one’s found that, but that’s not surprising, especially when it’s that far back and the deceased died in a small town. How does this fit with what you’re not telling me about Leo?”
“I’ll call you,” I said.
“We must do this again,” she said and clicked off.
I got to Rivertown’s city hall at one and blew straight into Tebbins’s office. He looked up, red faced and sweating, as though anticipating a heart attack. Or me, coming to agitate him about things he hoped I didn’t understand, such as a killer who’d followed me up to Eustace Island.
“I just got back from an amazing trip,” I said. I couldn’t tell if that upset him, since his face was already so deeply flushed.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I was on a little island, off Mackinac. A guy crashed his boat and died.”
He sat up straighter in his chair, but it might not have been from surprise. “I have no time for this, Elstrom.”
I’d decided I’d come at him fresh and not tell him I’d learned anything from his boss, Robinson. “Tell me about Snark Evans.”
“Like I said the last time, I had all kinds of kids washing trucks.”
“This one had a little burglary business on the side.”
“Where the hell would you hear such a thing?”
“Good news gets around.”
“I don’t know anything about burglaries.”
“You had to brace him about selling stuff out of the city garage.”
“All kinds of punks worked for the city. Not all of them were memorable.”
“Why cover for him after all these years?”
He took a couple of long breaths and said nothing.
I sat down in the guest chair, uninvited, and smiled. “So, what’s new?”
“OK,” he said after a moment, “maybe I do remember one of them selling junk in the garage. But it was only junk.”
“I’m guessing it was more than that.”
“Look, I remember Snark Evans enough to know I should have canned him right away. I found out about his little extracurricular activities, but I tried to cut him a break. I was hoping, with regular work, he’d quit thieving. It didn’t matter. He quit before the summer was over.”
“What else?”
“He died, later that summer.”
I was tired. I was confused. “What the hell else, Tebbins?” I yelled.
A vein in his cheek started pulsing. “What do you care, anyway?” he asked. “And don’t give me any crap about being here for Leo Brumsky.”
“Ever wonder if Snark is really dead?” It was all I could think to shout.
“Adios, Elstrom,” he said, after his face didn’t change.
I had one more button to push. “About that house going up across town? What the hell is going on?”
That got a response. He pushed himself up out of his chair, drawing shallow breaths, his face a wet purple mask of fury. “Get the hell out of here, Elstrom.”
His mouth hadn’t said much, but the beads of sweat blooming larger on his forehead were saying a lot more.