“Alex, you got anything else for me?” He stood up and came around his desk. “Or did you just come down here to rip my deputies?”
I stood there. He looked back at me with cool, patient eyes. “Bill, she’s gone,” I finally said. “And it’s my fault.”
“Sit down,” he said. When I didn’t, he pulled the chair around behind me. “Sit.”
I finally did. He closed his office door and sat on his desk facing me. With the door closed I could hear the wind rattling his windows.
“Her name is Dorothy Parrish. She’s a member of the Bay Mills tribe. The man you saw her with is named Lonnie Bruckman. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“She was at your guest cabin last night. This morning she was gone. The door was unlocked. There were no tire tracks, although she may have left on a snowmobile.”
“May have been abducted on a snowmobile,” I said.
“Abducted,” he said. “Fine. We’ll assume she was taken involuntarily.”
“You don’t have to assume,” I said. “She was.”
“Okay, Alex, I hear what you’re saying. Now it’s your turn to listen to me.” He looked down at me from his desk, one hand on his hip, the other held out to me as if to beg for my attention. “We’re looking for them. Both of them. Okay? You gotta trust me here. Just let us do our jobs.”
“Where does he live?” I said.
“No,” he said. He put his hand on my shoulder. I could feel the strength in his grip. “No way. You’re not gonna do that.”
“Tell me where he lives,” I said. “He’s not in the phone book.”
“I’ve got every deputy out there. The state police are watching the roads. I’ve even asked the Soo police to help us.”
I let out a long breath. “The Soo police,” I said. “That’s the other thing. You’ve got a friend of mine upstairs.”
“Who’s that?”
“Vinnie LeBlanc. Your deputies said he assaulted a Soo officer.”
“Yes, we have him.”
“They also said he was drunk and disorderly,” I said. “Which is impossible. Vinnie never drinks.”
“No, I think it was a simple four-fifteen. Public disturbance. I saw him when he came in last night. He didn’t look drunk to me.”
“Then why did your deputies say he was drunk?”
“They made a mistake,” he said. “They got the code mixed up.”
“It’s because he’s an Indian,” I said. “If he got in trouble, he had to be drunk.”
“For God’s sake, Alex. You want me to call them in here so you can give them this lecture? Because I really don’t need to hear it right now.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just… goddamn it. Where is he, anyway? Can I see him?”
“He’s still in one of the holding cells,” he said. “We’re a little tight on space upstairs. You know, if he calls the reservation, they’ll come get him. Don’t you think he’d rather stay in that jail instead?”
“Somehow I don’t think so,” I said. “You’d have to know him.”
“Well, he busted up an off-duty Soo cop pretty badly,” he said. “Broke his nose, gave him a concussion.”
“How did it happen?”
“I’m not sure. The Soo guys brought him in. All I know is, it had something to do with a hockey stick.”
“Oh God,” I said. “Will you take me to him, please?”
“It’s a Soo bust,” he said. “You gotta go through them.”
“It’s your jail, Bill. The last thing I want to do right now is go see Chief Maven.”
For the first time since I got there, he smiled. “I don’t blame you,” he said. “All right, I’ll see if I can sneak you in there. If Maven finds out, though, he’s gonna be all over you.”
“Let him try,” I said. “This day can’t get any worse.”
There were four holding cells on the ground floor, simple cages with benches running along the sides, single toilets against the back wall. The county jail itself was upstairs. These cells were mainly for suspects awaiting arraignment, although today there were four or five men in each cell.
“What the hell’s going on here?” I said.
“I told ya,” he said. “We got a full jail upstairs. A lot of them are Soo busts, drugs coming over the bridge. We already called the state prison in Kincheloe. They’re gonna see if they can help us out temporarily.”
“Where’s Vinnie?”
“Last cell on the end,” he said. We walked down a narrow corridor that ran the length of the cells. Above us the fluorescent lights were humming and flickering. There was no other light, no awareness of the outside world. “I’d appreciate it if you could talk him into posting bail. I really don’t need him here, Alex.”
“What bail? He’s already been arraigned?”
“Ten thousand dollars,” he said.
“Jesus, Bill.”
“He put a cop in the hospital, Alex. A thousand-dollar bond is all he needs. You know that.”
“Didn’t he call anybody?”
“Nope. He’s just been sitting there since last night.”
“You gotta be kidding me,” I said. When we came to the last holding cell I saw him sitting on one of the benches, staring at the floor. He didn’t look up.
“Vinnie,” I said.
He was silent. There were three other men in the cell, a couple longhairs sitting together on the other bench, trying hard not to look scared. A very large, very ugly man in fatigues standing against the back wall.
“Vinnie,” I said.
Nothing.
“I’ll leave you two to get reacquainted,” Bill said. “Remember, if Maven finds you here, I had nothing to do with it.”
“Thanks, anyway,” I said. When he was gone I pulled up one of the folding chairs that were scattered in the corridor and sat on it. I looked at Vinnie for a long time, waiting for him to do or say something. He didn’t do either.
“All right, Vinnie,” I finally said. “Are you gonna stay in here all winter or am I gonna help you get out of here?”
“I’m gonna stay in here all winter,” he said. When he looked up at me I saw he had nice shiner under his right eye.
“That’s what Indians do,” the man against the back wall said. “They get arrested so they can spend the winter in jail.”
“Thanks for the observation,” I said. “Now go fuck yourself.”
“You wouldn’t be talking like that if there wasn’t no set of bars in the way.”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t,” I said. “I’d be sticking your head down that toilet.”
He smiled. It didn’t do anything for his looks. For the rest of the time I was there, he kept staring at me, his arms folded against his chest.
“All right, tell me what happened,” I said to Vinnie. “And why the hell didn’t you call me?”
“What was I supposed to say?”
“That you were arrested and I should come get you?”
“I couldn’t do that,” he said.
“What about the tribe? They’d bail you out in a second, wouldn’t they?”
“No way,” he said. “There’s no way I’m gonna call the tribe to come bail me out.”
“No, perish the thought,” I said. “It’s so nice in here.”
“No fucking way.”
“So tell me the story, at least.”
“What story?”
“What story. That’s cute. The story of how you got arrested. Start with me leaving you at the bar the other night, and then work your way up to hitting a cop with a hockey stick.”
Vinnie let out a long, tired sigh, rubbed the swelling around his eye. “I didn’t mean to hit that cop, Alex. I didn’t even know he was a cop. He wasn’t in uniform.”
“So what happened?”
“He just got in the way, Alex. I was going after Bruckman.”
“Hold it,” I said. I moved my chair closer to the bars. “Vinnie, this is very important. Tell me everything that happened.”
“After you left the other night, I took a couple of the guys back to the reservation. I was going through town, there’s a gas station on the loop there, I saw Bruckman and some of his friends gassing up their snowmobiles.”
“So they did have snowmobiles,” I said. “But at the bar, they weren’t wearing suits-”
“No, they still didn’t have suits on. Just leather jackets. It’s pretty stupid, but then I’m not surprised.”
“That young woman you saw with them at the bar, was she with them then?”