5

Why Would You Believe Something Like That?

My dog, Jake, stirred in his bed when I walked in the front door, giving me a mournful look with his basset eyes. His mottled body—brown and black and white—was coiled and ready for inaction, his flabby stomach as pink as a baby’s butt.

“You know, for a lot of dogs, when their master comes home, that’s a really big deal. They jump around, bark, lick. Or, you know, move a single muscle.”

He sighed with disgust at the behavior of those other dogs. I went over to him and knelt to stroke his soft ears. “Hey, Jake. You get a lot done today?” He leaned into my massage. “Did Katie take you out?”

He shot me a coldly disapproving look at the word out.

“Okay, you and me, outside, leg up, in five minutes. Prepare yourself mentally.”

I walked down the short hall and stood in the bedroom doorway. Katie was sitting up in bed, reading Radiant Angel by Nelson DeMille. She wore a gray flannel nightgown that looked like it had been issued by the Russian army. I was learning to read the signals: White clingy T-shirt meant she could be coaxed into feeling amorous. Lacy black meant I’d better be ready to perform. This one suggested I’d have better luck invading Poland.

I gazed at her, feeling the distance between us. Some random seed of discontent had taken root in our relationship and flowered despite any nurturing by either of us. “It was a nice funeral,” I said by way of a greeting.

She set her book down and gave me a sad smile. “He was a good man. Are you okay?”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t seem real yet.”

“I know. And then when it does sink in, you sometimes wish you could go back to being in denial.” I wondered if she was thinking of her father. “So, did you see my mother?” She glanced away, as if she didn’t want to hear the answer.

“Yes.”

“Did she speak to you?”

“Yes. She said the usual things. ‘I’m no good for you, I’m a loser’ … like that.”

She pressed her hands to her head in an odd headache gesture. “My whole life…,” she started to say, and then she was crying.

I crossed over to her, concerned. “Honey? Katie? What is it?” I put my arms around her.

She didn’t reply for a moment. Her tears flowed silently, and she reached for a tissue to wipe her eyes. Jake’s collar rattled as he came into the room, sensing something. He leaped onto the bed, probing Katie’s face with a wet nose and then a pink tongue. She hugged him to her. “Oh, Jake,” she said mournfully.

“Is it Milt?” I asked.

She shook her head, then shrugged. “Oh, a little, I guess. It’s more that I couldn’t go to the funeral because of my mom. Which is just one more way she’s running my life, you know? And when I went to work, answering the phones at Dad’s old office, I thought I was finally making my own decisions, but the only reason Dad worked there in the first place was because she got him the job. Even now that I’ve taken the real estate exam, it still all flows from her, you know?” She caught my noncomprehension and laughed sadly. “I guess this doesn’t make any sense.”

“You’re saying you feel controlled by your mother.”

“I’m saying I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Something told me I was heading into a conversation I might not like, but that didn’t stop me. “What does that mean?”

“I mean, I have these roles, like I’m your fiancée, my mother’s daughter, and if I passed the test, I guess I’m a real estate agent, but who am I? Who is Katie Lottner?”

Jake and I glanced at each other. She appeared to be in real pain, a pain neither dog nor man seemed able to understand.

“I thought about going to the bar as usual,” she continued. “And there’s laughing and drinking, and then Wilma Wolfinger throws a beer in Claude’s face. Like nothing happened, like Milt never died. And I realized, this is how every day goes now.”

“Actually Wilma did sort of a Hawaiian lap dance for Claude.”

She gave me a wan smile. “This topic is a little too emotional for you, isn’t it?”

“No, no,” I protested, though inside I was practically screaming, Yes, yes. I just couldn’t escape the feeling there was something worse going on here than I perceived. “I just want to make sure … Are you still pissed off about that Amy Jo woman, at the Shantytown festival?”

“No. I told you I accepted your explanation.”

I wondered if I should probe the difference between accepted your explanation and I believe you. I decided to leave it alone. I regarded my fiancée. Even with her face scrubbed of makeup and her hair pulled back in a scrunchie, she was still breathtakingly beautiful.

“It’s just that we spend practically every night at the bar.” She sighed.

“Because I work there. I’m a bouncer. It’s not like they’d hire me to do that at the church.”

“You work there. You get paid to work there?”

Was that what this was all about? I remembered reading somewhere that married couples mostly fought about money and sex. I couldn’t imagine what there was about sex to fight about, but money made sense. “Becky doesn’t pay me in winter. The Bear really doesn’t make a profit until the snow melts.”

“That’s not my point. It’s not that you’re not making any money; it’s that you go there even though there’s no reason. I just would like to spend an evening somewhere else for a change.”

“Okay. We’ll do that. It’s a good idea. Let’s go someplace nice.” I mentally reviewed my financial status, which was broke and out of a job. Well, maybe not that good of an idea.

“No, I’m sorry. That’s not what I even meant to tell you. Forget I said that.” She gave me a serious look, and I felt my blood chill. There would be bad news now. “I think I found a place. In East Jordan. Like we talked about. Closer to work.”

“No,” I protested. “We said we would discuss it.”

“No,” she responded in disconsolate tones. “Please don’t say that. We’ve discussed it a lot. The commute, our relationship, how things have been lately.”

“You say ‘our relationship’ like it’s this thing we keep in a closet somewhere. It’s not a thing; it’s us,” I argued. I could feel the heat rising in my face, though I knew I needed to be calm and reasonable.

“It’s really late, can we not fight about this now? I won’t know about the place until tomorrow. I just really need to chill out and go to sleep; I don’t want to go through this all again.”

Well, I did. I wanted to go over this ridiculous idea that we were going to put a pause in our lives. We were betrothed; you don’t suspend that for some sort of engagement vacation. But instead I came up with the most difficult word for me to utter in the moment. “Sure.”

Katie sighed in relief and picked up her book in a way that suggested the conversation was over. I thought about asking her if she wanted to fight about sex, but instead went to drag my dog out into the cold. He really had to lift his leg, but his expression indicated he resented me anyway.

*   *   *

Katie slipped out before I awoke, and, of course, Jake didn’t stir. I had a vague notion of my front door easing closed while it was still dark, and then what seemed like just seconds later my house was filled with daylight.

The morning was so nice, it hurt. We don’t see much of the sun in late January, but on this day the air was full of dancing sparkles as the trees shook off their snow under a dazzling blue sky. I shielded my eyes as I stumbled to the repo truck, which barely started despite the dual batteries. The sun was doing nothing to cut the cold, which had driven temperatures below zero.

“Why on earth would the Wolfingers want to go to Hawaii?” I asked myself.

I drove to Boyne City for the second time in twenty-four hours. My route took me through the little town of East Jordan, where Katie worked, then through acres and acres of hardwood, the trees casting dark shadows in the brilliant sun, until finally I arrived at the shore of Lake Charlevoix and turned right. My heater had apparently decided to give up—even after an hour in the truck, I could still see my breath.

When I arrived in Boyne City, the shanties clustered out on the frozen lake looked like big animals huddled against the cold. I pictured the men sitting inside them, not moving, holding fishing rods, icicles hanging from their faces. Well, okay, the shanties probably had to be heated.

I kept driving north, and eventually the woods thickened up, blocking my view of the ice, until I turned off the road and into a neatly plowed driveway near a mailbox that read STRICKLAND.

Barry Strickland had been the sheriff until recently, when he resigned amid the scandal of an extramarital affair with a councilman’s wife. It didn’t seem to bother the townspeople all that much when the story came out, but Strickland immediately apologized and quit the office. He explained that he’d brought dishonor to the position. That was the sort of man I knew him to be—he had the strength and integrity of a steel beam.

The councilman’s wife went back to her husband, and Strickland, long a widower, went to his cottage on the shore and now, ironically, did a little work for Milt, helping us find people who had disappeared with debts owed to banks and credit unions. He still had a lot of friends in law enforcement after thirty-five years working as a cop all over the state, and was dogged and patient as an investigator.

Patience wasn’t exactly part of my own investigative technique.

Business had expanded, all due to ex-sheriff Strickland, and now anybody skipping out on their debts north of Grand Rapids had Milt’s recovery service looking for them.

“Ruddy. Come in,” Strickland greeted me after I knocked on his door. “Coffee’s fresh. Sorry I didn’t make it to the Bear after the funeral.”

I told him it was okay as I stomped the ice off my boots and accepted a mug from him gratefully. We sat in chairs near the fire. Hard to believe he wasn’t still sheriff; he sure looked the part—his eyes were blue and clear, his hair a metal gray.

“Been a beautiful day, but clouds are rolling in,” he remarked. “Going to bring some precipitation.” In the other room, the Weather Channel was running, sound off.

This was what happened when you lost everything due to a mistake: You wound up alone and miserable. I knew very well what Strickland must be going through. I’d had something very similar occur in my life.

Except now, of course, I had a shot at a second chance.

I handed over a slip of paper with Amy Jo’s plate number on it. If her name even was Amy Jo. He accepted it with interest, but when I explained why I needed the girl’s address, what she had told me, his expression grew flat.

“Oh, Ruddy,” he said mournfully. “Why would you believe something like that?”

I’d given that a lot of thought. “I’m not sure I do believe it. But I’ve racked my brain and you know what? It’s possible. I didn’t check under the blanket when I got back in the car that night. I didn’t even look at her, and if I talked to her, she didn’t answer. I can’t say for sure she wasn’t in the backseat, but I can’t say for sure she was, either.”

“What difference could it make? No one is going to reopen the case. She died, and you pleaded guilty and did your time.”

I shook my head. “I’m not thinking that far ahead. I just want to know.”

Strickland regarded the paper with distaste. I knew just how much he hated this sort of thing. This had nothing to do with our skip tracing business; it was just Ruddy McCann chasing ghosts.

“Please, Sheriff. This girl was not a medium, I’ll tell you that. I’ve been to about half a dozen, and none of them acted like her. I think what she said is because she knows something. Because she saw something.”

Strickland grunted. “I’ve asked you not to call me Sheriff.”

“Oh. Sorry. Barry.” It sounded odd on my tongue, like calling your father by his first name.

In the end he agreed to get a friend of his to run the plate because, I think, he was too damned bored not to. He walked me to the door, and we both peered at the sky, which was filling with the expected clouds. He told me how sorry he was about Milt. We left it with that sentiment, though I thought I caught something in his expression that must have been mirrored in my own.

Looked like we both might need new jobs.

*   *   *

While I’d been talking to Barry, I’d gotten a phone call and a voice mail. I didn’t recognize the number, but I knew the voice. “Ruddy, it’s Dr. Schaumburg. Please call me back. You know why.”

I did not call him back.

When the precipitation hit, it came down as something between sleet and rain, if there is such a thing. I stopped in East Jordan for lunch at Darlene’s, a restaurant that serves amazing cinnamon rolls I’d reluctantly given up eating. I only had one.

I was only thirty yards from Katie’s office, but something told me not to drop in. I sent her a photo of my cinnamon roll instead, hoping she’d take the hint and join me. Instead she sent me back a smiley face emoticon, which could mean something, or nothing at all.

The roads were impossibly slick as I drove away, and I kept my speed low and my gear in four-wheel drive, regretting that I’d taken the time to stop at Darlene’s. I should have just gotten a cinnamon roll to go and also another one.

In Mancelona, a tiny town about fifteen miles from Kalkaska, I saw a guy named Tigg Bloom putting gasoline in a Chevy Suburban. I knew Tigg because a year ago I’d sat on his front porch and drunk beer with him until he admitted his brother’s Kia was parked behind the pole barn at the far end of the field. I agreed not to mention where I got my information, and Tigg agreed to drink the rest of the beer.

Now it was Tigg’s turn: He was more than ninety days past due on the Suburban, and had vanished. I tried the beer trick on the brother, but he was still upset about the Kia and tried to sic his Labrador on me. I threw a stick for the dog, who ran to get it and brought it back to me. Strickland had worked the file and reported that Tigg’s relatives all said he’d escaped northern Michigan and was in Florida somewhere. When I chatted with Tigg, I’d ask him if he knew he was related to a bunch of liars.

By the time I’d cautiously U-turned on the icy road, Tigg was in his Suburban, headed back toward the way I’d come. I hung back, following at a safe distance.

A few miles down M-66 toward East Jordan, the road bends steeply downward into the Jordan River Valley, a hilly area scooped out by glaciers eons ago. At the crest of the hill, the vehicle in front of Tigg turned left, and I saw the Suburban’s antilock brakes working to hold Tigg on the road as he stopped.

My vehicle didn’t have antilock brakes. Instead it had a rust hole on the passenger side that I kept covered in cardboard. In a real emergency, I could always lift the cardboard and stick my foot out, but in this case I was moving slowly enough that by pumping the brake pedal and downshifting, I coasted to a stop on the ice-rinked highway without rear-ending my customer.

Tigg had been watching my approach with considerable concern, and I saw the relief in his eyes when I was able to halt. Then he sat upright.

“Damn,” I breathed. He’d recognized me.

Tigg put his foot into it and rocketed away, and I gave chase. If I lost him now, I might never see him again—a lot of these guys will do a better job of hiding their vehicles once they’ve seen the repo man.

I racked a full fifty-five miles per hour onto the speedometer before my brain took over. You don’t do a high-speed chase in the middle of an ice storm. I was moving much too fast for these conditions, especially considering I was now barreling down one of the steepest hills in the whole state. I lifted my foot off the gas, watching in frustration as the Suburban pulled away. He was really flying.

I touched my brake, and immediately my truck’s heavy back end tried to slide up toward its front end. I turned into the skid, then looked up and gasped: Tigg had realized his mistake and was trying to stop, his vehicle jerking and sliding, fishtailing crazily down the hill. A school bus in the opposite lane was rumbling up the hill, honking frantically.

I lost track of Tigg and focused on getting my own rig under control. My brakes were worthless. When I touched them even lightly, my tow truck started to drift, and I was swaying back and forth over the center line. “Damn it!” I yelled. I was losing it. Farther down, I saw the Suburban way over in the bus’s lane, and then it flew back to the right side and hit the snowbank in a spray of snow and then it was in the trees, crashing into them so violently I could hear it.

The school bus was trying to get out of my way, but I had lost control, and I was weaving and sliding and desperately turning the steering wheel against the skid. I was going to hit the bus.

I could not let that happen. My front end swung to the right, and I took my foot off the brake and mashed down on the accelerator. All four wheels bit and I surged ahead, flying past the bus and off the road—“Jesus!”—and then the snowbank grabbed me and the truck flipped upside down and I rolled over and over until I slammed into the trees.

Yet with all that happening, I had time for a single thought before impact. That voice yelling, “Jesus!”

That wasn’t my voice.

That was Alan.