“What do you mean? Where are you going?”
I gave Whitley a little wave with the gun. “As soon as he zips up his pants,” I said, “we’re both going to go say hello to his client.”
CHAPTER 19
Whitley surprised me. I figured he’d work his way east, back to one of the interstates. Instead, he drove north, right up M-31, the little two-lane highway that runs all the way up the shore of Lake Michigan.
“Where are we going?” I said finally.
“North,” he said.
“Can you be a little more specific?”
“Will you put the gun away, for God’s sake? Why do you have to turn this into a kidnapping?”
“I’m not pointing it at you,” I said. “Just relax and drive. And slow down, eh? If you’re thinking about trying to get pulled over, think again. I’m sure the police would be very interested to hear what you were doing back there.”
“I was doing my job, friend.”
“You broke into her house and planted a bug,” I said. “You were eavesdropping on her.”
“It sounds like such an ugly thing when you say it that way.”
“Why were you doing it?” I said. “I don’t get it. I know Harwood was looking for her, so okay, you found her. Good for you. Why were you following her around and listening to her conversations?”
He let out a long breath, then rubbed his face. “The client wants you to follow the mark around, you follow the mark. You know how it is. He wants you to spy on her, you spy on her. You sit there and you listen and you tell him what she’s saying. I’d have the phone right there with me. She’s talking to her brother; she’s talking to her kid. It didn’t mean anything to me. It’s just her talking, you know. But the client wants to know this stuff. As long as he’s interested, and he’s paying, you go along with it.”
I shook my head. I didn’t know what to say.
“Don’t tell me you don’t do crap like that,” he said. “What’s the worst thing you ever did as a private eye?”
“I’m the wrong guy to ask,” I said.
“I’m just reaching for my pills here. Don’t get excited.” He went down between his legs and pulled a plastic pill bottle off the floor. “Here, open this,” he said, tossing it to me.
I read the prescription as I opened it: Miles Whitley, one pill four times daily, as needed. A red sticker warned against driving or operating heavy machinery.
I took out one of the pills. It looked familiar. It was a Vicodin, the same pill I’d once had a little problem with. After the shooting, I’d use them on the bad nights. For a while there, they were all bad nights.
“Hell of a job to have with a bad back,” he said as he took it from me and popped it in his mouth. “Sitting around for hours. And then having people jump in my car and scare the piss out of me.”
I thought about taking one of the pills myself. Instead, I put the cap back on and threw the bottle in the backseat.
“How long have you been a private eye?” he asked.
“I’m not a private eye,” I said.
“You said you were, on your message.”
“I was just pretending.”
“Pretending, my ass,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for a lot of years. More than I care to admit. The business has changed, let me tell you. They got guys who do nothing but look at computers all day now. Christ, they got women private eyes now. There aren’t many of us old-timers left. It was a tough business back then. It took a special kind of man.”
“For God’s sake, Whitley…”
“Are you a private eye or aren’t you?” he said. “Do you have a license?”
“Yes,” I said. “But it was an accident.”
“What the hell does that mean? You’re working for this lady, aren’t you?”
“She asked me to help her,” I said. “So I am.”
“A private eye by accident,” he said, looking out his window at the lake. “And he gets clients that look like that. While I get-”
“Harwood,” I said. “I know who hired you.”
“I cannot divulge the identity of my client.”
“Give it up,” I said. “We’ll see him soon enough. How long do we have to drive, anyway?”
“Little over an hour,” he said.
“That’s it? Where is he?”
“This way.”
“This way, where? Are we going to his house?”
“Nope. Don’t know where he lives.”
“What, he’s staying in a motel up here? So he can be close to her?”
“Not a motel,” he said.
“Stop jerking me around. Where are we going?”
“He owns some land up here,” he said. “That’s all I know.”
“The partnership land. That’s where he’s staying? How long has he been up there?”
“Not long,” he said. “Just since he found out where she was.”
“The name Randy Wilkins mean anything to you? Or to Harwood?”
“Who would that be?”
“He’s the man you followed.” I said. “From her brother’s house.”
“Is that his name?”
“Yes,” I said. “You followed him, and now Harwood knows where she is.” It helps to be mad at somebody when you’re making them do something at gunpoint. The thought of this clown staking out the house in Farmington, and then tailing Randy all the way out here so he could find Maria. It helped me build up steam again.
“It’s what he paid me to do.”
“Yeah, I know. Just doing your job.”
“Look, I don’t get to ‘accidentally’ dabble in being a private investigator, okay? This isn’t my hobby.”
“Just drive,” I said.
He shook his head and kept driving. We stayed on M-31 all the way up to the outskirts of the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. They were calling this whole area the “Gold Coast” now, or the “Michigan Riviera.” With all the new resorts going up, it was a good time to own land.
Unless somebody wanted to kill you over it.
“What are you going to do, anyway?” he said. We hit the little town of Beulah; then the highway turned east into the heart of the state forest.
“I’m going to talk to him,” I said.
“While holding a gun to his head.”
“Hey,” I said. “I’m just doing my job. Just like you.”
The woods opened up and we saw a golf flag in the middle of a green, and then, soon after, the lights of a ski lift running upward. By Michigan’s standards, it was a long slope. Golf in the summer, skiing in the winter. The place didn’t look too busy now, but in another month, I knew it would be booked solid.
As we drove past the place, the pine trees reclaimed the land, thick enough to deepen the night into total darkness. Whitley slowed the car. I couldn’t see why. There was nowhere to turn. Just trees as far as we could see.
He swung the car through a gap in the trees. I didn’t even see it until the headlights swung around. The trees towered over us on either side.
“Is this the place?” I said.
