“No, he didn’t.”
“You know, when I came back down here last night, I didn’t see him anywhere. I assumed he was out looking for Mr. Grant.”
“The poor kid is probably traumatized.”
“I’d like to check up on him,” I said. “Would you happen to have an address and phone number?”
“Oh, now, I don’t know…”
“I just want to ask him a few questions, ma’am. It’s important.”
She looked at my card again, then let out a long breath and did a quick run through a Rolodex. “He goes to Lake State,” she said. “He’s a senior, I think. This is the address and phone number I have for him. I think it’s still current, but you know how it is when you’re in college.”
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
She wrote down the number and gave it to me. I thanked her again and left.
When I was back in the truck, I thought about calling on the cell phone, then decided I might have better luck just going over there. Lake Superior State University, or Lake State for short, was just south of downtown, right next to I-75. As I drove back down to Easterday, it occurred to me that I was seeing pretty much every inch of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, in one day. I thought about Roy Maven sitting in his office in the City County Building, and what he would have said at that moment if he knew I was still in town.
Easterday Avenue cuts right through the heart of the university grounds. Lake State’s a fairly big school, bigger than anything else east of Marquette. If you grew up around here, and you wanted to stay close to home, it was the only game in town. Although when kids graduated from Lake State, more often than not they left the Upper Peninsula altogether. It’s just the way things were. And the reason behind the old joke that the U.P.’s biggest export was its children.
I followed the street numbers past the student housing and the ice arena. Hockey was the only big-time sport at this school. I remembered the Lakers winning the national championship a couple of years back. The marquee out front announced that the University of Michigan would be visiting that night.
I finally found the apartment building I was looking for, another couple of blocks down the street. With all the snow piled up everywhere, I couldn’t find a place to park, so finally I pulled into the alley next to the building. I heard the music playing inside as I knocked on the door marked 4, and then a young man opened the door with money in his hand.
“You’re not the pizza guy,” he said.
“Is Chris here?”
“No, I haven’t seen him today. He’s probably over at his parents’ house.”
“Can you tell me where that is?”
He stood there in the doorway for a long moment, looking all of fourteen years old in his sweatpants and his T-shirt. He had his long hair pulled up on top of his head and bunched together with a rubber band, and he was obviously trying to grow some kind of goatee on his chin. It wasn’t working out so well.
“Who are you?” he finally said.
I dug out another card. “I’m a private investigator,” I said. “It’s no big deal. I just wanted to ask Chris a couple of questions.”
“Is he in trouble?”
“No, not at all.”
“That means yes.”
“No. It means no. I just want to-”
“Look, I’ll give him your card when I see him, okay? Then he can call you if he wants.”
I was about to press him, but then I figured the hell with it. I wasn’t going to stand there and argue with this kid. “All right,” I said. “Just give him the card.”
“I’ll do that, man. I said I’ll give it to him.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Have a nice-”
He slammed the door before I could finish. Okay, I thought. There’s a nice young man. The future of America. Nice hair, too, sticking up like a damned flowerpot. When I got back to the truck, the pizza guy was there waiting behind me, and not looking too happy about it. I went to his driver’s side window and apologized for being in the way. Then I gave him a twenty for the pizza and told him to keep the change. That seemed to make up for it. He drove away, I put the pizza on the seat next to me, and then I backed out of the alley.
It was getting late in the afternoon and the pizza smelled pretty good, so I had a slice while I drove back down Easterday. I stopped at a gas station by the highway and looked through the phone book next to the pay phone. There was one Woolsey listed, down on Twenty-fourth Avenue. Just for the hell of it, I looked up Grant and found a dozen listings, all over the city and out into the county. No telling who might have been a relative.
I’ll wait and see what Leon comes up with, I thought. For now, I’ll just go see if these Woolseys are Chris’s parents.
I drove down to the southern edge of town, past Sanderson Field, one of the two old air command centers that had been turned into commercial airports. I followed the numbers on the mailboxes as they got smaller, until finally I found what I was looking for. It was a raised ranch sitting all alone in a wide open field, the snowdrifts climbing to the windows on one side. The driveway was covered by the drifts as well, with a serpentine set of tracks barely visible, where someone had fishtailed all over the place on their way to the garage. I put my plow down and pushed the snow off as I went. In this part of the world, it’s the kind of thing you do for your neighbor, or even a stranger. You do it without even thinking about it.
I came up to the garage and pushed the snow to the side, then I got out of the truck and went to the front door. The walkway wasn’t shoveled. When I rang the doorbell, nobody answered. I rang one more time. Just as I was about to turn around and leave, the inner door opened. I saw her face through the thick glass of the storm door, this woman with red eyes and a handkerchief pressed to her mouth. She was forty years old, maybe forty-five, and she was wearing a bathrobe.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said.
She just looked at me.
“Are you Mrs. Woolsey?” I had to speak up to be heard through the glass. She was making no move to open the storm door.
She nodded her head.
“Is Chris here? His roommate said he might be.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Alex McKnight. I just want to ask him something.”
She looked back in the house for a moment. “Ask him something about what?”
“He was working at the Ojibway Hotel last night,” I said. “I just want to ask him a couple of questions about something that happened there.”
She closed her eyes.
“He’s not in any trouble, ma’am. Believe me. I just want to ask him if he-”
She slammed the door shut. That was two doors in one afternoon. And it made me wonder. I just wanted to ask this kid if he knew anything about the old man, but maybe I had stumbled onto something more significant. Either that or my chemically altered hair was scaring everybody.
I took out one more business card. “Chris,” I wrote on the back, “please call me. I was at the hotel last night, and I just want to ask you if you know anything about Mr. Grant. That’s all! Thank you. Alex.”
I wedged the card into the doorjamb and left, slogging my way through the deep snow on the walkway and nearly killing myself on a hidden patch of ice. I got in the truck and plowed my way back down the driveway. What the hell, I thought. Maybe a little good deed will help.
I had a couple more slices of pizza on my way back home. There were thick clouds in the sky, and it was already getting dark. Somewhere in the world it was warm, and the sun stayed out for hours at a time. But I was here on the long straight road back to Paradise, thankful that the county trucks had thrown down some sand. Even more thankful that I’d be giving Natalie Reynaud a call when I got home.
I ran the plow down my road and back. When I got inside, I saw the light blinking on my answering machine. It was a quick message from Leon, asking me to call him when I got in. So I did.
“I found out a few things about your man Mr. Grant,” he said.
