When she was on the road, she gunned it and drove west, past her own driveway.
“Let me guess,” I said. “We’re going to Michigan now?”
“You up for it?”
“Yep.”
She nodded her head and kept driving. She didn’t say anything else for a while. The snow started to fall.
“Mrs. DeMarco couldn’t help us,” she finally said. “But I am going to find out. I want to know what happened.”
“If this man really did kill your father,” I said, “this Simon Grant, the man with the hat…”
“I know, Alex. They just buried him.”
“I’m just saying-”
“He’s gone now. I can’t touch him, I know. But I still have to find out.”
I heard the determination in her voice. It was something I recognized, the same thing that would be driving me if I were in her place. She’d have no peace until she got her answer.
I wanted to help her. I wanted to watch her back, wherever this thing would take her. And of course I wouldn’t mind finding out some answers myself. Why the hell I got triple-teamed behind the church, for starters.
I wasn’t quite sure where we’d begin, but I did know one thing. Sooner or later, we’d end up spending some more time with the Grant family.
Chapter Ten
The snow kept coming. We hit a bad patch on the road and for one instant I could feel everything moving sideways. Natalie slowed down just a little bit, but otherwise barreled right on through it. Then the snow stopped, just like that. Neither of us said anything about it. We didn’t want to jinx it. Or maybe we just didn’t feel like talking yet. A few minutes later, I picked up my cell phone and dialed Leon’s number.
“How old is that thing?” she said. “It looks like something from World War II.”
“It works,” I said.
“Do you have to crank it by hand first?”
“At least I have a cell phone.”
“Yeah, so anybody can call you, no matter where you are.”
“If I left it on, yeah.”
She smiled and shook her head. Before I could say anything else, Leon came on the line.
“Leon,” I said. “Are you at the store? I hope I’m not bothering you.”
“Of course not, Alex. What’s going on?”
“I’m just wondering if you could give me the name of your friend at the newspaper. We’ve got something we want to look up.”
There was a pause. “Why don’t you just tell me what you need? I can talk to him.”
“All right,” I said. Like there was any other way. “This is what we’re looking for. A man named Reynaud was murdered a long time ago, in Soo Michigan. Most likely in a bar.”
“What’s the full name?”
I pictured him getting out his little notepad, standing there among the snowmobiles with the phone to his ear.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Natalie. “Did you ever tell me his full name?”
“Jean Sylvain Reynaud.” She kept staring straight ahead. We had just driven through Iron Bridge, and now we were back out on the open road.
“Jean Sylvain Reynaud,” I said into the phone.
“When was the murder?”
“Natalie, do you remember-”
“Nineteen seventy-three,” she said, her eyes still straight ahead. Her voice was flat. “I don’t know what date. Sometime early in the year.”
“Leon, it was early 1973.”
“Do you have anything on the cause of death? Shooting? Stabbing?”
I looked over at her.
“Leon,” I said. “That should be enough to go on, shouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, yeah. No problem. I’ll give my guy a call, see what he can find out. If it was here in the Soo, I know the Evening News will have a record of it.”
“Thanks, Leon. You’re the best.”
He told me he’d keep in touch. Then he was off to sell more snowmobiles. I put the phone down and looked out the side window.
“This Leon,” she said. “He’s good at this stuff, eh?”
“He is.”
“How long will it take him to find out?”
I looked at my watch. It was 3:15. “We’ll be down there by what,4:30?'
“Before that.”
I looked over at her speedometer. With the snow stopped, the needle was back up to 120 on her Canadian dial, which meant she was going somewhere around 75 miles per hour. She was driving just like a cop.
“If his newspaper friend is in the office,” I said, “Leon will call me back before we get there.”
“That fast?”
“He’s like a pit bull when he wants to find out something. That’s why he’s such a good private eye.”
“And you’re not?”
“He loves this stuff,” I said. “He lives for it.”
“He sounds like the perfect partner. You ever think about trying it again?”
“Not really, no.”
“Why not?”
“You’re serious?”
“What else are you going to do? Sit around in your cabin all day?”
“With a blanket on my lap, yeah. In my rocking chair.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Actually, right now that sounds pretty good.”
She reached over and touched my arm. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right.”
She kept driving. We hit Thessalon, and she had to slow down for a while. When the town was behind us, she blew by a big truck and got back to cruising speed again.
“So what do you want to bet?” she said.
“About what?”
“About whether Leon calls you back before we hit the bridge.”
“I don’t want to take your money,” I said.
“Who said anything about money?”
“Hmm, you might have something there.”
“Unless you’re too sore.”
I looked over at her. After everything that had happened that day, finding the picture of her father, having to think about his death, having to work up the nerve to call her mother of all people in the world, the visit to Mrs. DeMarco-after all that, here she was trying to pull herself out of a blue mood. She was willing herself to be happy again. It was something I needed to learn.
“We’re almost there,” she said. We were coming up to Bruce Mines.
“He’s got plenty of time,” I said. “All the time in the world.”
There was more traffic on the Queen’s Highway now. She passed three cars in a row and kept going.
