The Best American Mystery Stories 2017 Page 6

  “An analysis of Earl’s behavior,” Hank said.

  “We spoil our animals,” Joy told Frenchie as she served the coffee. She sensed the natural silence and left it alone. Hank was waiting for Frenchie, so she did too. Frenchie sipped his coffee, set his cup down, and folded his hands on the table.

  “Lee murdered a fifteen-year-old boy.”

  Hank let the statement sink in, instantly wrestling with memories and emotions he hadn’t tasted for a long while and didn’t miss. They weren’t repressed exactly, but close to it.

  “That’s a hell of a stretch. I don’t believe it.”

  Frenchie sat in glum silence. He knew it would take Hank a while to get his arms around this.

  “Killed or murdered?” Hank asked.

  “You think I don’t know the difference?”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday around noon.”

  Silence descended once more. This time it was anything but comfortable. Joy’s face was moving, full of questions. She looked at Hank. “Lee, Lee Weir, right, your Marine friend, the one in all the pictures? The one you never talk about?”

  Hank didn’t say anything. His lips were moving slightly: a conversation with himself. Joy looked at Frenchie. “There’s always three guys in Hank’s pictures. You, Hank, and the one who looks like his brother.”

  Frenchie nodded. “That would be Lee.”

  “So what happened?” Hank asked.

  “Some kid from Black River was rodding around on a four-wheeler. Lee jumped him. Slit his throat from behind. Left him dead at the wheel and took off.”

  “Jesus. Was it a fight? I mean, did the kid provoke him somehow? Or did Lee just finally flip out?”

  “Don’t know for sure. Lee’s not in custody, so all we’ve got is the crime scene and a dead kid.”

  “Witnesses?”

  “No.”

  “Well, there you go. You don’t really know for sure, then, do you?”

  “We’ve had some incidents with him at that location leading up to this. Fits a pattern. And I know in my gut. Think about it, Hank. Think about the Lee that came back from Iraq. Not so much of a stretch when you think about it that way.”

  “PTSD is one thing. Murdering a kid is another. Vets mostly just murder themselves. And your gut won’t get you far in court. You think he’s headed here for some reason. That why you’re here?”

  “No. We know where he is.” He paused. “He’s holed up in Negwegon. Killed the kid on the big beach there.”

  “Negwegon, huh. That’s like saying he’s holed up in Pennsylvania.”

  Frenchie nodded, looking intensely at Hank. Hank went cold. The purpose of Frenchie’s emergency visit was now perfectly clear. Hank could tell by the concerned look on Joy’s face that she understood as well. Hank was being recruited.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but Negwegon is in Alcona and Alpena Counties in northeastern Michigan. I’m not an Alpena or Alcona County sheriff. I’m not a Michigan state cop. I’m an Indiana state cop. This has nothing to do with me.”

  Frenchie scowled. “Come on, Hank. You know better than that.”

  “Come on, Hank, my ass,” Hank said.

  “He’s the nearest thing to a brother you’ll ever have.”

  “We went our separate ways, Frenchie.”

  “You had a political disagreement. Lee was never political. He was just a soldier.”

  “Horseshit!” Hank barked, slamming the kitchen table with his fist. Fat Earl scrambled across the linoleum to get out of the room. Joy pushed her chair away from the table. “Soldiers don’t break into homes at night and muster families out on the street,” Hank hissed. “And they don’t carry drop weapons.”

  “It’s a volunteer army,” Frenchie said.

  Hank’s face sagged, as if someone had knocked the wind out of him. He knew it was as close as Frenchie would ever come to saying, “I told you so.” Frenchie had simply told them both, “I wouldn’t go to war for that crowd.”

  Hank stood up, walked over to the window, and stared out into the warm darkness. Shame was the worst of it, shame for giving his life over to “that crowd.” Green as grass, galvanized by 9/11, and perfectly positioned between high school and college, Hank and Lee had joined up. In retrospect, Hank saw himself as good old reliable unquestioning rural cannon fodder: smart, tough, fierce, and stupid. The more the mission creeped, the more betrayed he felt.

  “It’s a volunteer army before you join, not after,” Hank said. “Point is, I got the hell out when I got the chance. Lee saw the same things I saw, but stayed in. Shipped over, for Christ’s sake. In the end, it’s your trigger finger. Nobody else’s. And you don’t get kicked out with a general discharge because you’re a good Marine. Maybe he developed a taste for it.”

  “Hank,” Frenchie said, drawing his name out, as if admonishing him for suggesting something ludicrous. “I saw him a couple times after he got out. He was screwed up, pounding down the beers, but I never sensed anything like that.”

  “But he was violent, wasn’t he?”

  “If you call garden-variety bar fights violent.”

  “I call them precursors,” Hank said. “He never did that kind of shit before. And you don’t know why he got a general discharge, do you?”

  “No.”

  “No. They keep that stuff confidential for a reason. That kind of discharge is usually for guys too shaky to keep around. I’ll lay odds it involved a bad kill. And a bad kill by military standards would get you the chair stateside.”

  “Gets kind of tricky when you start talking about good kills and bad kills in a wrong war,” Frenchie said. He sipped his coffee thoughtfully. “Okay. Fair enough. You’re probably right and I should have seen it coming. But I mean, we’re talking about Lee, Hank. Lee. I took him in one night after a bar fight and he gave me the creeps. Wasn’t the kid I remembered, but I never figured him for a walking time bomb. He was jabbering. Said the world was coming for him.”

  Hank snorted. “Well, if it wasn’t before, it sure as hell is now. You look ridiculous in that uniform, by the way.”

  “I was holding a practice at Harrisville when I got the call. Went to the scene and then drove straight here.”

  “You still haven’t told us why you’re here.”

  “You haven’t figured that out yet? I thought you made detective.”

  “I want to hear it.”

  Frenchie was irritated that he had to ask. He was hoping for a volunteer. “Okay. You’re the only one who’s got a chance to bring Lee in solo with no more violence. No one knows the man like you. No one knows Negwegon like you.”

  “Lee knows Negwegon better than anyone.”

  “Maybe, but you’re a close second and no one else is even in the same ballpark. Plus you’ve got a shared past you can use to talk him out. Hell, you’ve even got experience counseling vets through your Wounded Warrior work.”

  “It should be called ‘Wounded Warrior for What?’ ” Joy interjected heatedly, “and he doesn’t do that anymore. It was making him sick.” She went over and stood by Hank. “He’s done enough. And let me ask you something, Frenchie. Would Lee Weir have killed this boy before he went to Iraq?”

  “No way.”

  “Then what makes you think he won’t kill Hank?”

  Frenchie hesitated. “I didn’t say it wasn’t dangerous.”

  Drawing herself up in her best boardroom persona, Joy stepped toward Frenchie and said sharply, “I think you should get out of our house.” Standing there barefoot, all of five foot two and wearing a pink robe with a white fluffy shawl collar, her order did not have the desired effect: Frenchie grinned broadly and Hank laughed.

  “Whoa, tiger,” Hank said, putting his arms around her. “Frenchie’s talking business. He’s just talking business. We should hear him out.”

  “We’ll hear him out and then you can say no,” she said. Hank could feel the tension in her body.

  Frenchie rubbed his tired face with both hands. “Look,
I’ve only got two options. You’re one. The other is to let loose the pack, and that scares the hell out of me.”

  “The pack?” Joy asked.

  “The northern Lower Peninsula is nothing but state parks, national forests, state forests, big private hunting clubs . . . it’s really a single forest about a hundred miles wide and two hundred miles long, with Lake Michigan on the west and Lake Huron on the east.

  “Lee grew up in Negwegon, in the north woods. Guy with his skills, if he decides to hide or fight, hell, it’ll take a ton of manpower to flush him out. I’ll have to round up city cops, state cops, sheriff’s deputies, National Guard to comb the woods section by section. Plus everybody up there owns a gun and knows how to use it. Lee will be just another blood sport to a lot of them, and they’ll be out in force trying to get their picture in the paper. If I go with that pack, we might be seeing body bags until there’s enough snow to track ’im. And today is August thirteenth.”

  Joy leaned her head back to look at Hank. He nodded in agreement.

  “Hank,” Frenchie said, a look of defeat clouding his face, “I could go to your boss, but you know I won’t do that. But if you do this, whatever decisions you have to make, it’ll be okay with me. I’ll back you, no questions asked. No one expects you to subdue him. Just get him.” That meant no rules—Frenchie was giving Hank an open license to kill.

  “You know, Frenchie, for the first time in a long time I feel pretty good about life. Stopped the tailspin.” He squeezed Joy tight. “Why should I take a chance on starting that whole thing again?”

  “Because Lee hasn’t been so lucky.”

  “Luck has nothing to do with it. It’s about choices. I’m living with mine. He can live with his.”

  “You guys walked into a shit storm. What happens in a shit storm is all about luck. You tellin’ me you don’t think it’s possible Lee could be sittin’ here with this pretty lady while you’re half nuts and hidin’ out in Negwegon? Why, because you’re so pure of heart?”

  Hank said nothing, smiling slightly. That’s why Frenchie was a damn good coach. He knew the buttons to push.

  “Nobody knows his favorite spots like you. He won’t be expecting anybody to know that.”

  Hank gazed at Frenchie. His de facto father was older now; his black wiry hair had gone salt-and-pepper and his face had earned more wrinkles, particularly around his eyes. So many wonderful days Hank had spent with Frenchie and Lee on the sunrise side of the Big Lake.

  “I’ll do it,” Hank said abruptly. “Take me about an hour to gear up.”

  Frenchie nodded his head once, emphatically, acknowledging and thanking Hank in that one motion.

  “Got the park locked down?” Hank asked.

  “Best we can with the manpower. Blocked off both ends of Sand Hill Trail and put a car at the dead end on Lake Shore Road. Got a prowler driving back and forth on Twenty-three between the mountain and Nicholson Hill Road so no one parks and hikes in. Got two deputies at the crime scene. Yamaha is still there. Didn’t want to stir things up, do any searching, until I heard from you. So it’s been quiet at the park.”

  “Good. That’s good,” Hank said.

  Stunned by the suddenness of Hank’s decision, Joy said nothing and simply followed Hank as he moved toward the bedroom. He stopped halfway down the hall and turned back to Frenchie. “Why didn’t you just call me? Could have saved you a trip.”

  “Red said a call wouldn’t be enough,” Frenchie responded. “Said I’d have to talk to you face-to-face. I figured she ought to know.”

  Hank winced but said nothing. Red was a struggle he kept to himself.

  “Is Red that big girl that’s in some of the pictures?”

  “Probably,” Frenchie said. “Coached her just like I coached Hank and Lee. She was the Queen of Title Nine in our area. Real jock.”

  “Her hair doesn’t look red.”

  “It’s dark red, almost black.”

  “Dark auburn,” Joy said.

  “She’s one of my deputies now,” Frenchie said. “She was always Lee’s girl, since about the seventh grade.”

  Joy sat on the edge of the rumpled bed. She was angry that Hank had reached a decision without involving her. She knew Hank’s relationships with Frenchie, Lee, and probably Red were at the core of the boy he used to be and the man he had become. What did she matter compared to them? She wasn’t sure. She now knew Frenchie for all of twenty minutes and Lee and Red not at all. She had tried to get Hank to open up about them, even tried to get him to take her camping at Negwegon. “Maybe someday,” was all he said.

  She sat quietly, clearly at a loss. This was the first time she knew ahead of time that Hank was headed for certain danger. Not an abstract understanding of his job or a talk with him after the fact, but going one-on-one after a crazy ex-Marine who had killed a kid.

  Hank stopped stuffing a duffel bag and sat down next to her. “Talk about going from heaven to hell in a matter of minutes.”

  “It doesn’t have to be hell. You sounded like you weren’t going to do it, then all of a sudden you said you would. Why? Frenchie said he wouldn’t go over your head. And whatever Lee Weir was to you before, he’s not that anymore. You said so yourself.”

  Hank took her hand, kneading it thoughtfully. “At first I figured, easy call . . . no way. But as he talked I saw something in his face I’ve never seen before—dread. Pure dread. Everybody has a breaking point. I got a bad feeling that Lee’s blood on Frenchie’s hands might be more than he could handle. I mean, the guy practically raised us. And Lee . . . hell, we both did things . . . things that couldn’t be helped, things beyond our control. But kill a kid on a beach at Negwegon? Can’t see it.”

  “Frenchie sees it.”

  “Yes. Frenchie sees it. And everything he says points to it. But I can’t see it. And if I don’t go, the pack will gun him for sure. He’s gonna run. He’ll run at ’em or he’ll run away from them. They’ll kill him either way. Frenchie and Lee . . . I can’t leave it hangin’ like this.”

  “What if you have to . . . do something to Lee? How’s that different from anything else that might happen?”

  “It’s different because Frenchie trusts me completely. He’ll know he did everything he could to save Lee. He thinks I’ll bend over backward to bring Lee in alive. He’s wrong, but that’s what he thinks. Anybody else drags Lee out in a body bag and it could send Frenchie into a guilt trip he’ll never get over. That pack he was talking about, that’s no joke. He won’t have any real control over those guys. He’ll feel responsible for anything they do.”

  Joy nodded. She understood. Hank believed this was the most important thing he could ever do for Frenchie and he had to do it. She squeezed his hand and put her arm around him. “Maybe you won’t find him and you’ll just be back in five days like nothing happened. Just a longer intermission than we thought.”

  Hank smiled. “Maybe,” he said.

  Resigned, Joy returned to the kitchen, where Frenchie was nursing his coffee.

  “Sorry to meet you with a mess like this,” he said.

  “You ought to be,” Joy snapped.

  “You’re a hard woman.”

  “You could get him killed.”

  “Hank can handle himself . . . Mind if I borrow your couch while he gets ready?”

  “Go ahead. Take your shoes off, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “That kind of trouble I can handle,” Frenchie said. He rose slowly from the table, stiff from hours of driving. Joy watched him move creakily over to the couch, take off his sneaks, and sink into it. He didn’t look at her. He wasn’t eager to talk.

  Joy followed him over. “I’m being a bitch,” she said.

  “That’s okay,” Frenchie said. “You’ve got cause. And anyway, you’re a saint compared to the mother of my second baseman.”

  “Frenchie, how dangerous is this?”

  “Not dangerous at all,” Frenchie said, turning to face the back of the couch. “Unless he finds Lee
.”

  Joy managed a small good-luck smile as Hank pulled out in his dark green Jeep Cherokee, his battered sea kayak strapped on the roof like a turquoise torpedo. He was geared up, already thinking strategy for the hunt. He was nervous. Lee was trouble. They had always competed in a friendly way, all kinds of contests, from bench presses to swimming to running. Truth was, on his best day, Lee was damn near unbeatable.

  With Hank trailing Frenchie’s prowler they crossed the northern Indiana border into southern Michigan and tacked steadily northeast across the state. Then they veered as far east as they could go onto U.S. 23 North, the traffic immediately dwindling to almost nothing. The two-lane highway hugged Lake Huron so closely that the big lake was now visible through the trees and the yards. The lake bathed the early afternoon in coolness.

  Hank slipped the Jeep into four-wheel drive as he turned from Black River Road onto Sand Hill Trail, the entrance to Negwegon. It was Sand Hill Trail that practically eliminated tourism at the big wilderness park. The poorly marked, narrow, twisting dirt road discouraged most vehicles. If people can’t drive to it, most won’t go. Negwegon was a huge park that was hugely unknown. Locals called it “the hidden beach.”

  Frenchie spoke briefly to a deputy stationed near the turnoff and they continued some three miles through a mature mixed conifer and hardwood forest until they reached the main gravel parking lot at the heart of the park. They pulled up next to the lone prowler parked by the band of forest that lay between the lot and the lake.

  Hank stepped out into a familiar deep-woods quiet and the soft, soothing murmur of water rushing to shore. It was his old haunt, his escape, his and Lee’s. Lee didn’t have a poisonous home life to escape. It was his love of the natural world and all things physical that made him a perfect match for the big park and Hank. Frenchie forged them together. The two had camped, hunted, swum, fished, worked out, partied, kayaked, grown tall and strong here, and loved every minute of it.

  Frenchie and Hank took the short trail to the beach. The shiny blue Yamaha was perched on a small dune like a prehistoric bird of prey. Standing next to it in a uniform of dark brown pants, khaki shirt with brown epaulettes, and black belt and holster—tall and Norselike—was Red. Hank stopped.