Louis’s glance fell on the nightstand. He reached over and pulled open the single drawer. It was a mess of papers, nothing that looked important. He pulled out a printout from a Radio Shack store in Houghton. It was an instruction sheet on how to program something, followed by a printout of numbers.
His gaze drifted to the top of the nightstand. Its scarred top was filmed with a heavy layer of dust except for one small area about two by three inches. Louis stared at it for several seconds then looked back at the Radio Shack printout in his hand. The spot on the nightstand was exactly the size of a portable, battery-powered scanner. The printout, he realized suddenly, showed the police frequencies for Oscoda County.
“Louis, look at this.”
Bjork came over to the bed and handed Louis an envelope. It was addressed to Lacey in prison, in a childish scrawl. Louis pulled out the letter. It was from Cole, dated December 5, from the juvenile center.
Louis handed her the letter. She read it quickly. “Bastard,” she whispered, moving away.
Louis felt a tightening in his stomach. He had known when he set out for Dollar Bay that Lacey was the killer. But being here, in his room, breathing his air, made things different. It made Lacey real, more real even than he had been that day in the bar. He slipped the letter into his pocket with the Radio Shack paper.
“So, what’s your area of search?”
Louis looked up at Bjork. She was leaning against the door frame, arms folded over her chest.
“What?” Louis asked.
“Where you looking for him?” she asked.
“I don’t know exactly,” Louis said. He looked away, not liking the question he saw in her eyes, namely, “Why the hell aren’t you down there looking for him?”
“I’d bet he’s holed up in the woods somewhere,” Bjork said, pushing off the door.
“He’d freeze,” Louis said.
Bjork shook her head. “Lacey lived outdoors all his life. When he was a kid he built a shack out in the woods. He used to hide in there when Millie went off the deep end on one of her binges.”
“You check it?”
“First thing. No sign of life.”
Louis rose slowly from the bed. He glanced around the room, unsure where to go next. “I don’t get it,” he said.
“Get what?” Bjork said.
“How’d his kids get to Loon Lake? Lacey never lived there.”
“His wife did. She was from there.” Bjork frowned. “Shoot, can’t remember her name…”
“But Lacey never lived there?” Louis pressed.
Bjork shook her head. “No, but after his wife finally got fed up and put him in jail for battery she went back down there to stay. That was in early ’77, I think. Then when Duane went up for the assault she left here for good.”
“Any idea where she is now?”
Bjork shook her head. “I had my men check but we can’t find her.”
“Think she’ll come back?”
“Would you?” Bjork paused. “I feel sorry for Cole. My daughter went to school with him.”
Louis gave a derisive sigh. “Oh yeah, Cole’s a real upstanding young man. Real proud of his dad for blowing away a nigger cop.” Louis shut the drawer of the nightstand roughly.
Bjork said nothing. She turned and went to the window. “I was here that first time we came out on the child-abuse complaint,” she said. “I was a rookie.”
Louis turned to look at her. She was staring out the window.
“Cole was only five,” she said. “He had all these little red circles on his back. He was crying and I remember thinking it was chicken pox. Turned out to be cigarette burns. Duane burned him because he wet his bed.”
Louis waited, not knowing what to say.
“The doc said that he thought Cole had been sodomized, too. Probably with a broom handle. But Cole refused to tell us. The doc wouldn’t swear to it in court and we had no proof. Social Services refused to act. Cole was returned to Duane after six months in the system.”
Louis let out a sigh. The room was very still for a few moments.
“Helen,” Bjork said finally. “That was her name. The mother…Helen.” She turned to face Louis. “Let’s get out of here.”
He followed her down the staircase. Bjork went quickly out the front door without a word to Millie but Louis paused at the living room, trying to think if there was anything else to ask the old woman.
She had pulled the shade back down and turned on the television. She sat hunched on the couch, backlit by the muddy amber light, puffing on her Pall Mall. Her hair spiked out around her head and her face was hid in shadows.
“Mrs. Cronk,” Louis called. “Thank you for your cooperation.”
