Die a Stranger by Steve Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page B

house and there was a beat-up old car in the driveway and an all-terrain vehicle parked in the grass, but when I knocked on the door there was no answer. That’s when I noticed the steam coming from the sweat lodge. I walked around to the entrance. Buck had taken branches and formed them into a semicircle, then he’d taken every old blanket and towel he could find on the entire reservation and stacked them all over the top. There was a small fire pit inside and when he poured water over the hot stones the entire room would fill up with steam. I’d been in it more than once myself, and I knew Vinnie had done his sweat sometime this past week. Sitting in there while Buck put the healing medicines on the stones and feeling the steam fill up his lungs.
    It didn’t sound like a lot of fun in the summertime, but when you need your sweat, you need your sweat.
    I didn’t want to interrupt anything, but I figured I could be forgiven. I found the one big blanket that served as the doorway and peeked inside. I let in just enough light to see that the lodge was empty, and that the fire was low. Buck was just getting started or just finishing, but either way he wasn’t here at the moment. So I decided I’d come back later. Right now, it was time to go see Vinnie’s sisters again.
    Mary LeBlanc Teeple was the older of the two. A little more fair-haired and less classically Indian, and maybe a little quicker to smile at people. Not that it mattered much to me. I knew she didn’t like me that much and she didn’t try real hard to hide it. Never mind that I’d done a few things over the years for her whole family. She seemed to have a short memory when it came to that.
    I’d already been there once the day before, of course. Back when I said I was just wondering if Vinnie happened to be around for some lunch. Now I had to go back and tell her I hadn’t seen the man for a day and a half, and that he had missed his first shift back at work. Which was about as un-Vinnie-like as you could imagine.
    “I don’t want to alarm you,” I said to her, knowing even as I said it that it’s probably the most alarming thing you could ever hear. “I haven’t seen Vinnie since a couple of days ago, and I’m just trying to make sure he’s okay. Wherever he is.”
    “You didn’t say anything about that yesterday.”
    “Well, no. Because that was yesterday. He didn’t come back home last night, so I started to get a little worried.”
    “Did you check the casino?”
    “Yes, I did. He was supposed to be at work yesterday. His first day back.”
    “You didn’t mention that, either.”
    “I know, I know. I just didn’t want to—” I came to a full stop, amazed at how badly I had done with this in just a matter of seconds. “Look, I know he’s had a tough week. You all have. He probably shouldn’t have gone back to work so soon in the first place.”
    “I agree,” she said. “If he lived here, I never would have let him try.”
    We were still standing there in the doorway. The kids ran into the house, slipping past us like we were just a pair of obstacles in their great summer game. Mary didn’t even look down at them.
    “Look,” I said, “as long as we’re beating up on me, I might as well tell you something else: Vinnie had a lot to drink the other night.”
    “My brother doesn’t drink.”
    “Yeah, I know. Except maybe when his mother dies.”
    I stopped myself again.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I mean your mother. I know it’s been—”
    “So you took him out drinking.”
    “No, I didn’t. It was his decision. I just kept him company. I was looking after him.”
    “Were you drinking with him?”
    I hesitated, resisting the urge to say something completely out of line and downright sexist, that her question was the kind of thing only a woman would ask.
    “Yes,” I said. “A little bit. Like I said, I was keeping him company.”
    “You were keeping him company and drinking with him. And now he’s