up in front of St. Clair Salvage. A quick visual survey showed that Nevada Hornsby’s business was made up of three parts: the factory, the office, and probably out back, the boat.
I got out of the Taurus and walked over to what I assumed was the factory or the main shop area. It was a relatively narrow, but long, aluminum shed. I peeked in the windows and saw power equipment inside, as well as stacked logs. There were giant fans on each side of the long room, I imagined for sucking sawdust out of the building and blowing it into the air like one long, constant sneeze.
I walked over to the office area, which looked even less impressive. It was a weather beaten structure made of old wood – appropriate, at least – with a cedar shake roof, dirty windows, and a beat-up door. You could pay top dollar at Pottery Barn for that distressed wood look. But here, you just wanted to slap a coat of paint on it.
The door rattled under my knock but when I listened for an answer, all I heard was the howling of the wind off the lake.
The soot on the windows smeared under my rubbing, but soon I’d cleared a space small enough for a glimpse into the place. It looked pretty much vacant. A couple chairs here and there, some cardboard boxes and pieces of wood. There was a doorway that led somewhere, but I couldn’t see far enough. Maybe the real office was back there.
I walked around to the rear of the building and saw a long pier that branched off into a T. At the end I saw perhaps the ugliest boat of my life. It was a rusty tub, maybe thirty or forty feet long, with an enclosed cabin and a thin stream of black smoke coming out the back.
Two men were on the pier, untying the thick ropes and preparing to cast off.
I jogged over, jumped onto the dock and hustled down to the end of the pier. Looking at the water on either side of me, I saw that it was dark brown. Not exactly snorkeling territory here.
I got the attention of one of the men, a reddish-haired guy with a red flannel shirt, jeans, and a wad of chewing tobacco that distended the entire right side of his face.
“Nevada Hornsby?” I asked.
He motioned with his thumb toward the cabin of the boat. It was like a little cubicle that someone had placed in the middle of the boat. It had a little door, and little windows that were black with grime.
In the back of the boat was a giant hook and pulley system, I assumed to help haul logs out of the lake. There was other equipment scattered around the deck: blocks and pulleys, hooks, big, odd-shaped pieces of steel. Most of it looked entirely unfamiliar to me. Then again, I majored in criminology, not mechanical engineering.
The man to whom I’d spoken made no move to get Hornsby for me, but merely went to a different part of the ship and began fiddling with some levers.
I hesitated. The water next to the dock looked cold and unforgiving. I thought briefly of my car, still warm from the heater, a stainless steel coffee mug still half full nestled in the driver’s side cupholder.
Life is full of tough decisions.
I jumped on board.
I made my way across the deck and peeked inside the ship’s cabin. Nevada Hornsby sat at the small Formica table that jutted out from the side of the cabin’s wall.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a thick black sweater, blue jeans, and black boots. His thick, dark hair and beard were neat and smooth, the only sign of age and a hard life were the wrinkles around his eyes.
There was a knife in his hand, a long, crude thing that he was using to cut an apple. He looked up at me, the deep blue of his eyes seeming to leap from the weathered face and dark hair.
“Nevada Hornsby?” I asked.
He looked me up and down, and the look in his eye wasn’t flattering. He seemed to contemplate the knife in hand for a moment. I got the feeling the knife had gutted a lot of fish and that it could do the job on a private investigator just fine. But his expression didn’t come across as anger or violence. It seemed more like…weariness.
“My name is John Rockne,” I said. “I’m a private investigator. I’d like