“What’s in here?” I said. There were glass cases running along the wall, beneath the maps.
He turned the light back up. “Some artifacts,” he said. “I’m a collector.”
There were some shipwreck artifacts in one glass case-a small brass bell, a metal comb, a mug made of pewter. In another case were what seemed to be Indian artifacts-an arrowhead, a wooden paddle that had practically disintegrated, a small metal bowl that was probably some sort of smudge pot. Everything had that particular reddish gray tint around the edges, the kind of wear you see when something’s been left in fresh water for a very long time.
“How’d you get all this stuff?” I said. “I thought the salvage laws were pretty strict.”
“On the Michigan side they are. Not so much on the Canadian side. What can I say, divers pick things up, sell them to people, who sell them to other people. If I end up buying something, it comes right up here to this room and stays here. My wife thinks it’s kinda hinky, but I tell her, hey, when I die, every single one of these things goes to the museum. Either the Shipwreck Museum out on Whitefish Point, or the Indian museum at the community college.”
It still didn’t sound quite right to me, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. I just nodded my head at him and hoped the poker game would be starting soon. If he was going to start offering me expensive whiskey like Jackie said, it was about time.
When we finally made it back down to the poker table, Gill LaMarche was sitting in his spot, calmly counting out chips. “Look who showed up,” Vargas said. “You missed the tour.”
“Been there, done that,” he said. “Bought the T-shirt.” Gill was a member of the Sault tribe, and lived here in town, right next to the Kewadin Casino. Like most Ojibwa in Michigan, especially the Sault members who had less restrictive blood lines than the other tribes, you didn’t think “Indian” the first time you saw him. If you knew what to look for-a little fullness around the cheekbones, a slow and careful way about the eyes-you could just make it out.