I looked over at him. “So it really wasn’t about you sticking around to help me.”

“No,” he said. “I told you that.”

“Okay, okay. So you let Tom go. Why did he have to pretend to be you?”

Vinnie didn’t say anything. He watched the trees go by.

“Oh, wait a minute,” I said. “Don’t tell me.”

“It would have violated his parole.”

I just about drove into the lake right there. “Oh, that’s beautiful,” I said. “This is getting better by the minute.”

“He’s not supposed to leave the country.”

“Yeah, no kidding. When they’ve already caught you bringing a twenty-pound bag over the bridge, they kinda like you to stay off it for a while.”

He looked at me, and then back out the window. “I know it doesn’t look like such a good idea right now,” he said. “The rest of my family sure doesn’t think so.”

Lakeshore Road took us away from the bay, onto the Bay Mills Reservation. If there wasn’t a sign there to tell you, you wouldn’t even know you were on Indian land. It looked just like any other middle-class housing development. There were raised ranches on either side of the road, with well-kept lawns dying off in the cold weather. The road to Mission Hill, with the old burial ground at the top, would have been the first clue that you were in a different kind of place. Then, of course, there were the two casinos-the little King’s Club, the first Indian casino in the state, and then the bigger Bay Mills Casino, with its great cedar walls rising against the backdrop of Waishkey Bay.

“So he was due back when?” I said as I turned off the main road. “A couple of days ago?”

“Yeah, they should have dropped him off on their way back.”

“Do you have this guy’s phone number?”

“Tom left me Albright’s cell phone number. I’ve left a couple of messages, but haven’t heard back yet.”

“So maybe he hasn’t gotten them yet,” I said. “Maybe they’re just still up there.”