Sault Ste. Marie is even smaller than Thunder Bay. The airport was a hangar and a hut, both very weather-beaten. A few private planes, Cessnas and the like, stood at the edge of the field. I didn’t see anything that looked like a commercial plane. I didn’t even see any people. Finally, after ten minutes of walking around, peering in corners, I found a man lying on his back under a tiny plane.

He slid out reluctantly in response to my shouts.

“I’m looking for the plane to Chicago.”

He wiped a greasy hand across an already grimy face. “No planes to Chicago here. Just a few private planes use this place.”

“I just called. I just made a reservation.”

He shook his head. “Commercial airport’s twenty miles down the interstate. You’d better get down there.”

My shoulders sagged. I didn’t know where to find the energy to go another twenty miles. I sighed. “You have a phone I could use to call a cab?”

He gestured toward the far end of the dusty building and turned to crawl back under the plane.

A thought occurred to me. “Martin Bledsoe keep his plane here or down at the other place?”

The man glanced back up at me. “It was here. Cappy flew it out about twenty minutes ago.”

“Cappy?”

“His pilot. Some guy came along, said Bledsoe wanted Cappy to fly him to Chicago.”

I was too tired to feel anything—surprise, shock, anger—my emotions were pushed somewhere far away. “Guy have bright red hair? Scar on the left side of his face?”

The mechanic shrugged. “Don’t know about the scar. He had red hair all right.” Cappy was expecting the guy—Bledsoe had phoned and told him the night before. All the mechanic knew was he’d given Cappy a course to Chicago. Weather still looked clear across Lake Michigan. They should make it in by six or so. He crawled back under the plane.

I staggered across the floor and found a phone, an old black clunker in the style GTE is ashamed to sell nowadays. The cab company agreed to send someone out to meet me.

I crouched on the sidewalk in front of the hanger while I waited, too weary to stand, fighting sleep. I wondered dreamily what I’d do if the taxi couldn’t get me to the other airport on time.

I had a long wait. The cab’s honking horn aroused me from a doze and I got stiffly to my feet. I fell asleep again on the drive south. We made it to the Chippewa County International Airport with ten minutes to spare. Another tiny terminal, where a friendly fat man sold me a ticket and helped me and two other passengers board the propeller plane.