Misery Bay (21 page)

Once you’ve got them stopped, you get out of your car and approach the driver’s side window, your right hand ready above your firearm, just in case. You do a quick visual on the backseat. If there’s anybody back there acting squirrely, trying to hide something or worse yet, trying to dig out something from under the seat. You watch the driver carefully. You look in the glove compartment when he opens it, the whole time waiting to see that familiar sight of cold blue steel. A hundred different things to process at once and a fraction of a second to react.

That’s what a good trooper does. That’s what Steele and Haggerty did, again and again, to the point that they developed a reputation for apprehending so many high-profile offenders. The agents went through their official daily logs, one day at a time, finally settling into a rhythm—Agent Fleury with Haggerty’s logs, Agent Long with Steele’s. They looked for the “A” entries and occasional “F” entries,
A
standing for Arrest and
F
for Fugitive. They passed over all of the “S” for Summons entries, the “V/W” for Verbal Warning entries, and all of the other minor incidents that filled out a state police officer’s day. It was amazing to me just how detailed these logs were.

Each arrest had a file class number associated with it, and we ended up seeing some of the same file classes again and again, after, 8041 for driving under the influence of alcohol, 2408 for possession of a stolen vehicle, 5202 for a concealed weapon. Maven had to step out to clarify two or three obscure file classes with the guys in the office, but for the most part it all went by in a blur.

It was just raw data, that was the problem—date, time, file class, name of the arrested party, driver’s license number, place of residence, date of birth—there was no room for pictures or for stories. By the end of a long, long afternoon, after we’d gone over hundreds of arrests involving both Donald Steele and Dean Haggerty, not one of those arrests could be cross-referenced to Charles Razniewski’s daily logs. Or Roy Maven’s either.

No, it would not be that easy.

*   *   *

When the post commander finally showed up, he invaded the room and we had to go through a minute or two of rooster strutting until Agent Long finally sat everybody down and tried to make them play nice. I couldn’t help wondering how many times she’d done this same routine before, and whether she ever got fed up with men wearing shiny badges. In the end, we all agreed that the Michigan State Police should be made aware of what the FBI was doing, and that the St. Ignace branch in particular could be a big help. There might have been a few old-timers left down there, after all, who might have memories of Steele and Haggerty and hell, why not? Maybe even a particular suspect who vowed revenge someday. We’d never know if somebody didn’t ask.

“You see,” Maven said to me when we were finally outside, “that’s the problem I keep coming back to. Let’s say somebody did get arrested all those years ago and what, he went to prison? He did his time and now he’s out? If he’s still got a beef, why would it be the cops he goes after? If he went to trial, it was the district attorney who stood up and pointed his finger at him, and told the judge he should be put away. Then of course it was the judge who actually banged his gavel and sentenced him. Why do you think Raz spent so much of his time guarding federal judges, anyway? They’re the real targets. Not the poor schlubs just doing their jobs who happened to catch you.”

“Still, you might have to testify,” I said. “You could still be the one person who makes it all happen. At least, it might feel that way if you’re looking at prison time. In fact, we should mention that angle to the agents, have them check the court records.”

“I don’t know, McKnight.” He sounded more tired than ever. “I was hoping I could help find the connection today, but it was like a total waste of time.”

“They’ll move on to that second time period now, after Raz became a marshal. If there’s something to be found, they’ll find it. I know Agent Fleury tries to talk a big game sometimes, but I think they’re both pretty sharp.”

He shook his head and turned his collar up against the wind. There was no good reason for both of us to be standing out there. Maven wasn’t even smoking a cigarette.

“You look like hell,” I said. “You should go home and get some rest.”

“I went back out there.”

“Where?”

“To Haggerty’s house. I just had to check on him.”

I counted to three in my head.

“You promised me you wouldn’t go off on your own again,” I said. “What happened?”

“There was a state car on the road, by his driveway. I rapped on the guy’s window and just about gave him a heart attack. Then I asked him why he wasn’t in the house with Haggerty. You know what he said?”

“What?”

“He said Haggerty kicked him out and told him to stay off his property. That’s why he had to sit on the road.”

“He’s still waiting,” I said. “He doesn’t want anybody else there to keep the killer away.”

We both stood there shivering for a while, thinking this over. There wasn’t much else to say about it.

“So what now?” I finally said.

“When we were talking about letting the guys at St. Ignace know about this, you know what occurred to me?”

“What?”

“All the time I’ve been a cop here in the Soo, I’ve never once set foot in the St. Ignace post.”

“It’s in a different county,” I said. “Why would you ever have business down there?”

“I wouldn’t. That’s just it. The only time I might have gone there was back in the day, when I was a state cop with Raz and I happened to come up here for something.”

“Something you can’t remember.”

“Right,” he said. “But what if…”

I waited for him to finish.

“Come on,” he said. “It’s not that far away. Let’s go see if I’m crazy.”

*   *   *

Sault Ste. Marie to St. Ignace. From the top of the eastern UP to the bottom. Not even an hour away, straight down I-75. It’s the busiest road in the state, the main artery running up from Detroit, all the way into Canada, so it’s always the first to be cleared. Plus the speed limit is seventy, so I’ll routinely buzz it between 85 and 90, even in wintertime.

It was early evening. I could have been having Jackie’s famous beef stew, I thought, along with the first of several cold Canadians. Sitting by the fire with my feet up. Yet I was here with Chief Maven again, and I wanted to see how this played out.

It didn’t take long to find the state police post in St. Ignace. It’s not a big town—just a few streets with some shops and gas stations and restaurants, and the docks for the ferries that run back and forth to Mackinac Island. When the ice finally melts, anyway.

The state police post was right there on the edge of the water, overlooking the Mackinac Bridge. We pulled up to the building. It was getting dark now, and here where the two peninsulas came together there was a narrow strait where Lake Michigan flowed into Lake Huron. Cars have been blown off the bridge before. It’s not an urban legend. It really happened. The wind wasn’t strong enough to flip cars that day but still, we could feel it rocking the truck and we both knew that we’d be suffering as soon as we stepped outside.

I took a deep breath and opened the door. The wind tried to slam it shut so I had to wedge my way through and then I was out in the open air, moving as quickly as I could to the front door. Maven was right behind me. A hundred feet of hell. When we were safely inside, we stomped off our boots and rubbed away the numbness from our ears.

“Remind me again why we live up here year-round,” he said.

“Because we’re idiots?”

There was another set of doors, to help keep out the elements. When we went through those we were in the main lobby. To me it was like any other police lobby, with the semi-comfortable furniture and the brain-numbing fluorescent lights. There was the standard waist-high barrier keeping everyone safely corralled outside the main offices, with the one narrow gate leading right past the main desk, where a trooper was sitting. The trooper didn’t look more than twenty years old.

“Can I help you guys?”

Maven didn’t answer him. He kept looking around the room.

“Got a question for you, Trooper,” Maven finally said, without looking at him. “Have they redone this place in the past few years?”

“Redone it?”

“Yeah, you know. Redecorated? Made it look different?”

“Oh, sure,” the trooper said. “There was a big contest. The best interior designers from all over the world submitted their plans.”

Maven locked eyes on him.

“What, are you some kind of joker?”

“Just tell me what’s going on, okay?”

Then the young trooper did a double take.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “You’re Chief Maven from Sault Ste. Marie, right?”

“Have we met before?”

“I don’t believe so. But I’ve seen your picture in the paper.”

“That’s great,” Maven said, “but here’s the thing, I was a state man, back when you were in diapers. I’m trying to figure out if I’ve ever been here before. Hence the question. You want to give me the real answer now?”

“I honestly don’t know,” the trooper said. “I’m kinda new here.”

“Any old-timers around?”

“Sergeant Avery is here. He’s forty-five.”

“For God’s sake,” Maven said. “Just let me look around the place, all right?”

Maven went past the desk, down the hallway. I followed him.

“What do you think?” I asked him.

He was lost in thought, going back so many years, trying to remember if he had once walked down this same hallway as a younger man. Being this far north, for whatever reason, with his partner Razniewski. Steele and Haggerty in the building, as well. If he could start with that memory, everything else might come back to him. It had seemed like a crazy idea on the way down here, but now that he was here … yeah, it made sense. Or at least it was exactly the kind of thing I’d do myself.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “It’s a police station, you know? How different can it look from every other one?”

“The agents were going to call down here, remember? With everybody working on it,
somebody’s
gonna remember something.”

“It’s too many years, McKnight. Nobody will remember.”

“Come on, let’s go.”

“Gimme a second.” He pushed open the door to the men’s room and stepped inside. I figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea, with another hour to go before we were back home. So I pushed open the same door and stepped up to the urinal next to him.

He was looking up at the ceiling.

“Look how high that is, McKnight.”

I looked up. He was right. The ceiling was a good twenty feet above us, with a wide oblong skylight obscured by the snow. What a strange anomaly in a bathroom where everything else was pretty much standard issue, from the gray tile on the walls to the white porcelain sinks to the automated paper towel dispensers.

“I stood right here,” he said. “Raz stood next to me. Right where you’re standing now.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

He stepped away, washed his hands, and took a paper towel from the dispenser.

“It really did happen, McKnight. Whatever it was, it must have happened right here in St. Ignace.”

He wadded up the towel and held it tight in his fist.

“So what the hell happened here? Why can’t I remember?”

And we’re rolling …

… I think we have just enough light for this.

… Yes, with the lake in the background there. That ambient glow should work just fine.

… Okay, now cue the rope. Pull on that thing!

… Get him up there. That’s it. A little higher.

… Oh yeah. Now that’s a shot. Let’s do a walk-around here. That’s it.

… Close on the face. A few snowflakes. Perfect.

… Way to start things off, Charlie. That was wonderful. I’m crying, that was so beautiful.

… Now where’s that snowmobile? It’s cold out here!

And cut.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It was after ten o’clock at night when we got back to the Soo. I dropped Maven off at the state post so he could pick up his car. He told me he’d be going over to the Ojibway to find the agents before they went to bed. He had to tell them this one small thing he had figured out, this glimpse into the past. No matter how late it was, he would not be able to sleep until he told them.

I wasn’t sure if he’d tell them the exact spot he was standing when he had his little epiphany. But what the hell, maybe he would.