Misery Bay

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I could see that Maven was dead on his feet, so I made him get in the truck. We left his car there in Jackie’s lot and headed west. It was just after nine o’clock. In the UP, in April, that means it’s already been dark for hours and it feels like the middle of the night.

“Haggerty’s got a place in Au Train,” Maven said as we left town. That was a good thirty miles this side of Marquette.

“Is he really expecting us?”

“He is, yes. But I don’t know much else. What kind of state of mind he’s in. He sounded pretty out of it.”

“He’s probably going crazy right now.”

“His daughter just-”

He stopped short. He couldn’t even say it. If the little fracas he had gotten into with Agent Fleury hadn’t removed any doubt, I wouldn’t want to be the man who ever threatened a hair on Olivia Maven’s head.

Maven put his head back and closed his eyes. If he really went all the way out to Misery Bay and then back again that same day… well, it was a hell of a day under any circumstances. Now it looked like it was going to go even longer, and this last part would probably be the worst of all.

“So what’s the plan?” I said. “What are we going to say to him?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his eyes still closed. “I guess we’ll figure that out when we get there.”

It was the same long, straight road stretching across the middle of nowhere, except now in the utter darkness with the wind blowing and all of the death on our minds it was anything but boring. I would have paid big money for boring at that point in my life.

By the time we reached the water again, it felt like dawn should be right around the corner, but it wasn’t even 10:30 yet. We had been on the road just over an hour. We drove through Munising, where every sane, normal person was locked up tight in a warm house. Then more empty road until we passed through the town of Christmas. The casino appeared on our left, all lit up in the snow, looking out of place and frankly ridiculous. There were enough cars in the lot to justify being open on a night like this. I could only shake my head in amazement as we drove by. The sudden light woke Maven and he sat up straight, shielding his eyes.

“Where are we?”

“Christmas. I assume you don’t want to stop and play some blackjack.”

“The day you find me gambling you can go ahead and shoot me.”

“I wasn’t actually suggesting-”

“Just don’t get me started on that,” he said. “Au Train’s what, just a couple miles ahead, right? Coleman said you gotta take a left at the main intersection and go south for a while.”

We hit the center of town and took the left at the blinking light. Maven told me to go down past the falls and then to look for one of those double-decker mailboxes. One at normal height, the other about eight feet in the air-when you see them downstate, the sign on the top mailbox usually says AIRMAIL. Up here it’s more likely to say WINTER DELIVERY. Either version stops being funny around the second or third time you see it, but in this case it was a welcome sign of life and humor and I don’t know, after driving in the dark it reminded me that there was a real human being who put up those mailboxes and probably thought they were hilarious at the time. Before his whole life got turned inside out.

As I turned down the driveway, I put my plow down. There was half a foot of snow on the ground and you could see some recent tire tracks.

“You said he already talked to the FBI. When, yesterday?”

“So I’m told,” Maven said. “That must be their tracks, huh? Probably didn’t have the sense to drive a real vehicle.”

As if on cue, the driveway turned and we saw the tracks going right off the road. There was a great mess where the snow and ground were churned up and I could imagine Agent Fleury trying to push the car from behind while Agent Long steered. So not a good time for anyone involved. It made me wonder what kind of mess they may have left inside, as well. Maybe Agent Fleury knew how to impersonate a human being when talking to a grieving father, but I wouldn’t have bet on it.

“Look at where this place is,” Maven said. “He’s totally isolated back here.”

It was true. His driveway was as long as my logging road, lined on both sides by trees heavy with snow. The headlights from the truck cast an eerie glow over everything and it was as though we were heading down some long tunnel lined with white, all the way down to the dark center of the earth.

Finally, as we came around one more bend we saw the house sitting in a small clearing. It was a good old-fashioned log cabin, obviously built by hand. Many long, loving hours spent right here in the woods, with nobody else in sight. A black Jeep Cherokee was parked by the cabin. The man was long retired by now so naturally he’d have the civilian vehicle and not a state car. I parked behind it and turned off the headlights.

As we got out of the truck the night itself seemed to throw a blanket of absolute quiet over our heads. There was what had to be a frozen pond behind the house, with lights mounted on wooden poles, probably for skating on the pond. But the lights were off tonight and the pond had not been cleared of snow.

We went up the three steps to the front porch and knocked on the front door. There weren’t many lights on inside the cabin. We stood there in the darkness, waiting for something to happen. It didn’t take long for me to start feeling sick to my stomach. I was pretty sure Maven felt exactly the same way.

“I swear to God,” he said, “if that poor son of a bitch is inside this cabin, lying dead on the floor…”

The possibility seemed more likely with each passing second. We’re too late, I thought. The man’s been murdered. Maybe just a few hours ago. Or even minutes. His blood might not even be cold yet.

Then the door opened. It happened quickly and it scared the hell out of me. We saw a man standing there in the doorway with just enough backlighting to form a black silhouette and nothing else.

“Lieutenant Haggerty?” Maven said. “We’re sorry to bother you, sir. But I spoke to you on the phone earlier this evening?”

The specter took a step forward. I was already expecting to see a man who had just lived through the worst two weeks of his life, but even so it was a jarring sight. He was unshaven, first of all, and his hair was uncombed. His clothes looked like they had been picked out at random. Baggy pants that might have been pajama bottoms or workout sweats or God knows what. An old cable-knit fisherman’s sweater with stretched-out sleeves. Brown corduroy slippers. Overall, the complete outfit of a homeless man, yet here he stood in the doorway of a cabin he may very well have built with his own hands.

But more than anything else, the man’s eyes-sunken, half-dead, with dark rings beneath them. If you had kidnapped this man and beaten him and starved him for two weeks straight, this is exactly what he would look like.

“Lieutenant,” Maven said again. “May we come inside?”

The man took two steps backward so we could pass. We were in the living room, but it was hard to make out exactly where we were going because it was as dark in here as the night itself. He walked past us, his footsteps strangely quiet on the wooden floor. As we followed him, we could finally see the one source of light in the entire house. It was a small lamp with a crooked shade and a lightbulb that couldn’t have been more than forty watts, sitting on a table at the far end of the kitchen. The man went to the table and sat down on one of the chairs. He put his hands together on the table and still did not speak a word. Maven and I stood there watching him for a moment. Then we went to the table and we each moved a pile of catalogs and newspapers from the other chairs and sat down across from him. There was a sour smell of old food and unwashed dishes coming from the sink.

There was a large window next to the table. It was so dark outside it might as well have been painted black. The wind blew and the window flexed, while the man let out a long ragged breath and kept staring at his hands.

This is the man who told Coleman he wants to talk to us, I thought. Who confirmed it himself when Maven called him. Yet now that we’re here, he doesn’t seem to want to say a single word.

“Lieutenant Haggerty,” I said.

“I’m not a lieutenant anymore.” His voice was somehow even more tired and more faraway than I would have imagined. “Call me Dean.”

“Dean,” I said. “I can’t tell you how sorry we are for your loss.”

He looked up at us, meeting our eyes for the first time.

“You sound like cops. That’s exactly what a cop would say.”

“I’m the Chief of Police in Sault Ste. Marie,” Maven said. “My name’s Roy.”

“I’ve heard about you. Everybody says you’re an asshole.” Like a simple statement of fact, deserving no apology for saying it. Or else he was beyond caring.

“I have my days,” Maven said, unshaken. “This is Alex. He was a police officer in Detroit.”

He looked at me and nodded.

“The FBI agents were here to talk to you,” Maven said. “Is that right?”

“Yes. They were here.”

“I don’t want to drag you through it again,” Maven said, “but what did they actually-”

“They said that you guys have some questions about my daughter’s… about what happened to her. They said they didn’t necessarily… what did they say? Subscribe to anything unusual themselves, but they had to follow up.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good way to put it,” Maven said, unable to hide his anger. I’m sure he was imagining Agent Fleury sitting right here in the same room, behaving exactly like himself. So much for impersonating a human being. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Feds are different,” the lieutenant said. “Always have been.”

Maven pursed his lips and nodded. He was rubbing his right fist with his left hand.

“If you don’t mind,” I said, “can we ask you a few questions?”

“As long as you tell me why you think there’s something suspicious about my daughter’s…”

That’s twice now, I thought. You come right up to it and you can’t say the words.

“Of course,” I said. “We’ll tell you everything we know.”

“Then go ahead. Ask me your questions. But then I want answers from you. That’s the only reason I wanted you to come here.”

“Your daughter…” I said. “What’s her name, anyway?”

“Dina. Her name is Dina.”

“I understand she, um…”

Here it is, I thought. The man’s still talking about her in the present tense, but I can’t do it. I have to say this the right way. The way it really is now.

“I understand she was a teacher at the college,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Was there any indication that she might have been depressed, or… I don’t know. Was there any sign at all of this happening?”

“Not that I know of. But she was twenty-seven years old. She lived in town, had her career at the college. I talked to her every week, but…” His words trailed off as he looked away.

“We’ve only heard in general terms that she may have…” I hesitated, then plowed ahead. “That she may have taken her own life. But we haven’t heard any details beyond that.”

“It was a suicide bag.”

Maven and I looked at each other.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what that means.”

“A suicide bag is supposedly a quick and painless way to kill yourself,” he said. “It’s a very simple device. All you need is a helium tank, the kind you can buy to fill up balloons. A rubber hose, a plastic bag, and some sort of strap or belt or something to tie it off with. You cut a small hole in the bag and you slip the hose through the hole. Then you put the bag over your head and secure it.”

He was still looking away as he said this, the words coming out in a rush and it made me remember that he had been a specialist at the crime lab in Marquette. It was the only lab in the Upper Peninsula, so that’s where any questions about poison or ballistics or anything else along those lines would inevitably be sent. He was on familiar ground now, even if it never hit so close to home before.

“You turn on the helium. Because it’s an inert gas, it helps suppress your suffocation reflex. Within seconds, you lose consciousness. Asphyxia will take place within minutes. Then you’re gone.”

It took me a few extra seconds to really absorb what he was telling us. There really was something called a “suicide bag.” And his daughter had apparently used it on herself. We’re sitting here in this dark house while this man is telling us in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice one of the most horrible things I’ve ever heard.

“How would she have even learned about this?” Maven finally said.

“I’m sure it’s out there on the Internet. I’ve heard of it once or twice, but I’ve never actually run into a case of…”

He stopped. He looked down and I thought he was about to lose it. But he didn’t cry. He didn’t make the slightest sound. Maybe he was all cried out at that point.

“Lieutenant,” I said, “why are you here all by yourself? Isn’t there somebody who can… be here with you?”

He wiped his nose and looked up at me.

“What, you mean like my family?”

“Yes.”

“My brother came right out,” he said. “The day after it happened. Then my sister came, with her son. Then two cousins who haven’t said a word to me in twenty years. They flew out all the way from California and rented a car and tried to drive out to the cabin and made it about one mile before they went into a ditch. They all invaded the house and tried to clean me up and make me eat and eventually they even tried to drag me out of here.”

“Don’t you think that would be a good idea? You shouldn’t be alone through this.”

He snorted at that and shook his head.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “Forgive me for saying so. You don’t get it at all.”

“Okay,” I said. I wasn’t about to fight him over it. “So… I’m sorry, if we can just go back one more time…”

“Lieutenant,” Maven said, “just a couple more questions, I promise.”

“Go right ahead. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Was there… a note by any chance?”

“No note. They just, uh… they found her in bed the next day, with the bag over her head, and her arms wrapped around the tank.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“A couple friends of hers. They had her key, for when she’d go away and they’d come in and water her plants. Stuff like that. She didn’t show up for classes, and she wasn’t answering her phone, so…”

I didn’t want to picture it, but I couldn’t keep the image out of my head. A woman alone in her bed, hugging a tank of helium like a lover.

But now it’s going to get even worse, I thought. Here’s the really hard part…

“A device like this,” I said, “is it possible to use this on someone against their will?”

He didn’t answer that for a while. I thought I saw his hands starting to tremble.

“Yes, I believe that would be possible,” he said. “But then there’d probably be some sign of a struggle.”

“What if you were asleep?” Maven said.

“That’s possible, yes. The suffocation reflex would still have to be suppressed, even if you’re asleep. But again, if the inert gas could do that…”

Once again, I didn’t want to picture it. But I saw a man standing in her bedroom, looking down at her as she slept. He has a tank of helium, a hose, a plastic bag, a strap. He’s probably wearing surgical gloves. If he’s gone this far, he probably knows not to leave fingerprints.

“This is why I called you,” Haggerty said, looking back and forth between us. “I had to hear from you in person. You actually believe that my daughter might have been murdered.”

“We’re asking you to consider that possibility, yes.”

“The possibility that somebody broke into Dina’s apartment and killed her in her bed. That’s the possibility you’re asking me to consider. This is why the FBI agents came to talk to me.”

“Did they ask you about your old partner?”

“Donald Steele, yes. I hadn’t seen him in a while, but I heard about his son shooting himself behind the barn. Then just a few days ago, he ended up being murdered at his girlfriend’s house, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“That part wasn’t a huge surprise, if I’m being honest with you. He always had a wandering eye. But I understand the girlfriend was killed, too. And they suspect her husband.”

“They suspect him,” Maven said, “but they haven’t found him yet. So nobody knows for sure.”

“Your idea is that somehow these deaths were all connected?”

“I know this was a number of years ago,” Maven said, “but back when you were at St. Ignace with Sergeant Steele, did you ever happen to run into another state cop named Charles Razniewski?”

“The agents asked me the same question,” he said, “but I don’t remember that name at all. How long was he on the force?”

“Just short of two years. Are you sure you never ran into him? Big blond guy? Most people just called him Raz. He was stationed down at the Lansing post.”

“That’s a long way from St. Ignace. No, I honestly don’t remember him at all. Actually, I do remember your name from back then, now that I think of it.”

“I was down there, too. I was a sergeant.”

“Yeah, I must have seen your name somewhere,” he said. “I mean, before you came up here to take the Soo job. I don’t think we ever ran into each other on the job, did we?”

Maven shook his head. “No, I don’t believe so. I hardly ever got this far north, and I don’t imagine you came down to Lansing all that often.”

“Not if I could help it.”

“I was hoping you could give us something that would tie the three of you together.”

“I’ve got nothing,” the lieutenant said. “If you really think there’s some connection…”

“If there is,” I said, “you may be in danger. The pattern would suggest that you’re next on the list.”

He didn’t answer.

“I’m sorry to have to put it that way,” I said, “but that’s the cold hard reality. I’m just glad we got here before anything happened to you.”

“You still don’t get it.” He shook his head and he was almost smiling.

“What do you mean?”

“Look at me. What do you see?”

“A man who has suffered a great loss,” I said.

“Nice try. I appreciate the thought, but no. What you’re actually looking at, gentleman, is a dead man.”

“Lieutenant…”

“I’m still breathing,” he said. “My heart is still beating. But those are just illusions. I know all about death, believe me. I faced it every day when I was in the lab. I studied it inside and out. I know a dead man when I see one, and that’s me.”

“You have to let us help you,” Maven said. “It’s natural to think that you don’t-”

“No, don’t even start. When you lose the only person who makes you get out of bed in the morning, you can come back and talk to me, okay? But for now? You say this guy, whoever he is, he’s still out there? He’s gonna come for me next? Is that what you’re saying?”

“If we’re right,” Maven said, “then yes. It’ll be soon.”

“Perfect.” He stood up, showing more energy than he had at any point in our conversation. Hell, probably more energy than he’d had in the last two weeks. “Let him come, I say. I’ll be right here waiting for him.”

“Whoever this guy is,” I said, “he’s a cold-blooded killer.”

“You still don’t get it!” He slapped his hand down on the table, as loud as a gunshot. Then he regained his composure as quickly as he lost it.

“He can’t touch me. Don’t you understand? He’s already killed me once. He can’t do it again. In fact…”

He sat back down in his chair.

“I hope he gets here soon,” he said. “The sooner the better. I don’t have a helium tank, and I don’t feel like going out and buying one.”

“Lieutenant Haggerty,” Maven said, “you need to listen to us.”

“Where do you even buy a helium tank, anyway? At a party store? When’s the last time I filled up balloons with helium? Dina’s birthday party. Sweet Sixteen. Eleven years ago.”

“Lieutenant Haggerty…”

“Sweet Sixteen. Never been kissed.”

“Please,” I said, putting one hand on his shoulder. “You have to let us help you.”

“Get out.” He didn’t look at us. “Get out right now, please. I don’t imagine he’ll come if you’re here.”

“We’re not leaving.”

“Yes, you are. You’re leaving right now. You’re no longer welcome in my house.”

“Then you’re coming with us.”

“No. No, I’m not. And don’t try to send anybody else over here, either. Do you hear me? No matter who it is. Cops, troopers, even asshole FBI agents-I will not let anybody else take one single step onto this property. If this person is really out there, then it’s just him and me now. Just him and me.”

“You were a cop for a long time,” I said, playing my last card. “You know you can’t face him alone. The only thing you can do is work with everyone else to catch him, so he can pay for what he did to your daughter. Don’t you want that to happen?”

He closed his eyes. He didn’t say a word.

Maven and I stood there. Minutes passed. The wind blew and rattled the window and we both seemed to come to the same conclusion without exchanging a word. As we left the room, I took one more look over my shoulder. He stayed in the chair, not moving a muscle, his eyes still closed. Waiting.

“Where are we going?” Maven said.

The headlights swept across the snow-covered trees. As we left Haggerty’s driveway, I pointed the truck north, back to the main road.

“I figure the Marquette post,” I said. “No matter what the lieutenant says.”

“Makes sense. They know him there. We can get somebody out here to watch over him.”

We drove back into Au Train and I made the left turn. We were heading west, along the lake. We’d be in Marquette in half an hour.

“This is what he wants,” Maven said. “We just saw it with our own eyes.”

“What do you mean?”

“The man who’s doing this. Whoever he is. This is what he wants to do to these men, before he kills them. He wants them to suffer.”

I couldn’t argue. I knew he was right.

“If this does go back to something that happened on the police force…” I said. “Even if there is a connection and we don’t see it yet, I still don’t get it. What could three cops do that would make somebody come after them, and their families, all these years later?”

“I don’t know.”

“Raz never killed anyone on the job, did he?”

“I’m pretty sure he never took his gun out of the holster, no. I know I never did myself.”

“Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to ask you something else. About what Agent Fleury said to you.”

He fidgeted in his seat, but otherwise kept his cool. “Yes?”

“We don’t know for a fact that you’re connected to this. But if you are…”

“I called Olivia. I told her to make arrangements to stay in Europe for a while. Just to be safe. Until we know for sure she won’t be in any danger.”

“Okay,” I said. “That’s probably a good idea.”

I kept driving. It was after midnight now. There wouldn’t be many state police officers on duty at the Marquette post, but somebody would be there. Somebody would be able to watch over Lieutenant Haggerty, if we explained the situation carefully enough.

“They can’t watch him forever,” Maven said, as if reading my mind. “They’ll send a man out tonight. Then tomorrow night. But who knows how long?”

“We don’t even know if Haggerty will be his next target. If you think about it, he’s been mixing it up so far. The suicides and the outright murders.”

“You’re right,” Maven said. “It could be another cop’s kid. Somebody we don’t even know about yet. Who knows how far this goes?”

“So I guess there’s only one way to do this.”

“Yes,” he said, looking straight out the window, into the cold heart of the night. “We have to find this guy and stop him.”

And we’re rolling…

… Big scene. Everybody, we gotta nail this one.

… Cue the fire. Get it going.

… Come on, I said fire! Let’s go big here! We’re not roasting marshmallows.

… There you go. Boom, right out the window. Look at that smoke. Now we’re talking.

… Must be hot in there, eh? Oh, man. Talk about one well-done Monster.

… Fire engines, do your thing. That’s right, get in there. Everybody’s doing great.

… Keep on that fire. Keep going. We’ll use all of this, I promise you.

… That’s a wrap for the Monster! His last scene, give him a hand.

And cut.