Misery Bay

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I crossed the bridge over the canal, which was really just the western arm of Portage Lake, thinking this was probably not the lake I’d be looking for. Even if you had a cottage on the other shore, you’d say it was “across the lake” or something like that. You wouldn’t say it was “up on a lake.”

I went up through Ripley and Dollar Bay, each town asleep now in the dead middle of the night. Not long after that, I started to see the dark water of Torch Lake to my right. It was the biggest lake on my list, and from the looks of the map it was completely surrounded by paved roads. It probably had more cottages on it than all the other Keweenaw lakes combined, but here again I started thinking that this wouldn’t be the lake I was looking for. It was attached to Portage Lake, after all, and really still part of the greater Houghton-Hancock area. If you happened to have a cottage there, I still didn’t think you’d say “up on a lake.” It just didn’t feel “up” enough. So I kept going, passing driveway after driveway, and eventually starting to regret my decision to skip all of them. It’s a pretty damned long lake, I told myself. You’ve been driving a while and it’s starting to feel kind of “up” now.

I stayed with my original call. If I had started going down every driveway here, I would have never made it past this lake. So when I got to the top of it, I swung east and headed down the county road toward Rice Lake. The map showed it surrounded by maybe three or four miles of access road. When I got to it, I started nosing my way down each driveway until my headlights lit up the cottage and whatever vehicles might be nearby. It would have been a hell of a lot easier in the daytime, or even in the middle of winter when I’d be able to see which driveways had been plowed or driven down recently. In late April, with the snow mostly gone, it was a ridiculously slow process. Still, I kept imagining Bergman in one of these cottages, not even twenty-four hours gone by since the attack on Olivia Maven. And Sean Wiley on his way up here to find him, with a fair chance he knew exactly where to go.

Another driveway, another cottage. Most of them still closed up for the winter so I had that going for me, at least. A closed-up cottage meaning no vehicle most of the time. Although whenever I saw a garage, my heart sank, because that meant there was no way to know for sure unless I drove all the way down, got out of the truck, and peeked inside.

It was 1:30 in the morning now. I was starting to lose steam. I kept telling myself one more driveway, one more driveway. This next one could be it.

When I’d circled Rice Lake, I dropped down to Mud Lake. It was tiny and only a mile away, with a handful of cottages on the northern shore. I ran through those in a matter of minutes. Then I doubled back up through Calumet and left Houghton County. I was in Keweenaw County now, the end of the line, the only piece of land left, surrounded on three sides by Lake Superior. I started wondering where Agent Long was, whether she was close or still an hour away. But when I looked at my cell phone there was absolutely no signal at all.

It was two in the morning when I turned onto the long road to Lake Gratiot. I knew the lakeshores would be less and less populated now, which meant fewer cottages to check but more distance to drive between them. One thing I knew for sure-if you owned a cottage on one of these lakes, it was definitely up on a lake.

The cottages on Lake Gratiot were concentrated on the western shoreline, but I had to keep driving down separate access roads to get to them. I was halfway through the lake when I pulled down a driveway and saw an old black Subaru parked right next to a small cottage.

This is the one, I thought. As I got out and walked slowly down the rest of the driveway, it occurred to me that I had come this far with no good idea about what I’d actually do when I found the place. Another typical genius move on my part.

The car was unlocked, of course, because who locks a car at a cottage on a remote lake in the Upper Peninsula? It’s not like somebody’s going to drive up and break into it, even though that’s exactly what I was thinking I’d need to do. It was either that or go look in the windows. I figured if it was me sleeping away in my cottage, I’d prefer the first choice over the second.

I opened up the passenger’s side door and hit the button for the glove compartment. I found the registration and held it up to read the name in the interior light. Here’s where the owner could come out shooting, I thought, if he happened to be going to the bathroom in the middle of the night and noticed the light coming from his car.

The car was registered to someone named Patricia Curry. I put the registration back in the glove compartment, closed the door, got back in my truck, and then got the hell out of there.

I kept working my way through the rest of the cottages on that lake, and when I was done it was going on three o’clock in the morning. The little voice in my head saying just one more, just one more had apparently gone to bed, so I stopped there on the side of that little road in the middle of absolute nothingness and I put my head down on the steering wheel. Just a few minutes to rest my eyes, I thought.

Then from out of nowhere a horrible insight came to me and I was jolted awake.

I flashed back to that day in the apartment, talking to Rebecca and Wayne and Bradley and RJ. All of us sitting there at the end of the night, drinking beer and thinking about Charlie. Rebecca asked me if she could talk to Charlie’s father, and I told her that he was staying at his old friend’s house in Sault Ste. Marie. She didn’t end up calling him, but at that point I’d already given all of them the information. Charles Razniewski Sr. wasn’t in Detroit, surrounded by fellow U.S. marshals, he was right across the UP, in a normal house in a normal neighborhood. If you could guess who his old friend was-which you obviously could if you already knew so much about his history-then you could find out exactly where that house was. You could go out to Sault Ste. Marie the very next day, when you knew that he’d probably be alone. If you went early enough, you could beat me there with hours to spare.

I sat there gripping the steering wheel and trying to find a hole in my logic, but I couldn’t. I was the one who made it so easy for RJ to go to Sault Ste. Marie and to find Razniewski all alone in that house. I’m the one who made it happen.

Then the second insight, almost as bad as the first. RJ could have gone right to the door and said, “Hey, I’m Charlie’s apartment-mate. Maybe he mentioned me? So sorry about what happened. Can I come in and talk to you about Charlie?” He could have sat down with him at the kitchen table, put the man at ease. When the knife finally came out, Raz never would have seen it coming.

I pounded the steering wheel until my hand went numb. Then I put the truck back into gear and drove to the next lake.

There were two more interior lakes just to the east. The tiny Deer Lake and then the much larger Lac La Belle. On the map, the roads leading to them were nameless and so thin I could hardly trace their routes in the dim light of my truck’s interior. I made my way on whatever road I could find leading through the trees, guessing my way here and there and just trying to stay pointed east. I eventually found Deer Lake, with one single access road that led down to a boat launch. I didn’t see any cottages at all.

I cut back to Lac La Belle. It was after three in the morning now, and I worked my way around the lake-it was probably eight miles or so, but it might have been eighty or eight hundred. I nosed down every driveway, painting every cottage with a double beam of light. Back out and go to the next, do it all over again. Keep going, keep going.

It was after four in the morning when I finished that lake. I had come up empty. As I drove back to the main road, I saw a police car flash by at high speed. I thought it might be a Michigan State Police car, but I was honestly too exhausted to see straight. If it was the state police, I thought, then they had come up here from the nearest post, in Calumet. Otherwise, it was a county car from Eagle River. They’re out looking for me or they’re looking for the cottage based on whatever information the FBI may have relayed to them. Probably both. It surprised me a little, just how much I didn’t want to be found yet, and how much I wanted to find that cottage first. They had all the guns and manpower and everything else to do this right, but at that moment in the cold early hours I had an absolute physical hunger to finish what I had started.

Problem was, I was running out of lakes. I was going farther and farther north, to the absolute end of the earth, and on the map I could count only four more lakes-Lake Medora, Lake Bailey, Lake Fanny Hooe, and Schlatter Lake. If I tried those and failed, then I’d be forced to face the possibility that the cottage could be on one of the many tiny, unnamed lakes that might have only one or two driveways to serve them. Or that I had actually driven right by the cottage I was looking for without actually seeing it. Or that Bradley had been mistaken and it wasn’t up here at all.

There was only one way to find out for sure. I took the right on the main road and kept going north, to Lake Medora. More trees, more nothingness, more total lack of any signs of civilization until I finally saw the water opening up on my left. There was a turnoff there, with a small parking lot and a boat launch. In the summer, in the actual daytime, I might have seen a person or two, but now the whole place was dark and empty. I stopped the truck for a moment and turned it off, then walked out onto the rickety dock next to the boat launch and looked out over the water. It was almost May and yet the lake was still half covered with ice. I could see cottages stretched out along the southern and eastern shorelines. I watched carefully, letting my eyes become accustomed to the dark, hoping that maybe I’d see a slight movement or a twinkle of light. After a few minutes, I got back in the truck and went up the eastern road.

I did my same routine, cottage by cottage, until I got to the end. Once again, no black Subaru, no mint-green Corvette. The road was a dead end so I had to turn around and retrace my steps. On to the southern road, I thought, and then I can check this lake off my list.

I happened to glance to my right for one single second. I kept driving another fifty yards or so. Then I stopped.

I put the truck in reverse and backed up, all the way past the driveway. From there I could see a car next to the cottage. I hadn’t seen it the first time because the driveway had brought me in at the wrong angle, but now through the trees I could see the shadow of a car. Nothing but a dark shape, but it was the shape that gave it away. Low to the ground, like a wedge in the front, the smooth rise of the roof in the middle, then the distinctive angled-in cut at the back. If you knew a little about American cars-and if you grew up in Michigan, you certainly knew more than a little-then you knew that shape.

It was a Corvette.

I didn’t want to pull into the driveway again, so I kept going, all the way down that road, back to where I started. I parked in the lot by the boat launch again, got out of the truck, and grabbed the flashlight from my toolbox. I started walking back up toward the cottage. I figured it was probably a quarter mile.

I had a shot of adrenaline now. My heart was racing. For the first time in hours, I felt fully awake.

As I got closer, I slowed down and tried to stay as quiet as possible. I kept my flashlight off. It was going on five in the morning, late enough now that it was actually early. If there was somebody in that cottage, he could be out of bed in the predawn hours and getting ready for another day of God knows what.

I left the road and started going from tree to tree. There were still traces of snow that reflected the dull ambient light. When I had worked my way around the cottage, I went to the Corvette and ducked behind it. Now that I was close enough, I could see the color. Mint-green. But where was the black Subaru?

Okay, no matter, I told myself. You’ve found the house. Now it’s time to call in the cavalry. I pulled out my cell phone and looked at it. It didn’t even try to find a signal. If it could have laughed in my face, it would have. I put it back in my pocket.

A smart man would go right back out to the road, I thought. Drive south until you get a signal. But you don’t see RJ’s car here. So what if Sean’s in the house by himself right now? Are you going to leave him here?

I stood up and made my way around to the back of the cottage. I just had to see for myself. The place looked dark and deserted, like nobody had been there in months. The furniture and the gas grill on the back patio were all covered with tarps. There was a boat on a trailer, but that was covered, too. Then I saw the second trailer. This one had a snowmobile on it.

That’s one more question possibly answered, I thought. If he planned the apparent suicide at Misery Bay carefully enough, he might have brought down the snowmobile during the day and left it nearby. Then he could have gone out drinking with Charlie, somehow convinced him to come down to Misery Bay, left Charlie’s car there in the lot, then taken the snowmobile back to wherever he had parked his car.

I inched my way to the back of the cottage and bent down beneath one of the windows. As I came up to peer in the window, I saw a blue glow and ducked back down again. I came back up and saw that I was looking into an empty kitchen. The blue glow was from the digital clock on the oven.

The only other option on the back of the cottage was the sliding glass door leading to the patio. I kept my back against the siding and slid over to the edge of the door. I paused there for a moment to catch my breath and looked down the backyard, toward the water. There was a boathouse. For all I knew, there could have been a black Subaru sitting in there, meaning maybe RJ was in the house after all, but now I didn’t want to walk right past the glass door to go down and check. Instead I put one hand to the ground and leaned over to take a look through the door. I saw a desk with a small lamp on it, casting a narrow cone of light. Then I saw a bulletin board, just like the one I had seen in the basement of Wiley’s lake house. This one had a single strip of film hanging from it.

I leaned a little farther to see more of the room. I saw the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along the back wall, an open doorway leading into darkness, and then a face staring right at me.

I threw myself back against the siding. I caught my breath for a few seconds, thinking about what to do next. Finally, I realized who I had just seen.

I bent down and took another peek through the glass door. That same face was there. It hadn’t moved. I ducked back, switched on my flashlight, covered most of the beam with my hand and bent over one more time.

It was Sean Wiley. He was sitting on the floor, his back against an easy chair. He was staring straight ahead. He didn’t move. He didn’t blink. I could see the little ring in his left eyebrow. His chest was covered in blood.

I stood up and cast the full beam across the room. Everything else in the cottage was dark. I tested the handle. The door slid smoothly open and the smell of fresh blood came drifting out.

I stepped inside and looked at him more closely. He’d been dead for a couple of hours, at least. Maybe longer. It didn’t matter. He was long gone and I could only think of his girlfriend sitting home in the apartment, waiting to hear from him.

“You stupid bastard,” I said, my heart in my throat. “What the hell were you thinking?”

I took slow, careful steps through the rest of the cottage. There were no other lights on. There was one bedroom, with a bed that had been slept in but was now empty. Another bedroom with a bed still made. The kitchen, then back to the sitting room or office or library or whatever you wanted to call it. Now it was just the room where Sean Wiley had gotten himself murdered for no good reason.

I went back to the kitchen and shined the flashlight along the wall until I saw the phone. I picked it up and heard a dial tone. Before I dialed 911, another odor came to me. I recognized it. A strong chemical smell… where was it coming from? The closet?

I opened the closet door and aimed my flashlight inside, expecting to see brooms and cleaning supplies all wedged into a tight space. Instead I was surprised to see a little room going back at least six feet. Somebody was standing there in what had just been utter darkness until I had opened the door. He was bent over a large metal drum and I realized at that moment exactly where I had smelled this odor before-in Wiley’s basement, in the developing room under the stairs. As the man in the darkness stood up straight and looked at me, I realized I had seen him before, too.

It was RJ, Charlie’s apartment-mate, otherwise known as Bobby Bergman.

He dropped the jerrycan he was holding and came at me, knocking me backward. The flashlight went off as it clattered across the kitchen floor.

He kicked me in the ribs, knocking the wind out of me. I swept my leg out, trying to trip him, felt the contact of ankle against ankle. He fell sideways. I rolled over and felt around for the flashlight, finally grabbing it and knocking it against my thigh until the lightbulb finally flickered on again.

I got to my feet just in time to see Bergman pointing the pipe at me. A white PVC pipe, the most unlikely thing in the world until I remembered what it was and where he had used it before. The homemade suppressor.

“What are you trying to do?” he said. “Ruin the film?”

Then he aimed the gun right at my chest and shot me.