Misery Bay

CHAPTER FIVE

When I woke up the next morning, I saw actual sunlight coming through the window. The snow had stopped sometime during the night. Maybe six or seven inches had come down. The bright light bouncing off all that new snow made my head hurt even more, so I took four aspirin and a hot shower.

I grabbed a quick breakfast downstairs, then checked out and hit the road. As I drove down through the Keweenaw Peninsula, I started working it over in my mind. What exactly was I going to tell Raz about his son? The whole idea had been to make him feel better somehow. To give him some kind of closure so he could move on with his life. That it may have been largely his fault, his absolute worst fear come true, was probably not the kind of closure he had in mind.

I was taking the southwestern route out of Copper Country, so whether it was a completely conscious decision or not, I was making a slight detour through Toivola. When I got there, I took a right down that same lonely road to Misery Bay. I just had to see the place one more time. I wasn’t even exactly sure why.

Maybe it was because I felt as though I knew the kid so much better now. Like now it would hit me that much harder to see where he breathed his last breath. The new snow hadn’t been plowed, so I fishtailed my way down those sixteen miles until I got to the end. I parked in the same spot, got out, and walked over to the same tree with the red ribbon still tied around it. The whole place looked different now with the sun shining. Yet somehow I still had that same raw feeling of uneasiness just being there.

I stood under the same spot and looked up at the branch where he had looped his rope. It was sturdy enough to hold his weight. I could see that much. I had an urge to climb the tree, to work my way out on that branch so I could see the exact spot where the rope came in contact with the bark.

I didn’t end up climbing the tree. One fatality here was more than enough. Instead, I went back to the truck, reached in, and opened up the toolbox that was on the passenger’s side floor. I found the pair of scissors I used to cut the plastic sheets for the cabin windows. I got out and went back to the tree. There were a few inches of loose red ribbon on either side of the bow. I cut about two inches from one side and looked at it closely. The color was already beginning to fade.

This is all I’ll bring back to him, I thought. Just two inches from a red ribbon tied around the tree. I won’t bring back the great weight I’ve been given. I won’t bring back the truth about what was really bothering this kid that night. I’ll leave it right here forever. Right here on the shores of Misery Bay.

I hit Marquette about two hours later. I stopped to gas up and while I had an actual signal on my cell phone I figured I’d call ahead to Raz. I dialed his cell phone number, listened to it ring a few times. It went through to voice mail.

“This is Alex,” I said. “I’m on my way back. I should be in the Soo between two and three o’clock. I’ll give you another call when I get closer.”

There were a few seconds of dead air while I decided what to say next.

“I hope you’re doing okay today,” I finally said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

I hung up the phone and hit the road again. The sun was still out, but on the open stretches the wind was whipping the snow back and forth across the road. I kept driving, back through all of the little towns I had passed on my way out the day before.

I drove straight through on M-28, all the way into Sault Ste. Marie. If I was going to lie to Raz’s face, I wanted to get it done with as soon as possible. I picked up the cell phone and called him again. Once again it went through to voice mail. I hung up and dialed the police department. I asked for Chief Maven. I had to wait a few minutes, but he finally came onto the line.

“McKnight! Where are you? What’s going on?”

“I’m just looking for Raz,” I said. “I’m almost back to the Soo.”

“Did you call him?”

“Yes, I did.” I resisted saying anything else. Like why the hell would I not do that first?

“He’s not answering?”

“No,” I said. Count to three in your head. “He’s not answering.”

“Well, he’s at my house. Give him a call there. Maybe his cell phone’s dead.” He gave me the number.

“Okay, I’ll try him there.”

“How did it go out there, anyway?”

“I found out a few things about his son. He had a lot of great friends.”

“Is Raz going to be okay with what you tell him?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think he will be.”

“McKnight, so help me God, if you add one more ounce of pain to that man’s soul…”

“Hey, you’re the one who asked me to help, remember? So save the attitude.”

“All right, relax. I’m just saying…”

“It was just like you were thinking, Chief. A total fluke thing. One bad day in his life.”

“Are you just saying what you think you’re supposed to say?”

You’re making this hard, I thought. There’s nobody else on this earth who can make things hard like you can.

“It’s the truth,” I said. “I’ll tell that to Raz.”

“Okay, then. Give him a call. Tell him I’ll be home in a few hours.”

“I will, Chief.”

I hung up before he could say another word, then dialed his home number. It rang a few times. Then the answering machine came on. It was Roy Maven’s wife, telling me they weren’t home just then but that they’d like me to leave a number so they could call me back. I’d met the woman exactly one time that I could remember. She seemed quite human and perfectly nice, and at the time I couldn’t help wondering how she had ever come to marry outside of her species. Maybe someday I’d get to sit down and ask her, but right now I had other matters to deal with.

For the hell of it, I tried calling Raz’s cell phone again. No luck there, so I called Maven again and told him there’d been no answer at his house.

“My wife helps out at the hospital,” he said, “so she might be there. But Raz should be at the house. I don’t know where else he’d go.”

“Where’s your house? I’ll stop by and see if I can find him.”

“McKnight, you’re giving me a bad feeling here. How come whenever you’re involved in anything, I end up getting an ulcer?”

“Just relax, Chief. Give me your address.”

He gave me a number on Summit Street.

“I’ll call you right back,” I said. As I hung up, I tried to shake off the same uneasy feeling. He’s out taking a walk, I told myself. Or he’s asleep. Or maybe he and Mrs. Maven are out having a late lunch somewhere. There were a hundred different possibilities.

I swung up I-75 and then got off by the college. Down Easterday, past the students outside taking advantage of what passes for a nice day in April around here. I’d seen so many young faces in just the past two days. I made the turn at Summit and went halfway up the block until I found the number I was looking for. I pulled into the driveway.

It was a nicely kept raised ranch. Nothing too extravagant, but then I wouldn’t have expected anything approaching extravagance from a man like Roy Maven. The walkway was clear. The shovel was leaned against the house, right next to the front door. I went up the steps and rang the doorbell. There was no answer.

I rang the bell again. Nothing.

I tried the knob. The door was unlocked. I pushed the door open and took one step inside. Under the circumstances, I didn’t think Maven would mind.

Okay, maybe he would have, but I did it anyway.

“Hello? Anybody here? Raz?”

The house was silent. I stood there for a while, thinking about what to do next.

That’s when the odor came to me. Something I’d smelled before. Organic and metallic at the same time. A basic, instinctive foulness. It was the smell of death.

The whole scene flashed before me in a fraction of a second. I imagined Raz hanging from a rope he had somehow tied to the ceiling. Taking the same way out. Following his own son into the abyss.

Or no. He’s a cop. Marshal, ex-trooper, whatever the hell. He’s a cop and he’d do it the cop way, by eating his own gun.

I went through the living room to the kitchen. As soon as I turned the corner, I saw Raz’s body laid out on the hard tile floor. There was blood all around him. His throat was cut open. He was lying facedown but his body was twisted as if he were still trying to get away. His eyes were still open. He stared right at me as if to accuse me of thinking even for a moment that he’d actually take his own life.

I stood there for a long moment while it all washed over me. Then I pulled out my cell phone and called 911.

I went outside and sat down on the front step. The voice on the other side of 911, a woman’s voice, wanted me to stay on the line with her until the police showed up. I told her to send somebody and that I’d wait right here and she started to argue with me so I hung up on her. I sat on the step and I looked out across the street at the other houses. All of them sealed up tight against the winter. We live in such a frozen wasteland for much of the year. That’s the strange thought that came to me as I sat and waited. It feels so cold sometimes, you wonder how anyone would choose this place. Yet we do. We live here, some of us for our whole lives, and the one benefit we should receive in return is that the violence from the rest of the world should leave us in our frigid state of peace.

That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

The thought was interrupted by the first squad car. It was a Sault Ste. Marie police officer who got out and came hustling up the walkway. I knew the state police would be here soon, too. For a crime this big in a city this small, they’d all come running.

I didn’t recognize this officer, and he turned out to be a youngster right out of the academy, so we had to go through the whole song and dance, with me putting my hands up and him patting me down. I was even thinking he might feel uncertain enough to go ahead and put the cuffs on me and I wasn’t about to complain because I knew that’s exactly what they taught this kid. He had no idea who I was and he hadn’t checked inside the house yet. For all he knew, I could be the killer myself, and I could even have an accomplice waiting inside to jump out and surprise him. So just like they drilled it into his head, whenever you’re alone and there’s any doubt at all, you put your man in cuffs, even if it’s just for a minute while you secure the scene. Even if you have to apologize while you’re doing it, you “hook” your man until the backup arrives.

But that’s when Maven’s car pulled up and I suddenly had bigger things to think about than a pair of handcuffs.

“Chief,” I said. “Don’t go in the house.”

“What’s going on here?”

He came up the steps and I tried to block him.

“McKnight, get the hell out of my way.”

“Chief, don’t. He’s dead.”

He pushed past me and into the house. I stayed where I was. I didn’t follow him inside because I didn’t need to see it again, and there was nothing I’d be able to do to help him now. A few seconds passed. When he came back out, his face was white.

“What the hell happened?” He wasn’t facing anyone. He was staring out into the middle distance and it looked like he was trying hard to swallow.

“My God,” he said. “My God, what the hell-”

Then he stopped dead.

“Where’s my wife?” he said. “Has anybody seen my wife?”

There were three more city cops on the scene now. Another car was pulling up, with two state cars close behind. The whole street was fast becoming a riot of red and blue flashing lights.

“Where’s my wife, God damn it! Somebody find her right now!”

“Chief,” I said, grabbing him by the shoulders, “take it easy. You said she might be at the hospital. Remember?”

He pushed past me again and went into the house. I heard him running up the stairs.

“Call the hospital,” I said to the young cop, the same first cop who’d responded, and who was experiencing a hell of a first major crime scene. “I think she volunteers there or something.”

“Where is she?” Maven, careening back down the stairs. Halfway down he almost fell and broke his neck. “Somebody find her!”

He ran around the house into the backyard. Finally, the young cop heard back on the radio that they’d located his wife at the hospital. She’d been sitting next to an old woman’s bed, reading to her. The other cops had to practically tackle Maven to convince him that his wife was safe. When he finally sat down on the front steps, he was breathing hard and rubbing his hands up and down his thighs. He looked totally undone, something I’d never even imagine seeing from him.

“Tell me,” he said to me when he finally got his wind back. “Give me an explanation for why Raz is lying there in my kitchen like that? Huh? Can you tell me, please?”

I didn’t have an answer for him. I just sat there next to him on the cold steps while the madness went on all around us.

I had no idea this was just the beginning.