A Cold Day in Paradise (Alex McKnight Mysteries)

by Steve Hamilton

When I went to the door, I saw something on the step.

  It was a rose. A single blood red rose.

  I picked it up. I looked around me. Just pine trees. Nobody would have seen him put this here. I looked around on the ground. No footprints, no tire tracks.

  I opened the door and looked inside, letting out my breath as I saw that my cabin was empty. There was no sign of forced entry, but you never know. I checked the phone. No messages.

  A single red rose. It made me start to think of something, but I couldn’t quite get to it.

  Or maybe I didn’t want to get to it. Maybe I didn’t want to make the connection.

  I was about to crush the rose, but then thought better of it. It’s bad luck to destroy a rose. Somebody told me that once.

  I put the rose in a glass of water, packed my bag, went back outside, and locked the door. “I’m going to have to miss your phone call tonight,” I said to the wind. “Whoever you are, if you call me in the middle of the night, you’ll just hear the phone ring four times and then you’ll get the answering machine. Maybe I should change my message. ‘If you’re a homicidal maniac calling to fuck with my head, please press one. Everyone else, please press two.’”

  I went to the truck and sat in the driver’s seat for a few minutes. Finally, I got back out of the truck and went into the cabin.

  I dug through the back of my closet, throwing clothes and boots in the air until I found what I was looking for. I put a bullet in each of the six chambers and stuck the gun in my belt.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “GOD, THIS FEELS so good, Alex,” Edwin said. “I feel like a free man now.” He was sitting in one of the overstuffed chairs in front of the fireplace, his feet up on a leather hassock, brandy snifter in one hand, a cigar in the other. I was sitting in the other chair, looking into the fire. I had a brandy, too, but I had taken a pass on the cigar. “It’s kind of funny, isn’t it,” he said.

  “What’s funny?”

  “The way things work out. Something so … horrible. And yet it turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. It’s like, have you ever seen a top spinning, and it starts to get wobbly and out of control?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “And then it runs into something, bam, and suddenly it’s spinning smoothly again? That’s what happened to me.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Good.”

  “No, I mean it,” he said. “I have absolutely no urge to gamble anymore. It’s completely gone.”

  “If that’s really true, then I’m glad, Edwin.”

  “Of course it’s true,” he said. He got up to put another log on the fire. There was a deer head with a twelve-point rack mounted on the wall above the fireplace. I wondered if there was anyone in this world who would think for a second that Edwin had shot that animal himself.

  When he sat back down, he said, “So, are you going to tell me what’s going on? Why did you want to know about the last time I saw Tony Bing?”

  “Edwin, let me ask you something first. Have you seen anyone around lately who seemed strange or suspicious in any way? Someone who may have seemed to be watching you or following you around?”

  He thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. I mean, I haven’t noticed anyone like that. Should I be keeping an eye out?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Just be aware. And be careful.”

  “What’s this all about, Alex?”

  “I’m not sure, Edwin. I don’t want to alarm you more than I have to. And I certainly don’t want to scare your wife or your mother. Let’s just say that I have reason to believe that there might be someone out there who’s watching you, or watching me, or both. Someone who might have been connected to that murder.”

  “Does Chief Maven know about this?”

  “He knows,” I said.

  We both watched the fire for a minute.

  “Is there any chance of you going back down to Grosse Pointe for a while?” I finally asked.

  “Do you think we should?”

  “It might be a good idea.”

  “I don’t want to leave,” he said.

  “What if I really thought you should leave, Edwin?”

  He let out a long stream of smoke. “We’re not leaving, Alex.”

  “Okay,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

  We sat there in silence again. A log popped and sent a spark into the room. Edwin sat there watching it fizzle on the carpet, burning a little black hole. He made no move to stop it. He’d probably just call someone the next day and have the whole room redecorated. “I am glad you’re here, though,” he said. “I was just about to apologize for my mother.”

  “She’s just looking out for you.”

  “I know,” he said, “but I thought it was so silly, making you stay here tonight.”

  “It’s not a problem.”

  “Although I have to say, if this is what it took to finally get you over to dinner …”

  “The dinner was great,” I said. “Your mother is quite a cook.”

  “Well, I’m just glad that I could get you and Sylvia in the same room for a while. I know how it is between you two.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “How do you mean?”

  “Alex, I’m sure you’ve noticed. Sylvia has this thing about you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I hope you don’t take it personally. She’s always had this thing about certain types of men. I mean, just from the way you look, the type of man that you seem to be. A big tough guy. She never really warmed up to you before, and I felt bad about that. But anyway, I think she got to know you a little better tonight. And I think she really likes you now.”

  Sylvia had been nothing but charming all through dinner. It was an incredible performance.

  “Where did she run off to, anyway?” he said. “She’s probably with my mother somewhere, plotting against me. You know how women are, eh?”

  “I’m right here, darling,” she said. We both turned to see her slip into the room behind us. She had a robe on. It was the same robe she had on that first night, the first night I ever touched her. It opened up at her neck and clung to her in a way that made me want to throw my drink at her.

  “Are you coming to bed?” she asked, running her hands around Edwin’s neck.

  “Wow,” Edwin said. “You look fantastic. I’ll be right up.”

  She turned and looked at me. “Good night, Alex. I hope you can make yourself… comfortable.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I said.

  When she left, Edwin stood up and put out his cigar. “I’ve been neglecting that woman,” he said. “But no longer, Alex. It’s all part of the new Edwin.”

  I just nodded.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in the other guest room?”

  “No, I’m fine right here on the couch,” I said. The two guest rooms were at the end of the house. I wanted to be here in the middle, close to the doors, just in case.

  “Suit yourself,” he said. “I’m off to bed. Wish me luck.” He gave me a wink and a little salute.

  When he was gone, I sat there and finished my brandy, wondering how I had ever gotten there. I’m a private investigator and they’re paying me to sleep on the couch with my gun.

  I thought about the phone call, and about the rose that was left on my doorstep. I sat there for a long time hoping it would all make some kind of sense to me, but it didn’t happen.

  Finally, Mrs. Fulton came into the room and sat in Edwin’s chair. “Can I get you anything, Alex?”

  “No, I’m fine, ma’am.”

  “You know, you and I have something in common,” she said. She crossed her legs and looked into the fire.

  “What would that be, ma’am?”

  “Fear,” she said. “We both know about fear.”

  It took a minute to sink in. This woman had enough money to protect her from anything. What could she know about fear?

  But then I looked into her eye
s. I saw the firelight dancing there. And I saw something else. Something I recognized. “Tell me about it,” I said.

  “I don’t share this story with many people, Alex. But I feel like I can tell you, because you know what it feels like. Real fear. The kind of fear that changes you forever.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I do.”

  “I was kidnapped when I was sixteen years old. That’s one of the dangers of growing up in a very wealthy family, I suppose. They kept me for several days. At one point, they were going to cut off one of my fingers and send it to my father.”

  I didn’t say anything. I looked into the fire with her and listened to her voice.

  “There were three men,” she said. “One of the men, he made sure that the others didn’t hurt me. Even when the leader wanted to cut off my finger, this man wouldn’t let him. They fought over me. He told the leader he’d kill him if he even touched me. Even though he was one of the men who helped kidnap me, I think I started to fall in love with him. It’s strange, isn’t it? When you’re that scared, everything else you feel, you feel it so strongly. And the things you hear, the things you see. Even the color of things is more intense. You understand what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You understand because you’ve been there,” she said. “I knew it as soon as I met you, Alex. Or at least when I asked you about that bullet inside you. I could see it then. I could see that we had this in common. That’s why you know what I’m going through now. This whole business with my son. He’s my only child, you know.”

  “Mrs. Fulton, everything’s going to be fine. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I think I’ll even be able to sleep tonight.” She wished me a good night and left the room.

  I sat there and watched the fire go out. Finally I got up and walked around the place. I looked out the window that faced the driveway, turning off the exterior light so I could see into the darkness. Nothing.

  I went outside and walked down the road for about a quarter mile. It was a quiet night, and without the wind it was not nearly as cold as it should have been. I turned around and came back up to the house, walking around to the porch that overlooked the lake. When the clouds parted, a quarter moon cast its faint light onto the immense surface of Lake Superior. The water was calm enough on this night, you could almost picture yourself sailing under that moon.

  I went back inside and sat on the couch, taking the gun out of my belt and putting it on the coffee table. There was a wedding picture on the table. I picked it up and looked at the two faces, Sylvia radiant against the whiteness of her veil, Edwin wearing a big, dumb smile. My old man had an expression, “He was smiling like a jackass eating bumblebees.” That’s how Edwin looked on his wedding day standing next to Sylvia. I put the picture back on the table and lay my head back on the couch. Eventually, I slid off into the limbo between awake and asleep.

  And then I heard something. I woke up with a start. Where did that noise come from? I sat up and reached for my gun.

  It was gone.

  Sylvia was standing there, my gun in her hand. She was pointing it right at my chest.

  “Sylvia, what the hell—”

  “I should kill you,” she said. “I should kill you right now. That would feel good, Alex.” Her robe fell open. In the moonlight I could see her breasts and the soft hairs that disappeared into the shadows between her legs. She made no attempt to cover herself.

  “Sylvia…”

  She put the gun back down on the coffee table. “Some watchdog you are,” she said as she walked away. She went back up the stairs, leaving me sitting there in the darkness, trying to catch my breath.

  “Goddamn you,” I said softly. “You stupid crazy bitch.”

  I got up and walked around the place again, looking out the windows again. I walked down to the end of the house where the guest rooms were, put my ear against Mrs. Fulton’s door. I could hear the rhythm of her breathing as she slept.

  I lay back down on the couch, thinking I would never sleep again in my whole life. But eventually I dozed off again. I couldn’t help it. After the last two nights of blood and late-night phone calls, I was beyond exhausted. At least I wouldn’t have to deal with another phone call tonight, I thought as I finally gave myself over to sleep.

  I saw the blood. It was Mrs. Fulton’s dream. I was floating above it. It was stretched out as far as I could see in every direction.

  And then I saw the car, moving smoothly and silently through the pine trees. Its lights were out. I could not see the driver.

  And then the phone rang.

  I jumped off the couch and fell over the coffee table. I didn’t know where I was. The phone, where’s the phone? It rang again. I remembered where I was. I picked up the gun and went upstairs. The phone rang for the third time.

  “Alex, are you there?” It was Edwin, from inside the master bedroom. The phone rang for the fourth time.

  “Yes!” I knocked on their door and then opened it. Edwin had turned on the light next to the bed. Sylvia sat up next to him, blinking. The phone rang for the fifth time.

  “Should I answer the phone?”

  “Let me,” I said. I went around to his side of the bed and knelt on the floor. The phone rang for the sixth time.

  I picked up the receiver. There was silence on the other end until I finally heard a man’s voice. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  “Who is this?” I said.

  “Who is this! Is Edwin Fulton there?” It wasn’t the voice I was expecting. It was someone else, someone I knew.

  “This is Alex McKnight. Who is this?”

  “McKnight! What are you doing there? This is Chief Maven!”

  “Chief Maven,” I said. Edwin looked at me with surprise.

  “Goddamn it, McKnight, what are you, the Fultons’ butler now?”

  “Why are you calling?” I asked. “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “What is it, like three o’clock, I think? Three-thirty? I was calling Mr. Fulton to see if he knew where you were. I was so disappointed, McKnight. You weren’t at the crime scene waiting for me this time.”

  “Maven, what the hell is going on?”

  “There’s been another murder,” he said. “Another bookmaker, it turns out. They found this guy behind a restaurant on Ashmun Street.”

  “What happened?”

  “The cook found him when he was taking the garbage out,” he said. “He was shot three or four times, looks like.”

  “Do you think it was the same killer?” I looked up at Edwin and Sylvia. They were both staring at me. Sylvia started to shiver.

  “Well, I’m not psychic, McKnight, but I have a feeling that we’re going to find the same bullets from the same gun.”

  “Who was the victim?”

  “Guy named Vince Dorney. You know him?”

  “Vince Dorney. No, I don’t know him.” I looked to Edwin. He shook his head. “Edwin doesn’t know him, either.”

  “He’s right there by the phone, eh?” Maven said. “Sounds like I called you right in the middle of your slumber party.”

  “Save it, Maven. What about… I mean, did he cut him again?”

  “No, not this time,” he said. “This time he used the knife for something else.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think you better get down here, McKnight. Right now.”

  “What are you talking about? Where are you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m calling from a squad car parked right outside your cabin.”

  I SAW THE lights from the squad cars first, the blues and reds bouncing madly through the pine trees. When I rounded the corner, I saw four cars in front of my cabin. There was a county car, a state car, and two Soo cars. Eight men stood together by my door. When I stopped my truck and got out, it didn’t take too long to figure out who was running this little show.

&
nbsp; “Mr. McKnight,” Maven said. “How nice of you to join us this evening.”

  I nodded to the two county deputies. I had seen them once or twice at the Glasgow Inn.

  “Some of the county and state boys were good enough to stop by,” Maven went on. “We’re a few miles out of the Soo, after all. But this pertains to a Soo case, so I’ll be handling things. I was just explaining that to these gentlemen.”

  “What’s going on?” I said. “Why are you here?”

  “I tried to call you as soon as I found out about the murder behind the restaurant. You weren’t home, so I got worried. I sent a car out here just to make sure you were all right. That’s the kind of guy I am,” he said.

  “So why did you come out here? And why are all these officers here?”

  “I called the county and state out here just as a courtesy,” he said. “I’d expect the same if one of them came calling in the Soo. Now go take a look at your front door,” he said.

  I thought of the rose that had been left there. I shuddered to think what he might have left this time.

  I went to the door. One of the Soo cops was taking a picture with an instant camera. In the sudden moment of white light I saw a piece of paper pinned to the door by a large hunting knife.

  “Don’t touch it yet, McKnight,” Maven said from behind me. The officer carefully removed the knife and put it in a plastic bag. He put the note in a separate bag. “That’s a shame about your door,” Maven said. “It’s gonna leave a nasty mark.”

  “What does it say?” I said. “Let me read it.”

  “Just hold on,” Maven said. He took the bags from the officer and held a flashlight over them. “Looks like blood on this knife,” he said. “Three guesses who the lab says it belongs to.” He passed it back to the officer and then stretched the clear plastic flat against the letter. “Sweet Jesus,” he said as he read it. It took a long time to read it. I could see that there were many words crammed on the single page.

  When he was finished, he passed it to me without another word. The note looked like it was typed on an old manual machine with a ribbon that needed changing.

  ALEX

  You know who I am. It is hard to believe I think but you must believe because I am here now and it is time for both of us to be together and to finish the work that has been given to us. Iron bars could not hold me. I flew to you over all this time. Yes you know who I am. You know who YOU are that is to say you know that you are the one who will take us all to a better place. I did not see this before because I was blinded by the power of evil but now I see that you have been chosen to overcome death and to show the way for others to follow. The evil is here. It knows who you are and you must be very careful. I removed the one man who was threatening your little friend just as a sign of good will from me to you but there are others all around us to make this lonely place into a battlefield and tonight I removed another man who was sending out microwave signals for more of them to come. I used a different technique of course to keep them guessing. You always have to keep them guessing and not so much blood means it will take longer to discover he is missing but they will find us in time. They will not get to you I promise. It feels so good to help you now after all these years. Who would have thought it would turn out this way. To think I once thought you were one of them in disguise. I am watching over you and I cannot wait for the day when we can be together at last.