The hunting wind am-3

by Steve Hamilton

  Silence.

  I went through the living room, then into the dining room.

  No sign of life. Nothing.

  The stairs. I knew these stairs. I went to the edge and looked down.

  One wheel.

  That should have been enough for me. One wheel. That’s all I needed to see. But I kept going. I took a step down. The stairway creaked. I stopped. I took another step. Another creak. With each step, I saw more of the wheelchair. It was turned onto its side.

  It was empty.

  I kept going, step after step. I saw a leg, then another. And then the blood.

  Two men against the wall, each with one arm in handcuffs. The handcuffs going through the metal ring in the wall. The same ring in the wall, the same handcuffs. Two men. Whitley and Harwood. What is left of them. Each blown apart by a shotgun. This is what it looks like. Blood everywhere. The smell of death and blood. The pure evil sight of it.

  Shotgun casings on the floor. Lying in the blood.

  Look to the right. There is more. Chief Rudiger, the man I saw how many hours ago. The head destroyed now. Obliterated. All over the mirror behind him, pink and red. He is lying on the weight bench. The shotgun hanging from him onto the floor, one dead finger still caught in the trigger.

  A piece of paper on the floor, one corner soaking up blood.

  The chief wanted to call her. Those were his last words to me. He wanted to get up off the floor and call Maria. If he had managed to pull himself off the floor and call her, then what happened next? How long did it take her to see the opportunity? To see the whole scene laid out in front of her? It’s airtight. She calls Leopold. He wakes the entire family. They load up Leopold’s truck, Delilah’s car, Anthony’s car. The whole family goes to Orcus Beach in the middle of the night, just like Maria said. Is the chief already at Maria’s house when the family arrives? Maybe he is. Maybe Maria asked him to come, and somehow he pulled himself together and drove over there. Or maybe Leopold and Anthony had to go get him. Either way, the piece of paper is with him. Written in his own hand. He brought it with him, or it was there on the table when they picked him up. And the shotgun. Don’t forget the shotgun. They put him in the back of his patrol car, drive him back to Farmington. Two cars. Anthony following Leopold, who is driving the patrol car. It’s five in the morning then. Maybe six. Leopold has the chief’s hat on, just in case somebody sees him in the car. But it’s so early, there aren’t many cars on the road. When they get to the house in Farmington, they wait. Anthony parks the car down the road, of course. Only the patrol car can be seen in the driveway. Maria calls Harwood. She has his number now. She calls him and tells him to come to Farmington. Time to make a deal. Time to end this once and for all.

  Which is exactly what they do.

  After it is done, Leopold and Anthony drive back to Orcus Beach. The police will find them, of course. Three dead men in their basement, they’ll need to talk to them. An apparent double murder and then a suicide, the chief’s finger still in the trigger guard. Will the forensics man find something that doesn’t add up? What can you find when you’re dealing with shotgun blasts? How hard will they even look?

  They’ll go to her, of course. To the whole family. They’ll have to talk to them.

  Oh my God, she’ll say. It can’t be. The chief was such a good man. He told me he’d help me. He told me he wouldn’t let those men hurt me. But my God, Officer, I had no idea.

  You’ve got your own story to tell the police, Alex. Your own little theory, with absolutely no proof. And yourself right in the middle of it. First you threatened Whitley and Harwood at gunpoint; then you ended up in Maria’s bed. Then you had a nightcap with the chief, at the bar and then back at his house, where you then knocked a shotgun out of his hands. And took the shells out. For all you know, your fingerprints are still on it. Unless you go lift that gun off the chief’s chest and wipe it clean.

  Think about what you’ve got, Alex. This is the hand you’re holding if you try to make this whole thing come out differently in the end.

  I made myself turn around and go back up the stairs. I didn’t have to read the note on the floor. I knew what it said. The words scrawled below the official seal, with the cannon in the sand.

  “For Maria, and everything I wanted to believe.”

  CHAPTER 24

  “Alex.”

  I opened my eyes.

  “Alex.”

  I sat up straight in the hard wooden chair, feeling a sudden pain run down my neck and into my back.

  “Alex.” His voice was low, like a whisper.

  I looked across the room. Randy’s eyes were open.

  “Do you need the doctor?” I said. I looked at my watch. It was after 11:00 P.M. I had gotten there at 9:00, just in time to catch the doctor writing out his charts at the nurses’ station. Randy had regained consciousness just after I had left that afternoon, the doctor told me. He still had some localized weakness on the left side of his body, but aside from that, he was doing remarkably well. They took the tube out of his throat and hooked up a minidose morphine drip. They had told him he had been shot, and that there was a county deputy stationed outside his door. He had been awake for a couple hours, but by the time I got back there, he was asleep. I sat down in the chair and did the same. Now he was awake again, and I didn’t know which question to ask him first.

  “They told me what happened,” he said. He still had the bandages on, but without the tube running down his throat, he looked human again.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I talked to the doctor.”

  He looked toward the window. “What time is it?”

  “Just after eleven.”

  “Were you here the whole time?”

  “No, I was up in Orcus Beach.”

  He looked at me, then closed his eyes.

  “The last thing I remember,” he said, “was going to her door.”

  “Her daughter told you where she lives,” I said.

  He opened his eyes again. “Yes.”

  “Maria told me she thought you were Harwood,” I said. “Or somebody he sent.”

  “You saw her.”

  “Yes. I saw her.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “She said a lot of things,” I said. “Of course, every single thing she said was a lie.”

  “I could use something to drink,” he said.

  “She’s a very good liar, isn’t she,” I said. “Not unlike yourself.”

  “The doctor said I’m not supposed to talk too much.”

  “You may have some permanent damage to your vocal cords,” I said. “That’s gonna affect your technique a little bit.”

  “Alex…”

  “I know the whole story,” I said. “Your record in California, the arrest warrant waiting for you when you get back. That deputy’s been sitting outside your door the whole time.”

  “You should have gone home,” he said.

  “I called your family. I thought they should know.”

  “Let me guess,” he said. “They were not overwhelmed with concern.”

  “Your youngest son came the closest,” I said. “He seemed to care a little bit.”

  Randy closed his eyes again.

  “Feel free to tell me why you did all this,” I said. “Anytime. I’m all ears.”

  “I didn’t lie to you,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me,” he said. “I didn’t lie to you.”

  “Good-bye,” I said, turning toward the door. “I’m gone.”

  “Alex, wait.”

  I stopped.

  “I didn’t lie,” he said. “Not exactly. I just didn’t tell you everything.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “Oh God,” I said. “Here we go. You should run for office, you know that?”

  “Let me explain.”

  I moved back. I stood over him with my arms folded across my chest. “Give it your best shot. First lie you tell me, I’m out the door. This time, I’ll know it. B
elieve me.”

  He took a long breath and rested his head back on the pillow. For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of the heart monitor, still attached to his chest. Then be began.

  “Everything they told you about me is true,” he said. “Everything and then some. I have no excuse for it, Alex. I’m not going to try to defend myself. All I can say is, there was a time, many years ago, when things were different. You knew me then. You knew how much I loved playing ball. It was the only thing I ever wanted to do. When I got my big chance and failed, it was all taken away from me. In one game, in one inning, it was all gone. I knew it right then. I knew I’d never get another chance. Even though I ended up getting kicked around in the minors for another six years, deep down I knew it was hopeless. I’d never get another shot.”

  He paused to catch his breath.

  “When I got sent up to Detroit, it was the best month of my life. When I met Maria, it got even better. I figured this was the girl I’d spend the rest of my life with. I’d be a big-league pitcher for twenty years and I’d go to the Hall of Fame one day, and she’d be there in Cooperstown with me, sitting in the front row. With our three kids. I could see my whole life opening up in front of me. I really could. When I got knocked out of that game, I went down into the clubhouse and I just sat there, Alex. I didn’t cry. I didn’t take a bat and destroy a television set or anything. I just sat there and thought to myself, This is what life is really like. Dreams don’t come true. Things don’t happen just because you want them to. Nothing is fair. Nothing is really good. Are you following me, Alex?”

  “Keep going,” I said.

  “All I’m trying to say is, in that exact moment, I saw things the way they really were. This girl I was spending so much time with, this beautiful, wonderful Maria, she didn’t really love me. She was just setting me up. It was all a big scam.”

  “Giving up seven runs made you realize that.”

  “The night before the game,” he said. “She told me about this debt her father had, going all the way back to the old country. He couldn’t repay it. No matter how she begged him, this man was so old-fashioned, he was willing to take his whole family back to Europe just so they could work as servants in some guy’s house to repay the debt to him. I told her I’d help her take care of the problem. She was so happy. Then I stopped thinking about it, because I was too preoccupied with the game. When I was sitting there in the locker room, watching my whole life go down the drain, I finally thought about it again, the whole story. A debt from the old country. They needed money. My God, Alex. Can you imagine? I was buying it. The whole thing. All the time we had spent together. It was all coming together. On that day, after what had happened to me, I could finally see it.”

  “Okay, so you figured out she was a con artist,” I said. “And you blew her off. Why come back now? It’s a long time to wait for revenge.”

  “I had already gotten my revenge,” he said. “Or so it turns out anyway. There was this man in Detroit named Harwood. He was trying to put together a deal with my father. The minute I met him, I hated him. You ever meet somebody like that?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Just last night, in fact.”

  “He was such a fraud. Everything he did, everything he said, it was all such an act. He was the most arrogant, pompous jackass I had ever seen in my life. And here he was, trying to suck up to me just because he wanted something out of my father. He made my skin crawl. He came to the game. Did you know that? He was there. I saw him a couple days afterward at the Lindell. I was getting drunk. Again. With Maria a couple blocks away, with her whole con artist family, probably putting the screws on some other sucker even as I was sitting there. And in walks Harwood, just the man I needed to see that night. He starts telling me how sorry he was I had gotten blown out of the game, how embarrassing it must have been, all this other crap. I could tell he was loving it. If he hadn’t still been trying to put the moves on my father, he’d have been standing there laughing at me. So I told him he really needed to go see Madame Valeska down the street to get his fortune told. It would really be an eye-opening experience for him, and he’d really get something out of it. I was hoping he’d go see them. I was really hoping. I knew they’d put him through the wringer. He was such a sleazebag. He was smart about money, but I knew he’d lose his head over Maria. And Maria would actually have to spend time with him. Even… get close to him. So in the end, they’d both get what they deserved.”

  He stopped. He looked out the window, at nothing but darkness.

  “Is that why you came back?” I said. “To see what they’d done to each other all these years?”

  “No,” he said. “Don’t you understand? I had no idea. I didn’t even know if Harwood ever went to see them. I was long gone by then. And I never looked back.”

  “You had no idea?”

  “When we found her family’s house,” he said, “when they told us about Harwood and how they thought he had sent us? That was the first time I had heard his name in nearly thirty years. It was the first time I had even thought of him. It was just a drunken, spur-of-the-moment thing when I saw him that last time in Detroit. My little good-bye present to both of them. I never dreamed it would become something like that. It was all my fault, Alex. I made it happen. At that point, I didn’t want to drag you into it anymore, so I sent you home. I wanted to see if I could… I don’t know. I guess I was thinking I could fix things somehow. I wanted to try to help her.”

  “Why even bother? After what she did to you?”

  “I remember it so well,” he said. “How it felt. Back in 1971, when I realized she was just setting me up. All those things she said to me. All those lies. It was so easy to believe, because I wanted it to be true. I wanted it too much. When I was finally done playing out the string in baseball, when I finally went home, I knew I had to start acting like a real grown-up. My father’s business was doing well. Everybody was expecting me to take it over someday. I tried to do it the right way, Alex. I tried to work hard, the same way my father did. But then when the real estate market crashed out there… I was afraid I was going to lose everything. Again. The same feeling, everything going down the drain again. There was this woman, one of our clients. She was very rich. She liked me. I could talk her into anything. It was so easy, Alex. It was so easy.”

  “Okay,” I said. “A con man is born. I can fill in the rest. But you still haven’t told me why you came back in the first place. Before you knew anything about Harwood, when it was just you deciding to come back here after all these years. You could have made things right with your family. You could have tried at least. Why did you come back here?”

  “Think about it,” he said. He managed a weak smile. “When was the last time everything was good, Alex? When was the last time I was on top of the world?”

  “When, Randy?”

  “When I was pitching for Toledo, and Alex McKnight was behind the plate, that was the last time I had it right. That was the last time I felt like I could do anything I wanted to. After that, it was all downhill, Alex. On roller skates. Before I went down for good, I had to come back one more time. Just to see if I could be that person again.”

  I just shook my head.

  “And Maria. This is kind of crazy, but I may be the only person in the world who can understand her now. After everything I’ve done, you know what? You can love somebody, Alex. You can really love somebody, even though you know you’re using them.”

  “Randy, that’s the most depraved thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “It’s true,” he said. “I’ve been there. My family will never forgive me, Alex. And I don’t blame them. The people I’ve hurt, the people I’ve taken money from. They’ll never forgive me.”

  “She barely remembered you,” I said.

  “She remembers me.”

  “No.”

  “That’s what she said to you. I know she remembers me.”

  “Yeah? You know that?”

  “Yes.”

&
nbsp; “How do you know this?”

  “Because we’re the same,” he said. “That’s how I know. We’ll always have a connection.”

  “A connection,” I said. “That’s good. That’s real good. How about this instead? You know her so well, you gotta figure she’s got a lot of money stored up after all these years. Am I right?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “You’ve worn out your welcome everywhere else. You know you’re about to take your last fall, so you figure, Why not? You’ll come back, see if you can tap into her again. After all these years.”

  “No.”

  “It was a long time ago. You don’t have much leverage. But you know she’s running something now. You get in on it. Or you threaten her, tell her you’ll scare away the mark, or God knows what. You’d think of something. Am I getting warm here?”

  “No.”

  “This was your last chance. Take her down, whatever you had to do. Take the money and run. Where else were you going to go, anyway?”

  “You got it wrong.”

  “Give me one reason why I should believe you.”

  “Because I can’t lie to you.”

  “You could lie to anybody,” I said. “You could look God himself in the eye and tell him the sky is green.”

  “Not you,” he said. “I could never lie to you.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because you’re my catcher.”

  “Come on, Randy. Enough with that. It was thirty fucking years ago.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m telling you the truth, and you know it. I’ve got no reason to he to you now. In your bones, you know it. You just have to trust me.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

  “You believe me, right?”

  “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  “Tell me you believe me. I gotta hear you say it.”

  “Randy…”

  “Say it, Alex. Tell me you believe me.”

  “Let me think about it,” I said. “I get nervous when people tell me I have to say things.”

  “Is there really a cop outside?” he said. “Right now?”