A Cold Day in Paradise (Alex McKnight Mysteries)

by Steve Hamilton

  Edwin gave me a little wave while he ordered up a couple quick drinks. He had that look on his face, that deadpan look he always wore when he was out in public with his wife.

  “Tell me something,” Jackie said to nobody in particular. “How does a woman like that end up with a horse’s ass like Edwin Fulton?”

  “I think it has something to do with having a lot of money,” Rudy said.

  “You mean if I had a million dollars she’d be sitting over here on my lap instead?”

  “I don’t know about that,” Rudy said. “Guy as ugly as you, you’d probably need five million.”

  They didn’t stay long. One drink and they were gone, just a quick stop to dazzle the locals and then be on their way. She gave me one more glance as Edwin helped her into her coat. Whatever point she had hoped to make had apparently been made.

  I kept thinking about her while I played poker. It didn’t help me concentrate on the cards and it didn’t help my mood any, either. Outside the wind really started to pick up. We could hear it rattling the windows.

  “November winds are here early,” Jackie said.

  “It’s after midnight,” Rudy said. “It’s November first. They’re right on time.”

  “I stand corrected.”

  About an hour later, Edwin came back into the place. He was alone this time. He stood at the bar for a while, wearing his hangdog expression this time, hoping I’d notice him. I was glad he didn’t try to come over to our table. He had actually played with us once before, and had lost his money as fast as a man can lose money playing low-stakes poker. But it’s just no fun taking money from a guy when you know it doesn’t mean anything to him. That and the way he kept yammering on like he was suddenly one of the boys. He never got asked to play again.

  On most nights, I would have at least gone over to him for a minute to see how he was doing. I don’t know if I just felt sorry for the guy, or if I felt guilty because of the business with Sylvia. Or maybe I really liked the guy. Maybe I considered him my friend despite all the obvious reasons not to. But for some reason I just didn’t feel up to it on this night. I let him stand there by the bar until he finally gave up and left.

  I felt bad as soon as the door shut behind him. “I’m gonna call it a night, guys,” I said. I was hoping I could catch him in the parking lot, but when I got outside he was already gone.

  On the ride home, there’s a stretch on the main road where the trees open up and you get a great look at the lake. There wasn’t much moonlight coming through the clouds, but there was enough to see that the waves were getting bigger, maybe four or five feet. I could feel the truck rocking in the wind as I drove. Somewhere out there, a good thousand feet under the waves, there were twenty-nine men still sleeping, twenty years after the Edmund Fitzgerald went down. I bet that night felt just like this one.

  The wind followed me all the way home, and even when I was inside the cabin I could feel it coming through the cracks. I turned off every light and crawled under my thickest comforter. In the total darkness I could hear the night whispering to me.

  I slept. I don’t know how long. Then a noise. The phone.

  It rang a few times before I got to it. When I picked it up, a voice said, “Alex.”

  “Hello?”

  “Alex, it’s me, Edwin.”

  “Edwin? God, what time is it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I think it’s about two in die morning.”

  “Two in the … for God’s sake, Edwin, what is it?”

  “Um, I’ve got a little problem here, Alex.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “Alex, I know it’s real late, but is there any chance of you coming out here?”

  “Where? Your house?”

  “No. I’m in the Soo.”

  “What? I just saw you a couple hours ago at the bar.”

  “Yeah, I know. I was on my way out here.”

  “Edwin, what the hell’s going on?”

  I stood there shivering for a long moment, listening to the wind outside and to a distant hum on the phone line. “Alex, please,” he finally said. His voice started to break. “Please come out here. I think he’s dead.”

  “Who’s dead? What are you talking about?”

  “I really think he’s dead, Alex. I mean, the blood…”

  “Edwin, where are you?”

  “The blood, Alex.” I could barely hear him. “I’ve never seen so much blood.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I STOOD IN a cheap motel room just inside the Soo city limits at 2:30 A.M., looking down at a man who had died that night, a man who had seemingly lost every ounce of blood from his body.

  The blood was everywhere. It was bright red against the white bathroom floor, and where it had soaked into the carpet it took on a darker color that was almost black. It was on the walls, in great streaks thick enough to drip all the way down to the floor. And it was all over the man himself. He looked like he had been dipped in it like an Easter egg.

  Seeing the blood made the fear come back to me. I know all about fear, where it comes from, why a man feels it. But knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. I could feel it rising inside me, from the floor of my stomach to a point right behind my eyes. I could not stop it.

  “Oh my God,” I said, softer than a whisper. “Oh my God.”

  He was a large man. I did not know if I had ever seen him before. I could not think that far. His throat was opened up from ear to ear. He had been shot in the face, as well. Whether he was shot first or had his throat cut first I could not say. I could not even conceive of trying to guess. Later I would suppose that he had probably been shot first and then had his throat cut on his way down to the floor, but at that moment I was not thinking of anything else but the sight of his blood and what it was doing to me.

  A bathroom door, open. He was twisted on the floor, his face looking upward. Pants and an undershirt. No shoes. His eyes still open. Part of the face gone, below one eye. All the lights on in the room. The television on next to the bed. Some old movie in black and white, the sound turned down. Both beds unmade, the sheets in a wad on the floor. The blood just reaching the sheets. One corner turned red.

  I do not know how long I stood there. I could not move. Finally I looked up and saw myself in the mirror. Do not touch anything. Leave the room. Do not touch anything. Get out get out get out now.

  I went outside and closed the door. I felt like I would surely throw up until a blast of November air right off the lake raked its claws across my face. Edwin was standing there under a cheap fluorescent bulb, shivering. In the dim cruelty of the light he looked vulnerable and out of place.

  He was still dressed up, just as I had seen him in the bar. I couldn’t help noticing now that his scarf was a perfect shade of blood red.

  “Is he dead?”

  “What?” I said.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Is he dead? Did you just ask me if he’s dead?”

  Edwin pulled his coat tight around his body. “Oh God,” he said.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Edwin, for God’s sake …”

  “I don’t know what happened, Alex,” he said. “I swear.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “What?” I couldn’t believe it. “What’s the matter with you? Did you wake anybody up? Where’s the office?” It was a simple motel, seven or eight rooms in a row. It was called the Riverside, even though the St. Mary’s River was at least two miles east.

  “I think it’s down on that end,” he said. “But wait a minute, Alex. Let’s think this through?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I mean, let’s think about the right way to do this.”

  “Get in the truck,” I said.

  “I don’t think we can leave,” he said.

  “I have a phone in the truck, Edwin. Get in the truck.”

&nb
sp; My truck was parked next to his silver Mercedes. There was only one other car in the lot. The owner of the place, no doubt, still blissfully sleeping, unaware that someone had been slaughtered in room six. Either he was the world’s soundest sleeper or the killer had used a silencer on his gun.

  When we were both in the truck I fired it up and turned up the heater. I pulled the cellular phone out from under the seat. “All right, first we call the police,” I said. “Are you going to call them, or am I?”

  “You’re real good buddies with the county sheriff, aren’t you, Alex?”

  “I know the man. What does that have to do with it?”

  “I just thought that if you called …”

  “Edwin, did you see that sign back there that said, ‘Welcome to Sault Ste. Marie’?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What does that mean to you?”

  “It means that we’re in Sault Ste. Marie.”

  “Which means?”

  “I don’t get it,” he said.

  “Which means that we have to call the Soo police. The county doesn’t get involved here.”

  “Shit,” he said.

  “You have a problem with the city police?”

  “No,” he said. “No problem at all. I have no problem with the Soo police.”

  “Good morning,” I said into the phone. ’This is Alex McKnight. I’m a private investigator and I’d like to report a murder. Yes, I’m at the Riverside Motel. Yes, on Three Mile Road. Yes, I will… “

  “I can’t believe this,” he said. It was still cold enough in the truck to see his breath. He rubbed his hands together and blew on them.

  A gust of wind rocked the truck. I looked at the motel while I waited on the line. A lot of tourists come through Chippewa County in a year, but this place looked lonely and forgotten. There was a bird on tibe sign next to the name of the place. I didn’t know if it was supposed to be a pelican or a seagull or God knows what.

  “Yes, good morning, Officer,” I said. They had passed my call onto someone else. I repeated my information and promised them we’d be waiting for the squad car. The Soo was a fairly small city, so I was sure they wouldn’t have anything like a Homicide division, probably just a few full-time detectives to handle all the major crimes. I could only remember reading about one other murder in the last five years. So whoever this guy was who was filling up the room with blood, he had just caused a big jump in the homicide rate. They’d send out a couple night shift uniforms and then they’d probably go ahead and wake up Roy Maven, the chief of police. I knew him only by reputation, and by what the county sheriff had told me one day over a beer. I was not looking forward to meeting him at two-thirty in the morning.

  “Now what?” Edwin said.

  “They’re on their way.”

  “Wonderful,” he said.

  “So are you going to tell me what happened?”

  He nodded. “Where do I begin?”

  “Begin with telling me who that is in there.”

  “His name is Tony Bing. He’s a bookmaker. He was a bookmaker.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “I came to pay off a debt.”

  “At this time of night?”

  “He called me earlier,” he said. “He wanted the money.”

  “What’s he doing at a motel?”

  “He lives here. Some people do that, I guess. They live at a motel.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I said. “How much did you owe him?”

  “Five thousand dollars,” he said.

  “You have it with you?”

  “Yes, right here,” he said. He patted his coat pocket.

  “So you drove over here to give him his money. Then what?”

  “I knocked on the door and nobody answered.”

  “So you went inside?”

  “The door was open. I figured he fell asleep.”

  “You walked right in.”

  “I came all this way just to give him his money,” he said. “I wasn’t going to leave without giving it to him.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So you go inside and you see him.”

  “Right.”

  “And then you call me.”

  “Right. I’ve got a phone, too. In the car.” He pointed at his Mercedes.

  “You see the dead man and then you call me.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “God, have you ever seen such a thing?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I have.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “On account of you being a cop before. You probably saw a lot of that in Detroit.”

  “Two or three times a night,” I said. “You get used to it.”

  “Two or three times a night? Really? That often?”

  For fifty cents I would have slapped his face right there in the truck. “Edwin, can I ask you one more question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why in God’s name did you call me instead of calling the police?”

  “I don’t know, Alex. I mean, you have to understand the state of mind I was in. I walk into that room and I see that guy, I just panicked, I guess. I didn’t know what to do. So I called you. And then I called Uttley.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. You called Uttley? You didn’t say that before.”

  “Yeah, I figure he’s my lawyer. I better call him, too.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he’d be right here. I’m surprised he’s not here by now.”

  “He lives right across town,” I said. “I had to come all the way out here from Paradise.”

  “He must be putting his lawyer suit on,” he said. “Anyway, you were the first person I thought of, Alex. I hope you take that as a compliment.”

  “Remind me to send you some flowers, Edwin.”

  “And also, you know, on account of you being a private investigator and working for Uttley.”

  “Right.”

  “Not to say that I think you work for me, Alex,” he said. “Just because you work for my lawyer. That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Uh-huh.” I could be home in bed, I thought. I could be home right now underneath my blanket.

  “And then also on account of you being so close with the county sheriff, I thought that might be a good thing, too. Although like you say, this isn’t a county thing because it’s in the city. I guess I didn’t think that one through, either. I’m sorry, Alex, my mind is a mess right now.”

  A Soo police car pulled into the lot, its lights flashing silently. “It’s showtime,” I said.

  They were a couple of young cops, no more than twenty-five years old. I remembered being on the night shift myself the first couple years in Detroit. The night shift was all young cops breaking in and old ones putting in some overtime before retirement.

  “Good morning, Officers,” I said. “This is Edwin Fulton. He discovered the deceased.” I tipped my head toward him. He looked pitiful standing there next to my truck with his hands jammed in his pockets. “I’m Alex McKnight.”

  “Where is he?” one of the cops said.

  “Room six,” I said. I thought of telling them not to look, but I knew they’d have to eventually. There was nothing they learned in the academy to prepare them for this.

  “Holy Sweet Jesus,” I heard one of them say when they peeked into the room. They closed the door and kept it closed.

  One of the officers came to me. “Chief Maven will be here in a few minutes,” he said.

  “I figured as much,” I said. “Your partner going to be all right?” He had disappeared behind the squad car. I didn’t have to guess what he was doing.

  “I don’t know. I’m going to go wake up the owner of the motel.”

  Chief Maven pulled in a few minutes later. He came out of his car looking like a man who had been rousted out of bed in the middle of the night to come look at a murder scene. He flipped a pad of paper out of his coat and spoke to the officers for a minute, looked at the door of room six, and then at the two of us standing there. “McKnight,�
�� he said as he approached us. “Alex McKnight.” The man had the cold blue eyes of a cop, the mustache that needed a good trim, the timeworn face. And that voice an old cop uses like a dentist uses a drill.

  “That would be me,” I said.

  “You called this in?”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “Start at the beginning.”

  “I found him, sir,” Edwin said.

  Ma ven shot him a look that would’ve taken the rust off a weather vane. “I haven’t started talking to you yet,” he said.

  Edwin closed his mouth and looked at the ground.

  “This is Edwin Fulton,” I said. “He found him, he called me, I came to the scene, and then I called the police. That’s it.”

  “Says here you’re a PI.”

  “Yes.”

  “You have a card?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “I’ve only had my license a few months.”

  He tore a sheet from his pad. “Then why don’t you write your address and phone number on a piece of paper and we’ll just pretend it’s a card.”

  I looked at him for a moment and then I took the piece of paper.

  “Okay, now I’m talking to you, Mr. Fulton.”

  “Yes, sir?” He was trying not to shake. He was trying very hard.

  “Am I to understand that you found the deceased in that room?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Am I to understand further that you immediately called Mr. McKnight?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And then what did you do after that?”

  “I called my lawyer, sir.”

  Miraculously on cue, Uttley pulled into the lot in his little red BMW.

  Maven closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “And then, Mr. Fulton,” he said. “What did you do next?”

  “I waited here, sir. Until Alex arrived.”

  “At any point did it occur to you to call nine-one-one?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. He looked at me for help, but he wasn’t getting any. “I didn’t think that far.”