Beneath the Book Tower: An Alex McKnight Short Story

by Steve Hamilton

  Jackie Connery, the man who wasn’t born here, who didn’t grow up here. The man who still couldn’t cope with the long winters, even after forty years. The one man you did not want to poke with a sharp stick in January or February or March. Or any kind of stick, sharp or dull. Not until the sun came out and he could at least imitate a normal human being again.

  “What’s that you’re saying now?” He was looking at the man in the pink snowmobile suit with a Popeye squint in his right eye. The poor man had no idea what that look meant.

  “I’m just saying, you know, to set the record straight. Lake Superior is not the biggest lake in the world. Or the deepest.”

  Jackie put the glass down and stepped forward. “So which particular lake, pray tell, are you going to suggest is bigger?”

  The man leaned back on his stool, maybe two inches.

  “Well, technically, that would be the Caspian Sea.”

  “I thought we were talking about lakes.”

  “Technically speaking. That’s what I’m saying. The Caspian Sea is technically a lake and not a sea.”

  “And it’s bigger than Lake Superior.”

  “Yes,” the man said. “Definitely.”

  “The water in the Caspian Sea,” Jackie said, “is it saltwater or fresh?”

  The man swallowed. “It’s saltwater.”

  “Okay, then. If it’s technically a lake, then it’s the biggest, deepest saltwater lake in the world. Apples and oranges, am I right? Can we agree on that much?”

  Jackie turned, and the man should have let it go. But he didn’t.

  “Well, actually, no.”

  Jackie stopped.

  “Lake Baikal,” the man said. “In Russia. That’s fresh water. And it’s way deeper than Lake Superior.”

  “In Russia, you said? Is that where it is?”

  “Lake Baikal, yes. I don’t know if it has a bigger surface area, but I know it’s got a lot more water in it. Like twice as much as Lake Superior. So really, in that respect, it’s twice as big.”

  Jackie nodded his head, like this was actually an interesting fact he had just learned instead of the most ridiculous statement ever uttered by a human being. It would have been like somebody telling him that Mexico is actually more Scottish than Scotland.

  I was sitting by the fireplace, of course. On a cold morning on the last day of March, after cutting some wood and touching up the road with my plow, where else would I be? But either way I was close enough to hear the whole exchange, and right about then I was hoping we’d all find a way to end it peacefully.

  The man in the pink snowmobile suit started fishing for his wallet. Jackie raised a hand to stop him.

  “Don’t even bother, sir. Your money’s no good here.”

  The man looked over at me this time, as if I could actually help him.

  “A man as smart as you,” Jackie said, “it’ll be my honor to buy you a drink.”

  “Well, okay, but come on, don’t you—”

  “Are you riding today?”

  “Uh, yeah,” the man said, looking down at his suit. Like what the hell else would he be doing?

  “Silly me. Of course you are. So why don’t you head back on out there while we still have some snow left.”

  “It is pretty light this year. Must be global warming or something.”

  “Global warming, now. So you mean like our winter might last ten months instead of eleven? Is that the idea? You’re like a walking library of knowledge, I swear.”

  “Listen, is there a problem here? Because I don’t—”

  “No, no,” Jackie said. “No problem. You go on out and enjoy your ride. In fact, you know what? I hear they’ve got a lot more snow in Russia this year. Up by that real big lake. What was it called again?”

  The man didn’t answer.

  “Lake Baikal,” I said.

  “I wasn’t talking to you, Alex.”

  “Just trying to help.”

  “I’m leaving,” the man said, already halfway to the door. “And I won’t be back.”

  “When you get to that lake, do me a favor, huh? I’m still not convinced it’s deeper, so can you drive your snowmobile and let it sink to the bottom with you still on it? You think you could do that? I’d really appreciate it.”

  The man slammed the door behind him. Another drinking man turned away for life, not that he’d have any other place to go in Paradise, Michigan. Jackie picked up his towel and threw it at me. I ignored him and turned back to the fire.

  They have long, long winters up here. Did I mention that yet? By the time the end of March drags around, everyone’s just a few degrees past crazy. Not just Jackie.

  The sun was trying to come out as I was driving back up my road. It was an old unpaved logging road, with banks of snow lingering on either side. When the snow started to melt, the road would turn to mud and I’d have a whole new set of problems to deal with. By the time it dried out, it would be time for black fly season.

  I passed Vinnie’s cabin first. Vinnie “Red Sky” LeBlanc, my only neighbor and maybe my only true friend. Meaning the one person who truly understood me, who never wanted anything from me, and who never tried to change me.

  I passed by the first cabin, the one my father and I had built a million years ago—before I went off to play baseball and then become a cop—then the next four cabins, each bigger than the one before it, until I got to the end of the road. There stood the biggest cabin of all, looking almost as good as the original. I’d been rebuilding it for the past year, starting with just the fireplace and chimney my father had built stone by stone. Now it was almost done. Now it was almost as good as it was before somebody burned it down.

  I parked the truck and went inside. Vinnie was already there, on his hands and knees in the corner of the kitchen, once again working harder and longer than I ever did myself, making me feel like my debt to him was more than I could ever repay.

  “What are you ruining now?” I said to him.

  “I’m fixing the trim you put down on this floor.” He was in jeans and a white T-shirt, his denim jacket hanging on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. He had a long strip of quarter round molding in his hand, the very same strip I had just tacked down the day before.

  “You’re ripping it up? How is that fixing it?”

  “You used the wrong size trim. You need to start over.”

  “It’s not the wrong size. Damn it, Vinnie, is it any wonder it’s taking me forever to finish this place? You wanna rip the ceiling off, too?”

  “You got a good half-inch gap here,” he said, pointing to the gap between the floor and the lowest log on the wall.

  “That’s a quarter inch.”

  “Here it might be, but over on the other side of the room it gets wider. You have to measure the gap at its longest before you go out and buy your trim.”

  “Vinnie, what the hell’s wrong with you?”

  “I told you, you bought the wrong size. And as long as you’re buying new molding, get something with a little more style, too. Quarter round is boring.”

  “Nobody’s going to notice it. It’s on the floor, for God’s sake.”

  He turned away from me, shaking his head. He grabbed another length of molding and ripped it up like he was pulling weeds.

  “Something’s eating at you,” I said. “I can tell.”

  “I’m fine. I just wish you’d do things right for a change.”

  First Jackie and now Vinnie. Such a parade of cheerful people in my life. I was truly a lucky man.

  “It’s actually trying to get nice outside,” I said. “We might even have some sunlight soon. Will that make you feel better?”

  He didn’t look up. “You know one thing that bothers me?”

  “What?”

  “How long have you been living in this cabin?”

  “Ever since I’ve been working on it. It just makes things easier.”

  “I think you’re done now, Alex. You’ve got the floor down. You’ve got th
e woodstove working. As soon as I redo your trim, this place will be ready to rent out again.”

  “It’s been a bad winter for the snowmobile people. You know that.”

  “You could have this place rented right now. It’s your biggest cabin. You’re just wasting money.”

  “Since when are you my accountant?”

  He stopped what he was doing and sat still on the floor. He finally turned to look at me. “You need to move back into your cabin. You can’t keep avoiding it.”

  “I will.” It was my turn to look away. “As soon as I’m done here.”

  Vinnie didn’t say anything else. I got down on my knees and helped him tear up the remaining strips of floor molding. An hour later I was on my way to Sault Ste. Marie to buy the new strips, five-eighths instead of half-inch, cloverleaf instead of quarter round. As I passed that first cabin, I made a point of not even looking at it.

  That was how the day went. That last day in March. It started with breakfast at the Glasgow Inn and ended with dinner in the same place. It was like most every other day in Paradise. Vinnie had helped me finish the baseboard trim, then he’d gone over to the rez to sit with his mother for a while. She’d not been feeling like herself lately. Maybe just one more person who was tired of winter. I was hoping that was it, that she’d feel better once the sun came back. That we’d all feel better.

  Vinnie gave me a nod as he came through the door. Back from the rez, then a shift at the casino dealing blackjack, stopping in now because that’s what you do around here. Every night. Jackie was watching hockey on the television mounted above the bar. Vinnie went over and stood behind him, just like I had told him to do.

  “Hey, Jackie,” he said, “I heard something interesting today.”

  “What’s that, Vin?”

  “Did you know Lake Superior isn’t really the biggest lake in the world? Or the deepest?”

  Jackie turned and glared at me.

  “I’ll throw you right out on your ass,” he said. “I swear to God I will.”

  Finally, something to smile about, on a cold, cold night. I looked back into the fire and watched the flames dance. My last hour of peace until everything would change.

  We’re not supposed to believe in evil anymore, right? It’s all about abnormal behavior now. Maladjustment, overcompensation, or my favorite, the antisocial personality disorder. Fancy words I was just starting to hear in that last year on the force, before I looked into the eyes of a madman as he pulled that trigger without even blinking.

  In a way, I’ve never gotten past it. I’m still lying on that floor, watching the light in Franklin’s eyes slowly going out. My partner, the man I was supposed to protect at all costs. Later, in the hospital, they pulled two slugs from my body and left the one that was too close to my heart to touch. It’s been with me ever since, a constant reminder of the evil I saw that night, all those years ago on a warm summer evening in Detroit. You’d never convince me otherwise. No, I’d seen evil as deep as it could ever get.

  But like Jackie and his beloved lake, you’d never know there was something deeper out there until somebody came to you and told you about. A deeper lake. A lake you’ve never seen before. Even then, you might not believe it. Not unless he took you there and showed it you.

  It was about to happen. Minutes away, then seconds. Then the door opened and the cold air blew in and the last person I expected to see that night stepped inside, carrying a big problem and looking for my help.

  Chapter Two

  Chief Roy Maven stood in the doorway of the Glasgow Inn. He was out of uniform, but everything else about him—his clean-shaven face, his buzz cut, his hard eyes, his body language—gave him away as a lifelong cop. He blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted to the light, did a scan around the room, taking it all in. He finally saw me sitting by the fire and came over.

  “Chief Maven,” I said. “What the hell?”

  “McKnight. Can I sit down?”

  I nodded to the other chair across from me, another overstuffed leather armchair angled toward the fire—just one more reason why a Scottish pub is a thousand percent better than your average American bar.

  “This is nice,” he said. “I can see why you spend so much time here.”

  “You knew to find me here?”

  “Yeah, it’s been an exhausting search. First your cabin. Then your bar.”

  “Are you gonna tell me why you’re here or not?”

  He leaned forward in the chair and rested his forearms on his knees. He looked me in the eye and as he did I was already coming up with my own theory. You see, the chief and I had sort of gotten off to a rough start. Genuinely bad chemistry from the first time I laid eyes on him and he laid eyes on me. Then things just went downhill from there, until at one point, he promised me that the day he retired, he’d come out to Paradise to find me so we could settle things between us once and for all. No more badge in the way, just a couple of men who truly didn’t like each other, having it out in the parking lot. He was ten years older than me, maybe even fifteen. But I knew it wouldn’t be an easy fight. Not by a long shot.

  “I came out here to ask for your help,” he said.

  I stared at him for a moment, waiting for it to make sense. It didn’t happen.

  “I didn’t want to call you,” he said. “I figured this is the kind of thing you need to do in person.”

  Jackie wandered over at that point, a bar towel over this shoulder.

  “Who’s your friend?”

  “This is Roy Maven,” I said, “Chief of Police in the Soo.”

  “Okay,” Jackie said, reaching over to shake the man’s hand. “At the risk of being indelicate… I was led to believe that you and Alex hate each other.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. Just call it a persistent lack of liking each other.”

  Jackie looked at me for confirmation. I just shrugged.

  “Well, as long as we’re playing nice here, how ’bout we get you a beer. Alex? A Molson?”

  “I’m fine, thanks,” Maven said.

  “You don’t understand,” Jackie said. “This is a real Molson, bottled in Canada. From Alex’s personal stash. He doesn’t drink anything else.”

  “McKnight, you drive all the way to Canada to get your beer?”

  “Hell if he drives,” Jackie said. “I do.”

  “Well, damn,” Maven said. “In that case I’ll have to have one. I am out of uniform, after all.”

  The evening is just about complete, I thought. All we need now is dinner and a movie.

  He looked into the fire as we waited for Jackie to come back with the beer. When we both had our bottles, Maven tipped his back and took a long drink.

  “That ain’t bad,” he said. “Not bad at all.”

  “So seriously,” I said, “quit joking around and tell me why you’re here.”

  “You really think I came all the way out here to have a beer with you? I meant what I said. I need your help.”

  “With what?”

  He looked around the place, like somebody else might be listening in on our conversation. Then he pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

  “Can I smoke in here?”

  “Jackie would prefer that you don’t.”

  He put the cigarettes away. He fidgeted with his bottle for a few seconds, then he stood up.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go outside.”

  Now we’re getting to it, I thought. He really did come here to fight.

  “If I don’t smoke a cigarette, I’m gonna kill someone,” he said. “This is hard enough as it is, believe me.”

  I made him wait for a three count, then I finally got up and grabbed my coat. Who needs a comfortable chair in front of the fire when you can go freeze your ass off with a man you can’t stand?

  He opened the door and I followed him into the darkness. He took a few steps along the side of the building, staying out of the wind. He pulled out his cigarettes and his lighter. It was an old-school silver flip light
er. He cupped his hands around the end of his cigarette as he lit it, then he snapped the lighter shut and put it in his pocket. He took a deep draw and let out a stream of smoke.

  “So tell me what the hell’s going on,” I said.

  “I told you this wasn’t easy. So cut me some slack, eh? I came to ask you to do some work for a friend of mine.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “You still have the private investigator’s license?”

  “I don’t do that anymore.”

  “Do you still have the license or not?”

  “It’s a moot point, I told you I don’t—”

  “Okay, so you have the license. That’s good.”

  “Maven, I swear to God…”

  “Relax, McKnight. Will you just shut up for once and listen? Here’s the situation. I’ve got this friend, Charles Razniewski. Everybody calls him Raz. I used to ride with him a lot when I with the state police.”

  “When was that?”

  “Hell, that was what, ten years ago now? I was getting sick of the politics so I left to try something else. Eventually ended up taking the job up here.”

  “The state police’s loss was Sault Ste. Marie’s gain, you mean.”

  “I told you to shut up, okay? So Raz, he ended up leaving, too, just before I did. But in his case he went federal. He’s been a U.S. marshal ever since. Based down in Detroit. Your old stomping grounds.”

  “The marshals had an office on Lafayette. I wonder if he was there when I was.”

  “Small world, who knows. But here’s the point of all this. He’s got one kid, Charles Jr.”

  Maven stopped and looked out into the parking lot. The wind picked up and the pine trees started swaying.

  “God damn,” he said. “I mean to say, he had one kid. Here’s the thing. You see, Charlie, he was going to school out at Michigan Tech. Just starting his last semester, right after Christmas break, he goes back up to school for some New Year’s Eve party, and then…”