Misery Bay: An Alex McKnight Novel

by Steve Hamilton

  This time, on an even colder night, Maven knew exactly where to find me. He came over to my chair by the fire. He stood looking down at me. After searching for him all day, now that he was here I had no idea what I wanted to say to him.

  “I had to get out of here for a while,” he said. “It was either that or kill somebody.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You went chasing down more leads without me.”

  “I had to see it.”

  “See what?”

  “Misery Bay,” he said. “I had to go there.”

  “What? Are you serious? You went all the way out there?”

  “I was there today. I just got back a little while ago.”

  “But wait a minute—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me, McKnight?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That place is even worse than I imagined. If that kid was really hanging there, facing the lake like that. I mean everybody else is dead, I know, but that place. My God, McKnight. All of this started right there?”

  He stared into the fire. He was still standing.

  “Sit down,” I said. “Take your coat off.”

  “I can’t. We have to go.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We have to go talk to Lieutenant Haggerty. Right now.”

  “Chief, come on.”

  “As soon as I got home, I had a message from Sergeant Coleman. The agents were at Haggerty’s house today, asking him questions. It wasn’t a good scene for anybody, I guess. Haggerty was in no shape to hear their crazy ideas.”

  “But they weren’t their ideas…”

  “I know. That’s the thing. He called Coleman and told him he wants to talk to us. You and me. As soon as possible. I just called Haggerty himself to confirm.”

  “Tonight?”

  “We can be there in two hours,” Maven said. “Let’s go. While he’s still alive.”

  And we’re rolling …

  … Open up that closet door, just a few inches. Just like that.

  … We want the shot as if we’re looking out from the closet, watching the Monster.

  … That’s right. Drink that beer. Cigarette. More beer. That’s it.

  … Oh, what’s this? A sound behind you?

  … Camera down. No face here. It’s so much better when you don’t see the Monster’s face. You use your imagination, and the Monster is worse than anything you could ever see in real life. Solid filmmaking right there.

  … Come around toward the camera. Stagger just a little bit. Good, good.

  … Just the legs. Don’t tilt up. No face. Come closer. Close the door. Just like—

  Hey, watch the camera!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I could see that Maven was dead on his feet, so I made him get in the truck. We left his car there in Jackie’s lot and headed west. It was just after nine o’clock. In the UP, in April, that means it’s already been dark for hours and it feels like the middle of the night.

  “Haggerty’s got a place in Au Train,” Maven said as we left town. That was a good thirty miles this side of Marquette.

  “Is he really expecting us?”

  “He is, yes. But I don’t know much else. What kind of state of mind he’s in. He sounded pretty out of it.”

  “He’s probably going crazy right now.”

  “His daughter just—”

  He stopped short. He couldn’t even say it. If the little fracas he had gotten into with Agent Fleury hadn’t removed any doubt, I wouldn’t want to be the man who ever threatened a hair on Olivia Maven’s head.

  Maven put his head back and closed his eyes. If he really went all the way out to Misery Bay and then back again that same day … well, it was a hell of a day under any circumstances. Now it looked like it was going to go even longer, and this last part would probably be the worst of all.

  “So what’s the plan?” I said. “What are we going to say to him?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, his eyes still closed. “I guess we’ll figure that out when we get there.”

  * * *

  It was the same long, straight road stretching across the middle of nowhere, except now in the utter darkness with the wind blowing and all of the death on our minds it was anything but boring. I would have paid big money for boring at that point in my life.

  By the time we reached the water again, it felt like dawn should be right around the corner, but it wasn’t even 10:30 yet. We had been on the road just over an hour. We drove through Munising, where every sane, normal person was locked up tight in a warm house. Then more empty road until we passed through the town of Christmas. The casino appeared on our left, all lit up in the snow, looking out of place and frankly ridiculous. There were enough cars in the lot to justify being open on a night like this. I could only shake my head in amazement as we drove by. The sudden light woke Maven and he sat up straight, shielding his eyes.

  “Where are we?”

  “Christmas. I assume you don’t want to stop and play some blackjack.”

  “The day you find me gambling you can go ahead and shoot me.”

  “I wasn’t actually suggesting—”

  “Just don’t get me started on that,” he said. “Au Train’s what, just a couple miles ahead, right? Coleman said you gotta take a left at the main intersection and go south for a while.”

  We hit the center of town and took the left at the blinking light. Maven told me to go down past the falls and then to look for one of those double-decker mailboxes. One at normal height, the other about eight feet in the air—when you see them downstate, the sign on the top mailbox usually says AIRMAIL. Up here it’s more likely to say WINTER DELIVERY. Either version stops being funny around the second or third time you see it, but in this case it was a welcome sign of life and humor and I don’t know, after driving in the dark it reminded me that there was a real human being who put up those mailboxes and probably thought they were hilarious at the time. Before his whole life got turned inside out.

  As I turned down the driveway, I put my plow down. There was half a foot of snow on the ground and you could see some recent tire tracks.

  “You said he already talked to the FBI. When, yesterday?”

  “So I’m told,” Maven said. “That must be their tracks, huh? Probably didn’t have the sense to drive a real vehicle.”

  As if on cue, the driveway turned and we saw the tracks going right off the road. There was a great mess where the snow and ground were churned up and I could imagine Agent Fleury trying to push the car from behind while Agent Long steered. So not a good time for anyone involved. It made me wonder what kind of mess they may have left inside, as well. Maybe Agent Fleury knew how to impersonate a human being when talking to a grieving father, but I wouldn’t have bet on it.

  “Look at where this place is,” Maven said. “He’s totally isolated back here.”

  It was true. His driveway was as long as my logging road, lined on both sides by trees heavy with snow. The headlights from the truck cast an eerie glow over everything and it was as though we were heading down some long tunnel lined with white, all the way down to the dark center of the earth.

  Finally, as we came around one more bend we saw the house sitting in a small clearing. It was a good old-fashioned log cabin, obviously built by hand. Many long, loving hours spent right here in the woods, with nobody else in sight. A black Jeep Cherokee was parked by the cabin. The man was long retired by now so naturally he’d have the civilian vehicle and not a state car. I parked behind it and turned off the headlights.

  As we got out of the truck the night itself seemed to throw a blanket of absolute quiet over our heads. There was what had to be a frozen pond behind the house, with lights mounted on wooden poles, probably for skating on the pond. But the lights were off tonight and the pond had not been cleared of snow.

  We went up the three steps to the front porch and knocked on the front door. There weren’t many lights on inside the cabin. We stood there in t
he darkness, waiting for something to happen. It didn’t take long for me to start feeling sick to my stomach. I was pretty sure Maven felt exactly the same way.

  “I swear to God,” he said, “if that poor son of a bitch is inside this cabin, lying dead on the floor…”

  The possibility seemed more likely with each passing second. We’re too late, I thought. The man’s been murdered. Maybe just a few hours ago. Or even minutes. His blood might not even be cold yet.

  Then the door opened. It happened quickly and it scared the hell out of me. We saw a man standing there in the doorway with just enough backlighting to form a black silhouette and nothing else.

  “Lieutenant Haggerty?” Maven said. “We’re sorry to bother you, sir. But I spoke to you on the phone earlier this evening?”

  The specter took a step forward. I was already expecting to see a man who had just lived through the worst two weeks of his life, but even so it was a jarring sight. He was unshaven, first of all, and his hair was uncombed. His clothes looked like they had been picked out at random. Baggy pants that might have been pajama bottoms or workout sweats or God knows what. An old cable-knit fisherman’s sweater with stretched-out sleeves. Brown corduroy slippers. Overall, the complete outfit of a homeless man, yet here he stood in the doorway of a cabin he may very well have built with his own hands.

  But more than anything else, the man’s eyes—sunken, half-dead, with dark rings beneath them. If you had kidnapped this man and beaten him and starved him for two weeks straight, this is exactly what he would look like.

  “Lieutenant,” Maven said again. “May we come inside?”

  The man took two steps backward so we could pass. We were in the living room, but it was hard to make out exactly where we were going because it was as dark in here as the night itself. He walked past us, his footsteps strangely quiet on the wooden floor. As we followed him, we could finally see the one source of light in the entire house. It was a small lamp with a crooked shade and a lightbulb that couldn’t have been more than forty watts, sitting on a table at the far end of the kitchen. The man went to the table and sat down on one of the chairs. He put his hands together on the table and still did not speak a word. Maven and I stood there watching him for a moment. Then we went to the table and we each moved a pile of catalogs and newspapers from the other chairs and sat down across from him. There was a sour smell of old food and unwashed dishes coming from the sink.

  There was a large window next to the table. It was so dark outside it might as well have been painted black. The wind blew and the window flexed, while the man let out a long ragged breath and kept staring at his hands.

  This is the man who told Coleman he wants to talk to us, I thought. Who confirmed it himself when Maven called him. Yet now that we’re here, he doesn’t seem to want to say a single word.

  “Lieutenant Haggerty,” I said.

  “I’m not a lieutenant anymore.” His voice was somehow even more tired and more faraway than I would have imagined. “Call me Dean.”

  “Dean,” I said. “I can’t tell you how sorry we are for your loss.”

  He looked up at us, meeting our eyes for the first time.

  “You sound like cops. That’s exactly what a cop would say.”

  “I’m the Chief of Police in Sault Ste. Marie,” Maven said. “My name’s Roy.”

  “I’ve heard about you. Everybody says you’re an asshole.” Like a simple statement of fact, deserving no apology for saying it. Or else he was beyond caring.

  “I have my days,” Maven said, unshaken. “This is Alex. He was a police officer in Detroit.”

  He looked at me and nodded.

  “The FBI agents were here to talk to you,” Maven said. “Is that right?”

  “Yes. They were here.”

  “I don’t want to drag you through it again,” Maven said, “but what did they actually—”

  “They said that you guys have some questions about my daughter’s … about what happened to her. They said they didn’t necessarily … what did they say? Subscribe to anything unusual themselves, but they had to follow up.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a good way to put it,” Maven said, unable to hide his anger. I’m sure he was imagining Agent Fleury sitting right here in the same room, behaving exactly like himself. So much for impersonating a human being. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

  “Feds are different,” the lieutenant said. “Always have been.”

  Maven pursed his lips and nodded. He was rubbing his right fist with his left hand.

  “If you don’t mind,” I said, “can we ask you a few questions?”

  “As long as you tell me why you think there’s something suspicious about my daughter’s…”

  That’s twice now, I thought. You come right up to it and you can’t say the words.

  “Of course,” I said. “We’ll tell you everything we know.”

  “Then go ahead. Ask me your questions. But then I want answers from you. That’s the only reason I wanted you to come here.”

  “Your daughter…” I said. “What’s her name, anyway?”

  “Dina. Her name is Dina.”

  “I understand she, um…”

  Here it is, I thought. The man’s still talking about her in the present tense, but I can’t do it. I have to say this the right way. The way it really is now.

  “I understand she was a teacher at the college,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Was there any indication that she might have been depressed, or … I don’t know. Was there any sign at all of this happening?”

  “Not that I know of. But she was twenty-seven years old. She lived in town, had her career at the college. I talked to her every week, but…” His words trailed off as he looked away.

  “We’ve only heard in general terms that she may have…” I hesitated, then plowed ahead. “That she may have taken her own life. But we haven’t heard any details beyond that.”

  “It was a suicide bag.”

  Maven and I looked at each other.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “A suicide bag is supposedly a quick and painless way to kill yourself,” he said. “It’s a very simple device. All you need is a helium tank, the kind you can buy to fill up balloons. A rubber hose, a plastic bag, and some sort of strap or belt or something to tie it off with. You cut a small hole in the bag and you slip the hose through the hole. Then you put the bag over your head and secure it.”

  He was still looking away as he said this, the words coming out in a rush and it made me remember that he had been a specialist at the crime lab in Marquette. It was the only lab in the Upper Peninsula, so that’s where any questions about poison or ballistics or anything else along those lines would inevitably be sent. He was on familiar ground now, even if it never hit so close to home before.

  “You turn on the helium. Because it’s an inert gas, it helps suppress your suffocation reflex. Within seconds, you lose consciousness. Asphyxia will take place within minutes. Then you’re gone.”

  It took me a few extra seconds to really absorb what he was telling us. There really was something called a “suicide bag.” And his daughter had apparently used it on herself. We’re sitting here in this dark house while this man is telling us in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice one of the most horrible things I’ve ever heard.

  “How would she have even learned about this?” Maven finally said.

  “I’m sure it’s out there on the Internet. I’ve heard of it once or twice, but I’ve never actually run into a case of…”

  He stopped. He looked down and I thought he was about to lose it. But he didn’t cry. He didn’t make the slightest sound. Maybe he was all cried out at that point.

  “Lieutenant,” I said, “why are you here all by yourself? Isn’t there somebody who can … be here with you?”

  He wiped his nose and looked up at me.

  “What, you mean like my family?”<
br />
  “Yes.”

  “My brother came right out,” he said. “The day after it happened. Then my sister came, with her son. Then two cousins who haven’t said a word to me in twenty years. They flew out all the way from California and rented a car and tried to drive out to the cabin and made it about one mile before they went into a ditch. They all invaded the house and tried to clean me up and make me eat and eventually they even tried to drag me out of here.”

  “Don’t you think that would be a good idea? You shouldn’t be alone through this.”

  He snorted at that and shook his head.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “Forgive me for saying so. You don’t get it at all.”

  “Okay,” I said. I wasn’t about to fight him over it. “So … I’m sorry, if we can just go back one more time…”

  “Lieutenant,” Maven said, “just a couple more questions, I promise.”

  “Go right ahead. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Was there … a note by any chance?”

  “No note. They just, uh … they found her in bed the next day, with the bag over her head, and her arms wrapped around the tank.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “A couple friends of hers. They had her key, for when she’d go away and they’d come in and water her plants. Stuff like that. She didn’t show up for classes, and she wasn’t answering her phone, so…”

  I didn’t want to picture it, but I couldn’t keep the image out of my head. A woman alone in her bed, hugging a tank of helium like a lover.

  But now it’s going to get even worse, I thought. Here’s the really hard part …

  “A device like this,” I said, “is it possible to use this on someone against their will?”

  He didn’t answer that for a while. I thought I saw his hands starting to tremble.

  “Yes, I believe that would be possible,” he said. “But then there’d probably be some sign of a struggle.”

  “What if you were asleep?” Maven said.