“I wonder if he was wearing earmuffs.”
“Be stupid not to. Your ears would be ringing for days if you didn’t.”
“If he was just turning eighteen, stupid isn’t out of the question,” I said. “But either way, it would have been easy to sneak up on him.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m just going through all the possibilities. If you came up on one side of the barn…”
I walked over a few steps to the corner and looked back at the scene.
“This side,” I said. “If he was right-handed, I mean. From this side, he wouldn’t see you coming.”
“It’s possible. He was already shooting, so one extra gunshot wouldn’t have been noticed. You take the other gun and put it against his head.”
“Exactly.” I stood there and watched the whole thing happening in my head. A few steps, grab the gun. Boom.
“This is why you stopped up there on the road. To show me how easy it would be to watch this place, so you’d know when the kid was back here shooting.”
“Right again.”
“But there’s no way to really know this for sure, McKnight. If there was nobody else here to see it happen…”
“I know. It’s still just an idea.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We go find Sergeant Steele.”
***
The road to Wisconsin took us over a big dam on the Menominee River and the water was rushing through the gates. The town of Niagara was right there on the southern banks of the river, but of course it was a long way from Niagara Falls, so I couldn’t tell you how it got its name. The one thing I did learn pretty quickly is that Niagara badly needed a Glasgow Inn. We drove past four different bars before we came to the Starlight, and if I had been an actual customer looking for a nice place to have a drink, I would have kept on driving.
We knew it was bad as soon as we walked in. It was too dark, the tables were too close together, and the jukebox was too loud, even on a Thursday afternoon in the middle of April. We went up to the rail, and on any other day I would have just wondered what the hell were they thinking of in this town, and how could anybody spend more than five minutes in this place without killing somebody, and don’t even get me started on calling the place the Starlight with a straight face, not to mention the business about Niagara itself. But today we had more important questions to ask.
“We’re looking for Donna,” I said. “Actually, we’re looking for Sergeant Steele. Are either of them here?”
“Who’s asking?” the man said. He was all sideburns and bad attitude. Yet one more reason not to drink here.
“We’re friends of Sergeant Steele’s wife,” I said.
“Haven’t seen him.” As he was about to turn his back to us, Maven stepped out and flashed his badge.
“We’d appreciate it if you could tell us where they might be,” Maven said. “You think you could manage that?”
Maven didn’t keep the badge out for long, and it was too damned dark to see it, anyway. But it did the trick.
“Honestly, guys. I haven’t seen either of them in a couple days. If you want to go check her house…”
“That’s a great idea. If you could just write down an address for us.”
“No need. Just go down the main road, about seven or eight miles, until you get to Pembine. Her house is number 1490, on the right.”
“That’s very helpful, sir. We appreciate your time.”
We left the place and got back in the truck.
“I didn’t know you could use that badge in a different state,” I said as we pulled out onto the road. “You’re really full of surprises today.”
“You’re starting to rub off on me, McKnight. I’m not sure that’s such a good thing.”
We headed south down the main highway until we saw the little sign letting us know we had hit Pembine. We started watching the numbers go by, 1460, 1470, 1480, until we found the mailbox with the 1490 on it. It was another long driveway with a lot of snow on it, but this time I didn’t bother putting my plow down.
“They’ve been camped out here for a while,” Maven said as we came to the house. We could see the sergeant’s Michigan State Police car parked next to a beat-up old Cadillac. “There are no tracks at all.”
The house was small. It was really more like a cottage that you’d only call a house if you happened to live there year-round. There was a screen door on the side porch and we could see where the snow had blown in and covered the wooden floor. I knocked on the door a few times, but nobody answered.
“I think I see a light on,” Maven said. “They’ve got to be here. Both cars are here.”
“Hello!” I said. “Sergeant Steele!”
I knocked on the porch door again, and then I opened it and went inside the porch to the next door. The whole place needed about a hundred hours of sanding and then two or three coats of good paint.
“Donna! Sergeant Steele!”
Maven came up beside me and looked through the window next to the door. I don’t know which came first, him seeing the two bodies on the floor or me noticing that the door was slightly ajar and pushing it open. The smell came out, riding on the warmer air from inside the house. It washed over me, turning my stomach inside out.
We had found Sergeant Steele, just like we had promised, but we sure as hell wouldn’t be bringing him back home.
Maven got on his cell phone and called 911. I went outside and stood there with my hands on my knees, trying hard not to throw up.
“They’re on their way,” he said after he hung up. “Are you all right?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t ready to stand up.
“Two sons and two fathers now,” he said. “Plus one girlfriend. McKnight, I think we’ve got something terrible going on here.”
And we’re rolling…
… Things are getting a little dark here. We need a bright shot to shift the mood.
… This is the Mackinac Bridge, gleaming in the sunlight.
… Some bouncy travelogue music would be great here. Don’t you think?
… Here’s the bridge. Here’s the way out. Here’s all the hope, right here on this one thin ribbon of pavement.
… Five miles long. Too far to run. Unless you’re the fastest man on earth.
… Even then, they’ll catch you. They always catch you.
… Get the sunlight. So bright it hurts. That’s right.
And cut.
CHAPTER NINE
We waited for the police to arrive. The county guys came first, from their post in Marinette, followed closely by the Wisconsin State Police officers from Fond du Lac. They came out of their cars with guns drawn and Maven and I were smart enough to keep our hands in plain sight. When Maven flashed his badge, the guns went back in their holsters, even if some of the confusion remained. Here was a chief of police, after all, not just from across the border but from way the hell on the other side of the state. It would have been like the chief of police from Milwaukee coming to Sault Ste. Marie and calling in a double homicide.
The preliminary identifications were indeed Sergeant Donald Steele, age forty-three, from the Iron Mountain post of the Michigan State Police, and Donna Krimer, age thirty-eight, a waitress from the Starlight Bar and Grill up the road in Niagara. Both victims had been shot with Seargent Steele’s service revolver, Sergeant Steele in the back and Ms. Krimer in the head. The revolver had not been recovered.
They estimated that the two had been dead for approximately three days, but we didn’t stick around to see the medical examiner do his work. The police took full statements from each of us, and then we were free to go.
“Who’s notifying the next of kin?” Maven asked the state detective who seemed to be in charge.
“We’ve got a couple of men from Sergeant Steele’s post on their way down to talk to his wife,” he said. “Ms. Krimer is separated from her husband, but we haven’t located him yet.”
Maven thanked t
he man and promised him we’d both be available at any time if they needed us. Then we climbed in my truck and got the hell out of there.
“Are we going back to see her?” I said. I didn’t have to specify who.
“It was bad enough for her before,” he said. “Now she really needs somebody else to be there.”
I didn’t argue. We went back over the river, back to Michigan and to all of the misery waiting for us there. When we got to the Steeles’ farm, there was a state squad car in the driveway. It was getting late in the day now. We could hear the unhinged, almost inhuman sound of her crying before we got to the front door.
We introduced ourselves to the troopers. We stayed there for about an hour, trying to help them calm her down. In the end, I saw Maven grab one of the troopers by the collar and make him promise that they wouldn’t leave her alone. I’d known enough state cops in my time to know that you don’t grab them. Ever. And you don’t tell them what to do. Ever. But Maven did both and it seemed to work.
We left the place as the sun was going down. Back up that big curve to the top of the hill, where you could look down and see the whole farm laid out like an early American painting. I kept driving, back through the forest, back along the coastline, back to Sault Ste. Marie, with neither of us saying more than a few words the whole time.
There wasn’t much left to say.
***
It was almost midnight when we pulled up to Maven’s house. There was a Soo police car waiting in the driveway. A young officer got out, the very same officer who had been first on the scene when I found Raz on the kitchen floor.
“Good evening, Chief.” His eyes looked tired. He’d obviously been waiting there a long time.
“What’s going on, Ray?”
“I’m supposed to let you and Mr. McKnight know that the FBI agents will be back in town tomorrow. And that you should plan on making yourselves available to them.”
Maven let out a heavy sigh. It was so cold out now, we could see our breath as we stood there shivering in the driveway.
“I don’t suppose they gave you a specific time,” the chief said.
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“You actually had to wait here until we got back, just to tell us that in person?”
“Those were my instructions, yes.”
“From the agents? They’re the ones who told you to do this?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know, Ray, I know you’re new at this, but here’s one little tip for you. If somebody who isn’t in your immediate chain of command tries to tell you to do something, even if that person is a federal agent, you should always at least consider the option of telling that person to blow it out their ass.”
The poor young officer wasn’t sure what to make of that one.
“It’s okay,” I said, trying to help the kid out. I knew the chief was just as tired and just as shell-shocked as I was. The last thing he should have been doing was giving out career advice. “We’ll be around. Just have them call us and we’ll come right in.”
The officer thanked us and got back in his car. He drove off, presumably to sign off from his shift and go home to bed.
“Those agents are going to try to put us through the ringer tomorrow,” Maven said.
“They have no reason to. Not really.”
“Since when did that ever stop them?”
“Well, get some sleep,” I said. “It’s been a long day.”
“You can say that again.”
I left him there to open the door and to go into his empty house. Then I drove home, trying to keep my eyes open, feeling like I’d seen more than any man should have to see in one day.
***
Agent Long called me at seven o’clock the next morning.
“We’re on our way up,” she said. “We need you at the station at one. Please don’t be late.”
“Good morning to you, too. Thanks for calling so early. Six hours should be just enough time for me to get dressed.”
“We’ll see you there,” she said. Then she hung up.
I went back to sleep for a little while. I’d already spent the entire night dreaming of dead bodies and blood and an unholy smell that had somehow become like a living thing, snaking through a cracked door and trying to wrap itself around me. It was after nine when I finally got up, took a hot shower, and got dressed. I went down to the Glasgow and grabbed a late breakfast, fending off Jackie’s complaints about my erratic schedule and how I expected him to reopen the kitchen whenever I waltzed in the place-in other words, the usual routine. Vinnie stopped in and told me he wouldn’t be able to help me with the finish work on the cabin that day. His mother was feeling even worse, so he was on his way over to the rez to sit with her. I told him I wouldn’t be doing much work that day anyway, which got Jackie going again. By the time I got out of there, I was almost glad to be heading to my FBI grilling.
Chief Maven was already there waiting. As strange as it had been to see him out of uniform the day before, it was doubly strange to see him out of uniform and sitting in his own interview room. I sat down beside him and gave him a nod. He returned the nod and we both stayed quiet. I started to wonder how long the agents would make us wait, but at that very moment the door opened and the two of them walked in.
They put their coats and briefcases down and took all of thirty seconds to settle in before getting down to business. Agent Long sat down in a chair across from us. She had her hair pinned back tight today and I didn’t think it suited her, although I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her that. Agent Fleury stayed on his feet. He started pacing back and forth like a caged animal, which was our first indication that this particular meeting was not going to go well.
“Okay, so Chief Maven,” he finally said, still pacing. “You know, when we came up here the first time, I think we really did try to treat you like we were all on the same team.”
“That wasn’t my impression,” Maven said, folding his arms. “Thanks for returning my last call, by the way.”
“We’ve been very busy down in Detroit. You know that.”
“It takes one minute to return a phone call.”
“When we left here, I believe we had established that the FBI would be taking the lead on this case, did we not?”
“This was a different case,” I said. “This was my case.”
He stopped pacing. “What are you talking about, Mr. McKnight?”
“Mr. Razniewski hired me to look into his son’s suicide. Even though he’s dead, I felt it my duty to complete that assignment. Chief Maven came with me as a private citizen, out of uniform.”
It had sounded good when Leon had said it. In the light of day, with a federal agent standing over me, it was maybe not quite as convincing. But now that I’d hit my ground ball, I had to run it out.
“You are joking, right?”
“No, I’m not.”
“And you needed the chief to come with you… because you’re such good buddies?”
“He was good friends with the young man’s father. It’s natural he’d have an interest. And since he was asked to go on leave and had a lot of time on his hands…”
“He was asked to go on leave because he was actively and aggressively interfering with our investigation into the death of a U.S. marshal. You understand that part of it, right?”
“I thought you said you guys were all on the same team.”
“All right, stop,” Maven said, uncrossing his arms. “Will you just tell us what you want to tell us so we can get the hell out of here?”
Agent Fleury kept trying to stare me down until Agent Long cleared her throat and joined in.
“If you gentlemen had any other material leads pertaining to either Mr. Razniewski or his son, which apparently you did, you should have brought them to us. Especially if those leads involved crossing a state line.”
“We had no way of knowing we’d end up in Wisconsin,” I said. “But come on, does that really matter? Why are you la
ying into us, anyway? We were just asking some questions.”
“Alex,” she said, going with the first name thing now, “do you really think there’s some kind of connection between Razniewski and his son’s death, and Sergeant Steele and his son’s death?”
“I don’t know. That’s what we were trying to find out.”
“I understand how you could look at the close timing and think it was kind of suspicious, but take a step back. You’ve got one young man who has a conflict with his father over his future. He ends up taking his own life. A tragic thing that happens all the time. Every single day. His father is a U.S. marshal, who’s actively hunting down some of the worst criminals in the country. He ends up getting murdered in cold blood. Again, it’s tragic. Of course. That goes without saying.”
I looked over at Maven. He was listening carefully. Once again, I could only marvel at his newfound calm demeanor, and wonder where the hell he had found it.
“In an entirely separate branch of law enforcement, you have Sergeant Donald Steele of the Michigan State Police. His son, as we’ve learned today, was a bit of a loner. Liked to go back behind his barn and fire his guns. Pretty much every afternoon he did this.”
“How did you find that out?”
“We’ve been in contact with the officers out there. They’ve been very helpful. I hope this shows you how seriously we’re taking this.”
“And let me just point out one more time,” Agent Fleury cut in, “that if you had simply come to us instead of going out there yourself-”
“They get it,” Agent Long said, snapping a quick icy look at her partner. It was the first break I had seen between them. “Anyway, the bottom line is we have another young man with some troubles, who takes his own life. But again, as we all know, it happens.”
I was about to speak up on that one. The fact that neither kid had left a note, percentages be damned, and the fact that both suicide scenes gave me the same gut feeling that things just weren’t adding up. But then what? They’d ask for some piece of hard evidence that something was amiss in either case, and what would I give them?
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