Misery Bay am-8

by Steve Hamilton

  ***

  The sun was shining in our eyes as she drove us to Paradise. It made my head hurt. More than anything, it felt strange to be sitting in the passenger’s seat.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “It’s okay to not be all right sometimes,” she said. “You don’t have to be such a man about it.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been around some men in your time.”

  “Only every working minute of every day.”

  “What about when you get off work?”

  She thought about that one for a minute.

  “I’ve given up a lot to stay in this job,” she said. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

  We rode on in silence for a while.

  “I assume Maven talked to you,” I finally said.

  “About what he finally remembered, yes. You know who else I talked to?”

  “Who?”

  “A woman named Margaret Steele. I believe you met her.”

  “Sergeant Steele’s wife? Yeah, we met her, all right. How’s she doing now?”

  “Good as can be expected. She appreciates all the help you tried to give her.”

  “All we did was ask painful questions about her son, and then find her dead husband in his girlfriend’s house.”

  “Well, believe it or not,” Agent Long said, “she actually remembers Bobby Bergman. I guess her husband talked about him quite a bit.”

  “Really?”

  “That day Wiley was arrested, apparently he came all the way out from California and stuck a gun in Darryl Bergman’s ear. He told his daughter and his grandson to take the truck and to get the hell out of there.”

  “So he really was trying to save them.”

  “In his own way, yes. But here’s where it gets a little weird. After Wiley was done having his little man-to-man chat with his son-in-law, he left and tried to catch up with the truck. Bergman called the police, and that’s how Wiley got flagged at the bridge. You know what happened next. But somewhere down the road, his daughter ended up parked at a rest stop. I guess she was waiting for her father, or I don’t know, either she lost her nerve or else it sounds like she was high most of the time. Probably that day, too. It kinda ran in the family. Either way, they found her passed out in the truck a few hours later. Young Bobby was gone.”

  “What, you mean he tried to keep going on his own?”

  “Who knows what he was thinking? Maybe he was planning on hitchhiking all the way to California. Living with his grandfather must have seemed like a much better deal for him.”

  “Damn,” I said. “So that’s when Maven and Razniewski picked him up.”

  “They called in and drove him back to St. Ignace. Steele and Haggerty drove him and his mother back home that night.”

  “Mrs. Steele remembers all this?”

  “Her husband kept going back. Even after Haggerty transferred to Marquette, Steele would stop in every few weeks to see how the kid was doing. He tried to get Family Services involved, but I guess nothing ever came of it.”

  “This is the cop who tried to help him, you’re saying. And years later, this is how he gets repaid.”

  “Obviously, young Mr. Bergman saw things a little differently.”

  “So I get how he’d remember Steele’s name,” I said, “especially if he kept coming by. But what about the other three? He gets picked up, driven back part of the way, then driven back home in another car. How does he remember all four names?”

  “If he’s a smart enough kid, and it means enough to him, he remembers. And if he remembers, he can go back and find them later if he really wants to.”

  “You’re right about that,” I said, thinking about how much information Leon was able to find on the Internet in a matter of seconds.

  “But it was all about him,” she said. “That’s the thing. This kid trying to escape and getting taken back. The whole business with his grandfather, that was secondary. That’s why we never saw the connection with Razniewski and Maven. They had nothing to do with the arrest, but everything to do with what happened to Bobby Bergman.”

  “So what about that list I found at Wiley’s house? Where did it come from?”

  “It was just three names, right? Steele, Haggerty, and Razniewski. No Maven.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Think about it.”

  I did. About a minute later, I let out a long breath and banged my good hand on the glass beside me.

  “The agent who came out to question him,” I said. “He told them those names. Wiley didn’t know anything about it until then.”

  “I’m not sure if he told him the specific names or not, but it doesn’t even matter. If he just said there’s been some former state police officers killed up north, Wiley could have found out the names on his own. It’s not like they were secret.”

  “You’re right. Just search through the newspapers up here for the last few months. He’s writing the names down. They start to look familiar-Steele and Haggerty, at least. So then he looks through his old court records and makes the connection.”

  “He knows his grandson is still up here…”

  “So he starts thinking, what the hell’s going on? Maybe he even calls him?”

  “Maybe. Either way, he ends up down in his basement. That’s when he sees exactly what his grandson’s been working on.”

  “What about the fire?” I said. “Do you think Bergman set it to kill his father?”

  “I don’t know, although it’s kinda funny how that fire happened right as he was going away to college,” she said. “And if you think about it, that kid sure had a gift for making crimes look like something else.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t bet against it.”

  Another mile of silence.

  “So that’s how he dealt with his life,” I said. “He turned it into a movie.”

  “If it’s a movie, it’s not really happening.”

  “God damn…”

  “The scene with Olivia Maven got ruined, by the way.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The film was overexposed.”

  “I think that was my fault,” I said. “Too bad.”

  She looked over at me. “Your scene, on the other hand, came out just fine.”

  “So you told me. Did you and Agent Fleury have popcorn while you were watching it?”

  “I’m glad you can joke about it.”

  “What else am I going to do?”

  Another minute of silence.

  “I have it on my laptop,” she said.

  “What?”

  “That old film is fragile, so we made a digital copy. I can show you it if you want me to.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “It’s up to you. You’ve earned the right to see it.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Let me think about it.”

  ***

  It felt like I’d been gone a long time, even though it was only a matter of days. Most of the snow was gone now. She drove up my road, past Vinnie’s cabin, then past my first cabin.

  “What’s the matter?” she said.

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you sure? You tensed up like you were in pain. Do you need your pills?”

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  She shook her head, probably thinking I was just acting like a man again. I didn’t want to get into the whole story with her.

  She went up to the end of my road and stopped in front of the last cabin. I got out and felt a little dizzy as I walked across the muddy ground to the front door. She grabbed her laptop bag from behind the seat and followed me. I held the door open for her. When she was inside she stood around for a few moments, not looking entirely comfortable. Eventually, she took out her laptop and plugged it in.

  “You’re the one who told me not to look at those crime scene photos,” I said.

  “Yeah, but if you hadn’t, he might still be out there killing people.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you wha
t,” I said, coming closer to her. “I don’t think I need to see the film of myself almost dying. I was there, and that’s probably enough.”

  “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

  “So as long as you’re here, what else can we do?”

  I stood there looking at her. Eventually, I took another step toward her and felt a little dizzy.

  “Alex, are you okay?”

  When I opened my eyes, Agent Long was right there in front of me, holding both arms.

  “Ouch,” I said. “Watch the left side there.”

  “I think you need to lie down.”

  “No, I’m okay now. I promise. For real this time.”

  Her hand was still on my arm. My good arm. As I looked at her face, I felt a huge relief. I was glad she was there with me. I was glad she looked so good in that moment. I was glad I had at least half a working body left.

  Then I laughed. It was hilarious to me that I was alive. That I managed to come through this and that now I was here in my cabin with this woman…

  “What are we doing here?” she said.

  I pulled her close to me. She smelled good. Better than good. This was the first woman I had touched since… well, since the thing that had happened in that first cabin. She wasn’t resisting me. She was responding and I wanted to keep going, and then anything that happened after that we’d have to figure out when we got there.

  Then I passed out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  By the time I came to, Agent Long had called Agent Fleury. He said he’d be there in an hour.

  “Call him back and tell him to meet us down at the Glasgow Inn,” I said. “We need to have that drink, at least.”

  So she drove me down to the Glasgow and I introduced her to Jackie and Vinnie. I asked about Vinnie’s mother and was glad to hear she was feeling a little better. Then we had some real Canadian beer and when Fleury got there, I made sure he had one, too. When they were ready to leave, I came out to the parking lot and I took Agent Long aside for a moment.

  “Sorry about the clumsy pass,” I said to her.

  “That’s all right,” she said. “You’re in a compromised state. Maybe next time it’ll work out a little better for both of us.”

  “You’ll come back up here sometime?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe you can look me up if you ever get back to Detroit.”

  “I’ll do that,” I said, “but on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We can do dinner, but promise me one thing. No movie.”

  She laughed at that. “It’s a deal.”

  “Okay then, take care of yourself, Agent Long.”

  “Call me Janet.”

  She kissed me on the cheek and got in the car. Agent Fleury was already behind the wheel. I waved to them as they took off.

  Then I went back inside and collapsed by the fire.

  “I suppose you’ll be expecting me to bring your dinner to you,” Jackie said.

  “You are a perceptive man.”

  He walked away swearing at me. Things were already feeling normal again. The snow would finally melt for good. The summer would come. It would last for what would feel like five minutes, then the air would turn cold again. The lake would turn back into a monster. The snow would come to bury us and once again we’d ask ourselves why we lived up here. But we wouldn’t leave.

  None of us. Not Jackie, not Vinnie, not Leon, not Chief Roy Maven. Not me.

  We would never leave this place.

  ***

  The next morning, Vinnie came to the cabin early. He didn’t knock. He just came in and made himself at home.

  “What’s going on?” I said, moaning as I turned over the wrong way.

  “We’ve got lots of work to do today.”

  “That’s what you think. I’m not doing anything.”

  “Okay, so I’ve got lots of work to do today.”

  “Vinnie, what are you talking about?”

  “We’re reclaiming your first cabin, Alex. You’ve avoided it long enough.”

  “No. Forget it.”

  “You can’t stop me,” he said. “That’s the genius of my plan. You can complain all you want today, but in the shape you’re in? What are you gonna do, kick me?”

  “Vinnie, I swear to God…”

  “I’m starting right after breakfast. With or without you watching.”

  I finally got myself out of the bed. “You’re serious.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then give me a little more time,” I said. “It’ll take me at least an hour just to get dressed.”

  ***

  I insisted on being the one to actually open the door. This was the cabin I had helped build myself, all those years ago, my father and I working side by side. Now there was a sad, stale odor in the air as I took my first step back into the place. I had moved out everything I could carry. The bed was unmade. The table was empty. The refrigerator and stove unplugged. The woodstove needed cleaning.

  There on the floor. The stain.

  “What first?” Vinnie said, stepping in right behind me.

  I couldn’t help thinking of Chief Maven, and everything he had done to reclaim his own house after what had happened.

  “Only one place to start,” I said. “The floor.”

  “How are we going to clean it?”

  “We’re not. We’re gonna burn it.”

  A few hours later, we had about a hundred square feet of floor torn out. When I say we, I mean Vinnie. He pulled it out, slat by slat, and stacked it outside. When that entire section of the house was stripped down to the subflooring, we piled up the slats into a big teepee and filled the interior with wadded-up newspaper. Vinnie put some sage in with the paper. I didn’t have to ask him why. I knew it was one of the four Ojibwa medicines.

  Before I lit the match, I took one of the slats of wood and I rubbed the spot where the blood had seeped in forever. I said good-bye to Natalie Reynaud one more time. I kissed the wood once and then put it back on the pile. I lit the match and stood back to watch it all burn. I could smell the sage mixed in with the paper and the pine.

  When it was all done, I stood there watching the embers for a long time. Vinnie came up to me finally and stood next to me.

  “Feel better?” he said.

  “It helps, yes. Thank you.”

  “You know what you really need?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A sweat.”

  I looked at him.

  “Tonight,” he said. “As soon as the sun goes down.”

  “Can I bring somebody else? Somebody who needs it even more than I do?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll see you at sunset.”

  ***

  I probably wasn’t supposed to be driving yet, but what the hell. I drove to Sault Ste. Marie, all the way to the river, to the City-County Building. I parked outside the front door and went in. The receptionist tried to say something to me, but I walked right by her. Down the hall, to the one office in the middle of the building with no windows. I opened the door without knocking.

  “McKnight!” he said, the phone in his hand. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  That look on his face, it was just like old times.

  “Hang up the phone,” I said. “Get your coat.”

  “Have you lost your mind? Can’t you see I’m working here?”

  “I’m still recovering, Chief, so I can’t pick you up and carry you. Get your ass out of that chair and let’s get out of here.”

  “Not until you tell me where you think we’re going.”

  “You’ll see when you get there. For once in your life, will you just trust me?”

  He sat there looking at me. He still had the phone in his hand.

  “Please,” I said. “Come with me.”

  He put the phone down, put on his coat, and followed me out the door.

  ***

  “You want me to do what?”

  “I want
you to take your clothes off. Down to your underwear.”

  We were standing in Vinnie’s cousin Buck’s yard, with a half dozen of Vinnie’s other relatives. Quiet men with long black hair hanging down their backs. All stripping down to their underwear. The sun had gone down. It was just below freezing.

  “You really have lost your mind,” Maven said. “I knew it was only a matter of time.”

  “Just shut up and disrobe, Chief.”

  Buck’s was the only yard on the reservation that had a permanent sweat lodge. He had lashed some saplings together into a half circle about ten feet in diameter, then covered the saplings with canvas and every old rug he could find. Tonight he had a healthy fire going in the pit outside the lodge, and he was heating several rocks in the middle of it. When everything else was ready, he lifted the rocks one by one with a shovel and placed them inside the lodge.

  “I feel ridiculous,” Maven said, standing there shivering. “Not to mention how freakin’ cold it is.”

  “But look at you. You’re like some sort of glorious Greek sculpture.”

  “McKnight, so help me God, I’m going to smack you right in the face. I don’t care how many bullets you took for me.”

  Buck lifted the flap and we all bent down to go inside. We took our places around the fire and Buck dipped a great iron ladle into a bucket of water and poured it onto the hot rocks. Then he tossed on a few sprigs of sage.

  We all sat there in the dark as the steam surrounded us. I felt my muscles starting to unwind. Everything that had happened to me, I started to let go of it. Buck put more water onto the rocks. I was sweating now. The steam was filling my lungs.

  The last time I had done this, I had opened my eyes and I had seen Natalie in the steam. I swear to God, I did. On this night, I didn’t see anything, but then maybe this night wasn’t about me at all. I knew Maven was right next to me, but I couldn’t make out if his eyes were open or closed. I didn’t know what this experience was doing for him.

  About thirty minutes later, we all came back out of the sweat lodge, into the sudden shock of cold air. It was like plunging into an icy lake, but it felt good. I knew I’d be okay now. I knew my injuries would heal and everything would go back to the way it was.