Then he spoke.
“I’ll do whatever I can to cooperate with your investigation.” Maven’s voice was devoid of any anger, any sincerity, anything living at all.
“Very good,” Agent Fleury said. He seemed only slightly put off by the robot who’d apparently taken over Chief Maven’s body. Agent Long looked at me for some kind of reassurance, but I was even more confused than she was.
“Chief, are you okay?” she said.
“His wife,” he said. “Has she been notified?”
“His ex-wife,” Agent Fleury said. “Yes, she’s been notified.”
“Who told her?”
“Another marshal, I believe.”
“Okay,” Maven said. “Then I think we’re done here. Go do your jobs and find out who did this.”
“You can rest assured we’ll do exactly that,” Agent Fleury said. “I can’t tell you how much we appreciate your cooperation today.”
“We’ll be staying at the Ojibway if you need us,” Agent Long said. “I’m sure we’ll be here in town for a couple of days, at the very least. Of course, we’ll be in touch as soon as we know anything.”
She gave Chief Maven one more look of vague bewilderment, then a quick smile for me. Then they were both out the door.
The chief made no move to get up. I kept sitting there next to him for a long while, waiting for him to say something to me.
“If you send me the bill for your services,” he finally said, “I’ll make sure you get paid.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You made that trip to Houghton on Raz’s behalf. He’s obviously not here to pay you, so I will.”
“I don’t want any money.”
He didn’t answer that. The room was silent again. He kept staring at the door. After another minute passed, he leaned forward, put both hands on the table, and pushed himself to his feet, as slowly as a ninety-year-old man.
“Chief,” I said, as I got to my feet. “I’m sorry.”
He took two steps and stopped. He didn’t look at me.
“It’s time for you to go home,” he said. “I have work to do.”
“What are you planning on doing now?”
He turned and looked me in the eye for the first time since we’d come back to the station. Hell, for the first time since I’d found Raz on his kitchen floor.
“Do you have to ask?”
“You heard what they said, Chief. This isn’t your case.”
“You’re probably right. But let me ask you a question. If it was your old friend, would you let anybody stop you?”
“Chief, come on.”
“Answer the question.”
I looked at him for a long time. I didn’t say yes. I didn’t say no. I didn’t have to say anything at all, because we both knew the answer.
And we’re rolling…
… Here’s my neighbor, Mrs. P. Hello, Mrs. P. How are your roses growing?
… Close-up on her face. She’s looking at the camera, looking at the camera, that’s it.
… And then boom, she looks at something behind me.
… Her face changes. Yes, that’s it. Nice job. You’re selling this. It’s all in the face.
… Meanwhile. Uh-oh. This can’t be good, right?
… Easy there, don’t overdo it, Mrs. P. Your eyes are as big as saucers.
… The Monster is standing behind us. Let’s not even look. We’re too scared to even turn around!
And cut.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I drove home in the dark. The wind kicked up and covered the road with white sheets of snow for yards at a time, rocking my truck back and forth. When I finally got back to Paradise, the yellow light was flashing in the middle of town and the Glasgow Inn was still glowing in the darkness. Beyond that the whole town seemed deserted. Usually there’d be snowmobiles zipping all over the place, but when people downstate get the idea in their heads that we’re not getting enough snow, they just don’t come. A cruel irony as I put the plow down and pushed six inches of new snow off Jackie’s empty parking lot.
When I was done, I sat there with the truck idling and asked myself if I really needed to go inside. I didn’t feel like talking about what had happened, but I felt even less like going back to any empty cabin. So I turned off the ignition. Jackie was cleaning up the place and barely looked up when I came in.
“Where have you been?” he said. He poked at the fire with a long iron stick.
“To hell and back,” I said. “Although I’m not sure about the ‘back’ part.” I went behind the bar and grabbed a Molson from the bottom row in the cooler. Then I sat down in my usual chair by the fire.
There was a roar inside my head, louder than a jet engine. Louder than the wind howling away outside in the cold night. I closed my eyes and tried to quiet it but it only got louder until I couldn’t even imagine hearing anything else.
Three days went by. I could still see the blood on the floor every night when I closed my eyes, but the colors were fading and the scene was shifting and turning into something else entirely. A different floor, with different blood. Then another, until they all blended together. If there was anything like true justice in the universe, I’d be exempt from bloody floors for the rest of my life.
I called Agent Long on the second day and she said they were still chasing leads, which might have meant they were getting absolutely nowhere. There was no way to tell. I called her back the next day and this time she asked me point blank to explain why Chief Maven was such a psychotic jackass. Her exact words for him. I was an unlikely person to defend him, but I asked her to remember what had happened to a man who had once been his partner.
“I hear what you’re saying,” she said, “but he’s driving us absolutely crazy over here.”
“How so?” As if I had to ask.
“I thought he understood this was our case, but he’s been up and down the street, personally talking to every neighbor. Plus he’s got his men rounding up every surveillance camera in town.”
“Didn’t you guys think of that?”
There was a silence then, as she processed my little dig.
“We’ve done this a few times before,” she finally said. “I think we’ve got it all covered, thank you very much.”
“Do you have anything new since the last time I talked to you?”
“It’s still ongoing,” she said. Making me wonder, once again, if they had anything at all.
I thanked her all the same, and wished her the best of luck with Chief Maven. Then I called the Soo police station. I asked for the chief and the woman at the desk told me she’d leave a message for him. He didn’t call back.
I shrugged it off for the time being and went back to working on the last cabin with Vinnie. It had finally started snowing hard again, like Beboong, the Ojibwa winter spirit, was making up for lost time. I plowed my road. In the evenings I’d buy Vinnie dinner down at the Glasgow. Jackie was still in a bad mood, chasing away
