“You can just go back to Detroit and forget all about it, eh?”
“Is that what you just heard me say?”
It was Maven’s turn to get the hard stare now. He returned it without blinking.
“If any further information is developed,” Agent Fleury said, slowly, “we’ll follow up on it. At this point, if there is any connection, not only does it involve the original case with a U.S. marshal, but it also crosses state lines now. In which case, it should be even more abundantly clear to you, if it wasn’t already, that this falls under our jurisdiction. Are we clear on that point?”
Maven took a few beats to answer him. “Yes, we’re clear.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “You didn’t come all the way back up here just for this.”
“We’re still pursuing leads in the Razniewski case,” Agent Long said. “Seeing you gentlemen again was just a bonus.”
“We’ll be at the Ojibway again,” Agent Fleury said. “If you think about chasing down any more leads, maybe you should give us a call instead?”
On that note, they said their good-byes and left us sitting in the interview room. Maven was staring off into space, just like the last time we found ourselves here together. He was the kind of man whose actions I was sure I could predict, a man with clearly marked buttons that you pressed at your own risk. Apparently some kind of alien life force had taken over his mind and body now. There was no other way I could explain his behavior.
“You know why they’re back up here,” he finally said.
“Why?”
“They’re not getting anywhere in Detroit. It’s a marshal so there’s a lot of pressure to solve the case. But they’ve got nothing, so they’re back up here to start from scratch. They probably have orders not to come back empty-handed this time.”
“The case is getting cold,” I said. “I don’t like their chances.”
“Neither do I.”
A minute of silence passed. Neither of us moved.
“What do you think?” I said. “Are they right?”
“About what?”
“About all these deaths not having anything to do with each other.”
“I don’t know, McKnight. If we think differently, I’m not even sure what we can do about it now. They made that pretty clear.”
“Well, if you think of something else and you want to run it by me…”
He nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
I got up and grabbed my coat.
“It seems like we sort of ended up on the same team the past couple of days,” he said as I went to the door. “That’s a little different from our usual arrangement.”
“You’re right. It is.”
He didn’t say anything else, so I left. A half hour later, I was driving home in my truck, making that last turn around Whitefish Bay, heading toward Paradise. That’s when a thought came to me out of God knows where.
I turned around and gunned it all the way back to the Soo.
Half hour out, half hour back, so I’d only been gone an hour. I didn’t know where Chief Maven would be, and I didn’t have his cell phone number. Hell, I wasn’t even one hundred percent sure he’d carry a cell phone out of uniform. But either way, I didn’t figure there were too many places he could be.
I tried the City-County Building first. The receptionist told me he had left just after I did. She didn’t know where he was going, and no, she didn’t have his cell phone number.
Okay, so he’s at his house, I thought. Doing more painting or God knows what else. Or maybe just sleeping it off. We’d both had a pretty rough couple of days.
I drove over there and pulled into his driveway. I didn’t see his car. I peeked through the window on the garage door and saw an immaculate set of tools hanging from a set of pegs on the wall, a snowblower, and three snow shovels, and one car that I’m sure belonged to Mrs. Maven. Left there when he took her to the airport, no doubt. But Maven’s car was gone.
“Where the hell are you?” I said. I tried to picture him buying groceries or renting a movie at the video store or maybe sitting in a dentist’s office. Normal things that everyone does, but I just couldn’t see Chief Roy Maven doing any of them. Especially not today. Not with all of this still bouncing around in his head, just like in mine.
I got back in the truck and sat there for a while. Half-waiting for him to show up. Half-trying to figure out where else he could be. It finally dawned on me that there was one place that would make sense. If he was there, it would mean that he had had the same thought that I had, at right around the same time. Meaning we were long-lost twins or something strange and mystical like that.
Only one way to find out, I thought. I put the truck in drive and headed for the other side of town.
The Michigan State Police had something like sixty posts back when I was in Detroit, located all over the state and certainly one in every town as big as the Soo. The post in Sault Ste. Marie is over on the business spur, a few blocks away from the main highway. It’s another charmless brick shoe box, but still probably a little bit nicer than the City-County Building, and I’m sure every single office in the place puts Chief Maven’s to shame. I recognized a few of the troopers and sergeants, but as far as I could remember I’d never set foot in their building. That was about to change.
I pulled into the lot and parked between two squad cars. These were the old-style “Blue Goose” cars with the single red light on top. I couldn’t help wondering if they gave you a less comfortable ride than the new-style squad cars, and how that would set off the inevitable battles over who got assigned to them. All the usual political games that come in any station with more than one cop in it.
As I went around to the front I saw Maven’s car taking up the last visitor’s spot.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” I said. “After all we’ve been through together.”
I went inside and asked the trooper sitting at the desk where Chief Maven was. He was young and he had the typical state-issue haircut, cut so close he might as well be a Marine. I was expecting to get a little bit of runaround from him, asking me who I was, what business I had there. That whole show. I mean, every single trooper I’d ever met in my life was top shelf, but sometimes they can come across as knowing they’re top shelf just a little too well. God bless them for the job they do, but if I had to deal with troopers every day I’d probably snap.
“Chief Maven’s back with Sergeant Coleman,” he said. “If you give me your name, I’ll let him know you’re looking for him.”
“Alex McKnight,” I said, a little surprised. “Thank you.”
“No problem, sir. Sit tight, I’ll be right back.”
He was back in half a minute.
“Right this way, sir.”
I followed him to the back of the building, where Chief Maven and a state man were sitting side by side in front of a computer screen.
“What are you doing here?” Maven said, looking up at me.
“I could ask you the same question.”
“This is Sergeant Reed Coleman,” he said, indicating the other man. “We go way back.”
“Pleased to meet you,” the sergeant said, shaking my hand. He was an old-timer, probably close to retirement. “I think I’ve seen you around town.”
“Seriously,” I said to Maven, “if you’re chasing something down over here, why didn’t you tell me?”
“You heard those FBI agents. They don’t want us anywhere near this thing.”
“Since when would that stop either of us?”
“Look,” he said, “it’s bad enough if I screw up my own career here.”
