She smiled at me again. That slow, careful smile that was really starting to grow on me. I could only wonder if I’d ever see her again.
“Take care of yourself,” I said. Then I rolled up my window. I watched her in the rearview mirror as I drove away.
A drink at the Glasgow, I thought. That’s exactly what I need right now.
I pointed the truck due north and gunned it.
They closed the book on the murders of Charles Razniewski and his son Charlie, Donald Steele and his son Brandon, along with Donna Krimer, and Dean Haggerty and his daughter Dina. When they tried to write the very last page of that book, they cited the connection between Steele and Haggerty and the arrest of Clyde C. Wiley, ten years ago. They failed to find any concrete link to Razniewski, apart from the notebook I had found on Wiley’s kitchen counter. They were beginning to suspect that no link would ever be found in the official records. However Wiley came to know Razniewski, it could have been nothing more than a chance encounter on a completely different day, either on the job during those few times when Razniewski was working on his own, or even off the job. A few harsh words spoken to a man who already had his own reasons to hate Michigan State Troopers, or who would soon come to have such a hatred… it might have been enough. They’d never know for sure because Wiley was probably the only man who could tell them.
The fact that Roy Maven’s name did not appear in that notebook, along with the fact that Maven himself had no recollection of ever meeting Wiley-a meeting he would probably remember simply because of Wiley’s celebrity-made it look less and less likely that Maven had ever been a target to begin with. Apparently, Wiley had done all the killing he was going to do. He just died before he could finish his film.
Maven’s wife and daughter flew home from Amsterdam. As soon as they touched the ground, Maven’s wife called him and told him that she would not sleep one single night in that house in Sault Ste. Marie. Not after what had happened on her kitchen floor. Maven put up a brief fight. He had ripped up the floor, cleaned everything in the house within an inch of its life, and so on. But I think even he knew it was a fight he’d never win. So he went outside with a sledgehammer and pounded a FOR SALE sign into the still-frozen ground.
His daughter was home safe and his wife was staying with her in Lansing, and Chief Maven went off his administrative leave and reclaimed his job as chief of police. He moved back into his windowless concrete office in the City-County Building, with no pictures or any other distractions of any kind on the walls. His spot on the lower end of the totem pole in Sault Ste. Marie was once again secure.
It was late April now. There was a false sense of spring while everything started to thaw for three days straight. Jackie was actually observed smiling. Then we got ten more inches of snow. I had drinks with Leon after his shift at the Cineplex one night and told him everything that had happened. When I finally dragged him home well after midnight, his wife was not happy. I don’t know which one of us got in more trouble that night. I didn’t regret it for a second, but Leon might have felt differently when he woke up the next morning.
I thought about calling Agent Long a few times, but whenever I picked up the phone I thought about how many miles there were between us. I wanted to see her again, but I knew it wouldn’t be an easy arrangement for either of us.
The sun came back. The thermometer actually hit fifty for one brief day. Vinnie helped me do some of the remaining exterior trim work on the last cabin. Then it snowed another eight inches.
Things felt almost normal again, and I thought I might finally be ready to face that first cabin. Just go in, clean it out, reclaim it, banish all the bad memories of what had happened there. You do that and only the good memories will remain. At least that’s what I was telling myself. I set a date and I promised myself that was the day I was going to do it.
It was time to get my life back.
Before that day could even begin, I got another one of those early-morning phone calls. The sky outside was still cold and dark and the sound of the phone ringing was like a jagged edge of a knife. I stumbled out of bed and answered it.
It was Agent Long. Sometime during the night, Olivia Maven had apparently ingested a lethal dose of the tranquilizer Pentobarbital. She was in the hospital, and Chief Maven was on his way down to see her. She had eventually thrown up much of the Pentobarbital, after it had been in her system for some unknown period of time. There was a chance this might have saved her life. But as of that moment, things did not look good.
I hung up the phone and closed my eyes.
Either Clyde C. Wiley was back from the dead, I thought, or else it was never him to begin with. Whoever the killer was, he was back at it. Or rather, he had never really stopped. He had just been waiting.
And we’re rolling…
… Finally!
… I thought we’d never get this thing off the ground again.
… I still don’t know where my film is. It better show up soon or there’ll be hell to pay.
… On top of that, no edit bay for the time being. I even had to make my own developing tank!
… And Olivia was away for so long, I wasn’t sure if she’d ever come back home.
… Just drink this and lie right back down. Act a little scared.
… Perfect. You took your time showing up, but at least you nailed the performance.
… It’s good to be back in motion again, even with all the problems. Like they say, the show must go on.
And cut.
PART THREE
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I called Chief Maven’s cell phone. It rang a few times, just long enough for me to question whether this was the right thing to do. He had enough on his mind, God knows. But before I could hang up, I heard his voice on the other end.
“What is it?”
“Chief, is that you?”
He didn’t say anything. I could hear his engine racing. He was in his car, of course, on his way down to Lansing.
“Chief, are you driving? Please be careful.”
“I can’t talk now. I can’t even-”
He broke off, swearing at another driver.
“Chief, it won’t do you any good if you get killed on the way down there.”
“What do you want, McKnight?”
“How is she? Do you have any other news yet?”
“No, I don’t. I’ll see when I get there.”
“Do you want me to come down?”
More swearing on his end as he passed another vehicle. I don’t know if he had a squad car with lights, or if he was driving his regular unmarked car.
“Chief, do you want me to come down there?”
“Ingham Hospital. In Lansing. I gotta go.”
The line went dead. I hurried up and got dressed. Then I headed out to my truck and gunned it.
