Three men are dead, including the most harmless man I’ve ever known. But instead of trying to find this guy, all you’re doing is sitting here grilling me like I’m your lead suspect.”
“We’re just having a conversation here,” Maven said. “Although we can give your man Uttley a call if you really want us to. If you think you need a lawyer, I mean.”
“I don’t need a lawyer, Maven. What I need is for you to start doing your fucking job.”
“Now, Mr. McKnight,” Allen said. “Is that kind of language necessary?”
“You guys aren’t even doing it right,” I said. “It’s supposed to be good cop, bad cop, not asshole cop, dickhead cop.”
“Keep going, McKnight,” Maven said. “Just keep digging that hole.”
“If you don’t get out there and start looking for this guy, I swear to God, Maven-”
“You swear what, McKnight? You swear you’ll try to choke me to death again?”
I grabbed the cup and threw it. It hit the fishing map and exploded, leaving a great brown streak right across the whole county. Maven and Allen just watched me, not even blinking.
“My, my,” Allen finally said. “Your man has a temper.”
“He was a baseball player once,” Maven said. “Did I tell you that?”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I assume he had a better arm then.”
“I would hope so. That was a weak throw.”
“Never made the big leagues,” Maven said.
“That’s a shame,” Allen said.
“So he became a cop instead.”
“So I gathered.”
“He never made detective,” Maven said. “In fact, he had to leave the force after the Rose incident.”
“Another failure to deal with,” Allen said. “It’s painful to think about.”
“So here’s what I think happened, Detective Allen, if you’d care to hear it.”
“By all means, Chief Maven. Please proceed.”
“It’s no secret that Edwin Fulton had a gambling problem. More than once, in fact, he had to be escorted off the reservation. I’m thinking maybe he got into a little trouble with these bookmakers.”
“But I thought Fulton was a wealthy man,” Allen said.
“Very much so,” Maven said. “But you know how bad they can get once they get their hooks into you. Maybe they saw him as an easy mark.”
“Good point.”
“So Mr. Fulton asks his friend Mr. McKnight if perhaps he can help him with this problem. Perhaps Mr. McKnight even owed these men some money himself.”
“Could be, could be.”
“Mr. McKnight decides that there’s only one way to eliminate the problem, and that’s to eliminate the two bookmakers themselves.”
“Seems pretty drastic to me,” Allen said.
“Drastic, yes,” Maven said. “But we’ve both seen men killed over much smaller matters. And in this case, Mr. McKnight had the perfect plan. He would write these notes to himself to make it look like this man Rose had come back to haunt him.”
“Very original. But all this just to knock off a couple bookies?”
“There could be more to it,” Maven said. “Maybe this Rose thing helped to satisfy some sort of craving. Some sort of sickness. It must be hard to live with yourself all these years. Knowing that you froze when it really counted and your partner ended up getting killed.”
“It must be a living hell,” Allen said.
“It’s just a theory, of course. But it would certainly explain a lot. Like why the phone calls he claimed he was receiving suddenly stopped when we started tapping his phone.”
“So what about Mr. Fulton, then? What happened to him?”
“Ah, that’s the interesting part,” Maven said. “After Mr. McKnight has killed the two bookmakers, he has this idea. Maybe it just occurs to him then, or maybe he had been planning it all along.”
“Are you suggesting that Mr. McKnight killed Mr. Fulton?”
“He wasn’t in his cabin that night. He was out looking for him, remember. Or so he said. All those other nights, when we had an officer over there, nothing ever happened. The one night he goes out, Fulton is killed. And this time, he dumps the body in the lake. I’m guessing that they had already disposed of the gun. So he didn’t want the body to be found. That way, it wouldn’t seem out of place that he was killed by something else.”
“The rose in the boat was a nice touch. And the blond hairs.”
“Give him points for that one, yes.”
“But why would he kill his own best friend?”
“Ah, Detective Allen. I’m surprised you even have to ask that question. Why does anyone kill his best friend?”
“Of course,” Allen said. “You kill your best friend so you can have your best friend’s wife.”
I had heard enough. “If you guys are about done,” I said. “I think I’ll be leaving now. I mean, unless you have a good reason to keep me here.”
“We can’t keep you here,” Maven said. “We can’t charge you yet.”
“Then why are you telling me all this?” I said.
“All those years on the force,” Maven said, “and you never saw a suspect get worked over?”
“He never made detective,” Allen said. “He never learned this stuff.”
“Good point,” Maven said. “He never got past parking tickets.”
“Tell him how it works, Chief.”
“Sometimes when you know a suspect is guilty,” Maven said, “but you don’t have enough evidence, you just bring the guy in and you lay it all out for him.”
“You tell him that you know he did it,” Allen said, “and you know that’s he going to give himself away.”
“You tell him that you’re going to be watching him.”
“You tell him that it’s only a matter of time.”
“But you only lean on him if you know he’s going to fold,” Maven said.
“Otherwise,” Allen said, “you’re just wasting your time.”
“I don’t think we’re wasting our time here, McKnight.”
“I can see the fear in his eyes,” Allen said. They both leaned over to look at me. They were close enough for me to catch the scent of cigars and aftershave. “Can you see it, Chief Maven? Can you see the fear?”
“I certainly can, Detective Allen. I can see it all over him.”
“You know how an owl does his hunting, Mr. McKnight?” Allen said.
They both sat there for a long moment. I didn’t say anything.
“He listens. He waits.”
“As long as you don’t move,” Maven said, “you’re safe.”
“But as soon as you move,” Allen said, “he hears you.”
“You want to stay still, McKnight. But you can’t.”
“You know the owl is there, waiting.”
“You have to run, McKnight. You can’t help it.”
“You’re too scared not to run.”
“Then he swoops right down on you.” Maven shot his hand out and picked up an imaginary animal. “And he eats you.”
“Eats you for dinner.”
“Makes me hungry just thinking about it,” Maven said. I stood up.
“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. McKnight,” the detective said. “We’ll be seeing you soon.”
“Very soon,” Maven said. “I’ll bring the ketchup.”
