yet. Some flakes blew into the truck through the open window.
When I got to Uttley’s office, I found him packing up a large cardboard box. He looked like his old self again, clean-shaven, his hair slicked back. A nice shirt and tie.
“Alex, there you are,” he said. “I was looking for you last night. I figured your phone was still out, so I stopped by your cabin.”
“What time was that?”
“Had to be about midnight. I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d come out and see you.”
“You must have just missed me,” I said. “I couldn’t sleep, either. So I went out looking for Raymond Julius’s house.”
“Raymond Julius? The man you…” He stopped.
“The man I killed, yes. Turns out he did some work for Leon Prudell.”
He stopped his packing. “He worked for Prudell? Are you serious?”
“He ran errands for him,” I said. “Did you ever meet him?”
“No, I didn’t,” he said. “I don’t remember even hearing his name.”
“Prudell says he helped him out on that job he did over at the resort, watching the lifeguards.”
“Oh, wait a minute,” he said. “I remember that. He said he had a guy helping him, covering for him when he went to the bathroom, stuff like that. I don’t think he told me his name. I probably wasn’t listening too well. That was toward the end, after I had already decided to fire him. But how does this guy figure into your thing with Rose?”
“He was upset that he lost his job. He blamed me. Started stalking me, looking into my past. He found the newspaper clippings. The rest is kind of crazy.”
“My God,” he said. “This all happened because I fired Prudell?”
“No,” I said. “This all happened because the guy was insane. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I can’t believe any of this,” he said. “This just keeps getting worse.”
“There’s one thing that’s still bothering me,” I said. “This business of how he contacted Rose.”
“You mean about whether he visited him or wrote to him?”
“Yes,” I said. “In his diary he just said that he ‘communicated’ with Rose. But he didn’t say how.”
“How did you see his diary?”
“You don’t want to know that,” I said.
He raised his hands. “Say no more.”
“I’m just wondering how it happened. How did he get through to Rose? How did he find out all the things he wrote about in his notes?”
He shrugged. “Who knows, Alex? Why does it even matter?”
“It just bothers me,” I said. “Maybe I should call that Browning guy down at the prison again.”
“You won’t get anywhere,” he said. “You know that.”
“Let me just have his number,” I said. “I might try him.”
Uttley gave out a long tired sigh and went through some papers. He wrote the number down on a card and gave it to me. “You’re wasting your time,” he said.
“You’re probably right,” I said. “What’s with the box? Are you going somewhere?”
“I need a vacation. I think you need one, too.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t even know yet,” he said. “Someplace very far away. Someplace warm. An island somewhere.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“You know, all those nights I spent on the Fultons’ couch, I started to think about things. I’m not sure I want to be a lawyer anymore. Not this kind of lawyer, not up here, anyway. I think I might try something nice and quiet for a while, you know, like real estate. Just sit on my butt at a closing and collect my big check.”
“You’re not coming back, are you.”
“I don’t think so, Alex. Too much has happened here. I’m surprised you’re not thinking the same way.”
“Maybe I am.”
“So anyway, I guess I probably won’t be needing you as a private investigator anymore.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “I’m not sure I ever really wanted to be one.”
He nodded and swallowed hard.
“Need help carrying anything out?” I said.
“No, this is all I need,” he said. He slapped the box. “Alex, I’m not sure what else to say. You’ve had to go through so much the last couple weeks. I just hope I was able to help you through it in some small way.”
“Of course you did.”
He came around from behind his desk and shook my hand. And then he hugged me. He wrapped both of his arms around me and gave me a good squeeze. “Take care of yourself, Alex.”
“Good-bye, Lane.”
As I closed the door, I looked back at him. He gave me one last thumbs-up and then I was gone.
I went into town and tried to find an auto glass place. The first one didn’t have my window in stock. Neither did the second or third. The last man said I could either go over the bridge and try the Canadian side, or he could put it on order and tape up the truck with clear plastic to hold me over. I went with the tape job.
At a pay phone, I called the phone company to see about fixing my cut line. The lady told me they’d try to get out there some time that day, but she couldn’t say when. I told her I wasn’t going to hold my breath. After I hung up I took out the card with Browning’s number on it. I looked at it for a long time and then I put it back in my pocket without dialing.
By the time I headed back to Paradise, the snow had stopped. But it was still a cold, raw day. The sky was as gray as gunmetal. I probably wouldn’t see the sun for five months. Maybe Uttley is right, I thought. Maybe I just should go away somewhere, never come back. Maybe even take Sylvia, if I could convince her.
God, listen to yourself, Alex. Just listen to yourself.
I stopped in at the Glasgow for a late breakfast. Jackie made me one of his omelets, with onions, peppers, cheese, the works. It was too early for a beer, but not too early for one of his famous Bloody Marys. Or two or three of them.
I took the card out of my pocket and looked at it again. If I call him, I thought, he’s going to hang up on me. I put the card back in my pocket.
When I got back to the cabin, the man from the phone company was up on his ladder. I owed the phone company an apology for doubting them. “What the hell happened to your phone line?” he said. “It looks like somebody cut right through it with a knife.”
“Long story,” I said. I went into the cabin before he could ask me to tell it.
When he was done, he gave a quick knock on my door. “She’s all done,” he said. “It’ll be on your next bill.”
I thanked the man, and then I picked up the phone to make sure I had a dial tone. Without even thinking about it, I dialed Browning’s number. I didn’t even have to look at the card. I had the number memorized from all the time I’d spent looking at it.
The phone rang. What the hell, I thought. If nothing else, I can at least apologize to the man for yelling at him.
“Corrections, Browning speaking.”
“Mr. Browning,” I said. “This is Alex McKnight.”
“Ah yes, Mr. McKnight.”
“Listen, before anything else, I just want to say I’m sorry about the last time we talked on the phone. I was under a lot of stress, and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I know you were just following the rules.”
“That’s quite all right.”
“Everything’s pretty much over up here,” I said. “It wasn’t Rose, of course.”
“Of course,” he said. “He’s been right here the whole time.”
“Of course,” I said. “Although it turns out that there was a man up here who had been in contact with Rose. So I was just curious about how that might have happened. I’m sure you keep records on visits and letters. You probably even have to read the mail, right?”
“We do.”
