The cop didn’t say anything. He just stood there with the door open, each breath turning to mist in the frigid air. The look on his face told me he wasn’t getting paid nearly enough to put up with this.
“I’m coming,” I finally said. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint Chief Maven.”
“Thank you, sir,” he said as he held the door open for me.
“What’s it like working for him, anyway?”
“You don’t want to know,” he said. He led me into the city offices, deep into the middle of the building.
There was another little lobby outside his door, with four plastic chairs. Apparently when the chairs from the front lobby were broken down and wobbly enough, they moved them here. The magazines, too, after they had aged for at least three years. It was the kind of place that made you want to take up smoking.
The officer left me there. I sat in one of the chairs for a few minutes. You’ve been here before, I said to myself, and you know how this works. Maven is sitting in that office right now, probably with his feet up on his desk, reading the paper. You’ll wait here for an hour while he does his little power trip on you. Then when you’re nice and tender he’ll call you in and try to make you his lunch.
Not today. Not after what I’ve been through in the last two days.
I got up, went to his door, and opened it. Maven was on the phone. He looked up at me like I had just run a spear through his chest.
“You wanted to see me, Chief?” I said.
“Goddamn it, McKnight, what’s the matter with you?” He hadn’t changed since the last time I saw him. He was a tough old cop like a thousand others I had known. Thinning hair, mustache, a weathered face that had seen too many hard winters. He was an ugly bastard, but he made up for it with his winning personality.
I sat down on the chair in front of his desk. “I’m pressed for time,” I said. “You’ve got five minutes.”
“I don’t believe this,” he said. “I’m sorry,” he said into the phone. “I’ve been rudely interrupted here. I’m gonna have to get back to you… Yes… Yes, I will. Yes. I said yes, already. Okay, good-bye!” He slammed the phone down and looked at me. “Did somebody tell you to come in here without knocking?”
“You know, I think I figured out why you’re always in such a bad mood,” I said.
He didn’t say a word. He didn’t blink.
“Look at this place,” I said. His office was four concrete walls. No windows. Not a single picture or personal artifact on his desk. “I just spent a few minutes in the jail,” I said. “And I gotta tell ya, it’s a lot nicer in there than it is in here.”
“That’s what I wanted to see you about,” he said. “What were you doing in the jail?”
“I was visiting a friend.”
“This friend wouldn’t happen to be Vinnie LeBlanc, would it?”
“That would be him.”
“Who told you could see him? He’s in city custody.”
“Yes,” I said. “But it’s the county jail.”
“That doesn’t mean Shit, McKnight. The next time you visit somebody in my custody without asking me first, I’m gonna throw you in the cell next to him. Do you understand?”
“Why did you arrest him?” I said.
“You’re joking.”
“Why?”
“Well, let’s see, because he assaulted a police officer? Because he broke a fucking hockey stick across his fucking nose? You need more than that?”
“He was going after a man named Lonnie Bruckman,” I said. “A man who was selling drugs to another Indian. Did you bring Bruckman in, too? Did you even question him? Did your guys even notice him? Or did they just pick out the Indian and jump on him?”
“This has got nothing to do with you,” he said. “We know about Bruckman. We’re handling it.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” I said. “The county’s looking for him. He abducted a woman last night.”
“I know,” he said. “I know all about it.”
I leaned back in the chair and looked him over. “It happened in Paradise,” I said. “There’s no reason for you to be involved in this.”
“You want to find her or not? The county needs all the help they can get.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Besides,” Maven went on. “Bruckman lives in the Soo.”
There it was, I thought. He had to let that one out, just to flex his muscles. “Of course,” I said, “Dorothy was staying there, too.”
“Naturally,” he said.
“Bill told me about it. That place over on…” I let it hang.
Maven just shook his head. “Nice try, McKnight. Like I said, this has nothing to do with you now.”
“She was in my cabin,” I said. “He took her out of my cabin.”
It was his turn to lean back in his chair. “Yeah, about that,” he said. “Let me see if I got this straight. The last guy you were protecting ended up on the bottom of Lake Superior. Now this woman comes to you and asks you to protect her, and you put her all by herself in a cabin in the woods so her ex-boyfriend can come kidnap her in the middle of the night. Have I got that right?”
I just looked at him.
“I got one thing to say to you, McKnight. I hope to God that you’re at least giving these people a nice discount on your rates.”
“Are you done?” I said.
“I’m done,” he said. “Now go home and stay out of the way. Let the real cops do their jobs.” And then he picked up his phone and waited for me to leave. Just like that.
I got up and left. There was nothing I could say to him, nothing I could do short of going over the desk and strangling him. I just left him sitting there and went out and closed the door behind me.
I walked up and down the hallway a few times, not even sure if I was more angry or confused. The whole exchange with Maven had a spin to it that just didn’t feel right. Besides the insults and the stonewalling and the whole tough guy act, that much I expected. There was something else. But I couldn’t figure it out.
When I got back to the front lobby, I saw Leon Prudell coming in the door, shaking the snow out of his red hair. He had on a down coat that looked maybe two sizes too small on him. It probably fit him right when he wore it in high school twenty-five years ago.
“Alex,” he said when he saw me. “I’m just on my way to the clerk’s office. I have the bail right here.”
“How’d you get here so fast?” I said.
“I was in town, anyway,” he said. Then after a long moment, “I’ve got a new job. For the winter, at least.”
“Yeah?”
“I sell snowmobiles,” he said.
“Oh God,” I said.
“In the summer, I’ll probably have to sell outboard motors. What can I say, it’s a job.”
“I know,” I said. “Because I took your old private investigator job. We’ve been through this before.”
“No, no,” he said. “That’s ancient history. We’re partners now.”
I looked at the ceiling. “Prudell…”
“Time’s a-wasting,” he said. “I gotta bail out our man. Vincent LeBlanc, right? City charges, you said?”
“Yes,” I said. “Go bail his ass out while I go use the bathroom.”
He went on his way while I found the men’s room. I walked in and found Bill Brandow standing at a urinal. I stepped up next to him.
“You’re having a tough day,” he said without looking at me.
“Bill, what’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” He still didn’t look at me.
“Something’s not right here. Maven’s acting funny. You’re acting funny.”
“I wasn’t aware that I was acting funny,” he said. “It’s not the kind of day to be acting funny.”
I didn’t know what else to say. I did my business and he did his, and then he washed his hands and left.
