From outside! “He planted the drugs in my car,” I said. “When the fighting started, he went outside and put the bag in my car. Just to fuck me over. And then, let me guess, they called the bridge?”
Nobody said anything.
“That’s what happened, right? They got an anonymous tip? They must have. They were waiting for me.”
Champagne kept staring at me. Urbanic frowned and looked away. And Maven…
I knew that face. Maven was looking at the agents with that same face he used whenever he talked to me. He was squinting his eyes, the left a little more than the right. His mouth was set hard like he was biting the head off a nail. It was the worst tough cop face I had ever seen, but right now it was a welcome sight. It gave me a glimmer of hope.
“If you had Mounties watching the bar,” I said, “then they must have seen the plant. Am I right?”
Champagne let out a long breath. “There were Mounties on the scene, yes. And yes, they did see an individual come out of the bar and open up the door to your truck. But that doesn’t have to mean that he was planting drugs.”
Maven slapped his hand on the table. “What the hell do you think he was doing? Leaving a mint on his car seat?”
“Chief Maven,” Champagne said. He raised his hands as if to calm a child. “Please.”
“Please my ass,” Maven said. “When were you going to tell me you had the Mounties involved in this?”
“Can we discuss this outside?” Champagne said.
“We’ll discuss it right here,” Maven said. “You come all the way up here looking for this guy Bruckman and a bag of drugs he’s got with him. You’re walking around here like you own the place, ordering my men around, talking on the phone about the ‘football.’ ” He held an imaginary phone up to his face. “Yes, sir, we’re closing in on the football, sir. We’ll have Bruckman and the football any minute now.”
“The football?” I said. “You guys really call it that?”
“Shut up, McKnight,” Maven said, “or I’ll throw you back in that cell.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Go on.”
“God knows how many times you could have taken him,” Maven said. “But no, you gotta wait until you’re absolutely sure you got the right guy and you’re absolutely sure he has the drugs with him. “ ‘Can’t tackle the man without the football in his hands.’ Right? How many times did you say that? So then of course this Parrish girl takes the bag out of the place and goes to see McKnight with it. And you two are running around like idiots, splitting up, one of you trying to follow Bruckman, the other guy trying to follow the girl. And then you still won’t move in, because now your man doesn’t have the football anymore. Now the next morning she’s long gone, God knows where, run off or kidnapped by God knows who. McKnight’s running around like an idiot now, trying to find out where she is. And what do you guys do? You start following him! ” He pointed at me. “Like this jackass is going to take you right back to your football!”
I nodded my thanks but didn’t dare say anything.
“How many days did you follow him around?” Maven said. “Six days? The dumbest man on the planet and it takes him what, not even a day to figure out he’s being tailed?” Maven paused for effect and then drew out his next line like a torturer who enjoys his work a little too much. “McKnight even pulls you out of the snow when you get stuck trying to follow him?”
“You’re out of line, Chief Maven,” Champagne said.
“But now I’m still supposed to play along with you guys even though you didn’t tell me anything about the Mounties, or them seeing the plant, or any of this horseshit?”
He stopped for a breath. Champagne looked like he wanted to kill me or Maven or both. Urbanic just looked sick.
“Did they get Bruckman, at least?” Maven said. “As long as McKnight is doing all your legwork for you, did they at least pick up Bruckman in Canada?”
“No,” Champagne said.
“No?” Maven said.
“No,” Champagne said. “There were two undercover officers on the scene. The local police arrived to break up the fight. The undercover officers attempted to apprehend Bruckman, but he had, um… he had escaped through the bathroom window.”
I raised my hand. “I think I sort of put that idea in his head,” I said. “Sorry about that.”
“There was a lot of blood on the floor,” Champagne said.
“His nose was broken,” I said. “Me again.”
“We did apprehend two of his friends,” Champagne said.
“So go talk to them,” Maven said. “Why are you wasting everybody’s time over here?”
“Chief Maven,” Champagne said, “I think I’ve been showing a great deal of patience and restraint here. This man was stopped on an international boundary with drugs and a loaded handgun in his vehicle. If you’re not going to cooperate in our investigation, then we’ll proceed without you.”
Maven looked at Champagne for a long, terrible moment. If I wasn’t so tired and sore and scared, I would have pitied the poor agent. The DEA has a district office in Detroit, so I had met a couple of them when I was a police officer there. They were good. But they knew they were good. They knew it maybe a little too well. So they may have come off as a little arrogant when they dealt with the local police. And that was in a major city. God knows how much they would look down on the police in a little town in the middle of nowhere, with a force so small it shared the same building as the county deputies.
Maven hated me. I knew that. But how much more would he hate a couple hotshot DEA agents who treated him like a backwoods hick?
“McKnight,” he said, “the judge will be here at nine o’clock. When you’re arraigned, I’m going to ask the DA to dismiss the charges.”
That’s how much.
“What are you doing?” Champagne said.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Maven said. “I’m kicking him.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Sure I can. There was less than a gram in that bag, so it’s a misdemeanor. The gun was licensed. It just wasn’t reported on the way over. So that’s a misdemeanor, too. Any misdemeanor charges on that bridge belong to the city. You know that.”
Champagne pointed a finger right in his face. Another great idea. “You are making a big mistake,” he said.
“The next finger you point at me gets separated from your body,” Maven said.
“This is how it works up here, huh? This is how you run a police department?”
“Excuse me, boys,” I said. “You said I could leave, right Chief?”
“Get out of here,” he said. “Just be in the court building at nine.”
Champagne stood up, knocking his chair over. “This isn’t over, McKnight,” he said. He stood right in front of me, his face just a few inches from mine. “I’ll be watching you.”
“You go right ahead,” I said. “I hope you like watching a man shovel snow, split wood and drink beer. Because that’s all you’re gonna see.”
He stood there, probably trying to think up another tough guy line.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I said. “I need some fresh air.” I stepped around him and went out the door, stopping just long enough to give my new buddy Chief Maven a little salute.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I had two hours to kill before my appointment in the courthouse, so I took a walk down Water Street in a winter light that made everything look gray and soft around the edges. The snow was wet and heavy. Ten minutes of walking and I was already wearing the snow around my shoulders like an old woman’s shawl.
I stopped at a little restaurant over by the Locks Park. The locks were closed, of course, but there was just
