Steve Hamilton - Misery Bay

He picked up another magazine. I grabbed him by the shoulders and sat him down. “Chief, tell me what happened.”

He pushed me away from him, but he stayed in the seat.

“My wife was there, McKnight. She was in the guest room downstairs when he came in. He must have come in through the front door and walked right by her door. Gone upstairs, into Olivia’s bedroom.”

He started rocking back and forth as he went on.

“He went in there and… and I don’t even know what happened next. Somehow he woke her up and got her to drink a glass of water with all these pills in it. Pentobarbital. You know what that is, right?”

“A tranquilizer.”

“An old one. It’s been around forever. It’s what Marilyn Monroe took when she…” He stopped talking. He kept rocking back and forth in his chair.

“Chief, your wife didn’t hear anything?”

“No. No, she takes her hearing aid out, and she just didn’t…”

“So what’s the prognosis right now, Chief? You said she’s doing better?”

“Yeah, that’s what they’re saying. You want to know why? Because he made a mistake. It’s the oldest trick in the book, right? You wait for them to make a mistake.”

“What do you mean? What kind of mistake?”

“When you’re going to kill yourself by taking a lot of tranquilizers or sleeping pills or whatever else, you know what you usually have to do first? If you really want to make sure it works? You take an antiemetic.”

“ Anti emetic, so you mean you don’t-”

“So you don’t throw it all back up, yes. That was his mistake, McKnight. He didn’t realize that my poor Olivia’s always had a nervous stomach. It probably didn’t stay down for more than a few minutes. By that time, he must have been gone.”

“What are they saying now?”

“They’re still saying she could have some liver damage. It’s too early to tell.”

“Is she awake? Have you talked to her?”

“No, not yet. They said she’ll be out for a while. Probably all day.”

“But when you do… she should be able to tell us what happened, right?”

“Yes. You would think so. She should be able to tell us. I don’t know.”

He leaned all the way back in his chair, finally coming to rest for one second at least. He put two fingers from each hand on his temples and closed his eyes.

“But until she does that,” I said, “we have no idea exactly what happened, right?”

“What are you getting at?” He opened his eyes. “Are you suggesting she might have really tried to kill herself?”

“No, Chief.”

“Because if that’s what you’re saying-”

“All I’m saying is that we don’t have any idea who to look for. That’s all I meant.”

“Whoever it is,” he said, “he must be rattled now. After making a mistake like that…”

“What are you thinking? This has to be somebody who was close to Wiley, right?”

“Probably. The film was in his basement. Which reminds me…”

“What?”

“Two agents were just here a minute ago,” Maven said. “Not Long and Fleury, two other guys from Detroit. They went out to Bad Axe as soon as they found out about this. You know what they found?”

“What?”

“Somebody broke into that house on the lake. The feds had it all locked up tight, because they were still processing stuff. But sometime between yesterday evening and this morning, somebody got in, went down to the basement, and turned the whole place inside out.”

“Looking for the film,” I said. “Gotta be, right?”

“You would think. But whoever it was, he didn’t find it.”

“So what about Connie and Sean? Did the agents talk to them?”

“Naturally. Neither of them was alone last night. They both seem to have airtight alibis.”

“They seem to?”

“Yeah, and neither of them has any idea who could have broken into the house. Of course, I’m getting all of this secondhand.”

“We’ve been down this road before,” I said.

“Last time around, secondhand wasn’t good enough for you, you mean. So you ran off to see for yourself.”

“Pretty stupid thing to do. As usual.”

He nodded slowly. “The kind of thing I’m always yelling at you for.”

“You stay here with your daughter,” I said. “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

Bad Axe was about two hours away from Lansing. I took the expressway due east through Flint, but then I had to cut north on a smaller two-lane highway, all the way north into the thumb. So the last hour was hard driving.

When I finally hit Bad Axe, I knew exactly where to go. I parked in the lot next to the theater and went across the street. I pressed on the buzzer next to the Grindstone Productions plate, but nobody answered. I pressed again and took a peek through the window. It was dark inside. I rapped on the window a few times, then I turned and left. I went across to the theater and tried the door. It was locked. Not a big surprise. It wasn’t even noon yet. I knocked on the door, but nobody answered.

Okay, think, I said to myself as I walked back to the truck. Where do I try next?

I played back my last trip down here and realized I knew exactly where Sean lived, at least. I had followed him home to his apartment that first night. It wasn’t far from the theater, just a few blocks away from that motel I stayed in. I pulled out and retraced the route.

When I got to his building, I didn’t see his green Corvette anywhere. Another swing and a miss, I thought. Not a good start. I got out and went to the front door, gave it a quick knock just for the hell of it. I was surprised when the door opened. A young woman stood there looking out at me. She looked vaguely familiar.

“Is Sean here?”

She shook her head. She was clearly upset about something.

“My name’s Alex,” I said. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head again.

“Can I come in and talk to you? It’ll only take a minute, I promise.”

She backed away from the door. She still hadn’t said a word.

“Where have I seen you before?” I said. Then it came to me. “Wait a minute, you were the girl in the sandwich shop. Behind the counter, that first day I came in. I didn’t realize you and Sean were…” I wasn’t quite sure which word to pick, but it didn’t seem to matter. She was looking down at the floor now and was obviously not listening to me at all.

“You weren’t there in the shop the next day,” I said, “when I sat down with Sean.”

I leaned in closer to get her attention.

“We had a long talk,” I said, “Sean and I. Did he say anything about it to you?”

“Yes,” she said, finally finding her voice. “He told me a private investigator talked to him.”

“Okay. Good. So tell me what’s wrong.”

“I… can’t.”

I took a step inside. She didn’t stop me.

“Please talk to me,” I said. “Maybe I can help.”

She turned away from me and went to the center of the room. She had her arms folded around herself. As I followed her, I saw all the movie posters decorating their living room. Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, Chinatown, and right there in the middle of it all, that same Road Hogs poster I had seen in Wiley’s lake house.

Then I saw something else. On the bookshelf, occupying an obvious place of honor. An old movie camera.

I went up close to it and looked at it carefully without touching it. The body of the camera had a textured black surface, and the dials and buttons and lens were all gleaming silver. It was like a work of art.

“That’s his Bolex,” the young woman said.

“He got it from his grandfather, right? I remember what he told me when we were sitting in the sandwich shop. If you’re a Wiley kid, the old man gives you a camera as soon as you’re old enough to hold one.”