Steve Hamilton - A Cold Day in Paradise

“You don’t sound too broken up about two dead men,” I said.

Maven thought about that one for a moment and then he pulled his wallet out. “Here,” he said. “You see these pictures?” He held the wallet open so I could see the photographs of the two young girls.

“Your daughters?”

“This one is my daughter,” he said, pointing to the picture on the left. “The picture’s kind of old. She was seven years old when it was taken. This other one was my daughter’s best friend, Emily. She was seven years old, too. She was murdered. I had to tell her family myself.” He folded up his wallet and put it back in his pocket. “I still carry her picture. I know a lot of people say you shouldn’t do that. They say you should try to keep the job at a distance. Don’t let it get inside you. But I carry the picture because it reminds me why I’m here. Now these two guys, what have you got? Tony Bing was a bookmaker. He got picked up three times, paid his fine, and went right back to business, taking people’s money. Yeah, I know, it’s not like he put a gun to somebody’s head, but he took people’s money, just the same. Last year, I found out he was receiving food stamps! He’s got no official income, so he goes out and gets food stamps, for God’s sake. That’s the kind of guy he was. And this other guy, Big Vince Dorney, he was just downright evil. Bookmaking was just a hobby to him. It was just another way to get his hooks into you. He’d loan you money, he’d sell you drugs, whatever it took to get some leverage. Then he’d really hurt you. We’ve been trying to trip him up for two years. So you think I’m going to lose any sleep because he finally got whacked? And you think I’m going to sit here and take that kind of crap from you? A guy who couldn’t even get his gun out of his holster?”

“That was an impressive speech, Maven. Especially the part about the little girl. I bet those pictures came with the wallet, didn’t they.”

“McKnight, you and I are headed for a big problem. When we’re done with this case, remind me to take my badge off and have a little talk with you outside, okay?”

I looked at him. He was an ugly bastard, probably a good ten years older than I was. But I was sure he could fight. “I’ll make a note of it,” I said.

“All right, then. I’ll be looking forward to that. In the meantime, let’s see if we can figure out who’s killing all of our bookmakers, okay? You want to try helping me out a little bit here for a change?”

“I’m trying to be as cooperative as I can,” I said.

“You say this guy left you a rose yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do with it?”

I hesitated. “I put it in water,” I said.

“Interesting,” he said. “Is that how they trained you to handle evidence down in Detroit? If you had found a gun, would you have put that in water, too?”

I couldn’t take much more of this. I felt like jumping over his desk and strangling him. “Maven,” I said, “it was just a rose left on my doorstep. I had no reason at the time to believe it meant anything. If I had called you up and said, ‘Hey Chief, I think you should come get this rose. Somebody left it in front of my door. You know, I knew a man named Rose once. He shot me and killed my partner. I think he’s been in jail for the last fourteen years. But even so, I think this might have been him.’ What would you have said?”

“All right, save it,” he said. “Let’s just get you set up.”

“Set up with what?”

“A phone trace, genius. Don’t you want to find out where this guy is calling from?”

“I thought you didn’t need special equipment anymore. Isn’t there a special code you can dial now?”

“Yes, star five-seven sends an automatic trace record to the phone company. But we should also get a good tape recording of this guy. Do you have a good high-quality phone recorder in your private eye office?”

“I don’t have an office,” I said.

“A private eye who works out of a log cabin,” he said. “You’d make old Abe Lincoln proud, wouldn’t you.”

“Goddamn it, Maven, if you don’t knock it off-”

“All right, all right, take it easy,” he said. “Let’s just get you ready. I’ll have an officer bring the phone unit over when he comes to set up the stakeout.”

“Stakeout?”

“A man in a car, watching your cabin. Surely they taught you about stakeouts at the academy.”

“Why do I need a stakeout?”

“McKnight, if you’re not the dumbest man in Chippewa County. Somebody kills two people and then sticks a knife in your door in the middle of the night. Don’t you think we should be there when he comes back?”

“If he comes back, I can take him care of him myself.”

“Not a chance,” he said. “I’m going to have a man there every night until we catch him. Is there a neighbor’s house nearby where he can set up? We’ll use a plain vehicle, of course.”

“Nearest cabin is a quarter mile away. I suppose you could set him up just down the road a bit, around the bend.”

“Will he have a sight line?”

“Just barely,” I said. “If you give me a radio, that should help.”

“All right,” he said. “You can expect a man there by sundown.”

“The Fultons aren’t going to like this,” I said.

“Why’s that?”

“Mrs. Fulton is paying me to stay at the house. Just to watch over things.”

“Well, they’ll have to find another baby-sitter,” he said. “God knows they can afford anybody they want. I want you at your cabin in case he calls. It doesn’t sound like he’d say much to anyone else. You’re the chosen one, after all.”

I looked at him and shook my head. “Maven, all this time I have to spend here, and I still haven’t gotten a cup of coffee out of you.”

“It must be killing you,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve heard, I make a great cup of coffee.”

“I’m leaving now,” I said. “If that’s all right with you.”

“I’ll be talking to you,” he said.

“One more thing,” I said. “Where did you find the body? This Big Vince guy?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’m just curious.”

“I don’t like curious private eyes,” he said. “Especially when I’m trying to solve a couple murders. Private eyes don’t touch murders, McKnight. Or have you been watching too many movies?”

“I’m not going to get in your way,” I said. “I just want to know. You have to admit, I am involved in this.”

“I suppose you’ll read about it in the papers, anyway,” he said. “We found him behind Angelo’s.”

“That little place by the canal?”

“That’s the one,” he said. “Just stay away from it.”

“Come on, Chief,” I said. “Why would I go there?”

“I’m serious, McKnight. Stay the hell away from there.”

“You’re the boss, Chief. I’ll see you around.”

When I got outside I rubbed my eyes and took a deep breath of the cold air. I got in my truck and sat there for a moment, waiting for everything to make sense. It didn’t happen. I started the truck and headed to Angelo’s restaurant.

There’s a hydroelectric power canal that cuts through town. Angelo’s was a little pizza place on the north side of the canal, just before the bridge. On the front door a sign read, “Temporarily Closed! We’ll be back as soon as we can!” I pressed my nose against the glass and looked inside. There couldn’t have been more than seven or eight tables. I saw one pay phone on the far wall. Was that where my mystery man saw Big Vince? Listen to me. My mystery man. I’m still not willing to call him Rose.

It can’t be Rose. It can’t be.

I went around to the back of the place. The whole alley was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. There were two uniformed policemen standing there, drinking coffee. Everybody was getting to drink coffee that morning except me.