Steve Hamilton - A Cold Day in Paradise

I slept. I don’t know how long. Then a noise. The phone.

It rang a few times before I got to it. When I picked it up, a voice said, “Alex.”

“Hello?”

“Alex, it’s me, Edwin.”

“Edwin? God, what time is it?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think it’s about two in die morning.”

“Two in the… for God’s sake, Edwin, what is it?”

“Um, I’ve got a little problem here, Alex.”

“What kind of problem?”

“Alex, I know it’s real late, but is there any chance of you coming out here?”

“Where? Your house?”

“No. I’m in the Soo.”

“What? I just saw you a couple hours ago at the bar.”

“Yeah, I know. I was on my way out here.”

“Edwin, what the hell’s going on?”

I stood there shivering for a long moment, listening to the wind outside and to a distant hum on the phone line. “Alex, please,” he finally said. His voice started to break. “Please come out here. I think he’s dead.”

“Who’s dead? What are you talking about?”

“I really think he’s dead, Alex. I mean, the blood…”

“Edwin, where are you?”

“The blood, Alex.” I could barely hear him. “I’ve never seen so much blood.”

I stood in a cheap motel room just inside the Soo city limits at 2:30 A.M., looking down at a man who had died that night, a man who had seemingly lost every ounce of blood from his body.

The blood was everywhere. It was bright red against the white bathroom floor, and where it had soaked into the carpet it took on a darker color that was almost black. It was on the walls, in great streaks thick enough to drip all the way down to the floor. And it was all over the man himself. He looked like he had been dipped in it like an Easter egg.

Seeing the blood made the fear come back to me. I know all about fear, where it comes from, why a man feels it. But knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. I could feel it rising inside me, from the floor of my stomach to a point right behind my eyes. I could not stop it.

“Oh my God,” I said, softer than a whisper. “Oh my God.”

He was a large man. I did not know if I had ever seen him before. I could not think that far. His throat was opened up from ear to ear. He had been shot in the face, as well. Whether he was shot first or had his throat cut first I could not say. I could not even conceive of trying to guess. Later I would suppose that he had probably been shot first and then had his throat cut on his way down to the floor, but at that moment I was not thinking of anything else but the sight of his blood and what it was doing to me.

A bathroom door, open. He was twisted on the floor, his face looking upward. Pants and an undershirt. No shoes. His eyes still open. Part of the face gone, below one eye. All the lights on in the room. The television on next to the bed. Some old movie in black and white, the sound turned down. Both beds unmade, the sheets in a wad on the floor. The blood just reaching the sheets. One corner turned red.

I do not know how long I stood there. I could not move. Finally I looked up and saw myself in the mirror. Do not touch anything. Leave the room. Do not touch anything. Get out get out get out now.

I went outside and closed the door. I felt like I would surely throw up until a blast of November air right off the lake raked its claws across my face. Edwin was standing there under a cheap fluorescent bulb, shivering. In the dim cruelty of the light he looked vulnerable and out of place.

He was still dressed up, just as I had seen him in the bar. I couldn’t help noticing now that his scarf was a perfect shade of blood red.

“Is he dead?”

“What?” I said.

“Is he dead?”

“Is he dead? Did you just ask me if he’s dead?”

Edwin pulled his coat tight around his body. “Oh God,” he said.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“Edwin, for God’s sake…”

“I don’t know what happened, Alex,” he said. “I swear.”

“Did you call the police?”

“No, not yet.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe it. “What’s the matter with you? Did you wake anybody up? Where’s the office?” It was a simple motel, seven or eight rooms in a row. It was called the Riverside, even though the St. Mary’s River was at least two miles east.

“I think it’s down on that end,” he said. “But wait a minute, Alex. Let’s think this through?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, let’s think about the right way to do this.”

“Get in the truck,” I said.

“I don’t think we can leave,” he said.

“I have a phone in the truck, Edwin. Get in the truck.”

My truck was parked next to his silver Mercedes. There was only one other car in the lot. The owner of the place, no doubt, still blissfully sleeping, unaware that someone had been slaughtered in room six. Either he was the world’s soundest sleeper or the killer had used a silencer on his gun.

When we were both in the truck I fired it up and turned up the heater. I pulled the cellular phone out from under the seat. “All right, first we call the police,” I said. “Are you going to call them, or am I?”

“You’re real good buddies with the county sheriff, aren’t you, Alex?”

“I know the man. What does that have to do with it?”

“I just thought that if you called…”

“Edwin, did you see that sign back there that said, ‘Welcome to Sault Ste. Marie’?”

“Yeah?”

“What does that mean to you?”

“It means that we’re in Sault Ste. Marie.”

“Which means?”

“I don’t get it,” he said.

“Which means that we have to call the Soo police. The county doesn’t get involved here.”

“Shit,” he said.

“You have a problem with the city police?”

“No,” he said. “No problem at all. I have no problem with the Soo police.”

“Good morning,” I said into the phone. ’This is Alex McKnight. I’m a private investigator and I’d like to report a murder. Yes, I’m at the Riverside Motel. Yes, on Three Mile Road. Yes, I will… “

“I can’t believe this,” he said. It was still cold enough in the truck to see his breath. He rubbed his hands together and blew on them.

A gust of wind rocked the truck. I looked at the motel while I waited on the line. A lot of tourists come through Chippewa County in a year, but this place looked lonely and forgotten. There was a bird on tibe sign next to the name of the place. I didn’t know if it was supposed to be a pelican or a seagull or God knows what.

“Yes, good morning, Officer,” I said. They had passed my call onto someone else. I repeated my information and promised them we’d be waiting for the squad car. The Soo was a fairly small city, so I was sure they wouldn’t have anything like a Homicide division, probably just a few full-time detectives to handle all the major crimes. I could only remember reading about one other murder in the last five years. So whoever this guy was who was filling up the room with blood, he had just caused a big jump in the homicide rate. They’d send out a couple night shift uniforms and then they’d probably go ahead and wake up Roy Maven, the chief of police. I knew him only by reputation, and by what the county sheriff had told me one day over a beer. I was not looking forward to meeting him at two-thirty in the morning.

“Now what?” Edwin said.

“They’re on their way.”

“Wonderful,” he said.

“So are you going to tell me what happened?”

He nodded. “Where do I begin?”

“Begin with telling me who that is in there.”

“His name is Tony Bing. He’s a bookmaker. He was a bookmaker.”