Steve Hamilton - A Cold Day in Paradise

I pulled up next to the front entrance and went inside. The place was maybe half-full even on a miserable morning like this one. As soon as I got inside the door, a Soo officer stopped me. “Mr. McKnight,” he said, “you’re not supposed to be here.”

I recognized the officer. It was the same man I saw at the motel and then again behind the restaurant. “I’m just trying to help,” I said. “We have to find him.”

“The chief said if I see you I’m supposed to arrest you.”

I grabbed him by the shoulders. “Then you didn’t see me, okay? Please.”

“I think you should go home,” he said. “We’ve got every officer out looking for him.”

“You know he drove a silver Mercedes, right?”

“Yes,” he said. “And we have the plate number.”

“Good,” I said. “Have you found out anything here? I know he was here last night around six o’clock. Do you have anything else?”

“Mr. McKnight…”

“Tell me, damn it,” I said. “Have you found out anything else?”

“No,” he said. “Everybody who was here last night has gone home. They’re calling some of those people right now.”

“All right,” I said. “Keep at it. I’m going to go start working some of the roads.”

“You were a police officer once, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Go,” he said. “I didn’t see you.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Outside, I searched the main parking lot. There was no sign of his car. I walked around the building, looking through all of the cars in the employee lot in back.

When I got back to my truck, Uttley had just pulled up in his red BMW. When he got out of the car he was out of breath like he had just run the whole way. “Alex, my God,” he said. “Tell me this is just a bad dream.”

“I’m going to go start looking for his car,” I said. “Why don’t you do the same. We’ll split up.”

“No, let me come with you,” he said. “I have a good map. We can be more thorough that way.”

“Fine, get in,” I said.

He grabbed his map and jumped in my truck. As I left the parking lot I looked over at him. He closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Is Mrs. Fulton okay?” I asked.

“Not really,” he said. “I think she knows something is wrong.”

“How about Sylvia?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t see her before I left. I think she was in her room.”

I tried to breathe. Think, Alex. Think of what to do. “The water,” I said. “Let’s start working the shore roads, look for his car.”

“Go up through the rez,” he said, unfolding his map. “We’ve got to start with Lakeshore Drive.”

When we hit the shoreline we started to see Soo Police cars, as well as a few state cars and even some county cars. Maven had apparently called everyone.

The sky was growing darker. The rain came down even harder.

We worked up Lakeshore Drive all the way to Iriquois Point. We stopped there at a little parking lot overlooking the lighthouse. I tried to picture Edwin sitting there in his car, looking out at the water. I tried to make it happen in my mind. But his car wasn’t there.

“I think we need to go out more,” I said.

“What, away from town?”

“It’s just a feeling,” I said. “There’s too many people around here. Even late at night. I would think he’d want something more isolated.”

“Makes sense,” he said, shifting the map. “So just keep going. We’ll work our way all the way around the bay.”

We headed west. There were a lot of cottages and vacation homes overlooking the water. Another state car passed us.

“At least we’ve got everybody out here looking,” he said.

We looked down long driveways and through the pine trees for some sign of his car. There was no sound apart from our breathing, the rain, and the rhythmic stroking of the windshield wipers.

“This is my fault,” I finally said.

“What are you talking about?”

“All of it. It’s my fault”

“You can’t think that way.”

“I brought it here.”

“No,” he said. And then we were silent again.

We kept driving, kept looking. The trees grew thicker here as we made our way into the heart of the forest. “His car has to be here somewhere,” Uttley said.

“There’s not much out here until we hit the road to Paradise,” I said. “Maybe we should just go right there and start-”

“Wait, I think I saw something,” he said. “Go back to that driveway.” I pulled the truck over and put it into reverse. We both looked down at a small cottage. There was a silver car parked next to it, but it wasn’t a Mercedes.

“Sorry, false alarm,” he said.

“This is hopeless,” I said. “We’re never going to find his car. Even if we do…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Just keep going,” he said. He looked me in the eyes. “Go.”

We kept working our way down the road. There weren’t many driveways this far out in the woods. We slowed down by each one and then sped up to the next.

I don’t know how many driveways we checked. I lost all track of time. The rain came on harder.

Finally, Uttley said, “Alex, look.” There was a cottage that looked closed up for the winter. Parked next to it was a state trooper’s car.

And next to that was a silver Mercedes.

“Oh God, Alex.”

I took the truck down the driveway and pulled in behind the trooper’s car. We got out to look at the Mercedes.

“This is Edwin’s car,” Uttley said. We looked through the windows. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

“It’s unlocked,” I said.

“We shouldn’t touch it, though, right?”

I nodded. My whole body was numb.

“Where are the troopers?” he said. The place was deserted.

“Let’s go see,” I said.

We made our way down a dirt path to the beach. As soon as we got near the water we could see the troopers. They were standing over a rowboat. One was bent over it like he was looking at something. The other was looking up at the rain, sheltering his face with one hand and holding a radio with the other. We could hear the faint crackling and then a metallic voice breaking in.

I ran down the beach, working hard to make my way over the stones. Uttley was right behind me. As we approached the boat, the troopers looked up at us. “Who are you?” one of them said.

“What did you find?” I said.

“I need to know your name, sir,” he said.

“I’m Alex McKnight,” I said. “I’m…” What do I say? “I’m a friend of Edwin Fulton. What did you find?” I looked into the rowboat.

“Please, sir,” the trooper said, “you can’t touch anything.”

“I know that,” I said. “I just want to-”

I saw blood. On the side of the boat. It was mixing with the rain and washing down into a pool of faint pink.

And floating in that pool, driven by the wind into a slow spiral, was a single red rose.

The second trooper, the one who was bent over the boat, looked up at the first. “Call them again,” he said. “This rain is messing everything up.”

“They said they’re on their way.”

“Damn it all.”

I went closer to the boat. I stood right over it and looked down at the blood. Uttley stood behind me, his arms wrapped around his body to keep his coat from whipping in the wind.

“Sir,” the trooper said, “you really need to step away from that.”

I ignored him, looking down at the oarlock. I got down on my knees and looked at it closely. I tried to find my voice, but I could not speak.

The troopers needed to do something about this. They needed to collect this evidence before the wind blew it away.

Wrapped around the oarlock were several strands of long blond hair.