Steve Hamilton - A Cold Day in Paradise

I eased the hood down, didn’t even bother to close it all the way. Just get it out of the way so you can drive. We’ll get out of here, go down to the main road, maybe go to the Glasgow if it’s still open, call the police. Have a drink or two or five. Let’s go let’s go let’s go.

I opened the door, slid into the seat. The key! Where the fuck is the key? I put the flashlight and the gun down on the seat next to me, fished around in my pockets. Motherfucking keys! Here they are. I pulled them out, felt through all the keys on my ring for the car key. Why the fuck do I have so many fucking keys on here? The car key, the key to the cabin, that’s all I need. What are all these other fucking keys for?

That’s when the window exploded. The sudden blast of the gunshot, the spray of glass, the scream that came out of my lungs all on its own, they all seemed to happen in the same instant. I threw the door open and dropped to the ground. Was I hit? Was I bleeding? I didn’t even know.

No, you’re not hit, Alex. You’re still alive. For the moment. Get a grip on yourself. Try to breathe. I can’t breathe. Breathe, damn it! The gun. Where’s the gun? I picked my head up. There, on the car seat, covered with a million small shards of glass. The gun and the flashlight. I grabbed them. I could feel the glass cutting into my hands. All right, you have a gun. You have a flashlight. Now just breathe. Make yourself breathe.

Where is he? He shot out the passenger’s side window, so he must be on the other side of the car. Is he over in the woods? What is that, twenty yards, maybe thirty? By the woodpile? Or is he standing right there next to the car, waiting for me to show myself?

What do I do? Do I wait? Do I make a run for it?

Speak. Say something to him. Make yourself talk.

“Rose!” I yelled. “Rose, are you there?”

There was no response.

“Rose, is that you?”

Nothing. I shook my head. The gunshot was still ringing in my ears.

“Rose, goddamn it, say something!”

I heard laughter. How far away? I think from the woods. I moved down toward the back of the truck and peeked over the edge. Too dark. I ducked back behind the truck, turned the flashlight on. I raised my hand, waiting for the next bullet.

Silence.

I peeked over the edge, keeping the flashlight as far away from my head as I could. If he’s going to shoot, let him shoot at the light. I couldn’t see him anywhere. I trained the light on the pine trees. No sign of him.

“Rose, where are you?” He had to be there somewhere. In the trees. “Show yourself!”

More laughter. Yes, from the trees. He was there.

“Rose, I’ve called the police! They’ll be here any second! Come out and throw your gun down now!”

“Nice try, Alex!” That voice. Is it him? It was so long ago. What did his voice sound like? On the phone, he spoke in a whisper. It was so hard to tell.

“I know you cut the phone line, Rose! But I have a radio!” It was a bluff, but I figured it was worth a shot. “The police are on their way!”

There was a long silence. “I don’t think so, Alex,” he finally said. “Just give it up.”

“What do you want from me?” I said. How can I reason with him? What do you say to a madman? “What do you want me to do, Rose?”

“I want you to be scared, Alex. That’s all I want. Are you scared?”

“Yes,” I said. I kept moving the flashlight across the tree line. Where was his voice coming from? Which tree is he hiding behind? “Yes, I’m scared.”

“That’s good, Alex.”

“So now you can leave, right?”

He laughed. “I’m not even here now, Alex. I can’t be. I’m in prison, remember?”

“All right, Rose,” I said. “I’ve had enough.” Anger. I need to feel anger. I need to stand up and do something for once in my fucking life. I’m not going to just sit here and wait for him to shoot me again. “I want you to put your gun down, Rose. Put the gun down and get your ass out here.”

“What are you going to do, Alex?”

“I’m going to come get you, Rose. I swear to God, I’m going to come in there and find you.”

“You don’t have a gun, Alex.”

Wait a minute. He doesn’t think I have a gun? What’s that all about? Do I go along with it? Try to surprise him? No, fuck it. “I have a gun, Rose. Now get out here.”

“That’s not a real gun, Alex.” He laughed. “I know that’s not a real gun. Now what are you going to do?”

God, now what? This doesn’t make any sense? Why he would think-

Forget it. He’s crazy. Don’t try to get in his mind. Just move.

I stood up. The flashlight in my left hand, the gun in my right. I put them together into a double-handed grip, just like they taught me at the academy a million years ago. The beam of light and the sight of the gun were one now. Anything I could see I could shoot. “I’m coming in there, Rose. Put the gun down.”

More laughter. Which tree is it?

“Put the gun down.” I moved closer to the tree line. I wanted him to laugh again. I was getting close enough.

I heard something. A footfall. Leaves. A small branch snapping.

“Put it down, Rose!”

There. From behind that tree. There he is.

“PUT THE GUN DOWN!”

I saw the blond wig. I saw the gun in his hand. He raised it. I fired. Four times, chest chest head chest.

I stood there for a long time. The noise from my gun dissolved into the night. But it kept reverberating in my head. My hands tingled from the shock of it. I could smell the burnt powder. I didn’t move.

Finally, a car. I didn’t look up. The car pulled into the clearing, the tires scraping the grass. A door opened and closed. Footsteps.

“Alex, what happened?”

I looked up. It was Uttley.

“I thought I heard shots,” he said. “I was on my way down from the Fulton house. I tried calling you, but I couldn’t get through. So I thought I should-” And then he saw the legs on the ground. The rest of the body was knocked back behind the tree.

More footsteps. It was Sylvia. She came out of the cabin and stood next to me. She looked down.

“Is it him?” Uttley asked. He didn’t even seem to notice that Sylvia was there. “Is it Rose?”

I stepped forward and shone my flashlight on his face. The headshot had blown the wig away and taken out a small piece of his scalp.

“No,” I said.

“What?”

“I don’t know who this is,” I said. “I’ve never seen him before.”

I was sitting in the same interview room. The fishing map was still on the wall. Someone had made a halfhearted attempt to clean off the coffee, but there was still a pale brown streak from Lake Nicolet all the way down to Potagannissing Bay.

Uttley had called the police on his cellular. Maven showed up not long after the first officers. He brought me down here himself, made me go over it a couple times. When Detective Allen got there, they made me go over it a couple more times. And then they made me go over it eight or nine times more, just for good measure. I imagined Uttley had been put in another room to give his statement, Sylvia in yet another room to give hers. I hoped they were both long gone by then, home in their beds. Or eating breakfast. I couldn’t guess how long I had been there. I didn’t even know if it was night or day. There was no clock in the room. I didn’t know where my watch had gone. I couldn’t even remember if I was wearing it the night before. I suppose I could have gotten up and opened the blinds, but I just sat there in the chair, my arms on the table, staring at the map.

The last time through my story, a uniformed officer stuck his nose in the room, told Maven and Allen he had something important for them. As I watched them get up and leave the room, I noticed that they both had that stiff, middle-aged cop way of moving around. Put a couple of hats on them and they’d be Joe Friday and Bill Gannon. That’s the kind of thing you think about when you’re as tired and shell-shocked as I was.