Steve Hamilton - A Cold Day in Paradise

I didn’t think about what had happened. I didn’t think about what it meant, that I had killed the man, whoever he was. That I would have to deal with later, when I had the strength to face it.

Finally, the door opened again. Maven and Allen walked in and sat down across from me. Allen took a long breath and looked me in the eyes. Maven just stared right past me at the wall. He had a look on his face like he was trying to pass a kidney stone.

“Mr. McKnight,” Allen said, “does the name Raymond Julius mean anything to you?”

“No,” I said.

“That’s the man’s name.”

“The man I shot?”

“Yes. You’ve never met him before?”

“No.”

“You don’t know anything about him?”

“No.”

“Well,” Allen said, “apparently Raymond Julius knew a lot about you.” Maven kept staring at the wall. He wouldn’t look at me.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“Apparently, Mr. Julius spent a great deal of time thinking about you. Following you, watching you. Writing about you.”

“How do you know this?”

“There were certain items found in his residence.”

“I still don’t understand,” I said. “Did he write the notes? Did he kill Bing and Dorney? And Edwin?”

“That seems fairly obvious,” Allen said. “From the physical evidence, I mean.” He snuck a sideways glance at Maven, who still hadn’t said a word. I was finally beginning to see what was going on here. Maven had convinced Allen that I was their man. Allen agreed to help double-team me. Now that he knew the real story, Allen was embarrassed. And not too happy about helping Maven in the first place.

“What kind of physical evidence are we talking about?”

Allen took out a pocket notebook and paged through it. “Traces of blood. We’ll run those, see who they match. A silencer for a nine-millimeter pistol, consistent with the weapon found on Mr. Julius. We’ll do ballistics on both, of course. See if they match the bullets removed from Bing and Dorney.”

“He didn’t use the silencer last night,” I said.

“No,” Allen said. “He left it in his gun case.”

“Doesn’t make sense.”

“Who knows. You live in the middle of the woods. He didn’t figure he’d need it.”

I just shook my head.

“There was a typewriter on the desk,” Allen went on. “We found several pages of text, describing his movements over the last few months. You know, like a journal. A diary. At first glance, the actual type on those pages seems to match the type on the notes.”

“You were there? You saw all this?”

“Yes,” Allen said. “That’s where we were while you were detained here for the last couple hours.” He snuck another look at Maven. Maven didn’t say anything.

“What did the diary say?”

“I can’t go into too much detail at this point. But I can tell you that Mr. Julius was a very disturbed individual. There were several news clippings on his desk, as well. Copies of stories that appeared in the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press, summer of 1984.”

“Summer of 1984?” I said. “Were they about…”

“About Rose, yes. About the shooting. There was one column, in particular. About your recovery.”

“I think I remember,” I said. “The guy from the News got into the hospital.”

“That one was pinned on his wall. Right next to his bed.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “This is just too weird.”

“Like I said, Mr. McKnight, this was a very disturbed individual. He apparently thought you have some sort of special… power or something. He thought you were some sort of messiah.”

“The chosen one,” I said. “He said that in the notes.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“But what about the other stuff in the notes?” I said. “How did he know about what Rose said to me? There’s no way he could have known that, unless…”

“There appears to have been a connection,” Allen said. “In the diary, he referred to some sort of communication he might have had with Mr. Rose.”

“While Rose was in prison? What kind of communication? Letters? Phone calls?”

“That’s not clear at this point,” Allen said. “He wasn’t specific. He did write something about becoming Rose, about taking over his identity in some way.”

“I have to see this stuff,” I said. “Do you have it here at the station?”

“No, Mr. McKnight,” he said. “You know how this works. Right now, it’s all still at the residence. We need to go through it all very carefully.”

“I thought you said it was obvious.”

“It is,” he said. “But we have to follow our procedures.”

“Can I go to his house?”

“No, Mr. McKnight. Please, just let us work on this. I promise you we’ll let you see it when it’s all over.”

“I still don’t get it,” I said. “I don’t even know this guy. How did he even know about Rose?”

“He just picked you,” Allen said. “Who knows why? He just did. I’ve seen a couple cases like this before. There was one I remember very well. A man was out driving, and he cut somebody off at an intersection. Turns out the guy he cut off, he followed him to his house, found out who he was, started calling him, sending him notes. It escalated to the point where the man had to move out of the house. Even then, the guy found him again, finally tried to kill him. Fortunately, we caught him in time. I think that’s the type of individual we’re talking about here. It’s usually just a little thing that triggers it. He sees you. Something clicks in his head. Suddenly, he has to know everything about you. In your case, he finds out that you had been shot, he goes back and finds the old news clippings. He just makes up this whole little universe with you at the center of it.”

“How long has this been going on?” I asked. “When did it all start?”

“Judging from his diary, it looks like five or six months ago.”

I shook my head. “Why me?”

Maven cleared his throat. “Just because,” he said. Finally, he had opened his mouth. “Maybe it was your dynamic personality. Maybe your incredible personal charm. Maybe it’s the way the whole room lights up when you walk in.”

Allen gave him a long icy look and then turned back to me. “Mr. McKnight,” he said. “Alex. Although you were never formally charged in this matter, I just want to say on a purely personal level that as painful as this ordeal must have been for you, the treatment you received in this office obviously made it even worse. For whatever part I played in that, I just want to apologize to you.”

“Fair enough,” I said. I looked at Maven. “Is there anything you’d like to add to that, Chief?”

He just sat there chewing on the inside of his mouth for moment. “Just one thing,” he finally said.

“I’m all ears.”

“This didn’t have to happen.”

“You got that right,” I said.

“No, I mean what happened to Mr. Fulton. He didn’t have to die. If you had just cooperated for one minute on this case, we might have had this Julius guy’s ass behind bars before that ever happened. Of course, then you couldn’t have had your little cowboy shoot-out last night. Mrs. Fulton wouldn’t have been there, scared out of her mind because her husband’s killer is at the front door. Although what she was doing at your cabin while they’re still out dragging the lake for his body is another story.”

“Chief Maven,” Allen said, “is this really necessary?”

“No, it’s not necessary,” Maven said. “If ex-policemen who get their partners killed don’t decide to retire here and make my life miserable, then none of this is necessary.”

“You’re way out of line, Chief.”