Steve Hamilton - A Cold Day in Paradise

“Just get out of here,” Maven said. “Go back to your little state office. You’ve been a big help.”

Allen stood up and shook my hand. “Alex, please let me know if I can be of any assistance in the future.” He looked down at Maven. “You’ll be hearing from me, Chief.”

“I can’t wait,” Maven said.

When Allen had left, we both just sat there at the table, looking at each other.

“I assume I’m free to go?” I finally said.

“You’re free to kiss my wrinkled white ass,” he said.

I stood up. “I’m going to miss these little chats,” I said. “Maybe we can go fishing some time.”

I WALKED OUT of the station into daylight. It was late morning already. The sun was actually trying to shine a little bit, but it wasn’t doing anything to warm things up.

I stumbled around in the parking lot for a minute until I realized that my truck was still parked next to my cabin, minus one passenger-side window. If I had had the strength to laugh, I would have. I certainly didn’t feel like going back into the station and asking for a ride. So I just started walking. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but it felt good to be moving.

I walked around the courthouse toward the river, then followed the sidewalk that ran along the water as far as I could go. When I got to the edge of the park, I turned around and came back to the locks. There was a large freighter going through. My ears were starting to hurt from the cold so I climbed the steps to the observation deck. It was empty.

The ship was about seven hundred feet long. It was entering the southern-most lock, so close to the deck that it was like looking across the street at a slowly moving building. The flag was three horizontal stripes, red, white, and black, with some kind of golden bird in the middle. I guessed Egypt. There were a dozen dark-skinned men standing on the ship, wrapped up tight in their coats, looking back at me as they passed. They were so far from home. This must have seemed like a new and strange world to them. And now with a full load of iron ore, they were on their way back out to sea, down through the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence Seaway and out to the Atlantic Ocean.

I could jump on that ship, I thought. It’s close enough. They could take me back to Egypt with them.

“Alex, I’ve been looking all over for you.” Uttley appeared next to me. “The officer at the station said you just walked off.”

“Just watching the ship go through,” I said.

He looked out at it. “Where’s it from? Whose flag is that?”

“Egypt, I think.”

He nodded. “Detective Allen called me. He told me everything.”

I didn’t say anything.

“You really don’t know who this Raymond Julius guy was?”

“No,” I said.

He let out a long slow breath. “That ship’s got a long way to go,” he said. “How many days you figure it takes to go to Egypt from here?”

“Couldn’t say.”

“You know they built the first lock here in 1797? It was destroyed in the War of 1812. They had to rebuild it.”

I kept looking out at the ship. They had closed the lock and started to lower the water level. When the boat had come down twenty-one feet, they would open the other end and let the boat go on its way to Lake Huron.

“In World War Two, this was the most heavily defended part of the country. If somebody was going to drop bombs on us, the government figured they’d start here. You know, mess up the iron supply, stop us from making tanks. That’s why they built two Air Force bases way up here in the middle of nowhere.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I said.

“Because I don’t know what else to say.”

Neither of us spoke for a while. We watched the boat sink as the water left the lock.

“It’s got to be a little easier to deal with now, isn’t it?” he said.

“How do you mean?”

“You thought it was Rose before. Even though everybody else was telling you he was still in prison. It must have been driving you crazy.”

“So instead it’s just some guy off the street,” I said. “And for some reason he decides to spend his whole life just following me around, watching me, finding out about my past. Trying to become my past, for God’s sake. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Of course it doesn’t make any sense.”

“They say he was in contact with Rose somehow. I guess that would mean mail, right? You can’t just call a guy in prison.”

He thought about it. “Or he could have visited him.”

“Right. But either way, they’d have a record of it, wouldn’t they? Don’t they screen your mail in prison?”

“I’m sure they do,” he said. “I’m sure Detective Allen will look into that. Or Maven, if he ever gets his head out of his ass. Allen didn’t go into details, but it sounds like you and Maven haven’t kissed and made up yet.”

“What would happen if I called that Browning guy again?”

“The corrections officer? He’d stonewall you again and you’d get mad again. Why would you even want to call him? What are you going to find out? Alex, it’s over. The guy is dead.”

“It doesn’t feel over.”

“You’ve got to give yourself some time,” he said. “Take a vacation. Go someplace warm for a few days.”

The freighter had moved through the other end of the lock. We could see the back of it now. There was some Arabic writing and next to that it read “Cairo.”

“You were right,” he said. “That was the Egyptian flag. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

He took me home in his BMW. I stared out the window at the pine trees. Pine trees and more pine trees. I was starting to get sick of pine trees. We rode in silence the whole way, and then we were at my cabin. It felt strange to be looking at it again after what had happened. It was the same place. A small cabin made in the woods. And yet everything was different now.

“You want me to stick around for a while?” he said. “Help you clean up?”

“No, thanks,” I said. “I need to be here by myself for a while.”

“I understand,” he said. “Give me a call if you need me.”

“Okay.” I got out of the car.

“Hey Alex?”

I looked back in.

“It’s over,” he said. “It’s really over.”

“I know,” I said.

I watched him leave and then I turned around to face it. My truck was sitting there, the hood still ajar, the seat still covered with glass. Where Sylvia’s car had been, there was just an impression in the grass.

And where the body was. Over in the woods, past the woodpile. They had taken him away, of course, but I wasn’t ready to go look at where I had killed him.

I went into the cabin, wondering if I’d ever feel at home there again. I remembered back when I was a police officer in Detroit. They told us if we ever had to kill somebody, no matter how justified it might be, there would eventually be a price to pay. At some point, an hour later, a day, a week, it would suddenly hit you, the fact that you killed another human being. I kept waiting for it to hit me. But I felt nothing.

I picked up the phone. It was dead. I had forgotten, he had cut the line. I’d have to go down to the Glasgow to use the phone. But first I’d have to go out and clean all the glass out of the truck. Or else I’d have to walk all the way down there. I couldn’t imagine doing either. I needed to sleep. Let me just get a little sleep first. If I can. If it’s possible to sleep, ever again.

I needed those pills. Just one more time. After all that had happened, who could blame me for needing them?

Hell, maybe I can sleep without them. I’ll give it a try.

I lay down on my bed. I put my head back on the pillow and looked up at the rough wooden ceiling. And then I was out.