Steve Hamilton - A Cold Day in Paradise

“No?”

“No. They were for his mother. It was her birthday. He could see I was surprised, so he asked me if I thought he was going to give them to me. I said yes, to be honest, that’s what I was thinking. You know what he said? He said when he finally worked up the nerve to ask me out, he’d buy the flowers at another store. That way he could take them back and demand a refund if I didn’t fall in love with him.”

“That’s great.”

She looked up at the skylight. “Do you think he can see us now?”

“God, I don’t know.”

“You should have heard him talk about you,” she said. “He told me you were the best friend he ever had. Did he ever tell you that?”

“Yes, he did.”

“I hope he can,” she said. “I hope he can see us.”

“Why?”

“All that time, he never knew about us,” she said. “I should have told him. Not because I wanted to hurt him. Just because he had the right to know.”

“Maybe some things you don’t want to know.”

“I don’t believe in that,” she said. “I don’t like things to happen to me without knowing why.”

“I suppose I feel the same way,” I said. “That’s why I need to leave now. I’ve got one more thing I need to know.”

She watched me put my coat on.

“Tell me the truth,” I said. “Do you want me to come back or not?”

“No,” she said. “Not yet anyway.”

“Fair enough.”

“I don’t think we can just start over,” she said. “We can’t pretend none of this happened.”

“No,” I said.

She looked up at the skylight again. The snow was beginning to collect in the corners. I sat there watching her.

“Thank you for being Edwin’s friend,” she said.

“I don’t think I did a very good job of that.”

She smiled. It wasn’t much of a smile, but it was the first one I had seen from her in months. “He would have forgiven you anything. Even this.”

I left. I didn’t kiss her. I didn’t touch her. As I drove away, I wondered if I would ever touch her again.

I swung by my cabin, took a shower, changed my clothes, had some coffee. And then I got right back into the truck and gunned it into the Soo. The snow was building into a flurry, but none of it was sticking to the ground yet. Some flakes blew into the truck through the open window.

When I got to Uttley’s office, I found him packing up a large cardboard box. He looked like his old self again, clean-shaven, his hair slicked back. A nice shirt and tie.

“Alex, there you are,” he said. “I was looking for you last night. I figured your phone was still out, so I stopped by your cabin.”

“What time was that?”

“Had to be about midnight. I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d come out and see you.”

“You must have just missed me,” I said. “I couldn’t sleep, either. So I went out looking for Raymond Julius’s house.”

“Raymond Julius? The man you…” He stopped.

“The man I killed, yes. Turns out he did some work for Leon Prudell.”

He stopped his packing. “He worked for Prudell? Are you serious?”

“He ran errands for him,” I said. “Did you ever meet him?”

“No, I didn’t,” he said. “I don’t remember even hearing his name.”

“Prudell says he helped him out on that job he did over at the resort, watching the lifeguards.”

“Oh, wait a minute,” he said. “I remember that. He said he had a guy helping him, covering for him when he went to the bathroom, stuff like that. I don’t think he told me his name. I probably wasn’t listening too well. That was toward the end, after I had already decided to fire him. But how does this guy figure into your thing with Rose?”

“He was upset that he lost his job. He blamed me. Started stalking me, looking into my past. He found the newspaper clippings. The rest is kind of crazy.”

“My God,” he said. “This all happened because I fired Prudell?”

“No,” I said. “This all happened because the guy was insane. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I can’t believe any of this,” he said. “This just keeps getting worse.”

“There’s one thing that’s still bothering me,” I said. “This business of how he contacted Rose.”

“You mean about whether he visited him or wrote to him?”

“Yes,” I said. “In his diary he just said that he ‘communicated’ with Rose. But he didn’t say how.”

“How did you see his diary?”

“You don’t want to know that,” I said.

He raised his hands. “Say no more.”

“I’m just wondering how it happened. How did he get through to Rose? How did he find out all the things he wrote about in his notes?”

He shrugged. “Who knows, Alex? Why does it even matter?”

“It just bothers me,” I said. “Maybe I should call that Browning guy down at the prison again.”

“You won’t get anywhere,” he said. “You know that.”

“Let me just have his number,” I said. “I might try him.”

Uttley gave out a long tired sigh and went through some papers. He wrote the number down on a card and gave it to me. “You’re wasting your time,” he said.

“You’re probably right,” I said. “What’s with the box? Are you going somewhere?”

“I need a vacation. I think you need one, too.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t even know yet,” he said. “Someplace very far away. Someplace warm. An island somewhere.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“You know, all those nights I spent on the Fultons’ couch, I started to think about things. I’m not sure I want to be a lawyer anymore. Not this kind of lawyer, not up here, anyway. I think I might try something nice and quiet for a while, you know, like real estate. Just sit on my butt at a closing and collect my big check.”

“You’re not coming back, are you.”

“I don’t think so, Alex. Too much has happened here. I’m surprised you’re not thinking the same way.”

“Maybe I am.”

“So anyway, I guess I probably won’t be needing you as a private investigator anymore.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “I’m not sure I ever really wanted to be one.”

He nodded and swallowed hard.

“Need help carrying anything out?” I said.

“No, this is all I need,” he said. He slapped the box. “Alex, I’m not sure what else to say. You’ve had to go through so much the last couple weeks. I just hope I was able to help you through it in some small way.”

“Of course you did.”

He came around from behind his desk and shook my hand. And then he hugged me. He wrapped both of his arms around me and gave me a good squeeze. “Take care of yourself, Alex.”

“Good-bye, Lane.”

As I closed the door, I looked back at him. He gave me one last thumbs-up and then I was gone.

I went into town and tried to find an auto glass place. The first one didn’t have my window in stock. Neither did the second or third. The last man said I could either go over the bridge and try the Canadian side, or he could put it on order and tape up the truck with clear plastic to hold me over. I went with the tape job.

At a pay phone, I called the phone company to see about fixing my cut line. The lady told me they’d try to get out there some time that day, but she couldn’t say when. I told her I wasn’t going to hold my breath. After I hung up I took out the card with Browning’s number on it. I looked at it for a long time and then I put it back in my pocket without dialing.

By the time I headed back to Paradise, the snow had stopped. But it was still a cold, raw day. The sky was as gray as gunmetal. I probably wouldn’t see the sun for five months. Maybe Uttley is right, I thought. Maybe I just should go away somewhere, never come back. Maybe even take Sylvia, if I could convince her.