“All right,” I said. “Thanks for humoring me.”
“Maybe this will be the night,” he said. “Maybe he’ll show up at your front door.”
“I hope so,” I said. “I know it sounds strange, but this is one murderer I really want to meet.”
One more night. Dave in his car, me in the cabin, just waiting there. How long would we have to keep doing this? If this guy wanted to torture me, he had found the best way. Just make me sit there on my butt all night long.
The wind started to pick up a little bit that night. Then it died down again. In the long hours I tried not to think about the past too much. I didn’t want to see Franklin dying again. I didn’t want to see that look in Rose’s eyes. And yet, who else’s eyes would I see at two o’clock in the morning, as I lay on my bed feeling the cold weight of my gun?
And then suddenly, a light. It swept across the wall. Headlights.
I reached for the walkie-talkie, pushed the button, and spoke in a hoarse whisper. “Dave,” I said. “It’s a car.”
Silence.
“Dave. Come in.”
Nothing.
“Goddamn it, Dave! Are you there?”
No answer. Outside I heard a car door shut. Then footsteps. I gripped the revolver with both hands. The footsteps stopped.
I took a step toward the door. The floor creaked beneath me. I stopped.
There was no sound except for my breathing and my heartbeat. What was he doing out there?
Bang! The silence was ripped apart. My heart leapt into my throat. Bang! The pounding on my door sounded like he would smash it into splinters. I put my back against the wall, keeping clear of the door. Surely it would bust open with the next blast. Bang! I could feel the impact shake the entire cabin.
And then a voice, bellowing in the night. “McKnight!” He was right there at my doorstep. I could practically feel the heat of his breath through the door. “Get out here, McKnight!”
I quickly weighed my options. Stay put, see what he does next? Throw the door open and surprise him? What if he’s armed? Am I prepared to shoot? Goddamn it all to hell, can I shoot him this time?
I checked the gun. All right, you fucking lunatic. This is it. I’m opening this door right now. And if I see a gun in your hand I’m gonna shoot you right between the eyes. On the count of three. One. Two.
“Freeze!” Another voice. Outside. “Get down now! Put your hands behind your head! On the ground! Now! Move it!”
I threw the door open. There was a man facedown on my doorstep. Dave was standing above him, both hands on his gun. “Mr. McKnight, put the gun down!”
I just stood there.
“Mr. McKnight! Please put your gun down!”
I looked down at my hand. The gun was shaking. I pointed it to the ground.
“Are you all right?”
“What?”
“Are you all right, Mr. McKnight?”
“Yes,” I said. I looked at the man on the ground. He was fighting for breath. I couldn’t see his face. “Where were you? I tried to call you on the radio.”
Dave kept his gun trained on the man. “I didn’t hear you,” he said.
I didn’t take my eyes off the man on the ground.
“Backup is on the way,” he said. And then to the man, “You just keep lying right there. Don’t move a muscle.”
The man groaned.
He looked familiar. That hair. “Wait a minute,” I said. I bent down to look at him.
“Mr. McKnight, don’t go near him!”
“It’s all right, Dave,” I said. I grabbed the man’s red hair and pulled his face up into the light of the doorway. “I know this man.”
“Goddamn you, McKnight,” he said. He was drunk.
“Dave,” I said. “I’d like you to meet Mr. Leon Prudell.”
“You must be pretty goddamned afraid of me, McKnight,” he said. A thin line of drool ran from his mouth to the ground. “You went out and got police protection just in case I showed up?”
“Yeah, that’s right, Prudell. I was afraid you’d use your chin to bruise my knuckles again.”
T HEY DRAGGED P RUDELL’S sorry drunken ass down to the station for the night. The next morning, I still hadn’t started to feel sorry for him yet. I figured he deserved at least a few more hours with Chief Maven.
I stopped by Uttley’s office around ten o’clock. He was just finishing a good phone slam. For the first time in memory, his hair was messy.
“I can’t take too much more of this,” he told me. “Everything’s falling apart here. I’m losing clients. You remember that guy at the trailer park? I missed a couple of calls from him so he went out and got somebody else.”
“You don’t look so good,” I said.
“I hope I don’t look as bad as you do,” he said.
“You might want to stop in at the station today,” I said. “They’ve got your man Prudell there.”
“He is most definitely not my man,? Uttley said. “What did he do?”
“He came by my cabin last night. I think he wanted to continue our discussion from last week.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” he said. “Does he actually blame you for him losing his job?”
“He’s out, I’m in,” I said. “That’s all he cares about.”
“What a jackass,” he said. “So I suppose Maven thinks he’s our killer now? Because he came to your place last night?”
“He did for about five minutes,” I said. “I set him straight.”
“So why’s he still there?”
“I think he’s just drying out,” I said.
“Fine, let him stay there,” he said. “God, what a jackass.”
We both let ourselves laugh a little bit. It was the kind of laugh that comes out when you haven’t slept in days and you feel like one big exposed nerve.
“Where are we on Rose today?” I said.
He held up a pad of legal paper, taking a moment to focus his bloodshot eyes. “Maximilian Rose, born in 1959.” He looked up at me. “He did not have a twin brother. Sentenced in December of 1984. Life plus twelve years, no parole. I told you I talked to a corrections officer down there yesterday. It took a little while to make him understand our situation.”
“Did he have a picture? A mug shot or something he could use to positively identify him?”
“Yes, he did. He told me that he went to Rose’s cell personally and double-checked on him. As far as he’s concerned, that man in the cell is Maximilian Rose.”
“How about the request to visit him?”
Uttley looked at me and exhaled. “This guy did pass that request along, yes.”
“And?”
“And Rose refused to see anyone.”
“What? Are you kidding?”
“That’s his right,” he said. “He doesn’t have to receive any visits if he doesn’t want to.”
“But can’t we make him?”
“We can’t, no. I suppose the police can.”
“Great,” I said. “I’m sure Maven will love mis idea.”
“I don’t know what else to do.”
“Can I talk to this guy? The corrections officer?”
“If you really want to,” he said. “He seemed like a good man. But I don’t know how much patience he’s going to have with this.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I should just forget it. I mean, it’s crazy, right?”
Uttley sat down behind his desk and looked at the ceiling. “I don’t know what’s crazy anymore, Alex.”
I stopped by Angelo’s restaurant again. The owner had opened the place up again. He was sweeping the floor when I went in and ordered a couple slices. He had been there the night of the murder, but he didn’t remember anything out of the ordinary. I sat there at a small table, maybe in the same chair as the murderer, the would-be Rose, whatever I wanted to call this guy. Vince Dorney was here, I thought, maybe over there by the bathroom, talking on the phone. He overhears Dorney talking, thinks he hears something about microwaves. Wasn’t that what the note said? He decides Dorney is a bad man, a man who needs to be removed. But how does he get him into the back alley? The owner of the restaurant didn’t have any ideas about that. He didn’t seem too anxious to even think about it anymore.