“Mr. Browning,” Uttley said. “This is Lane Uttley in Sault Ste. Marie. We spoke a couple days ago.”
“Yes, you were asking about an inmate.”
“Maximilian Rose,” he said, looking up at me. “I have Mr. McKnight with me here in the office. We’re sorry to bother you again, but I’m afraid our situation has gotten much worse. I mean, we’ve had another, um-”
I picked up the receiver. “This is McKnight,” I said. “I want you to listen to me very carefully. I have good reason to believe that Maximilian Rose is here in the area, and that he’s responsible for three murders.”
“That’s impossible,” Browning said. “That man is here in prison. We’ve gone through this already.”
“I don’t care what you’ve gone through,” I said. “You have to believe me. Something is not right down there. I don’t know how it happened, but I don’t think that man you have is Rose.”
“Mr. McKnight, I told this to Mr. Uttley and now I’m going to tell it to you. I personally took the man’s mug shot and went and stood in front of the man’s cell. He has grown a pretty big beard since then, but-”
“What? A beard? Nobody told me about a beard before.” I looked at Uttley. He just shrugged his shoulders.
“Yes, the man has a beard now. But it’s the same man.”
“How can you know for sure?” I said. “He must look totally different now. I mean, whoever that is. He must not look like the picture.”
“Mr. McKnight.” I could tell he was fighting down his anger. He spoke as slowly to me as he would to a child. “If I stopped shaving, a month later, I would have a beard. A year later, I’d have a big beard. But I’d still be the same man.”
“Why won’t he see me? Explain that to me.”
“I don’t know why he won’t see you. It doesn’t matter why. We can’t force him.”
“I want you to fax me his mug shot,” I said. “And then I want you to go take a Polaroid of the man in the cell and fax me that, too. I’ll give you Uttley’s fax number.”
“If a law enforcement officer makes that request, then I’ll do it, sir.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” I said. “Why can’t you just do it for us?”
“If there’s a murder investigation going on up there and you think somehow Rose is involved, why aren’t the police talking to me?” he said. “You have to admit, this looks mighty strange.”
I didn’t know what to say. They aren’t calling you because they think I did it? How far would that answer get me?
“I don’t have time to explain it,” I said. “Please, you have to believe me. Three people are dead.”
“Have the police call me.”
“I’m begging you,” I said.
“I’m sorry.”
“Then go to hell.” I slammed the phone down.
I just sat there looking at the floor. Uttley didn’t say anything for a while. And then finally, “So now what?”
“We take you back to your car,” I said. “So you can go back to the Fultons’ house.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“No. I don’t think I should be there right now.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go try to find him.”
“Where?” he said.
“I don’t know. Everywhere.”
“The police should be doing that.”
“They aren’t.”
“Are they going to keep the man outside your cabin, at least?”
“No,” I said. “Why should they?”
“Goddamn it,” he said. He picked up the phone. “I’m going to call that bastard right now.”
“Don’t call him.”
“What?”
“I don’t want a man there anymore.”
“Why not?”
“In his note, Rose said that he knew the man was there. I don’t know how, but he knew.”
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“Don’t you see? It’s not safe for an officer to be there in his car if Rose knows he’s there.”
“But what happens if he shows up now?”
“Then I’ll be waiting for him,” I said.
“Alex, you can’t do this. Not this way. Let me be there, at least.”
“No,” I said. “This is between me and him.”
“Look at you,” he said. “Why don’t you let me stay with you one night at least, so you can get some sleep?”
“I don’t need sleep,” I said. “I’ll sleep when this is over with.”
He argued some more, but he knew he wouldn’t win. Finally, I took him back to the casino to pick up his car. He wanted to come help me look for Rose, but I convinced him that Mrs. Fulton and Sylvia needed him more than I did that day. I don’t know if he believed that, but he left me there and went back to their house.
I looked around the Bay Mills Casino for Vinnie. I figured he’d be the right man to start with. He had seen Edwin the night before. Maybe he had seen someone else there with him. Or at least he could point me to the men who actually threw Edwin out of the place. Maybe they had seen someone.
Someone.
How did he find me? How long had he been here? Has he been watching me? If it had ever occurred to me to check my rearview mirror before the last few days, would I have seen him in the car behind me? That little restaurant by Uttley’s office, the place I often had breakfast after stopping in to see him, was he ever there in a booth across the room, watching me eat? If I had put down the paper and looked up at him, would I have even recognized him?
I couldn’t find Vinnie at any of the blackjack tables, so I just stood there for a few minutes watching the action. I told myself I was waiting for Vinnie to show up for work. But that was a lie. The only reason I kept standing there was because I had no idea what to do next.
When I finally left the casino, I got in my truck and drove west along the shoreline to where the boat had been found. It was as good a place as any. Start at the end and move backward. As I drove, I tried to imagine how it happened. His car was found at the cottage, so Edwin must have come down this very road. Was he alone then? I couldn’t imagine why he would come this way. Was Rose in the car with him? Edwin driving, Rose sitting next to him with a gun in his ribs? Or maybe Rose was driving. Maybe Edwin was lying in the backseat, already dead. Although I didn’t remember seeing any blood when Uttley and I looked into the car.
The trunk. He was in the trunk. Right now they’ve got his Mercedes down at the police station and they’re opening up the trunk. How much of Edwin’s blood will they find there?
I tried to drive the thought out of my mind, but I didn’t have much luck. I kept thinking about Edwin’s blood. When I got to the place where we found the boat, I drove down the long driveway and stopped next to the cottage. It was still deserted. Nobody would be here until the next summer. There was a weather vane on the top. I hadn’t noticed that before. It was spinning madly in the wind.
I got out of the truck and walked slowly down the beach. The boat was gone. They had taken it, along with the car. There was no trace left, nothing to tell you what had happened here.
I looked out at the water. The rain had stopped. There were high clouds moving fast across the sky. The wind stung my face. It felt like all the heat had gone out of the world. It felt like I would never be warm again.
I hoped he didn’t suffer. I hoped by the time he got here, he was already gone. Just a body to be dumped into the water. I hoped he didn’t lie bleeding in the boat, watching Rose working at the oars. I hoped he didn’t know that his life was almost over, that he would soon feel the icy shock of the water, that he would struggle with whatever strength he had left but that it wouldn’t be enough.
Why did he have to pick Edwin of all people? All the money in the world and yet he was the most helpless man I had ever known. I wanted to hate him for being married to Sylvia, but I couldn’t. I thought about that night in the bar when he told me I was the only real friend he ever had. Everyone else just wanted his money, he said.
The only real friend he ever had. I fucked his wife and then a madman out of my past came all the way up here and killed him.
Find Rose. That’s the only thing left to do. That’s the only thing you can do now. Find Rose.