The man caught my eye and raised his glass to me. I raised my bottle of Molson in return.
I’d been married myself once. A long time ago, to a woman I met when I went to college after baseball. A woman I didn’t have much in common with, aside from the “Mc” in our last names. Jeannie McDonald, who became Jeannie McKnight, who went back to being Jeannie McDonald again. Who may have then remarried and changed her name yet again. I’m ashamed to say I don’t even know if she did, or if she still lives in Michigan. If we had had children together, the story would be different, I’m sure. Or if I ever paid a cent of alimony. At least that way I would have had an address to send checks to. As it was, she just left. Just walked away. I got the divorce papers in the mail, I signed them, I sent them back to her lawyer, and then we were done.
I wonder if she feels guilty. Wherever she is now, whoever she’s with, I wonder if she looks back at the way she bailed out on me a few weeks after I got shot and has any regrets.
Hell, I wonder if I’d even hold it against her now. I think I knew, way back when, that we’d never last, shooting or no shooting. I think we both knew.
I sat there at the bar, looking at my bottle as the Tigers played in silence above my head. There’d been a few women in that lost year after I left the force. Then I’d come up to Paradise thinking I’d sell off my father’s cabins and had ended up staying here. Something about the place had spoken to me. Like this is where you really belong, mister. In the midst of these trees bending in the wind. On the shores of this cold lake. This stark lonely place on the edge of the world, which also turns into the most beautiful place on earth for the few days they call summer.
Then there was Sylvia, the wife of a rich man who thought I was his friend. Then Natalie, a cop from Ontario, someone who’d lost her partner, just as I had. Someone who may or may not have turned out to be the right person for me, if I had ever gotten the chance to find out.
No. God damn it. No.
I put the bottle down. This is not where you want to be going tonight, I said to myself. This is not going to make you feel one little bit better about going back to that cabin alone.
“What’s with you?” Jackie said.
“I’m fine.”
He narrowed his eyes at me like he wasn’t buying it. Which made it feel like the right time to leave. A minute later I was outside in the cold night air, looking up at the stars and listening to the soft waves just behind the tree line.
I got in the truck and took the left turn down that old logging road, deep into the woods, passing my one neighbor’s cabin. Vinnie Red Sky Leblanc, a blackjack dealer over at the Bay Mills Casino. He’d gotten into some trouble, and I’d been watching out for him. The lights were on at his place, and everything looked normal, so I gave him a honk and kept driving. My cabin was the first, the one I’d helped my old man build back when I was eighteen years old and on my way to play Single-A ball. Back when I was young, stupid, and full of energy, and I didn’t have a nine-millimeter slug sitting half a centimeter from my heart.
When I got inside, I saw the light flashing on the answering machine. I don’t get a hell of a lot of calls. I hit the play button and listened to a voice from my distant past.
“Hey, Alex McKnight! This is Tony Grimaldi. Remember me? I was a sergeant in the First Precinct, way the hell back when. I hope you’re doing okay, and I hope you don’t mind me calling you out of the blue. But I’m really just making a courtesy call, and I’d appreciate it if you could give me a call back.”
He gave me his number. Then he signed off.
I stood there looking down at the machine, wondering why in God’s name a desk sergeant from the old precinct would be calling me. I checked the time. I was in early, thanks to Jackie being an extra pain in the ass that night. So I figured what the hell, give the sergeant a call back.
I dialed the number, making note of the 734 area code. That was one of the new codes split off from the original 313. If you still had a 313, that meant you were either in Detroit or close enough to see it from your front door.
“Alex, is that you?”
“Sergeant Grimaldi,” I said. “How have you been, sir?”
“You can call me Tony now. I don’t wear a badge anymore.”
A half beat of silence then, as we skipped over my comeback. I wasn’t wearing a badge anymore, either. I hadn’t worn one in many years.
“How long have you been out?” I said.
“It’s over ten years now. Hard to imagine. But most days I don’t miss it much, to tell you the truth.”
“I hear ya.”
“Nothing like it, of course. You know what I mean.”
Another half beat.
“I know what you mean,” I said. “You’re absolutely right. But how did you ever think to get hold of me after all this time?”
“Well, like I said in the message, it’s just a courtesy call. I play golf with a few of the actives, and one of them happened to mention you. He was going to call you himself, but I told him I’d love to catch up with you.”
“Okay. Glad you did.” That’s what I said, but it still wasn’t making any sense.
“I understand you’re still drawing the disability, so obviously they had all of your contact information.”
Disability. Not exactly my favorite word in the world, but I guess that’s what you had to call it officially. When an officer gets shot on the job, he’s eligible for two-thirds of his salary for the rest of his life. I don’t make a point of telling most people that, because they’ll inevitably look at me and try to see how it is I’m supposedly disabled now. I mean, I can’t raise my right arm all the way anymore. I can’t throw a ball, which would have been more of a big deal back when I was a catcher, I realize, but not so much now. If you really pressed me, I’d just have to tell you that I took three bullets and only two came out, and I’m supposed to go get periodic X-rays to make sure that third bullet isn’t migrating closer to my heart, at which point it could kill me.
I’m supposed to go get those X-rays every year, but I don’t. I’m supposed to feel guilt or gratitude or a mixture of both every time I get one of those checks in the mail, but I don’t feel that, either. Mostly I just try to forget it ever happened.
“So what did you have to tell me, Sergeant? I’ve never gotten a courtesy call before.”
“I told you, call me Tony, please. But here’s the deal. You remember a case you worked on, that last year you were on the force, where you ended up putting away a guy named Darryl King?”
I was confused for exactly one second, because I never made detective and so technically I never really worked on a “case.” But as soon as I connected the name to the crime, it all came back to me. You don’t see a crime scene like that without remembering it for the rest of your life.
“Darryl King,” I said. “In the train station.”
“You forgot ‘With the knife.’”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry, bad joke. You know, like in that game? Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the lead pipe?”
That’s cop humor for you. A way to distance yourself from the most horrible crimes of all. A way to keep your sanity.
“I’ve been away too long,” I said. “But seriously, why are we talking about Darryl King? Don’t tell me he’s getting out.”
“He is. Believe it or not.”
“That makes no sense. He drew a lot more time than that, didn’t he?”
“Tell me about it. But remember how he was, what, sixteen years old?”