“Where the hell are you?” I said. I tried to picture him buying groceries or renting a movie at the video store or maybe sitting in a dentist’s office. Normal things that everyone does, but I just couldn’t see Chief Roy Maven doing any of them. Especially not today. Not with all of this still bouncing around in his head, just like in mine.
I got back in the truck and sat there for a while. Half-waiting for him to show up. Half-trying to figure out where else he could be. It finally dawned on me that there was one place that would make sense. If he was there, it would mean that he had had the same thought that I had, at right around the same time. Meaning we were long-lost twins or something strange and mystical like that.
Only one way to find out, I thought. I put the truck in drive and headed for the other side of town.
The Michigan State Police had something like sixty posts back when I was in Detroit, located all over the state and certainly one in every town as big as the Soo. The post in Sault Ste. Marie is over on the business spur, a few blocks away from the main highway. It’s another charmless brick shoe box, but still probably a little bit nicer than the City-County Building, and I’m sure every single office in the place puts Chief Maven’s to shame. I recognized a few of the troopers and sergeants, but as far as I could remember I’d never set foot in their building. That was about to change.
I pulled into the lot and parked between two squad cars. These were the old-style “Blue Goose” cars with the single red light on top. I couldn’t help wondering if they gave you a less comfortable ride than the new-style squad cars, and how that would set off the inevitable battles over who got assigned to them. All the usual political games that come in any station with more than one cop in it.
As I went around to the front I saw Maven’s car taking up the last visitor’s spot.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” I said. “After all we’ve been through together.”
I went inside and asked the trooper sitting at the desk where Chief Maven was. He was young and he had the typical state-issue haircut, cut so close he might as well be a Marine. I was expecting to get a little bit of runaround from him, asking me who I was, what business I had there. That whole show. I mean, every single trooper I’d ever met in my life was top shelf, but sometimes they can come across as knowing they’re top shelf just a little too well. God bless them for the job they do, but if I had to deal with troopers every day I’d probably snap.
“Chief Maven’s back with Sergeant Coleman,” he said. “If you give me your name, I’ll let him know you’re looking for him.”
“Alex McKnight,” I said, a little surprised. “Thank you.”
“No problem, sir. Sit tight, I’ll be right back.”
He was back in half a minute.
“Right this way, sir.”
I followed him to the back of the building, where Chief Maven and a state man were sitting side by side in front of a computer screen.
“What are you doing here?” Maven said, looking up at me.
“I could ask you the same question.”
“This is Sergeant Reed Coleman,” he said, indicating the other man. “We go way back.”
“Pleased to meet you,” the sergeant said, shaking my hand. He was an old-timer, probably close to retirement. “I think I’ve seen you around town.”
“Seriously,” I said to Maven, “if you’re chasing something down over here, why didn’t you tell me?”
“You heard those FBI agents. They don’t want us anywhere near this thing.”
“Since when would that stop either of us?”
“Look,” he said, “it’s bad enough if I screw up my own career here.”
“I rent cabins for a living. What can they do to me?”
“They can do plenty, believe me. I didn’t want to drag you into this any deeper.”
“That’s a load of crap, Chief, but we’ll talk about it later. Tell me what you guys are working on.”
He let out a long breath and rubbed his eyes. “It was just a thought. I mean, I was just thinking…”
“You were looking for a link between Raz and Steele,” I said. “You figured the only thing they ever had in common was being a state cop.”
“Right, and this is the place to come to find out.”
“Even though it was a long time ago, and even if you were his only regular partner…”
“I was thinking, still, if they came in around the same time…”
“Because they’re about the same age. So you’re wondering if maybe they went to the academy together. There’s just one for the whole state, right?”
“Yes.”
“So even though they never worked together, they might have run into each other there.”
Sergeant Coleman looked between us and couldn’t help smiling. “Sounds like the two of you are on the same wavelength,” he said.
“Most days I’d take offense to that,” I said. “But yes.”
Another trooper came by, carrying a cup of coffee. He was looking at us with great curiosity, until Coleman told him to keep on walking.
“The chief has had a problematic relationship with most of the men in this building,” Coleman said to me. “I’m not sure any of them can believe he’s voluntarily sitting here. Or hell, that I’d even let him through the door.”
“All right, knock it off,” Maven said. “Everybody here hates me. I got it.”
“So what did you find?” I said. “Did Raz and Steele train together?”
“No, that’s a dead end,” Maven said. “Steele went right in after a couple years of community college. Raz was in the military first, didn’t join the police until he was twenty-five. They missed each other by a good five years.”
“We can’t find any connection at all,” Coleman said. “All of Steele’s posts were in the UP. Raz did his two years down in Lansing with Roy here. There weren’t any special assignments or anything else that would ever bring them together, as far as I can see.”
“I take it the chief has explained our general situation,” I said.
“He has,” the sergeant said. I could see him hesitating about what to say next.
“What’s your opinion?”
“Well, we all heard about Sergeant Steele this morning. I didn’t know the man very well. I think I only met him once. But it’s never easy to hear about one of your fellow officers going down.”
I waited him out. He was doing a good job of not answering the question.
“As far as this other man goes, I obviously know nothing about him at all. But the two suicides… hell, I don’t know, guys. It seems like a big coincidence, but I’ve seen bigger. That’s all I’ll say. If you have something else that’s concrete, that’s a different matter.”
“You’d make a good FBI agent,” Maven said.
“That’s a low blow, Roy.”
Maven took a long sip of coffee while another trooper wandered by to gawk at us.
“It’s true,” the trooper said, “Chief Maven is really here. Did somebody arrest you?”
“Sergeant Fusilli,” Maven said. “Always a pleasure. Alex, meet the biggest pain in the ass in Sault Ste. Marie.”
“We’re just kidding around,” the man said, shaking my hand. “We all have the utmost respect for the chief. What are you guys working on, anyway?”
“It’s nothing,” Coleman said. “Just a little legwork.”
Fusilli leaned over and peered at the computer screen.
“Nothing to see here,” Maven said. “Go do something useful.”
“Sergeant Steele,” Fusilli said. “What a shame, huh? He was Iron Mountain, right?”
“Right,” Coleman said.
“Didn’t his son kill himself, too?”
“A couple of months ago, yeah. Actually, if you’ll excuse us-”
“Been a tough winter for old state men in the UP, eh?”
Fusilli said it as he walked away. It took a few seconds for the coin to drop, then Maven and I looked at each other.