“So what’s the plan?” I said. “What are we going to say to him?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his eyes still closed. “I guess we’ll figure that out when we get there.”
It was the same long, straight road stretching across the middle of nowhere, except now in the utter darkness with the wind blowing and all of the death on our minds it was anything but boring. I would have paid big money for boring at that point in my life.
By the time we reached the water again, it felt like dawn should be right around the corner, but it wasn’t even 10:30 yet. We had been on the road just over an hour. We drove through Munising, where every sane, normal person was locked up tight in a warm house. Then more empty road until we passed through the town of Christmas. The casino appeared on our left, all lit up in the snow, looking out of place and frankly ridiculous. There were enough cars in the lot to justify being open on a night like this. I could only shake my head in amazement as we drove by. The sudden light woke Maven and he sat up straight, shielding his eyes.
“Where are we?”
“Christmas. I assume you don’t want to stop and play some blackjack.”
“The day you find me gambling you can go ahead and shoot me.”
“I wasn’t actually suggesting-”
“Just don’t get me started on that,” he said. “Au Train’s what, just a couple miles ahead, right? Coleman said you gotta take a left at the main intersection and go south for a while.”
We hit the center of town and took the left at the blinking light. Maven told me to go down past the falls and then to look for one of those double-decker mailboxes. One at normal height, the other about eight feet in the air-when you see them downstate, the sign on the top mailbox usually says AIRMAIL. Up here it’s more likely to say WINTER DELIVERY. Either version stops being funny around the second or third time you see it, but in this case it was a welcome sign of life and humor and I don’t know, after driving in the dark it reminded me that there was a real human being who put up those mailboxes and probably thought they were hilarious at the time. Before his whole life got turned inside out.
As I turned down the driveway, I put my plow down. There was half a foot of snow on the ground and you could see some recent tire tracks.
“You said he already talked to the FBI. When, yesterday?”
“So I’m told,” Maven said. “That must be their tracks, huh? Probably didn’t have the sense to drive a real vehicle.”
As if on cue, the driveway turned and we saw the tracks going right off the road. There was a great mess where the snow and ground were churned up and I could imagine Agent Fleury trying to push the car from behind while Agent Long steered. So not a good time for anyone involved. It made me wonder what kind of mess they may have left inside, as well. Maybe Agent Fleury knew how to impersonate a human being when talking to a grieving father, but I wouldn’t have bet on it.
“Look at where this place is,” Maven said. “He’s totally isolated back here.”
It was true. His driveway was as long as my logging road, lined on both sides by trees heavy with snow. The headlights from the truck cast an eerie glow over everything and it was as though we were heading down some long tunnel lined with white, all the way down to the dark center of the earth.
Finally, as we came around one more bend we saw the house sitting in a small clearing. It was a good old-fashioned log cabin, obviously built by hand. Many long, loving hours spent right here in the woods, with nobody else in sight. A black Jeep Cherokee was parked by the cabin. The man was long retired by now so naturally he’d have the civilian vehicle and not a state car. I parked behind it and turned off the headlights.
As we got out of the truck the night itself seemed to throw a blanket of absolute quiet over our heads. There was what had to be a frozen pond behind the house, with lights mounted on wooden poles, probably for skating on the pond. But the lights were off tonight and the pond had not been cleared of snow.
We went up the three steps to the front porch and knocked on the front door. There weren’t many lights on inside the cabin. We stood there in the darkness, waiting for something to happen. It didn’t take long for me to start feeling sick to my stomach. I was pretty sure Maven felt exactly the same way.
“I swear to God,” he said, “if that poor son of a bitch is inside this cabin, lying dead on the floor…”
The possibility seemed more likely with each passing second. We’re too late, I thought. The man’s been murdered. Maybe just a few hours ago. Or even minutes. His blood might not even be cold yet.
Then the door opened. It happened quickly and it scared the hell out of me. We saw a man standing there in the doorway with just enough backlighting to form a black silhouette and nothing else.
“Lieutenant Haggerty?” Maven said. “We’re sorry to bother you, sir. But I spoke to you on the phone earlier this evening?”
The specter took a step forward. I was already expecting to see a man who had just lived through the worst two weeks of his life, but even so it was a jarring sight. He was unshaven, first of all, and his hair was uncombed. His clothes looked like they had been picked out at random. Baggy pants that might have been pajama bottoms or workout sweats or God knows what. An old cable-knit fisherman’s sweater with stretched-out sleeves. Brown corduroy slippers. Overall, the complete outfit of a homeless man, yet here he stood in the doorway of a cabin he may very well have built with his own hands.
But more than anything else, the man’s eyes-sunken, half-dead, with dark rings beneath them. If you had kidnapped this man and beaten him and starved him for two weeks straight, this is exactly what he would look like.
“Lieutenant,” Maven said again. “May we come inside?”
The man took two steps backward so we could pass. We were in the living room, but it was hard to make out exactly where we were going because it was as dark in here as the night itself. He walked past us, his footsteps strangely quiet on the wooden floor. As we followed him, we could finally see the one source of light in the entire house. It was a small lamp with a crooked shade and a lightbulb that couldn’t have been more than forty watts, sitting on a table at the far end of the kitchen. The man went to the table and sat down on one of the chairs. He put his hands together on the table and still did not speak a word. Maven and I stood there watching him for a moment. Then we went to the table and we each moved a pile of catalogs and newspapers from the other chairs and sat down across from him. There was a sour smell of old food and unwashed dishes coming from the sink.
There was a large window next to the table. It was so dark outside it might as well have been painted black. The wind blew and the window flexed, while the man let out a long ragged breath and kept staring at his hands.
This is the man who told Coleman he wants to talk to us, I thought. Who confirmed it himself when Maven called him. Yet now that we’re here, he doesn’t seem to want to say a single word.
“Lieutenant Haggerty,” I said.
“I’m not a lieutenant anymore.” His voice was somehow even more tired and more faraway than I would have imagined. “Call me Dean.”
“Dean,” I said. “I can’t tell you how sorry we are for your loss.”
He looked up at us, meeting our eyes for the first time.
“You sound like cops. That’s exactly what a cop would say.”
“I’m the Chief of Police in Sault Ste. Marie,” Maven said. “My name’s Roy.”
“I’ve heard about you. Everybody says you’re an asshole.” Like a simple statement of fact, deserving no apology for saying it. Or else he was beyond caring.
“I have my days,” Maven said, unshaken. “This is Alex. He was a police officer in Detroit.”
He looked at me and nodded.
“The FBI agents were here to talk to you,” Maven said. “Is that right?”