“I was down there, too. I was a sergeant.”
“Yeah, I must have seen your name somewhere,” he said. “I mean, before you came up here to take the Soo job. I don’t think we ever ran into each other on the job, did we?”
Maven shook his head. “No, I don’t believe so. I hardly ever got this far north, and I don’t imagine you came down to Lansing all that often.”
“Not if I could help it.”
“I was hoping you could give us something that would tie the three of you together.”
“I’ve got nothing,” the lieutenant said. “If you really think there’s some connection…”
“If there is,” I said, “you may be in danger. The pattern would suggest that you’re next on the list.”
He didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry to have to put it that way,” I said, “but that’s the cold hard reality. I’m just glad we got here before anything happened to you.”
“You still don’t get it.” He shook his head and he was almost smiling.
“What do you mean?”
“Look at me. What do you see?”
“A man who has suffered a great loss,” I said.
“Nice try. I appreciate the thought, but no. What you’re actually looking at, gentleman, is a dead man.”
“Lieutenant…”
“I’m still breathing,” he said. “My heart is still beating. But those are just illusions. I know all about death, believe me. I faced it every day when I was in the lab. I studied it inside and out. I know a dead man when I see one, and that’s me.”
“You have to let us help you,” Maven said. “It’s natural to think that you don’t-”
“No, don’t even start. When you lose the only person who makes you get out of bed in the morning, you can come back and talk to me, okay? But for now? You say this guy, whoever he is, he’s still out there? He’s gonna come for me next? Is that what you’re saying?”
“If we’re right,” Maven said, “then yes. It’ll be soon.”
“Perfect.” He stood up, showing more energy than he had at any point in our conversation. Hell, probably more energy than he’d had in the last two weeks. “Let him come, I say. I’ll be right here waiting for him.”
“Whoever this guy is,” I said, “he’s a cold-blooded killer.”
“You still don’t get it!” He slapped his hand down on the table, as loud as a gunshot. Then he regained his composure as quickly as he lost it.
“He can’t touch me. Don’t you understand? He’s already killed me once. He can’t do it again. In fact…”
He sat back down in his chair.
“I hope he gets here soon,” he said. “The sooner the better. I don’t have a helium tank, and I don’t feel like going out and buying one.”
“Lieutenant Haggerty,” Maven said, “you need to listen to us.”
“Where do you even buy a helium tank, anyway? At a party store? When’s the last time I filled up balloons with helium? Dina’s birthday party. Sweet Sixteen. Eleven years ago.”
“Lieutenant Haggerty…”
“Sweet Sixteen. Never been kissed.”
“Please,” I said, putting one hand on his shoulder. “You have to let us help you.”
“Get out.” He didn’t look at us. “Get out right now, please. I don’t imagine he’ll come if you’re here.”
“We’re not leaving.”
“Yes, you are. You’re leaving right now. You’re no longer welcome in my house.”
“Then you’re coming with us.”
“No. No, I’m not. And don’t try to send anybody else over here, either. Do you hear me? No matter who it is. Cops, troopers, even asshole FBI agents-I will not let anybody else take one single step onto this property. If this person is really out there, then it’s just him and me now. Just him and me.”
“You were a cop for a long time,” I said, playing my last card. “You know you can’t face him alone. The only thing you can do is work with everyone else to catch him, so he can pay for what he did to your daughter. Don’t you want that to happen?”
He closed his eyes. He didn’t say a word.
Maven and I stood there. Minutes passed. The wind blew and rattled the window and we both seemed to come to the same conclusion without exchanging a word. As we left the room, I took one more look over my shoulder. He stayed in the chair, not moving a muscle, his eyes still closed. Waiting.
“Where are we going?” Maven said.
The headlights swept across the snow-covered trees. As we left Haggerty’s driveway, I pointed the truck north, back to the main road.
“I figure the Marquette post,” I said. “No matter what the lieutenant says.”
“Makes sense. They know him there. We can get somebody out here to watch over him.”
We drove back into Au Train and I made the left turn. We were heading west, along the lake. We’d be in Marquette in half an hour.
“This is what he wants,” Maven said. “We just saw it with our own eyes.”
“What do you mean?”
“The man who’s doing this. Whoever he is. This is what he wants to do to these men, before he kills them. He wants them to suffer.”
I couldn’t argue. I knew he was right.
“If this does go back to something that happened on the police force…” I said. “Even if there is a connection and we don’t see it yet, I still don’t get it. What could three cops do that would make somebody come after them, and their families, all these years later?”
“I don’t know.”
“Raz never killed anyone on the job, did he?”
“I’m pretty sure he never took his gun out of the holster, no. I know I never did myself.”
“Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to ask you something else. About what Agent Fleury said to you.”
He fidgeted in his seat, but otherwise kept his cool. “Yes?”
“We don’t know for a fact that you’re connected to this. But if you are…”
“I called Olivia. I told her to make arrangements to stay in Europe for a while. Just to be safe. Until we know for sure she won’t be in any danger.”
“Okay,” I said. “That’s probably a good idea.”
I kept driving. It was after midnight now. There wouldn’t be many state police officers on duty at the Marquette post, but somebody would be there. Somebody would be able to watch over Lieutenant Haggerty, if we explained the situation carefully enough.
“They can’t watch him forever,” Maven said, as if reading my mind. “They’ll send a man out tonight. Then tomorrow night. But who knows how long?”
“We don’t even know if Haggerty will be his next target. If you think about it, he’s been mixing it up so far. The suicides and the outright murders.”
“You’re right,” Maven said. “It could be another cop’s kid. Somebody we don’t even know about yet. Who knows how far this goes?”
“So I guess there’s only one way to do this.”
“Yes,” he said, looking straight out the window, into the cold heart of the night. “We have to find this guy and stop him.”
And we’re rolling…
… Big scene. Everybody, we gotta nail this one.
… Cue the fire. Get it going.
… Come on, I said fire! Let’s go big here! We’re not roasting marshmallows.
… There you go. Boom, right out the window. Look at that smoke. Now we’re talking.
… Must be hot in there, eh? Oh, man. Talk about one well-done Monster.
… Fire engines, do your thing. That’s right, get in there. Everybody’s doing great.
… Keep on that fire. Keep going. We’ll use all of this, I promise you.
… That’s a wrap for the Monster! His last scene, give him a hand.
And cut.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It was two days later. I was back home, trying to work on the cabin but unable to focus. I kept thinking about Haggerty sitting alone in his cabin, waiting for a killer to come through the back door. We had been to the Marquette post, of course, and now as far as we knew there was a state car positioned at the head of the driveway whenever possible. That’s what they had promised us, anyway. Pretty amazing, if you think about it. Two guys stumbling into the station in the middle of the night, with this crazy story about a killer with a list of former state cops and their children. Yet they bought it. Or at least the sergeant we talked to was willing to give us the benefit of the doubt, especially if it meant his old friend the retired lieutenant might be in any kind of danger.