I had to smile at that. Then he shifted gears.
“Forgive me if I’m hitting too close to home here,” he said, “but I understand you’ve suffered some losses yourself. On the job and-”
“My partner, in Detroit…”
“And then someone you loved, not that long ago?”
We sat right here, I thought. The two of us, once upon a time. On another winter’s day, right here in this observation booth.
“Yes,” I said. “Not that long ago.”
“So we have something in common.”
“The circumstances were different, but…”
“Look me in the eye,” he said, “and tell me we don’t have something in common.”
“We do. I know we do.”
“Were you with her when she died?”
I looked at him for a long time. “No,” I finally said. “Not at that last moment, no.”
“Okay, then. Neither was I.”
Through the glass, I could see snowflakes starting to swirl all around us.
“Start at the beginning,” I said, “and tell me everything.”
I set out early the next day, coming down from Paradise through Newberry to M-28, the main highway that cuts across the middle of the Upper Peninsula. It was twelve degrees, but the sky was clear and there was sunlight gleaming impossibly bright on the unbroken fields of snow.
I hit the infamous “Seney Stretch” that runs right through the middle of the Great Manistique Swamp. It’s twenty-five miles of road as straight as a ruler’s edge, with absolutely nothing to see on either side but snow-covered trees and such a perfect line ahead of you it’s downright hypnotizing.
I stopped for a quick breakfast in Munising, then continued along the shoreline. I didn’t see as much ice in the lake as you’d expect in a normal year. It was just a vast expanse of open blue water here in the widest section of Lake Superior, with Canada a good two hundred miles to the north. I hit some actual traffic in Marquette, the biggest city in the UP, then kept going west through Ishpeming, Champion, and Three Lakes. Small towns where you’d buy your gas and your groceries and your fishing tackle and you’d rent your movies for the weekend, all from the same corner store.
In the heart of the day, I was finally getting close to my destination, and I could feel it in the way the road started to rise and fall. The Porcupine Mountains lay far ahead of me. I cut north through L’Anse and Baraga, heading up the eastern coast of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Copper Country. But I wanted to see where it happened first, though, before talking to anyone, so I cut back to the west and headed for Toivola. It’s the last real town on the map until you finally hit Misery Bay.
If you ever do find yourself in Toivola, Michigan, I’d recommend stopping at a little place called Toivola Lunch. Of course, it’s not like you’d have much choice. There’s Toivola Lunch with a little convenience store attached to it on one side of the road, and on the other side there’s a small post office attached to a house. That’s it. That’s Toivola, as far as I could see, anyway. It made Paradise look like a metropolis.
I went inside and had a quick glass of Coke. No beer for me while I was doing so much driving, and I’m sure they only had American beer, anyway. The old man who served it to me had a slight Finnish accent. I was his only customer, but then the lunch rush was probably already over.
“Misery Bay,” I said. “That’s right down the road, right?”
“Misery Bay Road, yes.”
“You know why they call it that?”
“What, Misery Bay?”
“Yes, is there a story behind the name?”
He scratched his head. “I’ve heard two stories. Not sure which is true. One is that there was a big Indian battle there, and the other is that a French fur trader got stranded there, and he was so miserable he called it Misery Bay.”
“That’s it?” With such an evocative name, I was expecting a lot more.
“Yeah, although if it was the French guy, you’d expect it to have a French name, wouldn’t you? So maybe the Indian story, except for the fact that it’s not an Indian name, either.”
“Okay, either way. But it’s right down that road.”
“Sixteen miles. If you go too far, you’ll be in the lake.”
I was about to leave. Then I figured there was no harm taking a shot in the dark.
“I heard there was a suicide down there. In January.”
The old man’s smile evaporated. “Yeah, hell of a thing. A boy from Tech hanged himself.”
“Did you know him? Did he ever stop in here?”
The man shook his head. “No, I didn’t know him. Hell of a thing, though.”
“Thanks for the Coke, sir.” Then I was out the door, back in my truck, and heading down that sixteen-mile road.
There was a small sign around the halfway point. It read simply, MISERY BAY, and it had a deer’s head beneath the letters. There were thick trees on either side of the road and as I got closer to the end I could see a small river moving through random holes in the ice and snow on the left. The Misery River, feeding into Misery Bay, at the end of Misery Bay Road. It kept bothering me that the man didn’t even know where the name came from. I mean, if anybody in the world would have known…
Enough, I told myself. You’re already letting the place get to you and you haven’t even seen it yet.
Then I did. I turned the corner at the end of the road and found the small parking area near the break in the trees. In the summer, this was probably a boat launch, but here in the last month of winter it was just an empty pocket of level ground, mostly cleared of snow, with a view westward across the lake and facing directly into the cold wind. There was a great oak tree at the far end of the lot, and I could see a red ribbon tied around the trunk. This must have been where it happened.
I turned off the truck. I sat there for a moment, listening to the silence, wondering why anyone even bothered plowing this place. I didn’t see any snowmobile trails, although I figured there had to be at least one or two out there in the woods somewhere. I didn’t see anything but snow piled high in the shadow of the trees and the open water in the lake swirling where the river emptied into it.
As I got out of the truck, I took out the photograph Raz had given me. Young Charlie Jr., not quite as fair as his father, maybe some of his mother’s coloring in the mix, but the same strong, confident face. In the picture it’s summertime and the young man is standing on the end of a dock, with a fishing pole in his hand. He has turned toward the camera and the sun is going down behind him. I didn’t know where the picture was taken. Maybe on another part of this very same lake, on another day not that long ago. Just a matter of months and yet look at where he ended up.
I went over everything Raz had told me. His son came home for Christmas break. He seemed a little down, a little more quiet than usual. He didn’t say anything at all about his girlfriend or about his classes. He slept in late every morning. He went back to school a couple of days early, saying he wanted to hit the New Year’s Eve parties. There may have been a few words spoken on the way out the door, about his decision to switch from criminal justice to forestry. The last words his father would ever say to him.
But no, I thought. No way. Sons make their own way and sometimes their fathers don’t understand. It’s not a big enough reason to end your life before it’s even begun. I just don’t get it.
I went to the tree where he hanged himself. The red ribbon around the trunk was already weathered from the wind off the lake. I wondered who had put it there as I stood directly below the big branch that extended over the parking lot. This had to be it, I thought. This exact spot, right here.
As I looked up I tried to picture where the rope had gone. It occurred to me then that this wouldn’t necessarily have been an easy thing to do. You can’t just tie the rope to the branch, after all. You’d probably have to secure one end to something else on the ground, maybe wrapping it around the trunk of the tree, and then dangle just enough of the rope over the branch to give you a noose at just the right height. That’s apparently what he did. Sometime between 2:00 and 3:00 A.M., he drove his car the twenty-three miles from Houghton. The rope must have been in the car with him, maybe coiled up right there beside him on the passenger’s seat. Was it already tied into a noose? Or did he wait to tie it when he was here?