Misery Bay: An Alex McKnight Novel Read online

  “Come on in,” Agent Fleury said to us. “We were just about to get started.”

  “How are you, Chief?” I said.

  He looked up at me and shrugged.

  When we were all sitting down, Agent Fleury waited approximately a tenth of a second and then dove right in. He had a tall stack of loose paper in front of him, but for now he pushed it aside. The man looked freshly scrubbed and caffeinated—in other words, the exact polar opposite of Chief Maven.

  “Okay, gentlemen, Agent Long, here’s our plan of attack. I’ve been working this over and it seems like we’ve got two separate target periods to look at here.”

  He stood up, went to the white board, and grabbed one of the markers. He tried to write, got nothing, swore at the pen, tried another, got nothing again, swore again. He hit gold on the third pen and he was off. He drew two separate boxes, his pen squeaking with every line. I looked over at Maven and tried to catch his attention, but the chief was staring at the board with bloodshot eyes.

  “Okay,” Fleury said. “If we take it as a given that our suspect has motivation to commit these crimes based on some connection between the victims, then we have to take a look at where those three victims were during each period. I say three men for now, because so far we only know for sure that Razniewski, Steele, and Haggerty were targeted.”

  Agent Long took out her pad of paper and started taking notes. I could see her drawing the same boxes. Me, I just sat there and listened.

  “So by the time we enter target area one, Donald Steele is already a trooper at the St. Ignace post, Dean Haggerty is a recently promoted sergeant at the same post, and Charles Razniewski is a brand-new recruit at the Lansing post. You with me so far? This is the first day we’ve got all three men on the job. For the next twenty-two months or so, Trooper Razniewski will be frequently partnered with the veteran Sergeant Roy Maven.”

  Agent Fleury drew four circles in the first box, and marked them S, H, R, and M.

  “This is the almost two-year period in which all four men were on the job. Although I’ve been asking around here at the post and apparently once you’ve completed your first year, you end up spending at least part of the time out on the road, on your own. Would that be fair to say, Chief Maven?”

  He cleared his throat and leaned forward.

  “Generally, yes,” he said, sounding as dead tired as he looked. “During daytime, at least. But Raz never did care for that part of the job. It’s why he eventually left.”

  “But he did spend some time out on the road by himself.”

  “Sure, of course. We all did.”

  “So then you have to admit, it’s at least theoretically possible that on one of Razniewski’s infrequent solo days, he somehow ran into Steele and Haggerty. Or some third party who might be a link to all three.”

  “Yes, but don’t forget,” Maven said. “It’s Lansing and St. Ignace. They’re more than two hundred miles apart.”

  “Granted. We’ll get to that. For now, let’s move on to the second target period.”

  “Razniewski leaves the force at that point,” Agent Long said. “So what else is there?”

  “Good question,” he said, waving the pen at her. “Razniewski is off the force, but Steele and Haggerty are still together in St. Ignace. That will last for approximately three more years, at which point Steele is promoted to sergeant and Haggerty moves to Marquette, where he’ll soon become a lieutenant. But during those three years, where is ex-trooper Razniewski?”

  “In Detroit,” Agent Long said, “working for the marshals’ office.”

  Fleury drew a line through the middle of the second box. He drew two circles in one half, marking them S and H. Then he drew one circle in the other half, marking it R.

  “And where’s Roy Maven during this time?”

  He drew the fourth circle outside the box completely, and marked it M.

  “He’s out of the picture, on his way up to Sault Ste. Marie to accept the position of chief of police.”

  “Are you saying there still could have been a connection between the three men?” Agent Long said. “Even after Razniewski left the force?”

  “As a marshal, he has coverage all over the state of Michigan. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t bring him into much contact with the state police, right? But it is possible. We can’t rule it out.”

  Fleury sat down again and started to shuffle through the stack of papers. As he did, I finally caught Maven’s eye.

  “Agent Fleury is completely on board now,” Maven said to me. “As you can see.”

  “I’ve always had an open mind,” Fleury said, “but recent events have made it obvious that you gentleman were onto something from the beginning. I apologize if it seemed to take longer than it should have.”

  Emphasis on “seemed,” as if he was way ahead of us. Whatever. The important thing, I realized, was that he was finally committed to the case.

  “And I have to say,” he went on, “that the two of you have done an incredible job with this so far, with limited resources. You bring a great deal of credit to your local police force, Chief Maven. I’ll make sure the mayor is aware of that when it’s all done. And Alex? Once a cop, always a cop, right? It’s too bad you don’t have a boss I can send a letter to anymore.”

  Wait a minute, I thought. I may be slow, but this is finally starting to make sense …

  “Okay, so moving on to the particulars,” Fleury said. “Here’s where we really get down to it.”

  “This is a huge case,” I said. “Somebody killing cops? After killing their children? This is the kind of case that if you crack it, you make your career.”

  Fleury just looked at me.

  “That’s why you’ve suddenly seen the light,” I said. “It’s got nothing to do with your boss talking to you or you suddenly deciding to play nice. You put it all together yourself and what you came up with was the case of a lifetime.”

  “Alex, come on.”

  “You haven’t even reamed us out for going to talk to Lieutenant Haggerty yet. I figured that would be the first thing on the agenda, but you haven’t even mentioned it.”

  “I didn’t think that would—”

  “No, I get it now. You can’t treat us like dog crap anymore because it finally dawned on you that you need this. Which means you need us.”

  “Leave the man alone,” Maven said, finally showing some energy. “I don’t care why he did the one-eighty, okay? All I care about is him being on the case, and having the whole bureau behind him. If it makes his career, then good for him. They can throw him a goddamned parade for all I care. As long as he helps us catch this guy.”

  An uneasy silence reigned for a few seconds.

  “Normally, you wouldn’t have a place at this table,” Fleury finally said. “You’re not an active police officer and you have no official standing in this matter. The only reason you’re here is because Chief Maven wants you to be here, and because maybe you can help us. I’m sure we can all agree that we have to catch this guy before he kills anyone else. Can we start with that, at least?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We can start with that.”

  The chief is going along with this, I told myself. No reason why I can’t, too.

  “No harm done,” Fleury said. “Let’s get back to work.”

  He went back to his papers, separating them into three piles.

  “The state guys were good enough to print all this out for me. Even though we’re talking about events that happened many years ago, there’s always a data trail. In the case of state troopers, that means a lot of time out on the road and a lot of tickets.”

  He put his hand down heavily on the first pile.

  “I hope we can agree this is probably not the work of somebody who didn’t like getting a speeding ticket ten years ago. So that leaves other events like major arrests or even on-the-job shootings.”

  “Raz never pulled his gun,” Maven said. “At least not when he was a state cop. That first period you wer
e talking about.”

  “Fair enough. Let’s not even worry about him yet. I say, let’s start with Steele and Haggerty. We know that if there’s one link, it involves both of those men as state cops. So that means it’s right here somewhere.”

  He hit the papers again.

  “The marshals are putting together similar information for us right now,” Agent Long said. “We should have that by the end of the day.”

  “I still don’t think this goes beyond Raz in a state uniform,” Maven said. “It feels like too much of a coincidence otherwise.”

  “All the more reason to start right here,” Fleury said. “So what do you say? Are you ready?”

  Maven took out a pair of reading glasses I’d never seen on him before.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” he said. “Bring it on.”

  * * *

  It was a long afternoon. Steele and Haggerty turned out to be two especially active and energetic state police officers. It was easy to see why they both had such successful careers. On top of that, they happened to be stationed in St. Ignace, one of the busier posts in Michigan. It’s the last stop before you get on the Mackinac Bridge, after all, meaning that everybody coming to and from the Upper Peninsula has to pass by your doorstep. They have to go through the toll booth there and pay their money and let you get a good look at them if you happen to be sitting right there in your squad car. So it’s the perfect place to camp out and watch for suspicious vehicles. Anyone going too fast or even too slow. Anyone trying way too hard to act natural. You get a feel for it eventually. You watch the people go by and you let your gut tell you if the person is holding his or her breath until you’re safely out of their rearview mirror. You pull up behind the vehicle and you run the plates. If something comes back, you light them up. Or hell, anything else you might happen to notice. One of the taillights out, for instance. Or one of those tiny white lights that illuminate the license plate. Those things go all the time and people hardly ever replace them.

  Once you’ve got them stopped, you get out of your car and approach the driver’s side window, your right hand ready above your firearm, just in case. You do a quick visual on the backseat. If there’s anybody back there acting squirrely, trying to hide something or worse yet, trying to dig out something from under the seat. You watch the driver carefully. You look in the glove compartment when he opens it, the whole time waiting to see that familiar sight of cold blue steel. A hundred different things to process at once and a fraction of a second to react.

  That’s what a good trooper does. That’s what Steele and Haggerty did, again and again, to the point that they developed a reputation for apprehending so many high-profile offenders. The agents went through their official daily logs, one day at a time, finally settling into a rhythm—Agent Fleury with Haggerty’s logs, Agent Long with Steele’s. They looked for the “A” entries and occasional “F” entries, A standing for Arrest and F for Fugitive. They passed over all of the “S” for Summons entries, the “V/W” for Verbal Warning entries, and all of the other minor incidents that filled out a state police officer’s day. It was amazing to me just how detailed these logs were.

  Each arrest had a file class number associated with it, and we ended up seeing some of the same file classes again and again, after, 8041 for driving under the influence of alcohol, 2408 for possession of a stolen vehicle, 5202 for a concealed weapon. Maven had to step out to clarify two or three obscure file classes with the guys in the office, but for the most part it all went by in a blur.

  It was just raw data, that was the problem—date, time, file class, name of the arrested party, driver’s license number, place of residence, date of birth—there was no room for pictures or for stories. By the end of a long, long afternoon, after we’d gone over hundreds of arrests involving both Donald Steele and Dean Haggerty, not one of those arrests could be cross-referenced to Charles Razniewski’s daily logs. Or Roy Maven’s either.

  No, it would not be that easy.

  * * *

  When the post commander finally showed up, he invaded the room and we had to go through a minute or two of rooster strutting until Agent Long finally sat everybody down and tried to make them play nice. I couldn’t help wondering how many times she’d done this same routine before, and whether she ever got fed up with men wearing shiny badges. In the end, we all agreed that the Michigan State Police should be made aware of what the FBI was doing, and that the St. Ignace branch in particular could be a big help. There might have been a few old-timers left down there, after all, who might have memories of Steele and Haggerty and hell, why not? Maybe even a particular suspect who vowed revenge someday. We’d never know if somebody didn’t ask.

  “You see,” Maven said to me when we were finally outside, “that’s the problem I keep coming back to. Let’s say somebody did get arrested all those years ago and what, he went to prison? He did his time and now he’s out? If he’s still got a beef, why would it be the cops he goes after? If he went to trial, it was the district attorney who stood up and pointed his finger at him, and told the judge he should be put away. Then of course it was the judge who actually banged his gavel and sentenced him. Why do you think Raz spent so much of his time guarding federal judges, anyway? They’re the real targets. Not the poor schlubs just doing their jobs who happened to catch you.”

  “Still, you might have to testify,” I said. “You could still be the one person who makes it all happen. At least, it might feel that way if you’re looking at prison time. In fact, we should mention that angle to the agents, have them check the court records.”

  “I don’t know, McKnight.” He sounded more tired than ever. “I was hoping I could help find the connection today, but it was like a total waste of time.”

  “They’ll move on to that second time period now, after Raz became a marshal. If there’s something to be found, they’ll find it. I know Agent Fleury tries to talk a big game sometimes, but I think they’re both pretty sharp.”

  He shook his head and turned his collar up against the wind. There was no good reason for both of us to be standing out there. Maven wasn’t even smoking a cigarette.

  “You look like hell,” I said. “You should go home and get some rest.”

  “I went back out there.”

  “Where?”

  “To Haggerty’s house. I just had to check on him.”

  I counted to three in my head.

  “You promised me you wouldn’t go off on your own again,” I said. “What happened?”

  “There was a state car on the road, by his driveway. I rapped on the guy’s window and just about gave him a heart attack. Then I asked him why he wasn’t in the house with Haggerty. You know what he said?”

  “What?”

  “He said Haggerty kicked him out and told him to stay off his property. That’s why he had to sit on the road.”

  “He’s still waiting,” I said. “He doesn’t want anybody else there to keep the killer away.”

  We both stood there shivering for a while, thinking this over. There wasn’t much else to say about it.

  “So what now?” I finally said.

  “When we were talking about letting the guys at St. Ignace know about this, you know what occurred to me?”

  “What?”

  “All the time I’ve been a cop here in the Soo, I’ve never once set foot in the St. Ignace post.”

  “It’s in a different county,” I said. “Why would you ever have business down there?”

  “I wouldn’t. That’s just it. The only time I might have gone there was back in the day, when I was a state cop with Raz and I happened to come up here for something.”

  “Something you can’t remember.”

  “Right,” he said. “But what if…”

  I waited for him to finish.

  “Come on,” he said. “It’s not that far away. Let’s go see if I’m crazy.”

  * * *

  Sault Ste. Marie to St. Ignace. From the top of the eastern UP to
the bottom. Not even an hour away, straight down I-75. It’s the busiest road in the state, the main artery running up from Detroit, all the way into Canada, so it’s always the first to be cleared. Plus the speed limit is seventy, so I’ll routinely buzz it between 85 and 90, even in wintertime.

  It was early evening. I could have been having Jackie’s famous beef stew, I thought, along with the first of several cold Canadians. Sitting by the fire with my feet up. Yet I was here with Chief Maven again, and I wanted to see how this played out.

  It didn’t take long to find the state police post in St. Ignace. It’s not a big town—just a few streets with some shops and gas stations and restaurants, and the docks for the ferries that run back and forth to Mackinac Island. When the ice finally melts, anyway.

  The state police post was right there on the edge of the water, overlooking the Mackinac Bridge. We pulled up to the building. It was getting dark now, and here where the two peninsulas came together there was a narrow strait where Lake Michigan flowed into Lake Huron. Cars have been blown off the bridge before. It’s not an urban legend. It really happened. The wind wasn’t strong enough to flip cars that day but still, we could feel it rocking the truck and we both knew that we’d be suffering as soon as we stepped outside.

  I took a deep breath and opened the door. The wind tried to slam it shut so I had to wedge my way through and then I was out in the open air, moving as quickly as I could to the front door. Maven was right behind me. A hundred feet of hell. When we were safely inside, we stomped off our boots and rubbed away the numbness from our ears.

  “Remind me again why we live up here year-round,” he said.

  “Because we’re idiots?”

  There was another set of doors, to help keep out the elements. When we went through those we were in the main lobby. To me it was like any other police lobby, with the semi-comfortable furniture and the brain-numbing fluorescent lights. There was the standard waist-high barrier keeping everyone safely corralled outside the main offices, with the one narrow gate leading right past the main desk, where a trooper was sitting. The trooper didn’t look more than twenty years old.