Misery Bay: An Alex McKnight Novel Read online

  Problem was, I was running out of lakes. I was going farther and farther north, to the absolute end of the earth, and on the map I could count only four more lakes—Lake Medora, Lake Bailey, Lake Fanny Hooe, and Schlatter Lake. If I tried those and failed, then I’d be forced to face the possibility that the cottage could be on one of the many tiny, unnamed lakes that might have only one or two driveways to serve them. Or that I had actually driven right by the cottage I was looking for without actually seeing it. Or that Bradley had been mistaken and it wasn’t up here at all.

  There was only one way to find out for sure. I took the right on the main road and kept going north, to Lake Medora. More trees, more nothingness, more total lack of any signs of civilization until I finally saw the water opening up on my left. There was a turnoff there, with a small parking lot and a boat launch. In the summer, in the actual daytime, I might have seen a person or two, but now the whole place was dark and empty. I stopped the truck for a moment and turned it off, then walked out onto the rickety dock next to the boat launch and looked out over the water. It was almost May and yet the lake was still half covered with ice. I could see cottages stretched out along the southern and eastern shorelines. I watched carefully, letting my eyes become accustomed to the dark, hoping that maybe I’d see a slight movement or a twinkle of light. After a few minutes, I got back in the truck and went up the eastern road.

  I did my same routine, cottage by cottage, until I got to the end. Once again, no black Subaru, no mint-green Corvette. The road was a dead end so I had to turn around and retrace my steps. On to the southern road, I thought, and then I can check this lake off my list.

  I happened to glance to my right for one single second. I kept driving another fifty yards or so. Then I stopped.

  I put the truck in reverse and backed up, all the way past the driveway. From there I could see a car next to the cottage. I hadn’t seen it the first time because the driveway had brought me in at the wrong angle, but now through the trees I could see the shadow of a car. Nothing but a dark shape, but it was the shape that gave it away. Low to the ground, like a wedge in the front, the smooth rise of the roof in the middle, then the distinctive angled-in cut at the back. If you knew a little about American cars—and if you grew up in Michigan, you certainly knew more than a little—then you knew that shape.

  It was a Corvette.

  I didn’t want to pull into the driveway again, so I kept going, all the way down that road, back to where I started. I parked in the lot by the boat launch again, got out of the truck, and grabbed the flashlight from my toolbox. I started walking back up toward the cottage. I figured it was probably a quarter mile.

  I had a shot of adrenaline now. My heart was racing. For the first time in hours, I felt fully awake.

  As I got closer, I slowed down and tried to stay as quiet as possible. I kept my flashlight off. It was going on five in the morning, late enough now that it was actually early. If there was somebody in that cottage, he could be out of bed in the predawn hours and getting ready for another day of God knows what.

  I left the road and started going from tree to tree. There were still traces of snow that reflected the dull ambient light. When I had worked my way around the cottage, I went to the Corvette and ducked behind it. Now that I was close enough, I could see the color. Mint-green. But where was the black Subaru?

  Okay, no matter, I told myself. You’ve found the house. Now it’s time to call in the cavalry. I pulled out my cell phone and looked at it. It didn’t even try to find a signal. If it could have laughed in my face, it would have. I put it back in my pocket.

  A smart man would go right back out to the road, I thought. Drive south until you get a signal. But you don’t see RJ’s car here. So what if Sean’s in the house by himself right now? Are you going to leave him here?

  I stood up and made my way around to the back of the cottage. I just had to see for myself. The place looked dark and deserted, like nobody had been there in months. The furniture and the gas grill on the back patio were all covered with tarps. There was a boat on a trailer, but that was covered, too. Then I saw the second trailer. This one had a snowmobile on it.

  That’s one more question possibly answered, I thought. If he planned the apparent suicide at Misery Bay carefully enough, he might have brought down the snowmobile during the day and left it nearby. Then he could have gone out drinking with Charlie, somehow convinced him to come down to Misery Bay, left Charlie’s car there in the lot, then taken the snowmobile back to wherever he had parked his car.

  I inched my way to the back of the cottage and bent down beneath one of the windows. As I came up to peer in the window, I saw a blue glow and ducked back down again. I came back up and saw that I was looking into an empty kitchen. The blue glow was from the digital clock on the oven.

  The only other option on the back of the cottage was the sliding glass door leading to the patio. I kept my back against the siding and slid over to the edge of the door. I paused there for a moment to catch my breath and looked down the backyard, toward the water. There was a boathouse. For all I knew, there could have been a black Subaru sitting in there, meaning maybe RJ was in the house after all, but now I didn’t want to walk right past the glass door to go down and check. Instead I put one hand to the ground and leaned over to take a look through the door. I saw a desk with a small lamp on it, casting a narrow cone of light. Then I saw a bulletin board, just like the one I had seen in the basement of Wiley’s lake house. This one had a single strip of film hanging from it.

  I leaned a little farther to see more of the room. I saw the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along the back wall, an open doorway leading into darkness, and then a face staring right at me.

  I threw myself back against the siding. I caught my breath for a few seconds, thinking about what to do next. Finally, I realized who I had just seen.

  I bent down and took another peek through the glass door. That same face was there. It hadn’t moved. I ducked back, switched on my flashlight, covered most of the beam with my hand and bent over one more time.

  It was Sean Wiley. He was sitting on the floor, his back against an easy chair. He was staring straight ahead. He didn’t move. He didn’t blink. I could see the little ring in his left eyebrow. His chest was covered in blood.

  I stood up and cast the full beam across the room. Everything else in the cottage was dark. I tested the handle. The door slid smoothly open and the smell of fresh blood came drifting out.

  I stepped inside and looked at him more closely. He’d been dead for a couple of hours, at least. Maybe longer. It didn’t matter. He was long gone and I could only think of his girlfriend sitting home in the apartment, waiting to hear from him.

  “You stupid bastard,” I said, my heart in my throat. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  I took slow, careful steps through the rest of the cottage. There were no other lights on. There was one bedroom, with a bed that had been slept in but was now empty. Another bedroom with a bed still made. The kitchen, then back to the sitting room or office or library or whatever you wanted to call it. Now it was just the room where Sean Wiley had gotten himself murdered for no good reason.

  I went back to the kitchen and shined the flashlight along the wall until I saw the phone. I picked it up and heard a dial tone. Before I dialed 911, another odor came to me. I recognized it. A strong chemical smell … where was it coming from? The closet?

  I opened the closet door and aimed my flashlight inside, expecting to see brooms and cleaning supplies all wedged into a tight space. Instead I was surprised to see a little room going back at least six feet. Somebody was standing there in what had just been utter darkness until I had opened the door. He was bent over a large metal drum and I realized at that moment exactly where I had smelled this odor before—in Wiley’s basement, in the developing room under the stairs. As the man in the darkness stood up straight and looked at me, I realized I had seen him before, too.

  It was RJ, C
harlie’s apartment-mate, otherwise known as Bobby Bergman.

  He dropped the jerrycan he was holding and came at me, knocking me backward. The flashlight went off as it clattered across the kitchen floor.

  He kicked me in the ribs, knocking the wind out of me. I swept my leg out, trying to trip him, felt the contact of ankle against ankle. He fell sideways. I rolled over and felt around for the flashlight, finally grabbing it and knocking it against my thigh until the lightbulb finally flickered on again.

  I got to my feet just in time to see Bergman pointing the pipe at me. A white PVC pipe, the most unlikely thing in the world until I remembered what it was and where he had used it before. The homemade suppressor.

  “What are you trying to do?” he said. “Ruin the film?”

  Then he aimed the gun right at my chest and shot me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I know this place. I’ve been here before. I am lying on my back and I’m looking up at the ceiling. Just like the last time … yes, I was in an apartment building then, in the middle of a city, people above and below me, down the hall and all around me in every direction. My partner was on the floor next to me, the light slowly going out in his eyes. There were sirens on the street below. It was hot.

  Now I am alone on the floor, in a cottage next to a lake, in one of the most remote places I’ve ever seen. The man standing over me may be the only other person within miles. It is silent here and it is cold. Everything is different. Yet exactly the same.

  There was a single shot. It made a strange alien sound as it came out of the white tube. I know in my mind, in that high place above everything else where I’m looking down and seeing it as it happens, that the slug was slowed by the wipe barrier, that the gases were trapped inside the tube, and that this is why the sound was so foreign to me. My ears are not ringing.

  He has put the gun down on the counter. I am lying on the floor and I am looking up at him. He flips a switch and a light goes on. It hurts my eyes. Then he leaves the room and I reach toward the gun. I can see the black handle extending over the edge of the counter. It is four feet from my hand. I cannot reach it. I am bleeding.

  He comes back into the room and now he has a black movie camera in his hands. There are knobs and dials and a lens that he points at me now. Around his chest he has slung another machine. A wire leads to a microphone and this he extends toward me. Both machines are smoothly humming, so softly I can barely hear the gears turning.

  “Tell me who you are,” he says to me.

  I cannot speak. I am bleeding.

  “Did you bring the film?”

  I try to make a sound.

  “You realize this entire project is on hold until I get that film back. It is in limbo. It is dead in the water.”

  He’s staring at me, waiting for an answer?

  “Please tell me you didn’t come up here without bringing the film.”

  More staring. I am bleeding. I am—

  “You know what? You look like a cop. You ever play a cop before? Have you ever played a state police officer, say? I bet you have.”

  The man closes his eyes for a moment. He shakes his head. But he keeps the machines still.

  “You’ve got to be more careful when somebody’s developing film, you know. You may have exposed it, which would not be good at all, believe me. I’ve had enough problems on this project without having to reshoot.”

  He turns off both machines, takes the strap off his shoulder, and puts everything down on the counter. He has to move the gun aside to make room. The gun is even closer to me now.

  “I’ll be right back,” he says. “Don’t go away.”

  He turns the light off. I am back in complete darkness. I hear him opening the door to the small room. The door closes behind him. I hear his voice from the room but I can’t make out what he’s saying.

  I try to move my arms. My right arm, I can move. My left arm is numb. I wedge my right elbow underneath my side. I am bleeding. I try to push myself up. My head spins. I feel something shift in my rib cage and it makes everything go white for a second. Then black again. I try to push myself up again. A sound is coming out of my throat. I can taste blood in my mouth.

  I try to lean my head forward. Push myself up even more. I can slide my right knee under me now. I can almost sit up. I try to reach with my left arm but I cannot move it. Lift the right arm. Keep my balance. Reach with my right hand. I cannot see anything. It’s too dark.

  The edge of the counter. Right there. Slide my hand this way. Nothing. Slide my hand back, feel the cold metal. I close my grip on it and the whole thing falls to the floor.

  The door opens. He comes out, goes into the other room, comes back.

  “It’s okay, I can turn the light on now,” he says. “The film is drying. We’ll see how it turns out.”

  The light goes on and I see the gun with its long white homemade suppressor, right there in front of me. I reach for it but it’s gone before I can touch it. He takes it away and he puts it back on the counter.

  “You realize I have to develop the film here now. Everything’s locked up down there in Bad Axe. No developing, no editing. So I can’t put the new scenes in. I can’t dub in the sound track. I’m totally stopped dead here.”

  He’s down on one knee now, looking at me.

  “Do you think Hitchcock ever had to develop his own film in a closet? Huh? You think?”

  He’s about to stand up, then he comes back down to my eye level.

  “You’ve played a cop, right? Did I already ask you that? You sure look like one.”

  I’m dizzy. He’s starting to waver back and forth in front of me.

  “You played a Michigan State Trooper, right? So how many people did you put away in prison?”

  I make a sound. There’s more blood in my mouth.

  “How many families did you tear apart, huh?”

  I am starting to slide backward.

  “Let me ask you this,” he says. “Here’s the big question. How many kids did you chase down, so you could drag them back to hell?”

  I fall backward and feel the wood against my back. I’m half sitting, half lying. Half alive, half dead.

  “How about it? How many kids did you personally stop from climbing out of hell, so you could drag them back and cast them over the edge?”

  He sits back. He tilts his head.

  “I’m not sure if we can use you,” he says. “What’s the context here? How does it even fit?”

  He laces his fingers together and rests his chin on them.

  “Tell you what, let’s see what you’ve got. If it’s good enough, we’ll find a way to use it.”

  He gets back up, goes to the counter, and slings one machine back over his shoulder. He picks up the other machine and now he has them both pointed at me again. I don’t want him to be doing this. I am bleeding. I raise my right hand.

  “Okay, action,” he says. “Go ahead.”

  I’m trying to breathe. I’m leaning against the hard wood. I’m bleeding and I’m trying to breathe.

  He doesn’t move. He’s silent. Time passes.

  “Any day now,” he whispers. “Come on, I’m going to run out of film.”

  Breathe. I’m trying to breathe.

  “Here’s my other problem,” he says. “All I’ve got are old short ends. Real ancient stuff. It kept pretty well in the basement, but it’s hard to shoot for more than a few minutes at a time. And I already used some this morning.”

  He gets down on his knees. He has the gun in his hand again.

  “There’s nothing like the look of film, though. Am I right? The most expensive digital video in the world, it can’t touch the look of film. Just ask my grandfather. Or hell, ask my cousin. He’s right in the other room.”

  He’s pointing the gun at me. That white tube is aimed right at my forehead.

  “Sean was supposed to bring the film up here with him. He specifically promised me that he would. Understand, it’s not like he was supposed to
bring twelve things and the film was just one of them. He was supposed to bring one single thing and that was the film.”

  He moves the gun closer. It’s inches away from me now. I try to reach for it.

  “And now I have to reload. The camera, I mean. Ha ha, not the gun. If you’ll excuse me.”

  He gets up off the floor. He takes both machines, and the gun, and he leaves the room. I can still hear him talking.

  “One thing you were supposed to bring, Sean! Bring the film with you! One thing!”

  I am going to die here. I will die here on this floor unless I get up.

  I raise my right hand and I feel for the edge of the counter above my head. I grab on tight and I pull myself up. I weigh a thousand pounds. I slide against the wood and I can feel the blood slick against my back, until I have my chin up on the counter and then my elbow and my head is spinning again as I finally get both feet beneath me.

  I stay there for a while and I see the thin line of blood running across the countertop. I know the gun is gone. I pull open the nearest drawer with the hand that still works. Batteries and old keys and junk. I pull open the next drawer and I see white plastic silverware and there, a knife with a long serrated edge. I take it out and now I’m ready to do something at least. Have some effect on the night instead of having it all taken away from me, gunned down like a stray dog in the gutter.

  I take a step forward. I’m still leaning against the counter, using it as a rail now, moving forward along this straight line until I hit the edge of the refrigerator and almost go down again. I grab the handle of the refrigerator and drop the knife. I cannot bend down to pick it up. That would be impossible.