A Cold Day in Paradise (27 page)

A sickness spread through my stomach as I read. Then a sudden noise tore me from it. There was someone at the back door. Prudell looked at me with wide eyes and then he dove on the floor. I stood there frozen, waiting for the door to open, for the policeman to come in and to shine his flashlight in my face. But the door never opened.

I crept to the back door and looked out the window. A great raccoon had turned over the trashcan. “Get out of here!” I hissed. “Go!”

The raccoon just looked at me.

“Move it, you big fat-assed bastard,” I said as I cracked the door open.

The raccoon finally pulled himself away from the garbage and lumbered into the woods. I stood there by the door for a minute, trying to will my heart rate back into double digits.

“Do you think the cop heard that noise?” Prudell said. He was still sitting on the floor.

“I don’t know,” I said. I went back to the front window
and peeked through the blinds. The police car was still dark. “God, I hope he’s asleep or at least hard of hearing.” When I was sure he wasn’t on his way up to the house, I finished reading the pages.

I read his last words and then I closed the folder. I wanted to see something else that would help me make sense of it. Drags, a needle, a syringe. Some chemical excuse for this utter madness. There was nothing.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said.

“Make sure you put it all back the way you found it,” Prudell said.

“It is.”

“No, I mean exactly. The folders were right on top of each other before.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said.

“You know they took pictures,” he said. “They’ll notice if that top folder has been moved a few inches.”

“Just get out,” I said. “Go.” I didn’t care if anyone knew I had been here. They could have busted the door down right then, put me in handcuffs. As long as they got me the hell out of that place.

I hustled him out the back door. I stood there breathing in the cold night air as he carefully reapplied the police tape. “Come on,” I said. “I told you it doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t be a fool, McKnight.” He worked on it until it was perfect, and then we finally made our way back through the woods to my truck.

We got in. I started the engine and pulled away, retracing our way through all the tree-named streets and then the number streets, back to the highway. Neither of us said anything for a long time. There was only the sound of the wind rushing through the open window. It was cold enough to hurt, but I
wanted
it to hurt. I wanted to feel something real, something I could understand.

“What did it say?” Prudell finally asked.

I thought about it for a minute. I didn’t know what to say, so I just shook my head. He didn’t press it.

When we got back to his restaurant, he got out of the truck and went right to his car.

“Hey,” I said. “Aren’t you going back to work?”

“I think tonight was probably my third strike here,” he said.

“So you’re saying I got you fired from another job?”

“This one I don’t mind so much,” he said.

“Let me pay you your five hundred dollars, at least.”

“Forget it,” he said. “I don’t want your money.”

“For what it’s worth,” I said, “I appreciate your help.”

He came back to the window. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I’m sorry I roughed you up the other night.”

“You mean at the bar? The night you swung at me twenty times and missed and then I put you down with one punch? That night?”

“One punch, my ass,” he said. “I slipped on the gravel.

I’m talking about when I hit you in the face with my keys.

That must have hurt for days.”

I laughed. I was surprised I
could
laugh. “You’re right, Prudell. You really got me.”

“You had it coming,” he said. “Just stay out of my way from now on.” As he turned to go I thought I saw the beginning of a smile.

I
LEFT HIM
there in the parking lot, drove away into the night, back down 1-75 toward home. Route 28 to 123 to Paradise. I had worn a rut in these roads the past few days, driving into the Soo and back every day. Now it’s over, right? Now you go back to your normal life? Demented loser stalks you, contacts the madman who shot you fourteen years ago, thinks he
becomes
the madman for God’s sake, kills three people including Edwin, tries to kill you, you end up killing him. Now you’re supposed to forget about it and go back to splitting wood and cleaning out the cabins?

I drove. Darkness. The smell of pine trees coming through the window. A car coming toward me. Bright lights blinding me. It passed.

How did he contact Rose? He didn’t say
how
he did that.

A sign for the casino. The last place Edwin was seen alive. I could go there now. Play some blackjack. Have a drink. I don’t want to go back to that empty cabin. Lie there staring at the ceiling.

The fear should be gone now. Rose is in prison forever. And this other man, this man who made me doubt my sanity, he’s dead now. I shot him four times, chest chest head chest. The fear should be gone forever.

I saw the lights on at the Glasgow, thought about stopping in, but kept going. I slowed down at the logging road to my cabin, thought about going home, about trying to get some sleep.

I kept going.

She shouldn’t be alone. She sounded so distraught on the phone. Everything that’s happened, she shouldn’t be alone in that house.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

I drove up to the Point, turned west on their service road. I thought about Mrs. Fulton’s dream. The car with the lights off, gliding through these trees. The driver watching the house at night. She saw that in her dream. And the blood, as well. It didn’t even seem so fantastic anymore. After all that had happened, I could believe anything.

I saw the glow before I made the last turn into their driveway. Every light was on in the house. The yard was bright enough to play baseball on. As I parked the truck I could see all the way down to the beach and into the water. There was probably a seaman on a freighter a mile offshore, looking at the house in his binoculars and wondering where this new lighthouse had come from.

I heard the music as soon as I turned the truck off. When I opened the door it assaulted my ears. It was some kind of opera piece, a soprano climbing the scales in Italian.

I didn’t see Sylvia anywhere.

I found the stereo in the study. The speakers were as big as refrigerators. It hurt to go near them but I wanted to turn the music off. It was one of those ten-thousand-dollar stereos with more buttons than a jet airplane, but I finally found the power button and shut the whole thing down. I shook my head in the sudden silence and wondered where Sylvia might be. It didn’t take long for me to imagine the worse. Hanging from the curtain rod in the bathroom, or lying on the bed with a bottle of pills clutched in her hand. But then I finally heard her coming down the stairs. “Who turned the fucking music off?”

“I didn’t know you liked opera,” I said.

She appeared in the doorway, a bottle in her hand. Her hair was a tangled mess, her eyes red and swollen from crying or drinking or God knows what. She looked fantastic. “What are you doing here?” she said.

“I was worried about you.”

“I told you to stay away.”

“I came anyway.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

“How much have you had to drink?”

“That’s none of your business.”

I went to her. I took the bottle out of her hand. It was champagne. “Are you celebrating something?” I said.

“I will be as soon as you leave.”

“Why did you come to my cabin?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Were you scared? Lonely? What was it?”

She looked in my eyes. “Do you have any idea how much I hate you?”

“No, I don’t,” I said. “Show me.”

She slapped my face. Just like Mrs. Fulton had done, only harder. I caught her arm on the next swing.

“Let go of me,” she said.

I looked down at her. She was close enough for me to smell her perfume, to feel the heat of her body. “I said let go of me,” she said. I didn’t let go.

I
OPENED MY
eyes. Through the skylight I could see heavy clouds, a single snowflake, then another. To my left, Sylvia’s head on the pillow, turned away from me. I did not know if she was awake.

I got out of bed. I stood there and looked at her. She did not move. When I started to put my pants on, she said, “You’re leaving.” Not as a question.

“I’ll be back,” I said.

She turned to look at me. She kept the covers tight around her neck.

“I’m serious,” I said. “I’ll be back.”

She didn’t say anything.

“I think it’s snowing outside,” I said.

She looked up at the skylight.

“Are you going to be all right?” I said. It was a weak offering, but I didn’t know what else to say.

“No,” she said.

“You drank a lot of champagne,” I said, putting my shirt on. I looked around the room for my shoes and socks.

She sat up in the bed, keeping the blanket wrapped around her body. “Are you going to say anything else? Or are you just going to run away again?”

I sat down on the bed. “What do you mean, again? When did I ever run away before?”

“You always did,” she said. “Every time.”

“That’s because Edwin was usually on his way home, remember?”

“He’s not coming home this time,” she said. In an instant, she had that look in her eyes again. That sudden flame.

“I have to go now,” I said.

“Do you expect me to beg you to stay?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t expect anything.”

I was ready for something painful. A cold silence, more venom, violence. Instead, she just looked down at her hands. “Do you think I married Edwin for his money?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“I suppose you must think that. Did I ever tell you how I met him?”

“No.”

“I had a flower shop in Southfield. I opened the store myself. I guess I wanted to show everybody that I could do it. You know, my family and everybody. I didn’t realize what a tough business it was, but I was getting by. I was doing all right. One day, Edwin Fulton walks in the store. He’s got this suit on that must have cost five thousand dollars. These incredible leather shoes. The works. So right away, I’m thinking, okay, this guy is gonna come on smooth, try to impress me with how much money he has. He comes up to the counter and he asks me what kind of flower would look good in his boutonnišre. Says he’s terrible with colors, he’s got no idea what would look good with his tie. I had these roses from Central America. Real nice, real expensive. I said, here, you probably want one of these. You know what he said?”

“What did he say?”

“He said no, it looks too expensive. It’ll look like I’m showing off. So he buys a big red carnation instead. Seventy-five cents.”

I smiled.

“The next day, he comes back, buys another carnation. And then the next day and the next day. He always seemed like he wanted to talk to me, but I don’t know, he was just shy. Which was weird, because you don’t expect rich people to be shy. Anyway, a few days later, he finally comes in and orders this
huge
bouquet. Every rose I had in the store. Three hundred dollars’ worth. It took me forever to put it together. When I was finally done with it, he asked me to fill in the card for him. He said, please make this card out to the most wonderful woman who ever walked the earth. Those were his exact words. And of course, I’m thinking, oh God, how original is this? He’s going to make me fill in this card and then he’s going to tell me the flowers are for me. So I’m pissed off, because now he’s just throwing his money away trying to impress me, and I’m going to say thanks but no thanks and end up putting all the flowers back. But that’s not what he did.”