Misery Bay by Steve Hamilton Page B

undersheriff was very helpful,” I said. “He didn’t understand why I’d want to know more about this other suicide, but I just told him I had a gut feeling that I wanted to follow up on. That was enough for him. He gave me the man’s name and number. Donald Steele. He’s a sergeant in the state police, stationed at the Iron Mountain post.”
    “So you talked to him next?”
    “Well, I called, but he wasn’t at the post. I gave the guy on the phone the undersheriff’s name, told him he had sent me, and he was nice enough to give me Sergeant Steele’s home number. Steele wasn’t at home either, but I talked to his wife. I wasn’t so sure about pressing her for details. I mean, it’s only been a couple of months since it happened, but she seemed to want to talk to somebody about it. So I just listened.”
    “Another kid kills himself. Two more parents going through God knows what. I can’t imagine and I hope I never have to.”
    “I hope so, too.”
    “You don’t have any kids, McKnight.”
    “I was talking about you,” I said. Thinking, okay, here we go, so much for talking like two human beings. “I’m hoping you never have to live through something like that.”
    “I apologize.” As far I could remember, the first time he ever said those two words together in my presence. “Continue.”
    “Their son’s name is Brandon. He killed himself on January fifteenth.”
    “Two weeks after Charlie.”
    “Yes. Although in this case, he didn’t hang himself. He shot himself in the head.”
    “Damn, and she’s telling you all this?”
    “It just started coming out. I got the whole story. He was target shooting behind their barn. That afternoon he went out to shoot, and about an hour later, they notice that they’re not hearing the gunshots anymore. When they went out there, he was lying on the ground. One bullet right to the temple.”
    “No note?”
    “No note. But as you already know…”
    “They usually don’t. Yeah, I know. But still. Did she say anything about any troubles he might have been having?”
    “She didn’t get that far,” I said. “By that time, I was wishing we were there in person. It just doesn’t feel right to ask somebody these kinds of questions over the phone.”
    “So we’re driving all the way out here just to drag these poor people through their misery again? Is that what you’re telling me?”
    “I didn’t force you to come, Chief.”
    He didn’t answer that. He looked out the window at the snow on the trees and the rocks and the great nothingness that lies between the towns.
    “You have the same feeling I do,” I said. “Am I right?”
    “Yes, you’re right. Something’s not adding up.”
    “She did ask me to make her a promise.”
    “Who, Mrs. Steele?”
    “Yeah. When I asked her if we could come out and talk to her, she said we could, as long as we promised to do one thing for her in return.”
    “And what’s that?”
    “She wouldn’t tell me. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.”
    *   *   *
     
    We kept hugging the shoreline as we made our way around the bottom rim of the UP, Lake Huron looking calmer and bluer than Lake Superior. We hit Escanaba, the closest thing to a real city we’d seen since leaving Sault Ste. Marie, stopped for gas and a bathroom break. We’d been on the road for a good three hours, with another hour to go. I had told Mrs. Steele we’d be there around eleven o’clock, but as we were ordering our food to go I remembered the thing about the Michigan time zones. With virtually the entire state on Eastern time, it’s easy to forget that there are four counties, all bordering Wisconsin, that are on Central time. So we’d be picking up an hour before we got to Iron Mountain. As tough as this visit would be, there was no reason to make it worse by arriving an hour early.
    So we sat down with our food and Maven told me a few more stories about his old friend and fellow state cop, Charlie Razniewski. He made