Alex McKnight Omnibus by Steve Hamilton

Author:Steve Hamilton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Thrillers, Suspense, Thriller, Fiction
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

We had lunch at the Chinese Buffet, then it was time for Leon to go back to selling snowmobiles, and for me to go back downtown. Chief Roy Maven of the Sault Ste. Marie Police Department can usually be found in the City County Building, which is basically a big gray cement block attached to the old courthouse. The building and the man go together, for me anyway, because they both have roughly the same amount of charm. Today, at least, I knew there was no need to see Chief Maven himself. All I was doing was dropping off a stupid hat. I figured I’d just give it to the receptionist and leave.

There was a truck working hard to clear the front parking lot, so I parked around back by the police entrance, right next to the jail’s courtyard. It was a little twelve-by-twelve square, completely surrounded by a chain-link fence and razor wire. Ordinarily, there’d be somebody out sitting on the picnic table, having a smoke, but today the table was buried under two feet of snow.

The city police department shares the same building with the county, which puts Chief Maven somewhere near the bottom of the totem pole, below the sheriff, who owns the jail and the best part of the building, the state police, who have their own barracks down the road, and the feds, who run the Soo locks and control the border. That’s half the reason why he’s always so happy.

The other half is that he genuinely doesn’t like me. We had this sort of chemical reaction to each other the first time we met, and we never found a way to get past it. Hell, for all I knew, he was a great guy, and under different circumstances, we would have even been friends.

But I wouldn’t have bet on it.

I went inside, stomped the snow off my boots, and told the woman at the desk that I wanted to leave something for Chief Maven.

“Is he expecting you?” she asked.

“No, no,” I said. “I just wanted to give him this hat. It belonged to the man who was found dead in the snow this morning.”

“Oh my,” she said. She looked at the hat like she wouldn’t have touched it for a thousand dollars.

“I was thinking he could return it to the man’s family. That’s all.”

“I’m going to call him.”

“No, please, that’s not necessary.” I knew what would happen if she called him. He’d tell her to make me wait out here, and then sometime around spring he’d actually come out to see me. I’d played this game with him before.

“I’m sure he’ll want to speak to you,” she said, the phone already in her hand.

“I’ll just drop it off at his office,” I said. “I know where it is.”

“Sir, you can’t just go back there …”

But I was already gone. I went down the hallway and saw that his door was open. When I poked my head in, he was on the phone. No doubt the receptionist had called to warn him I was on my way.

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