A Cold Day in Paradise by Steve Hamilton Read Free Book Online

lived two doors down. I pulled into the little driveway and got out of the truck, waving to the two women in the road. They looked away. When I knocked on the door, I didn’t hear anything. I knocked again, louder.
    “Who is it?” It was a man’s voice from within.
    “My name is Alex McNight. I’m a private investigator.”
    “What do you want?”
    “I work for Lane Uttley. I was here on Saturday. I spoke to your wife.”
    “What were you doing bothering my wife?”
    “I was just asking her a couple of questions about the trailer accident over here. Will you please open this door and talk to me?”
    There was a small rectangular window in the door. I saw the man peek at me and then disappear. I heard his wife yelling at him, and then his own yelling in return. One thing for sure, this man was
not
the man who had called me the night before. He was a harmless lughead doing his overprotective husband routine, just like I told Uttley. I was about to knock on the door again when suddenly it opened.
    The man had a rifle. He leveled it right at my chest. “Get the fuck out of here right now before I blow a hole right through you.”
    It came back. As strong as the night before, when I was standing in that motel room. That day in Detroit. The gun pointed at me. I cannot stop him. He will shoot us, Franklin first and then me.
    I took a step backward and fell. Stairs. I fell down some stairs. I’m on the ground. Get up and get out of here. I couldn’t move. I felt like I was up to my neck in wet cement.
    Franklin next to me on the floor. He is dying. All that blood.
    “Get going!” the man said. “If you ever come around here bothering my wife again, I’ll kill you! I promise you that, mister!”
    Get in the truck. I got myself off the ground, remembered how to walk. Get in the truck. I fumbled with the door, opened it finally. Keys. I need keys. They were in my hand already. Which key goes in the ignition? I tried one, then another. Finally, I put the right key in, started the truck. I put it in reverse and punched it, almost backing right across the street into another trailer. I tried to put it into drive, but the engine just raced. It’s in neutral. Icouldn’t breathe. Put it in drive. Why can’t I breathe? The two women in the road scattered like pigeons as I finally found a gear and then barreled past them.
    When I was a few miles out of town, I stopped the truck. I sat there on the side of the road, both hands gripping the steering wheel. What in God’s name is wrong with you? Relax. Just relax. I made myself take a deep breath and then another.
    All right, take it easy. You’re okay now. That asshole just wanted to scare you. And he picked a hell of a day to do it. You lost your cool for a moment. After the weekend you just had, it’s understandable.
    And besides, that was the first time someone has pointed a gun at you since Detroit.
    I remember sitting in an office with a psychiatrist. The department made me go see him, after the shooting. I thought it was a waste of time. I didn’t listen to much of what he was saying, but I did remember one thing. He said I’d always have this hair trigger in my head. One little thing and I’d be right back there in that room, lying on the floor with three bullets in me. A loud noise, like a gunshot or even a car backfiring. Maybe a certain smell, he said.
    Or maybe the sight of blood.
    T HE M ARINER’S T AVERN looked just like you would expect it to look. It had the fishnet with the shells and starfish in it hanging from the ceiling, an old whaling harpoon stuck to the wall. It was on Water Street, right next to Locks Park, with big windows on the north side of the building. During the summer you could sit there and see a freighter or two going though the locks every hour, getting raised or lowered twenty-one feet, depending on which way they were going. Now that November had arrived, the freighter season was almost over.
    I meant to just stop in and have a quick