Misery Bay by Steve Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

have to card me.
    I looked out the window as I ate. There were a million little lights sparkling on the bridge. Funny how it could be so ugly in the daytime and then a few hours later look like a giant piece of art glowing in the darkness. I thought about what I was going to ask Charlie’s friends when they got here. I wasn’t so sure about having them all come at once. Normally, when you’re interviewing several people, you want to keep them separate as much as possible. There’s a group mentality that takes hold when one person gets talking and the others are listening and they each start to chime in and tell the same story. You get each one alone and you usually get a different take on the story from each person telling the tale.
    Of course that’s the way you play it when you’re taking statements. When a crime has been committed and you’re trying to sort out the bad guys from the innocent victims. This was nothing like that, so I knew I’d just have to try to ask the right questions, and listen as carefully as I could. Even though at that moment I still had no idea what anyone could say that would make a father feel any better.
    At five before eight, a young man and a young woman came into the room. They were obviously looking for someone. And I was obviously the only man in the place more than thirty years old. They spotted me and walked over.
    “You must be Mr. McKnight,” the young man said. He had long black hair tied in a ponytail. Not exactly what I’d expect at Michigan Tech, but what the hell did I know? “I’m Wayne. We spoke on the phone.”
    “Please, call me Alex.”
    “This is Rebecca,” he said, indicating the young woman standing next to him. She was pretty in a slightly plain Midwestern way, with blond hair and green eyes. She was already looking a little nervous, and we hadn’t even gotten down to business yet.
    “It’s good to meet you,” I said.
    She nodded and pursed her lips, but didn’t say a word.
    “Have a seat,” I said. “Can I order you some drinks?”
    “Um, I’m afraid I’m not legal yet,” Wayne said as they both sat down across from me. “I turn twenty-one next month.”
    That’s when I looked him over and realized how truly young he looked. Rebecca even more so. Hell, I thought, I am sitting in a bar filled with children who have run away from home and are pretending to be college students. They shouldn’t be here alone on a cold winter night and I shouldn’t be here talking to these two about yet another child who hanged himself from a tree.
    “You’ll have to excuse me,” I said. “I’m not quite sure how to begin here. So why don’t you just tell me about Charlie, okay?”
    That seemed to put him at ease a little bit. Rebecca still looked a little anxious, but as soon as Wayne started talking, she relaxed and even found a few words of her own. The picture they painted for me was of a young man who truly didn’t have an enemy in the world. One of those kids who light up a room the moment they walk in. It might have been a little bit of exaggeration-as-eulogy, but I got the impression that Charlie Razniewski Jr. would be missed by a lot of people.
    He had switched to forestry at the beginning of his junior year, after getting together with Rebecca. Before that, he’d been a criminal justice major, as I already knew, hoping to follow in his father’s footsteps. But when Rebecca told him she was a forestry major, well, the whole idea sounded a lot more rewarding to him. More time outside, less time behind a desk. It was just the kind of thing he always secretly knew he wanted to do. At least that’s what he told Rebecca.
    They were together for their junior year at Tech. But in the summer Rebecca had the chance to do an internship with the U.S. Forest Service, along with Charlie’s good friend Wayne. Charlie was still playing catch-up with his new major, so he said good-bye to Rebecca for the summer and they both promised to pick up where they left