“That's what everyone says, that they don't know me. But that's bullshit, total bullshit. You say you're a tranny ally, but the reason you don't think you know me is that you don't know how to. You're just like everyone else. I mean, you can't put a label on me. That's why no one believes me—because no one can believe their eyes when they look at me. People look at me and see a young woman, but then they think, wait a minute, that's a guy, that's a trick, this is deceitful, that person's a lie.”
“Kris, please—”
“I'm the only one telling the truth around here. I'm the only one expressing how I truly feel.”
“Watch it,” warned Janice, “you're talking to a woman who's living life just the way she wants to.”
“But I confuse you, don't I? And I probably scare you, right? I mean, I bet you don't know whether to ignore me because I've got a penis, be attracted to me because of my feminine body, or—”
“Okay, okay.”
Kris took a deep breath, then said, “Judge Hawkins was the guy who refused to sign that piece of paper, right?”
“The complaint? Yeah, that was him.” As Janice steered toward the Forty-sixth Street exit, she eyed her passenger. “So?”
Kris sat there grinning as she said, “So nothing.”
“What's that mean?”
“It means … nothing.”
Janice took the exit, steering up the ramp, then turning right and heading west. “What the hell are you saying?”
“Too much, I suppose,” Kris said with a shrug. “I mean, people always talk about me behind my back, but I don't talk about them. I never—”
“Kris—”
“Forget it. I already said too much. I just want you to know there are other people around who aren't being honest.”
“I don't like this.”
She certainly didn't. There was more here, that much was obvious. Perhaps an entire dimension that Janice hadn't even been aware of. Perhaps a dynamic she hadn't even imagined or considered possible.
“Oh, my God, don't tell me you know Judge Hawkins?” demanded Janice.
“Nothing. Just forget it.”
“Absolutely not.”
“That was stupid of me. I shouldn't have brought it up.”
“Oh, yes, you should have. If you're talking about something that involves a judge who's active in your case, then this is absolutely something I need to know.”
“I don't want to rat on anyone. It's not cool.”
Janice stopped at a red light, looked over at her young client, and in a loud voice said, “Jesus Christ, Kris, do you realize what you're saying? If Hawkins is gay or something like that and if he refused to sign the complaint because of some connection between you two, then this whole thing could explode so big you won't even know what hit you. I want to know—I need to know—every little detail about what—”
“Okay, okay. Just back off, would you? Maybe it is something I'm going to have to tell. I don't know. But I don't really want to talk about it now. I'm exhausted, okay? Really wiped out, you know. And besides, I'm not sure how relevant it is.” She put a hand to her forehead. “Just take me home, would you?”
The light popped green, and Janice stomped on the gas. “With pleasure.”
Driving her small red car much too quickly, Janice sped down Forty-sixth, continuing all the way up to Lyndale, where she turned left. There was a lot Janice wanted to say, an entire diatribe. Instead, she took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.
Finally she said, “Look, maybe we need to back up a bit. Maybe I need to get to know you better—and you me.” She glanced at Kris through her dark glasses. “And maybe you need to tell me everything you know about Judge Hawkins.”
“Perhaps.”
Janice passed a public library on her right, the Boulevard Theatre on her left, then turned right into a small parking lot attached to a café.
Pulling into a space, she said, “Come on, let's get a cup of coffee and start over.”
Not budging, Kris stared at her and replied, “Well, you're not making a very good start. If you would've asked I would've told you: I don't drink coffee.”
“Then … then you can get some tea. Or juice. Or a pop. Shit, I don't care. They have sandwiches—you can get whatever you want. Come on, I'm buying.”
“Uh-uh.”
Janice closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and leaned forward in the driver's seat. “Kris, please. I'm trying.”
“No, I'm not going anywhere public. In case you haven't noticed, I look like shit. I've been in jail for two nights, I haven't had a shower, and I look like a drag queen just off a pig farm. Sorry, girlfriend, I'm not going in there. This isn't about you. It's about vanity.”
“Oh, shit.”
Janice didn't say anything more. She nearly left the key in the ignition, thought better of it, and plucked it out. She then got out of the car, slammed the door, and walked up the side of the building, a long brick structure morphed from a hair salon into a coffee shop.
From behind, Kris hollered, “Hey, I'll take a mineral water, lemon if they got it.”
Nodding as she walked, Janice felt as if her head was going to split. How the hell was she supposed to handle this? As if Kris's case weren't strange enough, this stuff about Hawkins—whatever it was—was more than a tad disturbing.
As she pulled open the door, she glanced at her watch. She had an enormous pile of work back at the office. Sure, this was a big case, but why, why, why hadn't she given Kris ten bucks and sent her packing in a cab? Given Janice's hourly fee, this was surely going to be the most expensive ride Kris would ever take. Then again, they hadn't discussed Janice's fees and just what Kris might be able to afford, if anything.
About half of the ten or fifteen tables were filled with people sipping coffee and reading newspapers or gabbing. Who were these people that could hang out like this in the middle of the day, she wondered, and why wasn't she one of them? Perplexed yet again, Janice turned to the right and went up to the glass case holding muffins and random pastries.
“What can I get you?” said the guy, a small man in his twenties with birdlike arms and legs.
Janice looked up at the menu board and said, “I'll have … I'll have a cappuccino.”
“Short or tall?”
“Short.”
“For here or to go?”
“To go.”
He glanced over the countertop toward her right hand. “Do you have your own travel mug?”
“No,” she said, lifting up her keys.
“Oh, okay.”
Bemoaning the days of a simple cup of black coffee, she was almost loath to ask, “Can you make it with skim?”
“Ah … sure.”
“Oh, and a lemon mineral water too.”
So did she really trust Kris?
Janice usually had excellent instincts, but for some reason she was lost here. Kris Kenney could be speaking the gospel. Then again, she could be full of shit, a compulsive liar from the start. She did believe her, though, when she said she didn't kill Mark Forrest. But if Kris hadn't killed him or that cop out in California, then what the hell was going on? Why had someone reported her Olds down near the Stone Arch Bridge, and why had a yellow raincoat been found in the trunk—with blood on it, no less? Coincidences, though, always made Janice uneasy. Particularly—especially—double-coincidences.
Janice paid up and took the drinks. This was going to take time to sort out, no doubt about that. It was going to take hours of conversation with Kris and with others as well. Kris had been released from jail today, but the cops would be back, of that Janice was sure. In most eyes, to be a suspect in not one but two cop-killings was tantamount to being guilty, but if Kris really wasn't, then Janice would have to do more than merely provide reasonable doubt. No, to secure Kris's release yet another time Janice would have to do her best to locate the real killer.
Pushing open the door, Janice stepped out into the hot sun, coffee in one hand, her car keys and the bott
le of mineral water in the other. She gazed up at the sky, saw less blue than before and more clouds, these ones huge, billowing things that looked like exploded marshmallows. You could always sense a storm in Minnesota, and she was sure one was going to hit, just as predicted. Oh, well, her tomatoes needed the rain, didn't they?
Looking ahead, she saw a dark blue van parked so that it blocked her car from view. As she walked on, Janice pondered whether the two of them should just sit here in the parking lot and have it out, or whether Kris and she should go back downtown to Janice's office and hash things out in a more formal environment. No, the second wouldn't work, realized Janice, because Kris wouldn't go anywhere, not until she had her shower. What a princess.
As Janice made her way around the rear of the blue van, some of her cappuccino sloshed out. She paused, licked the back of her hand. As she did so, she glanced at the rear of her Honda. No Kris, at least not that Janice could see. Must be asleep, thought Janice. Kris was probably exhausted from the stress—God only knew she should be—and had put down the back of her seat. Probably out like a light too.
A grumbling in the sky caused Janice to look up. Was the storm here already? No, most of the sky was still clear, and she took another quick sip of her drink, then moved around the rear of the Accord. Without realizing it until just about then, it struck her that she was going to have to see this one through, that she couldn't bail on Kris, not now.
“Here's your water,” called Janice, coming up on the passenger side of the car. “And, yes, they had lemon.”
Reaching the passenger door, however, Janice looked in. The window was up. And the seat was empty. Oh, crap. Had Kris decided to walk the rest of the way home?
Hearing the fleeting sound of shoes sliding over gravel, Janice began to turn around, saying, “Kris?”
But Janice, not suspecting, was much too slow. She caught a glimmer of a figure, someone racing up behind her. And the next instant she felt it—the brutal strike against the back of her head.
As the day fell dark and she collapsed to the ground, all she could think was, Don't spill the coffee.
But of course she did.
38
As Rawlins and he stood just outside Dayton's department store, Todd dialed the hotel on his cellular phone.
A man's voice answered, saying, “Hotel Redmont, how may I direct your call?”
“Yes, I'd like to speak to Mr. Russ … Mr. Russ …” began Todd. “Oh, good grief. I can't believe I've forgotten his last name. He's in Room 469.”
“Let me see,” said the operator, as his fingers apparently flew across a keyboard. “Yes, that would be Mr. Russ Fugle.”
“Exactly.”
“One moment please.”
Todd, however, hung up immediately, slipped his phone back into his shirt pocket, and to Rawlins said, “Russ Fugle—that's our guy.”
“Let's go.”
Darting around a couple of taxis, they half jogged across Seventh Street. As they neared the main entrance of the Hotel Redmont, a towering hotel not yet five years old, a doorman greeted them and pulled open the glass door.
“Thank you,” said Todd.
As if they were guests, Rawlins and he immediately veered to the left, passing through the beige marble lobby and going straight to the bank of three elevators. Stepping into the brass-trimmed lift, they rose to the fourth floor. As they did so, Rawlins reached beneath his sport coat, pulled out his gun, checked it, then slipped the weapon back into his holster.
“Remember, let me do the talking,” said Rawlins.
“Sure, whatever you say, butch.”
Stopping at the fourth floor, the lift opened onto a long hallway void of guests and service people. Brass light fixtures lined either side of the corridor, and Todd and Rawlins wasted no time going down it and turning to the right. Room 469 was third from the end, and they approached it in complete silence.
Zeroing in, Todd watched as Rawlins went right up to the door and placed his ear against it. He stood for a long while, then, apparently unable to hear anything, pulled back and knocked. But there was no response. If he was in there, Russ Fugle didn't call back, didn't even flinch.
Noticing a band of light at the bottom of the door, Todd dropped to his knees and bent down. Spying into the room, he could tell that the curtains were open and that sunlight was flooding into the room. He saw teal carpeting, what looked like a waste-basket, perhaps a dresser, the corner of a bed. But no one quietly moving about in the room.
Rawlins knocked again and said, “Room service.” He pounded harder. “Room service for Mr. Russ Fugle.”
With one side of his face pressed against the carpet, Todd continued to stare beneath the door. He half expected to see the guy standing there as still as a statue. Instead, he saw nothing. Nor were there any sounds of any kind, no running shower, no blaring TV.
“Come on,” said Rawlins, reaching down and nudging Todd on the shoulder. “He's not here.”
Rising to his feet, Todd said, “We need to find out when he checked in and how long he plans on staying.”
“Yeah, it's time to have a little talk with the hotel manager.”
39
It was a pothole that woke Janice.
Minnesota was famous for them. Winter and road repairs, those were the two seasons, or so they said, so went the perpetual joke. And so many road cavities had bloomed this past spring that the crews would be working until the first frost trying to patch them with rich, hot asphalt.
As it was, the vehicle hit a craterlike hollow, Janice was thrown slightly into the air. And her eyes opened. Opened but saw nothing, only black.
Oh, my God!
She went to scream, but something was there, tied across her mouth. She cried out anyway, her muffled pleas going nowhere, echoing only in her terrified head. Lying on her stomach, she struggled to move her hands, her arms, but realized she couldn't, for they were strapped behind her back. Nor could she move her legs, for they were bound at the ankles. Lying there on some kind of short carpeting, a tidal wave of panic swept through her, and she tried to roll over, to flop about, to twist, turn. Jesus Christ, help! Someone! Her heart flooded with adrenaline, and she kicked and bucked, screamed and cried out. All to no avail. Her stomach started to whirl and heave, but no. No! The very thought of it made her crazy, for if she vomited, that would be it, she would drown in a pool of her own fear.
Just relax, she told herself, trying to calm her gut and trying to slow her heart, which was in fact shooting along, desperately hunting for some hoped-for peaceful destination. You're alive. Yes, you are. You've been taken. Someone has kidnapped you—dear God in heaven, Kris?—and you're in some kind of car.
No, not a car.
It was a vehicle of some sort. They were moving. She could hear the road, the rolling of wheels. The rumble of a paved road gone sour. But this was much too large a space. Right. She rolled onto one side, then back on the other. She wasn't in a car. Or was she? Oh, shit. A trunk. Had she been knocked over the head, tied up, and tossed in the trunk of her Accord? Now her heart churned like a water balloon, welling and nearing explosion. Locked in a trunk and no way to holler out? No way to crawl out? She'd rather drown, her arms scrambling, legs kicking. She'd rather go down in a plane crash, smashed in the mayhem. Just not closed in. Just not boxed in. Anything but her nightmare of nightmares: buried alive.
She began to cry. The tears, though, had nowhere to roll, no way to wick themselves away. Her eyes were covered with plastic. No, tape. Sealed. And she felt the salty water puddling against her, damned in and building. That was when she turned her head. That was when she saw it. The light. Nothing direct. Just brightness. And not a little pinprick of it either. But a full swath of powerful, beautiful sunlight burning through the translucent tape.
Okay. Relax. You're not locked in a trunk. You're not boxed in some little, cramped space. This is no coffin on wheels. You're not even in your Honda. This can't be it. Your car's not nearly this big.
; It was some other kind of vehicle. Again she felt the short nubs of a carpet against her cheek. So this wasn't a truck. No, the sounds from outside were muffled, which meant she was in some kind of enclosed space. The back of some sort of car? Yes. A station wagon of sorts. Moving her bound legs as one, she swung them from side to side. Then hit something metal. Probing it dumbly and blindly with her feet, she realized it was the base of a seat. That meant she wasn't in a station wagon. That could mean only one thing: This was a van. She was in the back, thrown on the floor.
While it didn't make any sense, just getting some semblance of the present reality soothed her, stilled her tears, slowed her heart, calmed her stomach. And in her typical, orderly way, she made a mental list of what she knew. She was in the back of a van. On the floor of said vehicle.
Wait a minute. Hadn't there been a dark-blue van next to her car when she'd come out of the coffee shop? Yes. But what about Kris? Where the hell was she? Behind the wheel and now driving or …
Okay, one stolen van. And her eyes were covered with some kind of plastic tape. Plastic packaging tape that allowed some light in. A rag or T-shirt was tied across her mouth. Her hands were strapped behind her back, most likely with tape too. And her feet as well. And the vehicle was moving, for Janice could hear the roar of the engine, sense the pocked complexion of the Minnesota road. Exactly. And even as she thought that, she felt the van slow, sway to one side. Then churn and groan as it accelerated. The speed seemed to increase. And increase. The vehicle seemed to be rising. The pavement smoothing into a steady hum.
A highway, realized Janice. They'd just sped up a ramp and had entered one of the freeways. But which? Had they merely gone south on Lyndale and proceeded onto 35W South, or had they turned another way and were headed west on 62? Or was it 94? Could they be on their way to St. Paul? Or had Janice been unconscious for hours and were they somewhere in Wisconsin or Iowa?
With no other cues—no roar of a jet from the airport, no toll of a bell from the Basilica, no sounds of bikers in the park—there was no way of telling. And, no, she thought as she twisted her wrists ever so slightly, there would be no breaking loose anyway.
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