Funeral for a Friend

by Brian Freeman

“It’s good you’re here,” she said. “I don’t think it will be long now.”

  He said nothing in reply. He paused on the stairs, letting a shudder of grief ripple through his body. Then he continued to the loft and hovered in the doorway, watching Steve in bed. The bed faced a picture window on the bay, and Stride could see one of the ore boats that had come off the lake through the city’s lift bridge, heading for harbor on the Wisconsin side. To everyone else around Duluth, this was an ordinary day. Not the last day.

  Steve didn’t look like Steve. Not anymore. His wavy blond hair was gone. His tall frame had the bony look of a skeleton. His skin was pale and loose, like a suit that didn’t fit anymore. Stride had been in too many rooms like this in his life. He didn’t really mind death, but he hated the reality of dying.

  He took a step closer, and the floor of the loft squealed under his feet. His friend’s eyes fluttered open and took a moment to focus. The eyes, at least, were still Steve’s eyes, smart and blue. Steve saw him and laughed out loud, which was an effort that ended in a cough. His voice had the rasp of an old wire brush.

  “Holy shit. Dress blues. Is this heaven? Are you an angel?”

  “Heaven can do better than me for angels,” Stride said.

  Steve had more to say, but it took him a long time to get out the words. “I’m picturing it like a Victoria’s Secret commercial. Wings and all. Any chance Kathy Ireland is waiting for me up there?”

  “Pretty sure she’s still alive and kicking, Steve.”

  He laughed again. Coughed again. “Man, I cannot catch a break.”

  There was a wooden chair next to the bed, and Stride sat down. Wearing his uniform made him sit with perfect posture, which felt odd and uncomfortable. By instinct, he smoothed his sleeves and brushed away a loose thread. “So,” Stride said.

  “So. What’s new?”

  “Not much. You?”

  “Busy. Lots of people.”

  “Yeah. Good.”

  “Maggie was here,” Steve said.

  “I know. I saw her.”

  “She brought a Big Mac. Ate it while we talked.”

  “She didn’t,” Stride said.

  Another laugh. “No, but I could smell it on her.”

  “Yeah. Mags loves her Mickey D’s.” Stride shook his head and tried to think of something to say that wasn’t banal. “Cat wanted to come, but … well, actually, I told her not to.”

  “Good. Keep her away. She doesn’t need this. How is she?”

  “She’s pretending to be tough. She says she’s over everything that happened to her in the winter, but she’s not.”

  “She’s a good kid.”

  “Yeah. She is.”

  Stride was angry with himself. This was the last time he was going to see his friend, and there was so much important ground to cover, so many memories to revisit, so many emotions to express. But all he could seem to do was make small talk, like they would do this again tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. But they both knew they wouldn’t.

  They’d been friends for a long time, and Steve had a way of reading his mind. “It’s okay, buddy.”

  Stride inhaled sharply. “No. It’s not.”

  “Why don’t you go home? You’ve done your duty.”

  “I can stay.”

  “No. Go. Really. I’m pretty tired.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. Honestly, I think I’d rather be alone for the end.”

  “You don’t have to be,” Stride said. “I’ll stay all night. Right here. You can sleep if you want, but I don’t have to go anywhere.”

  “Yes, you do. Go home, Stride. Kiss Serena. Kiss Cat. Be happy, okay?”

  “Son of a bitch, Steve.”

  “I know.”

  Stride got out of the chair. His friend’s eyes blinked shut with exhaustion. He leaned over and took hold of Steve’s hand and clasped both of his hands around it. He held on, not wanting to let go, trying to cement the feel of his friend’s skin, his grip, his warmth, in his memory forever.

  “Tell Cindy I’m okay, will you?” Stride said.

  “Count on it.”

  “Goodbye, buddy.”

  Stride choked out those words, but his friend didn’t answer, as if he were already asleep. He put Steve’s hand down on the bed and tucked the blanket around him, keeping him warm. He wanted to make it out of the room before he began to cry. He took one last look at Steve’s face and headed for the door.

  But Steve wasn’t done.

  He had more to say.

  “Hey, Stride,” Steve called after him in a voice that was barely there. “You’re safe. You can let it go, okay?”

  Stride stopped and turned around. Steve’s eyes weren’t open, but he was talking, murmuring, whispering so softly that Stride had to come back to the bed to hear him. “What did you say?”

  “You’re safe, buddy. I never told a soul.”

  “About what?”

  “About the Deeps,” Steve whispered.

  Suddenly, Stride felt disoriented, as if he were back in his recurring dream. He looked down at his own chest, expecting to see blood on his uniform. A bullet hole. It was all so vivid. He could hear the surge of the river and feel the spray rising over him from the rapids like a cloud.

  “What about the Deeps?” Stride asked.

  Steve was quiet. His eyes were still closed. Stride knew he should let it go, but he couldn’t. He had to know.

  “Steve, what about the Deeps?” he repeated, more urgently.

  His friend’s lips moved. Steve spoke again, barely making a sound. “Nobody knows, buddy. Don’t worry. I found the body after you left, and I took care of it. I buried him.”

  2

  Darkness fell at the end of the long summer evening.

  Stride stood on the narrow strip of beach that ran along the Point, the waves of Lake Superior crowding his feet. His face was damp from mist, which was the leading edge of a hard, steady rain approaching from the west. Grief and rain always seemed to go hand in hand. He hadn’t eaten anything. All he’d done at home was hang up his dress uniform and change back into casual clothes, then head over the dunes to the lake. He’d been outside, alone, for more than an hour, watching the Duluth lights awaken on the hillside a few miles away. Serena knew to give him time and space.

  He’d been visited by death many times before. Death always made him question his own life, but he never made any real changes when he lost someone. He’d considered moving away after Cindy died, but Duluth was home, no matter how many painful memories it carried. Going anywhere else would make him a foreigner, with no roots, and he couldn’t handle that. A few years earlier, after falling in love with Serena, he tried moving to Las Vegas to be with her. But he was a fish out of water there. Not long after, rather than break up, the two of them had come back to the cold of northern Minnesota. Serena was better at being a stranger in a strange land than he was.

  Now, as he was about to lose Steve, he found himself at a crossroads again. He wondered, not for the first time, about quitting his job. Changing careers. He’d put in his time; he could retire if he wanted. But no matter how restless he felt, he didn’t know what he would do if he weren’t a cop. He found it hard to imagine not getting up in the darkness every morning, not going to a job that took him all over the city. That had always been his life. He was addicted to what he did, and his colleagues were his family.

  Regardless, every loss chipped away at his soul. The violence took its toll. He didn’t know how long he could stay numb to it day after day.

  “Stride?”

  He turned around on the beach. Cat stood behind him. She held up a can of Bent Paddle. “I thought you could use a beer.”

  “You read my mind.” He smiled as he took it from her. The can was open, and he weighed it in his han
d, with a sharp eye at the eighteen-year-old. “Doesn’t feel entirely full. I wonder why that would be.”

  “I may have tried a little. You know, to make sure it’s fresh.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Just a little.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Cat came up beside him, took hold of his arm, and leaned her head against his shoulder. Her long chestnut hair was loose. She wore shorts and a midriff-baring T-shirt, and her feet were bare, but the drizzle and the cold lake breeze didn’t seem to bother her.

  Catalina Mateo. The daughter of Michaela Mateo, a woman he had tried and failed to save from an abusive ex-husband. Michaela was another loss he carried with him that had begun to weigh him down. He looked at Cat and saw hints of her mother in her beautiful face.

  “Are you okay?” Cat asked. “I mean, that’s dumb. Of course, you’re not okay.”

  “I’ve been better.”

  “I’m really sorry about Dr. Steve.”

  “Thanks.”

  They were quiet for a while. He drank his beer, while Cat stared at the water and held on to him. He thought it was sweet that she wanted to comfort him. Steve was right; she was a good kid. After more than two years with this girl in his life, it was hard for him to remember what it had been like before Cat. She’d hidden away in his house one night, terrified, homeless, pregnant, on the run from a killer. He and Serena had taken her in, and she’d lived with them ever since. Despite the ups and downs of that time, Stride saw something special in her, much more than she saw in herself. She was smart, beautiful, and brave, and at eighteen, she was quickly becoming more of a woman than a girl. But she’d grown up taking foolish risks, and that part of her personality still got her into trouble.

  “Serena says you’re still getting mail from strangers,” he said.

  “Some. Not a lot.”

  “Anything I should be worried about?”

  “There are some weird ones, but it’s no big deal.”

  “How about you show them to me, and let me decide about that?”

  “Some guy in Estonia likes to send me dick pics. What are you going to do, Stride? Fly over there and kick the crap out of him?”

  “I might,” Stride said.

  “He’s like seventy years old.”

  “I still might.”

  “I’m fine. Really. Don’t worry about me. You’ve got your own stuff.”

  Stride let it go. For now. Last year, he probably would have gone into her room and searched it to see what she was hiding from him. There had been issues all along with Cat keeping secrets. But she was eighteen now, and he and Serena were trying to give her more freedom.

  It had been a difficult six months for Cat. In January, she’d been drugged and nearly raped by a Hollywood celebrity who was in town filming a movie. She exposed the actor’s dark side to the world, and the resulting publicity made Cat a kind of celebrity herself. For a while, she’d thrived on the attention. She’d been on television. On magazine covers. But having people everywhere recognize her name and face carried its own dangers. She received thousands of messages, some from grateful #MeToo survivors, but many others from a parade of obsessive haters and stalkers.

  “I can put the security back on for you, any time you want,” Stride said, because he wasn’t good at letting things go.

  “And have some cop following me around all summer? No, thanks.”

  “Well, just be careful, okay?”

  “I will.”

  “Thanks for the beer,” Stride told her. “Why don’t you go on back inside? It’s cold out.”

  Cat didn’t object. She gave him a hug before she left. He watched her silhouette as she hiked back through the sand and up the grassy slope toward their cottage. After she disappeared, he was alone again. The beach was empty. The lake waves kept rolling toward him. The lights of the city were a hazy blur through the mist. He thought about going back inside, but he felt as if he were waiting for something out here. Or someone. Really, he was waiting for Steve, to see if he would feel his friend’s presence leave the world, to see if Steve would find a way to send him some kind of message.

  But life didn’t work like that.

  Not long after, Stride felt the buzz of his phone and recognized the name on the caller ID. It was Steve’s nurse. He allowed himself a moment to absorb the implications of her call. Then he answered the phone and got the news. Steve was gone. Peacefully. The nurse had checked on him minutes earlier and discovered that he passed away while she was out of the room. Alone, the way he’d wanted.

  Stride thanked her for the call and hung up.

  He scrolled to the pictures on his phone and found one of him and Steve together and thought about never hearing his jokes or seeing his smile again. In the time it took to blink, life came and went.

  He texted Serena: Can you come out here?

  She’d know why. She’d know what it meant.

  As he waited for Serena, he called Maggie to give her the news. They exchanged awkward sympathies, because neither of them was good at it. After a long, long pause, he went on: “Listen, Mags, the timing is terrible, but this can’t wait. We need to get a search warrant first thing in the morning. I can give you the details for everything you need, but the application should come from you, not me.”

  “A warrant?” Maggie asked in surprise. “To do what?”

  “To dig up Steve’s yard,” Stride replied.

  * * * * *

  Cat still had trouble believing that she had appeared on the cover of People Magazine, but there she was. Her and that sleazebag actor, Dean Casperson. The man who slipped Rohypnol into her bottle of water, undressed her, and would have raped her if Stride hadn’t arrived in time. Casperson was in jail now and would be staying there for a long time.

  The headline on the magazine read: The Teenager Who Exposed Hollywood’s Dirtiest Secret.

  Serena had framed the cover for her, and it hung on her bedroom wall. The photo made her look a little unhinged, with a wild, angry look in her brown eyes. Some days Cat took it down, because she couldn’t stare at it anymore. She really didn’t want to remember that night, and she didn’t want to be famous for it. Other days, she put it back up and thought about what Stride had told her. She’d done something completely stupid and unbelievably courageous, and he was proud of her. She didn’t think anything else in her life had ever made her feel as good.

  Serena was a like a mother to Cat, but Stride was—well, he was Stride. She was devoted to him, in love with him, in awe of him. He was her superhero, and she hated to see him in pain, the way he was now.

  Cat lay in bed with the lights off. It was almost one in the morning, but she couldn’t sleep. She was restless and bored, her knees twitching. Her corner bedroom faced the street, and the window was open. The drizzle outside had turned to rain. She saw the occasional gauzy flash of headlights from late-night cars passing on the street and heard the splash of their tires through puddles.

  She thought about texting Curt Dickes to see if he wanted to get together. Curt was one of the only people from her bad days on the street who was still in her life. She’d always had a little bit of a crush on him, which irritated Serena, because Curt was nine years older and had been in and out of jail half a dozen times in his life. But Curt was also funny and cool and wild and a crazy dresser, and Cat liked him. She began tapping out a text, but then she stopped and deleted it. Curt was probably off with his girlfriend. They were probably having sex right now. The thought of it made Cat jealous. She’d hoped when she turned eighteen that Curt might see her as something more than a kid, but instead, he’d already hooked up with someone else.

  It made for a lonely summer. She didn’t have a lot of friends.

  Cat turned on her nightstand lamp. She got out of bed and went to the window, where she stared at the rain. The air was sticky on her bare arms and legs. S
he tried to decide whether to sneak out to her car and head to a downtown club, but she didn’t want to go out. Not tonight, not alone. But she was also wide awake.

  She went back to her nightstand, opened the top drawer, and removed a stack of letters inside that were bound together with a rubber band. She’d told Stride that she wasn’t receiving much fan mail anymore, but that wasn’t true. Most days, she tried to get to the mailbox ahead of Stride or Serena, so they didn’t see the dozens of letters addressed to her from people all over the world. Total strangers. They all treated her like a best friend. They all knew where she lived.

  It was creepy.

  Today’s batch included almost twenty letters, plus a large manila envelope. She peeled off the rubber band and began opening the notes one by one. Most were harmless. People sent her the oddest things: photos of their pets, poems, cardinal feathers, loose change, pictures of Jesus. She put aside a few to send replies, because she felt bad for girls who wrote to her because they’d been raped, or abused, or assaulted. She’d been there herself, and she didn’t want those girls to feel alone. Some of the notes she put directly in a shredder. Those were hate mail from Dean Casperson fans who accused her of trapping him and going after his money.

  There were disgusting ones, too. It was unbelievable what people did. She’d told Stride about her Estonian pen pal who sent close-ups of his erections, complete with graying pubic hair, but she got others like that all the time. In today’s stack, there was a soiled copy of her People magazine cover that a man in Kentucky had obviously used to masturbate. He sent her the results.

  “Yuck yuck yuck yuck,” Cat said aloud.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d gotten something like that. Holding it by the corner, she threw it away.

  Then she got to the last item in the stack, which was the large manila envelope, hand-addressed to her in lime-green marker. She noted that the postmark was local. It had been sent to her by someone in Duluth.

  When she opened the envelope, she immediately felt a shiver of alarm. Inside, she found an eight-by-ten photograph of her. It was a recent picture, taken at the house of Drew and Krista Olson, who’d adopted Cat’s baby. The photo showed Cat in their backyard, her long hair flying, a big smile on her face as she played with her two-year-old son, Michael.