“Hey, come on, no Kitty Cat frowns,” Curt said. “Actually, I want to hook you up with somebody. I’ve got a guy who wants to meet you. His name’s Wyatt. He moved to town a month ago, and he’s cool. He works at Hoops in Canal Park. I think you’ll like him.”
“I’m not looking to meet anybody,” Cat said.
“No, really, you should. He’s got dreads that are totally wild. Colleen and I are heading down there around ten for a drink. Wyatt’ll be there. Come with us.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybes. You need to come. He said you were the prettiest chick in Duluth.”
“He didn’t,” Cat said, with a little blush.
“He did, Kitty Cat, and he’s right, because you are. I mean, don’t tell Colleen I said that or anything.”
Cat smiled. “Okay. Hoops it is.”
“Good.” Curt leaned over the cliff’s edge again and whistled. “Holy moly, the river’s really running.”
“Yeah.”
Curt gave her a wink. “What do you think? You want to make the jump?”
“Now? No way.”
“I will if you will. Hell, I will even if you won’t.”
“It’s not safe, Curt! You want to get killed?”
“Oh, come on! You only live once, Kitty Cat. I’m going to do it. The question is whether I’m doing it alone.” Curt backed up from the edge so that he could take a running leap from the cliff. His mouth bent into a sly grin, and she didn’t know if he was teasing her.
“Curt, don’t you dare,” Cat warned him.
“I’m gonna do it.”
“No! Are you crazy? Don’t!”
“Too late! Geronimo!”
Curt sprinted in his bare feet for the cliff’s edge, and Cat was sure he was doing it just to scare her, that he would stop short before he jumped. But he didn’t. Curt threw himself into the air with a loud whoop, his arms in the air, his toes pointed down. Cat screamed after him and watched helplessly as Curt plunged toward the river, hit with a splash, and disappeared below the frenzied surface. He didn’t reappear right away. He was gone for way too long. She looked for him and waited, and waited, and waited, and her heart pounded before she finally saw Curt’s head bob above the black-and-white water. He spit, coughed, and grinned up at her. The current carried him downstream, and he fought his way to the rocks on the shore and dragged himself out of the water. He waved at Cat on top of the cliff.
“Come on, do it! It’s not so bad!”
“No!”
“Do, it, do, it, do, it!”
“No!”
Curt flapped his bent arms together and made chicken noises. Cat thought twice as she looked down, but then she backed up tentatively on the cliff. She chewed on a fingernail. Before she could stop herself, she ran straight for the edge and leaped high into the air as she flew. The air rushed past her. The thunder of the river boomed in her ears. She regretted the jump halfway down, but it was too late, and an instant later, her body slapped the cold water and shot downward. Her eyes were open, but she couldn’t see. She kicked and kicked, but the river sucked on her body and didn’t want to let go. Breath bubbled out of her lungs. She felt a shiver of panic creeping through her head, and she kicked again furiously and fought her way upward. Like a bathtub toy, Cat breached the surface. She gasped for air.
Curt applauded from the rocks. “Whoo-hoo! You did it, girl!”
Cat took a few seconds to get past her momentary terror, but when she did, she allowed the tiniest smile to break across her face. She’d braved the Deeps and won. She felt her body being carried along by the river, so she swam hard and made it to the bank a few yards downstream from Curt.
When she pulled herself out of the water, she heard him holler and let out a loud wolf whistle. She didn’t understand, until she looked down at herself and realized that the jump from the cliff had torn off her bikini top, which was now somewhere in the river being carried toward Lake Superior. Her breasts were on full display, and she immediately wrapped her arms around her chest to cover herself.
“Don’t look!” she screamed at Curt.
“Too late, Kitty Cat, and let me just say, meeee-owwww.”
“Asshole!” she shouted, but part of her was secretly pleased. Once again, she couldn’t quite keep the grin off her face. She trudged past him, blocking his view, and then climbed back up the rocks. At the top of the cliff, she dried herself with a towel and quickly got dressed again. By the time she was done, Curt had made it back to the top, too.
“You decent?” he called, with a hand over his eyes.
“Yeah.”
“Damn!” he replied, and she swore at him again, but she didn’t mean it.
They sat next to each other on the top of the cliff, not saying anything, still breathing hard from the climb. The river kept roaring below them. Cat could feel their hips brushing together. She felt a little embarrassed and a little proud of herself at the same time for having braved the Deeps. Once was enough, but she was happy that she’d done it. She felt another surge of desire for Curt, but before she could lean over and nibble his neck, he suddenly jumped to his feet.
“Oh, hell, I’m late!” he announced. “Sorry, Kitty Cat, I gotta run. If I’m not on time for Colleen, I’m in t-r-o-u-b-l-e.”
“Sure. Okay. Go.”
“You’ll join us at Hoops later?”
“We’ll see,” Cat said.
Curt didn’t take the time to convince her. He sprinted toward the footbridge over the river, waved at her one last time as he crossed the bridge, and disappeared toward his car, which was parked off the shoulder of Occidental Boulevard. A couple of minutes later, she heard the noisy growl of his Thunderbird as he peeled away.
Cat didn’t leave immediately. The adrenaline of the jump had dissipated, and she felt a little sad and sorry for herself. As it got dark, she finally got to her feet and headed into the woods at a shuffling pace, kicking at the dirt and branches. Her own car was parked off Seven Bridges Road, so she didn’t need to cross the river. Along the trail, birch trees and pines crowded her. The birds had gone quiet for the night, but the crickets had come alive.
Then, out of nowhere, she felt a strange uneasiness.
She stopped on the trail, listening. Her instincts from living on the street always kicked in and told her when something was wrong. It was a sixth sense that had kept her alive more than once. She walked faster, wanting to get in her car and go. She looked back as she hiked, peering into the trees and the overgrown brush, but no one was there. Even so, her anxiety grew. She was sure she wasn’t alone.
Cat saw her car parked at the end of the trail. She began to breathe a little easier, and she broke into a run to reach it. Get in, lock the doors, drive away. But as she got close to the Civic in the semi-darkness, she stopped dead. Her mouth dropped open and she screamed.
Her car was covered in green paint. One message was written everywhere, all over the hood, the doors, the windshield, and the trunk. The same message over and over and over.
I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you.
As Cat stood on the trail, trembling and crying, her phone pinged. She had a new text. She opened it up and saw that someone had sent her a photograph from a number she didn’t recognize. When she clicked on the picture, she saw herself standing on the riverbank near Curt, her almost nude body exposed.
Her stalker had been there, on top of the cliff, spying on her.
Below the photograph was a message.
You’re so beautiful, Cat. Soon we’ll be together forever.
8
The two-story house on 8th Street with the beige siding hadn’t changed at all since Stride had last been here. Neither had the woman who owned it. When Andrea answered the door, he felt as if he’d gone back in time.
In that first moment seeing her again, he found himself reliving the ups and d
owns of their four years together. He remembered the first time they’d met, when he was up at Central High School investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl. Andrea was a chemistry teacher taking a break behind the school, with a cigarette in her hand and a cynical smile on her lips. The attraction between them had been immediate. She’d been pretty then and she still was, a pert, blue-eyed blond with a trim figure. He did a quick calculation in his head and realized that she must be forty-six years old now. She still looked young for her age and probably always would.
Young. Athletic. Unhappy.
In the early days of their marriage, he’d blamed Andrea’s depression on being abandoned by her first husband. Then he’d blamed himself for not being able to give her what she needed. Finally, seven years ago, he learned the truth about her past, but the revelation had come too late to save their relationship.
“Hello, Andrea,” Stride said.
She stared back at him and didn’t say anything. Her face was distant. He’d wondered whether she would be angry at seeing her ex-husband again after so many years, but then he remembered: this was Andrea. She was the coldest woman he’d ever met. Cold in love. Cold in bed. She kept her emotions buried in a deep hole, like a prisoner she wouldn’t set free.
“Hello, Jon,” she said finally. “Long time.”
“A very long time. How are you?”
“Same as ever. You?”
“I’m okay. I’m good.”
“I heard you got married again,” Andrea said.
“I did.”
“The Vegas girl. Serena. The one you cheated on me with.”
He frowned. “Yes.”
“Well. Isn’t that fucking terrific.”
He didn’t know what to say to that.
“Do you want to come in?” Andrea asked.
“I do.”
She opened the door just far enough for him to squeeze past her, and he walked into the house where he’d lived while they were together. It was much bigger than his cottage on the Point, but being here again made him feel claustrophobic, stuck inside bad times. She’d changed almost nothing over the years. He recognized the same furniture and the same art on the walls. She’d recarpeted and repainted, but she hadn’t even changed the colors. Andrea was like a cat, anxious and scared if anything disrupted her routines.
“Come back to the kitchen,” she said.
He followed her. The kitchen was small, and there was an alcove where she had a dinette table near the windows. From there, he could barely see the lake like a gray smudge on the horizon. That was what he remembered about the house, how far away the lake seemed when he was in it. Stride could usually measure his own happiness by how close he was to Lake Superior.
“I made margaritas,” Andrea said, pointing to a half-full pitcher on the table. “You want one?”
“No. Thanks.”
“Too ironic?” she asked.
He let out a short, humorless laugh to tell her that he understood the joke. They’d gotten drunk on margaritas on their first date, and then they’d had sex on his back porch. That was how their relationship had started. For a long time, he’d regretted everything that followed that night—the marriage, the loneliness, the affair, the divorce—but there had come a point in his life when he had to make peace with his mistakes. It was obvious to him that Andrea had yet to do the same.
They both sat down at the table. She sipped her drink, licking salt off her lips each time. He noticed that the window behind her was decorated with suncatchers made of stained glass. They were all shaped in different designs, with a rainbow of colors. A hummingbird, a lighthouse, a rose, a frog, a mother and child, a sun, a heart, a butterfly, a dragonfly. As far as he could tell, they were the only decorations that had been added to the house since he left.
“Are you still teaching?” he asked.
“I switched to Denfeld when Central closed.”
“Sure. Makes sense.”
“I’m head of the department now.”
“Good for you,” he said.
“It’s a little more money.”
“That always helps.”
“And a lot more school politics,” she added.
“I’m sure. I try to steer clear of that.”
“I remember.”
“How’s your sister?” Stride asked. “Is Denise okay?”
“She’s fine. She moved back to Duluth this year.”
“Really? Miami too hot for her?”
“Divorce,” Andrea said.
“Sorry to hear it. Still, it must be nice having her closer.”
Andrea shrugged. “It is. Except when it’s not.”
“Yeah. I get that. What about you? Are you seeing anyone?”
His ex-wife took another sip of her drink without answering, and he could see the manicured tips of her fingernails. Her blue eyes drifted away. He heard the thump of basketballs in the park next to the house. He remembered how the noise had driven him crazy when he lived here. And he remembered how he would find Andrea staring out the windows, watching the kids play.
“We really don’t need to do the whole small-talk thing,” Andrea said. “Just tell me what you want, Jon.”
“Okay.” Stride watched her face carefully. He was back to being a cop now, looking for the tiniest reactions. “I don’t know if you heard, but Steve Garske died.”
“Steve? Really? I’m sorry. I know you two were close. He was awfully young. What happened?”
“Cancer,” Stride said.
“How sad.”
“You used to go to him, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Yes, but I switched doctors after you and I split. I figured staying with Steve would be uncomfortable for both of us.”
“Sure.”
“Is that what you came here to tell me? About Steve’s death?”
“No. There’s more.”
Andrea tried out a false smile, but he could see the anxiety in her face as she wondered what he would say next. “Well, don’t leave me in suspense, Jon.”
“Steve did something bad a few years ago,” Stride told her. “I only just found out about it.”
“What did he do?”
“Actually, I thought you might already know,” Stride said.
“Sorry, I don’t.”
“We found what we believe is the body of Ned Baer on his property,” Stride went on. “Steve buried him there.”
Andrea inhaled sharply. A little quiver rippled through her body. Her reaction definitely wasn’t rehearsed. She took the pitcher of margaritas and refilled her glass to the top, and she shook the ice to chill the drink. “I see.”
“He’d been shot in the head. Murdered.”
Andrea put the glass down on the table. “Good.”
“It’s better if you don’t say things like that.”
“I don’t care. I’m not going to pretend he wasn’t a terrible human being. Ned Baer was trying to destroy my life. He was stalking me, following me wherever I went. He broke in here, do you remember that?”
“I remember that’s what you told me.”
“He was going to expose me, Jon. He was going to drag my name, my life, my past, through the dirt.”
“I know.”
Andrea stared at Stride. “Did you kill him?”
It was Stride’s turn to be surprised. “Of course not.”
She looked almost disappointed by his denial. “Really? I mean, to be totally honest, I always wondered if you did. We never talked about it after Ned disappeared. Although, I suppose we never talked about anything, did we? Ned just … went away. It always seemed way too convenient to me, the idea of him being lost in the Deeps. I thought that was just a story you made up to hide the truth. And you know, I never blamed you. That was probably the only time in our marriage when I began to think that yo
u actually loved me. I mean, if you would do that … if you would go that far to save me …”
“I didn’t kill him,” Stride said again.
“No. I guess I was foolish to think that. You would never sacrifice yourself for me. For Cindy, definitely. For Serena, maybe. But not for me.”
“We don’t need to rehash the past, Andrea.”
“No. We definitely do not. Well, if you didn’t kill him, Jon, who did?”
Stride said nothing. He stared back at her and waited. She sipped her drink, as if she had no idea what he would say and why he was hesitating. Finally her eyes widened as she understood. Then she did something he didn’t expect. She laughed.
“Oh, my God!” Andrea exclaimed. “Oh, my God, you think I did it! That is too funny.”
“It’s not funny at all, and it’s not such an outrageous thought,” Stride pointed out sharply. “Is it?”
Her laughter dissolved. She chewed on her lip in silence for a while. “No. You’re right. I’m only saying it’s funny, because this is like a symbol of our whole marriage. I thought you killed him. You thought I killed him. And neither one of us said a word to the other.”
“So you’re saying you didn’t kill him?” Stride asked.
“That’s what I’m saying, Jon.”
Stride saw no deception in her eyes. Even so, he wondered if she was lying. After all these years, he knew her well, or at least as well as any man could. And he knew from experience that if Andrea was pushed to a breaking point, she was capable of anything. She could be hysterical. She could be violent. That was how she’d been when she told him about Ned Baer. Desperate, out of control, willing to do anything to protect her secret.
“Do you have any idea who did kill him?” Stride asked.
“Maybe it was Steve,” she suggested.
Stride shook his head. “No. He didn’t do it.”
“I don’t think you can rule it out, Jon.”
“Why? Steve had no motive.”
Andrea leaned across the table. “I called him. That night, after you called me from Ned’s motel, I called Steve.”
“Why?”
“I was scared. You were so angry. I didn’t know what you would do. I mean, I was frantic, and I told you to do whatever it would take to shut Ned up. But I didn’t know how far you’d go, and I didn’t want you to throw your whole life away. So I called Steve. I told him to go after you. I wanted him to cool you down and make sure you didn’t do anything stupid.”
Funeral for a Friend Page 6
