“Tony,” she said, her voice a warning.
“It’s okay, Maggie. I’m a psychiatrist. I know how these things work. You know the trick to committing suicide? Speed. Hesitation is the enemy. If you put the gun in your mouth and think about it, well, you won’t do it. I’ve had lots of people sit on my couch and tell me about it, and the fact is, if you don’t pull the trigger immediately, you never will.”
“Put the gun down.”
“I want you to remember something, Maggie.”
She didn’t take her eyes off the gun. Her whole body was still, as taut as a cable spanning the towers of a bridge. She was measuring how fast she could run, how far she could jump.
“Cops like you and Stride think you can spot the monster,” Tony went on. “You think if you look in someone’s eyes, you can see what’s in their heart. The fact is, you don’t have a clue. You really don’t. Everyone wears a mask.”
Maggie jumped. She shouted as she took two steps and leaped across the desk, her arms outstretched like the talons of a hawk as it drops toward the earth, her fingers curled, clawing for the gun. She wasn’t nearly fast enough. Tony swallowed the black barrel of the Glock and pulled the trigger, just like that, without a millisecond of hesitation, and he was already dead as she came across the desk. The explosion jangled her brain like a marble rolling around an empty bowl. She kept coming anyway, momentum carrying her, and her body spilled into Tony’s as they both tumbled head over heels and landed together, and his blood, tissue, and shards of bone spattered across her skin and clothes.
Stride kicked in one door. Teitscher kicked in the other. They both thundered in, guns leveled.
“I’m okay!” Maggie screamed. She shoved Tony’s fleshy corpse away from her own small body, and she stood up, spitting his blood out of her mouth and wiping her face with the back of her arm. She wobbled on her feet, but she stood over him, unable to tear her eyes away. “I’m okay.”
Ten years of her life came and went with the man lying on the floor. She heard Stride say something, but didn’t hear what it was. The gunshot was still roaring in her head, making her deaf. She had a vision of Eric on the floor, remembering the sprawl of his naked body, and she still didn’t feel anything at all. When she finally looked up, she stared into the crazy reflections of the dark glass, and somewhere out there, she thought she saw the Enger Park Girl in the woods, not desecrated and alone, but alive and dancing. The beat she was following was an Aerosmith song. That was the way it was supposed to be, the way it should have been, with that girl out there paying no attention to her at all.
She felt Stride’s arm around her.
“I’m okay,” she said again.
SIXTY-FIVE
Abel Teitscher stabbed a shrimp from a greasy paper plate, where it was swimming in a candy-red sauce. It was rubbery as he chewed, but his tongue relished the sweet-and-sour tang, even though it tasted burnt. He took a forkful of fried rice, too, and then washed it all down with a sip of green tea. He leaned back against the stiff frame of his old sofa and watched a school of lemon tetras race around his fish tank in streaks of shining blue.
Sinatra was singing softly on the stereo. Ring-a-ding-ding.
It was a Monday like any other Monday, and like lots of Tuesdays and Wednesdays, as well. Potsticker Palace. Old music. Bubbles whooshing in the tank. “Dad, you’ve got to get out more,” his daughter told him when she called from San Diego, but it was easy to say that when you were living in California.
She was right, though. He was lonely. It wasn’t warm enough yet for the spring crime wave to wash over the city, so he didn’t have to spend his evenings closeted away in his cubicle in City Hall. Sometimes that was easier than being home.
His doorbell rang, surprising him. He twisted around and looked out the living room window and saw a dirty Ford Taurus under the streetlight that he didn’t recognize. He got up, noticing the wrinkles in his untucked white dress shirt. His gray slacks were baggy, because his waist had shrunk by a couple inches in the past year, and he hadn’t bothered buying new clothes. He just cinched his belt tighter.
He opened the door.
“Hello, Abel,” Nicole Castro said.
They stared at each other across the threshold. He felt self-conscious standing there, wondering if he had Chinese sauce on his mouth. He wiped his face. “Hi.”
“Can I come in? It’s okay, I’m not going to kill you.”
“Funny.”
He pulled the door wide, and Nicole wandered into the living room. She was dressed in a Minnesota Vikings jersey and jeans, with a new pair of Nikes. Her gray hair was still short, a prison cut. Her hands were in her pockets. She looked as uncomfortable as he felt.
“I heard you got out,” he said. “I’m happy for you.”
“Yeah. Free bird, that’s me.”
She stood in the middle of the room, biting her lower lip.
“You want some Chinese?” he said.
“No, that’s okay. It looks like cherry barf, Abel.”
“Yeah, it’s only so-so, but it’s kind of a routine for me.”
“Uh-huh.”
He rubbed his own flattop steel hair and tried to think of something to say. “Look, I’m sorry, Nicole. I don’t know what else I can tell you. I didn’t trust you, and I was wrong.”
“Actually, I came here to apologize to you.”
“What the hell for?”
“For thinking you set me up all these years.”
“I would never do that,” Abel said.
“Yeah, well, I know that now. I guess I needed someone to blame, you know. You were a big ol’ white target.”
Abel sat down on the sofa and put his hands on his knees. “I didn’t see the big picture. I saw the evidence, and that was it. The evidence said you were guilty, so you were. Same thing with Maggie.”
“Not like you were the only one.”
“You want to sit down?” he asked.
Nicole shook her head. “I can’t stay. I’m driving south. My son and my momma are in Knoxville, and I’m moving down there.”
“You going to join the force?”
“No way, not for me. Forget that. I don’t want to put anyone in prison ever again, know what I mean? I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand the idea of being wrong. No, momma’s got a restaurant, I’ll probably work there.”
“What kind of restaurant? Chinese?”
Nicole laughed. “That’s a good one. I forgot you could be funny.”
“I guess I did, too.”
She looked around the living room and frowned. “What the hell are you still doing here, Abel? Ain’t it about time you got yourself a life? That whore you were married to is long gone, so why hang around?”
He winced, but she was right. His ex-wife had sucker punched him, and he was still sitting here gasping for air. “I wound up in a ditch, and I was stuck for so long I figured I must like it there,” he said.
“Well, go down to the pancake breakfast at church and get yourself a chicky.”
Abel snorted. “I forgot how to date about forty years ago.”
“I’m not talking about dating, I’m talking about getting yourself some.” She grinned. Her teeth were yellowed. She was ten years younger than he was, but they could have passed for the same age. He felt responsible.
“You won’t believe this, but I miss having you as a partner,” Abel said.
“That’s ’cause I was the only one who would put up with your shit.”
He nodded. “Yeah, you’re right about that.”
“What say you dump that Chinese barf, and you and I go to dinner someplace, huh? Before I leave town. For old times.”
“My treat,” he said.
“Damn right it’s your treat.”
Maggie tilted a bottle of imported lager to her lips and drained the last third, then tossed it into the pile of empties on the sand. “You know what I would have paid good money to see?” she said.
Stride and Serena both looked up, and the orange glow of t
he bonfire reflected on their skin.
“What?” Stride asked.
Maggie began giggling. “I would have loved to see your face when your beloved Bronco sank to the bottom of that lake.”
Serena laughed, too.
“Hey,” Stride said. “That’s not funny.”
The two women laughed so hard they had to hold onto each other to avoid spilling backward off the driftwood.
“Are you kidding?” Maggie said. “I can’t believe you didn’t dive in after it.”
“That truck was a classic.”
“Oh, Jonny, it was a piece of junk,” Serena said. “It had like six hundred thousand miles on it.”
“It was only a hundred and seventy-five,” Stride said. He finished his own beer and retrieved the bratwurst that was blackening on a skewer and dripping fat with a rich sizzle onto the circle of flames. He blew on it and bit off its head and sighed. “Oh, man, that’s good.”
It was the middle of the night. The three of them had stayed on the beach behind Stride’s house for hours, stoking the fire pit, watching the stars, and listening to the slap of lake waves a few yards away. The March night was cool, and snow lingered in patches on the sand, but winter had loosened its grip, giving sea-blue color back to the gray sky. The sweetness in the air tasted like spring. It was the time of year when every Minnesotan in the north knew that they weren’t yet safe from a late fist of icy anger descending on the arrowhead, but time was on their side.
“I haven’t shown you my new trick,” Serena told Maggie.
“Go for it.”
Serena breathed in slowly through her nose, swelling her chest until her lungs were completely filled with air. For weeks, she had been unable to take a deep breath without a fit of coughing. Now, she held it for fifteen seconds, then thirty, then forty-five.
“Honey, that’s great,” Maggie said. She added, “How are the legs?”
Stride saw Serena catch his eye before responding. It was sensitive ground. He was so used to thinking of Serena as tough that it brought him up short to find her breaking into tears over how she looked. He told her over and over to be patient and that, however it worked out, it didn’t matter to him at all. That got him nowhere. It mattered to her.
“I’m not going to be modeling any swimsuits this summer,” Serena said, and her voice had an edge. Stride thought the thin ice holding her up might give away again, but she took another deep breath. “But I’m doing better. It stings when I walk since the last surgery, but that only lasts a few days. It doesn’t feel like alligator skin anymore.”
The day before, she had lingered in front of a mirror. She hadn’t done that in a long time.
“What about you?” Serena asked.
“Don’t you worry about me,” Maggie said, lifting her arms over her head. “It’s spring. My favorite time of year. The lakes melt, the rivers melt, and the bodies all come drifting ashore. I feel like a catcher in the rye.”
“You’re just happy to be back,” Stride said. “And you’re drunk.”
“I am. I’m a little drunk, I’m back on the job, and I’m rich enough to buy and sell you both, so be nice to me.”
“Do we want to know just how much money you’ve got now?” Serena asked.
“You don’t. You really don’t. But don’t complain, because I bought the bats. I mean, I brought the brats. Whatever.”
“Yeah, but I bought the beer,” Stride said. “And you’re on your fifth beer.”
Maggie laughed again, a happy, drunken laugh, a laugh that forgot everything else in the world.
“Speaking of the spring thaw,” Stride said quietly.
He was drunk, too, but when he was drunk, he brooded. He had been dwelling on the bad news all day, and now it bubbled out of him. He could never entirely escape. It was like living on the Point, in the shadow of the lake. There were long, gorgeous summer days, cool spring breezes, a watercolor pallet of fall leaves, and winter mornings where each twig on each bare tree was sheathed in a silver wrap of ice. Every moment was beautiful and fleeting, but lurking behind all of them was the mass of the lake, which took lives and didn’t give them back, which was like the foggy shroud of evil that was always gathering behind him. It was impossible to outrun.
Serena, who wasn’t drinking anything harder than mineral water, recognized the sadness in his tone. “What happened?”
“Tony left a calling card,” he said.
“Oh, man,” Maggie murmured. “What did he do?”
“I got a call from the police in Hassman,” Stride said. “When the snow melted on the highway shoulder this week, they found a woman’s body.”
Maggie and Serena absorbed the information in silence. The wind took that moment to gust off the water.
“Do they know who it is?” Serena asked.
“They think so. A woman named Evelyn Kozlak has been missing for several weeks out of Little Falls. Turned out she was Helen Danning’s college roommate and best friend. That’s how Tony tracked Helen down. He knew them both at the U.”
“Shit,” Maggie said. She added, “And you know what really sucks? I actually liked him. I have a hard time getting past that.”
“Me, too,” Serena said. “He helped both of us.”
“You helped yourselves,” Stride told them. “Tony just happened to be in the room.”
“Helen’s the one I really feel bad about,” Maggie said. “She wasn’t part of any of this. She just wanted to live her life and be left alone. Instead, she and her friend got sucked into a hurricane. Makes me feel pretty helpless.”
“We’re not in prevention,” Stride told her. “We’re in cleanup.”
Maggie stood up and brushed sand off her jeans. “On that cheery note, boys and girls, I’m going to go home and sleep for a couple hours. You two can do whatever it is you do in that bed of yours.”
“You shouldn’t drive,” Serena told her. “Sleep in our spare bedroom.”
“Thanks, but I’ve done that too much lately. I’ve got my own home, you know. At least until I sell that stinking mausoleum and get my own place. Besides, I’m not as buzzed as I look. Talking about dead bodies sobers me up. Don’t worry, I’ll go slow.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Stride said.
As they left the ring of fire, Stride felt the remnants of winter chill creep back in under his clothes. Maggie seemed unaffected. She dangled her red leather jacket over her shoulder. The top two buttons on her pink blouse were undone. Stride had a flashlight, and the beam guided them along the trail through the woods. He walked with her past his house, past the used and dusty black Ford Expedition in his driveway, and out to Minnesota Avenue. The road cutting through the Point was deserted. Maggie’s gleaming new Avalanche, painted in shocking yellow, was parked at the curb.
“It’s good to have you back, Mags,” he said, as they leaned against her truck. His fingers itched for a cigarette, but he had given them up again, and hopefully for good. Serena couldn’t handle the smoke now.
“Thanks.”
“You don’t need the money anymore,” he said. “Why come back to a job like this?”
Maggie shrugged. “It’s what I do.”
“You come to any decision about adopting a kid?”
“I’m still thinking about it,” she admitted. “I’ve got to get my life put back together, and then we’ll see. One step at a time.”
“That would be one lucky kid,” Stride said.
Maggie got up on tiptoes, ran her fingers through his wavy hair, and pulled his head down and kissed him. Her lips were soft as they moved on his mouth, and he wrapped his arms around her back and pulled her close. The kiss went on, a deep kiss, the kind of kiss he never imagined he would share with her.
She broke it off and smirked at him.
“No offense, but I’ve decided to stop loving you.”
“Okay.” As if anything was that easy.
“I have other things to do with my life, and you’re in love with Serena. But it was nice to know
I had a shot for a second there.” She gave him one of the sarcastic, know-it-all, infuriating looks she had given him for ten years. “I did have a shot just now, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you did,” he said, surprising himself.
“Leave them wanting more, that’s my motto.”
“Go away.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, boss.”
Maggie tossed her keys in her hand as she strolled around to the driver’s door. He heard her whistling. He stayed where he was for a long while, because he could still feel the touch of her lips and smell her perfume, and it disoriented him. When he followed the snowy trail back to the lake and sat down in front of the fire next to Serena, he was quiet. He felt guilty.
Serena glanced at him, suppressed a grin, and stared off at the lake.
“So she kissed you, huh?” she asked.
“Are you a mind reader?”
“No, but that’s not your shade of lipstick.”
Stride cursed and wiped his face. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
They watched the bonfire dance. Knotty pine crackled and spit.
“Just so we’re clear,” Serena added, “if you ever do it again, I’ll be forced to kill you both.”
“Don’t worry, you’re my alpha girl.”
“Better believe it.”
Serena sidled across the sand and sat so that their legs were touching. He put his hand carefully on her thigh and caressed her skin through the loose fabric of her sweatpants, not touching too hard. She didn’t stop him. Her body didn’t cringe in pain, and her soul didn’t pull away. When he looked at her, her eyes were closed, and she was smiling.
“This is okay?” he asked her.
“This is great.”
They sat there in silence while the fire worked itself down to ash, and when it was nothing but a faint auburn glow on the ribbon of sand, they buried it with snow and hiked back over the grassy slope to their home.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Much of this novel was conceived and researched in a rental cottage on Park Point in Duluth that bears suspicious similarity to the home now owned by Stride and Serena. You can actually stay there yourself, or you can tour the home at www.cottageonthepoint.com. Many thanks to Pat Burns for her hospitality.
Stalked Page 37
