Laura, the girl in the mall, had golden brown hair with bangs. The shape of her eyes made Cindy think that the girl had Asian blood in her. She wore a white T-shirt, which slid off one scrawny shoulder. Her lipstick was pale and pink. She twisted a cheap ring around one finger, and Cindy figured that the boy had given it to her. Laura pulled a book from her purse and began reading. One of the Harry Potter series. That was the craze. Laura popped gum in her mouth as she read, chewed, blew a bubble, popped it. When she saw Cindy watching her, she gave her a big, bright smile, and Cindy smiled back.
You saw people, and then you never saw them again. Have a nice life, Laura.
Watching the young girl, Cindy finally decided she’d been putting something off for too long. She grabbed her phone and dialed and held a hand over her ear. Steve Garske was her doctor, and she expected to get his nurse, but she got the man himself. Steve and Jonny were old friends. Tall, gangly, sweet, heck of a guitar player. His clinic was small, and if no one was around, he answered his own phone.
‘Appointment time, Steve,’ Cindy said.
‘You want me to figure out my own calendar system?’ Steve asked in dismay. ‘Okay, hang on. How about next week? Thursday?’
‘Perfect.’ She wrote down the date and time and felt better.
Then Steve said: ‘Everything okay?’
If everything was okay, you answered right away, and when she didn’t, his voice slid down an octave. ‘Cin?’
‘I – I don’t know.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Well, there’s pain sometimes.’ She lowered her voice and cupped a hand in front of her mouth. ‘Sharp pain between my legs. I’ve been nauseated, too. Throwing up.’
‘When did this start?’
‘Winter.’
She expected the lecture. You’re only calling me now? You let this go on and did nothing? He didn’t need to chastise her, because she’d said all those things to herself. ‘Well, I’ll see you in a few days,’ he told her. ‘We’ll check it out.’
‘Thanks. Nothing to Jonny about this, right?’
‘Of course.’
She hung up. Tears welled in her eyes. She stared at the young girl in the mall, Laura. The girl with her sister’s name. She tried to make herself smile again, watching this sweet teenager who was in love and learning about sex and reading about boy wizards. What a great life.
‘Verdict,’ someone said.
Cindy looked up. There was a buzz around her. People were talking. They were crowding toward an electronics store with televisions in the window.
She heard it again.
‘There’s a verdict.’
*
Stride and Maggie walked shoulder to shoulder through the narrow underground tunnel that led from City Hall to the County Courthouse building. The concrete block walls were painted bright white, and so was the ceiling, which was lit with fluorescent tubes. Utility cables ran in a twisted knot beside them.
Maggie’s short legs worked double-time to keep up with Stride. ‘That was quick,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect a decision so soon.’
‘It was an easy case,’ he replied. ‘Archie blew smoke, but that wasn’t enough. The jury saw through it.’
‘So you think it’s guilty?’
‘I do.’
They emerged through the door into the courthouse basement. They took the steps to the lobby, where reporters crowded into the corridor. It looked like election night. Stride hung back, not wanting to give interviews. He saw Dan Erickson deflecting questions, too, as he squeezed through the sea of people. Politicians knew not to brag until it was a done deal.
Archie Gale kept reporters away from Janine. His face was sober. He knew he’d lost. Janine didn’t look at the floor the way so many defendants did, about to learn their fate. She looked straight ahead into the cameras that flashed in her face, and when she spotted Stride near the head of the steps, her head tilted in an almost imperceptible salute. She was under no illusions.
‘She’s a cool one,’ Maggie murmured.
‘Yes, she is.’
He’d been in this situation many times before. Most of the time, justice won out. Even so, he took no pleasure in it. Every murder had many victims. He had sympathy for Janine Snow and the pressure cooker of her life and the systematic way that her husband had made it worse. She’d snapped. Even smart, beautiful people snapped.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get up to the courtroom.’
‘Hang on,’ Maggie replied.
Her phone was ringing.
She answered and tried to listen above the din. He watched her face and grew concerned. She grabbed his arm, tugging him back to the stairs. When they were out of view of the reporters in the lobby, she waved him urgently downward, and they both jogged to the basement. At the tunnel door, she shoved her phone in her pocket.
‘Gunfire,’ she said. ‘We need to get out there.’
‘Where?’
‘Dickson Street, boss. In Gary. Neighbors report multiple shots.’
‘Is it—?’
She nodded as she ripped open the door, and they both sprinted into the tunnel. ‘It’s Jessie Klayman’s house.’
32
The Pontiac Firebird that had been parked in the driveway was gone. Otherwise, the house looked as it had two hours earlier when they interviewed Jessie Klayman. Two police cars had Dickson Street closed at 108th, and two more were parked at the dead end. An ambulance waited behind the barricade. The handful of neighbors on the street had been warned to stay inside and away from windows.
Stride called the phone inside the house. No one answered.
‘We think Ross is gone,’ Maggie said. ‘Guppo talked to two teenagers who live across the street. They said he usually drives the Firebird.’
‘Did they see him go?’
‘No, but he may have headed out the back. There’s a dirt road behind the house that leads through the trees to Gary Street.’
‘Get his photo out around the city. The car and license, too.’
‘In process,’ Maggie said.
They wore their vests. Through binoculars, Stride examined the small house and saw no movement at the windows. All the curtains were closed. So was the door to the detached garage. Overhead, the sun was bright in their eyes.
‘We’ve got two officers staking out the back of the lot,’ Maggie said. ‘There’s no activity.’
‘Okay, let’s check it out.’
They used a neighbor’s lawn to approach the house from the east. There were no windows on the east wall other than at the basement level, where there was a door and a look-out window. The detached garage was on their left. As they cleared the neighbor’s house, Stride saw one of his officers in position at the rear of the Klayman lot near the tree line. The cop gave a thumbs up; the rear of the house was secure.
Stride had his gun in his hand. So did Maggie. Guppo and three other cops followed twenty yards behind them.
They reached the Klayman driveway. The house was built against a slope, and a two-level retaining wall and garden led to the front yard. Jessie Klayman kept stone nymphs among the weeds. Stride climbed the first level of the retaining wall at the corner of the brick basement. The windows of the living room were above their heads, and another window at ground level looked into the basement.
No activity.
He pulled himself up to the front lawn. Crossing under the living room windows, he took the wooden steps to the door and pounded sharply with his fist. ‘Jessie! Ross! Police!’
There was no answer. Looking through the storm door, he saw that the front door was wide open. The room where they’d sat with Jessie was empty, but the television was still on. He shouted again and heard nothing but the laughter of a TV sitcom. The living room showed no sign of disturbance.
Stride opened the screen d
oor and went inside. Maggie followed.
‘Jessie!’ he called again. ‘It’s Lieutenant Stride.’
They cleared the kitchen and the living room, which were both deserted. He used the remote control to switch off the television, restoring silence to the house, except for the rattle of the rotating floor fan. It was dim inside with the curtains closed. He pointed at the hallway, where he could see entrances to two bedrooms.
The first door was painted black, but it was open, and an overhead light was on. He nudged around the threshold into the bedroom, and the interior took his breath away. Maggie entered behind him.
‘Oh, shit,’ she said.
There was no bed, just a mattress on the floor. The walls, like the door, were painted black. The glass of the windows had been covered over with black plastic garbage bags duct-taped to the frame. A television sat on an old microwave stand in front of the mattress, and dozens of video games were strewn across the carpet. Gold ammunition littered the floor like popcorn. At least thirty bullet-ridden paper targets were thumbtacked to the wall, along with bizarre posters: a skeleton wearing a Nazi uniform; a naked girl with the head of a jackal and gun barrels for nipples; a skinless zombie in a diaper with blood spurting out of his face; and a Las Vegas casino street littered with torsos and severed limbs.
Across the entire wall, Ross had spray-painted in five-foot red letters: I AM GOD.
‘Jesus, who is this kid?’ Stride murmured.
But they knew who he was. They’d seen him before, in other cities, in schools, in workplaces.
Stride had made mistakes in his life. He’d arrested people who turned out to be innocent. He’d left cases unsolved. He’d failed to protect people he’d sworn to protect. This was different. This time, he’d missed a threat that Maggie had seen too clearly. That his wife had seen. He knew there was no bright line between social misfit and mass murderer, but he hadn’t seen this one coming.
Ross Klayman was out there somewhere. He was going to kill.
‘Where are the guns?’ Maggie asked. ‘Troy said Jessie had guns.’
They investigated the next bedroom, which was Jessie’s room. The gun locker was there, open and empty. No rifles. No handguns. No ammunition. Ross had taken everything when he left the house. If Troy was right, then Ross had an arsenal with him.
Stride saw Guppo in the doorway behind him.
‘Alert everybody, Max. Canal Park. Downtown. The mall. The DECC. He’s going to show up somewhere.’
Guppo turned away, already pulling out his walkie-talkie.
‘Boss,’ Maggie called. Her voice told him the story.
She was in Jessie’s bathroom. Stride joined her there, already aware of what he was going to find. The bathroom was still humid and damp from the shower. The plastic curtain had been shunted aside. Jessie Klayman was sprawled on her back in the tub. She was naked, and her eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. Wet strands of red hair lay like veins across her face. The blood all over her body, on the walls, on the floor, on the ceiling, on the porcelain tub, matched her hair.
Ross had shot his mother at least thirty times.
*
Guilty.
Cindy stood in a crowd around the window of an electronics store, watching the live news report on local television. The crawl at the bottom of the screen announced the jury verdict. Janine Snow had been found guilty of second-degree intentional murder in the death of her husband, Jay Ferris.
She’d expected it, but she wasn’t prepared for the finality of the result. It was hard to draw a line in her mind from that bitter January night to this hot summer afternoon. She’d driven Janine home. Her friend. She’d watched her go inside with her husband. Minutes later, Jay was dead, and now, months later, her friend had been convicted of his murder. Cindy had been there when it all began.
The reporters speculated about the sentence. The statute called for punishment in cases of intentional second-degree murder of not more than forty years. The sentencing guidelines suggested twenty-five years for a defendant with no criminal history. Archie Gale was on television, vowing an appeal and proposing a sharp downward adjustment in the jail time. Regardless, everyone expected the judge to sentence Dr. Janine Snow to at least twenty years at the women’s correctional facility in Shakopee, Minnesota.
Twenty years.
From the beginning, Jonny had said she was guilty. So had Maggie. So had everyone in the city, who’d convicted her in the court of public opinion from day one. And now a jury of twelve Minnesotans had agreed.
Cindy listened to the mutterings of the people around here. The sentiments all sounded the same – that it had ended the way it had to end. She wondered if it was schadenfreude, that joy in watching the downfall of someone who had climbed high. The television showed a picture of Janine in a white surgical coat, blond hair perfect, body perfect. A miracle worker. A millionaire. A murderer.
Dan Erickson appeared on the screen, lecturing about justice applying to everyone, taking no pleasure in the tragedy.
Jay’s brother Clyde came next, expressing satisfaction with the verdict but reminding everyone that a conviction wouldn’t bring his brother back to life. Which was true. If Janine had done this thing, no matter her motive, no matter the circumstances, then she had to pay the price.
The reporters talked about the jury and their willingness to convict without the discovery of the murder weapon. They interviewed the foreman, a woman named Eleanor, who praised the eleven people who served with her and the careful job they’d done. She expressed sorrow for victim and killer alike, but she said the verdict was the only reasonable conclusion that anyone could draw from the facts as they were presented to them.
Cindy tried to imagine herself on that jury. Would she have voted to convict? And to her surprise, she realized: Yes.
She heard her phone ringing and slid it out of her purse. Jonny was calling. She assumed he’d been in the courtroom when the verdict was read, and now he wanted to mend fences with her. They’d argued about it for months. It wasn’t in her nature to accept that she was wrong and Jonny was right. He was a stubborn man, but he had a stubborn wife, too.
‘Okay, I’m sorry,’ she said as she answered the phone. ‘You win.’
Jonny simply said: ‘Where are you?’
‘What?’
‘Cindy, where are you?’
‘I’m at Miller Hill Mall. I’m watching the news about—’
‘Get out of there,’ he interrupted.
‘Why?’
‘Cindy, get out of there right now. I don’t want you in any public place.’
‘What is going on—’ she began, but then she stopped.
Her words hung in the air. So did the noise of the mall. The music overhead. The laughter. The television in the store window. She found herself staring at a pretty woman in her thirties who’d been shopping at Aéropostale. She clutched a big bag in her hand. She smiled, joking to a friend, mouth open as if she were singing a karaoke song. That was who she was at that moment, but a moment later, the bag fell from her hand. The light vanished from her eyes. She threw her arms in the air and staggered forward, and dots of red spattered over her body the way rocks made splashes in the lake.
The noise caught up to Cindy’s ears. Staccato explosions of gunfire rocked back and forth between the walls. Dust blew, tile shattered, and smoke clouded the air. Her fingers loosened; her phone fell.
The pretty woman near her slumped to the ground. So did another woman. Then an older man.
As they dropped, as the people scattered around her, she saw him coming.
Everyone screamed. Everyone ran.
33
Howard sat with Carol in his car across the street from the courthouse. A crowd lingered on the steps. Some of the jurors had stayed behind to answer media questions, but he didn’t want to be interviewed. If he started talking, he’d
say the wrong thing. An hour had passed, and already he regretted what he’d done.
He’d said it the first time in the jury room: ‘Guilty.’
And then again in the courtroom: ‘Guilty.’
Janine had watched him as the judge polled the jurors. Her eyes burned him. It was as if she knew. He expected her to reach out a hand, to touch him with her cool fingers, to whisper: ‘Don’t betray me.’
But he had. He squeezed his eyes shut, said the word, and cast her away like all the others. He was weak. When he looked again, she hadn’t looked away. He thought he saw the tiniest of sad smiles on her face. Forgiveness.
‘You did the right thing, Howard.’
It was Carol talking.
He stared at his wife in the driver’s seat of his LeBaron. She’d picked him up in white sweatpants and a Dells T-shirt. She looked at him like a hero, and he realized she was proud of him. He’d just sent a woman to prison, and she thought it was the greatest thing he’d ever done.
‘I know it was hard,’ Carol went on. ‘If you want the truth, I wasn’t sure you could do it. You’re a softy at heart, Howard. I mean, that’s a good thing most of the time, but it takes guts to convict somebody of murder, even when you know darn well she’s guilty.’
‘Let’s just go home,’ he murmured.
She nodded at the reporters near the courthouse flagpole. ‘Don’t you want to go answer some questions? I know this was a big thing for you. You’ve earned a little fame for being part of it. I can wait here.’
‘No, I don’t want to talk to anybody.’
Carol started the engine. Then she turned it off and took his hand. ‘Hey, listen, I’m sorry. I know I’ve been a bitch lately. You were in a tough spot, and I wasn’t being supportive.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t care about that.’
‘Well, let me make it up to you. We’ve got the Dells coming up in a couple weeks. That’ll be fun. We can get Annie a pizza and rent her a movie one night, and you and me can fool around, huh? It’s been way too long.’
He summoned a smile. ‘Sure.’
Goodbye to the Dead (Jonathan Stride Book 7) Page 20
