Goodbye to the Dead (Jonathan Stride Book 7)

by Brian Freeman

  Except now the gun had been found. Serena had found it.

  She slid her hand across the bed and laced his fingers. ‘Question,’ she murmured.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You said there were two hits on the gun. How come the ballistics database didn’t pick this up years ago during the original investigation?’

  Jonny pushed himself up in bed. He reached over and switched on his nightstand lamp. A moth tapped against the glass. There were shadows on Jonny’s face and in his eyes.

  ‘It’s the usual backlog bureaucracy. The bullet from the Chicago shooting didn’t get logged for years, and when it did, they didn’t do a cross-region search. Just Illinois. Somebody didn’t want to bother sifting through false hits.’

  ‘Chicago,’ Serena said. ‘What’s the connection?’

  ‘There is no obvious connection that I can see. A jewelry store near Calumet Park on the south side of Chicago was robbed at gunpoint on December 20 almost nine years ago. That was just over a month before Jay Ferris was killed. A security guard tried to intervene and took a bullet in the thigh. The guard ID’d the perp from mug shots, and Chicago police found him a week later living with his aunt not far from Wrigley Field. He was wearing a Rolex watch he’d grabbed at the store. Real smart.’

  ‘But no gun.’

  ‘No gun. They didn’t need it to make a case. They had the guard’s ID and jewelry from the store. The shooter took a plea. In his statement, he said he’d sold the gun for cash the day after he hit the store. He didn’t know the buyer and couldn’t describe him. It was just one more gun on the Chicago streets. No one tried to track it down.’

  ‘And yet a month later that same gun was here in Duluth being used to shoot Jay Ferris,’ Serena said.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Can you find the Chicago perp to get more details on the sale?’

  ‘He’s off the grid,’ Jonny replied. ‘He did three years, got out, never even bothered with a single parole meeting. There’s an outstanding warrant, but the police don’t think he’s anywhere near Chicago.’

  Their bedroom door was closed, but they heard movement in the living room. Cat was up. She was a restless sleeper, and they often found her awake in the middle of the night. She’d suffered from nightmares for most of her life. When she couldn’t sleep, she turned on the television, or ate cold pizza from the refrigerator, or sat in silence on the back porch. Hearing her footsteps, Jonny looked at the door, wanting to check on her.

  Serena got out of bed. She slid her nightgown over her head and then slipped a T-shirt over her bare chest. She stepped into shorts. She opened the bedroom door a crack, saw Cat sprawled on the living room floor in front of the television, and closed the door again. She draped herself across the end of the bed at Jonny’s feet.

  ‘So what happens next?’ she asked.

  His face showed his frustration. ‘The gun has torpedoed the entire case against Janine. Archie’s filing an emergency motion for her release. The county attorney thinks he may get it. If the gun didn’t have a history, it probably wouldn’t be enough to convince a judge, but the fact that it was used in a violent crime prior to Jay’s death – and now in another murder years later – changes everything.’

  ‘I hate to admit it, but I agree with Archie,’ Serena said. ‘It looks like Janine never had that gun at all.’

  Jonny shook his head. He was stubborn. ‘Not necessarily. The buyer in Chicago was a man, but street guns change hands all the time. Janine probably bought the gun later. Or Jay bought it for himself, and then Janine used it.’

  ‘And then what? You don’t murder your husband and sell the gun on the street. You get rid of it.’

  ‘She may have tried to get rid of it, but somebody else found it.’

  ‘Or somebody else shot Jay,’ Serena told him. ‘You may not like it, but that’s reality.’

  He was quiet. Then he said: ‘I’m going down to Shakopee. I want to talk to Janine.’

  ‘She won’t tell you anything. The gun is her ticket out. She’s not going to jeopardize that.’

  ‘I know, but even if she won’t talk, I want to see her face when I ask her about it. Believe me, I know Cindy. I’ll know if she’s hiding something.’

  Serena gave him a sad smile. ‘Cindy?’

  He closed his eyes, realizing what he’d said. ‘Sorry. Janine. Freudian slip.’

  She knew that the discovery of the gun had awakened ghosts for him. The murder of Jay Ferris, and the conviction of Janine Snow, didn’t exist in a vacuum. She could do the math. Jay Ferris had been killed in January. One January later, Jonny lost his wife. In between were some of the hardest days of their lives.

  ‘This must bring back some tough memories,’ she said.

  ‘Sure,’ he admitted.

  ‘Want to tell me about it?’

  She waited to see if he would keep talking. Or if he would shut down the way he usually did.

  ‘You know the timing,’ he said. ‘It was a bad year.’

  ‘I know.’

  He hesitated, and then he plunged ahead.

  ‘There was a shadow about Cindy in those days. She was so up and down. I thought she was angry because she thought Janine was innocent and I was trying to put her in prison. But it wasn’t just that. She was holding out on me. I was focused on the case, and all the while . . .’

  Serena said nothing, but she knew. All the while, Cindy was dying.

  She looked in his eyes for tears but didn’t see any.

  ‘I told you about Ross Klayman, didn’t I?’ he went on, staring at the ceiling of their bedroom. ‘The shooting at Miller Hill Mall?’

  ‘Yes,’ she murmured, wondering where he was going with this story. ‘Awful thing.’

  ‘Cindy was there. The wrong place at the right time. She saved a girl’s life and probably others, tackling Klayman the way she did. And you know what? I was angry with her. I was glad that girl was alive, but I was furious. I felt like she had put our lives in jeopardy by risking her own. It was stupid of me. Selfish.’

  ‘Hardly,’ Serena said softly, holding back tears herself.

  ‘I’ve thought about that day a lot ever since.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I think Cindy knew what was happening to her. That’s why she did it. That’s why she took the risk in the mall. Steve Garske told me later there would have been symptoms. Warning signs. And she did nothing. She let months go by, until it was too late.’

  ‘Don’t lay that burden on her, Jonny,’ Serena said. ‘It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t yours. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.’

  He didn’t reply.

  She realized that she’d missed something important all these years. This wasn’t just about grief and loss for him. It was about anger, too. He was mad at Cindy for dying. For leaving him alone.

  It was strange. For the first time, she saw Cindy not through Jonny’s eyes, but through her own. She’d put Cindy on a pedestal for years, but that wasn’t fair to either of them. Cindy was a woman, like her. Strong and afraid. Full of goodness and mistakes. If Cindy were alive now, Serena wouldn’t be in this bed, but Cindy was gone.

  Life followed its own twisting path.

  ‘Nine years is a long time for a gun to stay out of circulation,’ she said.

  ‘Janine knows where it’s been,’ Jonny insisted.

  ‘Does she? Or do you not want to accept the possibility that you were wrong about her?’

  ‘I’m not wrong.’

  Serena spoke softly. ‘If this is really about you and Cindy—’

  ‘It’s not,’ he snapped. ‘I know you think losing Cindy is clouding my judgment, but it’s not. I didn’t make a mistake back then. I’ve been wrong about plenty of things in my life, but not about Janine Snow.’

  42

  A poster of Guy Fieri stared down at Mag
gie from the wall of the Duluth Grill. The punk-haired host from the Food Network had profiled the restaurant on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, and since then, tourists had swarmed the place, grabbing most of the tables. Even so, the Grill was still a hangout for the Duluth Police, and the servers all knew Maggie. They always found her a booth near the window.

  She dug her fork into a cinnamon roll that was twice the size of her fist. To wash down the sweetness, she took a slug of coffee from an artsy Duluth Grill mug. With her mouth full, she checked her watch.

  Nathan Skinner was late.

  She wolfed down the pastry while she read the News-Tribune. When her plate was empty, Nathan still hadn’t arrived, and she began to get impatient. She moved on to her third coffee refill. Her bacon and eggs replaced the cinnamon roll, and she nibbled at the bacon while she devoured the paper’s editorial page.

  Finally, she heard a familiar laugh near the front door.

  After all these years, Nathan was still a star to Duluthians who were old enough to remember his championship season. He couldn’t walk through a restaurant without being grilled about decades-old college hockey games. She wondered if it annoyed him or if he relished reliving his glory days on the ice.

  Nathan slid into the booth across from her. He had the same masculine grin. ‘Maggie,’ he said.

  ‘Hello, Nathan.’

  ‘Long time.’

  He hadn’t changed much physically. He was shaving his head, and Maggie guessed it was because he was losing his blond hair. His punched-down face looked baby-smooth, enough to make her wonder if he’d had a nip and tuck. His blue eyes still twinkled with male magnetism, and he kept in shape. His career prospects had obviously improved, because he was dressed better than in the old days, in form-fitting khakis and a yellow silk shirt. He looked like a Republican heading for the golf course, not a washed-up security guard.

  ‘What have you been up to?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘I run a business now.’

  ‘Yeah? What kind of business?’

  ‘It’s sort of like a corporate dating service. I help entrepreneurs in the northland find venture capitalists who have money.’

  ‘Interesting career change,’ Maggie said. ‘How’d you get into that?’

  ‘A college buddy helped me out. Said he didn’t want to see God-given talent like mine go to waste. I’d like to say it’s all about spreadsheets and ROI, but really, my end is mostly about cigars, luxury boxes, and hook-ups. I know how to schmooze people. I talk the talk.’

  Nathan grinned again, and Maggie didn’t doubt that he’d found his niche. He was still in a fraternity, selling to other frat boys.

  ‘Nice to see you doing well,’ she said without enthusiasm.

  ‘Probably not as well as you are. Your husband left you a pile of money after he got shot, didn’t he? Condo over the Sheraton next to all those hospital docs? Pretty nice for a cop.’

  ‘You’re well informed,’ Maggie said, but she wasn’t surprised. Two winters ago, her husband Eric had been murdered. It was the biggest news story in the city. She’d been the prime suspect. And when she was cleared, she’d sold Eric’s sporting goods business and banked several million dollars.

  ‘Well, that’s part of my job. I keep track of where the money goes in town. Eric was on my radar, so now you are, too. If you’re looking for investments, you should call me. I can get you in on the ground level of some exciting projects.’

  Nathan was smooth. He’d left the rivalry between them far behind. At least on the outside.

  ‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ Maggie said.

  ‘I’m sorry about you and Stride, by the way. You guys flamed out, huh?’ She couldn’t hide her annoyance, and he said: ‘Cops talk, Maggie. You know that.’

  She did know that, but she hated being the subject of office gossip. She felt her face grow hot.

  ‘Hey, I wasn’t trying to poke the bear,’ he went on. ‘Seriously. I’m sure it was tough on you.’

  ‘What, do you watch Dr. Phil now, Nathan?’

  He laughed. ‘I wouldn’t go that far, but I’ve spent enough time on the down side of life to know it sucks.’

  ‘Fine, it sucks,’ Maggie said. ‘Move on. You’re not my therapist.’

  ‘Are you still holding a grudge against me? Come on, we’re both too old for that now. People really do like me, Maggie. I know that may be hard for you to believe. Actually, you might like me, too, if you gave me a chance. I’ve changed.’

  ‘What’s the old saying about leopards?’ she asked.

  He grinned and shook his head. ‘No, really. I’ll be the first to admit, I was a pig in my misspent youth. Racist. Sexist. You name it. I was angry at the world and blamed everybody but myself. But time mellows people. Even me.’

  ‘Well, let’s light up some weed and sing Arlo Guthrie songs, Nathan. Since we’re being so mellow.’

  ‘Come on. You think I can do business with the attitudes I had back then? It doesn’t work that way. The economy is diverse. The world is diverse. So am I. My wife’s Hispanic. I met her on a trip to Guatemala. I even speak respectable Spanish these days. So if you want the old Nathan Skinner? No más.’

  Maggie wondered whether to believe him. In her own experi­ence, people didn’t change. They just became more of who they really were, for better or worse. She knew that was true of herself, too.

  ‘Actually, I do need the old Nathan Skinner for a few minutes,’ Maggie told him. ‘The guy who spouted racial obscenities at Wisconsin cops and cheated with Janine Snow. That guy.’

  Nathan leaned across the table with a serious expression on his face. She had to admit that she still felt the old, unwanted attraction to him. He knew how to turn on the physical charm. There was also more calm and restraint about him than he’d shown in the old days. She couldn’t push his buttons so easily now.

  ‘I heard about you guys finding the gun in the Jay Ferris case,’ he told her. ‘I know what you want to ask me, but the gun’s not mine. It never was.’

  ‘So where do you think it came from? And where has it been all these years?’

  Nathan eased back into the booth. He swiped a piece of bacon from Maggie’s plate, which annoyed her, because she loved the bacon at the Grill. ‘Honestly? I have no idea.’

  ‘This was a street gun,’ Maggie said. ‘Not a suburban Gander Mountain special.’

  ‘Do you think Jay had gang connections you never heard about?’

  ‘Not according to his brother Clyde. And we never got a whiff of that during the original investigation.’

  ‘Well, street guns don’t usually show up in a domestic murder case,’ Nathan said. ‘It’s gangs and armed robberies. Or maybe murder-for-hire. Wasn’t there some old lady who thought Janine killed her husband on the operating table? Did she pay some money to have Jay whacked?’

  Maggie nodded. ‘Esther Rose. She passed away last year. It wasn’t her. We checked her finances nine years ago, and there was no evidence that she paid anyone to get rid of Jay.’

  ‘Then I don’t know what to tell you,’ Nathan said. ‘The gun disappears for years and then shows up at another murder scene? I don’t get it.’

  ‘There’s something I need to ask you about. Just between us. Did Janine Snow really want to know how she could get a handgun off the books?’

  ‘That was my testimony in court,’ he replied cautiously.

  ‘I know. Was it true?’

  ‘Even if it weren’t, do you think I’d admit perjuring myself? Sorry.’

  ‘I’m not trying to bust you. I just want to know if Janine could have figured out a way to buy that gun.’

  ‘You’re talking about a Texas girl, Maggie. They’re half-animal under those pretty faces. If Janine wanted a gun, she wouldn’t be shy about asking around. That woman knew how to get what she wanted. So yeah, the gun could have been hers, but I don�
�t think it was.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because there’s one thing about Jay’s murder that always bothered me. And it has nothing to do with the gun.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Maggie asked.

  Nathan shook his head. ‘I didn’t have any trouble believing that Janine was the one who shot Jay. Frankly, I didn’t blame her for it. The man treated her like shit. But Janine’s a smart woman. Scary-smart. There’s no way – no way – she would have let you guys pin it on her. Losing control? Shooting Jay in the head and coming up with a lame story that nobody believes? Sorry. That’s not Janine Snow. She would have had a plan for the whole thing, and she wouldn’t be sitting in prison right now. As much as I hate to admit it, she may have been telling the truth all along. The gun wasn’t hers.’

  *

  ‘Hello, Cat,’ Anna Glick said. ‘You shouldn’t be here, you know.’

  Anna sat on a plastic chair on the weedy front lawn of her house in Morgan Park. It was a two-story house barely wider than an old Chevy, with a sharply peaked roof and brown stucco walls. Ivy vines draped over the wall facing the street.

  ‘You haven’t called me back,’ Cat complained. ‘You haven’t answered any of my texts.’

  Anna had a Chromebook on her lap, and she wore shorts and a skimpy tank top that showed off her pale, bony limbs. ‘Uh, maybe because the cops you live with told me I should stay away from you?’

  ‘My friends are my own business,’ Cat insisted stubbornly.

  ‘Maybe, but I don’t need trouble.’

  ‘Hey, I won’t tell them. They don’t need to know who I see. Come on, I’m bored. I just want to hang for a while.’

  ‘Okay, fine, stick around if you like,’ Anna agreed with a sigh. ‘How’d you get here, anyway?’

  ‘Bus.’

  ‘Is that smart?’ she asked, eyeing Cat’s bump.

  ‘We’re only three blocks from the stop. It’s not like I’m handi­capped or something.’

  Anna shrugged. She nodded at a second patio chair leaning against the house, and Cat went and grabbed it. The day was hot. Both of them wiped sweat from their foreheads. Anna had a can of Bud on the lawn beside her, and Cat ducked into the small house to pour orange juice from the carton in the fridge. Outside, she sat next to Anna and sipped the drink in silence. Anna tapped away on her keyboard, playing a fantasy game. Cat didn’t interrupt her.