The reporters did not know the half of it.
The questions that seemed to rankle the players the most concerned the weather forecast predicting zero degrees and a wind chill of minus-twenty at kickoff. Narziss had the advantage of large hands to catch the frozen football—oversized even for a pro athlete’s. Casey wondered if Narziss had used those paws to call Skeeto and ask him to kill Elena and her unborn child. Narziss played American football for a living, which was by definition a violent sport. But he also did charity work and had two little kids. Could he really have ordered a murder?
It would not be without precedent. In 2001, Carolina Panthers player Rae Carruth was convicted of conspiracy to commit first degree murder of his pregnant girlfriend, as well as of shooting into an occupied vehicle and using an instrument to destroy an unborn child. Doctors saved the child but his girlfriend died. Carruth was convicted and sentenced to prison.
Narziss stood behind the herd of reporters and their recorders, cameras, mics, and lighting equipment. Casey wondered, if Elena had been a blue-eyed Swedish American, would there have been a huddle of reporters this size around the police chief all day? Maybe they would be onto Narziss as a suspect by now. As it was, news coverage of Elena’s disappearance waned. The Times reporter asked players about the missing Pro Shop employee, and whether the circumstances affected their focus on the championship game. Narziss claimed that, as far as he knew, none of the players admitted to even thinking about the missing Pro Shop employee, much less knowing anything. The only person truly questioning the Philanderer-in-Chief on the circumstances surrounding the crime itself was a narcoleptic freelance magazine reporter who was supposed to be writing about the team’s epic championship drive, feeding fans what they craved— all Narziss, all the time.
20
TUESDAY, JANUARY 25
After the locker room session, Nell picked up Casey and they drove three hours northeast from Green Bay to Minocqua. By the time they arrived, the Tuesday sun had set. The rural tourist town in northern Wisconsin had a population of fewer than 5,000 people. Log cabins were the norm and they spotted almost as many bait shops as street lights. A lighted sign outside a pub proclaimed, “14th Annual Wife-Carrying Contest, March 14.”
Nell said, “Did you see that sign?”
“You mean I didn’t hallucinate it?”
“Is it a race?”
“Or a dead lift?”
“Who does that? ‘Let’s join the gym, honey.’ ‘No, I have a better idea—Wife-Carrying Contest!’”
When Nell turned off Highway 51 onto Blue Lake Road, the Z4’s headlights provided the only illumination on the single-lane road. Like most of Wisconsin’s Northwoods, the area was largely virgin forest, dominated by pine and birch trees. Neither Nell nor Casey said a word from the moment they left the highway. They were both tired and talked out. An occasional cottage dotted the roadside; Casey absorbed the space between them—the isolation, the connection to nature, the stillness. It was so different from a big city, where most homeowners could barely fit a garbage can between their houses and sounds rang out every second of every day. Yet somehow Casey could relate to this stillness, to the isolation he’d felt since his sleep attack with Elena. Before Skeeto died, he and Casey had found less and less in common and less reason to fight for the friendship. His profession required hours to write. The introvert in him loved it. But after a while, even Casey yearned for human interaction. He hadn’t understood that until now, riding in a car in the dark somewhere in the Wisconsin Northwoods, so near Nell yet so close to nowhere. He felt a strong attraction to Nell, to her intelligence, spunk, and verve, but he couldn’t be sure how to sort it out or act on it until they found Elena.
“You okay, sleepyhead?” Nell said.
“Yeah. I’ve enjoyed spending time with you.”
She smiled. “Aw, me too.”
Casey paused. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For, I dunno, driving me to the ends of the earth.”
“Don’t thank me.” She winked. “You’re going to pay for gas and dinner. What’s wrong?”
“Ah, I just don’t know how to feel about Skeeto. We used to be best friends.”
“Did something happen, or did you just drift apart?”
“We drifted.”
Nell sipped her cappuccino and set it back in the cup holder. “Friends can be so circumstantial, especially if you lose a common activity. You think you’re such great pals and, in a way, you are. Then you quit the softball team, change jobs, move, or—Heaven forbid—have kids, and boom! It’s over.”
Casey felt melancholy for times gone by. “Skeeto and I used to play in a band together called the Filing Cabinets.” He felt a twinge of guilt for breaking up the band after college to focus on his job. He loved reporting, but he would never know how things would have been different with Skeeto had he stayed in the band.
Nell tucked her hair behind her ear. “Love the band name; so square it’s cool. Were you guys any good?”
Casey scoffed. “Of course not. But we had fun.”
She giggled and curled a strand of her hair with two fingers. “I wish I could have heard you guys play.”
“I wanted to play a reunion gig…” Now it was no longer possible. He felt hollow.
“I know you won’t have Skeeto,” Nell said, “but you could still play your songs for me.”
Casey thought a moment about that, and pondered whether he could play those songs without his friend. Physically he could. But emotionally? It would be tough, but he knew Skeeto wouldn’t want the songs to die. Casey smiled. “Maybe when this is all over.”
They drove another mile to the end of the street and the GPS prompted Nell to turn right onto a gravel road.
The driveway ended at a patch of woods. Casey spotted a cottage tucked back about thirty yards. The female GPS voice—Nell called her “Joan” because it sounded like a robotic Joan Cusack—said, “Arriving at destination.” The headlights illuminated an address marker, a wooden sign nailed to a tree. It had an 8 carved into it, painted blue.
Nell parked the Z4 and turned off the lights, leaving the area pitch-black. “Sure this is it?”
Casey opened the car door, and sensed the same fear he had felt during childhood when he descended alone into the basement for the first time. “Guess we’ll find out.” He grabbed a large yellow flashlight and got out. A grassy path led to the cottage. As they walked, pine needles and snow crunched underfoot.
Nell took out her standard-issue Glock 22 pistol.
“Is that really necessary?” Casey said.
Nell popped in a clip and readied the chamber.
“All righty, then,” he said.
She said nothing.
“It’s not like Elena’s dad followed us here,” he said, looking over his shoulder to make sure.
“We don’t know this cabbie,” Nell said. “He could have shot Elena and buried her out here. He could be working for Narziss. Or Elena’s father. Or—”
“Next, you’ll say he could have night goggles,” Casey said.
“If he’s a diehard hunter, sure.”
Casey frowned.
“But if it makes you feel better, I’ll holster it.” She had no holster, so she tucked it into the back of her jeans and pulled her green cosmo jacket over it.
Casey rolled his eyes. “Yeah, much better.”
The flashlight revealed old birch trees along each side of the trail. Halfway to the cottage, they came upon an abandoned wooden cart overflowing with rusted chairs, poles, and grills. The cart looked ready to buckle under the weight. He shone the flashlight around it, checking for signs of life, wondering what the heck the cabbie planned to do with all that junk. They passed the cart, nobody there. Casey exhaled.
They heard a rustling behind them and quickly turned. A pair of yellow eyes reflected the light about fifty yards away, then disappeared. “Wolf,” Casey said, and exhaled hard. For a moment, his feet felt encased in cement
.
They trudged toward the cottage and spotted the taxi’s back fender and yellow trunk peeking out from behind the cabin. The cab had reflective red-and-silver stickers on the side.
Faded green paint flaked from the cottage, illuminated by a single bare light bulb. The wooden door featured three horizontal windows stacked vertically, draped by old cream-colored cloth. The place looked like it had been abandoned for years; did Ed Plasky want it that way? Casey stood outside the door, peering at Nell. “I think we should go,” Casey whispered. “Nobody’s here.” He started back toward the car.
She placed her hand on his chest to stop him. “Then why are we whispering?”
Casey cleared his throat and said in a normal but quiet voice, “Really, we should go.”
She frowned at him as she pulled her curly blonde locks back into a ponytail, and knocked.
“Okay,” Casey moaned, “I guess we’re not going.”
The flashlight faded, then extinguished. Dead batteries. Casey tossed the flashlight to the ground and illuminated his smartphone, creating a yellow glow on the door. Nell and Casey stood outside the cottage with that glow for twenty seconds. He wanted to run. But he kept remembering his mother holding that kabob outside the funeral home in his nightmare, chastising him for never finishing anything. He breathed deeply, quietly, concentrating on not having a sleep attack. Your most important breath—
Something human flashed past the window in the cabin door.
Nell pulled out her FBI identification.
A man pulled back the curtain and peered at them through the window, his sclera appearing like lights in the darkness. But they weren’t the only things starring back at them. So did the pitch-black eyes of a double-barreled shotgun.
21
TUESDAY, JANUARY 25
Casey had a sleep attack.
“Don’t shoot!” Nell yelled. She held up her badge to the shotgun muzzle. “FBI.”
The man in the door had a comb-over, just as Sandy from the gas station had described the taxi driver. They had found Ed Plasky, driver of Cab Twelve.
He didn’t open the door. “D’respassing at night is a good way da get shot, don’tcha know,” he said through the glass. Casey recognized his Upper-Michigan accent—he was a Yooper. “Put yer hands up.”
Nell shook Casey out of the attack. They both raised their hands.
The man opened the door, aiming the gun at them. He looked Nell up and down, smiled, then pointed his shotgun at Casey. “What do yas want?”
“Mr. Plasky, I’m Agent Jenner, FBI. Can we come in and talk?”
He aimed the shotgun at her. “About?”
“The last customer you picked up by Hail Stadium,” Nell said.
He glared at her. “Oh, I don’t dake notes on my customers, sweetheart. I just drive ’em.”
Nell and Casey shared a glance.
Ed backed into his cabin, closed the door, and disappeared from view.
“He’s running,” Nell said, sprinting around the cabin, gun in hand.
“Wait!” Casey said, following her around the corner, slipping on the snow, falling, and catching himself with his hand on the ground.
Nell halted, hunched a bit, pointed the gun in front of her with her flashlight right under the pistol barrel, her elbows slightly bent. They heard a car door slam and the taxi engine turn. Headlights illuminated. “Stop!” Nell said, standing next to the vehicle, gun aimed at the front windshield. “We just want to talk.”
Ed pointed the shotgun at them. Casey froze in partial cataplexy and sleep paralysis, his head and shoulders slouching. He wished it could have been complete cataplexy so he’d be out of the line of fire, and envisioned a headline:
NARCOLEPTIC MAN NEARLY FILLS HIS PANTS
“Get out of the car!” Nell shouted. “Throw the weapon out the window. Now!”
To Casey’s surprise, Ed electronically lowered the passenger-side window, chucked the gun out and to the ground, then raised his hands.
Nell ran to him, opening the car door, pulling him out of the cab and cuffing his wrists behind his back.
“Ow. I ain’t done a ding.”
“Then why run?”
“I dought yas were da ones dat kidnapped Elena.”
Nell winced. “I showed you my badge.”
“Dey got dem badges at Halloween stores and dat. Can’t trust nobody dese days.”
“Who kidnapped Elena?” Nell said.
“I don’t know,” Eddie said. “But I read in da papers she’s missing.”
“How do we know you’re not the kidnapper?” Nell said.
“Can I explain inside? It’s freezing out here and I ain’t got no shirt on.”
Nell scoffed. “You were the one that ran out here half-naked.”
Ed walked toward the house, wearing blaze-orange hunting pants and matching suspenders. He had graying chest hair. “Am I under arrest or something?”
“No, we just have a few questions,” Nell said. “First, let’s see the trunk.”
Casey knew why she demanded that. After Jeffrey Dahmer had committed his first murder and shoved the victim in the trunk of his car, police had pulled Dahmer over but failed to check the trunk thoroughly.
Ed bit his lower lip, then said, “It’s empty.”
Nell calmly held her Glock in her right hand and held out her left hand. “I would really like it if you gave me the keys now.”
Ed turned from the house and waddled to the trunk of his taxi. “Can I get dese cuffs off?”
“No.”
“De keys for the trunk are in my pants pocket.”
She released the cuffs.
He reached into his pocket, extracted the keys and opened the trunk. “See?”
Nell nodded, aiming the gun at him with two hands.
Ed slammed it shut and they walked toward the cabin, out of Casey’s view.
Casey hoped she’d return to shake him out of his sleep attack.
He heard Nell ask, “But you did give Elena a ride?”
“Yep,” Ed said. One of them opened the back screen door to the cottage. “What’s with your friend?”
“Oh, he’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Casey heard the door close and imagined the headline:
JILTED NARCOLEPTIC LITERALLY LEFT OUT IN COLD
Even during an attack, Casey could feel the bitter cold turn his skin numb. All he could do was wait it out.
Eventually, he snapped out of it and returned inside. He flexed his fingers and toes, which had nearly frozen. On the wall above the mantel hung a stuffed deer head; below it, a fire popped occasionally in the fireplace.
“Where’s Elena?” Casey said.
Ed grinned, buttoning a red flannel shirt. “Look what da woodchuck drug in.”
“Where is she?” Casey demanded.
“Dat I’m not at liberty da dell yas.”
Nell held the Glock and pointed it at Ed’s feet. “Why is that?”
“Elena gave me a pretty penny not da dell.”
“She paid you to disappear?” Nell asked.
“Yah der hey,” Ed said. It meant yes.
“Where did she get that kind of money?” she said.
“I don’t know.” Ed worked a finger in his ear, apparently cleaning out the wax.
Casey smirked; they all knew she sold drugs.
“We’re not the only ones looking for Elena,” she said.
“Todd Narziss of the Hail was dating her,” Casey said.
“I’m not dalking, don’tcha know.”
Casey walked toward the door. “It sure would be a shame if Narziss were to find out that you picked up his mistress and unborn child and they never showed up again. If he knew you were hiding up here, in the woods all alone, there’s no telling what a six-foot-five steroid maniac would do to you.”
Ed snapped his fingers and pointed into the air as if to say, Eureka. “Oh yeah, I just remembered I dropped Elena off on South Madison Street in Green Bay.”
�
�Do you just remember the address?” Nell said.
Ed stared at her for a moment and then said, “No.”
“Bull,” Casey said.
The cabbie massaged his forehead with both palms. “I don’t remember.”
Nell relaxed her hands to her side, gun pointed at the floor. “Don’t you keep a log?”
“Not for Elena. Mr. Oleysniak wants her deliveries off da books. She pays cash only, directly da him.”
“Then Mr. O. gives you a monthly fee under the table,” she said.
Ed shrugged.
She activated the safety on the Glock, placed it back in her waistband and folded her arms. “Can you describe the place where you dropped her off?”
“No.”
“No you can’t?” Casey said. “Or no you won’t?”
“Both,” he said.
“In that case,” she said, taking her gun back out, “we’ll just charge you with felony drug trafficking.”
“What? Why? You have no evidence.”
“We talked to Tyrese,” Casey said. “He’s willing to testify.” Casey hadn’t asked him, but it seemed like the way to leverage information out of the cabbie.
Ed’s face drooped.
Nell picked up where Casey left off. “And if you were an accessory to a felony while a murder happens in the process, we’ll charge you with first-degree murder under the Felony Rule.”
Ed sat back in an old chair, rested his elbows on his knees and rubbed his temples.
“How did you find her?” Casey asked.
“I was waiting in my cab for an assignment because I had a scheduled pickup for Elena outside da stadium.”
Casey fell into sleep paralysis, fading in and out of hallucinations and reality. The stress had taken its toll on him. He watched Ed talk about Elena, then swore he saw him in a safari hat and khaki outfit, with a rifle, shooting at a black bear that lumbered through the door. Couldn’t be, he thought, and started to pull out of it, tried to move, couldn’t. Heard the bear’s roar, drifted again…trapped. Terrified. It sounded so real. Others had asked him if his hallucinations were entertaining. His answer: not for the one trapped in the condition, unable to affect his own destiny. Nothing was scarier than losing control.
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