The Cold Nowhere (14 page)

‘So what’s up, Chief?’ Stride asked.

K-2 scratched his big ears with his palms. ‘I was at a realtors cocktail party this evening. Half the Council was there. Leonard Keck pulled me aside. He wasn’t too happy with you.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘I guess he did a little shindig for his top salesmen on the
Frederick
, and you paid them a visit this morning. Sounds like some of his boys didn’t like your tone.’

Stride shrugged. ‘I don’t lose a lot of sleep worrying about what car dealers think of my tone.’

‘Oh, come on, Jon, you know it’s not that simple. What the hell were you up to?’

‘They brought prostitutes to the party. At least one of them was under-age.’

‘You can prove that?’ K-2 asked, frowning.

‘If I push hard enough, I think so. I take it you’re not anxious for me to push.’

‘Was Lenny there?’

‘He was at the party, but the story is he left before the girls arrived. Meanwhile, I’ve got a pimp driving around town today in a brand-new Leonard Keck Ford Fusion.’

To his credit, K-2 didn’t look happy. ‘Okay, you’re right, that smells funny. However, you know as well as I do that if we run with it, this will turn into an ugly pissing match with a bunch of lawyers. After we dink around for months, we still won’t get any charges to stick. All we’ll do is churn up a lot of media gossip, and we’ll make an enemy out of someone who can make our lives miserable.’

‘I know that,’ Stride said.

‘I’ll talk to Lenny. I’ll tell him to cool it. Okay? Meanwhile, you need to give me a heads up before you start messing around with the people who pay our salaries. That understood?’

‘I don’t like politicians who think they’re untouchable.’

‘What politician doesn’t think that? You may not like the game, Jon, but one of us has to play it. I know you think Lenny gets away with crap because we go fishing together, and maybe he does. That’s life. Get over it. Besides, cut the man a little slack. When Cindy died, Lenny was on the phone every day to see how you were doing. He knew what you were going through.’

‘I realize that. I’m grateful.’

‘Good. Glad we had this talk. Now let’s get back to you. You want to fill me in on what you’re really doing? I hear you have a young house guest.’

‘You hear?’

‘I corralled Maggie. She always knows what you’re up to. She didn’t want to rat you out, but I didn’t give her a choice. Besides, she’s not a big fan of this girl staying with you.’

‘That’s not her call. Or yours, sir. This is personal.’

K-2 leaned his elbows on Stride’s desk. ‘Personal? You think so? It’s personal until I read a headline about my lieutenant providing a bed for a sixteen-year-old prostitute. How’s that sound to you? Jesus, Jon, do you want to answer those kinds of questions?’

‘It’s complicated,’ Stride said.

‘Yeah, I know all about who this girl is and who her mother was. That doesn’t change anything.’

‘It does to me.’

‘You think I don’t remember Michaela Mateo? Of course, I do. Beautiful woman. Hell of a tragic case. You can feel bad about it if you want, but you didn’t screw anything up. The fact is, sometimes bad boys do bad things. You can’t always be there to stop it.’

‘I’m not going to let Michaela’s daughter wind up like her mother,’ Stride said. ‘She’s in danger.’

‘Is she? Someone’s out there stalking some little street girl? The whole thing sounds like a bad drug fantasy to me. Last fall, my neighbor called because her teenage son was out back with a shotgun.
He said a freaking
polar bear
was attacking the family dog. Kid was doped out on bath salts.’

‘I don’t think this is a drug case.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. If she’s messed up or abused, the best thing you can do is to get her out of your house and into the hands of county child protection services.’

‘I want to make sure she’s safe before I simply hand her over to the county,’ Stride said. ‘Before this girl Brandy ran, she confirmed that someone was looking for Cat in the graffiti graveyard. That’s my first corroboration that something more is going on here.’

‘Corroboration? Another teenager hooker? A girl who attacked you? She was just telling you what you wanted to hear.’

‘I don’t think so. I have a bad feeling about this.’

The chief sighed. ‘Look, Jon, you’re a good man, but you’ve had a bad year. We both know it. I’m not saying this to be a son of a bitch, but I’m not sure you can trust your gut right now.’

‘Maybe not, but that’s all I can do,’ Stride said.

K-2 stood up. ‘Fair enough. I learned a long time ago that it doesn’t do me any good to try to get a stubborn idea out of your head. All I’m saying is, you’re a cop, and I don’t see any crime here. I just see a smart girl who’s figured out how to get you under her thumb. Think about that, okay? There’s
no crime
.’

*

‘Didn’t I leave a light on?’ Kim asked Cat as they pulled into the driveway. The lakeside house on the Point was so dark that it was nearly invisible. Not a single light shone inside.

‘It was still light outside when we left,’ Cat said. ‘Maybe you forgot.’

The young computer programmer nodded, but she squinted at the house and chewed her lip. ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right.’

She parked the Hyundai and they both got out. Cat followed Kim inside the house, which felt like a mansion, with high ceilings and plush carpet that made her want to go barefoot. There
were delicate glass sculptures everywhere that looked as if they would shatter if you touched them. Immediately inside the foyer, a tight staircase with a wrought-iron railing wound like a corkscrew to the upstairs bedrooms. The rear wall of the staircase had tall windows looking out to the beach.

‘I can’t get over what a cool place this is,’ Cat said.

Kim laughed. ‘Yeah, it makes me and Bob feel rich.’

‘When do the owners get back?’

‘Next month sometime. That’s when we go back to our apartment in West Duluth. Kind of like Cinderella’s coach turning into a pumpkin, you know?’

‘Nothing good lasts, huh?’

‘Not some things,’ Kim agreed. She kicked off her sneakers; she was wearing thick black socks. ‘I’m going to make some coffee. You want anything? Pop or something?’

‘No, I’m fine.’

‘I’m stuffed,’ Kim said. ‘Man, that meatloaf is good.’

The kitchen smelled of fresh cookies. It gleamed with stainless steel appliances, and the countertops were black granite. Kim pulled a plastic jug of coffee from inside one of the cabinets and filled the carafe from the coffee maker under the faucet at the kitchen island. As she did, she popped a peanut butter cookie in her mouth from the cooling rack.

‘I thought you were stuffed,’ Cat said, smiling.

‘Dinner stuffed, not cookie stuffed.’

Cat stared through the kitchen’s bay window. The lake was out there, but she couldn’t see anything except her own reflection in the glass. When she leaned closer, she could barely make out the wooden floor of the deck, which was dusted with sand.

The coffee machine hissed and belched. Kim removed the glass pot, and a few drips sizzled as they fell. She poured coffee into a ceramic mug and replaced the pot, then she took a sip and licked her lips. ‘I work at night a lot, so I got used to caffeine in the
evenings. Bob has to grade papers and stuff, so we sit around and do our thing. I’d rather work than watch
Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
. ’Cause let me tell you, there’s nothing real about those chicks.’

Cat laughed.

Kim took another swallow of coffee, but then she put down her mug on the stone countertop. ‘Did you hear that?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘I thought I heard something upstairs,’ she said.

Cat shook her head. ‘I didn’t hear anything.’

Kim’s head swung toward the ceiling. She wandered into the hallway, eating another cookie. Her feet made imprints on the deep carpet. She stayed there, listening, as if there were rats overhead, scurrying between the floors. Cat hated rats.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘Sometimes Bob forgets to close the window and the wind blows stuff over. If anything’s broken, I’ll kill him.’

‘Maybe we should call Stride.’

‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ Kim said.

She finished the cookie, licked her lips, and marched toward the foyer. Her footfalls made a heavy thud as she jogged upstairs. Cat backed up into a corner of the kitchen with an odd sense of dread. Ice from the automatic machine dropped in the freezer, startling her. The coffee-maker kept spluttering. She eyed the door on her right that led outside to the cedar deck, with steps down to the thin strip of beach. When she looked outside again, she thought she saw footprints in the sand.

‘Kim?’ she called.

There was no answer from upstairs.

On the kitchen island, steam rose from Kim’s mug like a smoke signal. Near the sink she spotted an expensive block of knives with shiny black handles jutting from the slits in the wood. The largest knife was gone. The wide slash in the wood was empty. Cat thought to herself:
Did I steal it and not remember?
She reached into her boot,
but she had nothing hidden there. The comforting feel of a blade near her fingers was missing.

She slid one of the other knives out of the wooden block into her hand.

‘Kim?’ she called again.

Kim didn’t reply.

Cat tiptoed down the hallway. When she reached the foyer, she stared up through the twisted iron railing of the staircase at the hallway on the second floor. She saw doors and paintings and the black windows. No one was there.

‘Kim,’ she said again, but she whispered this time.

Noise groaned from above her. The floorboards wailed, as if a nail were being pounded into a hand. Cat jumped. She wanted to close her eyes but she kept them open, staring. She listened, and in her brain, she heard a voice. It was her mother’s voice, talking in her ear as she held her.

‘
Hide under the porch
,’ her mother told her. ‘
Hide under the porch, and do not come out, no matter what you hear, no matter who it is, no matter who calls you, do not come out, do not come out.
’

That was what Cat did that terrible night. No matter how loud the screams got, she hid, and she didn’t come out.

Now, as she waited for Kim, she heard another scream, loud and long and desperate. She knew that scream. It was the sound a person made when a knife violated their body over and over and over. The sound of agony. The sound of death. This wasn’t an echo; this wasn’t a warning from her mother’s soul.

This was real. This was happening over her head.

Kim’s ragged voice cried from above her, as if from heaven.

‘
Cat, run!
’

‘Sorry, boss,’ Maggie said.

Stride saw his partner’s pixie-like silhouette in the doorway. He’d just turned out the office light and slipped on his leather jacket to go home. He leaned back, propping himself against his desk. Maggie joined him in the shadows and pulled herself up to sit beside him.

‘Sorry for what?’ he asked, but it didn’t matter what she said. They were both sorry for things that had gone wrong between them.

‘K-2. I told him more than he needed to know.’

‘Forget it.’

Stride didn’t bother turning on the light. It felt normal to be with her in the dark. Throughout the winter mornings, before sunrise, they’d talked in bed. That was when they’d made love, too, as if it were better not to see the other’s eyes too clearly.

‘We need to talk,’ Maggie said.

‘About what?’

‘Cat.’

He knew something was wrong. He could hear it in her voice.

‘It’s Saturday night, Mags. Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be doing something with Ken McCarty?’

‘I should,’ she said. ‘He’s pissed at me, but he’s a cop. I told him I found some things that bothered me and he offered to go back to Minneapolis and do some digging.’

‘Digging into what?’ Stride asked.

‘Vincent Roslak.’

Stride frowned at the name. ‘Why him?’

‘You know why.’

‘Okay, sure,’ he acknowledged. ‘Roslak had a connection to the shelter, and he was stabbed to death.’

Maggie didn’t reply right away. He felt her awkwardness, as if she suddenly had to be careful with her words. ‘I checked with Brooke at The Praying Hands. Cat saw Roslak multiple times last year.’

Stride pushed himself off the desk and wandered to the window that looked out on the woods. His shoulder throbbed. He wished he was more surprised to hear the truth. ‘So exactly what do you want Ken to do in Minneapolis?’

‘I want him to talk to the detective who’s handling the case down there. I’m betting they never interviewed Cat, and they should.’

‘There’s no evidence that Cat was involved.’

‘Maybe that’s because nobody looked at her,’ Maggie said. ‘Fifty stab wounds? That sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it?’

‘That was Marty Gamble.’

‘Yeah, and Marty’s daughter seems pretty fond of knives.’

Stride kept staring out the window. They’d both been briefed by the Minneapolis cops about Roslak’s murder. He pawed through the facts in his mind. ‘Roslak was killed last summer, right?’

‘Eight months ago. July third.’ Maggie always remembered details.

‘He left Duluth four months before his death. Closed his office, sold his house, rented a cheap apartment down in the Cities. The boys in Minneapolis don’t think he ever came back. He had no credit card receipts here in town. He severed his Duluth connections long before he was killed. If you’re a woman up here, why would you wait so long before going after him?’

‘I don’t know. I hope there’s no connection at all.’

Stride sat down at his desk. He booted up his computer and the monitor cast a ghostly glow in the dark room. He tapped the
keyboard and brought up a photo of Vincent Roslak from the
Star Tribune
report on his murder. The psychologist was young, only thirty-four years old when he was killed. He had jet black hair, short on the sides and curly and gelled on top. He had a lean, narrow face, with long sideburns and a dark beard line. His eyes were cool blue, wolfish and smart. He had what Stride considered a snake charmer’s smile: utterly false and oddly irresistible.