The Cold Nowhere (24 page)

She yanked her tank top down to hide her stomach, and she crossed her arms over her chest. Her legs were pressed together. Her hair was strewn across her face. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘What is it?’

‘You’re not my father, are you?’

He stared at her. ‘Cat, what are you talking about?’

‘I don’t know. I just wondered.’

‘You know I’m not. I didn’t even meet your mother until you were four years old.’

‘Yeah. Okay.’

He frowned. ‘Why on earth would you ask me something like that?’

‘I don’t know. It’s stupid. Everybody said I should have had a better father. There are lots of days when I wish I’d had a father like you.’ Cat wiped her face. ‘You did sleep with my mother, though. Didn’t you?’

‘Catalina is asleep,’ Michaela whispered. ‘Finally. That girl never wants to miss a second of life.’

‘It’s almost Christmas. What kid can sleep then?’

‘That’s true. Thank you for bringing a gift for her. That’s sweet. It will be a nice surprise.’ She closed the door to the girl’s bedroom softly, leaving Catalina inside. ‘Can you stay for a glass of wine?’

‘Sure.’

‘It’s not very good,’ she apologized.

‘Don’t worry about it.’

They returned to the small living room, which was decorated with Christmas crafts that her daughter had made. Cotton-ball Santas. Angels in crayon. A popsicle stick crèche. The space smelled of spruce from the twinkling tree in the corner and sugar from freshly made cookies. Strains of holiday music played on the boom box, its volume barely audible. He recognized ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear’. The light in the room was dimmed.

She poured two glasses of Chardonnay from a box. They clinked a toast and smiled at each other. Her face glowed.

‘You look happy,’ he said.

‘Do I? I am happy. I feel safe, and I have you to thank.’

‘I don’t think Marty will bother you again,’ Stride told her. ‘Every one of my cops is on the lookout for him. If he so much as jaywalks, I’ll make sure his parole is revoked. So hopefully he’ll be a good boy.’

Michaela shrugged her shoulders. ‘Nothing lasts with Marty. Sooner or later he gets drunk, and bad things happen. I’m just enjoying the peace for now. It’s a good thing.’

They stood next to each other by the window that looked out on the woods. She was close to him. When he sipped his wine, it rolled through his head like an ocean wave. He realized she was looking at him, and he looked back. Her face was golden and perfect. Through the shadows, he saw something in her eyes. Love. Need. Desire. It affected him. Her lips parted in a sensual way that asked him to kiss her. Her arms slid around his waist. She got on tiptoes and pressed her lips against his cheek, and then she kissed his lips, too, and her face lingered there. Her perfume intoxicated him. Her mouth was warm and erotic. He kissed her back, but as quickly as it began, he remembered himself and gently pushed her away.

‘Michaela,’ he said.

She looked down at the floor. ‘No. Say nothing, please.’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t—’

‘Of course not. You are married. You have a wonderful wife. I’m ashamed of myself. That was unforgivable.’

‘If things were different,’ he said.

‘They’re not. You don’t owe me any kind words. I don’t deserve them.’

She turned on her heel and marched to the kitchen. He watched her pour her wine in the sink. She made the lights in the room brighter. It made him realize that the moment wasn’t spontaneous. She’d planned it and wanted it. This was a seduction. If he’d said yes, they would be making love now.

Their eyes met. She knew what he was thinking, and she hooded her
face in humiliation. He couldn’t tell her what was in his heart. He couldn’t admit how close he’d come to undressing her and laying her down on the floor beneath him.

His phone rang like a warning from the real world. It was Maggie. He answered it and listened and gave a terse reply. When he hung up, he said, ‘I have to go.’

‘Of course,’ Michaela said.

‘There’s been a burglary in the Congdon Parkway. A woman was shot and killed.’

‘In the sacred season? That’s terrible. Go.’

‘I feel like I should say something.’

‘No, you shouldn’t. It would be easier if you said nothing.’ She waved him away.

He nodded at her and left through the front door, and he felt a stab of loneliness on her behalf. Flurries of snow had begun to fall, streaking like stars through the porch light. Inside, the music got louder, playing a piano solo of ‘Silent Night’. He heard Michaela singing the words in a broken voice.

*

Stride was alone again. Cat was back in the other bedroom.

He picked up his BlackBerry and reread Serena’s message.
Did you sleep with Michaela?

He wondered if she was still awake, like him. This time, he keyed in a reply.

No, I didn’t.

He was about to send the message when he added:

It’s worse.

‘Hotcakes and sausage,’ Steve Garske guessed as he whiffed the air. ‘Right?’

Maggie looked at him in annoyed frustration. ‘What?’

‘Your breakfast.’

‘Oh. Yeah, you’re right.’

‘They make those sausages from recycled tires, you know.’

‘Well, they’re still great.’

‘One of these days I’m going to cure you of your McDonald’s addiction. Didn’t you see
Super Size Me
?’

Maggie spread the flaps of her long coat and displayed her sticklike physique. ‘Do I look super-sized?’

‘No, but you can’t be forty and eat like you did at thirty.’

‘I’m not forty.’

‘Rounding error,’ he said with a wink. ‘For all intents and purposes, you are now middle-aged.’

‘I didn’t come here to talk about my age or my eating habits. And by the way, fuck you, Steve. Can we get back to Cat and this video?’

‘Okay, but I’m not a shrink,’ Steve reminded her. ‘Why come to me about this?’

Maggie paced in the examining room. It was early, and the clinic in Lakeside wasn’t open yet, but she knew Steve arrived before any of his staff to run through patient files ahead of his appointments. He was as reliable and predictable as a Swiss watch. He had his long legs propped on his computer desk, and he followed her with his eyes as she bounced back and forth between the door and the pelvic stirrups mounted on the patient table.

‘Because you know Stride,’ she said. ‘Because you were there that night. You remember what he was like.’

‘Sure. I drove him home. He was devastated.’

‘I’ve never seen him like that at another crime scene,’ she said.

She could still see Stride’s face. It was one of those moments when she hated having a memory for every detail in her past. She’d arrived, gun drawn, and found him on the sofa, with Cat wrapped in his arms, her face buried in his neck. His eyes were open. She saw fury and helplessness there. He made no attempt to separate himself from his emotions, the way they always did to survive as cops. Every one of the forty-one knife wounds in Michaela had sunk into his own chest.

She left him as she examined the bedroom. Outside, she could hear the sirens and the splash of mud and snow as vehicle after vehicle arrived at the scene. She found Marty propped against the wall, as if he’d been staring at what he’d done when he put the gun to his temple. The gun had fallen from his limp hand, and the room still smelled of burnt powder from the shot. Only inches away, on her back, was Michaela. She lay in her own blood, like a girl floating peacefully on the surface of a lake. She’d worn a white nightgown to bed, and it was now as red as Christmas candy.

There was no mystery about what had happened. Or so she thought.

‘Michaela was in love with Stride,’ Steve said. ‘I’m sure that made it worse for him.’

‘Did he tell you that?’

‘Stride? He would never say a word about that, but I saw it in Michaela. It was obvious how she felt.’

‘Do you think it was reciprocated?’

Steve shook his head. ‘Come on. Jonathan Stride never looked at another woman other than Cindy. Even so, Michaela had a gentleness about her that was very attractive. Plus, she was a mother, and that was a time when Stride and Cindy were trying
to have kids without any success. I’m sure his feelings were complicated. He probably felt as much attachment to Cat as he did to Michaela.’

‘He still does. That’s what scares me.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t put much faith in anything Cat told Roslak under hypnosis. It’s notoriously unreliable.’

Maggie knew that was true, but she didn’t like what she saw in Stride’s face when he talked about Cat. Guilt. Regret. Anger. ‘You didn’t see this girl. She looked like she was really reliving that night.’

‘I’ll say it again, Maggie. You can’t rely on what Cat said in therapy. Obviously, she blocked out everything from that night. Her brain doesn’t want to remember it. If a psychologist starts ripping open doors that she wants to keep closed, she may invent things that make the memory safe. Hearing her father kill himself after murdering her mother? Knowing she’s utterly alone in the world? That’s not something a little girl can process. If she can put someone else in the room, someone she trusts, maybe that’s the only way she can handle it.’

She shrugged. ‘I get it. You’re probably right.’

Steve dropped his feet on the floor with a heavy thud. ‘What’s the alternative? Stride killed Marty? We both know he’s incapable of doing anything like that.’

‘Incapable? I’m not so sure. There’s a lot more to Stride than people ever see. I’ve been there when he was out of control.’

Steve eyed her with a stare so direct it made her uncomfortable. ‘Are we talking about ten years ago, or are we talking about this winter?’

‘That has nothing to do with this.’

‘No? Would you be saying these things if you and he hadn’t crossed a line that you wish you could uncross?’

‘I’m trying to be objective,’ Maggie insisted. ‘Back then, we all thought it was obvious what happened. Marty had a history of
violence toward Michaela. He broke in, killed her, and blew his head off. End of story. Nobody was surprised.’

‘So?’

‘So his blood alcohol level was .24. That’s almost catatonic.’

‘He was able to kill his ex-wife despite being drunk. He certainly could have pulled the trigger on himself.’

‘I know, but he was slumped against the wall, covered in blood, so drunk he couldn’t even stand up. How hard would it have been for someone to take his gun and kill him and make it look like a suicide?’

‘Wouldn’t your forensics team have found something?’

‘Not necessarily. If you don’t look for something, chances are you won’t find it. Nobody was searching for evidence that this was anything but what it looked like. A murder-suicide.’

‘That’s what it was,’ Steve said.

‘Yeah, I always thought so, too.’ She said it, but there was no passion in her voice. Steve heard her doubts.

‘What are you not telling me?’ he asked her.

Maggie leaned her chin on her fist. ‘I never said anything, but even back then, I wondered. Honestly, that’s why I called you to get Stride out of there. I was worried he might – say something. Admit something.’

‘Why would you think that?’

‘The day before Michaela’s murder, I went to see Dory,’ Maggie said. ‘Stride asked me to visit her. Michaela thought Marty had been harassing her.’

‘What did she tell you?’

‘Not much. She was pretty far gone on drugs. She’d just bought a fresh supply and gone through most of it. She was crying, going on and on about Marty, what a bastard he was, how much she hated him. She said Marty came to see her. He was still obsessed with Michaela.’

‘Obviously.’

‘Dory told him to stay away from Michaela because she was having an affair with Stride. She said Stride would kill him if he got close to her.’

‘Did you tell Stride about this?’

‘Sure I did. He said it wasn’t true. He said there was no affair.’

‘Did you believe him?’

‘Back then? Yes. Now? I don’t know. Anyway, even if they weren’t involved, Stride was in the middle of a triangle, whether he liked it or not. When he walked into that bedroom and found Michaela’s body, he was going to feel responsible for what happened. The only question is whether Marty was alive or dead when he arrived.’

*

Church bells.

At one point during the session between Cat and Roslak, Stride thought he heard a burst of church bells chiming in the background, and it was jarring to hear something sacred echoing in the midst of something evil. In disgust, he turned off the DVD player in his office. Maggie sat in his guest chair, watching his face. He hadn’t watched the video itself, not when it meant seeing Cat completely under this man’s control. He’d simply sat in his chair and listened with his eyes closed to Roslak taking the girl apart question by question.

‘Vincent Roslak,’ he murmured. ‘Now there’s a guy who got what was coming to him.’

‘I think Cat lied to you about their relationship. They sounded like lovers.’

Stride nodded. ‘She told me about it last night.’

‘What did she say?’

Stride leaned forward on his desk and folded his hands together. ‘She said she was in love with him. She was devastated when he left town. She said she wanted to kill him. She also said she didn’t.’

‘She’s a prime suspect, boss. I’d like to go down there and check out the crime scene in Roslak’s apartment for myself.’

‘What will that accomplish?’ Stride asked.

‘I’d like to know whether this video was filmed in Duluth or Minneapolis. Cat said she never saw Roslak again after he left town. If that’s not true, we have a big problem.’

‘Cat didn’t kill anyone. I’m more concerned with who’s trying to kill
her
. And who murdered two other people up here. Did you find the stolen Charger yet?’

‘No.’

‘Well, find it,’ he snapped. ‘That’s your top priority right now, not a murder that belongs with the Minneapolis cops.’

Maggie saluted him sarcastically. ‘Yes, sir. Should I wave my magic wand? Exactly what do you want me to do, boss? We’ve got BOLOs out all over the state.’

‘Sorry. I realize that. We have two murders, and we have
nothing
. I’m frustrated.’