Alter Ego

10

Dean Casperson’s rental house in Congdon Park felt austere and Gothic, full of chimneys, gables, and Tudor crossbeams. It was hidden among two acres of forested land, secure behind a brick wall that ringed the property. In winter, the trees gave up some of their secrets. Stride could see outbuildings and a tennis court beyond the main house, which was built in two perpendicular wings. The estate was a hand-me-down from Duluth’s early days, when the riches from timber, mining, and shipping had created an upper class of Northland millionaires.

A gate blocked the driveway, and a private guard stood watch in the cold. Stride handed him his identification, and the guard used a remote control to swing open the gate and let Stride drive his Expedition inside. As he parked and got out, he stared northward through the web of trees. From there, he could just barely see the windows of the attic room where Haley Adams had zeroed in on the estate through the lens of her telescope.

He rang the bell and was surprised when Dean Casperson answered the door personally.

“Lieutenant, it’s a pleasure to see you again.” Casperson waved him inside. “Would you like some breakfast? I just finished myself, but I can have something made up for you. And we have coffee, of course.”

“No, I’m fine, thanks,” Stride replied. “Are you filming today?”

“No, Aimee Bowe is on set, not me. She’s doing her scenes in the box. She’s constantly improvising, so we’ll see how long that takes. Getting inside the emotional state of those women is no small task.”

“I’m sure.”

Casperson beckoned him toward the back of the house. “I know you’re busy, but come with me. There’s somebody I want you to meet.”

The actor led him through a maze of rooms. Everything was built in stone and dark wood and was furnished as if time had stood still for a century. The heat had been cranked to warm the house, but the high ceilings and old windows couldn’t keep winter out entirely. Casperson was dressed in pastels, including emerald green slacks and a yellow golf shirt. He looked out of place here. Or maybe, Stride thought, the house looked out of place around Casperson.

The maze led them to a large den with no windows. A chandelier hung over an elm-wood billiard table that probably cost as much as Stride’s truck. Built-in bookshelves lined one wall. Another wall featured oil paintings from Duluth’s early history. Casperson went to a marble bar and poured a mug of coffee and held up the pot in Stride’s direction. Stride shook his head again.

The room was empty, but Casperson took a remote control and pointed it at a seventy-inch television nestled among the bookshelves. He turned on the television, and Stride found himself staring at an outdoor patio that looked out on a private boat dock and an inland waterway. A woman sat at a glass-and-marble table in a floral bikini, with a white lace jacket over her shoulders. She was drinking coffee, too, and soaking up the sunshine.

“Mo and I like to have breakfast together every day,” Casperson explained. “It doesn’t matter if she’s home in Captiva and I’m a thousand miles away. Mo, this is Lieutenant Stride. Lieutenant, meet my wife.”

“It’s a pleasure, Mrs. Casperson,” Stride said.

She was practically life-size on the screen, and Stride felt an odd impulse to reach out to shake her hand.

“Oh, I’m Mo, please,” she replied with studied politeness. “Everyone calls me Mo. I feel as if I know you, Lieutenant. I did my research on you before I suggested to Dean that he accept the role. You’re an interesting man.”

Stride didn’t know what to say to that.

He knew that Mo had to be about his own age or even older, because she’d been married to Dean Casperson since the two of them were teenagers. Their relationship was legendary in Hollywood. Even so, the bikini and the 4K screen hid nothing, and Mo didn’t look a day over forty. She had thick honey-colored hair with a trace of dampness. Her brown eyes shot through the screen like arrows. She had a hooked nose and a sharp chin. Her skin had an all-over golden tan, and she showed no discomfort at all in displaying her toned body in front of a stranger. Like her husband, she conveyed absolute self-assurance and control.

“I was especially impressed with your handling of the terrible marathon incident last summer,” Mo went on.

“That was the work of a lot of good people,” he replied. “Not me.”

Mo narrowed one eye as she smiled at him. It made him feel as if he’d fallen into a trap. “See, that’s what impressed me, Lieutenant. You never took any credit. I always tell Dean that if he forgets to be humble about what he’s accomplished, that’s the day I’ll divorce him. None of us walk our path alone.”

“I agree.”

Casperson broke in with a laugh as if the conversation had gotten too serious. “See what I live with, Lieutenant? Now make him jealous, my dear, and tell him what the temperature is in Captiva.”

“Eight-five degrees,” Mo announced with a wink. She squared her shoulders as if emphasizing her swimsuit and everything beneath it.

“Well, that’s about ninety degrees warmer than here in Duluth,” Stride replied. “You made the right call not coming along on this particular film shoot.”

Mo shrugged. “Oh, please, I never bother with filming. That’s Dean’s life. There’s plenty in our business and charitable interests to keep me busy when he’s away. Which reminds me, my dear, I have bad news. Tiffany Ford called. I’m afraid Tommy passed away yesterday. She wanted to be sure you knew.”

Stride watched grief darken Dean Casperson’s face.

“Poor kid,” he said. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Of course. I’m very sorry, I have to run. We’ll talk later.”

Casperson nodded without saying anything more to his wife.

“Oh, one thing, Lieutenant,” Mo called to Stride. “If you don’t mind my asking, how is your daughter? Or rather, the teenage girl who lives with you. Chris Leipold told me there was a regrettable incident at the party with Jungle Jack. I believe Dean had already left at that point. I want you to know I’ll speak with Jack myself and express how disappointed I am in his behavior. He’s a dear longtime family friend, but sometimes he’s less than careful about where he plies his charms.”

“She’s fine,” Stride replied evenly, “but I appreciate your concern.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

“What happened?” Dean asked his wife. “I didn’t hear about this.”

“Nothing to concern yourself with, my dear. It’s just Jack being Jack in the usual way. My regards to you, Lieutenant. I hope I’ll have a chance to meet you in person someday. Although, to be honest, I’d rather it be down here than up there.”

She smiled, waved at both of them, and then cut off the connection.

Stride found himself feeling oddly intimidated by Mo Casperson. She was beautiful. She’d said all the right things. Yet he stared at the blank screen and felt as if he’d been threatened. It wasn’t simply that she knew about Jungle Jack’s behavior with Cat or that she’d made sure that Stride knew Jack was a close family friend. It was the other, throwaway line that he remembered.

Or rather, the teenage girl who lives with you.

She’d made a point of making it clear that she knew Cat wasn’t his daughter. It made him wonder what else she knew about Cat. And he suspected that was precisely why she’d said it.

Stride turned away from the blank screen and realized that Dean Casperson hadn’t said anything more since the call. He was distracted, holding the coffee mug near his lips but not drinking from it. The actor’s blue eyes had a faraway look of loss that Stride knew very well.

“Your wife mentioned someone who passed away?” he said.

Casperson looked at him as if he’d forgotten that Stride was there. “What? Oh, yes, I often do things for Make-A-Wish. This eight-year-old boy with cancer, Tommy Ford, wanted to be in a movie. So I arranged for him to have a little role in the last film I did. A scene with me. It’s not out yet, but I managed to get an early copy to his parents so they could all watch it together. I’ve tried to FaceTime with Tommy every month to see how he is.”

“That’s a very gracious thing to do,” Stride said.

“Oh, how could I not? If you don’t give back on the things you get in life, what’s the point?”

Stride could see that Casperson was genuinely affected by the boy’s death. He watched as Casperson idly rolled balls across the billiard table and then grabbed a cue and began shooting them one by one into the various pockets. His mouth was grim. His aim was perfect, and the crack of the cue with each shot was angry. He acted, again, as if he were alone.

“I don’t mean to bother you at a difficult moment,” Stride said, “but I do have a few questions.”

Casperson looked up blankly. “Questions?” Then he put down the cue and focused. “Of course, sorry. Please, go ahead.”

“Did you have some kind of party here at the house last Saturday?” Stride asked.

“Saturday? Yes, probably. I don’t pay a lot of attention to individual days on location, but I try to get the cast and crew together as often as I can. It brings everyone closer, which makes the process go more smoothly.”

“Who was here?”

“Honestly, I have no idea. Most of the film people and probably some locals. I don’t get involved in any of that. Usually I put in an appearance, have a drink, and then go upstairs to read.”

“Did anything unusual happen at the party?” Stride asked.

“Not that I’m aware of. Why?”

Stride pulled his phone from his pocket and made his way to the photograph of John Doe. “Does this man look familiar to you? Do you know him?”

Casperson peered at the screen. “No. Chris showed me the same photo, but I’ve never seen him before. Pretty gruesome, whoever it is.”

“Someone saw him here at the party on Saturday,” Stride said.

“Here? That man? Well, I didn’t see him myself, but that doesn’t mean anything. Who is he?”

“We don’t know.”

“Then why are you interested in him?”

“We believe he was using a stolen identity,” Stride said without giving more details.

“Well, I’m sorry I can’t help. Is that all, Lieutenant?”

“There’s one other thing,” Stride told him. “This may be unpleasant, but the woman who calls herself Haley Adams also doesn’t appear to be who she said she was. And we believe she’s been spying on you.”

Casperson leaned on the pool cue. “Spying?”

“She had a telescope focused on the master bedroom upstairs.”

Casperson took a step backward in surprise. He twirled the cue in his fingers and then chalked it. He didn’t say anything for a while. “Well, just when you think people can’t stoop any lower,” he murmured.

“Did you have any idea what she was doing?” Stride asked.

“None. She seemed like a nice young woman.”

“Forgive the question, Mr. Casperson, but in looking into your bedroom, would she have seen anything?”

Casperson shrugged. “Me reading Tippi Hedren’s autobiography? Tippi and Hitchcock. Wow.”

“Nothing else?”

“That’s as exciting as it gets around here, Lieutenant.”

“Have there been any problems on the set? Any issues with the tabloids or the paparazzi?”

“No more than usual. The tabloids don’t bother me and Mo too much. If you don’t want a dog to bite you, you keep it fed. We give them interviews. Exclusives. Candid photos. In return, they don’t run stories about transgender Venusian mermaids swimming in our Captiva pool.”

“Well, that sounds smart,” Stride said.

“It’s self-protection. Anything else?”

Stride removed the page of Florida driver’s license photos from his pocket. “I wonder if you could take a look at these pictures and let me know if any of these women look familiar to you.”

Casperson found reading glasses in his back pocket and positioned them at the end of his nose. He eyed the pictures one by one. He noticed the names, too. “These are all Florida women named Haley Adams?”

“Yes. Are any of them the Haley Adams you knew on the set?”

Casperson took a look at them again and shook his head. “No. At least I don’t think so. Oddly, I was never entirely sure what Haley really looked like. She looked different to me whenever I saw her.”

“What about the last picture on the page? It’s a woman named Haley Adams who lived in Fort Myers. Do you recognize her? Even if it wasn’t from the set.”

Casperson’s eyes flitted to the page, but his review looked perfunctory this time. There was no reaction on his face. For a chameleon like Casperson, the lack of expression looked out of character. “No. Sorry.”

“Are you sure about that?” Stride asked.

“I am.”

Stride took the paper back and filed it in his pocket again. “Well, thank you for your time, Mr. Casperson.”

“Of course. I’ll walk you out. You might get lost in this place.”

Stride followed Casperson on the twisting route back through the house, and when they reached the foyer, the actor pulled open the front door, letting in a frigid blast of winter air. Neither of the men shivered.

“Oh, one quick question,” Stride said as he stepped onto the porch. “I’m not very good with my Florida geography. Where is Fort Myers in relation to Captiva?”

Casperson smiled, but his eyes looked as cold as the Duluth morning.

That was the moment Stride realized they were going to be enemies, not friends.

“It’s close, Lieutenant,” Casperson told him. “Very close indeed.”