Funeral for a Friend

30

Stride watched branches of lightning erupt over the lake like ribbons of fire, followed by a deafening boom of thunder. The clouds opened up; rain poured down, hammering the roof of his Expedition. The grayness of dusk in the sky had turned as black as night. His truck was parked on the sidewalk near the bay water. The immense Duluth convention center was on his left, and when he looked up at the tall windows of the ballroom, he could see the silhouettes of people staring out at the storm.

“Maggie’s on her way to talk to Adam Halka,” he told Serena. “Maybe we’ll finally get some answers.”

Serena didn’t say anything for a long time. Her face was dark, like the evening sky, and she stared at the rain as if under a spell. “I don’t know. It was thirty years ago, Jonny. Are there really any answers to get? Say we’re right. Say Andrea was actually raped by Adam Halka, not Devin. We still can’t touch him. The statute of limitations expired long ago.”

“We can get him if he killed Ned Baer,” Stride said. “Andrea and I weren’t the only ones who knew that Ned was out at the Deeps that night. Adam knew it, too.”

Serena nodded, but she looked distracted.

“What is it?” Stride asked.

“Even if we tell Andrea what we think, she won’t believe it. She’s certain it was Devin Card. Short of Adam admitting what happened — which he isn’t likely to do — we’re not going to change her mind.”

“But Alice said it’s possible that Andrea got it wrong.”

“She did, but she also said it was very unlikely, particularly if we’re not talking about a stranger rape. I mean, Andrea knew Adam. He’d been dating her sister for years. Adam and Devin look nothing alike. And Andrea specifically said she was making out with Devin, and he was the one who took her upstairs. It doesn’t add up. I just don’t see her blocking out one face and putting in another. If she was making out with her sister’s ex-boyfriend, she’d sure as hell remember it.”

“Well, let’s wait and see what Adam says to Maggie.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Stride hesitated before saying anything else. His instinct was to let it go, but he knew that his instincts sometimes led him down bad alleys when it came to emotion. “Do you still see Alice?” he asked. “I mean, do you still go to her for therapy?”

“Sometimes.”

“Are you having problems?”

“I’ll always have problems, Jonny. These things don’t get cured.”

“I mean problems with us.”

Her fingers reached out and curled around his hand. She took a long time to reply. “I don’t think so.”

“That’s not a rousing vote of confidence,” Stride said.

“Well, I don’t think I’m the one who’s struggling,” she replied, looking at him on the other side of the truck. “You tell me something, Jonny. Are you happy?”

“With you? Yes.”

“I mean with everything. With life.”

Stride had no idea how to answer that kind of question. He tried to find a way to put how he felt into words, but that had never been his strength. “I had to change my idea of what happiness was after Cindy died. You know that. No matter what I did, there would always be a dark cloud. I’ve had to make peace with that. But you make me happy. So does Cat.”

“And the job?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’ve gotten up almost every day of my life and being a cop has been my whole identity. But lately, I stare in the mirror, and the person I think I am isn’t the person who’s staring back at me. It’s someone different. Does that make any sense?”

“It does,” Serena said.

“I’m sorry. I should have told you about this sooner.”

“Yes, you should’ve.” She added, “Have you talked to Cat about it?”

“She dragged it out of me.”

“Of course, she did. Sometimes I envy how that girl can get you to open up.”

“I wasn’t trying to keep anything from you. I promise.”

She nodded. “I know that.”

“I think Cat has a crush on Brayden, by the way.”

“Well, he’s cute, I’ll give her that. Do you think we need to be concerned?”

“Cat’s going to make her own mistakes, regardless of what we say.”

“What about Brayden?” Serena asked.

“I trust him.”

“Are you sure? I admit, I wondered what they were doing up on Hawk Ridge together. It’s kind of a romantic spot.”

“I know. I wondered that, too. But Guppo says Brayden’s not a player. Not like some of the young cowboys on the force. He’s serious. Comes with some tough family issues, but worked hard to get past them. I think we have to respect that and hope he’s mature enough to make the right choice.”

“Okay.”

Serena pulled down the visor in the Expedition and opened up the mirror, with barely enough light to cast a reflection. Her hair was damp and mussed, and she used a brush from the glove compartment to comb it out. She always frowned when she did that, and Stride wondered how she could see anything in her face that wasn’t perfect. Because that was what he saw. But then he noticed Serena stop, put down the brush, and stare into the darkness of the mirror. He could see something working itself out behind her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She flipped up the visor and twisted around in the seat. Something new was in her face. A quiet, intense revelation. “The person you’re looking at isn’t the person you think it is. It’s someone different.”

“What?”

“That’s what you said about yourself, Jonny.”

“Okay.”

“Maybe that’s what happened to Andrea,” Serena said.

“I don’t understand.”

She hesitated, as if studying the pieces in a puzzle and trying to make them fit. “Andrea says she was making out with Devin Card at the party, and the two of them went upstairs to the bedroom together. There’s no way she could be wrong about that. She wouldn’t have mistaken Adam for Devin.”

“That means Devin is the one who assaulted her,” Stride concluded.

“Well, maybe not. What if it happened this way? Andrea’s making out with Devin, and Adam is in the house, too. Watching them. He’s pissed, upset, furious with Denise. He’d love to get back at her for dumping him. He sees Andrea and Devin go upstairs together, and a while later, Devin comes back down alone.”

“Why?”

“Because Andrea told him to stop. Maybe that’s what he did. He stopped. He left. Then Andrea went and threw up in the sink, and she came back and passed out on the bed. But if Adam saw Devin come back alone, he knew that meant Andrea was up there by herself. His ex-girlfriend’s sister was all alone in the bedroom. So he goes upstairs and finds her passed out drunk. The room is dark. He rapes her. She wakes up in the middle, but she’s still completely out of it, and she doesn’t even realize that Devin is gone and someone else is in the room with her. Her brain never puts it together. Years later, all she knows is that she was raped, and Devin was the one who took her upstairs. She never knew that Adam took his place.”

Stride frowned. “You could be right.”

“Now flash forward to the accusation seven years ago. Ned told you he had a witness who saw Andrea and Devin together, right? Maybe the witness was Adam. He tells Ned that he saw Andrea go up to the bedroom with Devin Card. What better way to get a little payback against Peter and Devin than by ruining Devin’s career? Except then Adam starts to get nervous. If it all comes out — if he’s the witness — people may start asking questions. Maybe someone saw something or remembers something. Maybe Andrea’s memory will start coming back when she sees his name. So Adam realizes he can’t have Ned publish that story.”

“He follows Ned to the Deeps. He kills him.”

“Exactly.”

Stride stared up at the bright windows in the convention center. He could see the people inside, but he couldn’t see any faces. The rain sheeted down, harder than ever. “We need to talk to Andrea before she gets up on that stage,” he said. “Once she tells her story, there’s no going back.”

Andrea could feel the pounding of her heart. She found it hard to breathe. She stood outside the Harbor Side ballroom, surrounded by hundreds of people pushing and shoving around her, and she couldn’t move. Overlapping voices rang in her ears. Supporters carried signs. So did the protesters. They shouted and jeered at each other, and guards had to keep them apart.

“Ma’am?”

Andrea blinked in confusion when she heard a voice calling to her. Then she spotted a young woman at one of the check-in tables near the ballroom doors. She couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. The woman wore a Devin Card button on her T-shirt, and the sight of Devin’s smiling, arrogant face brought all of Andrea’s anger back.

“Ma’am, are you planning to ask a question tonight?” the woman asked.

“I... I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Well, that’s okay,” she told her. “Just you know, it doesn’t matter whether you plan to vote for Devin or not. The Congressman wants questions from all of his constituents, no matter what side they’re on.”

“All right.”

“The town hall will start in about an hour. Find a place inside anywhere you can.”

“Okay.”

“Would you like a button, too?”

“No!” Andrea snapped, way too loudly. People around her stopped and looked. “No, I’m an independent.”

“That’s fine. Like I said, everybody’s welcome.”

“Thank you.”

Andrea felt herself floating as she headed for the ballroom doors, practically carried along by the surge of the crowd. Inside, she wanted to cover her ears because of all the singing, shouting, and chanting. There was hardly a square inch free on the beige carpet, which was decorated with images of fall leaves. The curving windows showed the darkness outside, and rain pounded against the glass like machine gun fire. Lightning sparked almost continuously, causing a constant rumble of thunder that buzzed through her entire body.

She squeezed forward into the room, excusing herself as she went past dozens of people. She wanted to be right near the stage. She wanted to be close enough to see Devin’s face. To stare into his eyes.

She wanted him to see her.

A microphone for the people who planned to ask questions had been mounted on a stand immediately in front of the stage. A velvet rope surrounded it, carving out a space for each person to come and introduce themselves. Not even ten feet away, up on the elevated platform, was another microphone, this one for Devin Card.

They would be face to face, but he would still be looking down at her.

Still controlling her. Still on top of her.

She needed to purge that image from her mind once and for all.

Andrea staked out her place near the microphone and resisted every attempt by others to dislodge her. She wasn’t going anywhere. She found herself watching every inch of the stage, wondering when it would all begin. When would she see him for the first time? When would he approach the microphone? There were steps on the far left that led off the stage and through the ballroom doors to the corridor. There were steps on the far right near the dark windows. Congressional staff walked back and forth, talking to each other and whispering into radios.

She imagined what they were saying.

“Ma’am?” another volunteer asked her as she held her ground near the velvet rope. He was a kid, too, hardly out of his teens. He wore a Devin Card T-shirt — again that awful, smiling face taunting her — and he held a clipboard and had a headset curled around his ear.

“Ma’am, are you planning to ask a question tonight?”

“Yes,” Andrea replied. “Yes, I have a question for the Congressman.”