The Cold Nowhere

23

Stride recognized the tattoos on the girl’s skin and the rainbow streaks in her hair. He also remembered her frozen eyes, which were wide open and as crazy-wild in death as they’d been in her short life. Even now, she looked ready to leap to her feet and run away with a wild laugh. He hated to feel relief at any victim of a crime, but his heart felt so light that it climbed into his throat.

The dead girl on the floor of the DECC was not Cat. It was Brandy Eastman.

She lay outside the doors of the arena commissary, her head propped at an obscene angle against the wall. Her forehead was split in two, the result of a blow from a fourteen-inch pipe wrench that sat in the lake of blood underneath her skull. Nearby, outside the reach of her hands, he saw a knife, with a handle that matched the expensive Victorinox set in the house where Kim Dehne had been killed. The knife showed no evidence of blood.

‘Is this the girl who attacked you?’ Maggie asked.

‘That’s her.’

‘Looks like she planned to hide here for the weekend. Guppo found some provisions in a banquet room on the other side of the kitchen. Blanket, cigarettes, Red Bull, candy, empty BK Whopper wrapper.’

‘Are we absolutely sure the Whopper wrapper was empty when he found it?’ Stride asked.

Maggie grinned. Sergeant Guppo had a waistline the size of a snow tire. ‘So he claims.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yeah, paraphernalia from The Last Place on Earth.’

Stride frowned with disgust. The Last Place on Earth was a downtown Duluth head shop with the resilience of a radiated cockroach. The police and the City Council had tried without success to shut it down for years, and all the while the store rang up millions in sales. The owner liked to boast that urine cleaners for drug tests had bought him a vacation home in Mexico.

‘So what do you think happened?’ Stride asked.

‘It looks like Brandy came through the doors and got surprised. Someone brained her, and the blow drove her backward against the wall.’

‘Hard to surprise that girl.’

Maggie shrugged. ‘The lights were off. She would have been practically blind. She never knew what hit her.’

‘Evidence?’

‘Not much. We’ll run tests on the wrench, but I don’t think the murderer brought it from outside. We found tools near one of the truck entries.’

Stride gestured at the floor. ‘What about the knife?’

‘It’s definitely from the house where we found Kim Dehne. The butcher knife that killed her is still missing, but somebody took this blade from the same set.’

‘Is it possible that Brandy killed Kim?’ Stride asked. ‘She was crazy enough, and she had the strength, particularly if she was drugged up.’

Maggie shook her head. ‘It looks like Brandy was already holed up here at the DECC. She probably heard someone inside the building and went to check it out, and pow.’

‘Is there any sign of Cat?’ Stride asked.

‘She was here.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘One of the patrol officers spotted a girl running through the skywalk toward downtown. By the time we got somebody to the other end, the girl was gone, but the description matched Cat. That’s what led Guppo to launch a search inside the DECC, and we found Brandy. Oh, and there’s evidence of a fight inside the arena. We found blood and torn clothing.’

‘Show me,’ Stride said.

Maggie led him into the cavernous arena, which was now bright under the overhead floodlights. Police officers moved back and forth through the bleachers, and a section at the far end of the arena was taped off. Stride walked to the scene and saw the markings of blood on the floor near a support column and a striped sleeve from a girl’s top. He recognized the clothing; he’d bought it for Cat yesterday at Target.

‘Yeah, she was here,’ he confirmed.

‘We found blood on Brandy’s knuckles, which doesn’t look related to her death. She hit someone.’

‘So she and Cat struggled, and Brandy took the knife.’ Stride squinted at the lights. ‘If it was dark in here, whoever was waiting in the commissary may have thought Brandy was Cat. He heard the girl coming back and hit her with the wrench. Then he realized he killed the wrong girl.’

‘Maybe,’ Maggie said. ‘Or Cat killed Brandy and took off.’

Stride shrugged. ‘If Brandy came after Cat in the arena, I don’t see Cat going back for more. Plus, there’s no way Cat’s got the upper body strength to wield a wrench with the force necessary to split open someone’s skull.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Maggie agreed.

His phone buzzed and he yanked it out of his pocket. He saw the name on the caller ID.

Dory Mateo.

‘Dory,’ he said. ‘It’s Stride. What’s up?’

‘You better get to the Seaway right now,’ she told him. ‘Cat showed up in my room overnight. Someone beat her up.’

*

Stride couldn’t count the number of times he’d climbed the stairs to the second floor of the Seaway Hotel in his career. The flophouse on the south end of Superior Street, steps away from Curly’s Bar, was Ground Zero for trouble. Fights. Stabbings. Hookers on their knees in the doorways. Drunks that needed transport to rehab. The joke among the police was that the place could never burn because of the urine and vomit permanently soaked into its carpets.

Dory’s room was at the end of the hallway, overlooking the back alley. Her door was open, and he found her on the twin bed with her hands on her knees. The room was barely six feet by ten feet and was furnished with nothing but a bed, a warped dresser, and a sink. The bathrooms were communal. The room was lit by a single bare bulb with a string cord. He smelled smoke, and he saw an ashtray on the window ledge.

He walked inside and closed the door behind him. ‘Where’s Cat?’

Dory stared at the floor, her shoulders slumped. Her bleached blonde hair was flat and unwashed. ‘Taking a bath.’

‘How is she?’

‘Cuts and bruises.’

‘Did she say what happened?’

‘No. I woke up and she was sleeping on the floor. I could see she was hurt. I let her rest for a while, and then I put her in the bathroom and called you.’

He looked out the window. It was still dark outside. He noticed a pile of clothes crumpled on the floor. ‘Are these Cat’s clothes?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I need to take them with me. Do you have anything else she can wear?’

‘Sure. Why do you need them?’

‘Evidence. Two people were killed tonight.’

Dory finally looked up. Her eyes were bloodshot. Mucus dripped from her nose. ‘Don’t tell me Cat did it.’

‘I hope not.’ He slid a pen from his pocket and pushed around the clothes on the floor. He didn’t see any bloodstains. That was good. When he looked at Dory, he didn’t like what he saw in her face. Her skin was gray. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Bad night,’ she said.

‘Do you want me to get you some help?’

‘No.’

Stride sat down on the bed next to her. ‘I need to ask you some questions about Cat.’

‘Whatever. Go ahead.’

‘Do you recognize the name Margot Huizenfelt?’

‘Margot? Sure.’

‘Did Cat ever talk about her? Do you know if they knew each other?’

‘Margot talked to Cat for one of her stories. I set it up.’

‘You did?’

‘Yeah, she was willing to pay for an interview. Cat needed the money. It was months ago.’

‘How do you know Margot?’ Stride asked.

‘She knows lots of girls like me. What’s the big deal?’

‘Margot’s missing,’ Stride said. ‘She disappeared a month ago.’

Dory looked shaken, as if he’d slapped her out of a coma. ‘Missing?’

‘Someone took her.’

‘I didn’t know. Jesus.’

‘Did you ever see the story?’

‘What?’ Dory’s eyes were vacant and distracted.

‘The story Margot wrote about Cat.’

‘No, I didn’t. How would I? Why are you asking me about this?’

‘Margot may have been looking for Cat before she disappeared. Did she come to see you?’

‘Me? No, of course not. Why?’

‘To find Cat,’ Stride said.

He watched Dory physically shutting down, drawing away from him. Her eyes shot toward the door. ‘I never saw her.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I said no!’ Dory exploded. ‘I don’t know anything!’

He held up his hands to calm her. ‘Okay.’

‘Leave me alone!’

‘I’m not trying to upset you, Dory. I’m trying to help Cat.’

‘If you want to help her, get her the hell away from me. I don’t want her in a place like this.’

‘I will. I just need to know a little more from you first. What can you tell me about Cat and Vincent Roslak? He’s a shrink.’

Dory rubbed her fingers together, as if she needed a cigarette. She stared at the ceiling. ‘Yeah, I know who he is.’

‘Cat saw him at the shelter. Roslak was sleeping with some of the girls there. Do you know if he slept with Cat?’

‘How would I know? Cat doesn’t talk about bad shit.’

‘Roslak’s dead.’

‘I remember. So?’

‘He was stabbed to death.’

Dory paled. ‘So what? He was a bastard to lots of people, right? Sometimes bastards get payback. Cat carries a knife, but that’s just for show. She’d never use it. She knows what knives do, you know?’

‘Yesterday she assaulted a man.’

‘On the ship? Yeah, she told me. The pervert wanted to butt-fuck her, for God’s sake.’

Dory stalked to the window and pushed it open with a bang. There was no screen. She slid down the wall of the bedroom and sat on the floor. She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, lit one, and blew the smoke out into the darkness. She wrapped her arms around her knees.

‘Men,’ she said. ‘They’re all fuckers. Look at Marty Gamble.’

‘I know.’

‘Cat won’t let me say things like that. She still loves the son of a bitch.’

‘He was her father.’

‘Some father. What an asshole. I guess I can’t talk, huh? I’m no prize, either. Back then, I would do anything for money to stay high. If Cat knew the things I did, she’d hate me.’

‘What did you do?’

Dory sucked on the cigarette. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘I said I can get you help.’

‘I don’t want your help. I don’t care about me. I want to help Cat, but all I do is make it worse. Michaela must look down at me and spit.’

‘You do help me, Dory.’

Stride’s eyes swung to the doorway, where Cat stood in a fraying terry robe. Her cheek had a fierce bruise. She had a long scratch on her neck that glowed red from the hot water. She slipped inside and shut the door and got down on her knees beside her aunt.

‘You help me all the time,’ Cat said. ‘I’d be lost without you. You’ve always protected me.’

Dory flicked the cigarette out the window and shook her head. Like a dam breaking, she began to bawl. Her body wilted and she sank into Cat’s arms. Cat held her, letting Dory cry herself out in terrible sobs. Stride began to understand why, as young as she was, she wanted a child of her own.

Cat stared at him, and her sad, beautiful eyes suddenly looked older. ‘I’m sorry for running away. I didn’t hurt anyone. I swear.’

He studied her face, and all he could do was rely on what it told him. ‘I know you didn’t,’ he said.