The Cold Nowhere

41

‘Cat!’

Stride bolted to his feet. The gunshots came in rapid succession, punctuated by screams, and then they stopped. No more than five seconds passed from beginning to end. He ran the length of the house and threw open the door to Cat’s bedroom, but the room was empty, and the window was open. A gust of snow and wind blew through the wavy curtains.

‘She’s outside!’ he called to Serena.

Behind him, Serena ripped open the front door and skidded onto the front porch. He heard her shout. ‘There’s a body on the front lawn, and we’ve got lots of blood! Get an ambulance fast!’

Stride grabbed his phone from his belt and dialed 911 as he followed Serena into the snow. At first, he saw only one body lying prone and lifeless in the grass. Cat. Then he saw movement on the ground and heard Cat’s voice calling a name over and over.

Dory.

Serena squatted beside them. She tugged on Dory’s shoulder, but the woman’s head bobbed forward like that of a limp doll. Dory’s face was visible, and Stride saw the fatal exit wound that had carved away much of her skull. He eased Cat out from under her aunt’s body. Cat whimpered and cried, unable to stand. Her face and clothes were a mess of blood, bone, and brain, and he couldn’t tell, looking at her, if she’d been shot, too.

‘Cat, are you hurt?’

The girl didn’t answer. He laid her in the snow and did a careful review of her head, limbs and torso, seeing no bullet holes in her clothes or wounds on her exposed flesh. ‘I don’t think Cat’s been hit, but she’s in shock,’ he said. ‘What about Dory? Is she gone?’

Serena checked Dory’s pulse and nodded. ‘It was a catastrophic wound.’

‘Take a look at the street,’ Stride told her. ‘Make sure we’re clear.’

Serena already had her gun in her hand. She crouched low as she jogged toward the road that cut like an arrow through the Point. Under the falling snow, the area felt oddly quiet and deserted. If his neighbors had heard the shots, they were staying safely behind their walls.

As he held her hand, Cat’s eyes fluttered open. She jerked in fear, and he pushed her shoulders down gently. ‘It’s okay, lie still.’

‘Dory,’ she said. ‘Dory’s hurt.’

‘I know.’

‘Is she okay?’

‘Just lie still.’

Cat pushed herself up anyway and saw her aunt six feet away, dead in the snow. She wailed and buried her face in Stride’s chest. He put an arm around her body and let her sob.

In the middle of the street, Serena shoved her gun in her belt.

‘There are tire tracks in the snow,’ she called. ‘Looks like he fired from the car. He’s gone unless we can get the bridge up in the next few seconds.’

‘I don’t want to block the ambulance,’ Stride said. ‘I still want Cat checked out. With any luck we’ll catch him as he reaches the city.’

He didn’t think luck was with them. When he listened for sirens, he didn’t hear any in the distance. The storm had slowed down emergency responses across Duluth, and his team was stretched thin. When he checked his watch, he estimated that three or four minutes had passed since the shooting. The killer might already have escaped across the bridge at high speed, and once he made it beyond the streets of Canal Park, he could go anywhere.

Serena rejoined them on the lawn. ‘It’s cold. You should get her inside. I’ll stay here.’

Stride eased Cat to her feet. Her knees were rubbery and he kept an arm around her waist.

‘We should get inside,’ he told her.

‘No, wait.’

‘I want you lying down, Cat.’

‘I need to say goodbye.’

‘There’ll be time for that.’

‘No, I need to do it now. Please.’

He helped her to the trampled ground where Dory lay on her chest, her face turned sideways, her hair matted with blood. The storm was turning her body white. Cat knelt beside her. Dory’s eyes were open and sightless, and before Stride could stop her, Cat reached out and closed her aunt’s eyes. She crossed herself, a gesture of faith that took him by surprise.

Cat brushed flurries from Dory’s coat and kissed her shoulder. She put her lips near her aunt’s ear and whispered. Her voice was soft, but he could hear what she said.

‘I forgive you.’

*

Maggie sped south on the I-35. Her windshield wipers were choked with ice, forcing her to squint through wet streaks at the clouds of snow that poured through her headlights. She was alone on the highway, and the road was slick, even under the monster tires of her Avalanche. When she shot off the freeway at the Lake Avenue exit, she felt the truck skid as she feathered the brake.

She climbed toward the intersection and coasted through the red light toward the Point. When she checked her mirrors, she realized that she was the first cop to reach the area. Her truck barreled through the intersection at Railroad Street, and as her eyes flicked right, she caught a glimpse of tail lights half a mile south. It could have been a phantom of the storm; the lights disappeared as she watched. A moment later, the buildings of Canal Park blocked her view, and the car, if it was a car, was gone.

She roared past hotels and shops. The late night sidewalks of the tourist center were deserted, and most of the parking places on the street were empty. She turned right at the Dewitt-Seitz building, rear wheels slipping, and then left again on Lake Avenue. The tall gray tower of the bridge loomed ahead of her.

She thought again: Tail lights.

She couldn’t shake the phantom. She’d seen a car speeding away.

Maggie stopped in the middle of the street, momentarily paralyzed with indecision. She wished she hadn’t downed two glasses of wine so quickly. Her reactions were slow. All she had now were her instincts, and her instincts shouted a message at her. She was making a mistake.

Turn around.

She swung into a U-turn and kicked up a cloud of snow as she charged back toward Railroad Street. She careened left, but the road ahead of her was dark and empty. She was too late; the car had vanished. She continued for a mile past the DECC and Bayfront Park, following the street toward the industrial section of the rail yard, where pyramids of taconite and wood were capped in white like mountains. She was alone with the storm; no one else was with her.

He was gone.

Maggie shouted a loud expletive inside the truck. She turned again and retraced her steps. As she neared Bayfront Park, she swung left over the freeway toward downtown and stopped at the peak of the overpass. There were a few cars braving the storm in both directions. The same was true of downtown; she could see stray cars pushing through the intersections.

Whoever she’d seen was a needle in a haystack now, impossible to find.

Her radio squawked. ‘Hey, Maggie, is that you in the big yellow boat on the Fifth Avenue overpass?’

It was Guppo.

‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘Where the hell are you?’

‘Heading north.’

She eyed the freeway traffic and saw the flashing lights of a patrol car approaching from the south. ‘I spotted a car that could have been the shooter coming off the Point, but I lost him,’ she said.

‘Maybe not. I saw what looked like a black Charger going the other way. He got off on 53 heading toward the Hill.’

Maggie’s adrenaline roared back. She gunned the Avalanche and merged onto the southbound interstate at a crazy speed. Highway 53 climbed at a sharp angle toward Miller Hill, where it made a T at the intersection with Central Entrance, which was the main road through the flatlands in the north of the city. If he stayed on the highway, they could put him in a box by closing in from three sides.

‘I’ll come up behind him on 53,’ she told Guppo. ‘You high-tail it up Mesaba and come in on Central Entrance from the east. Get a couple cars near the airport to come down from the west.’

‘You got it.’

She wheeled around a slow-moving Corolla in the right lane just as she left the interstate. Highway 53 rose northward in tight curves, and even the powerful engine of her Avalanche struggled for traction on the snow-covered road. Her speed was maddeningly slow. She cruised through stop lights near the Enger Tower and Lake Superior College, and finally the truck picked up speed as the incline flattened. Through the snow, she saw tail lights ahead of her. She closed quickly on the vehicle from behind.

If he saw her, if he thought she was a cop, he didn’t run. Coming up behind the car, she saw that it was a Dodge Avenger, not a Charger, and it was blue, not black.

‘Guppo, you sure that was a black Charger?’ she called into the radio. ‘I’m behind a blue Avenger up here.’

‘I’m sure,’ he radioed back. ‘That’s not him.’

Maggie spun around the Avenger and continued until she reached the T intersection at Central Entrance. She eyed the slow-moving traffic in both directions, but she didn’t spot the sports car. From the northwest, two patrol cars sped toward her. She didn’t see Guppo from the other direction.

‘Guppo, tell me you’ve got something. We’ve got nothing up here.’

‘Ditto, sorry.’

‘Keep coming my way, I’ll head toward you. Let’s get the other cars patrolling the side streets west and east of 53, in case he turned off before he reached the Hill.’

‘Roger.’

She turned right and wove between the cars inching along the slick road. Half a mile eastward, she spotted Guppo’s patrol approaching from the opposite direction, and she pounded the wheel in frustration.

They’d lost him.

She flashed her brights at Guppo.

‘What now?’ he radioed.

‘Check the mall. Maybe he’s switching cars. I’ll start running the streets to the north.’

She watched his car fade into the snow in her mirror. They were shooting blind. When she reached the light at Arlington Road, she turned left. In the opposite direction, Arlington was one of only a few roads that intersected Highway 53, so the driver of the Charger could have used it as a shortcut to Central Entrance.

On Arlington, she crawled. The farther she traveled, the more deserted the road became, heavily wooded on both sides. Twice she spotted tail lights and followed them quickly until she confirmed that they weren’t the car she was hunting.

Her radio crackled to life again.

‘We just got a 911 call on a cell phone. A dark sports car burnt through the red light at Arlington and Arrowhead. Could be our guy.’

‘Which direction?’

‘North on Arlington toward Rice Lake.’

‘I’m on Arlington now,’ Maggie told Guppo. ‘Back me up, and see if we have anybody in Rice Lake Township who can come down from the north.’

‘I’m five minutes behind you, on my way.’

Maggie accelerated northward. The land north of Arrowhead was largely rural, and there were few roads cutting through the undeveloped land on which to escape. Unfortunately, the lack of roads also made it difficult to box him in from other directions. She also knew that in a battle of horsepower between the Charger and the Avalanche, the Charger would win. Her best option was to find him, tail him, and not spook him.

She drove crazy-fast, as fast as she could make the Avalanche go, feeling as if she were hydroplaning on a river of wet snow. The flat, straight road headed into nothingness. She passed two crossroads leading west toward the airport, but she bet that he would have chosen a faster route if the airport was his destination. Instead, she stayed on the same northbound course, and as the road crested a shallow hill, she spotted twin red lights at the extreme end of her sightline.

It was him. It had to be him.

‘I may have our guy,’ she radioed Guppo.

‘Where are you?’

‘Passing Norton Road, he’s maybe half a mile ahead of me.’

She was doing eighty, and if he looked in his mirror, he’d spot her bearing down. She eased off on the accelerator, closing the gap slowly. They neared the stop sign at Martin Road, and she saw brake lights flash. She turned off her lights, trying to make him think she’d pulled off the road. He stayed where he was, not moving, and she drifted to a stop, playing a game of cat and mouse across a quarter mile of pavement. In the storm, without lights, she hoped she was invisible.

Suddenly, ahead of her, she heard the blistering roar of an engine. The rubber squeal of the Charger’s tires cut through the storm, and the car swung into a hard right turn, accelerating wildly.

‘Damn, he spotted me!’

Maggie turned her lights back on and jammed the accelerator. At the intersection, she turned the wheel so hard that her wheels left the ground and then thudded back to the pavement. The car ahead of her was greased lightning; it was already disappearing. Her chassis quivered around her like a rocket, but even at extreme speed, the Charger widened the gap. A mile later, its tail lights winked out into the darkness.

‘I lost him, I lost him — oh, shit!’

Through the fog at the end of her headlights, she saw a dark shadow. It could have been a deer; it could have been a child. Instinctively, her foot slammed to the brake, and like a dancer, the Avalanche swirled on the sheet of snow. It spun in a tilt-a-whirl circle, once, twice, three times, and then the right-side wheels of the truck skidded onto the shoulder and spilled into the shallow gully. The truck toppled onto its side, and kept toppling, over and over, rattling Maggie’s body with the shudder of each impact. Windows broke; glass flew across her skin; snow and dirt spat through the interior of the truck. She felt the world spin, and by the time it stopped spinning, it was black.