The Cold Nowhere

43

The medical team had extracted Margot’s body from the freezer, but the corpse was still frozen solid, her bent limbs jutting into the air in a pose that was unnatural and obscene. The thawing was slow, but under the heat of the crime scene lights, melting ice had begun to soak her skin and clothes like sweat.

Stride and Serena watched the activity through the open garage door. He understood the depth of loss and anger he saw in Serena’s face. The longer a missing person stays missing, the more you know that he or she is never likely to be found alive. Even so, when you finally stare at that person’s body, you can’t escape the sense of defeat.

‘Time of death will be almost impossible to determine,’ he said.

Serena’s eyes were fixed on Margot. ‘The clothes match what she was wearing when she was last seen in Grand Rapids on that Sunday. If she was alive after she disappeared, it wasn’t for long.’

‘Dan and his team will be working the scene for hours, but so far, he says it’s clean. We’re not going to get much here.’

‘The house?’ she asked.

‘It doesn’t look like he even went inside. No trash, no food. The water’s not turned on. He was careful.’

She frowned. ‘Why take the body here?’

Stride kicked at the earth with his heel. ‘Ground’s still frozen. So are the lakes. He couldn’t bury it or dump it.’

Serena turned away from the bright lights of the garage. They pushed through the snow of the front yard. Red and blue lights from the emergency vehicles flashed on the highway, and the evidence technicians streamed back and forth to their white crime scene van. Although the snow had stopped, the air was bitter cold. No one liked winter bodies.

‘Margot was in Duluth on that Saturday looking for Cat,’ Serena said, rehashing what they knew about her movements that final weekend. ‘She talked to Bill Green. She talked to Dory. Maybe others, we don’t know yet. As of midnight, she was down in the graffiti graveyard, still trying to find her.’

‘She never did,’ Stride said.

‘Do we know where Cat really was that night?’ Serena asked.

‘Yes, she bumped into a girl she knew from Denfeld up at Miller Hill Mall. The girl let her crash at her parents’ house. Maggie confirmed it.’

‘So at some point, Margot gave up for the night and went home to Grand Rapids. Early Sunday morning, she had breakfast at a local diner. The waitress said Margot was scribbling notes in a legal pad and made some comment about looking for someone to help her break a big story. No details about who or what. Margot left, and a day later we found her brand-spanking new Lowball Lenny Ford Explorer parked near the Swan River. No legal pads, no notes, no computer in her house, nothing. The only real clue I ever found is that she got a call that morning from a pay phone at a rest stop in Floodwood.’

‘The killer setting up a meeting with her?’

‘That’s been my theory all along. She had to be meeting someone at the river. Unfortunately, he didn’t leave prints on the phone or the coins.’

‘So he meets Margot,’ Stride went on, ‘kills her, cleans out evidence of what she was working on, and comes here to dump the body. He’s already got the stolen Charger, so we assume that’s what he’s driving. And then he starts doing exactly what Margot was doing.’

‘Looking for Cat,’ Serena said. ‘Why?’

‘Maybe Margot mentioned Cat when they met, or maybe she was listed in her notes.’

‘Or maybe one of the people that Margot talked to on Saturday tipped off the killer,’ Serena suggested. ‘Remember, we can’t be sure that this guy is working alone. This place is pretty remote, so how did he get here? The buses don’t come up this far. There were two cars in the garage. He couldn’t drive them both.’

‘We’re canvassing the neighbors to see if anyone saw the Charger coming or going. There aren’t a lot of people up here, but that means neighbors tend to notice things.’

Serena studied the modest rambler, which was now ablaze with lights as the crime scene team explored the house. ‘Why’d he pick this house, anyway?’

Stride shrugged. ‘Half the people in Duluth know that Wally and Ruth are snowbirds and that their house is empty all winter. Wally has been on the Rotary for decades. Ruth’s been a hospital volunteer at St. Luke’s as long as I can remember.’

Serena shook her head. ‘We’ve got nothing. Nothing except bodies. This guy is two steps ahead of us everywhere we go.’

Stride couldn’t disagree with her. He felt as if someone were playing games with them, throwing up red herrings and misdirections to lead them everywhere but where they needed to go. This man was inside their heads. Kim Dehne gets killed with a knife, like Vincent Roslak. The knife vanishes and then shows up in Dory’s apartment. The evidence leads them away, while the killer calmly goes back to finding Cat.

Why?

He saw Max Guppo waddling toward them across the frozen lawn, looking like an oversized version of the mayor of Munchkin City. Same comb-over. Same mustache. Same thunderous waistline. He’d known Guppo as long as he’d been with the Duluth Police, and he didn’t think he’d ever met a kinder soul. He also knew that Serena had Guppo wrapped around her pretty finger. Whenever he smelled snickerdoodles in the office, he knew that Duluth Police secrets were spilling across the county line to Grand Rapids.

‘How are you, Max?’ Serena greeted him. ‘Hey, you’ve lost a little weight, haven’t you?’

Stride rolled his eyes at her. ‘Shameless.’

Guppo’s face, which was already red from the cold, brightened at the compliment. He was a happily married father of five, but he was a sucker for Serena’s smile. ‘Actually, I’m down ten pounds.’

‘Good for you! How are the kids?’

‘They’re super. The oldest, Gina, is playing Division One volleyball at Iowa State.’

‘You guys must be really proud.’

‘Uh, Max?’ Stride said, interrupting the lovefest. ‘You want to tell me what’s going on?’

Guppo tugged at his uniform, which was snug despite any weight he’d lost. ‘Oh, sure, the girl? You know, Cat? The hospital released her. One of our people was going to take her back to your place, but she refused to go. She insisted on coming here. She’s in the back of your truck.’

‘How is she?’

‘Pretty shaken up.’

‘I’ll go talk to her,’ Stride said.

Serena wiggled her fingers at Guppo to say goodbye as the oversized cop retraced his steps to the crime scene. Stride zipped up his leather jacket and took a look at the highway through the trees. His Expedition was parked on the shoulder behind Guppo’s patrol car.

‘You want me to come with you?’ Serena asked.

‘No, I’ll do it. You know, I never get flattery from you. How does Guppo rate?’

‘Well, he’s much sweeter than you are, Jonny.’

‘That’s true.’

Stride hiked up the driveway in the trampled path that had been made by his officers. When the wind blew, snow sprayed from the evergreen branches overhead and trickled down his back in cold streaks. At Martin Road, he crossed to the opposite side and opened the rear door of his truck and slid inside. The interior was cold, and Cat sat in the far corner, wrapped in a tan Mexican blanket that Cindy had given him almost twenty years ago. The girl’s skin was pink and scrubbed; her hair had been washed. There were no traces of her aunt’s death clinging to her body.

Her eyes were distant and sad.

‘You found Margot?’ she said.

Stride nodded.

Cat sat in silence and chewed her nail, staring at the lights and the silhouettes of the police officers moving back and forth through the night like soldiers. Flares and parked squad cars closed the road in both directions. Finally, she said, ‘Are you afraid of dying, Stride?’

‘I’m not looking forward to it,’ he replied.

‘I saw Dory die. Right in front of me. She was alive, and then she was dead.’

‘I know.’

‘I can’t stop thinking about it. I keep seeing her face.’

He didn’t know what to say. He’d been in her shoes many times, watching life become death. There was no way to comfort her.

‘What do you think it’s like?’ she asked. ‘Being dead, I mean. Is that all there is?’

‘I wish I knew, Cat.’

‘My mother used to tell me about heaven. She said if I was good, and I prayed, I would go to heaven. She made it sound so beautiful. Do you think my mother’s in heaven?’

‘If there’s a heaven, I’m sure Michaela is there,’ Stride told her.

‘But you don’t think it exists.’

‘I hope it does, but I let God worry about things like that. I worry about the world down here.’

‘Even if it does exist, I’ll never get in,’ Cat said.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Me? I’m just a whore.’

He reached out and cupped her chin with his hand. ‘What you were is behind you. You’re young, and you’re going to have a child, and you have your whole life ahead of you.’

Cat sniffled and wiped a hand across her face. ‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t think it exists, anyway. There’s no heaven. It’s just a lie that people tell. I think death is nothing but a cold nowhere.’

Stride slid across the seat. He wrapped Cat up in his arms. Her eyes were open, but she’d run out of tears.

‘My mother’s gone. My father’s gone. Now Dory’s gone, too. I have nobody.’

She said it matter-of-factly. That was what made his heart break. It had become so commonplace to her. He took a deep breath and thought about Cindy. Her voice was still vivid to him, when she woke him up in the middle of the night. So earnest. So sure she’d found the answer. Maybe we were meant to rescue someone else’s child.

‘I won’t let you be alone, Cat. That’s a promise.’

Cat said nothing. She didn’t know what it meant for him to say those words. She couldn’t afford to believe him, anyway. This was a girl for whom promises were empty.

‘Get some rest if you can,’ he told her. ‘We’ll be here for several more hours. Serena will take you to see Steve in the morning. Your baby’s the most important thing. Okay?’

She nodded with her head against his chest. He felt her relax just a little. When he eased away from her, she held onto his hand.

‘Do you think you can be a good person and do something really bad?’ she asked.

‘I hope so. I’ve done some bad things myself.’

‘Me, too. I was so angry with Dory, but then I thought, who am I to judge her? She always protected me. It doesn’t matter what she did in the past. I guess I was just angry at my father all over again.’

Stride frowned. ‘Your father? Why him?’

‘Dory told me something. He paid her a lot of money to sleep with him. She kept it a secret from me all these years, because she felt so guilty. If it were me, I probably would have done the same thing. If someone gave me five hundred dollars, you think I’d say no? I’m not sure I would.’

‘When was this?’

‘Right before my mother and father died.’ She saw the grimness take hold in Stride’s face, and she said, ‘What? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ he said.

‘Do you think it means something that Dory slept with my father?’

‘I think it meant something to Dory. She had trouble living with it. Beyond that, no. I heard you say that you forgave her for what she did. That’s the end of it. You can let it go.’

‘Okay.’

‘Get some rest,’ he repeated.

He eased her against the cushions of the seat, and she was asleep before he even adjusted the blanket on top of her. Her face was angelic. He smiled, looking at her, but he didn’t feel like smiling at all. He was suddenly deeply troubled.

It didn’t matter that Dory had slept with Marty. It didn’t even surprise him. It was exactly the kind of cruel, manipulative thing that Michaela’s ex-husband would do, just for the pleasure of demeaning another human being. What troubled him was that he knew Marty Gamble inside and out. He knew everything about him. He could practically account for every minute of his days. Where he worked. Where he ate. Where he drank. The clothes he wore. The money going in and out of his checking account. He knew it all.

There was no way — no way — that Marty Gamble should have had five hundred dollars to pay Dory for sex.