The Cold Nowhere

53

‘I can’t find Brooke,’ Maggie told Stride. ‘She’s not at her apartment. She’s not at the shelter.’

‘Keep looking.’

‘Are you sure about this, boss?’ she asked. ‘Brooke?’

‘I’m sure. Lenny gave her up.’

‘But Brooke and Marty? I can’t picture her mixed up with a thug like that.’

‘We don’t know where she fits in the chain, Mags. The link to Marty may be one of the other girls who was involved with Lenny back then. Let’s just find Brooke and see what she says.’

He heard the awkward silence on the phone.

‘I’ve got her cell number. I’ll see if we can ping it.’

‘Fine, do that.’

He hung up the phone. Serena looked at him. ‘One of the other girls?’ she asked. ‘Do you really think so?’

‘No,’ Stride said grimly. ‘Brooke was involved, and she’s still involved. Margot must have talked to Brooke when she was trying to find Cat on that Saturday, and she said something that panicked her. That’s what got Margot killed.’

‘I don’t see Brooke as a cold-blooded killer,’ Serena said. ‘She can’t be doing this alone. Someone else was working with her back then. And with Marty. He’s trying to cover their tracks.’

Stride pointed at the house across the street from where they were parked. The garage door was open and the overhead light was on. They saw the ample backside of a man bent over the propped hood of a Coupe de Ville. ‘If anyone can tell us who was tight with Marty, it’s Bill Green.’

They got out of the Expedition. It was late evening, and the temperature had plummeted below freezing. A violent wind, as cold as a sharp slap, kicked litter and dead leaves down the street. Its roar sounded like the thunder of rushing water, and the dormant trees yawed with the gusts. He shuddered involuntarily as the wind hit his face. Serena’s hair swirled.

The two of them marched across the empty street toward the open garage. Inside, the wind whistled, and a space heater with a noisy fan blew warm air across the cement floor. A halogen flashlight was clipped to the hood of the Cadillac, casting a hot bright glow. Bill Green had his boom box playing the same radio station as the last time Stride had confronted him here. The song was ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ by Bon Jovi.

‘Hey,’ Stride called over the noise of the music.

Green reared back from the car. He wore overalls and a flannel shirt and unlaced work boots. His face and hands were smudged in black and he held a wrench between his fingers. His long hair was untied and hung loose at his shoulders. The man eyed them and switched off the radio, leaving no sound but the wind.

‘You guys again?’ Green asked. ‘What the hell do you want now? Leave me alone!’

Stride slid a photograph of Rebekah Keck’s ring from the pocket of his coat. He held it in front of the man’s face. ‘Do you recognize this ring?’

Green squinted at the picture. ‘Yeah, sure, looks like Sophie’s engagement ring. I gave her the tiara and the crown jewels for our anniversary.’

‘I’m not in the mood for jokes,’ Stride said.

‘Okay, fine. It looks like the fake ring that Cat wears around her neck.’

‘You’ve seen her wearing it?’

‘The girl lived in my house for ten years,’ Green retorted. ‘Of course I’ve seen it. So what? Marty gave it to her. What’s it worth, fifty bucks?’

‘More like seventy-five thousand bucks,’ Serena said.

Green couldn’t fake his reaction. His face screwed up and he threw the wrench to the ground with a sharp clang. ‘Bullshit!’

‘It’s real,’ Stride said.

‘You are fucking kidding me. That girl’s been walking around all this time with stones worth that kind of money? Where the hell would Marty get something like that?’

‘He stole it,’ Serena said.

Green shrugged. ‘Well, yeah, I didn’t think he won the lottery or something. Who’d he rob, Donald Trump?’

‘You tell us.’

‘I don’t have a clue.’

‘I can’t believe Marty would set up a big, high-risk burglary and not say a word to you about it,’ Stride said. ‘Frankly, it seems like something you guys would plan together.’

‘Me?’ Green shook his head. ‘Forget it. Wherever Marty got this ring, I had nothing to do with it.’

‘A lot of money from the theft was never recovered,’ Stride said. ‘Marty’s apartment was clean when we searched it. He had a partner.’

‘Yeah, well, if there was something to find, somebody else found it. Hell, if I was part of a job like that, do you think I’d still be busting my ass on highway repairs every day? You think I’d let some little girl walk around with jewels like that around her neck? Get real.’

‘Marty never bragged about the job to you?’ Stride asked.

‘No, he didn’t. It doesn’t smell right anyway. Marty was muscle, not brain. He liked to get drunk and beat people up, not do break-ins. Hard to believe he could have pulled this off.’

‘We think he had help,’ Serena said.

‘Not from me.’

‘Then who?’ Stride asked.

‘Hell if I know.’

‘You probably knew him better than anyone else.’

‘That ain’t saying much,’ Green told them. ‘Being close to Marty usually meant getting your jaw busted.’

‘What about friends?’ Serena asked. ‘Or girls?’

‘Marty didn’t have many friends, and there was only one girl. You know that. Marty was fucking obsessed with Michaela.’

‘What about after the divorce?’

‘Oh hell, then it was even worse. No way he was going to let Michaela throw him out with the trash. It was going to go one of two ways. Either he’d beat the shit out of her until she took him back, or he’d kill her if she started fucking somebody else. Which is exactly what he did.’

‘What did he do for sex?’ Stride asked. ‘Did Marty use hookers to let off steam?’

‘Who knows? Probably. So some guy gets a little action in a doorway. The only people who get bent out of shape about it are the cops and the politicians, and most of them are doing it, too.’

‘Did Marty know any college girls?’

Green rolled his eyes. ‘Come on, that’s not the kind of action you find down at Curly’s. A girl like that’s not looking for a fifty dollar blow job, you know?’

Stride frowned. ‘Do you know Brooke Hahne?’

‘The gal who runs the shelter downtown? Yeah, sure. Sophie talked to her about Cat.’

‘Did you know her ten years ago?’

‘Ten years? She must have been a kid then.’ Green’s eyes widened. ‘Holy shit, are you saying that Brooke-?’

‘Just answer the question. Did you know Brooke Hahne ten years ago?’

‘No.’

‘Did Marty ever mention her to you? Or did you ever see him with a girl who looked like her?’

‘Hell, no. A classy girl like Brooke wouldn’t be hanging out with a guy like Marty. She’d be with some rich guy, hoping his heart explodes.’

Stride thought: She was. She was in bed with Lowball Lenny, but that didn’t explain how Marty Gamble wound up with Rebekah Keck’s ring. Somewhere, they were still missing a connection.

‘Do you remember a home invasion right around Christmas ten years ago?’ he asked Green. ‘The victim was Leonard Keck. His wife was killed.’

‘The car guy? Yeah, I remember something about that. It was big news.’ Green whistled. ‘Are you saying that Marty did the job? No way. I don’t buy it. It’s out of his league.’

‘Did he have a gun?’ Serena asked.

‘Sure he did. More than one.’

‘Did he say anything that would connect him to the burglary? Did he say anything about Lowball Lenny or the murder?’

‘I don’t remember him saying a word, but that doesn’t mean anything. Marty and I weren’t exactly talking to each other back then. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the son of a bitch.’

‘Why not?’ Serena asked.

Green pointed at the two-inch scar on his forehead. ‘Because he nearly killed me, the asshole! We got pissing drunk and got into a big fight behind Curly’s. It was a couple weeks before Christmas. Late, like one in the morning. He was on and on about Michaela, and I said he should just forget her and leave her alone, you know? Well, he lost it and started whaling on me. Fucking scary. He shoved a gun in my face and whacked me across the head with it. I was bleeding like a pig! You bastards sent me to a clinic and let him walk, like usual. Me? The doc gave me twenty stitches. After that, I didn’t have two words to say to Marty. We were still on the outs when he blew his head off.’

Stride nodded. They were at a dead end with Bill Green. He had nothing more to tell them. The only lead they had left was to find Brooke Hahne and get the truth out of her. She had all the answers, if she hadn’t already skipped town. If she was still alive.

The two of them stalked out of the garage into the darkness. The wind found them immediately, howling down from the skyline. It nearly drove them off their feet with its ferocious blows. The Duluth wind knew how to fight; it was a mean drunk, like Marty.

Stride stopped in the driveway. He heard a roaring in his head, but it wasn’t the wind. He felt cold, but the cold was deep inside his chest and empty, like a midnight cemetery.

A mean drunk.

He turned back to the garage and walked all the way up into Bill Green’s face.

‘What did you say?’