The Zero Night

4

Despite the early hour, the lights were on in the house across the street. It was one of the homes that had gone through an expensive renovation, with a large two-story addition and floor-to-ceiling windows. Serena could see the silhouette of a man downstairs, his hands on his hips as he watched the police activity at Gavin’s house. Neighbors didn’t like that sort of thing.

She climbed steep steps from the street. The heavy rain continued to fall, an October downpour that went on and on. Before she got to the door, she stopped, hearing a strange whimpering noise not far away. It was impossible to see the origin of the sound in the rain and darkness, but she picked her way across a narrow stone walkway, built above the sharp slope of the retaining wall. Near the corner of the house, she found a black-and-white Border collie tied to a post in the ground. The dog was curled up into a tight ball with no protection from the rain, but even so, he lifted his head as Serena came closer, and his bushy tail flopped up and down in a puddle. Serena squatted, stroking the dog’s sodden fur. He didn’t look fully grown; she would have been surprised if he was even a year old.

“They left you out here?” she asked.

The dog licked Serena’s hand, then laid his head over her foot. His personality was sweet, and his sad eyes looked up at her like he’d found a savior. She stayed with him for a few more minutes, talking softly to him and hearing his whimper become a happy rumble at getting attention. Then she kissed the dog’s wet head and returned to the house’s front door. Her badge was in her hand.

A man and a woman answered as soon as she rang the bell. They were both in their thirties, annoyingly fit and genetically blessed. The man wore a tank top and shorts, and he’d obviously been exercising because the shirt was soaked with sweat. The woman looked pretty but mussed in a T-shirt and baggy pajama bottoms.

“I’m sorry to bother you so early,” she told them. “My name’s Serena Stride. I’m an investigator with the Duluth Police. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

The man didn’t seem inclined to invite her into the house. “What’s this about? What’s going on at Gavin’s place?”

Serena didn’t answer. “May I come in? It’s a little wet outside.”

The couple exchanged glances, and the man reluctantly stood aside to let Serena into the foyer. The house had a smell of new construction about it, and the modern look of the furniture and art told Serena that the owners had money. A lot of Twin Cities professionals had been moving to the north shore to work remotely in recent years, and they’d been snapping up lake-view houses and driving up prices. Locals weren’t happy about it.

“By the way, your dog is outside,” Serena said.

The man eyed his wife, as if it were her fault. “Goddamn it, the kids left the dog out all night again.”

“I’ll talk to them,” the woman replied in a weary voice.

“The whole goddamn deal was that they would take care of the thing. That’s the only reason I said yes.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t want the dog in the first place, and I told you it wasn’t going to be me feeding it and walking it and picking up its shit.”

“As soon as the kids are up, I’ll talk to them,” she repeated.

Meanwhile, neither one made a move to go out and rescue the dog from the rain. Serena bit her tongue hard between her teeth to suppress her anger.

The man led her into the expanded section of the house, which had a cold, elegant feel, sleek but not welcoming. When it wasn’t raining, the room obviously offered a stunning panorama toward the lake and the downtown skyline, but for now, there was nothing to see outside. The man grabbed a couple of copies of People magazine from a rack and spread them on a cushioned chair. He gestured for Serena to sit on the magazines.

“This furniture costs a fortune,” the man explained.

Serena sat down, hearing the glossy pages crinkle beneath her.

“I’m Dale Sacks, this is my wife, Krystal,” he went on in a curt voice. The two of them took seats on a blue sectional sofa near the windows. “Now can you tell us what the hell’s going on? We don’t like waking up to see police cars swarming the neighborhood.”

“I understand.”

“We’ve got two boys, seven and nine,” his wife added. “Are they safe? Do we need to keep them home from school?”

“We don’t know of any danger to anyone else at this time,” Serena replied.

“Well, that’s not much of an answer,” Dale replied sourly. He went and poured himself a cup of coffee from a wet bar on the other side of the room. He didn’t offer any to Serena or his wife.

“Did something happen to Gavin and Chelsey?” Krystal asked.

“Mrs. Webster is missing,” Serena told them.

Krystal sucked in a breath. “Missing! What happened?”

“We’re still looking into that, but in a case like this, every minute counts while we’re trying to find her. I’d appreciate it if you could answer some questions for me.”

“Sure, yes.”

“How long have you lived in this house?” Serena asked.

Dale Sacks was looking out the window toward the Webster house. “About eighteen months. I like the north shore, and now that the whole world’s working remotely, we figured, what the hell.”

“If you work remotely, does that mean the two of you are home a lot?”

“Most of the time, yes. My office is right above this room, so that’s where I am all day. Krystal runs an eBay business, so she’s back and forth to the post office a lot, but otherwise, she’s around, too.”

“Have you noticed any unusual activity on your street recently?” Serena asked. “Cars you didn’t recognize or strangers in the neighborhood?”

“No,” Krystal replied with a frown. “I don’t think so. With small children at home, I keep a pretty close eye on things. I haven’t seen anyone that concerned me. If I had, I would have called the police.”

“What about your neighbors around here? Have any of them mentioned seeing anyone suspicious?”

She shook her head. “No, but we don’t know any of them particularly well. We’re newcomers, and we’re from Minneapolis, so that’s sort of two strikes against us. Honestly, Gavin and Chelsey were the only ones around here who made us feel welcome.”

“Were you home on Tuesday evening?” Serena asked. “Between eight and ten p.m.?”

“Tuesday?” Dale replied. “Yeah, we were both home. I had a Zoom call with clients in Australia. I do global medical device sales. Krystal was watching a movie with the kids.”

“Did you see or hear anything going on at the Webster house?”

“Not that I recall. I was staring at the screen, not looking out the window. My desk faces the other way.”

“Nothing at all? Glass breaking, shouting, screaming?”

“No. Something like that would have gotten my attention.”

“Mrs. Sacks, what about you?” Serena asked.

“I was on the other side of the house with the kids all evening.”

“And your dog?”

“What?”

“Where was your dog? Inside or outside?”

“Outside. Dale doesn’t like the dog tracking mud inside.”

Serena frowned and said, “Did you hear him barking?”

“Actually, yeah, now that I think about it, he was barking like crazy for a while,” Dale replied. “I had to text Krystal to get the kids to shut him up. The thing was interrupting my Zoom call.”

“What time was that?”

Dale pulled out his phone and scrolled through his texts. “Right around nine o’clock.”

“Did you hear anything else?”

“Just the goddamn dog barking his head off.”

“Did you look outside?”

“No. Like I said, I was in a meeting.”

“Mrs. Sacks, did you or your children check on the dog?”

She got a little flush on her face. “Actually, no. I told the kids to check on him, but we were almost at the end of the movie, so they wanted to wait. By the time we were done, he was quiet again. I mean, it couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes that he was barking.”

“Have you seen or talked to Mr. Webster since Tuesday night?”

Dale shook his head. “No. He’s a lawyer, and his clients aren’t exactly the cream of the crop, you know? So he keeps odd hours.”

“When did you last see either Gavin or Chelsey?”

“It’s been two or three weeks, I guess,” Dale replied.

“Do you know the Websters well?” Serena asked.

“I wouldn’t say well, but we’ve had meals together maybe three or four times since we moved in,” Krystal told her. “Like I said, they were more welcoming than the others around here. I know Chelsey better than Gavin. We occasionally have wine together in the evening.”

“What were your impressions of the two of them?”

Dale shrugged. “Gavin’s an odd duck.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know, he never talks about anything other than work. He seems to enjoy bailing lowlifes out of jail at two in the morning. It’s weird. Otherwise, I don’t know anything about him. He never says a word about politics, family, whatever. He doesn’t even seem to like talking about the Twins or the Vikings.”

“But he’s very good-looking,” Krystal added. “Those eyes of his... wow, they’re so mesmerizing.”

Dale shrugged. “I guess women go for that sort of thing. Me, I don’t really like it. When he looks at you, you have no idea what he’s thinking. Usually with men, you know where they stand, but not Gavin. He’s a closed book.”

“And Chelsey?” Serena asked. “What can you tell me about her?”

“Well, I imagine she was a Minnesota hot dish once upon a time,” Dale commented. “But that was — Krys, do you remember how long Gavin said they’d been together? — fourteen, fifteen years?”

“Meaning what?” Serena asked.

“Meaning a man who found himself with three million dollars might start thinking about a trade-in to a younger model.”

Serena struggled to keep her reaction off her face. Krystal rolled her eyes and shot her a look that said: Yeah, I know he’s a pig.

“So you’d heard about the inheritance,” Serena said.

Krystal nodded. “Chelsey told us.”

“Fucking amazing luck,” Dale added.

“Don’t say things like that,” Krystal interjected sharply, running out of patience with her husband this time. “His sister died of cancer. That’s not luck, that’s awful. I’m sure if he had the choice, he’d give up all of the money in order to get her back.”

“And if you believe that, honeybun, you’re naïve,” Dale retorted.

Serena swallowed down her dislike for this man. “Mr. Sacks, did Gavin say anything to you that would make you think he wasn’t happy with his marriage? Or was considering divorce?”

Dale shrugged. “Nothing specific. It’s just a guess. But based on what Chelsey told Krystal, we wouldn’t have been surprised to see them split up.”

“Mrs. Sacks?” Serena asked. “What did Chelsey tell you?”

Krystal looked uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. “This was just girl talk. It wasn’t serious. We were gossiping over wine a couple of weeks ago, that’s all. I’m not sure it’s appropriate to be sharing it with the police.”

“Chelsey is missing,” Serena reminded her.

“I know, but I can’t believe Gavin had anything to do with that.”

“What did she tell you?” Serena asked again.

Krystal sighed. “Chelsey wasn’t particularly happy with things. I mean, even before the inheritance, she’d talked to me about how Gavin worked all the time. She wondered if he was cheating on her. You know, he represents a lot of — well, a lot of interesting clients. Prostitutes, people like that. Chelsey didn’t like it. And after they got the money, I don’t know. You’d think she would have been happy about it, but Chelsey said Gavin was acting different.”

“Different how?”

“She was vague,” Krystal replied. “Chelsey said his behavior was making her a little uncomfortable. Like she’d catch him watching her when she wasn’t paying attention, just staring at her with those eyes of his. She even made — I mean, it sounds bad now — but she made a joke about it.”

Serena’s face darkened. “What kind of joke?”

Krystal hesitated. “Chelsey said she wondered if she should have somebody tasting her food.”

Outside, when she was back in the rain, Serena struggled to understand what she did next.

Before she left the house, she reminded Dale and Krystal Sacks about their dog. She told them that they couldn’t leave the dog outside like that and that they needed to take better care of him. She said they had to bring him inside the house right now, and if they didn’t, she’d refer them to animal control.

After they’d closed the door, she went over to the Border collie again. He was still whimpering, still soaking wet, but he greeted her arrival as if she were his greatest friend on earth. She sat with him on the wet concrete, and the dog flopped over in her lap so she could rub his white belly. Fifteen minutes passed that way. No one from inside the house came to take the dog out of the rain.

She waited another fifteen minutes after that. The Sacks kids were up now. She could hear them shouting and running around inside the house. But the dog had been forgotten.

Serena didn’t ring the bell. She didn’t call animal control.

She was done with these people.

She unhooked the dog’s leash from the post, and she took the Border collie to her Mustang and put him inside.