Stalked (17 page)

“Just bring me up to speed,” Stride told him.

“Dan Erickson wants to know every move you make on this case,” Teitscher said.

“Is that a threat?”

“Just a heads up.”

“I don’t care about Dan,” Stride said.

Teitscher shrugged. “We found Tanjy’s car. Someone drove it into the woods off a dead-end road.”

“Nearby?”

“Maybe half a mile away.”

“What’s the scene look like?” Stride asked.

“There’s blood in the trunk. We’ve got one set of boot prints in the deep snow leading away from the car back to the dead-end road. That’s where they stop.”

“So she wasn’t killed where you found the car?”

“No, it looks like they killed her somewhere else and then dumped her in the trunk to drive her out onto the ice. They found an open fish house, put the body in the lake, and then ditched her car in the woods.”

“They?”

“I’m thinking this would have been very difficult for one person to pull off. If she wasn’t killed where her car was abandoned, whoever left it there needed another vehicle to get away. Someone else had to be driving the other car.”

“What size are the boot prints?”

“Big, at least a size twelve,” Teitscher said. He added, “Eric Sorenson wore a size twelve.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

Teitscher shrugged. “He was one of the last people to see Tanjy alive, as far as we know.”

“What about time of death?” Stride asked.

“She’s been in the drink for several days. I don’t think we’ll ever know exactly how long. That should make Archie Gale happy.”

“There’s nothing to tie Maggie into this, is there?”

“Just that her husband was mixed up with Tanjy, and he’s dead, too.”

“To me, it says there might be more to Eric’s death than meets the eye,” Stride said.

“Yeah? You’re big on theories, Lieutenant. Try this one on. Maggie and Tanjy had a big fight over her affair with Eric. Tanjy wound up dead. Maggie called Eric to help her get rid of the body. Eric had a fit of conscience and wanted to call the cops. Maggie killed him.”

“You don’t have a shred of evidence to back that up.”

“Not yet, I don’t, but I’m just saying you don’t have to think real hard to tie these cases together.”

Stride knew the argument was getting them nowhere. “How about the fish house? What have you got there?”

“Two kids found the body. They were screwing around when Tanjy popped up. The fish house belongs to the boy’s dad, but the ev techs don’t think Tanjy was dumped from there. She could have gone in anywhere around the lake and drifted up here. People leave these shanties unlocked and don’t visit them for weeks.”

“You’ll never get a warrant to search every house on the lake,” Stride said.

“I know, the best we can do is knock on doors. Maybe someone saw something.”

Stride knew that without a time of death or a crime scene to mine for forensic evidence, it was going to be a tough case to solve. “If I can help you, call me. I mean that.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Lieutenant. If you want to help me, stay out of my way.”

Teitscher turned into the wind and walked away. His foot slipped on the ice, and he fell to one knee. Pushing himself up, he shouted at one of the uniforms on the scene, and Stride saw the cop, who was a good kid, cringe. The only way Teitscher knew how to get things done was to bark in someone’s face. He was a hard case who wasn’t going to change.

Stride heard a faint buzz of music and realized his cell phone was ringing. He pulled it out of the inside pocket of his leather jacket and heard the Alabama song in his head.
I’m in a hurry and don’t know why
.

He walked toward his truck as he answered. “Stride.”

It was Maggie. “I need to see you. It’s urgent.”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t want to do this over the phone,” she said.

“Wherever you go, you’ll have company. We can’t be seen together.”

“Leave that to me. I’ll be alone.”

Stride wasn’t going to say no to her. “Let’s do it late. Eleven o’clock.”

“Where?”

“The high school parking lot. Up on the hill.”

“Thanks, boss.”

“You’ve left me in the dark on this,” Stride told her. “You’re hiding things from me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” There was a long stretch of dead air, and then Maggie said, “Is it true about Tanjy? Have you found her body?”

“It’s true.”

Maggie expelled her breath as if she had been holding it. “There’s something you need to know, but just you, not Teitscher.”

“What is it?”

“Tanjy wasn’t lying about the rape,” Maggie told him quickly.

“
What
?”

“I’m telling you, it really happened.”

“No way.” He thought about the fantasies on Tanjy’s computer and the explicit details of her sex life provided by Mitchell Brandt. “Tanjy told me flat-out that she made the whole thing up.”

“I know how it sounds, boss. I didn’t believe her myself, but I was wrong.”

“How the hell can you be so sure?”

The silence this time was so long he thought he had lost the call. When he heard Maggie’s voice, it didn’t sound like Maggie at all.

“Because it happened to me, too.”

He left the van in a deserted lot at the far end of the Point and hiked over the wooded slope to the lake. The roiled water and the thin strip of ice and sand stretched out before him toward the hazy lights of the city. When he emerged from the trees, a ferocious, twisting wind deadened his face. He pulled his wool cap down to become a mask and viewed the beach through slitted eyes. Inside his gloves and boots, he kept heat packs to keep his hands and feet limber and warm. He tucked his chin into his neck and hiked along the bumpy ice shelf, his coat doused by bitter spray as the waves assaulted the shore.

He was alone. The mile-long walk to Serena’s house was cold and hard. The houses were indistinguishable without the brightness of the moon and largely hidden by the skeletons of trees. He knew where to veer west off the beach when he came upon the twin pieces of driftwood he had left as a marker earlier in the day. He followed the trodden-down path up through the wild rye and picked his way to the edge of the trees, where he was only a few yards from the rear door of the cottage. He waited there, invisible. The house was dark. The concrete driveway to the street was empty.

He allowed himself a maximum of five minutes inside and set a vibrating timer in his rear pocket. He glanced at the fences on either side of the narrow lot and marched down to the rear screen door, which was open. He left his boots on the porch, where his footprints were lost in the matted snow. In his wool winter socks, he crept through the porch to the back door, shone a penlight on the lock, and let himself inside in a few seconds.

Her smell was everywhere. It was the first time he had been close enough to inhale her aroma again. He allowed himself a moment to savor it. To him, that smell was all about dry heat, sweat, and soft flesh. He felt young. He felt reborn and powerful.

His first stop was in the living room. He didn’t even need thirty seconds to choose a location, secrete the bug, and test the signal strength. The next stop was their bedroom. He had hoped to plant a Web cam, but he surveyed the white walls and knew there was nowhere that the equipment wouldn’t be seen. He settled for a second bug and affixed it behind the beams of their headboard.

He was outside again before the timer went off. He scouted the rear of the house and attached a signal booster behind one of the aluminum downspouts, which would give him at least two miles of transmission. From inside the van in the park a mile away, he could listen.

Back in the woods, he waited for her. The cold made him stamp his feet. It was never this cold in the South. He didn’t know how people lived here. It almost made him yearn for the soul-draining humidity of Alabama. His toes grew numb as time wore on, and finally, he saw headlights sweep across the driveway as Serena pulled in and parked. His muscles tensed. He watched her climb out and go inside the house, unaware of his presence. He slipped a receiver inside his ear and heard her footsteps and the rustle of her clothes as she removed her coat. When she got close to the bug, he heard her breathing.

He half-wondered whether, at some level, she smelled him in the house, too, as he had smelled her inside, like a rumor at the back of her mind. A flashback, a memory.

He slipped out from behind the trees and made his way to her car, keeping an eye on the cottage windows. Where they were lit, she couldn’t see out, but he froze when he saw her pass in front of the glass and gaze toward him. Their eyes met, as they had so many times when he was watching her. She passed into another room.

He bent down under her car and positioned the GPS transmitter, then got up and retreated to the beach without looking back. The receiver was still in his ear. He listened to her as he retraced his route toward the van. In the bedroom, he heard her humming as she undressed. He heard the jangle of the loops on her gold belt. Nearby, the water of the shower ran. He pictured her naked body, saw her skin under his hands.

His cell phone buzzed on his thigh. He was annoyed by the distraction and did a quick survey of the beach to confirm he was alone. He pulled out the phone and recognized the number. Reluctantly, he shut down the receiver in his ear.

“What?” he hissed.

“They found Tanjy’s body.”

“So?”

“So you told me it would take months. Maybe years.”

He trudged step-by-step along the gray sheet of ice. The lake rumbled next to him. It was fucking cold.

“It’s bad luck they found her, but it doesn’t change anything. Don’t worry, you’re safe.”

“You told me you’d leave the city after this was done.”

“I will.”

“So why are you still here?”

“I have unfinished business,” he snapped.

“What business?”

“My business. This one’s personal.”

The silence across the night air was lethal. “Do you have
any idea
what’s at stake for me?”

“That’s your problem,” he said.

“What other schemes are you running? Tell me.”

He breathed into the phone and saw steam evaporate like a ghost in front of his face. “You don’t want to know.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I mean, Tanjy wasn’t the only one. I decided to do some others, too.”

He waited. It was funny how even the most arrogant, cold-blooded ego could get punctured like a fat balloon by fear.

“You’re a monster.”

“Yeah? What does that make you? Remember, it was your idea.”

“Who were the others?”

“It doesn’t matter. Alpha girls don’t give up their secrets.” He laughed.

“I want you gone. Is that clear? You’ve been well paid.”

“I’ll decide when I’m done, not you.”

He snapped the phone shut and turned it off.

With his other hand, he switched on the receiver again and nestled it in his ear. He was back at the van. He slid inside, cranked the heat, and listened. His feet slowly thawed. He peeled off layers of clothes.

Inside Serena’s house, the noise of the pipes ended. He heard her return to the bedroom and imagined her nude flesh, pink and scrubbed. Her long, wet hair. Her nipples hard and her mound glistening with moisture. With each of the others, he had imagined he was with Serena. Controlling her. Violating her. Paying her back for those ten years she had stolen from him.

It was her turn.

Soon.

Stride was worried. It was almost midnight, and Maggie was late.

He was parked in the lower lot of the high school, with a vantage on the lights of downtown and the black emptiness of the lake. He had gone through two cigarettes waiting for her. Snow fell in heavy sheets, blowing over the top of the hill and swirling around him like a tornado. It was hard to look straight on into the snow. His eyes squinted, and his face scrunched up, his windburnt cheeks turning pink. Ice clumped in balls on his eyebrows. The flakes streaking toward him were nothing by themselves, but together they were a relentless army. When the wind drove them home, they were like a million knives. They could blind him, freeze him, and bury him in the same storm.

Gauzy headlights appeared on the road above him and swung down into the lot. He recognized Maggie’s Chevy Avalanche. Maggie drove fast, and the truck weaved on the slick, steep driveway. It was a huge truck for a tiny woman, so big that she needed wooden blocks to reach the pedals. She was a terrible driver. Stride thought she drove recklessly just to spite him, because she was worse whenever he was in the truck with her.

She parked at an angle near his Bronco and got out. She wore a leather coat that draped to her ankles and high, square-heeled boots. Her hands were shoved in her pockets. She kicked up wet snow as she came closer.

He hadn’t seen her since he was at her house the night of the murder, and he realized how much he had missed her. He came closer, ready to hug her, but she pulled a hand out of her pocket and held it up to stop him.

“No,” she told him. “No pity. Especially not from you.”

The few feet between them may as well have been a canyon. “Come on, Mags. This is me. You don’t have to prove how tough you are.”

“I sure as hell do.” She looked him up and down. “You ever heard of waiting inside your truck? You look like a goddamn snowman.”

“I don’t mind the cold.”

“You mean, you don’t want Serena smelling cigarette smoke inside the truck.”

“Right.”

“Well, I’m not standing outside. Let’s get in the Avalanche.”

They walked to opposite sides of her truck. Stride shook off as much snow as he could before climbing inside. The cab was warm, and he took off his gloves. Maggie didn’t look at him. She sat behind the driver’s seat staring at the panoramic view. He realized how strange it felt to see that she was older. There were tiny crow’s-feet beside her eyes and a few strands of gray in her jet-black hair. She would always be a twenty-something kid to him, intense and smart. That was part of the problem—for him, she never grew up. It still felt like yesterday that Maggie was a young cop complaining about the Enger Park Girl murder, chewing on the rim of a Styrofoam coffee cup and insisting they had missed something, when Stride knew they hadn’t missed anything at all. But that was a long, long time ago. It was as if he had put Maggie in a box in his mind, so that bad things never happened to her, but all the while she got older and bad things happened anyway.