The Body Reader (8 page)

“They weren’t friends. Lola was forbidden to go anywhere with Delilah. Delilah was a bad influence, and they hadn’t associated in months.”

“Why exactly was she a bad influence?” Jude asked.

“She drank and smoked and did drugs. And that’s just the stuff I know about. You’re the detectives. Figure it out.” The door slammed.

As they walked back down the sidewalk, Jude glanced at the house. “Lola is in there. I just saw a curtain move upstairs.”

“She’s scared,” Uriah said. “Let’s give her time; then we’ll try again. I’d rather not have to bring her in for questioning. We’ll get better information from her if she gives it willingly.”

Back in the office, they spent the rest of the day following up on leads, finally calling it quits long after everyone else had gone home.

Home.

Not a place Uriah looked forward to going, because could an apartment ever really feel like home? He hadn’t been living downtown long, and for all his defense of it, he wondered what he’d been thinking. In retrospect, he could see he’d done the opposite of shrining. He’d boxed up everything, sold the house, and moved, hoping to leave his pain behind. But that decision now felt like a mistake that only amplified his grief and sense of loss.

CHAPTER 13

U
riah had always been fond of Emerson Tower—a downtown building that had once been one of the tallest in Minneapolis—but he’d never imagined living in it. Art deco, ornate trim, Italian marble, African mahogany, wrought iron, gold doorknobs, the structure itself patterned after the Washington Monument, with rooms that got smaller with each floor.

After the substation was hit and crime went rampant, the hotel rooms in the Emerson had been converted into apartments. The downtown conversion of hotels to living spaces was part of the mayor’s “Stay in the City” campaign, his theory being it was safer in the heart of the city, where police patrols were dense. Uriah agreed, but so far the plan didn’t seem to be working all that well. Even though the units were affordable, half the apartments in the Emerson were empty.

He remembered coming to this area of Minneapolis when he was a kid. His parents had warned him to stick close as they gripped his hand tightly. Their nervousness had transmitted to him, but he’d never been scared. What he’d felt was excitement. It didn’t matter where it came from, whether it was the guy on the corner talking to himself, the dude crawling along the road growling and barking, the hookers, or the street people. The whole foreign world excited him. It was so different from his hometown—a place that on the surface appeared boringly conservative and safe. Of course he now knew no place was safe, but as a kid, his hometown had seemed the old-school version of middle-class America.

When relatives visited, his parents had felt compelled to take them on a trip to the big city, the dark city, full of crime and filth and sex and drugs. And Prince.

And then Block E came along. Sort of an eradication. The homeless, the street people, the druggies, the whores, the panhandlers, the street musicians, the hippies, the crust punks—they were all chased away, to be replaced by Target, a movie theater nobody went to, and a parking ramp nobody parked in. And so this . . . this new Minneapolis was actually a throwback and maybe even a correction. Uriah would never voice those thoughts aloud, but there was a part of him that took pleasure in the return of the true character of the city. Reverse gentrification.

And now the city was his home. And a giant building that had loomed over his young self was where he lived. It was both odd and comforting to wonder if he’d felt his own future presence on those family trips to Minneapolis all those years ago.

Ten hours after he and Jude visited Delilah Masters in the autopsy suite, Uriah entered his apartment building through a skyway revolving door that spit him onto the mezzanine. One floor down, the street-level lobby was deserted. No surprise. It was late; the hucksters and vendors had packed up their carts and gone home.

The day had been crazy and long, and reentering the building gave him a sense of skewed time. It seemed like he’d been gone a week.

Uriah ignored the elevator and instead hiked the stairs to the seventeenth floor. He was getting faster.

The scent of curry and garlic permeated the hallway—a sign of life behind closed doors. In his cramped apartment, he hung up his suit and pulled on a pair of ragged jeans and a well-worn T-shirt. He grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, along with a take-out container of sweet-potato fries. He settled on the couch, hunched over the laptop on the coffee table, and ate the cold fries and drank the beer. Opening Facebook, he typed Delilah Masters’s name in the search box, clicking through to the dead girl’s profile.

Like a lot of teens’ pages, hers was filled with selfies and girlfriend photos. He was especially interested in the group photos. Most of the people were tagged, so he pulled a pad of paper close.

She had just under three hundred friends. He began by visiting their pages one at a time, jotting down the names of people who might merit a visit from the police.

Some kids in her class had profiles that embraced violence. He wrote down those names. Under “Family,” he found Delilah’s parents and younger brother, along with other relatives. Movie and music choices weren’t unusual for a seventeen-year-old girl. A lot of photos of animals, mostly cats but also dogs. And, as to be expected, people leaving either condolences for her family or comments that spoke directly to Delilah.

Uriah went through those too, especially names that recurred several times in a thread. The face that came up the most belonged to the girl they’d been unable to interview earlier that day, Lola Holt. And, despite Mrs. Holt’s insistence that the two were no longer friends, it appeared they’d hung out not long before Delilah’s death.

He made a note to contact Genevieve Masters about getting the log-in to her daughter’s Facebook page in order to read her private messages. If she couldn’t provide it ASAP, they’d have to issue a warrant.

Done with the Masters girl, he started to close the laptop, his hand on the lid.

He wasn’t a fan of Facebook. Too busy, and he had no interest in sharing himself with old friends or new friends or people he didn’t know or barely knew. And being a cop, he had to be careful.

But years ago Ellen had set up a page against his protests. Wasn’t anybody’s business what he was doing—that’s what he’d said at the time.

“Everybody should be on Facebook,” she’d told him.

Now he logged in. Below a photo of him, shirtless, on a dock, holding a catfish, were the words
In a relationship
.

His profile looked empty in comparison to most Facebook pages. No movies. No music. Very few friends. On the left, he clicked the “Family” tab to find the usual suspects: his parents, his brother.

Ellen.

He clicked her name. That click took him to her page, and there she was, smiling at him.

He swallowed, stared. Took a drink of beer. And another drink of beer, finishing off the bottle, staring at the screen, finally clicking the “Photo” tab to scroll through images, most of Ellen, but many of the two of them together. Vacations. Family events. Just hanging out. One had been taken at his parents’ house, Ellen sprawled across his lap, laughing up at him.

They’d made love shortly after that, in the bedroom he’d slept in as a kid, laughing as they tried to be quiet.

Seeing the photos, remembering, hurt in kind of a good way, and he suddenly understood how Delilah Masters might have felt when she’d dragged a razor blade across her stomach.

It took a while, but he went through every picture. Once the pain began to subside, once the numbness fell over his heart once again, he read the comments people had left. It was like the Delilah Masters page, with words written directly to Ellen most of the time:

I miss you.

Gone too soon.

I miss your sweet, smiling face.

Most from people he didn’t even know.

Nobody mentioned suicide. Nobody ever mentioned suicide. And maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe it mattered only to him. The
why
.

She’d seemed so happy. That’s what got him.

The department psychologist tried to tell him it wasn’t his fault. That Ellen was ultimately responsible for the choice she’d made.

What really drove him crazy was that he’d never seen it coming.

Not a hint. Not a
fucking
hint. What kind of husband didn’t know his wife was in pain?

A shitty husband. A husband who was wrapped up in his job.

He’d been relieved to hear the Masters girl hadn’t been a suicide. A stupid reaction, because a homicide was every bit as horrifying as suicide, but the people left behind had to cope in a different way. He’d been relieved because it meant he wouldn’t have to deal with that reminder of Ellen. And when they were talking to Mrs. Masters, he caught himself almost saying,
At least it wasn’t suicide
, because she’d be able to turn her pain outward rather than inward. The blame wouldn’t be her blame, but instead maybe the fault of a society that couldn’t get its act together. In truth, the loss of a loved one was a pain that never stopped, no matter how it happened. No matter the hand behind the deed.

He read everything on Ellen’s page, starting long before her death a year ago, before they’d moved from southern Minnesota to Minneapolis, before she’d started taking classes at the U, everything written as if it were happening now. And the photos. The goddamn photos . . .

Uriah and me skating at the Depot.

First day of classes at the University of Minnesota, Folwell Hall.

When he got to the day she started Facebook, he wasn’t ready for his visit to end. He didn’t want to leave or get sucked back out into the world where Ellen no longer existed. Maybe there was more. Maybe there was stuff he couldn’t see since he wasn’t logged into her account.

He logged out, then attempted to log in as Ellen. She’d had a favorite password. It didn’t work. He tried three more possibilities before giving up.

Never saw it coming.

He grabbed a bottle of vodka and headed upstairs to the observation deck—another great thing about his building. Through the curved glass, he looked into the distance, at the sky and the stars.

He put a quarter in the binoculars.

Never saw it coming.

He scanned the sky through the glass barrier. As the meter ticked away, he watched chains of car lights snaking through the city. Turning the binoculars 180 degrees, he spotted the moon reflecting off Lake Harriet. Jude lived down there somewhere south of Lake Street, from what he gathered.

He swung back the opposite direction, to the area where houses were no longer laid out in a grid, but rather wound around streams and lakes, and streets were called things like Pleasant Valley Circle and Maple Drive and Park Place.

He located the area where he and Ellen used to live and stared a long time, until the binoculars stopped ticking and the lens went dark. Then, the way he’d done so many nights since moving into the Emerson, he sat down on a reclining chair and proceeded to get wasted.

The department psychologist said drinking didn’t help. She was wrong. It was the
only
thing that helped.

CHAPTER 14

J
ude’s phone rang. She groped around on the roof where she’d spread her sleeping bag, found the phone, checked the screen, saw Uriah’s name, hit “Answer,” and croaked out a yes.

“Is this Detective Fontaine?”

Not Uriah. The voice belonged to a young woman. Jude propped herself up on her elbow, alert. “Yes.”

“My name is Leona Franklin. I wasn’t sure who to call, but we have a situation here.” Pause. Breath. “About a year ago my husband and I bought a house on Juniper Street.”

Jude rechecked the screen:
Uriah
. Had someone borrowed his phone? Hitting “Speaker,” she said, “I think you have the wrong number.”

“Hear me out. We bought the house from Detective Ashby. Do you know him? We found his phone and saw
detective
in front of your name, so we thought you might know him.”

“He’s my partner.”

“Well, he’s here right now.
In our house.
In the wine cellar. Because he was a cop, we never got the locks changed. Apparently he just let himself in.”

Wide awake now, Jude got to her feet and grabbed her sleeping bag and gun. “What’s the address?” she asked, heading for the rooftop stairs.

The woman gave her the house number.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Inside her apartment, Jude dropped the sleeping bag, tugged on jeans and boots, strapped her holster and gun around her waist, slipped her iPhone into her back pocket, and tossed on a jacket. Helmet under her arm, she hurried out, locking the door behind her, then pounded down the stairs to the parking garage, where she straddled the bike, fastened her helmet, started the engine, and hit the remote on the key chain. The electronic garage door cranked open.

On the street, passing under traffic lights and rolling past dark shops with neon signs, she squeezed the clutch and foot-shifted through the gears to race toward the address the woman on the phone had given her.

The area where Uriah once lived turned out to be quintessential Minneapolis, from the tree-lined streets to the stucco houses. When she spotted a building blazing with lights, she figured she’d located the house, quickly confirming it as she pulled into the driveway, her headlight bouncing across the number above the front door.

She shut off the bike and secured it on the stand. After removing her helmet and hanging it over the handlebar, she approached the house and knocked. It was answered by a young couple: a very pregnant woman wearing a floral nightgown, a man wearing a T-shirt and pajama pants.

The house . . . the pregnant woman . . . Symbols of normality. It was hard and even impossible to imagine Uriah puttering around this place on a Saturday, doing mundane chores like painting and repair, lawn mowing.

“His wife committed suicide, you know,” the woman whispered.

Jude felt a thud deep in her belly as everything fell into place. The drinking, his reaction to the body in the lake . . .

“He couldn’t bear to live here anymore, so he sold the house. You should have seen him the day we signed the papers. He was gutted. I had to leave the room because I started crying.”

It came to her that she and Uriah had both lost their identities in slightly different ways. He was now a grief-stricken widower who’d once lived a fairly charmed life. This was where that charmed life had taken place.

The woman led Jude through the living room and kitchen to a gray basement door.

A basement.

At the top of the stairs, Jude’s heart beat in her ears. Was this a trick? Had she been lured into a trap? The couple felt genuine to her, but could she trust her read of the situation? Really?

Hand to the gun at her waist, she spoke Uriah’s name, her voice carrying down the steps.

He responded from the depths of the basement. “Jude? That you?”

Relieved yet still reluctant to join him, she asked, “What are you doing down there?”

“Checking out the wine selection.”

She took a deep breath and descended to find him in a corner, sitting on the floor, back against the wall, one knee bent, a bottle beside him and a wineglass in his hand. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She’d never seen him in anything other than his suit.

“Apparently 2005 was a good year,” he said.

He didn’t seem that drunk, not nearly as drunk as he needed to be to have gotten himself into this situation. The professional drinkers were the ones who often seemed more sober than anybody else in the room.

Jude lowered herself beside him on the floor. Uriah offered her his glass. She accepted and took a sip. “Not half-bad.”

“Right?”

They drank in silence for a while, continuing to share the glass; then she said, “It’s time to go.”

“I feel pretty comfortable here.”

“This isn’t your house.”

“It sure as hell is.” He put out his hand for the glass. She passed it to him.

“Not anymore. You sold it.”

“Really? That explains the people upstairs.”

“Let’s get out of here and let this lovely couple with a baby on the way get back to sleep.”

That seemed to get through, because the one thing she knew about Uriah was that he had compassion in him.

She put the glass and bottle aside and helped him to his feet. Once upright, he swayed, caught himself, then pointed to the stairs. “After you.”

“You might want to get the locks changed,” Jude told the couple as she and Uriah passed them in the hallway.

“Calling first thing in the morning,” the husband muttered with relief.

Outside, Jude and Uriah paused on the sidewalk. Behind them, the porch light went out. “How did you get here?” she asked.

Uriah looked up and down the street. “I dunno.” He gave it some thought. “I think I took the light-rail. Or maybe a cab.”

Jude straddled the bike and maneuvered it around to face the street, ready for launch. “Hop on.”

Uriah swung his leg over and settled himself behind her, hands at her waist, his touch impersonal.

Fuel, choke, ignition. She kick-started the bike and gave it gas as she shifted into first and took off, heading in the direction of downtown. Ten minutes later she slowed for a right turn on Marquette, the heavy machine feeling awkward and unsteady with the addition of Uriah’s weight. At Emerson Tower, she found a parking spot in front of the building and cut the engine.

Both of them off the bike, she removed her helmet.

Uriah spun around and launched himself at the double doors. “Thanks for the ride!” he shouted over his shoulder.

She followed in order to make sure he made it safely to his apartment. In the lobby, she watched as he owlishly managed to punch the elevator’s “Up” button. A green arrow dinged, a pair of doors separated, and Uriah tumbled inside to lean heavily against the wall. “I usually take the stairs,” he confided, carefully choosing a number on the control panel and pressing it with the intensity of a baby. The door shuddered closed, and the elevator began to move. “My record is two minutes, twenty-three seconds.” He gave her a long look. “We should race sometime.”

“I’m not very athletic. I’m more of a croquet type of person, but sure. I’ll race you.” Come morning, he’d never remember.

He nodded. Then, more to himself than her, he mumbled, “Deal.”

At floor 17, the car stopped and the doors opened. Uriah walked carefully down the hall, stopping abruptly to prop himself against the wall, eyes closed. The night and the booze had caught up with him.

Jude searched his pockets, found a set of keys, one with a number on it. She located his apartment and unlocked the door while Uriah shouldered himself away from the wall to follow her inside.

Up until now, if Jude had bothered to wonder about him, she would have mentally constructed one of two environments, the first and foremost being a kind of ultramodern bachelor pad. Second choice would have been a space with just the essentials. Bed unmade, possibly just a mattress, shower, hot plate. Basically a place to sleep between the long hours of work. Yes, that would have been more likely than the bachelor pad. Scratch the bachelor pad.

Scratch the bare space too.

She closed the door and hit the wall switch. The ornate glass fixture above her head did little to illuminate the space.

The dark apartment smelled like an antique shop—that mixture of ancient paper and ancient wood and stories about people who’d lived a long time ago. Underfoot was an oriental rug in shades of burgundy and forest green. Windows were covered with thick red drapes. But the biggest surprise? Floor-to-ceiling books, many with leather spines, most protected by clear covers.

Everything was old. Vintage lamps with dark shades. In the corner, near a sixties-style green couch, were shelves of vinyl records and a turntable.

The apartment wasn’t very big, or maybe it just didn’t seem big because of all the belongings packed into it. From where she stood, she could see an adjoining kitchen and a hallway that led to what must have been the bedroom and bathroom.

The clutter was overwhelming and comforting at the same time. A world within a world. She was surprised to find that it felt like a safe cocoon rather than a trap, a cell.

Uriah walked with drunken deliberation, taking a straight shot down the hall. She followed to find him sitting on the bed, staring blankly into space before he tumbled backward, eyes closed, arms spread.

An ordinary person might have tugged off his sneakers for him and rolled him to the side in case he threw up. Jude was no longer an ordinary person, and the limits of what she felt comfortable doing had been exceeded, yet she found herself unwilling to leave him alone in his present condition.

She grabbed a spare pillow from the bed, returned to the living room, tossed it on the couch, but didn’t lie down. Instead, she pulled a book from one of the shelves and opened it to the copyright page. A first edition of
Fight Club
. She put it away and pulled out another book. First edition of
Silent Spring
.

She remembered how it felt to be that passionate about something. She mourned the loss of that feeling and marveled that a cop who dealt with death on a daily basis could still be engaged in life on such a level.

She put the book away and picked up a framed photo. It was a typical couple’s snapshot, taken in a typical couple’s spot in front of the
Spoonbridge and Cherry
at the Walker Art Museum. Hadn’t she and Eric stood in that very place? Didn’t they have just such a photo? What had happened to it? That physical proof of a life that no longer existed but had once been real?

She thought she wanted nothing to do with anything in the house she’d shared with Eric, but that was a lie, a way of protecting herself, and now she began to wonder what else had been left behind, if anything. Or had he thrown all reminders of her away when the new girl moved in?

What if things had been different? What if no new girlfriend had been standing beside him on that cold night last winter? What if he’d welcomed her in the way she’d always imagined? What would her life be like now? Because the truth was, she was having a hard time reentering, and most of the time it felt as if she were standing behind a thick glass that separated her from the rest of the world.

She put the photo back on the shelf. Ten minutes later she returned to the bedroom long enough to roll Uriah onto his side and prop a pillow behind his back.