Brian Freeman - Marathon

“Yes, Basch already called us about the death threats she’s received. She’s sending over copies of the hate mail. We need to review any intelligence you gathered on the protesters, too. E-mails. Videos. News reports. Social media posts. I want names and faces.”

Stride took a long time to reply. “This isn’t the NSA, Durkin. We’re not spies up here.”

“Yes, and Duluth’s not New York City,” Durkin fired back. “It’s a small town. I know how it works here. Nobody’s a stranger. Everyone is connected to everyone else. Chances are, somebody knows who did this. And a smart cop like you must have a pipeline to these people.”

He thought: these people . He knew what she meant, but he wanted to hear her say it.

“So what exactly are you looking for? Are you asking if I have a mole inside the Muslim community in Duluth?”

“Do you?”

Stride turned away from the crime scene in Canal Park and focused on the young agent in front of him. Maloney said she was smart, but she was also ego driven and impulsive. He knew about her background. A brother killed by Islamist extremists. An emotional response with a terrorism suspect that almost got her fired.

“I know the FBI’s job is to find whoever did this,” Stride said. “But part of my job is to make sure this city doesn’t tear itself apart. We’re the locals. We still have to live here after you guys have packed up and gone home. That means building trust with different communities, and that’s not easy when some of the people in Washington seem intent on setting us at one another’s throats.”

She took a deep breath. “I’m not trying to undermine relationships you’ve built, but let’s not kid ourselves, Stride. We know where we need to start asking questions, and it’s not at the Lutheran prayer breakfast.”

“Aren’t you skipping a few steps?” he asked.

“I’m not jumping to any conclusions. We’ll go where the evidence takes us. But a bombing in a city that’s had weeks of protests over a ‘free-speech’ conference that openly insults Islam? It would be naïve not to reach out to contacts in the Muslim community and find out if there’s been any buzz. I’m assuming you have someone you can talk to.”

“Yes, I do,” Stride acknowledged.

“Good. Call him. Set up a meeting. I want to be there.”

He shook his head. “I’ll call him, but the meeting is just me.”

“This is what I do, Stride. I read people. I know if they’re lying.”

“I’m sure you’re good at it, but I’ve spent three years getting this man to trust me. Our politicians haven’t exactly been helping me make my case. If I bring in a stranger, from the FBI, particularly someone with your personal history, that trust is gone. You won’t get what you want from him.”

“Then tape it. I’ll use the inflections in his voice to analyze whether he’s telling the truth.”

“No. No surveillance.”

Durkin exhaled, long and slow. She hid her anger, but Stride could feel it like a cold lake wind. “I could get the SAC to order you to do it.”

“Go ahead and try, but Maloney will back me up,” Stride told her.

He’d read her correctly. Durkin was bluffing.

“Okay, fine, do it your way, but I want to know every word your mole says and how he says it,” Durkin told him.

“Of course.”

Stride heard a voice calling to him. He spotted Maggie Bei approaching from between the lakeshore hotels. She always had the same cocky, clip-clop walk in her chunky-heeled boots. Her bangs bounced. She stopped in front of him and dangled a plastic evidence bag before her. The bag contained a mangled piece of steel, blackened by scorch marks, about eight inches by six inches in size.

He noticed that Maggie’s pants were soaking wet from the thighs down. The plastic gloves on her hands were wet, too.

“You guys need to see this,” Maggie said.

Durkin studied the tiny cop from behind sunglasses. “It’s Sergeant Bei, right?”

“That’s me. And you’re the FBI liaison? Special Agent Gherkin?”

The agent’s face was stone. “Durkin. Gayle Durkin.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Durkin reached for the evidence bag and examined the contents while holding the seal with two fingers. “What is this?”

“You guys are the experts, but it looks like part of a pressure cooker to me,” Maggie replied.

“Where did you find this? And why did you move it? Next time don’t touch a thing, Sergeant. If you see something, get someone over there from the Evidence Response Team. We can’t afford to have anything contaminated.”

Maggie, who was also wearing sunglasses, blew the bangs out of her eyes. She showed more patience than Stride expected. Maggie made no secret of her dislike for the arrogance of the FBI. Not that she was short on arrogance herself. “I found this in the lake. I was afraid it was going to wash away if I waited to call for one of your techs.”

“In the lake?” Durkin asked.

Maggie pointed at the Inn on Lake Superior across the street. “Yeah, given the power of the blast, I figured some of the debris might have shot completely over the top of the hotel, so I’ve been climbing around on the rocks next to the boardwalk. I saw this chunk in the water near the shore, and I climbed in to retrieve it before the waves carried it away.”

Durkin frowned but didn’t say anything more. She didn’t offer thanks. She marched away with the bag in her hand toward the head of the FBI’s evidence team. Stride stood next to Maggie, and he waited until the FBI agent was out of earshot.

“Special Agent Gherkin?” he murmured.

A smirk played across Maggie’s lips. “Innocent mistake,” she said.

“Uh-huh. Play nice, Mags.”

“Always,” she replied.

“Look, nobody likes this, but we knew the FBI was going to take over. It’s too high profile to leave it to the locals. And the fact is, they have resources and experts for a case like this that we don’t.”

“Yeah, but this is our town, boss,” Maggie replied. “Some bastard killed our people and blew up our marathon. I don’t like playing second fiddle to the feebs on this one, and I don’t like the idea of this investigation becoming another political football.”

Stride understood. For many people, Duluth was the marathon, and the marathon was Duluth. Everyone was emotional about what had happened.

“I hear you, but I know Patrick Maloney. He’s solid. He doesn’t blow with the political winds on either side.”

“What about Durkin?”

“Maloney tells me that Durkin is bright, even if she can be a little headstrong. Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“In other words, you don’t like her, either,” Maggie said.

Stride smiled. “No, but I want you and Serena to work with her, okay? Share whatever you find. I don’t need the chief accusing us of hoarding information.”

“You know it’ll be a one-way street, right? We tell them everything, they throw us crumbs?”

Stride knew that was true, but he couldn’t change it. “It is what it is, Mags.”

Maggie sighed. “Where’s Serena?”

“I told her to go home. Cat wasn’t in any shape to be alone, and Serena already ran a marathon today.”

“You want me to call her with an update?”

“Thanks. I doubt I’ll make it home tonight.”

He was grateful that Maggie had volunteered to call Serena. He knew that the relationship between the two women was complicated. They’d started out as friends, and then, for a while, they’d become enemies. At one of the lowest points in Stride’s life, he and Maggie had had a short-lived affair that temporarily derailed his relationship with Serena. After he and Serena put their lives back together again, the two women had spent a year of cold separation, until some of the bitterness finally wore off. Now that he and Serena were married, the two women were trying to coexist peacefully as cops and friends.