Brian Freeman - The Cold Nowhere

He parked near the beach after nightfall.

The black Charger was nearly invisible under the cloud-swept sky. There was no moon to make the lake glisten. The rain would come soon. He stayed off the main street of the Point, tramping through the dunes that led down to the water. As he made his approach, he listened to the swoosh of the waves, rhythmic, like a heartbeat.

The sand slowed his pace, but he was in no hurry. The ridge of dunes, mostly covered by twisted trees, blocked everything but the lights from a few higher-floor windows. The beach itself was empty. It was too cold for secret lovers and too wet for the exercise freaks.

He closed in on the house from the south.

It was one of the new mansions for the new rich. Lots on the Point were narrow, so people built up, sometimes three or four stories. Big decks. Glass everywhere. If you had the money, you could build whatever you wanted. A million dollars. Two million dollars. Play money.

He recognized the weather vane on the roof, shaped like a lighthouse. He’d scouted the place in the daylight. With a quick glance up and down the beach, he made his way over the ridge and followed the grassy trail to the back of the house, where the steps of the deck were anchored on concrete footings that had been swept over by blowing sand. He could see the curving driveway. Empty. Lights glowed on the first floor but there was no movement behind the windows.

They weren’t home yet. That was good.

He remembered another house. Another night. The number of the alarm code stuck in his head: 1789. Weird, the things you couldn’t get out of your brain.

He stayed in the shadows at the base of the deck and slid out his phone. He made the call. ‘It’s me.’

There was silence on the other end. Finally: ‘I know.’

‘I’m at the house,’ he said.

‘Okay. Fine. Just get it over with.’

‘You better be right. You’re sure this is the place?’

‘That’s what I was told.’

‘I’ll call you when it’s done.’

‘Then it’s over. Right?’

‘Then it’s over.’ Except for you.

‘Thank God.’

‘I have to go.’

More silence. Then: ‘She’s not alone, you know.’

‘I know. You told me.’

‘So how will you … Jesus.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘There has to be another way.’

‘There isn’t. This is the best way. Trust me, there won’t be any more questions. She’ll disappear. Tomorrow she’ll be gone and no one will ever see her again.’

‘How will you …?’

‘Do you really want to know?’

‘A gun?’

‘I think it’s better to use a knife,’ he said. ‘That’s more appropriate, don’t you think?’

The bag of ice numbed Stride’s shoulder. He sipped a can of Coke and studied the pages in the weekly Compstat reports, which detailed calls for police services in Duluth. Vehicle break-ins and thefts. Burglaries. Domestic assault. Drugs. He was looking for connections to Cat among the reported crimes, but so far he hadn’t found one.

He sat in his office in the new police headquarters building. It was Saturday night, almost nine o’clock. The oversized windows looking out on the forest were dark. Most of the lights in the department were turned off, but he heard footsteps in the building hallway and recognized the cadence. Police Chief Kyle Kinnick had a peculiar open-toed walk, and his old brown shoes were worn down to the nails, making him sound like a tap dancer.

K-2 appeared in Stride’s doorway. He was short and skinny, with a bad comb-over and ears like two cabbage leaves.

‘Evening, Jon.’

‘Evening, sir.’

‘How’s the shoulder?’

‘If Harrison Ford is still looking for a one-armed man, that’s me,’ Stride said.

K-2 laughed, which sounded more like a snort, and sat down in Stride’s guest chair. He wore his dress uniform, which was unusual. Most of the time K-2 looked like a CEO in his business suit, with his tie perfectly knotted. The chief was nearly sixty years old. He’d led the department for five years and served as the deputy chief before that for as many years as Stride had been on the force. Generally, they got along well together. Stride hated politics, and K-2 ran interference for him. The chief defended Stride and his team like a pit bull at every city forum, but inside the office, K-2 wasn’t patient about getting results and had a sharp tongue when things went wrong. Stride had earned a long leash over the years, but at the end of that leash was a choke chain.

‘You getting careless, Jon?’ K-2 asked. His voice had a reedy quality, like a badly played flute. ‘Or just old? It’s not like you to get run over by an eighteen-year-old hooker.’

‘Yeah, she rolled me,’ Stride admitted.

‘What’s the girl’s name?’

‘Brandy Eastman.’

‘You get her yet?’

‘No, she’s probably holed up somewhere, hiding out.’

‘You want to tell me why my lieutenant is busting teenage trespassers at the high school on a Saturday afternoon? Seems to me we have patrol officers to handle calls like that.’

‘I got a tip that Brandy was there,’ Stride explained. ‘She had some information I wanted.’

‘Uh huh.’

K-2 looked around the office, which smelled of fresh paint. Stride still had moving boxes on the floor that he hadn’t unpacked. The chief’s eyes lingered on the photograph of Stride’s late wife, Cindy, on the bureau. The two of them had been close friends.

‘So how do you like the new digs?’ K-2 asked. ‘No rats here, huh?’

‘No rats,’ Stride agreed. ‘I do miss downtown, though.’

‘Oh, hell, a few extra miles between us and the mayor is a good thing.’

Stride smiled. K-2 didn’t usually bother with small talk. When he did, he was working toward a subject that Stride wasn’t going to like. In this case, Stride had no trouble figuring out what was on the chief’s mind. Word of his visit to the Charles Frederick had made its way back to Lowball Lenny.

‘So what’s up, Chief?’ Stride asked.

K-2 scratched his big ears with his palms. ‘I was at a realtors cocktail party this evening. Half the Council was there. Leonard Keck pulled me aside. He wasn’t too happy with you.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘I guess he did a little shindig for his top salesmen on the Frederick , and you paid them a visit this morning. Sounds like some of his boys didn’t like your tone.’

Stride shrugged. ‘I don’t lose a lot of sleep worrying about what car dealers think of my tone.’

‘Oh, come on, Jon, you know it’s not that simple. What the hell were you up to?’

‘They brought prostitutes to the party. At least one of them was under-age.’

‘You can prove that?’ K-2 asked, frowning.

‘If I push hard enough, I think so. I take it you’re not anxious for me to push.’

‘Was Lenny there?’

‘He was at the party, but the story is he left before the girls arrived. Meanwhile, I’ve got a pimp driving around town today in a brand-new Leonard Keck Ford Fusion.’

To his credit, K-2 didn’t look happy. ‘Okay, you’re right, that smells funny. However, you know as well as I do that if we run with it, this will turn into an ugly pissing match with a bunch of lawyers. After we dink around for months, we still won’t get any charges to stick. All we’ll do is churn up a lot of media gossip, and we’ll make an enemy out of someone who can make our lives miserable.’

‘I know that,’ Stride said.

‘I’ll talk to Lenny. I’ll tell him to cool it. Okay? Meanwhile, you need to give me a heads up before you start messing around with the people who pay our salaries. That understood?’