Brian Freeman - The Cold Nowhere

‘You see anyone regularly? Like a girlfriend?’

Walton shook his head. ‘Nope.’

‘How about a Hispanic teenager? Small, dark hair, very attractive.’

‘Like I said, I stopped paying attention. I’m a gamer. Call of Duty. If I’m home, I’m not looking out the windows.’

‘The police thought he’d been lying here for a couple days,’ she said. ‘You see anything or hear anything weird around that time? Shouting, arguments, screaming?’

‘Arguments happen all the time in this place, but the walls are thicker than you think. We don’t get a lot of noise between the apartments unless people have their windows open. It was so hot that most people had their window ACs running, and those things are really loud.’

‘I don’t see a window unit here.’

‘People yank them during the winter,’ Walton told her, ‘but this place never had one. In the heat, his body pretty much fermented, you know?’

‘Yeah.’ She dug in her pocket for a photograph of Margot Huizenfelt. ‘You ever see this woman around here?’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Okay. Thanks for your help, Mr. Walton. Mind if I hang out here for a few minutes?’

‘Knock yourself out.’

Walton left her alone, but he left the apartment door open. She stood where the body would have been found. She smelled fresh paint, and the new carpet was springy under her heels. The apartment was sterile now, but she tried to imagine a sofa against the wall, with Roslak engaged in intercourse. Pants and underwear pooled at his ankles. The girl beneath him.

Somewhere in mid-fornication, she changes her mind. Or maybe she never consented. She attacks him, stabs him, drives him backward to the floor, and keeps stabbing. He’s too surprised even to scream. His lungs fill with blood, and he can’t talk. He just dies.

The cops never found the knife. She took it with her. Did Roslak have the knife when they started? Was he threatening her with it?

Or did she have the knife all along?

Maybe it was close by. In her boot. The way Cat always kept it.

Maggie decided that she had learned one thing by coming here. Roslak’s death didn’t smell like a murderer bent on keeping a decade-old secret from being exposed. He had been up close and personal with his killer. Very close, very personal. They knew each other; they were intimate. This was about sex gone bad, suddenly and violently. It didn’t feel as if it had anything to do with a stolen ring hanging around Cat’s neck.

She opened a window facing the street. Cold air blew inside, and bare branches knocked together from the tree in the yard next door. Distantly, with the wind, she heard the light rail trolley on Hiawatha. Back then, on a blistering July day with no air conditioning, Roslak would have opened a window. If anyone were passing on the sidewalk outside, they would have heard the noises of sex rippling from the apartment. Or murder.

Maggie slid down to sit on the carpet with her hands wrapped around her knees. It was nearly dark. She sat in the deepening gloom without moving. She was convinced she’d overlooked something important. Even with no furniture, with nothing to remind her of the crime scene, the apartment spoke to her, but it was in a language she didn’t understand.

What was she missing?

Outside the apartment, she heard heavy footsteps. She assumed it was Bennett Walton coming back, but then she saw the face and burly body of Ken McCarty grinning at her from the doorway. She found it hard to muster a smile in return.

‘Hey, you,’ he said. ‘I got your text.’

‘Hey.’

Ken strolled through the apartment and slid down next to her. He sensed her bleak mood. ‘You okay? Guppo told me you rolled the Av.’

‘I’m fine.’

He nudged her in the ribs with an elbow, and her torso was tender. ‘You don’t look fine.’

‘I’m fine,’ she repeated, with a hint of irritation.

‘Okay. Just asking. Nice wheels outside.’

‘It’s a rental.’

‘Yeah, when I rent, I don’t get a Vette. Are you sticking around overnight? You want to come over to the love shack?’

‘No, Stride wants me back up north.’

‘Too bad. Did you learn anything down here?’

‘Nothing that ties Roslak’s murder to Duluth. Nothing that ties Marty Gamble to Fong Dao. I talked to Fong’s girlfriend, and she’s convinced that Fong was set up. He wasn’t involved in the Keck break-in at all.’

Ken chuckled. ‘Sure. Him and all the other innocent men with multiple burglary convictions.’

‘I know, stupid, right? The crazy thing is, I think I believe her.’

‘Maggie Bei doubting herself? That’s new.’

She shrugged. ‘I was too sure of myself in those days. Too cocky. I should have asked more questions.’

‘Sounds like twenty-twenty hindsight to me. We got a tip, we got a warrant, we nailed him. They should all be so easy.’

‘Maybe it was too easy,’ Maggie said. ‘Djemilah says the people at St. Luke’s knew about Fong’s criminal record. Any one of them could have pointed us at him. Once we found the stash in his apartment, I was ready to close the book.’

‘Not just you. Stride was convinced, too. So was K-2.’

‘Yeah, but I sold it. I said we had our guy. I looked for an accomplice and didn’t find one, so that was that. Except obviously, I screwed up the whole case. Think about it, how could I find an accomplice in Fong’s life if Fong wasn’t even involved in the crime?’

‘Come on, don’t dump on yourself because of what this girl told you. If we convicted men based on the stories they tell their girlfriends, the jails would be empty.’

‘You’re right about that.’

‘Of course I am.’ He checked his phone and read an incoming message. ‘Anyway, duty calls, babe. I gotta run, but I’m glad you let me know you were in town. Shame you can’t stay.’

‘Yeah.’ She leaned across and kissed him. Plenty of tongue. ‘You coming this weekend?’

‘I’m practically coming now.’

‘Go,’ she said.

Ken pushed himself to his feet and left her alone in Roslak’s apartment, which was now nearly pitch black. She lingered in the darkness, thinking about Fong Dao and his conviction for murder. She’d led the raid on his apartment herself. She’d been the one who found the box, opened it, found the jewels, found the cash, found the gun. It was all laid out for her. Open and shut.

Too easy.

No matter what Ken said, and no matter what she told herself, she couldn’t shake a sick feeling in her gut. Something was wrong. Everything was wrong.

She was beginning to think she’d made a mistake ten years ago that had cost a man his life.

Stride checked his watch. ‘He’s late.’

They were miles from the heart of the city. The bone-white Catholic church building dated back to 1896, with a copper dome and cross atop its steeple. It was located on a lonely road in the township of Gnesen, in wooded land tucked among the northern lakes. A handful of graves rested in the quiet lawn surrounding the church, dwarfed by evergreens.

Serena cast her eyes around the deserted churchyard. ‘Why would he ask to meet us here?’

‘He doesn’t want anyone to see us together,’ Stride concluded.

It was dark, but there was a streetlight near the church, and the light cast shadows into the cemetery. They sat on a bench in front of a stone grotto. The rough stones were dusted with snow. Inside the cave created by the rocks, Christ clasped his hands in prayer. Behind the grotto, agitated crows hidden in the trees warned them away. Serena sat close to Stride, their bodies touching, his arm around her shoulder to keep her warm.

‘Cindy came here with K-2 for services sometimes,’ Stride said.