Brian Freeman: In the Dark aka The Watcher

Stride and Tish left Grandma’s Saloon together. Tish lit a cigarette when they were alone on the concrete pier that jutted out into Lake Superior. Her muscles unwound. She tilted her chin and exhaled a stream of smoke like a sigh. The breeze caught and dispersed it, but Stride could taste the ghost of smoke in the air, and he had to jam his hands in his pockets to beat down the craving.

She leaned against the wall bordering the canal. Stride was next to her. The deep, narrow channel led from the lake to the inner harbors of Duluth and Superior. A century-old lift bridge, resplendent in gray steel, rose and fell over the canal when the boats came. On the opposite side of the bridge was the area known as the Point, a tiny finger of land jutting out like a natural shelter for the harbor. Stride and Serena lived there, in a lakeside cottage that dated back to the 1890s. The city side of the bridge was known as Canal Park, and it had become a haven for restaurants and hotels in the last twenty years. Tourists came to Canal Park to watch the big boats because it was like seeing living dinosaurs from the city’s past. Once upon a time, Duluth had been an industrial boomtown, whose economy was linked to the fate of hundreds of great boats carrying iron ore. The downtown area was filled with Victorian-style mansions that were reminders of a time when the city was rich from mining and shipping. Not anymore.

“I can’t believe how this area has changed,” Tish said. “When I was a kid, there was nothing but old factory buildings down here. Now it’s like Coney Island.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of money in Canal Park, but it doesn’t trickle down,” Stride told her. “They’re building condos to lure people up from Minneapolis, but the city is struggling. Like always.”

“You live out on the Point?” Tish asked.

Stride nodded.

“Nobody lived out there in the old days. The Point was where kids went to smoke dope and have sex on the beach.”

Stride laughed. “It still is.”

Tish zipped up her leather jacket. The early evening breeze off the lake was cool. “I forgot that the summers aren’t hot here.”

“We’re counting on global warming,” Stride said. “In a few years, we’ll be the new Florida.”

“You sound cynical.”

“You can’t live your whole life in Duluth and not be a little cynical,” Stride said. “Everyone here is always looking for the next big thing, but no one wants to admit that our time is past. Back when you and I were growing up, shipping was already on the way out. Nothing ever really took its place. The politicians keep selling dreams, but most of us have learned to tune it out and get on with life.”

“There’s a big world out there,” Tish said.

“Yeah, well, don’t get me wrong. I love this place. I tried to move away once, and I had to come back.”

Tish nodded. “I know. I read up on you. You’ve been a cop your whole life. You’ve been in charge of the Detective Bureau for more than ten years, and you could probably be the police chief if you wanted, but you like it on the street. A couple of years ago, during an investigation into the disappearance of a teenage girl, you quit your job and followed a cop named Serena Dial to Las Vegas. That didn’t last long. A few months later, you were right back in Duluth, and Serena came with you.”

“Is this all research for your book?” Stride asked.

“Yes,” Tish admitted. “Plus, I was curious about you. I felt like I knew you through Cindy. I wondered what happened to you after she died.”

“Let’s make one thing clear,” Stride told her. “Anything I say is off the record. Okay? I only agreed to talk with you because you’re right. Laura’s death still bothers me. But nothing I tell you goes into any book unless I give you the green light.”

Tish frowned. “That ties my hands.”

“You’re right, it does. You probably don’t work with sources when you’re writing travel essays, but this is how it goes in the real world. If you want my help, then you’ll have to hope I say yes at the end of the day.”

“You don’t trust me, do you?” Tish asked.

“No.”

She threw the cigarette at her feet and crushed it. “I understand,” she said. “I was naive coming here, figuring you’d open up to me. I keep forgetting. Cindy knew me, but you didn’t.”

Stride said nothing. He didn’t know what to think about Tish. He didn’t hear any guile in her voice, but he didn’t believe that Cindy would have carried on a relationship with a woman from their teenage years and never told him about it. Even so, he found himself liking Tish. Maybe it was because she reminded him of Cindy, and maybe it was because he sensed that her passion about Laura wasn’t faked. This was about more than a book. This was personal to her. He wanted to know why.

“What can I do to make you trust me?” Tish asked.

“You can start by telling me your story,” Stride said.

“What else can I do?” she said, smiling.

He didn’t smile back.

Tish sighed and studied the hills of the city, where the streets climbed from the water like terraces on the face of a cliff. “You’re right, the city hasn’t changed much in thirty years. All the old buildings, all the old houses, are still there. I could close my eyes and be a kid again.”

Stride heard a tremor in her voice. “Is that not a good thing?”

“Not really. Most of the places I go, people complain about too much change. Nothing’s the way it used to be. I guess I expected Duluth to be different, too. I wasn’t ready for the memories to hit me in the face.”

He waited.

“Back then, I couldn’t wait to get out of Duluth,” Tish continued. “I left the city the day after I graduated from high school.”

“What year was that?”

“It was June of 1977, the month before Laura was killed. I moved to St. Paul, got a job, got an apartment. I never wanted to see Duluth again.”

“Why were you so anxious to get away?”

Tish hesitated. Stride watched her carefully, wondering if she was about to lie. He had interviewed suspects for years, and most of them got that same look on their faces when they made up a story. It was as if they needed those few seconds to play the lie out in their heads to see if it hung together. He expected a generic lie from Tish that didn’t tell him anything about her life. I was a kid. I was born to run. Something like that.

She surprised him.

“Look, I was screwed up, okay? My mom was killed when I was eleven. For the next few years, I bounced around the city in foster homes. I was an angry girl. I felt homeless. I don’t blame it on any of my foster parents. They did their best, and I didn’t make it easy for them.”

“What about your father?” Stride asked.

“He wasn’t in the picture. Mom got pregnant when she was only twenty-two. She sold perfume in a department store back then, so she met a lot of married men. When I was a kid, she told me that she dated a handsome Finnish sailor who came to the city one day on an ore boat. To me, that sounded romantic. She didn’t bother explaining the truth. It wasn’t until much later that I realized what a coward I had for a father.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry for me,” Tish said. “Mom was the one who had it tough. Being single and pregnant in the 1950s was like having the plague. She got run out of her church. Got fired from her job. She was out of work for months before she landed a teller position at a bank. We were always scratching to make ends meet. But she was great. Very proud. Very independent.”

“I’m sure it was hard to lose her.”

“It was.”

Stride knew a little of how she felt. He had felt homeless himself when his father died. He was sixteen. If he hadn’t been rescued when he met Cindy a few months later, he might have wound up a lost child, like Tish. Bitter. Lonely. Looking for escape.