Brian Freeman - Goodbye to the Dead (Jonathan Stride Book 7)

A young man in camouflage in the woods, carrying an assault weapon. A young man with gray, lifeless eyes that reminded her of a shark seeing only the black water.

It was him. This was the man that Jonny was looking for.

She realized she was still staring at him. So did he. The young man put his sunglasses on and stalked away, melting into the crowd of the mall. Acting on instinct, she leaped to her feet and followed him. She spotted his camouflaged back, marching like a soldier. Pushing past people, who parted to let him through. Bumping into others without apologizing. He kept his chin tilted down. Cameras wouldn’t catch him. He was small, but he walked quickly, and she had to hurry to keep him in sight.

He looked back. He saw her.

She pretended to be window-shopping, but she didn’t think he was fooled. He turned sharply right and yanked open a door labeled For Employees Only. The door shut, and he disappeared.

Cindy hurried to the same door and stopped with her fingers clenched around the metal handle. People came and went around her, oblivious to her anxiety. She looked for a mall security guard but saw no one to help her. In seconds, the man would be gone. She hesitated — what was she doing? — but then she opened the door herself, finding an empty, unfinished corridor ahead of her. She stepped inside and let the door close, shutting out most of the noise of the mall.

She was alone. She heard the buzz of machines. The walls on either side of the narrow space were plasterboard, and the floor was dirty. A single row of fluorescent bulbs stretched along the ceiling toward a doorway lit by a red Exit sign.

She listened for his footsteps but heard nothing. She jogged to the end of the hallway, stopped, and peered carefully around the corner. He was already gone. She felt a chill, as if outside air were blowing in from somewhere. She followed the new corridor, which was built of brick and led her to a small utility room. The mechanical throb was louder. Gas and water pipes made a maze on the wall. She saw a tall steel door that ran up and down on tracks; it was closed. Another exit door had a crash bar. It led outside.

Cindy shivered, then pushed through the door into the cold air. She was outside the mall now, near the parking lot. Wind and rain slapped her face. She didn’t see him. Her shoulders sagged, but then she heard a voice behind her.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

She stifled a scream and spun around. He was there, behind a dumpster. Waiting for her. She saw no eyes, just sunglasses. Cap pulled way down. There was nothing to see, nothing to recognize, only the hard, bitter line of his mouth. Despite his small size, his body carried menace. She felt fear down to her toes.

‘Why are you following me?’ he demanded.

‘I’m not.’

‘Bullshit,’ he hissed.

‘You looked like someone I knew, but I guess not.’ She went to push past him and head back inside, but he grabbed her arm. She struggled and shouted. ‘Let me go!’

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘I’m the wife of a cop, that’s who I am, so you better let go of me right now!’

He dropped her arm. She rubbed it and knew there would be a bruise where his fingers had clamped over her skin. For a small man, he was strong.

‘People shouldn’t go sticking their noses into other people’s business,’ he warned her. He drew back the flap of his camouflage jacket, and she saw the butt of a gun poking out of a shoulder holster. ‘Bad things happen to those kinds of people. You hear what I’m saying?’

Her mouth was dry. She didn’t say a word.

He marched past her into the parking lot at a quick, nervous pace. Her eyes followed him, but she didn’t see him get into a vehicle. When she couldn’t see him anymore, she ran back into the utility room and then to the warmth, crowds, and sweet smells of the mall.

People stared at her, and she realized that tears were streaming down her face.

Stride walked onto the ice of a small lake off Tree Farm Road in Midway Township. Evergreens and birches made a wreath around the shore. The rain left puddles on the frozen surface, making it slippery under his boots. Spring was coming. The locals had already pulled most of their fishing shanties off the water, but a few diehards always waited until the ice was practically slush before giving up on winter. Sometimes they waited too long.

He saw an old pick-up a hundred yards away, parked beside a tin shanty that wasn’t much bigger than an outhouse. Even at that distance, he recognized Nathan Skinner carrying provisions from the icehouse to his truck. Nathan saw him, too, and he offered Stride a mock salute.

Stride lit a cigarette and let it soothe his nerves. He kept trudging through the miserable drizzle.

He’d known Nathan for years, all the way back to his UMD hockey days. Most men in Duluth had. Nathan was a genuine star, who’d brought home an NCAA championship for the Bulldogs. People in Duluth didn’t forget that kind of thing. It was a shame that the kid had blown out his knee before he had a chance to prove himself as a pro. Nathan never claimed to be bothered about it, but Stride didn’t believe him. You couldn’t come that close to fame and money and not be bitter about missing the gold ring.

One day you’re about to be a starting forward for the Blackhawks.

The next day you’re a street cop.

And not long after that, you’re booted off the force, doing fill-in security in malls and hospitals.

Stride knew that Maggie didn’t like Nathan. He couldn’t really blame her. Nathan had the chauvinist arrogance of a man who’d had women fawning over him his whole life. Stride knew that Nathan was a sexist and probably a racist. He didn’t condone the man’s attitudes, but if you rejected every male in the white-bread northland because they didn’t understand women or blacks, then you weren’t left with much of a hiring pool. His job was to purge those attitudes and help his cops see the complex reality of the world they policed. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.

He’d been reluctant to fire Nathan, partly because he thought Nathan was smart enough to have long-term potential, and partly because he didn’t like Jay whipping up public sentiment against his team. He gave in when the chief wanted Nathan gone, but he was stubborn enough to believe that with enough time and training, he still could have turned Nathan Skinner into a solid police officer.

‘Hello, Nathan,’ Stride said as he approached the pick-up.

Nathan nodded. His face was wet, his blond hair flat. ‘Lieutenant.’

Stride blew smoke into the air. ‘You should be off the ice.’

‘I’m packing up now.’

Stride nodded. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

‘I figured. I wasn’t really in a mood to be found. I can read the newspapers.’

‘Is it true?’ Stride asked. ‘The affair with Janine?’

‘Sure, it’s true.’

Nathan shrugged, as if the information were of no importance. He had a CD boombox in his hands, covered by plastic wrap, and he wedged it behind the driver’s seat of his truck. He returned to the small icehouse, and Stride followed him inside. There was barely room for the two men. A wooden chair sat next to a hole drilled in the ice, revealing murky black water below.

‘Maggie talked to you a while ago. You didn’t mention your relationship with Janine.’

‘So? I don’t think I’m under any obligation to discuss my sex life with Maggie Bei. She didn’t ask. I didn’t volunteer.’

Stride flicked his cigarette into the open water. ‘Don’t be cute.’

Nathan sat in the rickety chair and stretched out his legs. He wore blue jeans and a down vest, but his arms were bare. ‘Fine. I didn’t say anything about it, because you guys already had Janine in your sights. I didn’t feel the need to make her any more of a suspect than she was.’