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

Then it vanished, never to be found again. And now, like the gun, it was back.

The timing was no coincidence. The gun. The jewelry. Something had happened to bring them into the light.

‘I talked to Pat Burns,’ Stride told Serena and Maggie in his office.

Pat Burns had taken over as St. Louis County attorney from Dan Erickson two years earlier.

‘What did she say?’ Maggie asked. ‘What did the judge decide?’

She sat with her legs dangling in the chair immediately in front of Stride’s desk. Serena sat on Stride’s sideboard with her back against the office wall. The two women in his life avoided looking at each other.

‘He signed off on Archie’s motion and ordered Janine’s release,’ Stride told them. ‘She’ll probably be out tomorrow. The judge ruled that a third party clearly had control over the murder weapon all these years and that the violent history of the gun before and after Jay’s death makes it impossible to sustain the original trial verdict. He agreed with Archie that if the evidence of the gun had been available to the jury back then, Janine would have been acquitted.’

‘So she gets out,’ Maggie said.

‘She gets out. Pat will have to decide whether she can mount a new trial. And whether she even wants to, given the evidence.’

Serena spoke from the credenza. ‘I know you guys don’t want to hear this, but isn’t the most logical explanation that Janine really was telling the truth? Somebody had the gun back then, but not her. Whoever it was killed Jay Ferris and stole the jewelry.’

Maggie looked as if she wanted to argue for the sake of arguing, but then she said: ‘Yeah, Nathan said the same thing. He thinks we were wrong about Janine. I don’t know, boss. I hate to say we blew it, but I think we blew it.’

Stride knew what Cindy would say. Told you so, Jonny .

‘Let’s forget about Janine for the time being,’ Serena said, interrupting his thoughts. ‘We’ve got other problems.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning my weird little nerd, Mort Sanders, was on to something,’ Serena told them. ‘Mort was chatting online with a woman named Erin from Grand Forks. He says she was being chased by the same stalker who was involved with Kelly Hauswirth. Kelly was hooked up with a guy who called himself Lakelover, and Erin’s boyfriend was Mattie_1987, but Mort swears they’re the same guy.’

She held up an enlargement of a driver’s license from North Dakota, which showed an attractive blond, just over twenty-three years old, oval face, blue eyes, with a smile that was innocent and sexy at the same time. Stride couldn’t help but notice the similarity between this woman and the Colorado photograph of Kelly Hauswirth. They could have been sisters.

‘This is Erin Tierney,’ Serena said. ‘She’s a dental hygienist from Grand Forks. She’s been missing for at least two weeks. Her Nissan Versa hasn’t turned up anywhere. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.’

‘You think Erin’s the replacement for Kelly?’ Maggie asked.

‘Could be.’

‘Did she talk to anyone at home about having a new boyfriend? Or about taking a trip to Duluth?’

Serena shook her head. ‘No, Erin sounds like a loner, like Kelly. That may be part of the personality type this guy looks for. These girls live out fantasy lives online. In real life, they’re shy. Not many friends.’

‘Two weeks is a long time,’ Stride said. ‘If she was in the city, they may already have smuggled her out.’

‘Or they’ve got her stashed somewhere,’ Serena said.

‘What about these online user accounts?’ Stride asked. ‘Can we trace them?’

‘They’re fakes,’ Serena replied. ‘Their online bios don’t check out at all, but the details match up. I think Mort is right that we’re looking at the same guy. And there’s definitely a Duluth connection. I was able to get the ISP data for both accounts, and all of the logins come from the Twin Ports area. Both sides of the bridge. Whoever this guy is, he’s smart. He hunts for free Wi-Fi and never hooks into the same network twice, and there’s nothing in the pattern to suggest where he’s really located. He could be anywhere in Duluth or Superior.’

‘Have we shut down the two accounts?’ Maggie asked.

‘No, but we’re monitoring their activity. So far, Lakelover and Mattie are both lying low. They haven’t been online in days. In fact, not since Erin Tierney disappeared. Again, I don’t think that’s a coincidence.’

‘Troy still thinks there’s an international connection because of the murder in Amsterdam,’ Stride said. ‘We’ve got data from the night Kelly was killed. The boats in port included four salties outbound to Europe. The Relko , the Venstaat , the Ingersstrom , and the Pietra Ragazza . It’s possible they could use lakers instead of salties and transfer the girls elsewhere in the seaway, but the more times they move them, the bigger the risk.’

‘Is there anything suspicious about the individual boats?’ Maggie asked.

‘Not on paper. Chances are, the corporate owners don’t know a thing about what’s going on below deck.’

‘What about recent activity?’ Serena asked.

‘None of these boats has been back in Duluth since the murder. Two of them are due in this week, the Venstaat and the Ingersstrom . The Relko is in Asia and isn’t expected back this season. The Pietra Ragazza will return in September.’

‘That makes it likely that Erin Tierney is still in Duluth,’ Serena pointed out.

‘I hope so,’ Stride said, ‘but we also could be wrong about the transport network. Or they could have their hooks into multiple boats. Regardless, you’re right, let’s plaster Erin’s photo all over the city. Same with her car. If she came to meet this Mattie_1987, someone may have seen her.’

Maggie waited until Stride was done, then said: ‘We’ve got another angle working for us, too. The black pearl ring.’

‘Were you able to trace it?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, I talked to Caffy at Zenith Pawn. Once he found out the jewelry was connected to a murder investigation, he started talking. He got the black pearl ring back in May from a Minneapolis accountant named Neal Fisher, who was in town for some Democratic political hoo-hah at the DECC. I talked to Fisher. He was dating a girl, and he bought the ring in Canal Park for her, but before the convention ended, she sent him a Dear Neal e-mail. So he pawned it before he left town. He figured he was making out pretty well, because he didn’t think the guy who sold it to him knew what it was worth.’

‘Where’d he buy it?’ Stride asked. ‘One of the antique shops?’

Maggie shook her head. ‘No, Neal knows a buddy of ours.’

Stride leaned forward. ‘A buddy?’

‘Remember Curt Dickes?’

Stride did. So did Serena. Curt was a janitor at one of the Canal Park hotels, but he also ran an endless series of low-level scams to feed his need for cash. He’d been a pimp hooking up tourists with UMD girls. A petty thief stealing stingray pups from the Aquarium. A scalper of counterfeit Yanni concert tickets. He wasn’t violent, but he was the kind of streetwise kid who would never go straight. Stride had known him since he was fifteen.

‘Curt sold this guy the ring?’ Stride asked. ‘Where the hell did he get it?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ Maggie said. ‘Curt’s been under the radar for a few days, but I just got a call. He’s got a new thing going. Duluth ghost tours. I’m going to track him down now.’

‘Good.’

Maggie stood up and headed for the door, but then she stopped. She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans and blew the bangs out of her eyes.