Goodbye to the Dead (Jonathan Stride Book 7) (15 page)

25

‘Mr. Skinner,’ Dan asked at trial when Nathan was sworn, ‘did you engage in a sexual relationship with the defendant, Janine Snow?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘How did this affair begin?’

‘Last spring I was doing part-time night security at the hospital where Janine practices. We got to know each other. One thing led to another.’

Nathan Skinner cocked his head with a little smile, as if it were simply nature’s way that two attractive people would fall into bed together. His magnetism would be felt by the women on the jury. Stride realized that Nathan was on his best behavior. Dan had probably counseled him to keep his ego and arrogance in check.

‘How long were the two of you involved?’

‘The relationship began in May. It ended in early December.’

‘Who ended it?’ Dan asked.

‘Janine. I think Jay found out and forced her to break it off.’

Archie Gale stood up. ‘Objection – speculative.’

‘Sustained,’ Judge Edblad ruled.

‘Mr. Skinner, were you acquainted with Jay Ferris?’

‘We knew each other, but neither of us would say we were friends.’

‘Can you explain?’

Nathan sighed, as if the dispute were nothing but a rueful part of his past. ‘I used to be employed by the Duluth Police. Unfortunately, I was on a vacation in the Wisconsin Dells and got pulled over by the local cops while I was very, very drunk. It was stupid. Stupid to be driving while drunk – and stupid to say the things I did to the police. I used offensive racial language that I really regret. As I say, I was drunk.’

‘What happened next?’

‘Mr. Ferris got a tip about my arrest, which was filmed by a dashboard cam on the police vehicle. He wrote a column about it – several columns, actually – calling for my dismissal from the Duluth Police. Ultimately, I lost my job.’

‘When was this?’

‘This was back in February of last year.’

‘Do you blame Mr. Ferris for being fired?’ Dan asked.

‘Back then? Sure. I was mad at him and mad at the world. I even took a swing at him in a club a couple weeks later. I felt like he was trying to make an example of me, but you know what? He was right. I deserved it. Like I said, I was stupid.’

If Nathan was acting, Stride was impressed with his performance.

‘Was your affair with the defendant an act of revenge against Jay Ferris?’ Dan asked.

‘I guess it started that way. After a while, though, we enjoyed each other’s company. I think Janine needed someone to talk to.’

‘Objection – speculative,’ Gale interrupted.

‘Sustained.’

‘During the course of your relationship, did the defendant offer her impression of her marriage to Jay Ferris?’

‘Yes, she told me she wanted a divorce.’

‘Did she express any opinion to you about the likelihood of obtaining a divorce?’

‘She said it would never happen.’

‘How exactly did she phrase it?’

‘She said Jay wanted to own her like a slave. She said she didn’t believe she would ever be able to get away from him while he was still alive.’

Murmurs rippled through the courtroom, and Judge Edblad quieted the crowd. Dan waited.

‘Mr. Skinner, did you ever have a conversation with the defendant about guns?’ Dan asked.

‘Yes, I told her that I knew Jay owned a gun.’

‘How did you know that?’

‘When I had the altercation with Jay, he showed it to me.’

‘Did the defendant express surprise at the news that Jay owned a gun?’

‘No.’

‘Did you say anything else to her about it?’

‘Yes, I said she should be careful in case Jay found out about us.’

Stride waited for the bomb to drop and for a new wave of whispers through the courtroom. Gale, who knew exactly what was coming, waited for it, too. Stride thought he saw a ghost of a smile on Dan’s lips.

‘What did the defendant say?’ Dan asked.

‘She said maybe she should get a gun, too,’ Nathan said. ‘She asked me if I knew how she could get one off the books.’

*

Archie Gale stood up, well aware that he had a disaster on his hands.

‘Mr. Skinner, how much money do you make in your current job?’ Gale asked.

‘Objection – relevance,’ Dan interjected.

‘Your honor, Mr. Skinner has testified that he lost his job with the Duluth Police because of the actions of Mr. Ferris. It’s relevant to know the specific impact this had on his financial situation.’

‘The objection is overruled,’ Judge Edblad announced.

‘I make minimum wage,’ Nathan said, and some of his casual confidence seeped into bitterness. He didn’t like to be humiliated.

‘Did you lose your house to foreclosure because of your loss of income?’ Gale went on.

‘Yes.’ It was more like a hiss.

‘Do you have substantial credit card debt?’

‘I don’t know about substantial
—
’

‘More than fifteen thousand dollars?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is your current financial situation directly attributable to your dismissal from the Duluth Police?’

‘Yeah, I guess.’

‘So is it fair to say you
hated
Jay Ferris for what he did to you?’

‘I suppose so, but that was a long time ago.’

‘The economic consequences are still very real to you today, though, aren’t they?’

‘Yes.’

‘You testified that you got to know Dr. Snow because you were doing part-time security work at her hospital, is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you ask to be assigned to work at St. Anne’s?’

‘I – I don’t remember.’

‘Shall I call your boss and subpoena your employment records so we can confirm it?’ Gale asked.

‘Okay. Yes, I heard about an opening there, and I asked to get it.’

‘Why?’

Nathan was silent.

‘Mr. Skinner,’ Gale went on, ‘did you go after that position with the specific goal of seducing Dr. Snow into an affair?’

‘It may have crossed my mind,’ Nathan admitted.

The body language from Janine Snow at the counsel table was eloquent. She oozed scorn. It was easy to see similar reactions on the faces of the women on the jury. For all his attractiveness, there was a dark side to Nathan Skinner.

‘Mr. Skinner, were you interviewed by the police shortly after the murder of Jay Ferris?’

‘Yes.’ His voice was clipped. Impatient. He wanted to be done and off the stand.

‘Did you say anything to the police at that time about your affair with Dr. Snow?’

‘No.’

‘Did you believe the police would consider you to be a suspect in the murder of Jay Ferris if they found out that you’d been having an affair with the victim’s wife?’

‘I figured I was a suspect anyway,’ Nathan said, and then he winced.

‘Okay, and as a suspect, would it be in your interest to deflect police attention to someone else?’

‘I didn’t do that.’

‘When you were first interviewed, did you say anything to the police about Dr. Snow asking you how she could get a gun?’

‘No.’

‘You only told this story after Dr. Snow informed the police of your relationship, is that right?’

‘Yes, but it’s true.’

‘Did anyone else overhear this conversation?’ Gale asked.

‘No, but Janine knows what she said.’

‘Mr. Skinner, is there anyone who can verify your whereabouts after 9:45 p.m. on the night of January 28?’

‘No.’

‘Were you drinking that night?’

‘I – yeah, I guess.’

‘How much did you drink?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Do you own a revolver, Mr. Skinner?’

‘I gave my gun to the police. They tested it. It was clean.’

‘Is that the only handgun you own?’

‘They tested all of them. Clean as a whistle.’

‘How many handguns do you own, Mr. Ferris?’

‘Eight.’

‘Eight guns,’ Gale murmured. ‘Mr. Skinner, did you make a statement to Lieutenant Stride that if you had committed this murder, you would have simply dropped the murder weapon through the ice? That the police would never find it?’

‘Yeah, I did, but it was a joke
—
’

‘That’s all, Mr. Skinner. Thank you.’

26

‘I found him,’ Cindy told Stride.

It was late, and he was surprised that she was still up. He’d spent most of the day at the trial and then caught up on the job in the basement of City Hall until nearly midnight. His wife sat at their small kitchen table with a laptop open in front of her. Only the light over the sink was on. She wore a nightgown, and her feet were bare. The house with its open windows was warm and humid, and he smelled old coffee. A stiff wind made the lake roar like a lion not far from their back door.

Stride sat down across from her. Like him, she was nearly forty, and yet in his eyes, she could have been seventeen. She was the same teenager he’d met in school. He could barely remember what his life was like before she came into it. School, college, career – all that time, it was him and her together.

‘I found him,’ Cindy repeated, pushing a photograph toward him across the table.

‘Who?’

‘The guy at the mall.’

Stride studied the photograph and saw a crowd shot taken downtown during Grandma’s Marathon. His wife had circled a man with a black marker, and he held the page close and squinted at the face. She’d enlarged the photograph, but the image was crisp and clear. The man was overdressed for the warm June day in a camouflage jacket.

‘Where did you get this?’ he asked.

‘I know a photographer who covered the marathon. I’ve spent the last six hours analyzing every one of her pictures.’

She passed him the original photograph, before she’d zoomed in on the crowd. The picture had been taken from a second-floor window near the corner of Lake Avenue and Superior Street, facing northeast. Swarms of runners filled the street in the center of the frame; they were the jubilant, exhausted ones, within two miles of the finish line in Canal Park. Crowds twenty deep on the sidewalk cheered them on. Cindy had drawn an arrow to show the man in the original photo. He was little more than a stick figure standing by a lamp post in a brick-lined park well behind the flood of people.

The crowd watched the runners.

He watched the crowd.

Stride’s eyes snapped back and forth between the two pictures. ‘You’re certain this is him?’

His wife nodded. ‘I don’t know if this is the guy in Jay’s photos, but it’s definitely the man I followed at the mall. No question about it. I haven’t forgotten him, Jonny.’

‘I know.’

He studied the man and understood the aura of repressed violence that Cindy talked about. Maybe it was bravado, maybe it wasn’t. He focused on the people around the man and spotted a heavy-set redheaded woman seated on a bench no more than ten feet from the lamp post. She wore a lanyard and fluorescent vest that marked her as race security, but her face was turned away from the camera.

‘Did you find him in other photos?’ he asked.

‘Two more,’ Cindy said. ‘I haven’t printed them, but I can pull them up on the screen.’

She used the laptop touch screen and pushed the computer across the table to Stride. He zoomed in on the photograph, and he could see the man in camouflage in his original spot. The redheaded woman had stood up and was brushing shoulders with him. They were talking, and they didn’t look like strangers. Her face was clearly visible. He didn’t recognize her, but the marathon brought in plenty of private security on race day.

‘What do you think?’ Cindy asked. ‘Will these pictures help you find him?’

‘I don’t know about him, but we should definitely be able to find
her
.’ He stabbed a finger at the security guard in the photograph. ‘I’ll put Maggie on it in the morning.’

‘Good,’ Cindy replied, sounding relieved.

He watched a small smile of triumph bloom on his wife’s face. She got up from the table and stretched her arms over her head. Her white nightgown climbed up her thighs. He knew she’d had a long day, but he didn’t remember when he’d seen her so tired. He reached for her hand and squeezed it.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘Sure. Never better.’

‘This was smart of you,’ he said. ‘Nice work.’

She didn’t say anything, but he knew she appreciated the compliment.

‘You coming to bed?’ she asked him.

‘Soon.’

‘I’ll probably be asleep.’

‘That’s okay.’ He added: ‘You know I took you seriously about this guy, right?’

‘No, I wasn’t sure of that, but it’s nice to hear.’

He kept holding her hand.

‘The trial’s winding down,’ he said. ‘Dan rested the prosecution case today. Unless Janine testifies, they’ll probably wrap up the case tomorrow.’

‘Do you think she’ll testify?’

Stride shook his head. ‘No, Dan doesn’t think Gale will give him a shot at cross-examining her.’

‘And then?’

‘And then we wait for the jury.’

Cindy frowned. Her eyes were on the man at the marathon. ‘I wish you could find this guy first.’

27

Maggie ate a Sausage McMuffin in her Avalanche near the harbor on the Point. It was barely past dawn, but the July day promised to be hot and bright. As usual, she’d only slept for about four hours, and then she’d gone to the drive-through for breakfast. If there was one part of American culture to which Maggie was addicted, it was McDonald’s. She couldn’t get enough French fries and quarter-pounders, and somehow, none of it ever padded her girly frame.

Through her binoculars, Maggie spied Troy Grange on a Zodiac heading back to the harbor.

Everyone in Duluth law enforcement knew Troy. He was solid. Good values. Hard worker. People liked him. He could have been a cop, but he liked working on and near the water, so he signed on as a health and safety inspector with the company that handled security for the Duluth Port. Sooner or later, Maggie figured, he’d be running the whole department.

Thanks to his reputation, Troy also had an annual part-time job coordinating safety issues during Grandma’s Marathon. As a result, he knew everyone who worked security along the twenty-six--mile course.

She crumpled her paper wrappers into a ball and climbed down from her truck. Troy, docking the Zodiac, saw her and waved, and she waved back. He was a couple years older than she was and only a few inches taller. He was a weightlifter in his spare time, with a beefy, muscular frame. His skull was shaved smooth, and he had a face that wouldn’t win him a cover spread in
GQ
: an oversized, lumpy nose; a couple of broad chins; and florid cheekbones that pushed out from his face like a pair of red jawbreakers.

Troy wasn’t anyone’s idea of cute, but Maggie had a little bit of a thing for him. She liked nice guys. Stride. Troy. Apparently, she also liked married guys, because Troy and his wife Trisha had been married for five years and had recently had their first child, Emma. He was off-limits. Maggie didn’t spend a lot of time on self-reflection, but sometimes she wondered if she was doomed to have crushes on men she couldn’t have.

‘Sergeant,’ Troy announced as he bounded onto dry land. ‘I don’t usually get a welcoming committee.’

‘Hey, Troy.’

Troy, like Maggie, was an early riser, and he toured the dock areas from the water several mornings a week. His philosophy of security was that the best way to stop trouble was to make sure it never happened. He also liked seeing things with his own eyes, which was why he didn’t delegate basic tasks like reviewing the port facilities.

‘So what’s the McPoison this morning?’ he asked with a grin. ‘Hotcakes? One of those new McGriddle things?’

Maggie shook her head. People in Duluth knew way too much about her daily routines. ‘Sausage McMuffin with Egg, thank you very much.’

‘I don’t suppose you brought me one,’ Troy said.

‘And ruin your organic body? I wouldn’t dream of it.’

Troy chuckled. ‘Well, it doesn’t seem to hurt yours, Sergeant.’

She’d told him for two years to call her Maggie, but Troy stayed formal around cops. For him, it was a respect thing, even though they were friends. Part of her also wondered whether it was his way of keeping extra distance between them. She liked to think that her sex appeal didn’t go completely unnoticed.

‘How are Trisha and Emma?’ she asked.

‘Neither one getting much sleep.’

‘Well, sleep is overrated.’

‘I told Trisha that,’ Troy said, ‘and then I had to duck when she threw a shoe at me.’

Maggie laughed. She slid a copy of the photograph that Stride had given her from a back pocket, then passed it to Troy. ‘Listen, I’m hoping you can help us. This is a crowd pic from Grandma’s. See the redhead in the security uniform? I was hoping you know who she is.’

Troy glanced at it and handed the page back. ‘Sure. Jessie Klayman.’

‘What about the guy she’s standing next to? The hard case in the camo jacket?’

He took another look at the photograph. ‘No, sorry, him I don’t know.’

‘What’s the story with Jessie?’ Maggie asked.

‘She’s a temp. Moved to Duluth from Fargo about a year ago. She did mall security there. I’ve brought her in a few times on low-priority overflow work. Nothing sensitive. Between you and me, I don’t see her as full-time material. She’s not particularly reliable, and if I had to guess, there’s an alcohol issue.’

‘She looks about forty,’ Maggie said.

‘Yeah, that sounds right. I haven’t spent a lot of time with her. She’s nice enough, but I get tired of hearing about guns.’

‘Guns?’

‘Oh, yeah, she’s a bad-to-the-bone gun collector. Always going to shows around the country. She must have an armory at home by now.’

Maggie frowned. ‘Including assault rifles?’

‘Definitely. She brags about the hardware. No anti-government or militia crap. I wouldn’t hire her if I got a whiff of that. I think she’s just your run-of-the-mill gun nut.’

‘Where does she live?’ Maggie asked.

‘She’s got a little place in Gary. I’m sure I have her address.’ Troy dug a notebook from his pocket and riffled through the pages. ‘Here you go,’ he said, rattling off the number and street.

Maggie wrote it down. ‘Thanks. And you’re sure you don’t know the guy with her?’

Troy looked at the photograph again, taking more time. ‘He’s not familiar to me, but I know that Jessie’s got a kid. If you ask me, there’s some resemblance in the faces. The eyes and nose look similar. Maybe that’s her son.’