Goodbye to the Dead (Jonathan Stride Book 7) (32 page)

60

‘I thought I was going to have to apologize to her,’ Stride said, as he parked on Superior Street outside Fitger’s. ‘For being wrong about Jay’s murder. For stealing eight years of her life.’

The three of them got out of his truck. Stride climbed the steps toward the hotel lobby with Serena and Maggie beside him. A bellman opened the door for them. The rich burgundy carpet, the grand piano, and the old-fashioned table lamps made him feel as if they were walking into the parlor of one of Duluth’s robber-baron estates. The hotel check-in desk, nestled behind iron grillwork, was like the teller window of a bank in the Wild West.

He saw carpeted stairs leading to the next floor. He knew where Janine would be, in one of the top-floor suites overlooking the lake.

Serena touched his elbow. ‘Are you okay?’

Stride shook his head. ‘This woman used Cindy. Cindy was her friend, and Janine deliberately tried to make her part of her plan to get away with murder. What’s worse is that she probably is going to get away with it. God knows what this does to double jeopardy. We convicted her of shooting Jay, but we were wrong. She never had the gun. And yet she was guilty of his murder anyway. I don’t know if we can ever put her back in prison for it.’

He started up the stairs.

‘She still got eight years,’ Serena pointed out.

‘Eight years of what should have been life without parole,’ Stride replied. ‘This was first-degree murder. Premeditated.’

He reached the hushed hallway of the hotel’s second floor. The Fitger’s manager, Tami, met him there, descending from the upper floors of the inn. They’d known each other for years. The petite blond’s normally ebullient face was serious. ‘Oh, Stride,’ she said. ‘That was quick.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘I only just called your office.’

‘We’re not here for a call,’ Stride said. ‘What’s going on?’

‘We’ve got a disturbance upstairs. Screaming.’

‘Is it Janine Snow’s room?’ he asked immediately.

She nodded.

‘Who’s up there?’

Tami shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Archie Gale checked her in earlier this afternoon. She was shopping for a while, but for the last couple of hours, I thought she was up in her room alone.’

‘Stay here. We’ll check it out.’

The three of them headed upstairs. They were on the fourth floor when they heard the gunshot.

Stride broke into a run and took the steps of the last staircase two at a time. At the landing, he heard a second shot. He reached the fifth floor with Serena and Maggie immediately behind him. Janine’s suite was six feet away at the head of the staircase. Its door was ajar. He smelled the smoke of gunfire inside, and he drew his own gun. He listened, but the room was quiet now.

Stride nudged the door with his boot. It was heavy. Through the crack of the opening, he could see someone standing on the far side of the room. He led the way with his gun and called: ‘Police. We’re coming in.’

The person inside didn’t move or react. Stride opened the door the rest of the way. Inside the suite was a large living area with a sofa and coffee table decorated with fresh flowers. The dark light of the afternoon poured through a skylight. An open, empty bottle of wine sat on the table, with two glasses on either side of it.

He thought of the bottle of wine in Janine’s house on the night Jay was killed.

Just beyond the door, a body lay on the carpet, almost exactly where Jay’s body would have been beyond the foyer of Janine’s house. The parallel was eerie. The position of the body was the same. The hole in the man’s forehead was the same.

Stride recognized the dead man on the floor.

It was Howard Marlowe, the ex-juror in the murder trial who’d never given up his obsession with the case.

Beyond the living area where Howard’s body lay, the carpet led to a king-sized four-poster bed and a fireplace. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on Lake Superior between heavy drapes. He could only see the end of the bed; the rest was blocked by a tall walnut bureau. A woman stood at the foot of the bed. He didn’t recognize her. Her shoulders were slumped. She looked to be almost fifty years old, and she wore a baggy, untucked T-shirt over blue jeans. Her gray-brown hair was pushed back behind her ears. She stared at the bed, her arms limp at her side.

A revolver was on the carpet where she’d dropped it.

‘Step away from the gun, ma’am,’ Stride told her, but she didn’t move. She didn’t seem to hear him. She was in a daze as he came closer.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘My name is Carol Marlowe,’ she replied.

Stride got close enough to see the rest of the bed, and he understood what had happened. Janine lay among the tangled sheets. Naked. Dead. The two of them – Janine and Howard – had both been shot in the head. Howard’s wife had killed them in the aftermath of their lovemaking.

‘That bitch ruined our lives,’ Carol murmured. ‘She took everything from me.’

There was nothing he could say. Stride kicked the gun on the floor away from her. Maggie came up behind Howard’s wife, who offered no resistance to the handcuffs that Maggie locked around her wrists. Carol was limp as Maggie led her away, but as they reached Howard’s body, she came to life and began to wail and cry. Maggie had to physically restrain her as she fought to get to her dead husband.

‘Howard! Oh, God, Howard! I’m sorry!’

The door closed. The screams continued in the hallway.

Stride and Serena were alone with the bodies. The suite smelled of gunpowder and sex. The patio door was partially open, letting in sweet lake air and the humid reminder of rain.

He checked Janine’s pulse for final confirmation, but she was gone. Her eyes were closed with a strange look of peace. Her nakedness still had beauty, and her skin was as warm as life. He felt an urge to cover her, but there was no modesty in death. She was guilty. She was innocent. She was a heroine. She was the devil. She was all of those things.

His anger at her bled away into regret. One thing Stride never did was get emotional at crime scenes, but he felt an unexpected sense of loss. As if the universe were saying there were no such things as new beginnings. He didn’t want to believe that. Maybe the lesson was simply that you couldn’t escape the sins of your past. Sooner or later, they caught up with you.

He couldn’t look away from the woman on the bed. The strange thing was that he couldn’t see Janine’s face without seeing Cindy in his mind, too. January 28. Almost a decade ago, when everything was different. He could see his wife in the shadows of their bedroom that night. The moonlight shined on the bare skin of her shoulder. He could smell the smoke of his own cigarette as he told her about Janine and Jay.

They were both so young then. They didn’t know what lay ahead. How everything was about to change.

That was then. This was now.

61

Stride sat on the green bench at the end of the Point. His legs were stretched out, and the rippled waters of Superior Bay lapped at his boots. Yellow wildflowers sprouted along the beach. The late-summer sun had fallen behind the western hills, leaving an orange glow in the clouds. He was alone, but if he stared deeply into the semi-darkness, he could almost imagine Cindy beside him, the way she’d been for so many years. Her legs pulled into a lotus position on the bench. Her hands on her knees, her chin tilted toward the sky. Her long black hair cascading to her hips.

Here I am, Jonny
, she would say.
Don’t you see me?

It wasn’t real, of course. It was simply another Thursday evening. Serena was out at a movie. Cat was in her room at the cottage, doing her puzzles. Life hadn’t changed at all.

And yet he could still close his eyes and make Cindy come alive. As if no time had passed. As if the real dream were all the years that had happened in between. Elsewhere in his life, she’d become a ghost who haunted him less and less, but here, by the water, she was always waiting for him. Here there was never a need to say goodbye.

Stride watched the bay, trying to memorize every wave. They’d been here together so many times. Lived so much of their lives in this place. Talked and cried and laughed. Remembered.

How old were we when we first came here?

Seventeen. Cat’s age.

You asked me to marry you here.

Yes, I did.

What did I say?

You said not yet.

I’d only known you a week.

That’s true.

He knew what love at first sight was. He’d asked Cindy again at the end of the summer, and that time she’d said yes, although they didn’t tell anyone they were engaged. Not her father. Not Stride’s mother. It was their secret for a while.

Good things have happened at this bench.

And bad things, too.

Yes, and bad things. That’s life.

He came here at turning points. Good, bad, up, down. In many ways, this was ground zero for who he was. Put a pin in a map, and this was where you would find the soul of Jonathan Stride. In Duluth. On the Point. By the water. Not staring out at the lake but inward at the calm harbor and the industry of ships and docks. Life in the northland.

He wondered what Cindy would have said about Janine, now that they knew the truth. Her friend was guilty after all; her friend had used and deceived her. And yet he knew the person Cindy was. She would still be sad. She would still cry that Janine was gone. He felt that same sadness himself, but it wasn’t really for Janine’s death. She’d simply been one last open door to another time in his life. A door that had finally closed.

Tell me you’re not still pining after me.

That was what Cindy would say. And the answer was no. Not anymore. For a long time, he’d refused to let go of her, but not anymore.

‘I need to tell you something,’ he said aloud, as if she could hear him.

But there was no need to say it. Wherever she was, she was at peace with herself and with him. She would understand what he wanted to do next. She would say he’d already waited too long.
You’ve got someone in your life you’re scared of losing again. And that’s a good thing.

Yes, it was a good thing.

He wished he could touch Cindy again, or smile with her, or have her with him for a few more seconds – but when he stared at the empty bench, she was gone. She’d been gone for years. There was nothing around him but the bay and the sand. It was the story of their relationship. She was there, and she was there, and she was there, and then she was gone.

He was alone.

Except he wasn’t. Not anymore. Not if he didn’t want to be. Not if he believed in the future.

*

Serena found Maggie in the basement bar of Tycoon’s on Superior Street, across from the casino. Stride’s partner sat alone with a Starfire ale at a candlelit table near one of the rough sandstone columns. The pub was located inside Duluth’s old City Hall, and the downstairs bar with its low ceilings had once served as the town prison. You could still see century-old names scratched into the stone from people who’d lived here among the dripping water and the rats.

Maggie held up her pint glass in a toast. ‘Well, well, Serena Dial. Of all the gin joints in all the world. How did you find me?’

Serena sat down across from her. She didn’t drink, but the bartender knew her, and he brought her a tall Diet Coke with crushed ice. ‘You weren’t at your condo, so Tycoon’s seemed like a safe bet.’

‘I thought about Black Water, but I was more in the mood for a beer tonight than a martini.’

Serena didn’t think the Starfire in front of Maggie was her first. ‘Can I tell you something? Speaking as an alcoholic with experience in such things.’

‘Go for it.’

‘You drink too much.’

‘And you think I don’t know this?’ Maggie asked.

‘No, I’m sure you do, but if you’re like me, you don’t start paying attention until your friends mention it.’

Maggie finished her beer and twirled her index finger in the air at the bartender to order another. ‘Well, when one of my friends mentions it, I’ll cut back.’

Serena nodded. ‘Slam noted.’

‘I’d hate to think I was being subtle when I’m this drunk,’ Maggie told her.

‘Too bad, because I could use a friend. I think you could use one, too.’

Maggie blew her bangs out of her eyes. ‘I don’t need anybody.’

‘Good for you, but that doesn’t work for me. Things have been weird, but it’s not all your fault. Anyway, if you want me to leave, I’ll leave.’

‘No, stay. If this old stonework crumbles, I can hide under your breasts.’

Maggie giggled. Serena, who was briefly annoyed, laughed, too. And that set off a fit of laughing that left them both breathless. When they could talk again, Maggie chuckled and leaned dangerously far back in her chair. ‘Can I just say something? It’s been a shitty couple of years for me.’

‘I know that,’ Serena said.

‘I mean, really. Shit-tee. I thought rich people were supposed to be happy. Maybe I should give it all away.’

‘So you can be poor
and
unhappy? I don’t think so.’

‘You’re right.’

‘The state fair starts next week,’ Serena reminded her.

‘Yeah, so? I can drink beer right here.’

Serena tapped Maggie’s phone on the table. ‘Call Troy.’

‘He deserves better than me.’

‘He likes you.’

‘Which makes him a party of one.’

‘Do you want me to call him for you? I’ll call him.’

Serena picked up the phone from the table, and Maggie grabbed it out of her hand. ‘I’m not ready,’ she insisted.

‘I think you’re just chicken.’

‘Cluck,’ Maggie said. The bartender brought her another Starfire, and she stared at it with a frown on her face. She knew Serena was right. She’d been drowning her sorrows in a lot of alcohol.

‘So why are you here?’ Maggie asked.

‘I miss our talks,’ Serena said.

‘Does Stride know you were coming to see me?’

‘No. I didn’t want to get his hopes up, in case we wound up in a girl fight.’

‘You’d have to call Guppo first. He’d pay good money to see that.’

Serena smiled. ‘Did Jonny tell you about Cat and the baby?’

Maggie shook her head. ‘We steer clear of the subject of Cat. Is everything okay?’

‘Fine, but Cat’s thinking of giving him up now. Adoption.’

‘Sounds like a better plan to me.’

‘She asked if Jonny and I wanted to adopt him.’

‘You mean, so she can be around for the good stuff, while you guys do all the work?’

‘Wow, you’re cynical,’ Serena said, ‘but it doesn’t matter. We’re going to tell her no.’

‘Do you both feel that way?’

‘Yeah, we do. I can’t have kids, so I’ve never really thought about it. Jonny thinks it’s a younger man’s game. So we’re in sync on this.’

‘And yet here you are talking to me,’ Maggie said, with a pointed look in her eyes. ‘What’s wrong?’

Maggie didn’t miss much. For all of the troubles between them, they knew each other like sisters. And neither one was shy about telling the other when she was making a fool of herself.

‘Honestly, I worry that Jonny saying no to kids is really his way of saying no to me,’ Serena admitted. ‘Like he and I aren’t going anywhere.’

Maggie shook her head. She gave in and drank a healthy dose of Starfire. ‘For such a hot chick, you’re way too insecure.’

‘Look who’s talking.’

‘Insecure? Me? No, just realistic.’

Serena tapped Maggie’s phone again. ‘Troy.’

‘Fine, okay, you win. I will call him.’ Maggie dialed a number on the phone using her index finger and got Troy Grange’s voice mail on speakerphone. ‘Troy, it’s Maggie. I’m in. You, me, and the girls. Deep fried stuff on a stick next week.’

She hung up.

‘Satisfied?’ she asked Serena.

‘You’ll thank me.’

‘Maybe. Now quit reading anything into Stride saying no to Cat. It has nothing to do with how he feels about you.’

‘What about you?’ Serena asked.

‘What about me?’

‘You wanted to adopt a baby last year after Eric got shot. You were all in. You were going to do whatever it took to find one.’

‘Yes, and I got turned down by every agency in the state. Strangely, they didn’t like the idea of handing a child to a single woman with a dangerous job and a very public history of bad romantic decisions. I decided they were right. End of story.’

‘Not if you don’t want it to be,’ Serena said.

Maggie leaned forward. ‘
Me
adopt Cat’s baby? Is that what you’re suggesting?’

‘That’s what I’m suggesting.’

Maggie drank more beer. ‘No.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Just like that.’ She put the mug down, and her voice softened, and she covered Serena’s hands with her own. ‘Look, tomorrow I will deny ever being sensitive. Okay? The fact is, Cat living with the two of you, and her baby living with me, is not healthy for any of us. Which I think you know perfectly well. But it was very sweet and very noble of you to suggest it.’

‘I was serious,’ Serena said, even though she knew that Maggie was right.

‘I’m sure you were, but no. I think it’s great that Cat is willing to look at adoption. She should choose a nice, stable young couple somewhere in the city who can give that kid lots of love.’

Serena smiled. ‘You’re going soft.’

‘Bite your tongue.’

She stood up from the table. ‘Okay, I should go. I’ll let you finish your beer in peace.’

‘Actually, I’m done,’ Maggie said. ‘A friend told me I’m drinking too much.’

Maggie threw cash on the table, and the two of them climbed the stairs to the street level of the pub. They didn’t talk. They emerged onto Superior Street, where there was a nighttime buzz of noise and neon. People came and went from the casino and jaywalked between the cars stalled at the red light. A police car turned from the hill, and the two of them waved.

The Sheraton Hotel, where Maggie had her condo, was two blocks away. The Chinese cop shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans. It was a cool evening, hinting at an early fall. ‘Night, Serena. And thanks, by the way. I know this wasn’t easy for you.’

‘It was easier than you think,’ Serena said.

Maggie turned away and clip-clopped in her block heels toward the Sheraton. Serena watched her go and then retrieved her Mustang from the casino parking lot. She heard the Zac Brown Band singing on the car radio. She hummed along as she drove back to the Point, narrowly missing being bridged by an ore boat arriving from out on the lake. At the cottage, she parked and went in through the back door. She was surprised that Jonny’s Expedition was gone.

Inside, she checked on Cat, who was still playing Sudoku puzzles from a magazine balanced on her very pregnant stomach.

‘Do you know where Jonny is?’ Serena asked.

‘He went out,’ Cat told her with the strangest of smiles.

‘Out? Did something happen?’

‘I don’t know,’ Cat replied, but her voice said something else. It sang to her, as if to say:
I know a secret
.

‘Where did he go?’

‘He said he left you a note.’

‘Okay,’ Serena said, but she was confused. She pointed at the lamp beside Cat’s bed and said: ‘Lights out, kiddo, the puzzle will wait. It’s past midnight.’

Cat winked. ‘Yes, Mom.’

Serena shut the girl’s door. She realized that she felt an odd lightness in her heart. She started to undress by unbuttoning her blouse, but then she went inside their bedroom and saw a slip of paper folded on her pillow. She opened it and found Jonny’s handwriting inside.

I’m at the green bench. Meet me there?

It took only a moment for the lightness she felt to become the weight of all the things that were uncertain in her life. Maggie was right: she was insecure. The green bench was a place for turning points. Jonny went there in good times and bad times, and she couldn’t help but wonder which this was.

Good or bad.

I know a secret
, Cat’s expression sang again. The secret was waiting for her at the end of the Point.

Serena realized that her first instinct was to run away. Even from good news. Even from things she wanted. She almost got into her Mustang and drove away from Duluth without ever finding out what he wanted to say to her.

Instead, in the still of the night, she went to meet him.