The Cold Nowhere

30

Serena found Cat on the front porch in an Adirondack chair. Her legs were pulled up so that her knees were under her chin. Her feet were bare. She stared at the quiet street and the black water of the harbor and took tiny sips from a can of Diet Coke.

‘You shouldn’t be out here,’ Serena told her. ‘It’s not safe.’

‘Are you leaving?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh. I was hoping you’d stay.’

Serena slid down into an empty chair. She still had more than an hour’s drive to Grand Rapids, but the girl looked lonely and in need of company. ‘You couldn’t sleep?’

‘I woke up, and I started thinking about things. So I came out here.’

‘What things?’

‘I don’t know. Everything’s messed up.’

‘It feels that way sometimes.’

‘For you, too?’

‘Me, too.’

Cat bit her nails. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but why not stay, huh?’

‘I’m not ready yet.’

‘But you want to.’

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I want to.’

‘Why did you and Stride break up? You look really good together.’

‘Things happen, Cat.’

‘Like what?’

Serena glanced at the girl, who studied her with wide, serious eyes. ‘I’m not sure he’d want me to tell you.’

‘Tell me anyway.’

‘Stride slept with Maggie.’

‘He cheated on you? Stride?’ She looked crestfallen.

‘It’s complicated. I don’t really blame him for it. We weren’t connecting, and Maggie was there when he needed someone. I haven’t always been an angel myself. It’s just that he won’t tell me things. He won’t say anything that makes him vulnerable. It drives me crazy.’

‘But Maggie?’ Cat said, her lip curling. ‘She’s a bitch.’

Serena laughed. ‘She’s not, really, but what the hell. She’s a bitch.’

‘She doesn’t like me.’

‘Maggie doesn’t like anybody who gets close to Stride if it’s not her.’

‘Stride loves you, not her. I can see that.’

‘I know.’

‘But you won’t take him back?’

‘It’s too soon to know what’s going to happen between us. We’ve been apart for months.’

‘Oh.’ Cat took another sip of Diet Coke. She shivered as she watched the cars on the Point. ‘After this is over, what happens to me?’

‘We’ll make sure you’re in good hands.’

‘Did Stride tell you?’ she asked, placing her hands on her stomach.

‘About you being pregnant? Yes, he did.’

‘Do you think I’m too young to have a baby?’

‘That’s your decision, not mine. Do you think you’re too young?’

‘Probably, but it’s too late for that, isn’t it?’

‘No. You have options.’

‘Not good options.’

‘You’re right. I didn’t say they were good. Nothing’s easy about this.’

‘Could you ever give up your child?’ Cat asked.

Serena said nothing. She felt a tightening in her face.

‘I’m sorry,’ Cat said. ‘That’s too personal. I shouldn’t have said anything.’

‘No, don’t be sorry.’ She took Cat’s hand and squeezed it. She was surprised at how easily the words flowed. ‘I got pregnant at sixteen, too. Just like you.’

‘Were you scared?’

‘Terrified.’

Cat squeezed back and didn’t let go. ‘What happened? I mean, how …’

‘My mother became addicted to cocaine when I was a teenager,’ Serena said. ‘We lost our house. My father left us. I was in Phoenix then. We ended up moving into an apartment with her drug dealer. His name was Blue Dog. Brutal son of a bitch. When my mother couldn’t pay for drugs, I became the payment.’

Cat blinked back tears. ‘Oh, no.’

‘When I got pregnant, I didn’t know what to do. My girlfriend Deidre took me to the clinic.’

Serena opened her mouth and found no more words.

She blamed herself; she had waited too long. She even remembered the name of the procedure. Dilation and evacuation. Not quick. Not painless. It was like punishment for those who couldn’t face the truth. There was an antiseptic smell in the room. She could hear the hiss of the pump. Her insides twisted as the doctor cut, scraped and sucked. She remembered the sound of tissue dripping into an aluminum pan.

And then, two days later, blood. So much blood. She woke up with a pool of her blood in the sheet, the cramping so bad it was like a hot knife cutting her abdomen open. At the hospital, when she was conscious again, they told her she’d almost died. When she got out, she and Deidre left for Las Vegas. She never went home.

‘They messed me up inside,’ she went on. ‘I can’t have kids.’

‘Serena, I’m so sorry.’

‘Don’t worry. Most days I’m okay with it.’ She smiled at Cat. ‘Then there are days when I see a girl’s face, like yours, and I wish things were different. Right now, I live with a woman whose child was kidnapped. I helped get her back. I think I love that little girl as much as her mother does.’

‘You’d make a good mother,’ Cat said.

‘Thank you. That’s sweet.’

‘Can I ask you something?’ Cat said. ‘A favor?’

‘Sure.’

‘I have to go see Dr. Steve this week. You know, for the baby. Would you go with me?’

‘Of course, I’ll go with you.’

‘Thanks.’ Cat played with her hair and added, ‘You don’t have to answer this, but I’d like to know. When you were alone, and you had no money, did you ever – I mean, did you think about …’

She stopped. She waited without saying more.

‘Did I become a prostitute?’ Serena said.

‘Yeah.’

‘Deidre did. She offered to arrange dates for me. Sometimes I look back and wonder why I said no. I worked shit jobs that paid almost nothing. It would have been easier to make money that way, but I think, after what happened with Blue Dog, I just couldn’t do it.’

‘I wish I’d never started. I can’t stand the idea of a man touching me like that now. I think I’d kill him.’

Serena watched Cat’s face, which was suddenly as hard as a mask, filled with violence. Her jaw tightened. The fingers of her right hand curled, as if holding a knife. The girl noticed Serena’s stare, and she softened and looked guilty. She knew she’d said the wrong thing.

‘Your mother,’ Cat said, changing the subject. ‘Is she still alive?’

‘Honestly? I don’t know.’

‘Your father?’

‘No, he passed away. We never really had a chance to reconcile.’

‘I miss my parents,’ Cat said.

‘I’m sure you do. I miss what my parents should have been to me. I still need them. That never goes away.’

‘People think I forgive my dad for what he did. That’s not really true. I still talk to him sometimes when I’m lonely. I still wear the ring he gave me. That doesn’t mean I forgive him. If he was here right now, I’d scream at him. I just know that, as bad as he was, he loved me more than anything else in his life.’

Serena wondered if that was true. ‘Do you remember that night?’

‘I remember it in my dreams sometimes. It goes away when I wake up, but I know it’s been there.’ Cat’s eyes glazed over, as if in an instant she went somewhere far away and then came back. Her brow wrinkled in confusion. ‘It’s like an echo. That’s all I remember.’

‘An echo?’

Cat nodded. ‘I can hear a voice. A man’s voice. He’s shouting, but I can’t make out what he says.’

‘A man? Your father?’

‘I don’t know. I just know he scares me. In the dream, he’s going to kill me.’





31

‘Special delivery,’ Ken McCarty said when Maggie opened the door.

He cradled a Sammy’s pizza box in his hands, and the aroma wafted into her condo like an old friend. It was almost midnight, and Maggie was angry, horny, and starving. She took him by the collar and dragged him inside.

‘Sausage and pepp?’

‘Sausage and pepp.’ He slid the cardboard box onto her dining room table and held out his hand. ‘That’ll be twenty dollars for the pizza, ma’am. Not including tip, and college boys like me really need tips.’

Maggie ran a fingernail down his neck. ‘Oh, no. Oh, I have no cash. Whatever will we do? Would you take a check?’

‘Sorry, ma’am, no checks.’

‘I’m so embarrassed. Is there anything else I can do?’ She undid the first button on his shirt, then the second.

‘Do I look like some UMD gigolo trying to pay back my student loans? It’s twenty bucks, ma’am.’

She scraped her fingernails through his blond chest hair. Her other hand squeezed between his legs. She continued unbuttoning his shirt as she kissed her way down onto her knees. ‘Are you sure? Isn’t there some other way I can pay you?’

When she tugged his zipper down, Ken couldn’t keep a straight face. ‘Okay, okay, you win. The pizza’s going to get cold if you keep doing that.’

‘Cold pizza is the food of the gods. It’s like McNuggets. Besides, this isn’t going to take long.’

She was right. Half an hour later, they sat on opposite sides of her small kitchen table, half-dressed, with open beer bottles in front of them. The pizza was still warm. Maggie began eating the little pepperoni slices before starting in on the pizza itself, which was cut into squares.

‘So what’s up with the video of Roslak and Cat?’ she asked, her mouth full.

‘It’s creepy stuff.’

‘Creepy enough that you think she killed him?’

‘I don’t know. She’s screwed up enough that I would say yes. Anyway, you’re not going to like it.’

‘How so?’

‘You’ll have to watch it and see.’ Ken popped a square of pizza in his mouth. ‘You know what we need for dessert? Donuts.’

‘Sick man.’

‘I miss House of Donuts.’

‘Jeez, you and Stride and your donut envy. Steve’s the same way. Is this a guy thing?’

‘Hey, we used to live on crullers after the bars closed. When they shut down, I barely had a reason to live. That’s why I moved to Minneapolis. There was nothing keeping me in a donut-free world.’

‘What about me?’

Ken rubbed her thigh with his foot. ‘If you’d greeted me like that in the old days, I never would have left.’

‘You like it down there?’ she asked.

His foot moved up her thigh, close to the mound between her legs. ‘Down where?’

‘Minneapolis, you pervert.’

‘It’s okay. I thought a bigger city would be more exciting, but there’s too much racial garbage. The minorities hate us. The leftwing freako politicians are always looking over our shoulder. Everybody thinks they know how to do the job better than we do. Pisses me off.’

‘There’s political crap everywhere,’ Maggie said.

‘Yeah, I know. My dad wants me to move to Florida. He’s got a rathole trailer in Tallahassee. Him and me, we’d probably kill each other after a month in the same town. Plus, I hate Florida. All those f*cking cockroaches and that f*cking humidity. Hurricanes, too. I’m staying in Minnesota for the weather.’

Maggie laughed. ‘So move back here. I could talk to Stride. We could get you on the team again.’

She noticed the anxious look on his face, and she back-pedaled. ‘Whoa, not because of me. I just mean, if you don’t like it down there, you’re not stuck.’

‘Thanks, I get it,’ Ken said. ‘I didn’t think I’d miss it the way I do. I guess when you grow up somewhere, you can’t get it out of your genes. Anyway, it’s a moot point. My mortgage is so far underwater I’d need a scuba tank to see daylight. I ain’t going nowhere.’

Maggie wondered if that was true or if that was a line to spare her feelings. She’d pushed him too fast. It was way too soon to talk about him moving back to Duluth, even if she had no ulterior motives. If he was happier up here, she wanted him to come back here, with no strings attached. The trouble was, it was hard to say you weren’t pulling romantic strings ten minutes after you’d given a man a blow job and washed his hair in the shower.

She said: Move back up here.

He heard: We’re a couple now.

Then again, maybe he was being straight with her. The housing market was on life support, and Ken was still Ken, which meant he’d probably sucked every dollar of equity out of his house to buy toys. She’d lectured him about it when he first joined the force, but Ken never changed. He was still a kid at heart, breezy and impulsive. So was she. Or that was what she told herself. She wasn’t getting old, no matter what the calendar said.

‘So Serena’s in town, huh?’ Ken asked, forcing three squares of pizza into his mouth at the same time. ‘Guppo says she’s looking good.’

‘Serena always looks good,’ Maggie replied sourly.

Ken had no way of knowing he’d pinned the tail on the wrong donkey. ‘You two pissing on each other? You mad because she walked out on Stride?’

Maggie shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

‘You want to talk about it?’

‘The last thing I want to talk about is Serena Dial.’

He held up his hands in surrender. ‘Sorry.’

Then, out of nowhere, he added: ‘So were you ever planning to tell me that you and Stride got it on this winter?’

Maggie slammed her beer on the table. ‘Shit shit shit! Guppo?’

‘World’s roundest spy.’

She pushed her chair back so hard it fell, and she stalked to the window. She slammed a palm against the wall. ‘I was going to tell you about it.’

‘Yeah, but you didn’t.’

‘I figured you’d think you were some kind of consolation prize.’

‘Am I?’

‘No. That’s not what this is about.’

Ken swallowed his pizza and came up behind her. He wore boxers and nothing else. Maggie’s shirt was undone. He put his arms around her and fingered her breasts like they were musical instruments.

‘I really am sorry,’ she told him.

‘Relax. F*ck me again, and all is forgiven.’

Maggie spun around and slapped him hard. He reeled back in surprise, rubbing his face. His smile vanished, and he shook his head. ‘Guess that wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to say.’

‘Am I a good lay to you? Is that it?’

‘Hey, we both seem pretty happy with this arrangement.’

Maggie closed her eyes. She was suddenly furious. Furious at Ken, at Stride, at Guppo, at Serena, but mostly at herself. She prided herself on never letting her emotions get in the way of her judgment, but she felt like a fool.

‘Let’s not do this now,’ she said.

‘Fine with me.’

‘Maybe we should talk about work.’

‘Maybe we should.’

‘Show me the tape,’ she told him.

‘Whatever you say.’

*

Ken slid the unlabeled DVD into the drawer of the Blu-Ray player on Maggie’s stereo tower. ‘I spent four hours going through Roslak’s files,’ he told her. ‘There were hundreds of videos. He taped everything. I don’t think it was for any clinical purpose. I think the son of a bitch was just a voyeur.’

‘You found Cat?’

‘Yeah, she was in the pile.’

‘Why’d they never bring her in for questioning?’

Ken shrugged. ‘You think the murder of an unlicensed shrink with a rep for screwing patients gets much priority? Around the same time, we had a ten-year-old boy killed in a school bullying incident and an immigrant store owner blown away behind the counter of his shop by two gang members. Guess where the manpower went? It wasn’t Vincent Roslak.’

‘Still, it’s been eight months,’ Maggie said.

‘The case has one lead investigator, and he’s swamped. We dicked around with a judge about getting access to Roslak’s materials at all. Patient privilege, you know? We got permission to do screen captures to sort the videos by face, and we identified a couple hundred people. We’ve got names for most of them now, but we can’t even watch the tapes without consent, which means tracking down each person one at a time. The whole thing is an evidence nightmare.’

‘What about Cat?’

‘With the consent Stride faxed this morning, I was able to pull her videos. Roslak saw her at least five times. I watched all of them. Most of it doesn’t tell us much, but the last one – wow. She was hypnotized. He took her on a flashback about the night her parents died.’

‘She was six then,’ Maggie said. ‘Would her memories be accurate?’

‘Who knows? He’s the shrink, not me.’

‘Where was this? Duluth or Minneapolis?’

‘No way to be sure,’ Ken told her. ‘He’s got a white sheet as a backdrop. I didn’t see anything to identify the location.’

‘Is it dated?’

‘No.’

‘So what did she say?’

‘Take a look,’ Ken said.

He pushed the Play button. The image of Cat Mateo filled the fifty-inch screen. Ken was right; it could have been filmed anywhere. The video showed her and a white backdrop and nothing more. Cat sat on a wooden stool, facing the camera. Her eyes were closed, and her hands were folded in her lap. Her legs were pressed demurely together, like a child in church. She looked serene.

Maggie heard a voice-over behind the camera. The voice dripped with honey and concern. It was Vincent Roslak.

‘Are you comfortable, Cat?’

‘Yes.’

‘Relaxed?’

‘Yes.’

‘It feels natural to be here, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. You trust me, don’t you?’

‘Of course, I trust you, Vincent.’

‘I would never hurt you.’

‘No.’

‘We’re going to take a little journey, Cat.’

‘Okay.’

Maggie waved her hand. ‘Fast-forward. Get to the part you want me to see.’

Ken advanced through several scenes. When he stopped, Maggie saw Cat again, but she looked transformed. The peace in her face had vanished. She sat open-eyed, staring into nothingness, her face slack with horror. She clutched the arms of the chair and rocked from side to side. Her voice was the scared voice of a little girl. She wailed at the lens, as if gripped by an unbearable pain, and then she leaped out of the chair and stormed the camera.

‘STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP No no no no no no.’

Maggie jumped back. ‘Jesus.’

‘It gets worse,’ Ken said.

Cat’s voice turned guttural. It was deep and menacing – a man’s voice. She shouted at the top of her lungs.

‘I’ll kill you I’ll kill you I’ll kill you I’ll kill you I’ll kill you!’

Maggie listened to the back-and-forth between Cat and Roslak. His relentless questions pushed the girl into the past. She could picture Cat under the porch, cold, scared, and confused. Inches away from her parents as they died. ‘Roslak was playing with fire,’ she said. ‘He could have pushed her over the edge. God knows what she would have done.’

‘There’s more,’ Ken said. ‘It’s not just that. Listen.’

‘To what?’

‘Listen.’

‘What’s going on, Cat?’

‘Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. He’s dead. They’re both dead. Oh, God.’

‘Your father?’

‘He killed him.’

‘What? Who?’

‘Sirens.’

‘Talk to me, Cat.’

‘I’ll protect you.’

‘Everything’s okay. What’s my name, Cat?’

‘Come out, it’s okay.’

‘My name, Cat. Who am I?’

‘Stride. My name is Stride.’

Ken stared at her. ‘You see?’

Maggie stopped the recording and stripped the disc out of the machine. ‘No, I don’t see. What the hell is that supposed to mean? She heard Stride?’

‘It’s not hard to figure out,’ Ken said.

‘Yeah? Tell me.’

‘I don’t think you want to hear it.’

‘Shit, Ken, just tell me what you think.’

‘Cat makes it sound like Stride was there before Marty died.’

‘Are you kidding? No way. She’s mixing things up. Or she was acting. That wasn’t real.’

‘It sure looked real to me,’ Ken said.

‘So what are you saying?’

‘I’m not saying anything. Cat’s the one who said it.’

‘Marty Gamble killed himself. It was a murder-suicide. Stride sure as hell did not kill him.’

‘Are you sure?’

Maggie shouted at him. ‘Of course, I am f*cking sure! Are you crazy? We’re talking about Stride.’

‘Hey, I hear you, but everyone knew he was sweet on Michaela. If he showed up and found her dead? If Marty was drunk or passed out in her blood? What would he have done?’

‘No way. This little bitch is either faking it or she’s mixing up her memories. That is not what happened.’

‘You’re probably right, but it doesn’t look good.’

‘I don’t care how it looks.’

‘Was he there?’ Ken asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Was Stride on the scene?’

‘Of course, he was there! We were all there!’

‘When did he arrive?’

Maggie found herself almost hyperventilating. ‘What?’

‘When did Stride arrive at the crime scene?’

‘That doesn’t mean anything.’

‘Maggie,’ Ken murmured. ‘Come on.’

She stared at the dark television. This was wrong. This was a mistake. This wasn’t how it happened.

‘Okay, yes, Stride was the first responder,’ she told him. ‘Michaela called him when she saw Marty’s car. He was there before any of us arrived. Just him and the two bodies. And Cat.’