The Cold Nowhere

41

‘Cat!’

Stride bolted to his feet. The gunshots came in rapid succession, punctuated by screams, and then they stopped. No more than five seconds passed from beginning to end. He ran the length of the house and threw open the door to Cat’s bedroom, but the room was empty, and the window was open. A gust of snow and wind blew through the wavy curtains.

‘She’s outside!’ he called to Serena.

Behind him, Serena ripped open the front door and skidded onto the front porch. He heard her shout. ‘There’s a body on the front lawn, and we’ve got lots of blood! Get an ambulance fast!’

Stride grabbed his phone from his belt and dialed 911 as he followed Serena into the snow. At first, he saw only one body lying prone and lifeless in the grass. Cat. Then he saw movement on the ground and heard Cat’s voice calling a name over and over.

Dory.

Serena squatted beside them. She tugged on Dory’s shoulder, but the woman’s head bobbed forward like that of a limp doll. Dory’s face was visible, and Stride saw the fatal exit wound that had carved away much of her skull. He eased Cat out from under her aunt’s body. Cat whimpered and cried, unable to stand. Her face and clothes were a mess of blood, bone, and brain, and he couldn’t tell, looking at her, if she’d been shot, too.

‘Cat, are you hurt?’

The girl didn’t answer. He laid her in the snow and did a careful review of her head, limbs and torso, seeing no bullet holes in her clothes or wounds on her exposed flesh. ‘I don’t think Cat’s been hit, but she’s in shock,’ he said. ‘What about Dory? Is she gone?’

Serena checked Dory’s pulse and nodded. ‘It was a catastrophic wound.’

‘Take a look at the street,’ Stride told her. ‘Make sure we’re clear.’

Serena already had her gun in her hand. She crouched low as she jogged toward the road that cut like an arrow through the Point. Under the falling snow, the area felt oddly quiet and deserted. If his neighbors had heard the shots, they were staying safely behind their walls.

As he held her hand, Cat’s eyes fluttered open. She jerked in fear, and he pushed her shoulders down gently. ‘It’s okay, lie still.’

‘Dory,’ she said. ‘Dory’s hurt.’

‘I know.’

‘Is she okay?’

‘Just lie still.’

Cat pushed herself up anyway and saw her aunt six feet away, dead in the snow. She wailed and buried her face in Stride’s chest. He put an arm around her body and let her sob.

In the middle of the street, Serena shoved her gun in her belt.

‘There are tire tracks in the snow,’ she called. ‘Looks like he fired from the car. He’s gone unless we can get the bridge up in the next few seconds.’

‘I don’t want to block the ambulance,’ Stride said. ‘I still want Cat checked out. With any luck we’ll catch him as he reaches the city.’

He didn’t think luck was with them. When he listened for sirens, he didn’t hear any in the distance. The storm had slowed down emergency responses across Duluth, and his team was stretched thin. When he checked his watch, he estimated that three or four minutes had passed since the shooting. The killer might already have escaped across the bridge at high speed, and once he made it beyond the streets of Canal Park, he could go anywhere.

Serena rejoined them on the lawn. ‘It’s cold. You should get her inside. I’ll stay here.’

Stride eased Cat to her feet. Her knees were rubbery and he kept an arm around her waist.

‘We should get inside,’ he told her.

‘No, wait.’

‘I want you lying down, Cat.’

‘I need to say goodbye.’

‘There’ll be time for that.’

‘No, I need to do it now. Please.’

He helped her to the trampled ground where Dory lay on her chest, her face turned sideways, her hair matted with blood. The storm was turning her body white. Cat knelt beside her. Dory’s eyes were open and sightless, and before Stride could stop her, Cat reached out and closed her aunt’s eyes. She crossed herself, a gesture of faith that took him by surprise.

Cat brushed flurries from Dory’s coat and kissed her shoulder. She put her lips near her aunt’s ear and whispered. Her voice was soft, but he could hear what she said.

‘I forgive you.’

*

Maggie sped south on the I-35. Her windshield wipers were choked with ice, forcing her to squint through wet streaks at the clouds of snow that poured through her headlights. She was alone on the highway, and the road was slick, even under the monster tires of her Avalanche. When she shot off the freeway at the Lake Avenue exit, she felt the truck skid as she feathered the brake.

She climbed toward the intersection and coasted through the red light toward the Point. When she checked her mirrors, she realized that she was the first cop to reach the area. Her truck barreled through the intersection at Railroad Street, and as her eyes flicked right, she caught a glimpse of tail lights half a mile south. It could have been a phantom of the storm; the lights disappeared as she watched. A moment later, the buildings of Canal Park blocked her view, and the car, if it was a car, was gone.

She roared past hotels and shops. The late night sidewalks of the tourist center were deserted, and most of the parking places on the street were empty. She turned right at the Dewitt-Seitz building, rear wheels slipping, and then left again on Lake Avenue. The tall gray tower of the bridge loomed ahead of her.

She thought again: Tail lights.

She couldn’t shake the phantom. She’d seen a car speeding away.

Maggie stopped in the middle of the street, momentarily paralyzed with indecision. She wished she hadn’t downed two glasses of wine so quickly. Her reactions were slow. All she had now were her instincts, and her instincts shouted a message at her. She was making a mistake.

Turn around.

She swung into a U-turn and kicked up a cloud of snow as she charged back toward Railroad Street. She careened left, but the road ahead of her was dark and empty. She was too late; the car had vanished. She continued for a mile past the DECC and Bayfront Park, following the street toward the industrial section of the rail yard, where pyramids of taconite and wood were capped in white like mountains. She was alone with the storm; no one else was with her.

He was gone.

Maggie shouted a loud expletive inside the truck. She turned again and retraced her steps. As she neared Bayfront Park, she swung left over the freeway toward downtown and stopped at the peak of the overpass. There were a few cars braving the storm in both directions. The same was true of downtown; she could see stray cars pushing through the intersections.

Whoever she’d seen was a needle in a haystack now, impossible to find.

Her radio squawked. ‘Hey, Maggie, is that you in the big yellow boat on the Fifth Avenue overpass?’

It was Guppo.

‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘Where the hell are you?’

‘Heading north.’

She eyed the freeway traffic and saw the flashing lights of a patrol car approaching from the south. ‘I spotted a car that could have been the shooter coming off the Point, but I lost him,’ she said.

‘Maybe not. I saw what looked like a black Charger going the other way. He got off on 53 heading toward the Hill.’

Maggie’s adrenaline roared back. She gunned the Avalanche and merged onto the southbound interstate at a crazy speed. Highway 53 climbed at a sharp angle toward Miller Hill, where it made a T at the intersection with Central Entrance, which was the main road through the flatlands in the north of the city. If he stayed on the highway, they could put him in a box by closing in from three sides.

‘I’ll come up behind him on 53,’ she told Guppo. ‘You high-tail it up Mesaba and come in on Central Entrance from the east. Get a couple cars near the airport to come down from the west.’

‘You got it.’

She wheeled around a slow-moving Corolla in the right lane just as she left the interstate. Highway 53 rose northward in tight curves, and even the powerful engine of her Avalanche struggled for traction on the snow-covered road. Her speed was maddeningly slow. She cruised through stop lights near the Enger Tower and Lake Superior College, and finally the truck picked up speed as the incline flattened. Through the snow, she saw tail lights ahead of her. She closed quickly on the vehicle from behind.

If he saw her, if he thought she was a cop, he didn’t run. Coming up behind the car, she saw that it was a Dodge Avenger, not a Charger, and it was blue, not black.

‘Guppo, you sure that was a black Charger?’ she called into the radio. ‘I’m behind a blue Avenger up here.’

‘I’m sure,’ he radioed back. ‘That’s not him.’

Maggie spun around the Avenger and continued until she reached the T intersection at Central Entrance. She eyed the slow-moving traffic in both directions, but she didn’t spot the sports car. From the northwest, two patrol cars sped toward her. She didn’t see Guppo from the other direction.

‘Guppo, tell me you’ve got something. We’ve got nothing up here.’

‘Ditto, sorry.’

‘Keep coming my way, I’ll head toward you. Let’s get the other cars patrolling the side streets west and east of 53, in case he turned off before he reached the Hill.’

‘Roger.’

She turned right and wove between the cars inching along the slick road. Half a mile eastward, she spotted Guppo’s patrol approaching from the opposite direction, and she pounded the wheel in frustration.

They’d lost him.

She flashed her brights at Guppo.

‘What now?’ he radioed.

‘Check the mall. Maybe he’s switching cars. I’ll start running the streets to the north.’

She watched his car fade into the snow in her mirror. They were shooting blind. When she reached the light at Arlington Road, she turned left. In the opposite direction, Arlington was one of only a few roads that intersected Highway 53, so the driver of the Charger could have used it as a shortcut to Central Entrance.

On Arlington, she crawled. The farther she traveled, the more deserted the road became, heavily wooded on both sides. Twice she spotted tail lights and followed them quickly until she confirmed that they weren’t the car she was hunting.

Her radio crackled to life again.

‘We just got a 911 call on a cell phone. A dark sports car burnt through the red light at Arlington and Arrowhead. Could be our guy.’

‘Which direction?’

‘North on Arlington toward Rice Lake.’

‘I’m on Arlington now,’ Maggie told Guppo. ‘Back me up, and see if we have anybody in Rice Lake Township who can come down from the north.’

‘I’m five minutes behind you, on my way.’

Maggie accelerated northward. The land north of Arrowhead was largely rural, and there were few roads cutting through the undeveloped land on which to escape. Unfortunately, the lack of roads also made it difficult to box him in from other directions. She also knew that in a battle of horsepower between the Charger and the Avalanche, the Charger would win. Her best option was to find him, tail him, and not spook him.

She drove crazy-fast, as fast as she could make the Avalanche go, feeling as if she were hydroplaning on a river of wet snow. The flat, straight road headed into nothingness. She passed two crossroads leading west toward the airport, but she bet that he would have chosen a faster route if the airport was his destination. Instead, she stayed on the same northbound course, and as the road crested a shallow hill, she spotted twin red lights at the extreme end of her sightline.

It was him. It had to be him.

‘I may have our guy,’ she radioed Guppo.

‘Where are you?’

‘Passing Norton Road, he’s maybe half a mile ahead of me.’

She was doing eighty, and if he looked in his mirror, he’d spot her bearing down. She eased off on the accelerator, closing the gap slowly. They neared the stop sign at Martin Road, and she saw brake lights flash. She turned off her lights, trying to make him think she’d pulled off the road. He stayed where he was, not moving, and she drifted to a stop, playing a game of cat and mouse across a quarter mile of pavement. In the storm, without lights, she hoped she was invisible.

Suddenly, ahead of her, she heard the blistering roar of an engine. The rubber squeal of the Charger’s tires cut through the storm, and the car swung into a hard right turn, accelerating wildly.

‘Damn, he spotted me!’

Maggie turned her lights back on and jammed the accelerator. At the intersection, she turned the wheel so hard that her wheels left the ground and then thudded back to the pavement. The car ahead of her was greased lightning; it was already disappearing. Her chassis quivered around her like a rocket, but even at extreme speed, the Charger widened the gap. A mile later, its tail lights winked out into the darkness.

‘I lost him, I lost him – oh, shit!’

Through the fog at the end of her headlights, she saw a dark shadow. It could have been a deer; it could have been a child. Instinctively, her foot slammed to the brake, and like a dancer, the Avalanche swirled on the sheet of snow. It spun in a tilt-a-whirl circle, once, twice, three times, and then the right-side wheels of the truck skidded onto the shoulder and spilled into the shallow gully. The truck toppled onto its side, and kept toppling, over and over, rattling Maggie’s body with the shudder of each impact. Windows broke; glass flew across her skin; snow and dirt spat through the interior of the truck. She felt the world spin, and by the time it stopped spinning, it was black.





42

She was upside down.

When Maggie opened her eyes, she saw a face as round as Charlie Brown’s staring in through the broken window. It was Sergeant Max Guppo, squatting beside the overturned Avalanche. He yanked open the driver’s door, which groaned as he fought against bent metal.

‘I thought you were dead,’ he said.

‘If you’re an angel, heaven has a lot of work to do,’ she mumbled in reply.

Before he could say anything, Maggie unhooked her safety belt and dropped six inches to the roof beneath her. ‘Ouch.’

‘You shouldn’t move,’ he said. ‘You could be hurt.’

‘Oh, I’m fine. This thing’s a tank. Help me out of here.’

Guppo slid his beefy forearms under her shoulders and slid her out of the truck. Her legs wobbled as she stood, but she propped herself on his shoulder and waited for the dizziness to pass. With a huge breath, Guppo pushed himself up beside her. He didn’t squat easily, and he had an even harder time un-squatting. She heard an unmistakable sound behind him, and a foul aroma overwhelmed the cold night air.

‘Oh, hell, Guppo, what is that? Are you kidding me?’

‘Sorry. Chili cheese fries. You sure you’re okay?’

‘Quit babying me.’

‘You’re bleeding,’ he said, pointing at her face.

‘So get me a frickin’ Band-Aid. Come on, we have to find this guy.’

‘You should go to a hospital. Stride will kill me if he finds out I didn’t get you an ambulance.’

Maggie grabbed a fistful of Guppo’s shirt and pulled him closer. ‘Now listen to me very carefully. F*ck Lieutenant Jonathan Stride!’

‘I think you have a concussion.’

‘I don’t. Let’s go.’

‘Yeah, except where do we go? He’s gone.’

‘He was on this road for a reason. Maybe he’s hiding out near here. We start checking houses one by one, and we get as many cars out here as we can to do the same thing. We wake people up, we don’t take any shit about how late it is. Okay?’

‘You’re pretty crabby.’

‘Yeah. I’m pretty crabby. My truck is totaled, and I feel like somebody’s been using me as a punching bag.’

Maggie turned too quickly and felt dizzy again. Guppo grabbed her before she fell. She shook him off and scrambled up the embankment to his patrol car, which was parked on the shoulder. Looking down, she saw her Avalanche, wheels in the air, its frame twisted. Her insurance guy was not going to be happy with her. Again.

She bandaged the cut on her face, and the two of them headed east. It was a lonely road, with few houses. Where they stopped, no one was happy to see them, but they crossed houses off their list one by one. Some they skipped, where the driveways were empty of tire tracks. Three other patrol cars joined them, and they hopscotched their way past Gnesen Road and then to Vermillion Road. The snow had stopped, but the desolate land was black under the clouds and they had to go slowly to find properties bordering the road. By the time it was two in the morning, she was almost ready to quit for the night and go to the hospital.

He’d beaten her, and she didn’t like it.

‘We done?’ Guppo asked.

‘Let’s do a couple more,’ she told him. ‘By the way, I never thanked you for blabbing to the whole f*cking world about me and Ken.’

‘I told Serena, that’s all. She sent me snickerdoodles.’

‘You sold me out for cookies?’

‘Well, they’re really good. You know, cinnamon and all.’

She knew there was no point in being angry. Guppo was Guppo.

They crawled along the highway. Where Martin Road curved southeast, Maggie spotted a narrow dirt driveway almost invisible between the trees. The snow was beaten down with tire tracks coming and going. When they turned their search light toward the woods, they saw an old rambler set back from the road. The house was dark.

‘Those tracks look fresh to you?’ Maggie asked.

‘They do.’

‘Pretty late to be out and about.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s check it out.’

Guppo parked on the opposite side of the road. Maggie opened the passenger door. Inside the warm car, she felt fine, but when she climbed outside, her muscles tensed in agony. As she crossed the street, her face twitched with the spasms in her neck. Guppo studied her with concern, but she waved him off.

‘Call in the other cars,’ she said. ‘I want backup on this one.’

He hailed the other cops on his radio, and she bent down to examine the tire tracks with a flashlight. ‘Definitely fresh. The snow has hardly covered them up. I’d say no more than half an hour old.’

‘There are two sets of tracks,’ Guppo said, bending slightly at his massive waist.

Maggie doused the light. They stayed on the shoulder of the driveway as they approached the house. The trees around them were thick. At the end of the driveway, they saw a detached twocar garage, its door closed. Tracks came and went on both sides. Twenty yards from the garage, a single-story house, with painted red siding, was carved into a clearing in the trees. A snow-covered cord of wood sat propped against one wall. The walkway from the garage to the front door showed no footsteps.

‘Looks deserted,’ Guppo said.

Maggie hiked through the virgin snow to the front door. A picture window faced the woods and she peered inside, using her flashlight to illuminate the interior. The living room was furnished with an old-fashioned sofa with a faded rose pattern, a rocker, a straight-backed Shaker chair, and a big-box television from the 1980s. It was an old person’s house.

‘This place look familiar to you?’ Maggie asked. She searched her memory, which didn’t take long. ‘This is the Linnerooth place. Wally and Ruth. Remember?’

‘Oh, sure, the lefse people.’

Every year, the Linnerooths baked lefse at their winter home in Arizona and sent a big box to the Duluth Police as a Christmas thank you gift for their service to the city. In return, cops always stopped in to see Wally and Ruth during the warmer months to help with household chores and play Scrabble.

‘It doesn’t look like they’re home yet,’ Guppo said.

‘No, it doesn’t. So who’s using the garage?’

Maggie slid her gun into her hand. So did Guppo. They retraced their steps to the detached garage. On the far side of the dirt driveway, two other officers joined them. They closed in on the garage door from both sides.

She pointed at the metal handle on the door and gestured one of the younger cops toward it. He positioned himself and bent down, ready to throw it open. She lifted three fingers and counted them off – one, two, three – and the cop yanked the garage door open on its metal tracks. They pointed their weapons at the interior, but the garage was dark and quiet.

A single vehicle was parked in the left-side stall.

It was a black Charger, still wet with mud and snow.

Maggie approached the car on the driver’s side. Her head throbbed, as if someone were beating on it with a hammer. Her legs felt weak. She steadied herself against the cold metal of the chassis. Guppo took the other side of the car and they simultaneously shot beams of light inside the Charger. It was empty. No one was inside the vehicle.

When she studied the leather on the front seat, however, she saw dark, dried stains. Blood. Kim Dehne’s blood. He’d carried it on his clothes as he escaped that night.

‘Think he’s still here?’ Guppo asked.

‘No, he left the Charger and made a getaway in a vehicle we wouldn’t recognize. Smart.’

‘He had to leave quickly. Maybe he left evidence behind.’

‘Maybe,’ Maggie said, but she wasn’t expecting this man to give them any lucky breaks. It was his safe house, and she assumed that he kept it safe. He had to know that any time he left, he might not be able to come back.

‘Turn on the light,’ she told Guppo. ‘Careful for prints.’

Guppo found a switch near the rear door of the garage and turned it on with a pencil. The bright light made her squint and sent ripples of pain behind her eyes. The nerves in her neck stabbed her when she moved. Her ribs ached where the safety belt had locked against her chest in the accident. Her stomach had begun to churn, and she thought she might throw up.

‘You’re not looking good,’ Guppo said.

‘Really? Because I feel terrific.’

‘I’ll call that ambulance now.’

‘Great idea.’

She studied the garage. It was impeccably organized, a handyman’s garage, with steel shelves lining the walls and supplies neatly stacked together. Gloves. Bird seed. Gasoline. Oil. Antifreeze. Boxes labeled for Halloween and the Fourth of July. She saw a riding mower, a white overflow freezer, and a rusted snow plough attachment for a pick-up truck. Near the side door, she saw a peg board carefully arranged with an elaborate set of tools, saws and drill bits. Wally Linnerooth was an old-fashioned Norwegian who had a place for everything and kept everything in its place.

Except for the food. The food wasn’t right.

‘Oh, shit,’ Maggie said.

Guppo looked at her. ‘What is it?’

She pointed at the set of metal shelves beside the freezer. The top shelf, at arm level, was stacked with Tupperware containers, boxes of Banquet chicken, Lean Cuisine meals, and links stuffed with homemade sausage.

‘Oh, shit,’ Guppo echoed.

They both made a beeline for the freezer. It was a chest freezer, five feet wide and three feet deep. Maggie used the tip of her glove on the corner to force the lid open. A cloud of frost leached from inside.

Ice crystals clung to a fully clothed body squeezed into the tight space like a side of beef.

The body was face up, its skin bone white. Eyes closed. Frozen blood traced the woman’s cheeks from a wound near her temple, and a large plastic bag had been taped around her neck, suffocating her after she’d been assaulted. She was heavy, dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans. Her hair was cut short, mannish and flat.

It was Margot Huizenfelt.