The Cold Nowhere

PART FOUR

GRAFFITI GRAVEYARD





51

‘So what are the ground rules, Chief?’ Stride asked.

They stood at the back of the church. K-2 wore a black fedora and a heavy brown trench coat over his suit. His dress shoes were wet with snow. His ears jutted out from the side of his head, and the ends were pink from the cold. At the other end of the aisle, Leonard Keck sat in the front pew with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand.

‘I told him that we wouldn’t use anything he says in a prosecution against him,’ K-2 said. ‘Hence the private meeting.’

‘That ties my hands.’

‘Just be glad he didn’t bring along his lawyer, Jon.’

Stride ran his hands back through his hair. ‘What if he confesses to murder?’

‘He won’t.’

‘If he stonewalls, the deal’s off.’

‘He knows that. It cost me a hundred dollar bottle of scotch to get him here, so you owe me big.’

‘I doubt it was that easy.’

K-2 shrugged and scratched his ear. ‘Yeah, I had to threaten to call the City Council, the US Attorney, and the chair of the state Republican Party. He knows he may lose his Council seat when this gets out, but there are always second acts in politics. Particularly in Duluth. Besides, he’s rich. He can still buy all the influence he wants.’

‘You know what he’s going to tell us?’

‘Most of it.’

‘How bad is it?’

‘Bad enough, but mostly stupid. Stupid screws up more investigations than anything else. You know that.’

Stride nodded. People lied to the police the way that they lied to their doctors. They felt embarrassed. They felt guilty. They didn’t want to admit doing something foolish. He’d wasted weeks of time and watched criminals go free because of lies that had nothing to do with the real crimes.

He gestured to Serena and the two of them joined Lenny at the front of the church. The car dealer sat with his legs apart and his knees bent. Steam rose from the white coffee cup. He stared up at the altar, a frown on his face.

‘Feels odd, huh, being in a place like this,’ Lenny said. ‘Talking about sins.’

‘Do you want to go somewhere else?’ Stride asked.

‘Nah, get it over with. If the Catholics are right about purgatory, I’m screwed anyway.’

He could hear the slur of the scotch in Lenny’s voice.

‘You said you didn’t arrange for Rebekah’s murder,’ Stride said. ‘Convince me.’

Lenny’s face twitched. He sipped his coffee. ‘What do you guys want? It’s not like I can prove it. All I can tell you is, I didn’t have a motive in the world to kill Rebekah. We were rich. We were happy. She was there with me when I didn’t have money, and she was there with me when I did. It’s not like I had some mistress waiting in the wings to take her place. I never got married again, because there was no one else in the world for me except her.’ He glanced between Stride and Serena. ‘You two, you’re lucky. You found each other after Stride lost his wife. I never had the same experience, and believe me, it’s not for lack of women trying to convince me otherwise.’

‘Tell us about the last trip you took,’ Serena said. ‘Who knew you were leaving town to go to the Keys?’

Lenny shrugged. ‘Who didn’t? Everybody at the dealership knew. Most of the politicos. I’m sure Rebekah told dozens of people. We weren’t trying to hide it. Hell, I told K-2, so he could arrange some extra drive-bys while we were gone. Would I do that if I was planning to stage some kind of phony robbery? Get serious.’

‘Exactly what happened on the trip?’

‘Nothing happened,’ Lenny said. ‘It was the usual convention stuff. Boring speeches and a lot of parties, booze, and shrimp. We were having a ball until Rebekah started spewing out bad lobster from both ends. She decided to go home early. I offered to go with her, but she insisted I stay and finish out the convention. I got a limo to take her back to Miami, and she flew home. By the time she got to Minneapolis, she felt good enough to drive our car back to Duluth. She made it home around midnight. That’s when she got shot.’

‘Who knew she was coming back early?’

‘Nobody except me and a few people at the convention, unless she talked to some of her friends. You’ve got her phone records, you tell me. She called me while she was driving home to say she was okay. That was the last time I spoke to her.’

‘When did you get back?’ Stride asked.

‘A day later. I got a limo to drive me home from MSP.’

‘Weren’t you concerned when you couldn’t reach Rebekah?’

Lenny shrugged. ‘I was busy with the convention. I tried a couple times and got the machine. No big deal. I figured she was doing one of her social or charity things. Or she was shopping.’

‘Can you think of any reason why someone would have wanted her dead?’ Serena asked.

‘Rebekah? No way. Was she tough? Sure. Did she have a bitchy side if you crossed her? Absolutely. I mean, hell, she was a rich Jewish housewife, what do you expect? But nobody had any reason to kill her. I’m telling you, some bastards thought we were gone, they broke in to rob me blind, and Rebekah showed up at the wrong time. That’s what happened. If I came home with her, I’d be dead, too.’

‘Okay,’ Stride said. ‘Let’s talk about the ring.’

Lenny glanced at the front of the church, where K-2 stood with his arms crossed across his scrawny chest. The car dealer tugged on the waistband of his tracksuit. ‘What about it?’

‘You knew it was missing. Why didn’t you tell us about it?’

‘I told you, I thought I did.’

‘You’re lying. You never filed an insurance claim.’

‘It must have slipped my mind. Hell, my wife was dead. You think I was worried about insurance money?’

Stride zipped up his leather jacket. ‘We’re done, Lenny. My next stop is at the News-Tribune to find a reporter to write the story.’

‘Lenny!’ K-2 called from the front of the church. ‘I already told you how this has to go. If you’ve got something to say, you better say it.’

Lenny squeezed his fists together. ‘All right! Yeah, all right, I didn’t tell you about the ring. I just wanted the whole thing to go away.’

‘Were there other items of jewelry missing?’ Stride asked.

‘Yeah, some big earrings. A couple bracelets and necklaces. Expensive stuff, but it’s not like I could describe it. I knew I’d given her things that weren’t in the stash you recovered.’

‘What about cash?’ Stride asked. ‘We found about five thousand dollars in cash at Fong’s apartment. Back then, you said that was all of it. Was that a lie?’

‘There was more,’ Lenny admitted. ‘A lot more.’

‘How much?’

‘Upwards of fifty thousand dollars,’ he said.

Stride exhaled in disgust. ‘Unbelievable.’

‘Why did you have that kind of cash in your house?’ Serena asked.

‘Let’s just say that in my business there are some transactions that are best handled in cash, okay?’

‘Bribes,’ Serena said.

‘Incentives. Bonuses. The fact is, if I told you people how much money was really taken back then, you’d have started asking questions that I didn’t want to answer. My political career would have been over before it started, and the IRS would have started nosing around, too.’

Stride shook his head. ‘So instead, you said nothing. You knew there had to be accomplices in your wife’s murder, and you gave them a free pass.’

‘Rebekah was dead and nothing was going to bring her back!’ Lenny retorted. ‘She would have told me to do exactly what I did. She would have said I was crazy to screw it up just to put a couple thugs behind bars.’

K-2 strolled down the church aisle toward the three of them. ‘This is all under the cone of silence, Lenny, but don’t think I’m going to forget it. If your act isn’t clean right now, you better clean it up fast. Is that crystal clear, my friend?’

‘I hear you,’ Lenny muttered. ‘Are we done? Can I go now?’

He started to get up, but Serena put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Not so fast, Mr. Keck.’

‘What? What else do you want? I’ve told you everything.’

‘We still have a problem.’

Lenny looked plaintively at K-2. ‘This is nuts. Come on, Kyle, get me out of here.’

The chief studied his friend’s face. ‘Why don’t you hear the lady out?’

Lenny scowled and laced his hands together in his lap. ‘Fine. What’s the problem?’

‘If Fong was involved in the burglary, then the split’s wrong,’ Serena said.

‘Huh?’

‘We found five thousand dollars,’ Serena explained. ‘If they stole fifty, Fong should have had a lot more money in that box. Particularly if he had the gun and did the job himself. Where’s the rest of it?’

‘What are you asking me for? Maybe he stashed some of it somewhere else. He had a girlfriend, right? He probably gave it to her. Or maybe he was just a patsy and somebody framed him.’

‘If Fong was a patsy – if he was really innocent – then we have an even bigger problem,’ Stride told him.

Lenny squirmed in the pew. He looked at K-2 for rescue again, but the chief’s face was stone. ‘What do you mean? I don’t get it.’

‘Why frame someone if the police are going to keep looking for accomplices?’ Stride asked.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Lenny said.

‘If this was a setup, then someone planted five thousand dollars in Fong’s house for us to find,’ Stride said, leaning in close to the car dealer’s face. ‘Why bother? They had to know we’d keep looking for the rest of the money. And the jewelry, too. What could they gain by framing Fong if you were going to turn around and tell us that we’d only recovered a fraction of what was stolen?’

‘Unless they knew you wouldn’t say a word,’ Serena said.

Lenny chewed his lip. His tanned face turned red.

‘What about it, Lenny?’ K-2 asked. ‘Did you forget something during our little chat?’

‘This is over,’ Lenny said. ‘I’m leaving.’

‘You leave and our deal’s off,’ K-2 told him. ‘I start an investigation tomorrow into every business transaction you’ve conducted in the last ten years.’

‘Is that the problem?’ Serena asked. ‘Was the heist masterminded by someone who knew all about your incentives program? Did they threaten to expose everything if you didn’t keep your mouth shut?’

‘It had nothing to do with money,’ Lenny snapped.

‘Then what was it?’

Lenny put his hands on top of his head and yanked at his messy hair. ‘I can’t believe this.’

‘You might as well tell us,’ K-2 said. ‘It’s all coming out. You can’t run from it.’

‘I was launching my first political campaign! My wife had just been murdered! You think I wanted shit like this in the papers? You think I wanted everyone to know? I would have been humiliated. Ruined.’

They waited. The silence was excruciating. Lenny looked like a guilty little boy.

‘Look, here’s the thing. Rebekah wasn’t exactly interested in sex the way I was. Understand? So when I got rich I figured I deserved to get some of what I was missing.’

‘Prostitutes,’ Stride said.

‘They were more like escorts. High-class, expensive. When Rebekah was away, sometimes I’d arrange to have some fun, okay? They were young, beautiful college girls, and they would do anything I wanted. What guy could say no to that?’

‘Except somebody found out about it,’ Serena concluded.

‘Yeah, somebody set me up. They had photos from a motel I’d visited. Very explicit, very embarrassing photos. Serious fetish stuff. The pictures were waiting for me when I got home from the Keys and found Rebekah. Bad enough to have my wife lying there dead, but then to know I’d be a f*cking laughing stock, too? They said if I talked to you guys about what was taken, the pictures would go to the press. I didn’t know why they cared until I heard about the search at Fong’s place. Then I figured … I figured it was a cover-up.’

‘Lenny, you let an innocent man take the fall?’ K-2 demanded. ‘You just sat on your hands while we put him in prison?’

‘Innocent, hell. Come on, Kyle, he was an ex-con. A low-life crook. You found loot from other burglaries at his place, too, right?’

‘He was convicted of murder, Mr. Keck,’ Serena said. ‘It was a murder he almost certainly didn’t commit. Were you really okay with the idea that the people who killed your wife were still out there? That they never paid for what they did?’

‘I didn’t have a choice,’ Lenny said. ‘Don’t you get it? I had my whole reputation to think about.’

Stride shook his head. ‘Tell us about the girls,’ he said. ‘You said they were college girls.’

‘Yeah, very pretty, very smart. That was part of the attraction. They weren’t low-life street girls.’

‘Did you ever take them to your house?’

Lenny nodded. ‘Sometimes.’

‘So they could have seen you enter your alarm code,’ he said.

‘I – I suppose so.’

‘We need names,’ Stride told him.

‘You think I had their real names? They didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask.’

‘How did you find them?’ Stride asked. ‘Who set it up?’

‘There was – there was one girl. A business major. I spoke at her class, and she came up and talked to me afterwards. We went for coffee, and – I don’t know, I made a pass at her. She said if that’s what I wanted, fine, but it wasn’t free. She gave me a price, and I said sure, why not. That’s how it started. When I wanted more, she introduced me to other girls who were willing to do the same thing.’

‘Who was the girl?’ Serena asked.

‘She wouldn’t have been part of a plot like this. Not her.’

Stride squatted in front of him. ‘Who?’





52

Brooke Hahne stared at the knife on the passenger seat.

She’d taken the knife from the kitchen drawer in her apartment. It was stainless. Sharp. She picked it up and clutched it in her hand and studied the blade, which glinted under the dome light of the Kia. The handle felt cold. When she tensed her wrist, she saw the radial artery bulge from her skin. She touched the flat edge of the blade to the swollen artery. With a vertical flick, she could open it up. Blood would spurt, warm and bright red, like a poinsettia.

It wouldn’t take long for her to die. Not long at all. It would be swift and painless.

She’d driven aimlessly in the darkness for two hours, and now she’d finally parked. She sat in the chill of her car and wondered how everything had gone this far. How the past had spiraled out of control. She should have put an end to it ten years ago, but she’d fooled herself into thinking she could do penance and make it right. Every day at the shelter, saving lost lives, was atonement for her sins.

Except that was a lie.

In reality, she was a coward, afraid of spending her life in prison. She’d been scared and selfish, unwilling to face what she’d done. Now more people had died because of her, one after another, like a bad dream that wouldn’t stop.

People she’d never met. And people she’d loved.

‘Oh, Dory,’ she murmured. ‘What did I do?’

A photograph of the two of them dangled from her rear-view mirror, where she’d taped it. They sat on top of the stone runs known as the Cribs just off the Boardwalk, in their bikinis, cheek to cheek, arms around each other’s waists, silly grins on their faces. A few seconds later, she remembered, they’d dove into the cold lake water hand in hand. They were roommates and college freshmen then, giddy about everything that was ahead of them. If only they’d known.

For Dory, drugs were ahead of her. Misery, addiction, shame.

For Brooke, it was Leonard Keck. That was how it all started.

Back then, it hadn’t seemed like a big deal. She needed money, and he had money, and all she had to do was disconnect her body from her mind. She wasn’t the only one doing it. Some of the other girls talked about it in hushed tones, behind closed doors. A party. A nice dress. It was like a date, but the happy ending came with cash. Two hundred, three hundred, sometimes five hundred dollars. A fortune.

Lenny had hit on her after class like a rich old fool, and she’d thought, This is my chance. Why not? You can f*ck me, but it’ll cost you. It was business, like selling a car. They both got what they wanted out of the deal. She could smile and fake it as he did whatever he wanted to her, and the end justified the means. No student loans. No mountain of debt.

It was her body. Her choice. Everybody said it was a victimless crime.

No one was supposed to get hurt.

No one was supposed to get killed.

He pawed her everywhere with his old, clumsy hands. His fingers fumbled with her silk blouse, and he popped the buttons, ripping the flaps apart and yanking the cups of her lace bra down to expose her breasts. He covered them with his mouth, sucked on her pale pink nipples, and squeezed her small mounds until he left fingerprints.

‘Shit, look at you,’ he panted, his eyes wide, feasting on her nude flesh.

It was the same every time they were together. Like she was a museum piece. Like he couldn’t believe she belonged to him.

Lenny still wore his tux from the university fundraiser. The studs on his white shirt rubbed her bare skin as his body crushed her. She could feel his hardness through his trousers, aching to be released. He already had her skirt bunched above her hips, her panties around her ankles, and her knees spread like butterfly wings. She watched his back arch as he sank down her body. He buried his face and tongue between her legs, lapping at her slit like a dog at a water bowl.

She squirmed away and grabbed his face and kissed him. Her fingers ran through his hair, and she took one hand and rhythmically squeezed the pole under his zipper. ‘Let’s go inside. I want to be naked in your bed tonight.’

‘Oh, yeah.’

Lenny half-pushed, half-kicked open the rear door of the car. He staggered into the cold December night. Brooke slid her panties from her ankles and stuffed them in her purse. She disentangled herself from her bra and let her blouse hang open in an expanse of smooth skin. She followed him out of the car. He was so drunk he could barely stand. He dropped his keys on the driveway and got down on all fours in the snow and snatched them into his fist. Breathing hard, he rocked back on his heels and stared up at her.

‘You are gorgeous,’ he said. ‘Shit, I want to be inside you.’

‘Yeah? Well, come on, lover.’

She helped him to his feet. The knees of his trousers were wet and dirty. He steadied himself with an arm around her waist as they staggered up the walkway to his front door. She kept her eyes open for traffic and neighbors, but no one was around to recognize her. There was no streetlight. They were invisible.

She’d been here many times in the past year, but this time was different. This time she was scared.

He jabbed the key at the lock but couldn’t get it in. She peeled the keys from his hands.

‘Let me do it.’

‘Hurry up. I want you so bad. No condoms tonight, huh? I hate condoms.’

‘Bareback, sure, if that’s what you want.’

‘You still on the pill?’

‘Duh,’ she grinned.

He pushed the silk sleeve off her shoulder. ‘I’m not going have to worry about STDs, huh? I can’t afford to get f*cking herpes or something.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m clean, baby.’

‘You sure? You seen a doctor lately?’

‘Oh, yeah. I’ve got a doctor. Don’t worry about that.’

She twisted the key in the lock and Lenny spilled inside as she opened the door. The house smelled musty and rich. The lights were off. On the wall, a white alarm panel flashed, and she saw the countdown on the screen. They had twenty-five seconds to deactivate the security system before the alarm sounded. He was too drunk to do it himself.

‘What’s the code, Lenny?’

‘Huh?’

‘The alarm code, baby.’

‘Oh, shit. It’s … what the hell is it? One … one seven … one …’

Brooke tapped buttons with the pads of her fingers. Her red fingernails glowed under the LED light. The alarm flashed an error. ‘That’s not right, baby. Try again. You don’t want the police coming, do you?’

‘One … seven … it’s one seven eight nine. Yeah, that’s it.’

She tried again, and the panel flashed a message: Code Accepted.

Brooke smiled in triumph and relief. ‘Are you ready, lover? Let’s go upstairs.’

She took Lenny by the hand and led him into the shadows of the hallway. He groped her body in unpleasant ways as they climbed the stairs, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t thinking about what he was going to do to her. Not tonight.

She was thinking: This is the last time.

She was thinking: 1789.

*

Brooke wondered if Lenny knew. Somewhere in his head, he had to know that she’d been the one to set him up. Thanks to her, his wife was dead, but oh God, oh God, it was an accident. No one was supposed to be home.

If Lenny suspected, he’d never said a word.

Whenever they met now, they pretended to be nothing but business acquaintances. On most days, she could forget what she’d done, but not when she saw his face at the City Council meetings. Those were the unbearable moments. She’d sit in the front row before she had to speak, and he would be there on the elevated platform, behind the microphone. She would swear each time that she wouldn’t look at him. She’d repeat it to herself: Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.

Even so, sooner or later, she always did. He would be staring at her; their eyes would meet. She’d suffer that little smirk on his face and know exactly what he was thinking. He was undressing her. Remembering all the times he’d been inside her. Getting hard behind the Council table as he thought about her mouth swallowing him.

He had to know the truth, but if he did, he’d pushed it out of his mind. He’d never made any attempt to get revenge or to punish her. Even now, if she’d let him f*ck her again, he would have done it. If she’d whispered a price, he would have paid it. That was what made her sick. To him, she was still nothing but a whore.

The knife.

Brooke pressed the point of the blade into her wrist, deep enough that she winced in pain. She didn’t imagine the pain would last long. Just a sting, like a needle prick, if she did it fast enough. Once the blood began to flow, she would grow light-headed. Eventually, she would pass out before her breath grew ragged and her heart stopped beating.

She stared at herself and Dory in the photograph. Sweet, naïve kids.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I never meant for any of this to happen.’

The knife slipped in the sweat of her hand. She was scared. None of this was going the way she had planned. Her mind fought with itself and refused to let go. She was still a coward, unable to end it. When she tried again, the knife dropped from her fingers to the floor of the car. She left it there.

Beside her, on the passenger seat, her cell phone buzzed with a text message. She knew it was him. She thought about ignoring it, but he’d always controlled her. She couldn’t resist.

Where are you? I need to see you.

It was never over. She was right where she was ten years ago. Under his thumb. Nothing had changed. She texted back: No. And then before he could reply, she added: I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.

Her phone buzzed again. WHERE ARE YOU?

She felt his rage, and even now it terrified her. She barely knew where she was. The car had seemingly driven itself. When she looked at the land around her, she realized she was in a deserted park by the harbor waters. Her windows were clouded with steam and frost. The car rocked with the lake wind. I’m on the Point.

He texted again. Stay there.

Stay there. Don’t move. He was coming to get her. She wrote back what she was thinking: It’s too late for that.

Brooke turned off her phone before he could reply. She didn’t want to hear from him again. This was the end. If she stayed, if she did what she’d planned to do, then he would be the one to find her. He would make her disappear and no one would ever know what had happened. The thought was appalling.

If she was alive, he would kill her if she stayed. That was why he was coming to find her. She was the only link now between him and the truth. She was the last witness.

She couldn’t bear to let him win again. Not after all these years, not after the way he’d haunted her. She couldn’t let him escape. She had to do what she should have done ten years ago. The only way to make peace with her past, the only way to make him pay, was to confess everything.