“Friends? What are you talking about?” he says. “I was making a comment about wolves. You’re not making sense, Detective.”
“How about you shut the hell up,” I say. “I’m getting sick of your yammering.”
“And I’m getting sick of this bullshit,” he shoots back, his words dripping with challenge. “What are you going to do to me if I don’t shut up? You going to kill me twice? You think you have what it takes to kill me? Bring it. Otherwise, fuck you, Detective. And fuck your wife, too—what’s her name again? Jenni?”
“I said shut up!”
“Yeah, fuck Jenni. Fuck her.”
I dive at the man and punch him in the face. Grabbing his throat with my left hand, I punch twice more, and when I raise my fist for a fourth blow, I hold off.
I expect to see fear, or maybe a grimace of pain. Instead, he’s looking at me with calculating eyes. He knows he’s gotten to me. I relax my grip, and a slight smirk crosses his face. There is blood trickling from his nostril, and his left eye has already begun to puff up.
I stand, walk back to the auger, and start to turn it again.
He spits out some blood and says, “You think I’m a monster, but what are you? I’m wounded. I’m tied up. I can’t defend myself, and you jump on me and beat me? You must be so proud. Your wife must be so proud of you too.”
I grunt and turn the crank harder, hoping to drown out his voice.
“You tell yourself that you’re doing what you have to—stomping out evil in the world—but which of us is the monster here? I’m willing to put my cards on the table. You think you know something, well, give me your proof. I dare you. Show me what you got, because I’m betting you have nothing. I’m betting you won’t say a word because you’re afraid I’ll prove you wrong. Kill me without a trial? You’re the monster here.”
I stop turning the auger and look at him, my face devoid of all expression, and say, “You may be right about that, but that doesn’t bode very well for you, now does it?”
I’m getting closer to the bottom of my fourth hole, so I get down on one knee and drill from that position. He can see my exhaustion, but I don’t care.
“Talk to me, dammit. What did I do? How did I kill your wife? Give me a chance.”
The noise of the blade isn’t enough to drown out his voice, and I can hear reverberations of panic and desperation in his words. He’s scared. He’s trying to get to me, but I’m getting to him. He knows I’ll do it.
Time and pressure.
I’m almost through to the lake, and I double my effort.
“This isn’t justice. This isn’t right. You can’t do this to me.”
I break through to the lake with my fourth hole.
“For Christ’s sake!” He’s pleading now as a ripple of lake water washes up to touch his heels. “Give me a chance to defend myself! Give me a chance to prove that I didn’t kill your wife. I’m begging you. I didn’t do it. I swear to God, I didn’t do it.”
I look at the fifth starter hole. My palms are raw from pressing down on the cap of the auger. There’s no way I’ll have all eight holes drilled before it gets dark, and I still haven’t gathered my stones. That’s a task I cannot do in the dark.
“Talk to me,” he says.
I walk over and pick up the snowmobile cover, the pouch to hold the stones that will carry him to the bottom of the lake.
“What are you doing with that?”
I take the auger with me so I can drop it far enough away that he can’t reach it. No sense leaving a blade—even one that dull—lying around to tempt him with thoughts of escape. As I’m walking away, I look over my shoulder and say, “I’ll be right back.”
CHAPTER 23
Minneapolis—Yesterday
I had planned to be back at the office by noon, but that wasn’t going to happen. Just as I finished my meeting with Farrah McKinney, I got a call from Mr. Clark, the security officer from HCMC, letting me know that he’d found the Burn Unit footage from that morning. Clark, whose first name I learned was Dan, seemed a different man on my second visit: polite, helpful. I’d even go so far as to say friendly. He led me to a little breakroom adjacent to his office, where he had set up a laptop.
“I have it loaded on there.” He pointed at the computer. I can have someone from tech burn you a disc when they get here.”
“I appreciate this very much, Dan,” I said.
He lined the cursor up on a play button and clicked it. “Enjoy,” he said. Then he closed the door, leaving me alone.
I watched for several minutes as men and women in scrubs moved from room to room at a casual pace, chatting and typing on computers at the nurse’s station. Nothing remarkable. Then, about seven minutes into the footage, a man entered the frame, wearing a suit jacket, dress pants, and a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, the bill of the cap casting a shadow over his face. The man spoke to a nurse, who pointed at Orton’s door. The man then walked into Orton’s room, not removing his cap until it was too late for a camera to catch his face. There was something in his gait, in his avocado-shaped midsection, that looked familiar. He could be any one of a million men, but I believed him to be one particular man.
Every few seconds, his shadow would brush across the floor outside Orton’s door. The man must be pacing in the room. He was anxious. Then, eighteen minutes into the footage, the shadow appeared at the door again and stayed there for a few seconds. I waited.
He walked out of Orton’s room, his hand fiddling with the bill of his cap until he fixed it over his eyes again. I hit pause and walked it back frame by frame. Click. Click. Click. The man lifted his cap. Click. Click. The bill of the cap cleared his forehead enough to show his face. I zoomed in and smiled.
I got you, you bastard.
I borrowed Dan Clark’s laptop and walked to my car to retrieve the footage of Orton pouring gas on his girlfriend. Then I returned to the Burn Unit and with the flash of my badge, I strolled into Dennis Orton’s room.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said. “I asked for an attorney. They said you can’t talk to me.”
“Relax, Dennis, I’m not here to question you.”
I opened the laptop and popped the Holiday-store CD into the tray. My refusal to leave apparently took Orton off guard because I could see a hint of desperation pull at the corners of his eyes. “I’m not talking to you,” he said. “I’m not saying a word.”
“Then might I suggest that you shut the hell up?” I said. “Let’s get something straight, Dennis. I don’t want you to talk. Understand? Anything you say will get kicked out of court anyway. I want you to sit there and be quiet. I’m just going to play you a little movie. You’ll like it.” I cued up the footage of Orton pulling into the gas station. Then I gently placed the laptop on his stomach, adjusting the screen so he could see it.