“What were you two talking about?” Stride asked.
“I have no idea. He was probably asking me for a restaurant recommendation in town. I like that place by the water. Grandma’s.”
“Who called this man to pick up Rochelle Wahl at the party?”
“I have no idea about that, either. For all I know, he was at the party himself. Maybe he and this girl came together. Or maybe he’s an Uber driver. I don’t know anything about this, Lieutenant. You’re talking to the wrong guy.”
“We have his cell phone records,” Stride said. “Half an hour before this photograph was taken of him putting the girl in his car, he got a call from a burner phone. Do you know anything about that?”
“Not a thing.”
“Did you make that call? Was it your phone?”
“Nope.”
“Could Dean Casperson have made the call?” Stride asked.
“Dean? He can barely operate a flip phone.”
“Someone called this man to the party, he picked up Rochelle Wahl, he killed her.”
“I can’t believe that’s true,” Jack replied, “but I don’t know anything about it.”
Stride leaned across the interview table. “Do I need to lay it all out for you, Mr. Jensen? We have a picture of you arriving at the party with Rochelle Wahl. We have a picture of John Doe loading her unconscious body into his car two hours later. We have a picture of you and John Doe together two days after that. These pictures were all taken by the young woman who called herself Haley Adams. She was really a private detective from Florida named Peach Piper. The day after Peach took these photos of you and this man together, Peach disappeared. We found her body. She’d been shot by the gun that was found in this man’s car. By the way, that same gun was used to shoot a waitress in Florida on the same day you ate at her restaurant. Would you like to explain all of that for me, Mr. Jensen?”
Jungle Jack chuckled and shook his head. “So you really can’t smoke in here, huh?”
Stride said nothing.
“Well, look, I’d love to explain it for you, but none of it makes any sense to me. You’d have to ask this John Doe character, but I guess you can’t, because he’s dead, right? Too bad. If I’m hearing you right, he’s the one that killed all these people. Me, I had lunch in Florida, I went to a party at Dean’s place, and I said ‘Hey’ to a man who happened to be renting a cottage near mine. That’s what this all boils down to, isn’t it? The only contact I had with this so-called assassin was telling him where he could get a burger. Now you’re the cop and I’m not, but that sure sounds like squat to me. So if you want to put the cuffs on me, go ahead. Otherwise, I’ve got to be on the set in twenty minutes.”
Jack got out of the chair. He hesitated for a second to see what Stride did, and when Stride did nothing, Jack laughed and strolled out of the interview room. Stride sat there alone and waited. Not long afterward, Maggie and Cab joined him. They’d been watching the interview from the other side of the one-way window.
“He’s right,” Stride said as they sat down. “We’ve still got squat. We can pin everything on John Doe, but we can’t connect Doe to Jack or Casperson. All we’ve got is a burner phone that doesn’t lead anywhere. We need more.”
“Jack didn’t even bother lawyering up,” Cab said. “He knows we can’t touch him. This isn’t his first rodeo.”
“So what do we do?” Maggie asked.
“The strategy hasn’t changed,” Stride said. “We need to tie Jungle Jack to John Doe and not just with a meeting in the parking lot. If we do that, we can get Jack to flip on Casperson.”
Maggie shook her head. “Those two are thick as thieves. Jack owes everything to Casperson. He’s never going to rat him out.”
“He will if it means getting a deal on a murder charge.”
“Except like you said, it’s still all smoke,” Maggie pointed out. “With John Doe dead, Jack’s in the clear. We can’t tie them together.”
There was a long silence in the room. Then Cab Bolton spoke.
“No, Stride’s right,” he said. “We’re forgetting something.”
“What?” Maggie asked.
“We think Jack was John Doe’s local contact, right?” Cab said. “He had to be the go-between who was using the burner phone. Well, we know the go-between made one mistake.”
Stride thought about it, and so did Maggie, and they both blurted it out at the same moment.
“He ordered a pizza.”
34
Aimee Bowe was quiet as Serena drove her back to the rental house from the hospital. She looked better and stronger, but Serena could see her anxiety as they neared the house overlooking the lake. When they got there, Aimee made no effort to open the car door.
“You know, you’re welcome to stay with me and Stride,” Serena told her. “You can pick up a few things and come home with me.”
“Thanks, but I don’t do well with other people. I’m better on my own. It’s not for much longer. Chris thinks we should be able to wrap up the filming tomorrow, and then I’ll be out of here and back to Los Angeles. No offense, but I’m not going to miss Duluth.”
“I’ll walk you inside and check the house again,” Serena said.
She got out of the Mustang and came around to the passenger door. She made sure Aimee was secure walking in the snow that led to the house. There had been flurries throughout the afternoon, giving the yard a fresh look and brushing it clean of footprints. No one had been there.
Serena stopped and looked up at the sky, which was dark and starless under a low swath of clouds. She’d lived in Minnesota long enough that she could taste snow in the air. They’d be buried tomorrow. The wind was still, as if holding its breath in anticipation of a storm.
“Everything okay?” Aimee asked.
“Fine.”
The actress studied the open yard and the surrounding trees. “Where did you find me?”
Serena pointed. “Down there, near the band of spruces.”
Aimee looked as if she wanted to remember, but she didn’t.
They reached the house, and Serena went in first. Aimee came in behind her and took off her coat as Serena checked each of the rooms again, making sure the place was empty. Nothing had changed since her earlier visit. The back door was still blocked with a chair wedged against the doorknob. Aimee wandered around the living room, studying the photographs of the family who owned the house. She picked up one picture frame and dusted the top with her fingers.
“Do you know the people who live here?” she asked Serena.
“No.”
“I suppose not; why would you? They look nice. Cute couple, cute kids. I have a sister with that kind of life. She lives in the suburbs of Cleveland. Three kids, two, four, and seven. All boys. It’s funny. As things started taking off for me, I felt a little bad for her. There I was jetting around the world, making more money than she’d ever see in her lifetime. I wondered if she was jealous. And then last year, out of nowhere, she told me how much she hated the kind of life I led. No roots, no husband, no kids. She said she would never want that for herself in a million years, and she couldn’t believe I chose it.”
“We all want different things,” Serena said.
“Well, it was an eye-opener for me. It made me more humble.” Aimee sank down into a sofa opposite the brick fireplace. “I don’t suppose you know how to light a fire, do you? I’ve been staring at this thing every evening, and I have no idea how to get it going.”
Serena smiled. “Jonny gave me lessons.”
She opened the flue and stacked several of the wood logs piled near the hearth in a rough pyramid in the grate. As she did, she disturbed a black spider that skittered away across the old ashes. She crumpled several sheets of newspaper and wedged them under the logs, and then she found a book of long matches that she used to start the fire. Everything was dry. The logs caught quickly, warming the room. Serena took a seat next to Aimee. The crackling, dancing fire had a hypnotic quality that entranced them both.
“Do you want a drink?” Aimee asked after they had sat in silence for several minutes. “I need some wine.”