She’d never said those words to him in her life:
You’re wrong.
Cat finished the note, folded it, and wrote Stride’s name on the outside. When she looked up, Curt was watching her. His face was serious and unsmiling, which was highly unusual for Curt.
“You really sure about this, kitty cat? I’m not much of a fan of this plan. You could get yourself in serious trouble, and this time I won’t be able to pull you over a wall or anything.”
Cat chewed her lip. She put on a brave front, because she couldn’t do anything else, no matter what she really felt inside. She’d made up her mind, and she wasn’t turning back. She marched toward Curt and placed the note for Stride on the bookshelf near the front door. Then she took Curt’s arm.
“You said people have to see it for themselves to believe the truth,” Cat said. “I’m going to make sure they do.”
39
The owner of the studio apartments in Hermantown wasn’t happy to see Maggie and Cab arrive with a forensics team and cordon off the area with crime scene tape. They’d searched John Doe’s apartment earlier in the week, and now they were back to do the same thing to Jungle Jack’s cottage.
“Having cops in my parking lot ain’t exactly good for business,” the man told them, shaking the snow out of his gray hair. He was small and slightly bent, in his sixties, dressed in a hooded winter coat and beige corduroys. His name was Stig Swenson.
“Renting to murderers isn’t too good for business, either,” Maggie replied.
“Well, I’m sorry if I don’t have a box for that on the application. Is this going to take long?”
“It will take as long as it takes. Did you print out the phone records for the apartment like I asked?”
“Yeah, yeah, hang on.”
Stig dug in the pocket of his pants and came out with a single sheet of computer paper that had been folded multiple times. He handed it over to Maggie, who smoothed it out and held it up so that she and Cab could read it. They squinted at the small type, which had been made on a printer that badly needed toner. Even so, they saw what they wanted to see.
“Two minutes,” Maggie said. “Jack called the Hermantown Sammy’s two minutes after the call on the burner phone to the downtown restaurant.”
“A jury’s going to like that,” Cab said.
Maggie turned back to the apartment manager. She produced photographs of John Doe and Jungle Jack and held them up side by side. “Let’s go over this again. Did you see these two men together?”
“Once they sign the rental agreement, they’re not my problem,” Stig replied. “People don’t need me to pay attention to what they’re doing, so I don’t.”
“You don’t keep an eye on who’s coming and going in your apartments?” Maggie asked. “Because I’m looking over at your place, and I can see your cat sleeping on top of a La-Z-Boy. You’ve got a perfect view from there.”
“It’s not my cat,” the man grumbled. “I’m pet sitting while my sister is in Norway.”
Maggie rubbed her forehead in frustration. “Do I look like I care whose cat it is, Stig? Come on, we both know you’ve had your eyes glued to the parking lot while you had a Hollywood stunt man staying here. So tell me what you saw, okay?”
Stig snuffled loudly. “Lots of girls. It’s like a parade. Every night a different girl.”
Maggie dug in her pocket for a photograph of Rochelle Wahl. “What about this girl? Did you see her?”
“I don’t think so.”
Cab opened up his phone. “How about her?”
Stig leaned in and studied the photograph of Peach Piper. It was Cab’s favorite photograph of Peach. She’d been visiting him at his house south of Naples, and she’d gone out with him to walk on the wet sand. He’d snapped the picture of her before she knew he was taking it, while her freckled face was creased into an innocent smile and the wind was playing with her pageboy blond hair.
The man frowned and didn’t answer.
“Stig?” Maggie said. “Do you recognize her?”
“Yeah, I saw her hanging around here,” he replied.
“Hanging around? What do you mean?”
“I saw her sneaking through the parking lot. She was heading toward the cottages in the back. I didn’t like the look of it, so I went out to see what she was up to. She must have heard me coming and taken off, because I couldn’t find her. That was last Sunday night, I think.”
“Was that the only time you saw her?” Cab asked.
“No. She was back again a couple nights later.”
“Doing what?”
“Looked like she was spying on Jack’s place,” Stig said. “I figured maybe she was a wife or a girlfriend, you know? With all the action over there, maybe somebody got jealous.”
“What did you do when you saw her?” Maggie asked.
“I called Jack. If a guy rents from me, he’s got a right to know if somebody’s up in his business.”
Cab took a deep breath. “What happened after you called Jack?”
“He came out and rousted her. Sounded pretty loud, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then he dragged her inside his place.”
“What time did this happen?” Maggie asked.
“Somewhere around ten o’clock, I think.”
Maggie grabbed a notebook from her back pocket and flipped backward through several pages. She already knew the answer—she remembered details by seeing them in her head—but she wanted to confirm what she’d written down. “There was a call between John Doe’s phone and the burner phone at 10:10 last Tuesday night.”
“Jack found Peach outside his place,” Cab said, “so he called John Doe to figure out what they needed to do about her.”
“Did you see the girl and Jack again after they went inside the apartment?” Maggie asked the owner.
Stig nodded. “Yeah. About half an hour later, Jack and the girl left.”
“Where did they go?” Maggie asked.
“Back behind the cottage. They were headed for the woods. I couldn’t see them after that.”
Cab shook his head. “They were headed for the woods?”
“Yeah.”
“And you didn’t do anything?”
“What was I supposed to do?” the man asked.
Cab stared at the apartment owner with silent rage. Then he spun away and marched across the plowed parking lot toward the lineup of spruce trees towering behind the cottages. The snow made a cloud around him like a white tornado. Maggie chased after him.
“Cab?” she called. “Cab, hang on.”
She got in front of him and stopped him with a hand on his chest. “What are you doing?”
“They killed her that night,” Cab replied. “Jack met John Doe back here, they took Peach into the woods, and John Doe shot her in the head.”
Maggie nodded. “I’m sorry. You’re probably right.”
“I want to find where he did it.”
“Cab, we’ll search the woods in the morning. It’s dark, and the storm is still dumping snow. We could spend hours in there and not find the crime scene. Guppo will get a team out here as soon as it’s light. If that’s where Peach was killed, he’ll find it.”
Cab stared into the black mouth of the forest, his body tall and stiff like a statue. His normally spiky hair was flat and wet on his head. Maggie could see snow landing on his face and couldn’t tell whether the melting snow was mixed with tears. He looked oddly elegant, standing there in his suit and tie, yet she knew his heart was broken.
“This is not the way it should have been,” he murmured.
“I know.”
“She spent her last few seconds right here in this pissant place. She knew what was going to happen to her.”
Maggie didn’t say anything, but she took hold of his hand.
“This was my case,” he went on. “It wasn’t hers. If anyone should have faced down that gun in the woods, it was me.”
“Come on, Cab. Don’t do this to yourself. There’s only one thing we can do for Peach, and that’s the most important thing.”
Cab stared down at her and nodded.
“Let’s go get Jungle Jack,” he said.
*