Lori looked at her strangely. “You mean before the movie?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, he came into the store with Art once. I only remember because they were having a big argument.”
“Do you remember what the argument was about?”
“No. Why do you care?”
“I wasn’t in Duluth during that investigation,” Serena said. “I’m just trying to understand whether anything from the past could be connected to Aimee’s disappearance.”
“I don’t see how,” Lori said.
“Have you talked to Aimee recently?”
“I went to her house the other night. I saw you there. That’s all.”
Serena stood up. “Well, thank you for your time, Ms. Fulkerson. You should see a squad car outside your house very soon. Regardless, if you see anything unusual, please call me right away.”
Lori nodded but didn’t say anything.
“I do have one more question,” Serena said, “and I know this will sound strange.”
“What is it?”
“When I talked to you at Aimee’s house, you said you felt connected to her. Like she was inside your head.”
“So?”
Serena took a breath. This wasn’t the kind of question she’d ever imagined herself asking. “So I was wondering if you still felt that way.”
Lori stroked the head of her dog and didn’t look up at Serena. “I do feel something. Until you showed up, I thought I was crazy. I figured the movie was getting into my head. You know, seeing Aimee pretend to be me.”
“What do you feel? What do you think happened to her?”
“She’s in the box,” Lori said.
38
Maggie drove toward the campus of the College of St. Scholastica. Her windshield wipers struggled against the snow, and the lanes in the street were no more than ruts tamped down by the other cars. Her route down the street was a serpentine path as her tires slipped and skidded. Ahead of them, the twin gray towers of the administration building loomed atop the campus hill.
It was already late afternoon. They weren’t any closer to tying Jungle Jack and John Doe together.
“Maybe we were wrong about the second phone call,” Cab suggested. “If Jack realized that he used the burner phone to make the first call, he might have freaked out and not wanted to leave a trail. So instead of ordering a pizza, he went out and got a Big Mac or something.”
“True.”
“Even if we find a driver who remembers him, it will be tough proving he made the first call,” Cab added.
“Also true,” Maggie said.
Even so, she wasn’t ready to give up. They had two more delivery drivers to track down from the Hermantown Sammy’s. One was a St. Scholastica freshman named Ginny Hoeppner. Maggie drove onto the college campus and wound around to the parking lot near Tower Hall. The two of them got out, but neither bothered putting on a coat despite the snow. Maggie wore furry calf-high boots, but Cab was in a suit with leather dress shoes. He walked gingerly on the icy pavement.
The receptionist in the housing office directed them to Somers Hall to find Ginny Hoeppner. One wing of the residence hall butted up to the same parking lot, so they didn’t have to go far. Inside, they found themselves surrounded by fresh-faced young college students, and Maggie noticed that most of the girls took long looks at Cab as they made their way down the hall. When they found the room they were looking for, Cab drummed his fingers on the door as if he were playing the piano.
A slim raven-haired girl answered the door. She wore an untucked flannel shirt over tattered jeans. As with the other students they’d met, her eyes immediately went to Cab’s face.
“Ginny Hoeppner?” Maggie asked.
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“My name is Maggie Bei with the Duluth Police. This is Cab Bolton. Do you mind if we ask you a couple questions?”
“Um, okay, yeah. Is there a problem?”
“No problem at all,” Cab assured her with a charming smile.
Ginny shrugged and invited them inside. She lived in a typical utilitarian dorm room with bunk beds near the window and desks on opposite walls. Maggie saw open boxes on the floor. The new semester had just begun, and the roommates hadn’t unpacked fully. A textbook on religion lay on the pillow of the lower bunk bed, and Ginny sat down on the bed next to it.
“Do you deliver pizzas for the Hermantown Sammy’s restaurant?” Maggie asked.
“I do, yeah.”
Maggie rattled off the day and date of the night on which someone with a burner phone had called the downtown Sammy’s. “Do you remember if you were working on that particular evening?”
“I’m sure I was. I worked pretty much every night after Christmas.”
“Do you keep records of your deliveries?” Cab asked.
“No, I just drive. Go out, come back, go out, come back. One night’s the same as every other.”
“Has it been busier with the film crew in town?” Maggie asked.
“Oh, yeah. The pizza in L.A. must suck, because we’ve been delivering to them all the time.”
“It must be pretty cool meeting a lot of movie people,” Cab said.
Ginny’s face lit up. “It is! I’ve been thinking about a film studies major, so this is great. I love having it happen right here in Duluth.”
“Have you met anybody famous?” he asked.
She shook her head in disappointment. “No, the actors don’t usually order anything themselves. They’ve got assistants for that, you know? But I’ve met a bunch of folks who work on the crew.”
“Do you remember making deliveries to any film people on that evening?” Maggie asked.
“I don’t know. Like I said, the nights all blend together.”
“Have you ever made a delivery to a man named Jack Jensen? He’s a stunt double for Dean Casperson. He goes by the nickname Jungle Jack.”
“I’m not sure. Most of the time, I don’t get anything more than a last name on an order. Unless it’s something really weird, I don’t remember it. Plus, unless they’re wearing a T-shirt or something that gives it away, I don’t usually know if they’re part of the film crew. Sometimes I ask if they’ve got that Hollywood look, know what I mean? Most of them are pretty cool about it. They’ll take selfies with me even if their pizza’s getting cold.”
Maggie shot a quick look at Cab.
“Selfies?” he asked.
Ginny looked embarrassed. “Yeah, I know it’s lame, but I do it anyway.”
“Do you mind if we take a look at the photos on your phone?” Cab asked.
“Um.” She hesitated as if trying to make a quick mental calculation about whether there was anything embarrassing on the phone.
“It would really help us out,” Cab added.
“Yeah, sure, if you want.” Ginny got off the bed and went over to her desk. She unlocked the screen on the phone and handed it to Cab. “I got a new iPhone 8 Plus for Christmas, so I’ve been taking a lot of pictures.”
Cab held the phone so that Maggie could see the screen and scrolled backward through the camera roll of thumbnails. Ginny was right. She’d taken a lot of pictures. They saw dozens of Instagram-ready photos taken of friends in the dorm and artistic photos of snow-covered landmarks shot around campus. Then they spotted a selfie of Ginny wearing a Sammy’s baseball cap, posing next to a middle-aged Asian woman in a California sweatshirt. Maggie didn’t recognize her, but she was obviously part of the film crew. They were both making a thumbs-up gesture for the camera.
Cab kept scrolling and found other nighttime selfies with pizza customers. Ginny wasn’t shy about asking for pictures. Maggie spotted a couple of faces she’d seen on movie sets around the city.
And then there he was.
Jungle Jack.
He was bent down next to Ginny with his cheek against her face and his arm casually slung around her shoulders. He wore his usual self-satisfied grin, the look that said he knew exactly how handsome he was. There was an exterior door cracked open behind him, and Maggie recognized the architectural style of the Hermantown rental cottages.