‘Mr. Skinner, were you interviewed by the police shortly after the murder of Jay Ferris?’
‘Yes.’ His voice was clipped. Impatient. He wanted to be done and off the stand.
‘Did you say anything to the police at that time about your affair with Dr. Snow?’
‘No.’
‘Did you believe the police would consider you to be a suspect in the murder of Jay Ferris if they found out that you’d been having an affair with the victim’s wife?’
‘I figured I was a suspect anyway,’ Nathan said, and then he winced.
‘Okay, and as a suspect, would it be in your interest to deflect police attention to someone else?’
‘I didn’t do that.’
‘When you were first interviewed, did you say anything to the police about Dr. Snow asking you how she could get a gun?’
‘No.’
‘You only told this story after Dr. Snow informed the police of your relationship, is that right?’
‘Yes, but it’s true.’
‘Did anyone else overhear this conversation?’ Gale asked.
‘No, but Janine knows what she said.’
‘Mr. Skinner, is there anyone who can verify your whereabouts after 9:45 p.m. on the night of January 28?’
‘No.’
‘Were you drinking that night?’
‘I — yeah, I guess.’
‘How much did you drink?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Do you own a revolver, Mr. Skinner?’
‘I gave my gun to the police. They tested it. It was clean.’
‘Is that the only handgun you own?’
‘They tested all of them. Clean as a whistle.’
‘How many handguns do you own, Mr. Ferris?’
‘Eight.’
‘Eight guns,’ Gale murmured. ‘Mr. Skinner, did you make a statement to Lieutenant Stride that if you had committed this murder, you would have simply dropped the murder weapon through the ice? That the police would never find it?’
‘Yeah, I did, but it was a joke—’
‘That’s all, Mr. Skinner. Thank you.’
26
‘I found him,’ Cindy told Stride.
It was late, and he was surprised that she was still up. He’d spent most of the day at the trial and then caught up on the job in the basement of City Hall until nearly midnight. His wife sat at their small kitchen table with a laptop open in front of her. Only the light over the sink was on. She wore a nightgown, and her feet were bare. The house with its open windows was warm and humid, and he smelled old coffee. A stiff wind made the lake roar like a lion not far from their back door.
Stride sat down across from her. Like him, she was nearly forty, and yet in his eyes, she could have been seventeen. She was the same teenager he’d met in school. He could barely remember what his life was like before she came into it. School, college, career — all that time, it was him and her together.
‘I found him,’ Cindy repeated, pushing a photograph toward him across the table.
‘Who?’
‘The guy at the mall.’
Stride studied the photograph and saw a crowd shot taken downtown during Grandma’s Marathon. His wife had circled a man with a black marker, and he held the page close and squinted at the face. She’d enlarged the photograph, but the image was crisp and clear. The man was overdressed for the warm June day in a camouflage jacket.
‘Where did you get this?’ he asked.
‘I know a photographer who covered the marathon. I’ve spent the last six hours analyzing every one of her pictures.’
She passed him the original photograph, before she’d zoomed in on the crowd. The picture had been taken from a second-floor window near the corner of Lake Avenue and Superior Street, facing northeast. Swarms of runners filled the street in the center of the frame; they were the jubilant, exhausted ones, within two miles of the finish line in Canal Park. Crowds twenty deep on the sidewalk cheered them on. Cindy had drawn an arrow to show the man in the original photo. He was little more than a stick figure standing by a lamp post in a brick-lined park well behind the flood of people.
The crowd watched the runners.
He watched the crowd.
Stride’s eyes snapped back and forth between the two pictures. ‘You’re certain this is him?’
His wife nodded. ‘I don’t know if this is the guy in Jay’s photos, but it’s definitely the man I followed at the mall. No question about it. I haven’t forgotten him, Jonny.’
‘I know.’
He studied the man and understood the aura of repressed violence that Cindy talked about. Maybe it was bravado, maybe it wasn’t. He focused on the people around the man and spotted a heavy-set redheaded woman seated on a bench no more than ten feet from the lamp post. She wore a lanyard and fluorescent vest that marked her as race security, but her face was turned away from the camera.
‘Did you find him in other photos?’ he asked.
‘Two more,’ Cindy said. ‘I haven’t printed them, but I can pull them up on the screen.’
She used the laptop touch screen and pushed the computer across the table to Stride. He zoomed in on the photograph, and he could see the man in camouflage in his original spot. The redheaded woman had stood up and was brushing shoulders with him. They were talking, and they didn’t look like strangers. Her face was clearly visible. He didn’t recognize her, but the marathon brought in plenty of private security on race day.
‘What do you think?’ Cindy asked. ‘Will these pictures help you find him?’
‘I don’t know about him, but we should definitely be able to find her.’ He stabbed a finger at the security guard in the photograph. ‘I’ll put Maggie on it in the morning.’
‘Good,’ Cindy replied, sounding relieved.
He watched a small smile of triumph bloom on his wife’s face. She got up from the table and stretched her arms over her head. Her white nightgown climbed up her thighs. He knew she’d had a long day, but he didn’t remember when he’d seen her so tired. He reached for her hand and squeezed it.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
‘Sure. Never better.’
‘This was smart of you,’ he said. ‘Nice work.’
She didn’t say anything, but he knew she appreciated the compliment.
‘You coming to bed?’ she asked him.
‘Soon.’
‘I’ll probably be asleep.’
‘That’s okay.’ He added: ‘You know I took you seriously about this guy, right?’
‘No, I wasn’t sure of that, but it’s nice to hear.’
He kept holding her hand.
‘The trial’s winding down,’ he said. ‘Dan rested the prosecution case today. Unless Janine testifies, they’ll probably wrap up the case tomorrow.’
‘Do you think she’ll testify?’
Stride shook his head. ‘No, Dan doesn’t think Gale will give him a shot at cross-examining her.’
‘And then?’
‘And then we wait for the jury.’
Cindy frowned. Her eyes were on the man at the marathon. ‘I wish you could find this guy first.’
27
Maggie ate a Sausage McMuffin in her Avalanche near the harbor on the Point. It was barely past dawn, but the July day promised to be hot and bright. As usual, she’d only slept for about four hours, and then she’d gone to the drive-through for breakfast. If there was one part of American culture to which Maggie was addicted, it was McDonald’s. She couldn’t get enough French fries and quarter-pounders, and somehow, none of it ever padded her girly frame.
Through her binoculars, Maggie spied Troy Grange on a Zodiac heading back to the harbor.
Everyone in Duluth law enforcement knew Troy. He was solid. Good values. Hard worker. People liked him. He could have been a cop, but he liked working on and near the water, so he signed on as a health and safety inspector with the company that handled security for the Duluth Port. Sooner or later, Maggie figured, he’d be running the whole department.