Lauren slapped her glass down on the desk so hard that wine sloshed over the top. Then she laughed and dabbed the crimson drops with a tissue. "Funny. You're funny. But you don't understand us."
"You're not so hard to figure out. Anything for power."
"What's wrong with ambition?" Lauren asked.
"If it means destroying people who get in your way, plenty."
"People usually get what they deserve. Look at Maggie."
"Maggie doesn't deserve what's happened to her."
"No? She's no angel. I knew that when she started an affair with Dan."
"That was years ago. Besides, I thought you looked the other way about Dan's affairs."
"Usually I do, because Dan knows who's responsible for everything he is. Me."
"So why do you still hate Maggie?"
"She asked Dan to leave me. I take that personally."
"Dan was just using her. Maggie got hurt."
"Poor angel. I hope you comforted her with your big strong arms."
Stride hated that Lauren knew how to push his buttons. "You know, there are bigger sharks than you in Washington. You may wish you were back in the small pond after a while."
"I'll take my chances. Now what do you want, Jonathan? I have a lot of work to do here."
"I want to talk about Tanjy."
"Again?"
"I need some more information."
"I heard this was Abel's case now, not yours."
"I'm not investigating Tanjy's murder."
"Oh?"
"I'm investigating her rape."
"What rape?" Lauren asked. "You said Tanjy made it up."
"No, I think it really happened."
"Why?"
"Because there's another victim," he told her.
Lauren reacted sharply. "Are you sure?"
Stride nodded.
"Who?"
"I can't say, but I think whoever raped Tanjy also killed her. And Eric."
Lauren rocked back in her chair. "That's horrible. I'm so sorry."
"Do you know who Tanjy began seeing after Mitch Brandt?" Stride asked. "I need to talk to anyone who was close to her during that time."
She shook her head. "I have no idea. Tanjy and I weren't exactly close."
"Did she ever talk about being stalked or watched?"
"Not to me. You should talk to Sonnie. She saw her every day."
"Tanjy said she was abducted going from the dress shop to her car. Do you remember seeing any suspicious individuals in the shop around that time? Or in the parking ramp?"
"In the shop? No. It's not uncommon to have vagrants in the Michigan ramp, you know that. I don't remember anyone specifically."
"Did you know about Tanjy's fascination with rape? Did she talk about it in front of you?"
"Are you kidding? No."
"How about men who came into the shop? Did anyone show an unusual interest in Tanjy?"
Lauren shrugged. "Men hit on her all the time."
"But no one special?"
"No one who was so taken with her that it seemed weird."
"All right," Stride said. Those were the answers he expected.
"Do you have any idea who the rapist is?" Lauren asked.
"Not yet."
"And are there only the two victims?"
"I don't know."
Lauren frowned and bit her lip. He could read in her face that she knew something.
"What is it?" Stride asked.
She hesitated. "Nothing."
"Come on, Lauren, I don't care what the history is between us. This is different."
"It doesn't really mean anything. It's just that I think I know who the other victim is."
"Oh?" Stride tensed, waiting to hear Maggie's name.
"She was in here a few weeks ago, talking to Sonnie. She looked like someone had beat her up."
Stride's eyes narrowed. "Who?"
"The plump girl who runs that Java Jelly coffee shop down the block. Katrina Kuli."
27
Serena arrived at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Shakopee in the early afternoon. It was the state's only prison facility for adult women, and it housed approximately five hundred females who had been convicted of crimes ranging from fraud to murder. Visiting hours didn't begun until three thirty in the afternoon, but Stride had paved the way with the warden for a private meeting between Serena and Nicole Castro. She still had to go through the metal detector and endure a pat-down from a female guard before being shown into the visiting room.
When she had visited such rooms in the past, they were usually crowded. Mothers visiting sons. Wives visiting husbands. Men and women getting teary as they touched the hands of children who were growing up without them. The room today was empty, and she liked it better that way, without the pain of separation and guilt that suffused these places, like cigarette smoke gathering over a blackjack table. It was an institutional room, with white walls and fluorescent lights overhead. Rows of gray plastic chairs sat facing each other on heavy-duty beige carpeting. The prisoners sat on one side, the visitors on the other. Behind a Plexiglas partition were the non-contact booths, where prisoners without personal visit privileges could talk by phone, separated by thick glass walls.
She noticed the small half-dome in the ceiling, hiding the video cameras. An eye in the sky, just like in the casinos. Everything was watched, taped, documented. There was no privacy here.
The guard pointed her to a specific, numbered chair in which she was supposed to sit. It felt like overkill, because the visiting room was empty, but Serena knew that prisons ran on rules. There were rules for everything, right down to how you trimmed your fingernails. The walls and bars kept prisoners in; the rules kept anarchy and chaos out.
She waited ten minutes before another guard showed Nicole into the visiting room. They shook hands, and Nicole sat opposite her. She was dressed in a khaki jumpsuit and tennis shoes. She squirmed in her chair and rubbed her thumb and fingers together like a nervous habit. Her foot drummed on the floor. She studied Serena with sharp, observant eyes. Detective's eyes.
"Wow," Nicole said. "Very nice. I'm surprised they didn't treat themselves to a cavity search with you."
Serena didn't smile.
"What, I'm a murderer, so I can't have a sense of humor?" Nicole asked.
"I thought the whole point was that you aren't a murderer."
"Figure of speech." She added, "So how's Stride?"
"Fine."
"What a dog. His wife dies, and he winds up with a hottie all the way from Vegas."
"Fuck you," Serena said and stood up to leave.
Nicole stood up, too. Her hostile façade crumbled. "Hey, take it easy. I'm sorry, okay? Please don't go."
Serena sat down. She barely recognized Nicole from the photographs she had seen on the Web. Prison had aged her. Her wild hair was cropped and graying. She was thinner. Serena knew she was in her early forties, but her mottled face looked ten years older.
Nicole noticed her appraisal. "It's not exactly a spa in here."
"I know."
"I meant what I said. I'm happy for you and Stride. It must have killed him when Cindy died. Those two were the real deal."
"Yes, they were." Serena didn't add that it made her feel a little jealous sometimes.
"I made a play for him once. Did he tell you that? It was right after I joined the force. He shut me down cold."
"He was married."
"Oh, and he wasn't married when you met him? Come on, girl." She added quickly, "Not that I'm judging. Look, people do what they do, and what do I care? I haven't had good luck with men. I envy you."
"We don't have a lot of time, Nicole. Maybe you should just tell me what you wanted to tell me."
Nicole shrugged. "It's easy to tell that you used to be a cop. All business. Let me ask you this, did you get shit in Vegas because of the way you looked? I mean, did people think you couldn't do the job because you look like some kind of showgirl?"
"Sure."
"Well, now imagine being a black detective in white bread Duluth. That was me."
"You're not in here because you're black," Serena told her.
"No? Slap some shoe polish on that pretty face of yours, and live like me for a year, and then tell me that. The fact is, I was always treated differently. People were just waiting for me to fuck up. When I did, they were right there to jump on me. If it were a white cop, you don't think they would have worked harder to find out what really happened? Hell, no. I was black. I was presumed guilty."