Teitscher closed the door and sat down in the chair in front of Stride's desk. His long legs jutted out like a stork's. "You've been pissing in my pool."
Stride didn't bother to argue. "Yeah, you could say that."
"I'm not covering for you, Lieutenant. If you lose your job over this, don't blame me."
"I won't."
Teitscher's face burned. "You cut corners and no one ever calls you on it. If I ignored a conflict of interest the way you have, I'd be out on my ass."
"Could be."
Teitscher leaned across the desk. "What really ticks me off is that you don't show me any respect."
"That's not what I'm about, Abel."
"No? You undercut me, you sabotage me, you put the whole goddamn investigation in jeopardy. Would you do that to anyone else in the Bureau?"
"Look, Abel, it's not you. It's the case. Do you want to listen to what I have to say, or do you want to cut me a new one?"
Teitscher shrugged. He took off his glasses and cleaned them on his tie. "Go ahead."
"I know that the evidence against Maggie is strong. You've done a good job pulling it together, and no one is ever going to thank you for it. That's the way it goes. What I'm telling you, as a detective and a colleague, is that there's another plausible motive for Eric's murder that has nothing to do with Maggie." He saw Abel about to object, and he raised his hand to stop him. "I'm not telling you to believe it. I'm telling you to keep an open mind."
"You sound like a defense lawyer," Teitscher said.
"Just hear me out."
Teitscher waved his hand and let him continue. Stride told him the whole story, laying out everything he had found. He didn't hold anything back. Maggie's rape. The sex club and the alpha girls. Helen Danning. He took the facts and told him what he now suspected, that somehow the series of rapes in the city had led directly to the murders of Tanjy and Eric.
When he was done, he saw Abel struggling to reconcile the facts with what he had already found. "A sex club?" Abel asked.
"That's right."
"You actually confirmed this? You've got proof?"
"I have names, dates, release forms, everything. It's an A-list of Duluth high society."
Teitscher bared his yellowing incisors. "What's the old expression? The rich are different? Yeah, isn't that a joke. All that money, and this is the kind of sleaze they go in for."
"I feel the same way, but that doesn't really change anything," Stride said.
"So why are you telling me all this now? Why not wait until you crack the case and make me look like a fool?"
"I need your help."
Teitscher frowned. "It doesn't look that way to me."
"The next meeting of the sex club is tonight," Stride explained. "I want your help pulling together a surveillance team. We need to watch who comes and goes, and we need to keep a twenty-four-hour team on the new alpha girl, Kathy Lassiter. If we handle this right, she might just lead us to the rapist. I'm asking you to take charge of the surveillance operation personally."
"What are you going to do?"
"I have to talk to this Lassiter woman and convince her to let us risk her life to catch this guy."
Teitscher scratched his chin. "You haven't convinced me about Maggie yet."
"I understand."
"But I'd be a lousy cop to ignore this, and I'm a damn good cop whatever the hell you think."
"I know you are."
Teitscher stood up. "Okay, I'll get the wheels rolling on the surveillance."
"Thanks, Abel. I think we should keep the details about the sex club and the rapist between you and me for now."
"You going political on me?"
"No, I don't want to tip our hand. The more people who know about this, the easier it is to have a leak."
"All right, fair enough."
Stride watched Teitscher leave. He was glad to have a truce in the war between them and to have his own role in the investigation out in the open. That was the only thing he felt good about. Otherwise, he was filled with anxiety about what lay ahead, as if he were tangled in the sheet of his parachute as the ground streaked closer. He almost wished that Kathy Lassiter would pull the plug, which would cancel the party and thwart Serena's determination to go inside the walls. He was concerned for the safety of both of them.
He was surprised when his phone rang. It was still early. The caller ID was from a 312 area code. Chicago.
"Stride."
"You're an early riser, Lieutenant. I like that."
"Who is this?" Stride asked.
"My name is Philip Proutz. I'm with the Securities and Exchange Commission at our Midwest office in Chicago. I work on compliance investigations."
"I see." Stride was on guard, and Proutz sensed it.
"If you'd like to confirm who I am, you can look up our office number on the Web and call me back through the main switchboard."
"No offense, Mr. Proutz, but I think I will do that."
They were reconnected two minutes later.
"All right, what can I do for you, Mr. Proutz?" Stride asked.
"You contacted our office yesterday, Lieutenant, making inquiries about a broker in Duluth named Mitchell Brandt. I'd be interested in knowing the reason for your request."
"I'm not really in a position to discuss that right now," Stride told him.
"You do realize that if this is in conjunction with Mr. Brandt's securities activities, then the jurisdiction is federal. It's our baby."
Stride hesitated. "It has nothing to do with that."
"Ah." Proutz sounded surprised. "What about a company called Infloron Medical?"
"I've never heard of it. Now you're making me curious, Mr. Proutz."
"I understand. I thought we could save each other time, you see, if we were working the same case from different ends. Infloron Medical is a public company in the Twin Cities that produces a drug called Zerax that promotes tissue regeneration in burn victims. The drug was recently approved by the FDA."
"You lost me," Stride said.
"Infloron's stock more than doubled after FDA approval of Zerax last summer. We're looking into some large stock purchases shortly before the FDA ruling was announced. We think Mitchell Brandt may have made substantial trades based on insider information."
35
Serena stood at the windows looking out from Tony's office to the birch forest behind his house. She saw more dotted lines of deer tracks in the snow. They were everywhere, leaving trails for her to follow.
"This is a beautiful spot, Tony," she murmured without looking behind her.
Tony was in his leather chair by the sofa, sipping coffee and waiting as she paced. He didn't push her to talk. He was wearing a brown suit, shined brown shoes, and a brown tie.
"I appreciate your seeing me on such short notice," she added.
"You said it was important."
Serena nodded. She figured if she actually waited here long enough, she would see the deer picking their way through the trees. It had happened before. She had seen deer, possum, rabbits, and even a fox once. The rust-colored animal with its bushy tail was much smaller than she expected.
She turned and went back to the sofa and sat down. She played with her hair. Tony was silent.
"What would happen if you wore something other than brown?" Serena asked.
"My head would explode."
Serena laughed. "Maggie jokes about it, you know."
"She's kidded me about it for ten years."
"Is it supposed to soothe your patients?"
"My patients?" Tony said. "No, it's supposed to soothe me. Brown is my armor. That's a trade secret, by the way, so don't tell anyone."
"Not even Maggie?"
"Especially not Maggie."
Serena drummed her fingers on the arm of the sofa.
"I have to do something tonight that I'm not comfortable with," she said finally.
"Okay."
"I could use some advice on how to handle it."
"Okay."
He never led her. Sometimes it infuriated her, because she wanted him to give her a direction and not feel like the burden to say where they were going was always on her shoulders. That was stupid, of course. It was her therapy session.