"If she was, she didn't make the call herself. The phone call that alerted us to Mitchell Brandt's trading activities came from a man."
Stride tried to figure out who else could have unearthed the connection that tied Brandt, Lassiter, and Infloron Medical together. Anyone in the sex club would have known the two of them, but he didn't see how they could have made the leap to an insider trading scheme that never made the papers.
"I've shown you mine, why don't you show me yours, Lieutenant?" Proutz asked. "What's going on?"
"Brandt and Lassiter are both missing," Stride told him.
"Do you think they've fled the area?"
"I don't know. I'm more concerned with Lassiter's safety. Brandt assaulted her earlier this evening. Could he have been tipped off to your investigation?"
"I don't see how that's possible. My staff understands that confidentiality is essential in these matters. Unless it was someone on your end, Lieutenant."
Stride counted in his head. Himself. Serena. Maggie. Teitscher. They were the only ones who knew. "That's very unlikely," he said. "Tell me something, if Lassiter disappeared, how hard would it be for you to make an insider trading case against Brandt?"
"Not impossible, but difficult," Proutz admitted. "It depends on how well they covered their tracks. Without evidence of how the information leaked, it's hard to prove that Brandt actually had material nonpublic information when he made the trades. Usually we play one conspirator against the other by making deals."
That meant Brandt had a motive to make sure that Lassiter was never seen again.
"I'll keep you posted, Mr. Proutz."
"Please do."
Stride hung up the phone, and it rang again immediately. This time it was Teitscher.
"Are you anywhere near Enger Park?" he asked.
Stride was heading north on Lincoln Park Drive. The two parks connected near a bridge over Highway 53. "Less than five minutes," he said. "Why?"
"We got a 911 call from a motorist in the area. He heard a woman screaming near the Enger tower."
43
Two cars were parked in the snow on the shoulder of the winding road that circled around the base of the Enger Park hillside. One was Brandt's Porsche, and the other was Sonia's Mercedes.
Stride parked his Bronco behind the two cars, blocking them in. He unlocked the glove compartment, grabbed his Ruger, and got out of the truck. Overhead, a comma-shaped moon came and went behind swiftly moving clouds, silhouetting the five-story bluestone tower that crowned the summit of the hill. He smelled snow massing to the west. In the valleys of the stiff wind, he heard someone moving far away, but the sound blew around him and he struggled to pinpoint its direction.
Enger Park was the highest land in the city, serene and beautiful, and he hated it. The rolling slopes of the golf course were across the street from him, deep with snow and crisscrossed with ski tracks. But for Stride, it was never winter in Enger Park. It was always August, ten years ago, in the grip of a heat wave that made him feel as if the entire state had melted and washed down the Mississippi to spill out in the humid air of the Gulf. Even at two in the morning that summer, standing in the fairway with Maggie, his shirt was soaked with sweat. At their feet was the girl, cocoa-skinned, tattooed, butchered, and nameless. Looking at her made him angry, and his anger only grew as the months passed and the investigation froze up like the lakes. No matter how much time passed, no matter what season it was, the girl was still there, forever haunting the park. He saw her in his dreams to this day. It was the same for Maggie.
He studied the golf course long and hard, watching and listening. Brandt and Lassiter weren't there. He slipped a flashlight out of his pocket and lit up the snow around the two cars, which were parked side-by-side. The footprints told the story. Brandt came around the rear of his Porsche, using long, angry paces. Lassiter was standing by the driver's door of Sonia's car. They struggled, and the tracks became a maze. There was an oversized snow angel where one of them had fallen and cherry-red blood spots in the slush.
Her footsteps sprinted away up the hill. Brandt's shoes followed in her path. Stride led with his gun and chased the tracks along the road that twisted up toward the tower. The tamped-down snow was a mess of tire ruts and boot marks. He followed the thin beam of his flashlight, searching for the fresh prints. Stands of young trees pressed in on him from both sides. Power lines drooped overhead, and he heard electricity snapping through the lines like bacon frying.
Above him a woman's voice cried. "No!"
And then, "Stop! Help!"
Stride veered off the road and into the trees that led straight up to the summit. The snow clawed at his thighs, and he pushed his way through spindly branches that snagged his leather jacket and cut his face. The forest was claustrophobic. He could see only the web of trees obstructing his path, and all he could hear was the crack of wood breaking and his own labored breathing. Five minutes passed as he fought his way up the hill. Then ten. He was taking too long. When he broke from the trees into a small clearing, he had to stop and balance his hands on his knees, sucking in air.
He vowed in his head that he had smoked his last cigarette.
He saw two bodies moving, running, near the tower. They were still far away. "Help!" the woman shouted again.
Stride pointed his gun high into the air and squeezed off a shot. The explosion was loud in his ears, and then it echoed wildly, passed back and forth around the hillside. He saw the taller shadow freeze. Stride started running again.
He found a rough trail and made faster progress as the path snaked around the bands of trees, climbing steadily higher. His boots slipped, and his knees burned, and his chest was shot through with pain, but the tower grew ever larger as he closed in on the summit. He heard trampling footfalls nearby, but when he cast the beam of his flashlight to his left, he caught a glimpse of a buck in midbound, antlers bone-white, fleeting gracefully toward the cover of the woods. A few yards later, the ground leveled off underneath his feet.
He stopped, waiting for his breath to come back and the dizziness to right itself in his brain, then stepped silently from the trees. He was in the hibernating gardens around the memorial tower. The stone monolith loomed sixty feet above his head, and the moon glowed on the mottled stone and dark window squares like a checkerboard. Where the slope fell away, he could see the city encircling the black lake. He turned all the way around, studying the emptiness of the park. Naked trees, picnic benches, snow-capped grills, fire pits, deer tracks and footprints. Brandt and Lassiter were nowhere to be seen. He listened for their movements and heard nothing. Lassiter wasn't screaming now. She was hiding, or silenced by Brandt's hand clapped over her mouth, or dead.
In his memory, he saw the Enger Park Girl again. Limbless and anonymous. She was silent, too.
"Don't be a fool, Brandt," he called. His voice was picked up by the wind and whisked away. He edged closer to the base of the tower. His fingers brushed the stone. He switched off his flashlight and let his eyes adjust to the night, and then he began a slow march around the circumference, his back protected, his Ruger pointed at the trees. At each bend in the octagonal shape, he paused before taking the next quiet step.
Far below him, sirens were drawing near. Brandt had to hear them, too.
He almost tripped over Kathy Lassiter's body slumped against the rock on the north side of the tower. Her brown hair spilled messily over her face, and a dark stain of blood trickled in three streaks over her ear and along her cheek.
Stride bent down and pressed two fingers against the warm skin of her neck. She was semiconscious and alive. As he turned her over on her back, she moaned and stirred. Her limbs flailed, and her eyes fluttered open. She couldn't see him clearly, and she screamed as she saw his shadow over her and beat her fists against his chest. He clutched for her wrists, trying to calm her.