“And when you tossed the backpack to the man in the boat, it contained the full hundred thousand dollars?”
“Yes. Why?”
“We found less than ten thousand dollars in the backpack,” Stride said.
“Ten...?”
“That’s right. Not a hundred thousand dollars. Ten thousand. Where’s the rest of the money?”
“I have no idea. Whoever killed him must have it. Obviously, Hink had a partner. They split up the ransom after the man brought in the boat.”
“So you’re saying that the kidnappers split up the cash between them overnight, but then one of them came back the following day and killed his partner? Why not just kill him right then and there and take all of the money? And why would Hink settle for ten thousand? If he knew there was more, why not demand half? Also, why would Hink have the backpack itself but only a small portion of the ransom money?”
Gavin laid his hands flat on the table. “Look, I can’t explain any of this, but I know what you’re thinking. I hired Hink to kidnap and kill Chelsey. I paid him ten thousand dollars, and that’s what was in the backpack that I tossed to him in the boat. Then I went and killed him to make sure he wouldn’t expose me.”
“Is that what happened?” Stride asked.
“No! It’s not. I wasn’t involved in any of this. Not in kidnapping my wife. Not in killing Hink Miller and his mother. Someone else did this.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know!” the lawyer erupted.
Stride calmly tapped a pencil on the table. He watched Gavin Webster and tried to get inside the man’s head. Typically, the easiest answer in any investigation was also the right answer. Husband inherits millions, decides not to share it with his wife, and arranges for his wife to disappear. And yet Stride still couldn’t decide what he saw in the lawyer’s eyes. If he was guilty, he was covering it well. If he was innocent, he was keeping secrets about something.
“Did you talk to Hink about your inheritance?” Stride asked.
“Of course not. Back then, I didn’t have it! But I told you, word has gotten around. So maybe he knew. I have no idea.”
“Did people at the poker games know about it?”
“No comment.”
“Did you see Hink at the poker games? One of the people there could be his accomplice.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”
“Or you could be his accomplice,” Stride added.
Gavin held out his wrists. “If you believe that, then you better arrest me.”
Stride did nothing, and Gavin shrugged. “I guess that means I can go?”
“Yes, you can go,” Stride told him.
Gavin stood up, and so did Stride, but when the lawyer went to open the interview-room door, Stride blocked his way by holding the door shut. “One more thing. I want you to make a phone call for me.”
“To who?” Gavin asked.
“Broadway,” Stride replied. “I need to talk to him again.”
It was night. Late.
Serena drove around Duluth. She was trying desperately not to go where she wanted to go, and like a nomad, she cruised the city. She drove up London Road as far as the split at Highway 61, and then she turned around, retracing her steps. She took the turns of Seven Bridges Road into the rural areas north of the city, then crossed the desolate land to the airport, then made her way to Miller Hill Mall, which was closed for the night.
In the mall’s empty parking lot, she sat with the engine running, the windows open, and the radio playing. John Anderson teased her with “Straight Tequila Night.” She switched off the radio and closed her eyes and squeezed her fists together. The hunger of what she wanted left her mouth dry with desire. She could taste it, feel it, imagine the sensation in her chest. There was no hiding from it. The more she resisted, the more the need grew. She craved the peaceful, easy feeling of that liquid bliss coursing through her bloodstream.
Aimlessly, Serena drove again, still trying to stay ahead of the temptation. She went to Enger Park. To the docklands by the water. To the mean streets of the Central Hillside. Her phone kept blowing up. Stride texted her. Cat texted her. Guppo texted her. She ignored all of them. When the notifications kept coming, she turned off her phone.
From downtown, she made her way to 5th Street. Near Gavin Webster’s house, she parked below the trees and got out. Down the hill, the lights of the city glowed like a ribbon next to the dark stain of the lake. Looking up, she saw the streak of a shooting star. The lights of Gavin’s house were dark. It didn’t matter, because she hadn’t come here to see him.
Instead, Serena stared at the house of the Sacks family across the street. Standing at the base of the steps on the house’s steep slope, she called out quietly.
“Elton?”
If the dog were outside, left on his own to the elements again, he would hear her. Smell her. Know she’d come back for him. If he were there, she would take him with her, and he’d protect her and keep her sober. But there was no bark this time, no whimper from a Border collie left alone. At least for tonight, the Sackses had brought him inside.
Serena got back in the Mustang in despair. Before she could drive off, she glanced up at Dale’s brightly lit office window on the second floor. There, front paws against the glass, was Elton. Somehow he sensed her presence. The dog tilted its head, its snout pointed upward, and Serena opened the car window and heard a muffled, mournful howl.
Elton was calling to her. Missing her. It broke her heart. He needed her, and she needed him.
Dale Sacks came to the window. He yanked on the dog’s collar to shut him up and take him away. The man looked down at the street but didn’t see her car parked below the retaining wall. After a while, he turned around and disappeared, and a few seconds later, the lights in the office went out.
Serena turned on the engine and finally did what she’d known she would do all along.
She drove to the bar on Grand Avenue.
22
“This is a hell of a lot better than calculus,” Zach Larsen told Cat as he passed her the joint.
She took a shallow hit and followed it with a deep breath of sweet, cool air. She thought about old men doing math, and something about that image made her giggle. “I don’t know. I’m pretty sure Leibniz and Newton must have been stoned when they came up with differential equations.”
“No kidding,” Zach said. “You’d have to be.”
Cat didn’t feel stoned herself, just pleasantly mellow, as if the moon and stars were brighter and closer than they usually were. It was past midnight. The two of them lay on their backs on a blanket spread across the green grass of midfield in the UMD football stadium. Zach had a student maintenance job there, so he had the keys to get them in. Empty bleachers looked down on them from both sides of the field.
“It’s a pretty night,” Cat murmured.
“Yeah. Look at all the stars. See that really bright one there? I wonder what that one is.”
“It’s a planet,” Cat replied. “That’s Jupiter.”
“Is it? You know that?”
“Yup.”
“You know about stars?”
“Some.”
She’d taken an astronomy course during her senior year in high school, and Stride had bought her a telescope. They’d spent hours on the beach behind the cottage mapping the sky. Most of what Cat read or saw, she typically remembered. She extended one arm and pointed out half a dozen constellations.
Zach shook his head in awe. “Wow. Calculus. Astronomy. Is there anything you can’t do?”
Cat smiled. He was flattering her, but she didn’t mind. His right hand grazed against her left hand, and she wondered when he would make his move. He’d looked embarrassed suggesting they go to the stadium instead of studying math, and the location, the stars, the blanket, the joint, all had make-out session written all over them. She knew that he had a little crush on her, but she wasn’t interested. Maybe some kissing if the joint put her in the mood, but nothing more than that. They were both freshmen, but Zach was two years younger than she was, and Cat liked men, not boys.