Goodbye to the Dead (Jonathan Stride Book 7) (21 page)

38

Stride shook Troy Grange’s hand.

He didn’t see Troy often, but there was a bond connecting them. They’d both known personal losses that had upended their lives. Stride had lost Cindy to cancer almost eight years ago. Last summer, Troy’s wife Trisha had been murdered, leaving him to raise two young girls alone.

Troy greeted Maggie, too, and Stride didn’t miss the warmth in Troy’s face. He was pleased to see it. Troy was finally opening up again, which took a lot of time after the death of a spouse. He wondered if there was something more between the two of them. Troy and Maggie had worked together as colleagues for years, but it looked as if their friendship had drifted into attraction. At least for him. There was no way Maggie hadn’t picked up on Troy’s feelings, and Stride wondered whether the interest was reciprocated.

‘Sit down, guys,’ Troy told them in his foghorn voice. He was the senior health and safety manager for the Duluth Port, but his office was small, and he was rarely inside the building. Instead, he was out among the port’s docks, where thousands of tons of goods moved in and out of the city by boat and rail every day. Lumber. Coal. Iron ore. Cement. Grain. Limestone. The long boats brought in loads and took them out into the waters of Lake Superior, and from there to destinations around the world.

Along with that traffic came smuggling problems. Drugs. Weapons. People.

‘Maggie was telling me about this girl Kelly Hauswirth from Denver,’ Troy said. ‘Do you have any more leads on the guy who killed her?’

‘Not so far,’ Stride said. ‘We’re waiting for ballistics on the murder weapon.’

‘We’re assuming he’s the same guy who lured Kelly from Colorado to Duluth,’ Maggie added. ‘Someone established a fake online ID and built a relationship with her. When she figured out that this guy wasn’t who she thought he was, she tried to get away, and he shot her.’

‘I assume you interviewed everyone in the bar that night,’ Troy said.

‘As many as we could,’ Maggie replied. ‘A lot of them melted away before we got there.’

‘The Grizzly Bear is a watering hole for foreign crew off the boats,’ Troy said.

‘Yeah, and they’re a tight-lipped bunch. Nobody claimed to know the woman or who she was meeting.’

‘Figures.’

‘Why do you think there may be an Amsterdam connection?’ Stride interjected. ‘Maggie says Interpol reached out to you about another murder overseas.’

Troy grabbed a photograph from his office printer and passed it across the desk. The corpse in the picture was barely recognizable, with features bloated and bleached by time in the canals. A knife gash had split open her throat. Her strawberry hair was pasted to her skin. Her swollen torso had split open seams on her T-shirt, but Stride could still see the Grandma’s Marathon logo. Either the woman – or whoever had given her the shirt – had been in Duluth before she was killed.

‘When did they find this woman?’ Stride asked.

‘Last week.’

‘Have they identified her?’

‘No, the Dutch were hoping we could help them with that. The condition of the body doesn’t make it easy. They’re assuming she’s American because of the T-shirt and the quality of her dental work, but they don’t really know for sure. They also don’t know how long she was in the Netherlands. The marathon T-shirt was one of last year’s printings.’

Maggie leaned across the desk. ‘Can we get the jpeg?’

‘Of course, Sergeant.’

Stride smiled. Troy was invariably formal around them about official business. Stride was Lieutenant. Maggie was Sergeant. He was the kind of gruff ex-seaman who wore nothing but plaid shirts, jeans, and boots, but he had a serious way about him that Stride respected. He wasn’t tall, but he had the bulky build of a weightlifter. Nobody messed with Troy.

The security manager clicked a few keys on his computer. Stride’s and Maggie’s phones both chirped with an incoming e-mail as he sent them the photograph.

‘Do the Dutch police or Interpol know anything more about the circumstances of this woman’s murder?’ Stride asked.

‘Maybe. They found a tattoo on her wrist associated with an Estonian crime syndicate. Very brutal and very sophisticated. This group began with synthetic drug exports and high-end robberies, but Interpol thinks they’ve branched out into an international smuggling network. Illegal metals. Drugs. Weapons.’

‘And women,’ Maggie guessed.

‘Yeah. Exactly. Their guess is that this woman was kidnapped and dumped into a forced prostitution ring overseas.’

‘They think she was smuggled out through the Duluth Port?’ Stride asked.

‘Well, that was their question to me. I couldn’t rule it out.’ Troy folded his meaty hands together. ‘Look, port security guys talk all around the world. We’ve got tech guys who trawl the Deep Web – you know, the places that Google doesn’t reach. It’s practically a Craigslist for slavery. Women, girls, boys, babies, even pets. If you’ve got the money, you can write up specs for who you want like you were placing an order for custom drapes. And syndicates like this Estonian group will go out and grab someone who fits the profile and smuggle them out. It could be a girl in Sydney. Or Cape Town. Or Cancun.’

‘Or Denver, Colorado,’ Stride said.

‘Yeah. Exactly. They just disappear. Order fulfilled. Huge payday for the smugglers. And once they’ve outlived their usefulness, the girls wind up like this woman in Amsterdam.’

Stride got up and went to the window in Troy’s office. He could see train cars covered with graffiti. Silos. Pyramids of taconite. The sheer volume of everything that passed through the port made a single human being seem like a needle in a haystack. Easy to hide.

‘I’m not saying that’s what happened to Kelly Hauswirth,’ Troy went on, ‘but I think we have to consider the possibility. She was lured here, and somebody did that for a reason. Plus, I don’t like the fact that the meeting place was a bar where a lot of the overseas sailors hang out.’

Stride nodded. ‘We’ll need a list of the salties that were in port when the murder took place. And when each of them is expected back in Duluth.’

‘You got it.’

‘I want to talk to your contacts at Interpol, too.’

‘Sure.’ Troy stood up, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘Listen, I hope I’m wrong about this, but if someone is smuggling girls through here, they didn’t start with Kelly, and they’re not going to stop there. It’s peak shipping season. For all we know, they’ve already got other girls hidden in the city, and they’re just waiting to get them out on a boat.’

*

Her name was Erin. She was from Grand Forks.

She knew who she was, but when she awoke, she found that her other senses had been stripped. Her mind swam, making her dizzy. She couldn’t tell the difference anymore between consciousness and dreams. She opened her eyes, but the world was black. A blindfold. When she tried to speak, to shout, to scream, she couldn’t make a sound. Something filled her mouth, muffling her cries. Her wrists pressed against each other behind her back, and she couldn’t move them. Her ankles were tied, too.

Panic rippled over her, like a wave so tall and strong it would cover her up and drown her. She squirmed and struggled in a fit of despair, but she was frozen in place. Blind. Mute. Bound.

This was a nightmare.

No.

Erin knew she was awake. She lay on a wooden floor on her side. Her blond hair spilled across her face. Dirt and splinters pressed into her skull like sharp fingernails. Her neck spasmed with pain. This was real. She could hear things. Somewhere close by, she recognized the trill of a cardinal in the trees, penetrating the walls around her. It sang to her, but she couldn’t sing back. Even so, it made her realize that the world was still out there.

She rolled onto her back, where her knuckles dug into the small of her spine. The weight of the gag stuffed into her mouth made her choke. She was afraid she would vomit. With a thrust of her body, she rolled again, all the way onto her face, where dust blew into her nose. It became difficult to breathe, and the stricture in her throat made her suck in each breath faster. She hyperventilated. Her heart raced.

Erin heaved herself onto her side. She had no sense of the space around her. How big. How small. She was inside, somewhere, but the room was hot. Damp sweat covered her skin. When she tried to bring her knees toward her chest, her ankles resisted. They were tethered on a short leash to something heavy and solid. A steel table, immovable. She kicked at it and realized her feet were bare. Her shoes had been taken. She wriggled around and sat up.

She knew who she was but not where she was or how she’d gotten here or how long she’d been in this place. Time had no meaning. My name is Erin. I am a dental hygienist in Grand Forks. I am on vacation to see . . .

That was it. Matt. Mattie_1987. Matt the paralegal. Funny, sweet, athletic, such a shy, sexy face. Most men didn’t understand her, but Matt did. He seemed to know what it was like to be her, all the insecurities, all the nervousness when she looked in the mirror, all the doubts about where she was going in life. She’d never believed she could fall in love with someone online, but that was before she found Matt in the chat room. It was easier to talk to him than to anyone in her real life. There was something about the anonymity of the darkness and the screen that made her tell him secrets. She shared things with him that she’d never shared with her family or friends. Not that she had many friends. Or family, other than a distant sibling and parents who didn’t really understand her.

That’s me, too,
he said
. I know how you feel.

He was like her soul mate.

But her soul mate never showed up. She felt as if she’d lost hours in her brain. Lost days that were gray in her memory. She had a cloudy memory of a bar. Drinking. Waiting. Growing sad and anxious as time passed and the evening waned. More drinking. Where was he? She’d driven to Duluth to meet him. He’d said he would be there for her.

Texting over and over. No response.
I’m here, Mattie, where are you?

Then the blackness descended. And now the terror. Not knowing where she was or how she’d gotten to this place or why she’d been imprisoned. It was an empty road between there and here.

Outside, she heard the scratch of footsteps on dirt. The cardinal, alarmed, stopped singing. Her first thought was of rescue, but she knew that no one was coming to release her. She listened, hearing the footsteps pause. There was a stretch of silence and then the metallic rattle of a lock being undone.

The hinges of a door squealed. Light stabbed the blindfold, but only for a moment as the door was closed again. She felt herself shivering. He was inside with her, coming closer. She thought she heard breathing, but her own breathing reverberated inside her head, like the panting of a trapped animal. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t cry for help.

He was near her. Inches away.

Fingers touched her hair, almost seductively, and she jumped. The gag loosened, but it still filled her mouth. Something cold and sharp pricked her neck, deep enough to make her gasp at the sting. The breathing came back, right beside her, warm and measured in her ear.

A disembodied voice filled her head.

‘If you scream, I’ll cut your throat.’

39

‘She’s never been in my bar,’ Fred Sissel told Serena.

The bar owner folded up the photograph of the dead woman in Amsterdam and slid it back to her with one finger, as if the paper carried a communicable disease. He took a towel from his sleeve and ran it over the varnished counter. It was mid-afternoon on Wednesday. The place was mostly empty.

‘You sound pretty sure,’ Serena said. ‘It’s not a great photograph. I don’t think I could answer one way or another.’

‘Then why show it to me?’ Sissel asked.

‘Sometimes we get lucky. We got this photo two days ago, and we’re canvassing the area to see if anyone remembers her.’

‘Well, I don’t.’

Sissel tweaked his mustache and smoothed his slicked-back, graying hair. He didn’t hide the fact that he wanted Serena to leave. The murder of Kelly Hauswirth had brought a lot of cops and news cameras to his bar. His customers didn’t like it, and they’d voted with their feet.

‘What about others?’ Serena asked him.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Other young women who didn’t fit in with the crowd here. Women like Kelly Hauswirth.’

‘It’s a bar,’ Sissel said. ‘People come and go. I look at the credit cards, not the faces.’

‘You took a pretty good look at my face,’ Serena pointed out.

Sissel’s mouth flickered into a smile. ‘Well, you’ve got a face worth looking at.’

‘Come on, Fred. Kelly Hauswirth had a suitcase with her. She stuck out in your crowd like a church lady at a biker rally. All I’m asking is whether you’ve spotted any other girls who match the same profile.’

Sissel tugged on his sleeves. ‘Sorry.’

Serena cast her eyes around at the handful of men at other tables. She leaned across the bar and lowered her voice. ‘Look, this woman in Amsterdam with her throat cut? The police there think she was a sex slave. Do I need to tell you what that’s like? Kelly Hauswirth may have been headed for the same life. You’ve got foreign sailors in and out of this bar every day. Somebody knows something. I want to know what you’ve heard. Rumors. Gossip. Whatever.’

‘If I hear anything, I don’t talk about it. It’s not good for my business. Or my health.’

Serena sighed with frustration. She reached into a pocket and pulled out a card. ‘If your ears start working again, give me a call.’

Sissel bent the card between two fingers and flicked it to the floor. Laughter rippled around them. ‘Whatever,’ he said.

Serena stalked out of the bar. Throaty catcalls followed her to the street. She emerged into the afternoon sunlight and shut the door sharply behind her. It was hot under a blue sky. Her blue jeans hugged her legs, and she stood atop slingback sandals with high heels. She wore a white tank top, and her wavy black hair scattered across her shoulders. She slid sunglasses over her face and walked diagonally across the street to the road that led down to Irving Park. Power lines streaked over her head.

She saw the wall of trees. Tucked inside them, invisible, were the muddy steps to the creek. She remembered the chase, but she wished she remembered more. His face. His smell. Anything about him. She only knew that he was ruthless. He’d killed without hesitation, and he could kill again.

Serena had a weakness for lost girls. Like Kelly. Like Cat. She’d been lost herself as a teenager, and she knew all about predators. The drug dealer who’d used her as his whore was long gone, but he lingered in her life in ways she couldn’t escape. She was closed off from people. She didn’t trust easily. She’d tried for years to get past things she couldn’t get past, before realizing they were simply part of who she was.

Jonny lived the same way, for different reasons. He was wary of the future, wary of believing that anything would last. His affair with Maggie had shaken her, but there was a certain inevitability about it. Maggie was in love with him. Sooner or later, that attraction was bound to blossom into something when Jonny was vulnerable. Serena blamed herself a little for not preventing it. She’d tunneled inside herself when he needed her. She couldn’t pry him out of his own shell because she was locked in hers.

But not anymore. She’d come a long way in six months alone. She’d made peace with a lot of things about who she was and who Jonny was. There was really just one ghost left between them.

Her name was Cindy.

‘You’re the cop, aren’t you?’ said a voice behind her.

When Serena turned around, she saw the waitress from the bar who was a friend of Cat. ‘I am,’ she replied. ‘It’s Anna, isn’t it?’

The girl nodded. ‘Anna Glick.’

Anna was older than Cat. Maybe twenty or twenty-one. She was anorexically skinny, all bones. Her makeup was so dark it was practically Goth, and her look was supplemented by studs in her nose, eyebrows, and lips. Spiky orange hair jutted out from under a wool cap. Serena could see in the girl’s eyes the smart, cynical expression of someone who knew how to read people and calculate the odds of getting what she wanted from them.

‘So how’s Cat doing?’ Anna asked.

‘Fine.’

‘She lives with you, huh?’

‘Yes, she does.’ Serena added: ‘Cat says you helped her out when she was on her own. Found her places to stay.’

‘I did what I could. Not just for her.’

‘I’m grateful. I’m glad someone had her back in those days. But Cat doesn’t need that kind of help anymore.’

Anna’s lips bent into a smirk. ‘In other words, stay away from her?’

‘It’s not about you. I just think it’s better if Cat cuts the cord with her past entirely. I hope you understand.’

‘Yeah, I hear you. Whatever you say. Just so you know, Cat came to see me, not the other way around. And just so you know something else, I have a house and, like, four jobs. Waitressing. Data entry. Medical coding. I’m not going back to who I was.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean anything personal.’

Anna shrugged. She had a chip firmly lodged on her shoulder. ‘You over here talking to Fred?’

‘That’s right. How long have you worked at the bar?’

‘About a year.’

Serena removed the photograph from her pocket of the dead woman in Amsterdam. She showed it to Anna, who didn’t flinch. The girl had a tough shell.

‘Do you remember seeing this woman around here?’ Serena asked.

‘What did Fred say?’

‘Does Fred’s memory affect yours?’

‘He doesn’t like us talking about what happens in the bar. Especially to cops.’

‘Well, Fred’s inside, and you’re out here with me,’ Serena said.

Anna examined the picture again. ‘I don’t think so, but I’m only here three days a week. Welcome to the part-time economy. If she was here, it was when I wasn’t working.’

‘What about the girl who was killed outside the bar? Kelly Hauswirth. You served her that day, right?’

‘Yeah, vodka and lemonade. She didn’t touch a drop. I already talked to you people. I carded her when she got to the bar, but I didn’t remember her name or where she was from. All I look at is the birth date.’

‘How long was she there?’

‘Couple hours.’

‘Did you talk to her?’

‘Sure. We were BFFs. “What can I bring you?” “Vodka and lemonade.” “You still okay on that drink?” “Fine, thanks.”’

Anna had a supple voice. Harsh and gravelly when she was being herself, as if she could scare off the world. Sweet and convincing when she channeled Kelly Hauswirth. When you lived on the street, you learned to be whoever your next meal ticket needed you to be.

‘Did Kelly say who she was meeting?’

‘No.’

‘Anybody hit on her?’ Serena asked.

‘You saw what she looked like. Lots of guys hit on her. She shot them all down.’

‘Are there guys in the bar who don’t take no for an answer?’

‘Sure, we’ve got plenty of those. I ran interference with anyone that was getting too fresh. The boys don’t mess with me. If I tell them to back off, that’s what they do.’

‘So you had to help Kelly with some of them?’

Anna tugged her wool cap lower on her forehead. ‘I told some of the drunker ones to leave her alone. It was no big deal.’

‘Have you seen others like her in the bar? Girls waiting for somebody? Maybe a girl from out of town, with a suitcase?’

‘No, but like I said, I’m a part-timer.’

Serena nodded. She didn’t think Anna was sharing everything she knew, but talking to cops was an occupational hazard. ‘Tell me something, Anna. Does Cat have a boyfriend?’

‘You should ask her about that,’ Anna replied. ‘Not me.’

‘She says no.’

The girl shrugged. ‘Then I guess she doesn’t.’

‘If Cat shows up here again, I’d appreciate it if you give me a call.’

‘So you can come drag her out?’

‘Exactly.’

‘You’re a real mother superior,’ Anna said.

‘No, but I’ve been in her shoes,’ Serena told her. ‘And yours.’