Immoral (39 page)

“How do we arrange to have Rachel’s body sent back?” Dayton asked.

“I’ll have someone call you,” Serena said. “We’ll release her just as soon as we can. It’s a criminal investigation, you understand. But one word of advice, if you don’t mind. You may not want to view the body when it’s returned. She was found in the desert, and, well, the desert isn’t very kind to human remains.”

Emily swallowed hard. “I understand.”

They shook hands, and Dayton escorted them to the door. Serena offered the minister a small smile.

“Once again, I’m very sorry. I hope at least the two of you had a nice vacation before this.”

Dayton hesitated. “Oh. Yes, we did. Thank you.”

“I love the River Walk in San Antonio,” Serena continued. “Where did you stay?”

“The convention was at the Hyatt.”

“Did you get a chance to get out of the city?”

“Not really. We visited the Alamo, that kind of thing.”

“Of course,” Serena said.

Dayton touched her shoulder as they turned to leave. “May I ask you something?”

Serena nodded.

“I was wondering if you knew what Rachel was doing. Where she worked. I was just thinking, if I had searched a little bit harder—”

“She was working in a strip club,” Serena told him without sugarcoating.

Dayton wet his lips with his tongue. “Ah. Well. I didn’t look there.”

“Do you believe him?” Stride asked as they headed back to the city. He glanced out his window and saw charcoal clouds massing in the southwest corner of the sky. A summer storm was bearing down.

“If he’s lying, he’s good at it,” Serena said. “But I’m a cynic when it comes to men and teenage girls.”

“You think a preacher who sounds too good to be true probably is?” Stride asked.

“It’s more than that, Jonny.”

She didn’t explain. He couldn’t help but wonder about her secrets. The fact that she called him Jonny also rolled around in his head. It flowed from her casually, without thought—he wondered if she even knew she had done it—but there was a familiarity in how she said it that was intimate.

He didn’t think Andrea’s voice had ever carried such weight in calling his name, and he remembered that a similar intimacy had been there from the beginning with Cindy. Those were scary, unwelcome thoughts. He realized that he had avoided thinking about Andrea since Serena arrived. His attraction to her was so sudden and intriguing that it seemed to push aside his other emotions. He was not the kind of man to have an affair, but right now, he wanted one. Badly.

“Have you really been to the River Walk?” he asked.

“Never,” Serena said with a sly smile.

Stride laughed. “You’re beautiful.”

He wanted her to feel the double meaning in his voice. He wasn’t sure, but he thought she actually blushed.

“I’ll have Maggie check it out,” he continued. “We’ll look into this church conference and make sure they were really there.”

“Even if they checked in, they could have gone to and from Vegas in a day. In and out. No one would know.”

“We’ll check the airlines, too. And credit card records.”

Before he could reply, Stride heard the chirping of his cell phone. He slid it out of his pocket and pressed it to his ear.

“We need to talk,” a man’s voice said. Stride recognized Dan Erickson.

“Yes, we do,” Stride said. “You got my message?”

“You’re goddamned right I did. Are you sure about this?”

“Yeah, we’re sure.”

“Shit,” Dan hissed. There was a silence, and Stride could almost hear the calculations grinding in Dan’s mind. “This is unbelievable. I don’t want to do this over the phone.”

“You want me to swing by your office?”

“Hell, no. I don’t want you anywhere near my office. Meet me in the parking lot of the high school in an hour.”

“Won’t we need some kind of secret code to identify ourselves?” Stride asked.

“Funny. Real fucking funny. Just be there.”

Stride clicked the phone off.

Serena raised her eyebrows. She could make out most Of the call.

“Dan Erickson prosecuted Graeme Stoner for Rachel’s murder,” Stride said. “He isn’t too pleased with the news.”

“Why the cloak-and-dagger?”

“Dan’s the county attorney, but he’s going after the Democratic nomination for state attorney general. I think trying someone for murdering a girl who wasn’t dead is likely to be a ‘negative spin event’ for his campaign.”

Serena frowned. “Watch your ass, Jonny. A politician like that would have you fired if it meant deflecting blame from himself.”

“Yeah, that would be Dan’s style,” Stride said. He heard “Jonny” on her lips again.

“You don’t care?”

Stride stared through the windshield as the first drops of rain began to fall. “It’s funny. I’m not sure I do.”

By the time Stride dropped Serena at the station and reached the hillside road that led to the school parking lot, his windshield wipers were screeching in protest as they pounded back and forth, sluicing aside gallons of water. Stride leaned over the steering wheel, squinting to catch a glimpse of the pavement through his headlights. Somewhere in the summer sky, the sun was high, but it might as well have been night, with the swath of black clouds overhead.

Stride drove to the far side of the lot before he spotted Dan Erickson’s Lexus, parked off by itself. He pulled around and parked next to it. The Lexus was navy blue with smoked windows. Dan had left the lights on and the motor running.

The rain beat down on Stride’s truck. When he pushed open the door, the rain flooded over him, stinging his skin like tiny pinpricks. He slammed the door and yanked on the passenger door of the Lexus. It was locked. Already soaked. Stride pounded on the window. He heard a low click, and he piled inside the car, bringing a smattering of rain with him.

“Good to see you, too, Dan,” Stride muttered, flicking droplets of water around the car as he shook his sleeves.

“These are leather seats,” Dan said, scowling.

The interior of the car smelled like Dan’s wife, which meant it smelled like money. Stride knew the Lexus and everything else belonged to Lauren, not Dan, but Dan wore the trappings well. On his left hand, Stride saw a fat wedding ring with a ruby stone, and on his wrist, a gold Rolex. His navy suit looked custom-tailored, and it bent in easy folds without wrinkling.

The local public radio station was on in the background. Dan reached over and turned it off. They sat silently for a moment while the rain thumped on the roof.

“It’s not on the news yet,” Dan said. “Let’s keep it that way.”

Stride shook his head. “That’s impossible. This will be big news, you know that. The most we can hope is to keep it bottled up for a couple more days, but even that’s optimistic. It only takes one leak.”

“Who knows about this?”

“The Vegas cops and several members of the force here in Duluth. Plus Emily and her husband, Dayton Tenby.”

“You should have talked to me before informing them.”

“Christ, Dan, she’s the girl’s mother,” Stride protested.

Dan sighed. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

Stride explained about the discovery of Rachel’s body in the Las Vegas desert and the possible Duluth connection in the murder.

“But we don’t know yet what happened in Vegas,” Stride continued. “We also don’t know what really happened when she disappeared the first time. Obviously, Stoner didn’t kill her.”

“Do you have any leads?”

“Not so far, no. We’re reviewing the files from the original investigation, and we’re going to start tracking down the people who were involved back then.”

Dan frowned. “The more people you talk to, the more likely this will all come out.”

“I’m aware of that. But this isn’t just ancient history. This is an active murder investigation. Someone killed Rachel less than a week ago, and I want to know who. The only reason we’re not holding a press conference is I want the element of surprise when I talk to these people.”

“Great,” Dan said. “Just great The Republicans are going to love this.”

“I have faith in you, Dan. You’ll talk your way out of it.”

Dan looked at Stride sharply. “Is that a crack? Look, Stride, I put the responsibility for the original failure squarely on the investigating team.”

Two points, Serena
.

Stride nodded. “We made some mistakes, no question about it But it was your decision to go to trial without a body, Dan.”

“I recall your telling me that Stoner was the guy. He did it.”

“That’s what I thought. That’s what we all thought. But our evidence was weak. I told you so from day one.”

Dan shook his head. “We’re not getting in a public shooting match over this. I expect you to take full responsibility. Am I clear? I want you to stand up and tell the world this was a police screwup. I was acting in good faith based on misinformation from the police. You guys already let one killer get away—the guy who did Kerry McGrath. And you were so desperate to solve Rachel’s disappearance that you cut corners.”

There were elements of truth in what Dan said. Stride could hardly deny the obsession he felt back then to find Rachel or to bring her killer to justice. He might have sacrificed some of his objectivity, because he was convinced that Stoner was guilty.

But it was Dan, personally, who chose to go to trial for murder, without a body, despite the long odds.

“I’ll take my share of the blame,” Stride said. “But that’s not the whole story.”

“It is now.”

“That sounds like an ultimatum,” Stride said.

Dan shrugged. “Take it however you like, but you can bet there will be consequences if you try to wriggle out of this. I won’t give K-2 any choice.”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to give it some thought. You got any other helpful words of advice for me?”

Dan was silent.

Stride shoved open the door and clambered out. He held it open, letting the rain roar in, soaking the passenger seat and spraying Dan’s nice suit. Finally, he slammed the door shut and waited in the downpour as Dan sped away.

Serena sat alone in the basement conference room in city hall, her eyes blurring as she made her way through a mountain of yellowing paperwork. Page by page, the records from the investigation told her the story of Rachel’s disappearance. The girl was becoming real to her. They all did eventually, but this time, it was like looking in a mirror, right down to the raven hair and emerald eyes. Rachel might as well have been her twin.

That made Serena think of her mother.
She’s my little evil twin
, her mother used to say about Serena when she was a child, because they looked so much alike.

But her mother was the evil one. Selling herself to the devil for a few grams of white powder—and her little girl, too.

She understood the venom in Rachel’s heart. She didn’t have to read far to know what kind of man Graeme was and what kind of game the two of them were playing. It could have been her. She had felt the same choking desire for revenge. The only difference was, she had escaped, although she knew in her soul what a very close escape it was.

Serena checked her watch, feeling lonely and distraught. The memories did that. They made her long for a drink, too, and that was dangerous. It was after six o’clock. Maggie had gone out into the rain a half hour ago to get dinner for the two of them. Stride was missing in action. He had called in the early afternoon to say he was on the scene of a bank robbery across town, playing gopher for the Feebs.

She wanted him back, and she wanted him to stay away.

Even so, her heart raced when she heard footsteps in the hall. She made a special effort to look calm and disinterested. Which was a lie.

But it wasn’t Stride. Maggie breezed into the conference room in a damp raincoat, balancing a pizza box in one hand and two liters of Diet Coke in the other. The tiny Chinese cop grinned at her.

“Special delivery. And it’s sausage, so don’t give me any shit about vegetarian pizza or whatever it is you eat out west.”

Serena laughed and opened the box, letting the aroma of mozzarella and seasoned pork waft into the room. Maggie filled two plastic cups with pop, then grabbed a slice and sat down, leaning her chair back until it was propped against the wall. Her feet dangled above the floor.

“Got the case solved?” she asked.

“I still think Graeme did it,” Serena said, smiling.

“Yeah, it was a lot easier that way. Any word from Stride? Guppo called and said the boss was heading back here.”

“No, nothing from Jonny.” Serena took a slice of pizza and put it down without biting into it.

Maggie took a long swallow of Coke and then, watching Serena, her eyes narrowed with concern. “You okay?”

“Sure, why?”

Maggie tugged on her eyelid. “Glassy eyes. Tears. What’s up?”

“Oh, that,” Serena said. She shook her head. “It’s nothing. Thinking about the bad old days. Something about this case, it gets to me.”

That happens to all of us.“

“Even a hard-ass like you?” Serena asked, teasing her.

“Me, no, I’m a rock,” Maggie said. “Come on, try the pizza, it’s delicious.”

Serena picked up the slice again and took a tentative bite. She realized she was hungry, and she began to take larger bites, finishing the first piece and reaching for another. She washed it down with a drink, belched long and loud, and began giggling uncontrollably.

“Nice,” Maggie said, straight-faced. “Do you take requests?”

Serena started laughing again and was afraid the Coke would wind up coming out her nose. Maggie lost it, too, and the two of them spent five minutes cracking up before they ran out of breath. Serena wound up hot and sweaty. She wiped her brow and used a napkin to blow her nose.

“You are too much,” she told Maggie.

“Thank you,” Maggie said, in her best Elvis voice. “Thank you very much.”

“Oh, God, don’t get me started again.” Serena pushed her hair out of her face. She closed her eyes and propped her chair against the wall, like Maggie’s.