Missing Mark (23 page)

Then Garnett was shaking me awake and the closing credits were ending. The theater was empty and still dark. I was groggy and our evening seemed like a dream and our faces were close together.
I
probably should have just kissed
him
and avoided an awkward conversation; but I sometimes overthink and overtalk. This was one of those times.

“Nick, do you ever think about that time last fall when you kissed me?”

I think I asked because I wanted
him
to kiss
me
again.

But Garnett kept his lips to himself, and not just because the lights had come up and the ushers had arrived to collect the garbage.

“Riley, if you’re looking for something personal, you should know I’m a once-burned, twice-shy kind of guy.”

He obviously remembered our previous kiss had ended badly.

“You know how I feel about you.” As he whispered, I felt beard stubble brush against my cheek.

He reached over to tilt my chin up with his hand and gaze into my eyes, perhaps as if trying to read truth in the face of a woman. Something he admitted that he had no talent for.

I stopped breathing because I was certain a kiss was seconds away. Then he threw our botched buss back at me. He delivered his next words like he’d practiced for this moment.

“I think I need to hear the L word first.”

L? Love? Now he seemed to be the one overthinking and overtaking. In my experience, men typically kissed first and questioned later. And those queries were more likely to spell the L word lust than love.

I wasn’t looking to lock into a complicated romantic relationship; I was just craving a kiss. After all, a mere kiss between old friends wouldn’t jeopardize my new virgin status. Would it?

I was afraid of where this conversation might lead, so I kept my mouth shut on love and friendship and suddenly remembered I needed to get home and let the dog out.

ell after midnight, I pulled into my garage just as headlights from another vehicle turned into my neighbor’s driveway. Shep was unhappy I’d been away so long. As I opened the door to get in, he ducked out for his doggy business. A couple of minutes later, I heard the slam of a screen door and saw a man leaving my neighbor’s house. Shep and I watched as he climbed into his vehicle, backed out, and drove away.

Another quickie visit, I thought to myself. The family living on the other side of George had told me a few days earlier they found the odd comings and goings irritating in the middle of the night. This latest visitor didn’t bother me because it wasn’t like I was trying to sleep, and when I did sleep, I slept deep, oblivious to headlights in the window and car tires on asphalt.

I
GLANCED AT
the overnight numbers posted on the bulletin board by the coffee machine in the newsroom. A 28 share. Mediocre by last year’s measure. But exceptional now, considering the network gave us a rotten lead-in show and some viewers were still mad about the writer’s strike. Mrs. Lefevre’s murder was as close to gold as I expected to strike during this ratings book.

I pulled the sheet down and headed for Noreen’s glass-walled office because I needed a shot of praise. But she was already in a meeting with two guests I would never have expected: Toby Elness and Blackie, his black Labrador. The Lab’s rather obvious name made perfect sense to Noreen—after all, she’d named her own dalmatian Freckles.

“What’s going on, Toby?” I asked. “Were you waiting for me?”

Noreen looked miffed for some unknown reason; Toby looked confused, probably from being cooped up too long with my news director. She sometimes had that effect on me, too.

Toby’s face drooped like a basset hound’s—large nose, sad eyes, and longish ear lobes, but I knew him to be as loyal as a collie.

“We were discussing options in the missing bass case,” Noreen said. “You’ve been so busy, Riley, I thought Toby might have some insight.”

She glanced his way with a smile that seemed like a fake attempt to flirt by someone who was out of practice. I wanted to tell her to save it—Toby didn’t respond to feminine manipulation. But I ignored her sham and put the question to him plain.

“Do you?” I asked Toby. “Have any insight?” If he did, I couldn’t imagine why he wouldn’t have already told me.

“Not really,” he answered. “I was just telling your boss—”

“Please, call me Noreen.”

“I was just telling her I don’t know anything about the kidnapped fish. I don’t know how many times I have to say that the Animal Liberation Front would never harm other fish just to save one.”

“And I was just telling Toby how I genuinely share his concern for animals,” Noreen said. “And how, should he find himself in a position to witness the release of Billy into the wild, Channel 3 would love to broadcast some home video so our viewers could see the important work being done for our earth’s creatures.”

Noreen’s face had that special glow she gets when she’s in love with a story. And then she delivered
my
closing line—the one I’d told her I often used with reluctant sources who didn’t want controversial documents or information traced back to them.

“Toby, this television station gets baskets of mail each day, should a package arrive with a videotape and no return address and no signature, we’d have no idea where it came from, and that’s what we’d have to tell anyone who asked.”

Then she insisted on walking him and Blackie out the front door to pay for their parking. While they were seated in her office, Toby seemed taller than Noreen. But that was an illusion, I now noticed as Blackie led them down the block. Side by side, they were the same size, but Noreen’s height was in her legs and she moved like a greyhound, slim and sleek. Toby’s legs were shorter, and closer to the ground, and he took more steps to keep up with her.

Toby later told me Noreen suggested they meet at a local dog park with their pets sometime soon.

Noreen later told me she suspected authorities were right and Toby did know more about that missing fish than he was letting on.

Back in my office, I was going through my e-mail spam filter, counting all the different ways to misspell Viagra, when my cell phone rang. Madeline needed to see me. Urgently.

“I’m in downtown Minneapolis,” I told her. “How about if I stop by after work?”

“The police were here, asking questions about Mark.”

“That’s to be expected. Just tell them what you know.”

“I didn’t know anything. What I need to talk to you about is what
they
told
me.”

M
ADELINE CLAIMED SHE
needed to get outdoors and breathe fresh air, so she gave me directions to Tamarack Nature Center in White Bear Lake. I figured I could dash home afterward and let Shep out. I pulled into the parking lot next to her Mercedes.

“Hello, Madeline, it’s Riley.” I called out my name, understanding that she wouldn’t recognize me otherwise.

A man wearing dark glasses watched us from another vehicle. She explained he was her bodyguard, retained by her mother. “But he’s agreed to follow at a distance.”

How exotic, I thought, a bodyguard. I wonder if he’s carrying a gun? I wonder if he would protect me if trouble came? More likely I’d be sacrificed to save the heiress. You get what you pay for in life.

Madeline motioned for me to follow her down a wood-chipped trail into the woods. Easy for her, she wore walking shoes. I moved clumsily on the uneven ground because of my heels.

“This is one of my family’s favorite places.” She waved her arms wide and spun around. “My grandfather donated the land.”

We entered a clearing and she explained that this prairie was where she and Mark were supposed to get married, surrounded by rows of rustic benches for the guests. Normally weddings aren’t allowed, but in her case an exception was made. Her bodyguard stood about thirty yards away, on the line where woods and meadow met.

“Mother and I planned and planned for the wedding. There was so much to get done in such a short time. I thought the only thing out of my control was the weather,” she said, “but it was a perfect Indian summer day.”

She breathed deeply, reminiscing. “The way things turned out, the groom was out of my control and has been ever since.”

“What happened in your meeting with the police?” On the phone she’d hinted at a break in the case.

“They wanted to know if I’d given Mark any money. But I hadn’t.” She paused briefly. “They found $98,000 in cash in a safe-deposit box under his name.”

My feet stopped, but my mind kept moving. Nearly a hundred grand. In cash. My first thought was drug money. And I was sure that’s where the cops were headed with this. After all, nobody ever mentioned Mark winning the lottery. And most folks would want to be earning interest on all that dough. Secret wads of cash suggest other secrets.

“Seems like a lot of money for him to have stashed away,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral.

“I know,” Madeline answered.

Without saying anything we walked down another trail toward a pond. I surveyed the view over the water. Birch trees with peeling white bark and oaks with fresh, pointy leaves. The colorful autumn forest must have made for a magnificent wedding backdrop. I could see why Madeline had wanted to get married here and I told her I admired the fact that she didn’t let memories of that day keep her away from such splendor.

But I also asked, gal pal to gal pal, if maybe it was time for her to drop that Stand by My Man routine, now that her man stood accused of matricide.

“I mean, Madeline, how good could the sex have been?”

“That wasn’t the part of his body that did it for me, Riley.” She looked more anguished than angry. “It was his face. There’s no way for you to understand the
intoxication
. When I made love with other men, I closed my eyes. But when I was with Mark I could not take my eyes off him. I kept them open until they hurt.”

She was right; I couldn’t understand an affliction like face blindness.

“I’m sorry, Madeline.” We followed a loop around a wildflower garden and headed back. I watched a park worker shovel wood chips from a wheelbarrow on another path.

“Maybe it’s just as well Mark and I didn’t get married.” She shrugged, more in resignation than conviction. “There seems to be a lot about him I didn’t know. What’s hard, Riley, is I can’t forget his face. When you close your eyes, you can conjure up any face you want. All I see is him. It’s like he haunts my soul.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a shadow, but it was Madeline’s bodyguard and not her AWOL fiancé or the ghost of his murdered mother.

Mark’s father was easy to find but hard to reach, though he lived only half an hour away. A couple of mouse clicks and Xiong located him serving life in the Minnesota Correctional Facility at Stillwater. Murder topped off a list of more modest crimes.

I’d contacted him by letter after Father Mountain shared Jean Lefevre’s secret. Now Felix Lefevre had my office phone number, with a note to call me collect and put me on his visitor list.

Felix’s conviction ten years ago wasn’t for a particularly interesting murder. Just one thug shooting another. Never made the news.

When prison inmates hear from reporters, they always hope we want to prove their innocence and free them. So Felix was disappointed to learn I only wanted to discuss his son. And all I really cared about was whether Mark had been in touch with him. That answer was no.

I’d gotten that much over the phone and could have simply thanked him and said goodbye. But on the chance that he might still hear from Mark—or know something else newsworthy going on in the slammer, or like many snitches was doling out information one piece at a time—I went to meet Felix. I was his first visitor in quite a while, and it had taken some back-and-forth with prison officials to make that happen.

Stillwater was one of the oldest prisons in Minnesota. Unlike some of the state’s newer correctional facilities, Stillwater looked like a prison. Stone walls and steel bars. The inside door crashed shut behind visitors just like in the movies.

I held a photo of Mark up to the visitor glass for Felix to see.

“So that’s what he looks like?” Felix said. They shared the same frizzy black hair. “Kind of forgot I had a kid.”