Polar (Book 2): Polar Day (8 page)
Tessa and Danny headed to the home of Max Fugate’s parents while the forensics team investigated the letter that had been sent to Jennifer Higgins.
They drove up to a tidy ranch home on Chestnut Street and pulled into the driveway next to a Toyota Corolla.
“I wonder if this is the Fugate’s car or if someone else is here,” Danny said as he got out of Tessa’s Subaru.
“Maybe it’s their daughter,” Tessa said. “I hope it is. Hope they have someone here with them for support.”
“Yeah,” Danny said. “Might be easier for us to talk to the sister too. I didn’t check on the ages of the parents but they have to be in bad shape. What a nightmare for these people.”
Tessa nodded and walked to the porch where she knocked on the Fugate’s front door. She and Danny both flashed their badges at a middle-aged woman who answered the knock.
Danny introduced himself and Tessa as homicide detectives as the woman opened the door to let them inside.
“I’m Cassie Jenkins,” she said. “Max is…” she paused and cleared her throat. “Max was my brother.”
“We’re very sorry for your loss,” Tessa said. “Could we talk to you a bit about your brother? We’re trying to learn more about him so we can figure out who might have done this to him.”
Tears fell from Cassie’s eyes and dropped on the beige carpet at her feet. “We’ve tried to hold out hope that Max would turn up,” she said. “We kept thinking there was just some terrible misunderstanding and we’d hear from Max any day now. But even though I knew it wasn’t realistic to think he was still alive no matter how much we hoped he was, I never could have imagined anything like this. Not even in my worst nightmares.”
“It was a terrible thing,” Danny said. “We truly are sorry.”
Cassie grabbed a tissue from her pocket and wiped tears from her face. “Do you need to talk to my parents? They’re both upstairs lying down. After the officers came to tell us Max was dead they just couldn’t….” Cassie’s words dissolved into tears.
Tessa put her hand on the crying woman’s arm. “It’s okay. We don’t need to disturb them just now. If we could talk to you that would help us a great deal.”
Cassie nodded and ushered the two detectives into the dining room. She motioned for them to join her at the mahogany table at the room’s center.
“Of course,” she said. “Whatever I can help you with, just let me know.”
“What can you tell us about your brother?” Danny asked. “We know he worked at the hospital.”
“Right. He was a surgeon. Max wanted to be a doctor from the time we were kids. He loved that game Operation. I think he was the only kid who ever took it seriously. He would actually get mad if he touched the sides and caused the buzzer to go off.”
Tessa smiled. “How long had he been at Fairbanks General?”
“Since he was in medical school. Max never had any interest in living anywhere but Fairbanks. He loved it here.”
“Were the two of you close?”
“Yes,” Cassie said, her voice cracking. “Very.”
“Had Max mentioned any problems he was having to you recently? Anyone he may have had some sort of altercation or disagreement with?”
“No. Max was generally easy-going. He wouldn’t tolerate any nonsense at work but otherwise he was never interested in confrontation.”
“What about relationship problems? Did he have a girlfriend?”
Cassie chuckled. “No, no girlfriend. Not since he took Jocelyn Dominick to his 8th grade dance. But he did have a new boyfriend. Max was gay.”
Danny immediately flashed back to the call from Nick Torrance’s partner. “Was he out?” he asked.
“Yeah. Since college. Everyone knew Max was gay.”
“Had anyone ever given him trouble about it? Maybe at the hospital?”
“There are always idiots around who make snide remarks. Max learned to ignore that kind of crap a long time ago. But it was never an issue as far as his job went. He is…was a really good surgeon so no one ever gave him any grief about his personal life. It’s not as if the administrators would have allowed it anyway, not in this day and age. But Max was well thought of at the hospital.”
“You mentioned a new boyfriend,” Tessa said. “What can you tell us about him?”
“Not much. They weren’t together long before Max…” Cassie blew her nose and wiped more tears from her eyes. “His name is Kris Anderson. He’s a paramedic. Max and I only had one conversation about him. He said he really liked him but wasn’t sure if Kris liked baseball or not. Max joked that it would be a deal-breaker if he didn’t.”
“So your brother was a baseball fan?”
“Big time. He followed the Mariners and loved watching the Goldpanners in the summer. Max was a good athlete. He played baseball himself all through school and he loved running now.”
“He was a fit guy?”
Cassie nodded. “Yeah. He was kind of vain about being in shape to be honest,” she said with a slight smile.
“What about previous boyfriends? Relationships gone bad?” Tessa asked.
“He dated Michael Stevens for years but it didn’t really end badly. Mike was a surgeon too and took a job in San Diego after his residency. Max didn’t want to go with him. It was an amicable split though as far as I know.” Cassie let out a deep breath and struggled to keep her voice even. “Honestly, my brother was a happy guy. He didn’t have a lot of drama in his life. I can’t imagine anyone he’s ever known doing something like this.”
Cassie clutched her arms around her stomach and dissolved into another round of tears. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just don’t know what to tell you.”
Danny glanced at Tessa as he reached out and covered Cassie’s hands with his own. “Nothing to apologize for, Cassie. You’ve been very helpful. I’m so sorry again about your brother.”
Cassie nodded and continued to cry.
The two detectives got up from their chairs and left their business cards on the table.
“We’ll leave you alone now,” Tessa said. “Please give your parents our condolences. We’ll be back to talk to them another time.”
“And if you think of anything new that you think may help, give either one of us a call,” Danny said. “We’ll show ourselves out.”
As they left the house and walked back to Tessa’s car, Danny cursed the day he’d ever decided to become a cop. Of course, it was the only thing he’d ever planned to be, much like Max Fugate had apparently always wanted to be a surgeon. If Danny had understood the strain of dealing with people who were suffering horrific losses he would have followed another path. Or perhaps it was just since he lost his beloved Caroline that he felt this way. Now each visit with a grieving loved one brought his wife’s murder back to his mind in crystal clarity. He knew all too well about the gaping hole that was now in the Fugate’s lives.
“So either the sister wasn’t nearly as close to her brother as she thought or this killer isn’t anyone who knew Max,” Tessa said. “I’m thinking the latter.”
“Yeah,” Danny said, sliding into the passenger seat. “We need to check out that Kris guy though. See if he knows anything the family may not have been aware of.” He grabbed his tablet and brought up the browser. “I’ll find out what station he works out of. With luck we can catch him at work.”
Tessa nodded and backed out of the Fugate’s driveway. Cassie Fugate stood at the window and watched the detectives leave. When they had, she let the curtain fall back over the window and collapsed into a sobbing heap on the floor of her parents’ living room.
****
“Well here we are again, detectives,” Jack Meyer said, sitting in his chair at the head of the conference room table. “I hope we have more going for us by now.”
“Saw your press conference, boss,” Danny said. “You were born to be on television.”
“Fuck off, Fitzpatrick. I don’t need your smart mouth today. Or any day for that matter but especially not today.” He waited for Tessa and Danny to take their seats. “What do you know about Max Fugate?”
“He was gay,” Tessa said.
Jack raised his eyebrows. “Like Torrance,” he said. “Maybe this is the link we’ve been looking for. What else?”
“He loved his job at the hospital,” Danny said. “Loved living in Fairbanks and never considered moving anywhere else. He was close to his family and had a new boyfriend named Kris Anderson who works as a paramedic over at the Crest Street station. We just came from talking to him but he couldn’t tell us anything more than what Fugate’s sister already had. We checked in with his colleagues at the hospital too. Everyone says the same thing. Fugate was a nice mild-mannered guy and a great surgeon. Also a good athlete who prided himself on being fit.”
“You mentioned Torrance looked fit when you saw him running before the fire.”
Danny nodded. “He did. Ran like an athlete. So they were both gay and they were both athletes. That about sums up what we know as far as any link between the two of them.”
“I think the gay link is the one worth pursuing,” Tessa said. “Have there been any other attacks on gays recently? Anti-gay activist meetings maybe?”
Jack shook his head. “Not that I’ve heard about.”
“Has there been any more from Jennifer Higgins about the letter?”
“No. There’s nothing on that letter that can help us. She and her boss have agreed to keep it out of the news for now. But they’ll be off and running with our two victims starting tonight. In fact they’ve already got it all over their site.”
“Well we weren’t going to be able to keep it hidden forever. The exposure might be a good thing anyway. Maybe someone who knows something about one or both of them will see the story and contact us with something that could help us out,” Danny said.
“Why don’t you two try to see what you can find out about anti-gay groups in the city?” Jack said. “He glanced at the clock on the wall behind his two detectives. “Christ, this has been a long day. That can wait. Go home and get some rest.”
“Where are we with the cause of the fires, sir?” Danny asked.
“Rizzo is going over everything again with a fine-toothed comb. He can’t find shit and still doesn’t know how the fire at the game started or what may have been used to set Max Fugate on fire.”
“You know he’s ready to kill himself, having all this happen right before he’s set to retire,” Tessa said.
“I know he is and I don’t give a shit. He’s not retired yet and he needs to find something for us to work with.”
“It might not be his fault, sir,” Danny said. “Maybe whoever is doing this has some way of starting fires we don’t know about yet.”
“What is that supposed to mean? You think somebody invented a new way to start a fire?”
“Could be.”
“Don’t go buying trouble, Fitzpatrick. You don’t think we have enough already? I don’t want to hear any of your whacked out theories.” He held up his hand to silence Danny before he could speak. “And yes I’m aware that your theories turned out to be right up in the Arctic. We’ll all aware. But that doesn’t mean you can pull nonsense out of your ass now.” Jack shook his head. “A new way to start a fire that nobody’s ever heard of? Are you serious with this shit?”
“Just an idea,” Danny said. “We can’t find any traditional cause so….”
“So Rizzo will keep working on it and he’ll find a cause soon enough. You two please, just go home and get some rest. You're booked on a flight to Anchorage in the morning so you can meet with Nick Torrance's partner. Maybe for once we'll get lucky and this guy can give us the magic link between Torrance and Fugate. But odds are it’s just going to be yet another shitty day so you might as well get some rest while you can.”
Danny gave a mock salute as he walked to the door of the conference room. “Aye, aye, Captain,” he said, ducking out of the room before the wadded up ball of paper his boss threw his way could hit him in the head.
****
Jamie sat at his desk and impatiently clicked through the local news sites to read all he could about the reactions to his fires. The night shift couldn’t have suited him more since he could now count on even more solitude. He could find out all he wanted to without having to worry about interruptions from his supervisor or colleagues. Everything he was finding out so far was even more entertaining than he expected.
His victims had both been identified and while the name Max Fugate was nothing new to him the identity of his second victim was intriguing. For one, he couldn't believe his luck that he'd managed to pick a visitor to the city while searching for someone to burn at the baseball game. The fact that Nick Torrance was from Anchorage would surely help confound the police more than he had dared hope. But the truly fun revelation about Nick Torrance was that he was gay.
Jamie had known Max Fugate was gay when he'd chosen him, as everyone at the hospital did, but that hadn't had anything to do with his selection. He'd merely wanted a jogger who enjoyed jogging at night while relatively few people were around. He’d started following Fugate after he’d been on the same elevator as the surgeon and heard him talking to a colleague about how much he loved jogging in Griffin Park at night. So it was merely a delightful coincidence that Nick Torrance turned out to be gay as well. Jamie loved coincidences. And this unexpected link convinced him even more that his plan was meant to be carried it out.
To his dismay, there was nothing in the news about his letters. He figured the police would keep their letter under wraps, but he had obviously guessed wrong about Jennifer Higgins. He'd been certain she would jump on the letter and use it for one of her crime features. He wondered how the police had convinced her to keep it to herself. Regardless, he was angry that he'd misjudged her, but that wasn't what he wanted to focus on now. There was too much to be happy about.
The police were sure to jump on the gay connection between his two victims. Jamie tried to imagine their conversations about the issue and chuckled a bit as he thought of the various detectives and investigators he had seen at the baseball game. He remembered the clueless cop who had questioned him and asked if he’d noticed anything suspicious at the park before the fire started.
He imagined that cop and his colleagues wondering if Jamie was an anti-gay zealot out to spread his message that homosexuality was a sin. Jamie could have some fun with this. The opportunity was too good to pass up.
****
