“I wish you’d shared your suspicions with us,” Maggie said.
King’s face screwed up with anger. “What are you talking about? I told the Duluth Police exactly what I’m telling you now. You were the ones insisting it was an accident, that Ned drowned in some river. I never believed that.”
Dan shot a glance at Maggie. “Ms. King, do you remember who you talked to at the Duluth Police?”
“Sure I do,” she replied. “I wrote it down. It was a police lieutenant named Jonathan Stride.”
15
Stride found Andrea’s sister, Denise, smoking outside the fence that bordered the runway at the Duluth airport. Crisp air blew across the hillside, making the long grass flutter. An F-16 from the National Guard unit was lined up for takeoff, and Stride waited to approach her until after the jet screamed into the air with a roar that he could feel under his feet like an earthquake. As the waves of noise faded, he crossed to the fence, and smoke from the woman’s cigarette enveloped him.
He only met Denise a couple of times when he and Andrea were married, but he recognized her immediately, despite the years in between. Unlike Andrea, Denise had inherited the Forseth family height. She was several inches taller than Andrea and three years older, making her nearly fifty. Denise didn’t color her hair; it was gray and short. Her physique was lean, with leathery skin heavily inked with tattoos. She wore a loose black T-shirt over camouflage cargo pants and work boots. Wire-rimmed sunglasses covered her eyes.
Two sisters who’d grown up in the same household couldn’t be more dissimilar.
“Hello, Denise,” he said.
She looked at him when she heard his voice. “Stride. What do you want?”
“Andrea told me you moved back to Duluth this year.”
“So what are you, the rep for the welcome wagon?”
“I just wanted to talk,” he said.
“Well, I’m not really interested in talking to you, Stride. You’re not exactly one of my favorite people, given what you did to my sister.”
“I understand that. I hurt Andrea, and I won’t pretend otherwise.”
“Do you expect to get points for honesty?”
“No.”
She whipped off her sunglasses. Heavy bags sagged under her blue eyes. “Why’d you do it?”
“What?”
“Why’d you cheat on her?”
“I’m not sure how to answer that,” he admitted. “I fell for someone else, and I made a mistake. Things between me and Andrea were bad, but that doesn’t excuse it. I know that.”
Denise put her sunglasses back on. She inhaled deeply on her cigarette, then coughed raggedly. “Well, if it makes you feel better, I’m a hypocrite to be blaming you.”
“How so?”
“I cheated, too. A lot. Repeatedly, in fact. My husband finally got sick of it and threw me out.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, he was no prize, either. I wanted custody of our daughter, and he said, sure, fine, take her. Father of the year, that one. So Lexi and I moved back here. Thirty years away, but Duluth is still home.”
“You left the Air Force?” Stride asked.
“Years ago. I put in my twenty.” She gestured at the runway. “Sometimes I still miss it, though. I like to come up here and watch the jets.”
“I went to your house. Your daughter told me you’d probably be here.”
Denise turned around and leaned against the fence. She bent one leg and propped her boot against the mesh. “So why’d you want to talk to me?”
“Has Andrea told you what’s going on?” Stride asked.
“About that body being found? Ned Baer? Yeah. She called me. Is she a suspect in the murder?”
“Actually, right now, the top suspect is probably me.”
Her thin lips curled into a smile. “I heard that, too. Did you do it?”
“No.”
“Too bad. Sounds like that asshole deserved what he got.”
“I have to ask, do you know why Ned Baer was interested in Andrea?”
Denise tossed her cigarette butt to the ground and put her boot down and crushed it. “You mean, do I know about her and Devin Card? Yeah.”
“Did she tell you about the assault when it happened?”
“Back then? No. She never said a word. I didn’t have a clue.”
“When did she tell you?”
Andrea’s sister sighed and lit another cigarette. “Seven years ago, I got a strange call from her. She was asking me about the summer before I left for basic training. She made it sound casual, sort of nostalgic, but she was asking about parties we went to and where they were and who was there and what I remembered. I don’t know, it sounded forced. I didn’t think much about it, but then a few weeks later, I saw the news about Devin. Someone made an anonymous accusation that he raped a girl at a party that summer in Duluth. I put two and two together. I called Andrea and asked if she was the one behind the allegation, and she admitted it.”
“Did you tell anyone else about it?” Stride asked.
“Not a soul.”
“Do you know if Andrea told anyone else?”
“About being the one to make the accusation? I doubt it. She said our parents were the only ones who knew about the rape back then. She told them a few weeks after it happened, but my parents would have thought their daughter being raped was too shameful to admit to anyone. I’m sure they encouraged her not to talk to the police. Anyway, they’re both dead, and I imagine they took it to their graves.” Denise folded her arms across her chest. “Why are you asking me all this anyway?”
“I’m trying to figure out how Ned Baer found Andrea and who else knew the truth about her. That might give me a clue about who killed him.”
“You think Andrea did it, don’t you?”
“Actually, I don’t,” Stride replied. “On the other hand, I know it wasn’t me, and Andrea was desperate to keep the secret concealed. But as far as I knew, she didn’t have a gun. I don’t think she even knew how to fire one.”
Denise was quiet as he said this. He saw an uncomfortable expression on her face, and then she said, “Actually, that’s not true.”
“What?”
“Andrea knows how to shoot. Sometimes when I came home on leave, I’d take her to the range. I made her get a gun, too, for protection. That was long before the two of you met. She was single and living alone.” Then Denise rushed on before Stride could say anything more. “But if you’re asking if I think she killed him, the answer is no.”
“Did she talk to you at all about Ned Baer?”
“Yeah. She called me in Miami, and she was pretty freaked out about him. She said this reporter knew it was her; she said he’d broken into her house and seen all of her private records. But she never said a word to me about killing him.”
“Would she?”
Denise shrugged. “Probably not.”
“What about the summer when she says she was assaulted? What do you remember from back then?”
“Come on, Stride. That was thirty years ago.”
“I know, but whatever happened was important enough that it led to murder years later.”
Denise waited through the roar of another plane taking off. Then she stared at the sky, as if she could clear her head and bring the memories back. “Andrea talked about a party crawl that summer. If that’s when she was raped, I’m pretty sure I know when it was. I was heading out to basic in a few days, so that night was kind of a last hurrah with my friends. Go to a big concert, get drunk, stay out all night, whatever. I encouraged Andrea to come with us. She didn’t go out very often, never did anything except run her science experiments. I pushed her to have some fun. If something bad happened to her that night, I feel responsible.”
“If?” Stride asked. “Are you not sure she’s telling the truth?”