“What?”
Colleen leaned forward and whispered. She licked his ear while she did. “But you’re right, you know. You have good taste. Cat is the most beautiful girl ever.”
Wyatt sprang off the sofa. He yanked at his beard with one hand as he paced. “What the hell is wrong with you today?”
“Nothing is wrong with me. I’m happy. I’m getting everything I want.”
Colleen stared at Wyatt through a mellow haze. She got off the sofa and did a little pirouette on the floor, and then she picked up the heavy ashtray from the coffee table and held it up so that the colors shone. “I made this in high school. Isn’t it pretty? It was supposed to be a gift. I made it for someone in my math class that I had this huge crush on. But I was too shy in those days to give it to them. I’m much better now.”
“You’re out of control. You need to come down.” Then he stopped, as if a new thought had popped into his head. “Hey, wait a minute. How did you and Cat get into my apartment?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said you and Cat went into my apartment, and Cat found a box under my bed. How the heck did you get in?”
Colleen giggled. “I have a key, silly.”
“What? No, you don’t.”
“Sure, I do. You gave me one.”
“I gave you a key so you could wait for a delivery, but then you gave it back to me.”
She laughed dismissively and waved her hand through the air. “Oh, that! I made a copy of the key before I gave it back to you. I figured it would come in handy someday. And I was right, it sure did.”
She laughed again, watching Wyatt struggle to figure it all out. He was so stupid! So stupid and slow! But even dumb boys caught on eventually. Wyatt’s face got this wonderful, horrified look as he put the pieces together of what she was saying. He glanced down at the coffee table and saw her sketch pad lying there, and Colleen just laughed and laughed as Wyatt picked it up and saw the sketch she’d drawn, the erotic, beautiful sketch of Cat in the nude. Just a few lines and shadows capturing the love of Colleen’s life. The girl she’d been obsessed with for years.
Lines and shadows drawn with the fine tip of a lime-green marker.
Wyatt ran for the door, but she’d expected that. She was waiting for it. She swung the heavy ashtray right into the back of his head and dropped him where he stood. He crumpled face down on the linoleum and moaned. He was dazed but not unconscious. Blood oozed through his dreadlocks, as if all the snakes had just enjoyed a meal. Languidly, as if she were walking on a cloud, Colleen went into her bedroom and retrieved the Amazon box that she’d put back under her own bed. If she’d had time, she would have caressed the photos, the way she did every day. But that could wait. She got the gun. She’d reloaded it after the morning at Hawk Ridge. She took a pillow from her bed, too, white and soft, filled with goose feathers.
Wyatt had made it to his hands and knees and was trying to crawl away, but she put a foot on his ass and pushed, and he collapsed back to his stomach.
Colleen wandered to her apartment door, opened it, and looked outside. The hallway was empty and quiet. No one was around. She closed the door again and took her phone and cued a song to her speakers. “Stray Cat Strut.” The name made her laugh. She turned up the volume as high as it could go and began singing along. Then she knelt beside Wyatt and put the pillow over the back of his head and shoved the barrel of the gun deep into the goose down.
“Meow,” Colleen said.
She fired into Wyatt’s head.
26
“Kathy Ford?” Maggie said, when the woman answered the door. “My name is Sergeant Maggie Bei with the Duluth Police. I believe you talked to Lieutenant Stride and Detective Serena Stride yesterday, and I was hoping you could answer a few more questions for me.”
The woman smiled politely at her. “Well, look at me. I’m so popular with the police all of a sudden. My neighbors are going to start to wonder.”
“This won’t take long,” Maggie told her.
“Is this still about what happened at the house? About the party?”
“In part.”
Kathy frowned. “Well, I told Jonathan that I didn’t want to get involved. I still don’t. I’m afraid there’s no gold star for trying to do the right thing anymore. If you get involved in a political controversy, it’s like an invitation to have your life ruined. It’s bad enough what they do to victims who come forward, but if you’re a witness, you can expect the same treatment. I was sort of a wild child back then, Sergeant. There are plenty of things from those days that I wouldn’t want to see out in public.”
“I understand that,” Maggie replied, “and if a thirty-year-old accusation were the only thing at stake here, I might not need to bother you. But there’s more. I’m investigating a murder.”
“I don’t see how I can help you with that,” Kathy said, but then she sighed and opened the door. “However, I’ll tell you whatever I can. Come on in.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re about to be assaulted, by the way.”
“What?”
“My dog,” the woman said with a smile.
Maggie followed Kathy Ford into the house’s living room, which faced the street. The woman was right about the assault. A golden retriever galloped into the room and greeted Maggie with a wildly wagging tail, and she was forced to spend several minutes on the floor petting the dog. When she was finally able to take a seat on a sofa and wipe the slobber from her pants, she checked out the open floor plan of the Ford house. The living room and dining room led directly into the kitchen, and the kitchen gave way to a family room at the back. She tried to imagine the space filled with drunk young people and the walls shaking to the beat of Aerosmith.
From where she sat, she could also see stairs with worn carpeting leading to the second floor bedrooms. That was where Devin and Andrea would have slipped away.
And then what happened?
That was the question.
“The house hasn’t changed,” Kathy said, reading her mind. “Even the furniture was the same when I moved back in after my parents died. I’m trying to remodel, but my budget doesn’t go very far.”
“You grew up here?”
“Yes.”
“Are you married, Ms. Ford? Do you have kids?”
“I was married for a long time, but not anymore. I have a son and a daughter. They’re both in college now.”
“I understand you knew Lieutenant Stride’s first wife, Cindy.”
“I did. Cindy and I were good friends a long, long time ago. It was shocking to lose her so young. I’m glad to see Jonathan has bounced back from the loss. Some people never get over those things.”
“It took him a long time,” Maggie said, without going into detail.
“His new wife is beautiful.”
“Yes, she is.”
“Well, how can I help you?” Kathy asked. “You said you’re investigating a murder, and I assume you mean that reporter whose body was found recently. As I say, I really don’t know what I can tell you. I told Jonathan that none of the reporters who were looking into the allegations about Devin ever came to my door. That includes the man who was killed. I never talked to anybody.”
“I realize that, but I’m pretty sure that someone talked to Ned Baer — someone who had actual knowledge about the party that happened here. Whoever it is may know something that would be helpful in our investigation.”
Kathy’s dog curled up around her feet, and she reached down and scratched his head. “I’m afraid I have no idea who it could be.”