The parking lot was filled with cars left by delivery drivers for the day. Vans and trucks backed up to docks around him, loading and unloading. The company substation was less than a mile from the Duluth airport, making it easy to feed packages to outbound flights. He heard the thunder of a jet overhead, which he knew was the evening Northwest flight from the Twin Cities. It would suck up passengers and cargo and then roar back south.
A dirty yellow van rumbled off the highway. Stride caught a glimpse of the driver and recognized the narrow face and shaved head of Finn Mathisen. Finn didn’t see him. Stride waited while Finn backed up his truck to an open dock and watched him clamber out of the truck, climb the steps of the platform, and disappear inside the building. Even from twenty yards away, Stride could see that Finn’s uniform was soiled from a day in the heat. These were the days in Duluth that leached away everyone’s energy.
Stride waited half an hour before Finn strutted out of the building’s front door. He had showered and changed and was now wearing cutoffs that made his legs look like matchsticks and a gray tank top with gaping sleeve holes. He wore old sneakers with no socks.
“Finn,” Stride called.
He pushed off his Expedition and met Finn where the sidewalk ended and the parking lot began. Finn was three inches taller than Stride, but he looked as if he would blow away when the wind came off the lake.
“Who are you?” Finn asked. His eyes danced nervously.
Stride introduced himself. When Finn heard the word “police,” he shuffled his weight from one foot to the other and stared over Stride’s shoulder at the row of parked cars as if he wanted to bolt. Mint breathed out of Finn’s mouth like fire from a dragon.
“You got a date tonight, Finn?” Stride asked.
“Huh? No. What do you mean?”
“You’ve got sweet breath. Like you brushed your teeth fifty or sixty times.”
“I have halitosis, and I need to use those breath strips,” Finn said.
Stride nodded. “It’s funny, when traffic cops smell mint, they immediately think DUI. You wouldn’t be late because you stopped for a couple cold ones at a bar, would you?”
Finn glanced back over his shoulder at the company door. “Hell, no.”
“I’ve got a Breathalyzer in the car,” Stride told him. “You want to have a go at it?”
“I wasn’t drinking!”
“Okay, Finn. Whatever you say. I have some questions for you.”
“Yeah, my sister told me you came by the house. She said you were asking about Laura’s murder.”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. It was thirty years ago. It was a shitty time in my life.”
“Is your life any better now?” Stride asked, eyeing the man from top to bottom. Tish was right. He looked as if he were dying.
Finn flinched. “Yeah, all right, I’ve spent my life sitting in a park with God flying overhead crapping on me. Is that what you want to hear? I’m a loser.”
“What I want to hear is whether you told Tish the truth.”
“Man, what do you care? I mean, what are you after? Everyone from back then is old or dead.”
That was true. Stride didn’t really have an answer. He hadn’t asked himself why he cared so passionately about this case, thirty years after Ray Wallace called it solved. It wasn’t about Tish. It wasn’t about Pat Burns asking him to turn over rocks, in case the national press started asking questions. He had begun to realize that Laura’s murder had changed the course of his life, and it was disturbing to discover that he knew much less about the case-and about Laura-than he had ever believed.
“If the guy who killed Laura is alive, then he still has a debt to pay,” Stride said.
“You don’t need to be behind bars to pay a price. You think living with something like that for thirty years doesn’t eat you up?”
“Is there something you feel guilty about?” Stride asked.
Finn swallowed hard. “I just want to go home. I don’t want to get involved.”
“Talk to me, Finn.”
“I already told the whole story to Tish.”
“I don’t like getting stories secondhand. Tell me again.”
Finn rubbed sweat off his bald head. “All right, all right.” He repeated his memories of the night Laura was killed in the park, which followed the story as Tish had recounted it. He skimmed over the details, but Stride let him continue without interrupting him. Finn ended with his claim that Dada had followed Laura into the woods, leaving the bat in the softball field.
“Is it possible you misunderstood what was happening between Laura and the boy in the field?” Stride asked.
“What do you mean, misunderstood?”
“Maybe they weren’t fighting. Maybe they were making out.”
Finn shook his head. “No way.”
“You’re certain that the black guy, Dada, left the baseball bat in the field?” Stride asked.
“Yeah.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I saw him throw it away, okay?”
“What else do you remember?” Stride asked.
“Nothing. I don’t remember a thing.”
Stride watched Finn’s eyes. The man was lying.
“You told Tish there are gaps in your memory,” Stride said.
“There are gaps in my life,” Finn replied.
“Sometimes people aren’t sure what’s real and what’s a dream, you know what I mean? Are there things like that?”
“I said I don’t remember, okay? Nothing means nothing.”
But it didn’t. Finn was keeping something from him. Stride was sure of it.
“Why were you following Laura?” he asked.
“I liked her.”
“Did you follow her to the park?”
“No, she wandered by. Her and her sister.”
“Did you know someone was stalking Laura? Threatening her? Sending her obscene messages?”
“No,” Finn replied.
“It wasn’t you?”
“No, I wouldn’t do that. All I did was follow her.”
“You knew Laura pretty well, didn’t you? Why not tell her you were there? Why spy on her?”