“I’m not asking you to trust me. If you find evidence that points to me, so be it. But you won’t, because I didn’t do it. Look, I know what kind of woman you are, Serena. Once a cop, always a cop. You want to be in on this investigation, and I’m offering you the chance to dive into it. And get paid handsomely for your time.”
Serena wanted to say no, but Peter was right.
“Why Finn?” she asked. “Why not ask me to take a look at the black guy? Dada?”
“Lawyers look for weaknesses. Finn’s the weak link.”
“In other words, you’d prefer that Dada remains a mystery.”
“Anyone who’s a suspect in this case wants Dada to stay a mystery,” Peter admitted. “He’s a get-out-of-jail-free card. As long as no one knows where he is, no one can prove beyond a reasonable doubt who really killed Laura.”
Serena shook her head. “I’d make a lousy defense lawyer. I’d always be wondering if my client was guilty.”
“Sometimes you don’t want to know.”
“I do. I want to know.”
Peter unlocked the trunk of the Lexus. “I told you I was going to take a leap of faith. This is how much I want you to believe me.” He reached inside the trunk and extracted a narrow box, about four feet long and six inches wide. The tape holding it closed was crusted and yellow. Serena saw a single word written on the box in black marker.
DESTROY.
“What is this?” she asked.
Peter handed her the box. It was solid and heavy.
“You were right about Ray Wallace,” he said. “He conspired with my father to steer the case away from me. Randall wanted Ray to put it all on Dada.”
“What did Ray do?”
“He dropped the case. Later, he arranged for some of the key pieces of evidence to vanish from the police file. I think Randall figured someone might try to open up the case again someday, and he wanted a guarantee. So Ray destroyed most of the physical evidence. But not this. Randall insisted on keeping this himself. I think he knew it gave him leverage if Ray ever got a guilty conscience.”
“What is it?” Serena asked again.
“It’s the murder weapon,” Peter said. “It’s the baseball bat. The one that was used to kill Laura.”
29
The hospital ward was like a church, where every voice disturbed the silence. Even the noise of Stride’s heels echoing between the walls felt as loud as fireworks. The corridor was dim. Most of the patients were sleeping through the late evening hours. He stopped at the nurse’s station and was directed to a room near the end of the hallway.
He watched Finn Mathisen from the doorway but didn’t go inside. The man’s face, always pallid and yellow, looked like ash now. His eyes were closed. His forearms were bundled in white bandages up to his elbows. An intravenous line dripped fluid into the flesh of his right shoulder. He was stable now and almost ready to be discharged, but in Stride’s eyes, he still looked like death. People in hospital beds always did.
If Stride had not gone into that bathroom, or if he had arrived even five minutes later, Finn would already be dead. That didn’t stop him from feeling guilty that he and Maggie had hounded Finn with their questions until he chose to escape by attempting suicide.
The question was-escape from what? From the guilt of stalking Mary Biggs to her death? Or from the guilt of beating Laura to death?
Or both?
If Finn had succeeded, he would have taken the answers with him. Finn dying would have been exactly like Dada jumping on that train. The investigation would have shut down again, and suspicion would have landed like a bird of prey on Finn’s dead body. Rightly or wrongly.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Stride turned and found Rikke Mathisen behind him. She clutched a cup of hospital coffee in her hand, and steam curled out of the brown liquid. She was tall; they were almost eye to eye. Her face was hard with rage. She pushed past Stride into the hospital room and tugged the flimsy curtain, blocking Finn from Stride’s sight.
“I said, what are you doing here?” she hissed again.
“I wanted to check on Finn.”
Rikke pointed her finger like an arrow out of the room. At the end of the corridor was a small waiting area, with dreadful orange sofas, out-of-date family magazines, and an overhead thirteen-inch television suspended from the ceiling. No one was there. The television was off. Stride went to the tall window and looked out on the main street of Superior below him. Rikke followed. She wore an oversized sweatshirt and jeans.
“You are not to come near him,” she insisted. “You are not to talk to him. Is that clear? I’ve hired a lawyer. We are through with you, starting now.”
“How is Finn?”
“Alive,” she snapped.
“I hear he’s going home tomorrow. I’m glad he’s okay.”
“He’s not okay.”
“I’m sorry about what happened.”
Rikke’s eyes were two blue stones. “Spare me. You knew perfectly well what kind of a man Finn is. He’s an addict, for Christ’s sake. An alcoholic. You deliberately went and pushed him over the edge. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Stride said.
“You’ve put salve on your conscience by coming here, Lieutenant. Now go home. Get away from me and my brother.”
Rikke sat down, grabbed a dated copy of People, and flipped the pages savagely.
“You knew about Finn peeping teenage girls,” Stride said.
“I have nothing to say.”
“A girl died.”
“That’s not Finn’s fault.”
“I think you know it is. You destroyed evidence, didn’t you? Our search team said someone burned papers in Finn’s room. The hard drive of his computer was missing. If he’s mentally ill, you’re not helping him by covering up what he did.”
Rikke slapped the magazine shut. “Finn does not belong in prison. He belongs with me. I can take care of him.”
“You can’t control him,” Stride said. “Isn’t that obvious? He’ll start all over again when he gets home. We both know it. What if another girl dies? How will you feel then?”
“Finn would never hurt anyone.”
“No? What about Laura?”
“I told you, he wasn’t there that night. He had nothing to do with it. He was with me. At home.”