"What about time of death?" Stride asked.
"She's been in the drink for several days. I don't think we'll ever know exactly how long. That should make Archie Gale happy."
"There's nothing to tie Maggie into this, is there?"
"Just that her husband was mixed up with Tanjy, and he's dead, too."
"To me, it says there might be more to Eric's death than meets the eye," Stride said.
"Yeah? You're big on theories, Lieutenant. Try this one on. Maggie and Tanjy had a big fight over her affair with Eric. Tanjy wound up dead. Maggie called Eric to help her get rid of the body. Eric had a fit of conscience and wanted to call the cops. Maggie killed him."
"You don't have a shred of evidence to back that up."
"Not yet, I don't, but I'm just saying you don't have to think real hard to tie these cases together."
Stride knew the argument was getting them nowhere. "How about the fish house? What have you got there?"
"Two kids found the body. They were screwing around when Tanjy popped up. The fish house belongs to the boy's dad, but the ev techs don't think Tanjy was dumped from there. She could have gone in anywhere around the lake and drifted up here. People leave these shanties unlocked and don't visit them for weeks."
"You'll never get a warrant to search every house on the lake," Stride said.
"I know, the best we can do is knock on doors. Maybe someone saw something."
Stride knew that without a time of death or a crime scene to mine for forensic evidence, it was going to be a tough case to solve. "If I can help you, call me. I mean that."
"Don't take this the wrong way, Lieutenant. If you want to help me, stay out of my way."
Teitscher turned into the wind and walked away. His foot slipped on the ice, and he fell to one knee. Pushing himself up, he shouted at one of the uniforms on the scene, and Stride saw the cop, who was a good kid, cringe. The only way Teitscher knew how to get things done was to bark in someone's face. He was a hard case who wasn't going to change.
Stride heard a faint buzz of music and realized his cell phone was ringing. He pulled it out of the inside pocket of his leather jacket and heard the Alabama song in his head. I'm in a hurry and don't know why.
He walked toward his truck as he answered. "Stride."
It was Maggie. "I need to see you. It's urgent."
"What's going on?"
"I don't want to do this over the phone," she said.
"Wherever you go, you'll have company. We can't be seen together."
"Leave that to me. I'll be alone."
Stride wasn't going to say no to her. "Let's do it late. Eleven o'clock."
"Where?"
"The high school parking lot. Up on the hill."
"Thanks, boss."
"You've left me in the dark on this," Stride told her. "You're hiding things from me."
"I know. I'm sorry." There was a long stretch of dead air, and then Maggie said, "Is it true about Tanjy? Have you found her body?"
"It's true."
Maggie expelled her breath as if she had been holding it. "There's something you need to know, but just you, not Teitscher."
"What is it?"
"Tanjy wasn't lying about the rape," Maggie told him quickly.
"What?"
"I'm telling you, it really happened."
"No way." He thought about the fantasies on Tanjy's computer and the explicit details of her sex life provided by Mitchell Brandt. "Tanjy told me flat-out that she made the whole thing up."
"I know how it sounds, boss. I didn't believe her myself, but I was wrong."
"How the hell can you be so sure?"
The silence this time was so long he thought he had lost the call. When he heard Maggie's voice, it didn't sound like Maggie at all.
"Because it happened to me, too."
22
He left the van in a deserted lot at the far end of the Point and hiked over the wooded slope to the lake. The roiled water and the thin strip of ice and sand stretched out before him toward the hazy lights of the city. When he emerged from the trees, a ferocious, twisting wind deadened his face. He pulled his wool cap down to become a mask and viewed the beach through slitted eyes. Inside his gloves and boots, he kept heat packs to keep his hands and feet limber and warm. He tucked his chin into his neck and hiked along the bumpy ice shelf, his coat doused by bitter spray as the waves assaulted the shore.
He was alone. The mile-long walk to Serena's house was cold and hard. The houses were indistinguishable without the brightness of the moon and largely hidden by the skeletons of trees. He knew where to veer west off the beach when he came upon the twin pieces of driftwood he had left as a marker earlier in the day. He followed the trodden-down path up through the wild rye and picked his way to the edge of the trees, where he was only a few yards from the rear door of the cottage. He waited there, invisible. The house was dark. The concrete driveway to the street was empty.
He allowed himself a maximum of five minutes inside and set a vibrating timer in his rear pocket. He glanced at the fences on either side of the narrow lot and marched down to the rear screen door, which was open. He left his boots on the porch, where his footprints were lost in the matted snow. In his wool winter socks, he crept through the porch to the back door, shone a penlight on the lock, and let himself inside in a few seconds.
Her smell was everywhere. It was the first time he had been close enough to inhale her aroma again. He allowed himself a moment to savor it. To him, that smell was all about dry heat, sweat, and soft flesh. He felt young. He felt reborn and powerful.
His first stop was in the living room. He didn't even need thirty seconds to choose a location, secrete the bug, and test the signal strength. The next stop was their bedroom. He had hoped to plant a Web cam, but he surveyed the white walls and knew there was nowhere that the equipment wouldn't be seen. He settled for a second bug and affixed it behind the beams of their headboard.
He was outside again before the timer went off. He scouted the rear of the house and attached a signal booster behind one of the aluminum downspouts, which would give him at least two miles of transmission. From inside the van in the park a mile away, he could listen.
Back in the woods, he waited for her. The cold made him stamp his feet. It was never this cold in the South. He didn't know how people lived here. It almost made him yearn for the soul-draining humidity of Alabama. His toes grew numb as time wore on, and finally, he saw headlights sweep across the driveway as Serena pulled in and parked. His muscles tensed. He watched her climb out and go inside the house, unaware of his presence. He slipped a receiver inside his ear and heard her footsteps and the rustle of her clothes as she removed her coat. When she got close to the bug, he heard her breathing.
He half-wondered whether, at some level, she smelled him in the house, too, as he had smelled her inside, like a rumor at the back of her mind. A flashback, a memory.
He slipped out from behind the trees and made his way to her car, keeping an eye on the cottage windows. Where they were lit, she couldn't see out, but he froze when he saw her pass in front of the glass and gaze toward him. Their eyes met, as they had so many times when he was watching her. She passed into another room.
He bent down under her car and positioned the GPS transmitter, then got up and retreated to the beach without looking back. The receiver was still in his ear. He listened to her as he retraced his route toward the van. In the bedroom, he heard her humming as she undressed. He heard the jangle of the loops on her gold belt. Nearby, the water of the shower ran. He pictured her naked body, saw her skin under his hands.
His cell phone buzzed on his thigh. He was annoyed by the distraction and did a quick survey of the beach to confirm he was alone. He pulled out the phone and recognized the number. Reluctantly, he shut down the receiver in his ear.