“Have to warm up for that,” the janitor said, looking out at the clear sky. It was the first time I’d heard that it could be too cold to allow precipitation. Late that night, I’d looked out my window to where an ice-colored moon glowed in the airless reaches of the sky, and wondered how I had ever come to live in a place where it could get too cold to snow.
More than anything, it was basketball that turned things around, in my freshman year of high school. I didn’t have any feeling for the sport, other than having thrown a ball at a dilapidated netless hoop a few times in New Mexico. But Ginny suggested that I try out, and I was too apathetic to refuse her anything, so I did.
I never try to explain to people what basketball was to me; it’d come out sounding like inspirational sports-movie clichés. It wasn’t just that it was my first experience of being part of a larger unit, an understanding that I’d bring to cop work. It was as simple as this: after a year of numbness, in which I’d had no adolescent hungers, basketball gave me something to want. Halfway through the season, I started showing up early for practice, doing box jumps to strengthen my calf muscles and shuttle drills for agility, running after school for stamina. As I did, I’d felt a tension ease in my chest that had been there so long I hadn’t even recognized it.
“I was worried about you last year,” Ginny told me.
“I know,” I’d said. “I’m okay.”
It remained my habit to this day, taking my anxieties to the gym. Glad for the old T-shirt and shorts I kept in the trunk of the Nova, I went there now. But after I’d changed in the women’s locker room and gone upstairs, I stopped in the doorway of the cardio room, seeing a familiar form. Gray Diaz was running on the treadmill at a pretty good clip. I felt a reaction flush under my skin, but he was looking down at the machine’s readout. He hadn’t seen me yet.
I turned and went down the stairs. It didn’t matter, I told myself. I’d go out for a run tomorrow morning, when it was cool.
“You shouldn’t let him chase you off.”
A voice as low-timbred as a radio announcer’s stopped me by the locker-room door. I turned and looked around. There was nobody that Deputy Stone could have been talking to but me.
Jason Stone was 26, tall, and handsome. He had a smooth, low voice, and fluttered some pulses among the unmarried women in the department. He had recently been cleared of wrongdoing in an excessive-force complaint.
“I’m sorry?” I said.
“Gray Diaz,” Stone said. “I know who he is. Don’t let him get to you.”
The correct response, if there was one, wouldn’t come to me.
“Detective Pribek… may I call you Sarah?” he asked, solicitous. “I just wanted to tell you that a lot of us are behind you,” he said.
“Behind me on what?” I said.
“What you did in Blue Earth,” he said.
“I didn’t do anything in Blue Earth,” I said. “Whatever you heard, you heard wrong.”
“Royce Stewart needed to take a dirt nap,” he said. His voice sounded extremely reasonable. “That a guy like Diaz would try to come up here and further his career on it, at your expense- Sarah, that’s reprehensible to a lot of us.”
“I don’t think you heard me,” I said. “I didn’t do anything in Blue Earth.”
“I know,” Stone said, his expression saying we both knew better. “Keep your head up.”
I stayed in the shower and the locker room as long as possible, and then left as quickly as I could. I’d had enough of running into co-workers for one night.
That wasn’t, though, how it worked out.
I drove to Surdyk’s, a liquor store in the East Hennepin district, where I aimlessly cruised the aisles until I decided on a marked-down Australian cabernet. It was when I was walking back through the parking lot that Christian Kilander stepped out between two parked cars and into my path.
“Detective Pribek,” he said, recovering smoothly from the surprise.
It occurred to me that I’d never seen him off duty before, not like this. He wore good suits to work, and tank shirts and shorts to the basketball courts, but tonight he was wearing slightly faded jeans and a cream-colored shirt.
“How have you been?” I said awkwardly.
“Pretty well, thanks,” he said. “And you?”
“Fine,” I said. “You know, I saw you the other day.”
“You did?” he said.
“With Gray Diaz.”
I didn’t know exactly why I was bringing it up. Perhaps it stung just a little, imagining Kilander to be friendly with this man who’d come to the Cities to nail me for something I didn’t do.
“I know him,” Kilander acknowledged.
“He’s a friend of yours?” I asked.
Kilander held up a palm. “I don’t think I want to be in this conversation.” He started moving away from the gleaming black hindquarter of his BMW and toward the store.
“What?” I said blankly. “Chris.”
He turned, or half turned, to face me.
“You can’t seriously think I was working up to asking for inside information. Do you?” I demanded.
He said nothing.
“For God’s sake, I didn’t seek you out last winter. It was you who came to me, to tell me I was a suspect.”
“Yes, I did.” Kilander’s eyes, so often amused and ironic, were serious. “And I expected you to deny being the person responsible for Stewart’s death. You never did.” He turned away.
“I didn’t think I had to,” I said, to his retreating form.
Back in my car, I sat for a moment, looking out at the post-sunset sky. I’d been trying to ask Kilander how he knew Diaz, that was all. I wouldn’t have asked for inside information. Would I?
I realized that I couldn’t say for sure. I was more afraid of Gray Diaz than I had been letting on, even to myself.
How could Kilander think I was guilty of Royce Stewart’s murder? Jason Stone was one thing, but Kilander’s words had hurt.
Go home, Sarah. Have a glass of wine, go to sleep early.
Instead I rummaged in my bag for my cell phone, dialed 411.
“What listing, please?”
“ Cicero Ruiz.”
Get real. He’s a reclusive guy deeply involved in a highly illegal activity. He’s not going to have a listed phone number.
“I have a C. Ruiz,” the operator said.
Unlikely. “Go ahead, give it to me,” I said.
I would call and stumble through a conversation with a stranger in my rusty Spanish. Lo siento. Sorry to bother you.
Cicero picked up on the third ring.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Sarah,” he said. “How are you?”
“I’m all right,” I said. “I’m not sick. My ear is fine.”
“That’s good,” he said.
“And I… I can’t sleep with you again,” I said. “Because of my husband.”
“You called to tell me that?” Cicero asked.
“No,” I said.
“What, then?”
“Can I come see you anyway?” I said.
Through the open window I could see Venus just starting to pierce the fading light of the sky.
“I can’t think why not,” Cicero said.
15
An hour later I was standing on the roof of Cicero ’s building, looking up at the light-bleached sky over Minneapolis; only a few constellations were distinguishable. The real astronomy lay twenty-six stories below: the industrial-tangerine grid of city streets, the ascension and declination of the world most of us knew.
Behind me, Cicero lay on his back on a blanket we’d brought up, arms crossed behind his head in the traditional stargazer’s position, wine in a chipped eight-ounce glass within arm’s reach. His wheelchair nowhere in sight, he looked very much able-bodied, like a hiker at rest.