The Burying Place

Stride reached out under the table, took hold of Blair's knee in an iron grip, and held her leg steady. 'Blair, you're new to the game. I know that the TV news shows don't set a good example because they turn every crime into a whodunit. But you're dealing with real people's lives here.'

'I'm not stupid,' she said.

'I don't think you are.'

'But I'm impatient, and I don't like to wait for the police to throw me crumbs.'

Stride stood up from the table. 'Do you have kids, Blair?'

'Yeah, I've got a little boy. My mom looks after him when I'm at work. So what?'

'Then try to put yourself in Valerie Glenn's shoes for a minute.'

'Hey, I'm with you. I am. I hope you find her daughter. I'm just not convinced you ever will.'

Stride turned to leave.

'Lieutenant?' Blair called.

'What is it?'

'I know about the babysitter.'

'Good for you,' Stride said.

'You want to hear my theory?'

He scowled at her. 'What is it?'

Blair scouted the restaurant again and then stood on tiptoes and put her lips next to Stride's ear. 'I think Marcus Glenn and Micki Vega committed this crime together.'

Chapter Ten

Serena drove from Grand Rapids to Duluth on Saturday morning. The sky was slate gray with wavy clouds like smoke trails, and ice crystals of snow whipped across her windshield. She passed boggy fields where skeletons of trees jutted out of the standing water. The northern woods were no longer brick red or flaming orange as they had been in September, but dirty shades of rust and brown. Every few miles, she drove across black rivers and sped through block-long towns, with nothing but an old brick liquor store or a shabby five-room motel to attract a few tourist dollars. Most of the time, she was alone on the road.

As she drove, she thought about Stride. She'd stood at the foot of the bed this morning and watched him while he slept. Wherever he was, it was a million miles away from her. He'd been walking away, retreating, escaping, for weeks, until they were strangers again. They'd drifted apart as easily as they had come together. What made her angry was that she had let it happen without fighting back. She'd watched him go rather than confront the hurt she felt. If that was what he wanted, if that was how it was going to be, then she would protect herself and pretend she had known it would happen this way all along.

Maybe she had. Maybe they'd both been kidding themselves. There had always been fault lines, little hairline cracks that seemed like nothing until the weight of pressure and time burst them open. She knew it happened that way, and there was no one to blame. Things are fine until suddenly, unexpectedly, they are not fine at all anymore, and both of you know it, and neither one of you wants to admit it.

Her phone rang. It was him. The man she loved.

'You didn't wake me up this morning,' he told her.

Serena wiped her eyes and squelched the anguish she felt when she heard his voice. 'I'm sorry. You haven't slept much lately, and I thought you could use the rest.'

'You're right. Thanks.' He added, 'You sound strange. Is everything OK?'

'Sure,' she said.

It was easier to lie. It was safer to pretend. Things are fine, Jonny, but we both know they're not. She heard him hesitate, as if he might push her for the truth, but she knew he wouldn't do that.

'What's the latest on the search?' he asked.

He was a colleague talking to a colleague. Serena heard a noise in her head, and she thought it was a fault line, a crack, a fracture, splintering apart and growing wide.

'We've gone through the guest lists from motels around Grand Rapids,' she reported to him in a flat voice. 'We're still doing follow-up, but there aren't any red flags. The Highway Patrol has been hitting gas stations with Callie's photo. We've got leads, but nothing hot.'

'What about cameras on the roads in and out of town?'

'We found a couple ATM cameras that face toward 169 and Highway 2. Between the fog and the video quality, there's not much to see. I sent them to the BCA to see if they could do a digital enhancement.'

'I think we need to drag Pokegama Lake,' Stride said.

Serena pulled her Mustang on to the shoulder of the highway. She switched off the motor and listened to the silence. 'That'll kill Valerie Glenn.'

'I'm hoping we don't find anything, but if we wait too much longer, we'll lose the lake to ice.'

'Give it a few more days.'

'Yeah, OK, but I'm not feeling good about this.' He added, 'If it was an abduction for money, we'd have heard from the kidnappers by now.'

'I know.'

'I keep coming back to Marcus Glenn,' Stride told her. 'I don't want the reporters getting wind of it, but I think we should ask him to take a polygraph. He's already lied to us about Micki Vega. Who knows what else he's hiding?'

'He'll lawyer up and stop talking,' Serena said.

'That tells us something.'

'I don't know. I don't like Glenn either, but I'm not sure I see him as violent or depraved.'

'See what you can find out at the hospital,' Stride said.

'I will.'

When there was nothing left to say, the dead air between them stretched out and grew awkward. Serena stared across the highway at a wasted barn, its roof open to the elements in jagged holes where the beams had collapsed. Blackbirds flew from inside. The grass grew long and wavy around the bowing walls.

'Hey, Jonny?' she murmured.

'Yes?'

'We're not so good, are we?'

She couldn't believe she had said it aloud. That was all it took to quit pretending. Now they were on dangerous ground.

Stride waited a long time, and then he said, 'It's me.'

'No, it's not just you,' she told him.

Two hours later, Serena walked along Superior Street in downtown Duluth with a nurse from St Mary's Hospital named Ellen Warner. At Lake Avenue, the two of them crossed the street and found a bench protected from the wind. It was too cold to be outside comfortably, but Ellen had insisted that they talk where there was no risk of being overheard. Few people at St Mary's were anxious to talk about Marcus Glenn.

Ellen opened a white takeaway bag and pulled out a hot dog from the Coney Island restaurant up the street. She unwrapped the foil and took a large bite. A drop of mustard stuck to her lips.

'I appreciate your meeting me,' Serena told her.

'Well, keep it under wraps, OK?' Ellen said, wiping her mouth. 'Dr Glenn is prickly. If a nurse gets on his bad side, she's gone.'

Ellen was dressed in purple scrubs with a jean jacket over the top. Her sneakers were neon white. She was in her early fifties with short silver hair and a squat, heavy physique.

'How long have you worked with him?' Serena asked.

'Must be almost ten years,' she replied. 'I have to tell you, he's good. Make that great. The man's ego wouldn't fit in a football stadium, but he's a wizard in the OR. Good with patients, too. You wouldn't think it, because he's a titanic pain in the ass to everyone else. But he can switch it on with patients, and they love him. I've never understood people who can compartmentalize their lives like that, but with Dr Glenn, you have to overlook his personality and respect his talent.'

'Do you know his wife, Valerie?'

'Enough to say hello. She comes in every now and then.'

Ellen finished her hot dog, crumpled the wrapper, and put it back in the bag. She reached into the hip pocket of her scrubs and removed a pack of cigarettes. She lit one and noticed the surprise on Serena's face. 'It's the stress. I know it's stupid, but that doesn’t stop me.'

'What's the relationship like between Dr Glenn and his wife?' Serena asked.