The Burying Place

Maggie raised an eyebrow. 'You guess?'

'Something's wrong, but he won't talk about it,' Serena said.

'I'm sorry.'

Serena took a long time to reply. 'Yeah, it's the old story with us. Two stubborn people with baggage.'

'He loves you,' Maggie said.

'I know, but if he won't let me in, what the hell am I there for? I'm getting tired of being alone even when we're together.'

Maggie didn't say anything. This wasn't a conversation she particularly wanted to have with Serena. They both knew the score. Maggie had made her one and only play for Stride in the months after his wife died, but to him, she was still the young kid he had hired as his partner. Not a lover. Then Serena — who wasn't much older than Maggie — had arrived in town, and Stride fell for her hard. Maggie liked Serena as a friend and a cop, but they still tiptoed around their mutual feelings for Stride, trying not to let the competition come between them. She couldn't help the occasional stabs of jealousy that Stride had turned to Serena, not her.

'What do you think I should do?' Serena asked.

'I wish I could tell you.'

'I know I'm not a saint in this. I should push him, but I'm too busy wrapping barbed wire around myself.' She got up impatiently. 'I want a drink.'

'No, you don't.'

'I'm not going to, but I want one. I hate that.' She shook her head and changed the subject. 'What about you? How are you?'

'If I'm thinking about dyeing my hair red, what does that tell you?' Maggie asked.

'I heard you got DNA on the bastard who's been snatching these women.'

'We do, but we don't have results back. Either way, we still have to catch him, and I don't think he's done yet.'

'What about the adoption agencies?' Serena asked. 'Are you any closer to finding a kid?'

Maggie clucked her tongue in frustration. 'I always thought this was the good old USA, where money can buy you anything. Apparently not a baby, however.'

'Give it time.'

'Yeah, time. I don't have time for a kid, so I don't know why I'm trying.' Maggie raised her glass in a toast. 'We're really having a Thelma and Louise kind of day, aren't we?'

'Totally.'

Maggie finished her drink and climbed out of the chair. Outside the window, the sky grew blacker as dusk approached. Serena came and stood next to her, and they watched the lights come on around the harbor below them. An ore boat muscled through the canal underneath the city's steel lift bridge. Beyond the bridge was the strip of land called the Point, where Stride and Serena lived.

'This nurse you're seeing, where exactly on the north side does she live?' Maggie asked, is it in the city or in the farmlands?'

'Up in the farmlands. Lismore Road near McQuade.' Serena added, 'And no, you don't have to remind me.'

Maggie nodded, but she reminded her anyway. 'That's not a very safe place to be these days.'

Chapter Twelve

'You're telling me that Trisha is dead,' Troy Grange said.

Maggie winced. Troy didn't waste time with pretty ways to share bad news. 'We don't know that for sure,' she told him. 'I don't think we can automatically assume the worst. One woman is dead. That's all we know for certain.'

'Liar,' Troy snapped.

He wasn't being hostile, just honest. Maggie knew he was right, but she couldn't say so. She couldn't say that to any victim's spouse and certainly not to a friend.

Troy Grange was the senior Health and Safety Manager at the Duluth Port. They had worked together for five years on immigrant smuggling, outbreaks of communicable disease, and crimes in the harbor ranging from arson to rape. Through it all, she had never known Troy to hide behind his lawyers or his budget. Anything that went wrong in the port was on his watch. He was solid.

Troy ran his hands over his bald head. He was forty years old, not tall, but built like a circus strongman. His face was big: lumpy nose, broad chin, and puffy cheekbones like a squirrel with a mouthful of acorns. He wore a form-fitting red undershirt and baggy black sweatpants.

'You know what I keep thinking about?' he said. 'I used to work on the ore boats, but Trisha made me give it up. She said it was too dangerous, and she didn't want to be left alone with the kids. And now I lose her from inside our own house.'

'I'm so sorry, Mr Grange,' Kasey Kennedy murmured.

Kasey sat on the opposite end of the sofa from Maggie, her knees pressed together. She looked uncomfortable, her eyes darting between Maggie and Troy. Maggie felt bad about bringing Kasey into the middle of this scene, but she wanted Kasey to understand that investigative work wasn't glamorous. Too often, it was filled with suffering.

'You saw him, didn't you?' Troy asked Kasey. 'You saw this bastard?'

'Not his face, but yes.'

Troy got up from his chair and folded his arms over his barrel chest. The floor timbers shivered as he paced in front of the fireplace.

'Tell me what you think,' he said. 'You saw what he did to this other woman. Is he just a fucking murderer? Is there any way my wife could be alive?'

'I don't know what to tell you, Mr Grange,' Kasey stuttered. 'I sure hope she's alive.'

Maggie wanted to say: If Trisha's alive, she's better off dead. But she didn't.

'How are the girls, Troy?' Maggie asked.

He sat down again and wiped his nose on his bare, thick forearm. 'I took them to visit Trisha's parents in Chicago on Friday, and I left Emma there. I've got to go back to work on Monday, and I can't take care of a baby right now. Plus, it will be good for her parents to have something else to focus on.'

'What about Debbie?'

'Debbie doesn’t understand what's going on.' He twisted his silver wedding ring around his finger and added, 'I shouldn't have gone to that goddamn Halloween party. Not with that other woman disappearing in October.'

'You had no way of knowing,' Maggie told him. 'We didn't know we were dealing with a pattern crime.'

'Yeah, but security's what I do. I knew there was a risk. Hell, I upgraded our security system three days after I heard about that woman going missing. A lot of good that did us.'

'Don't blame yourself.'

Troy shrugged. 'I do.'

'We're going to be blanketing the north highways with cops every night,' Maggie said. 'If this guy tries again, we'll get him.'

'That's a lot of ground to cover,' he said, shaking his head. 'I don't want to sound skeptical, but you're going to be spread pretty thin across a few hundred square miles.'

'We've got extra manpower. Volunteers. Nobody's sleeping, Troy.'

'I know. I appreciate it.' He looked at Kasey. 'Will you be out there too?'

'Um, yeah, I'm sure I will,' Kasey murmured.

'You be careful.'

Kasey nodded and stared at her hands.

'Daddy?'

All three of them looked up. Debbie Grange, six years old, stood in the doorway of the living room. She wore polka-dot pajamas and carried a stuffed Pooh bear under her arm. Troy Grange sprang up immediately.

'What is it, sweetheart?'

'I want Mommy to tuck me in,' Debbie murmured.

Maggie felt her heart breaking. She saw Kasey look away and bite her lip. Troy wrapped his bear arms around his little girl.

'I'll tuck you in, baby,' he said.

'I want Mommy to tuck me in,' the girl repeated.

'Oh, honey, I know, but Mommy's not here. Remember? She had to go away.'

Fat tears dripped down the girl's face. 'Where is she?'

'I told you, sweetheart, she had to take a trip, OK? I'll tuck you in. I'll stay right there with you.'

'No. I want Mommy.'

Troy cradled his daughter as the girl cried into his shoulder. He sang to her under his breath, and Maggie found she could barely watch. She gestured to Kasey, and they both stood up. Maggie met Troy's eyes and pointed at the front door. He nodded.