Turn to Stone

by Brian Freeman

  Stride got up from the sofa. The conversation had awakened his own memories of Cindy, and when the flood started, it was hard to hold it back. He knew exactly what Anna had gone through. “Can you think of anything in these past few weeks that might explain why Percy did what he did?”

  Anna shook her head. “I can’t. I really can’t.”

  “Had you seen a lot of him recently?”

  “No, he was here briefly a couple weeks ago to fix a leaking faucet, but that’s all. He looked upset and distracted. I asked him what was wrong, but he wouldn’t talk about it. I guess I should have pushed him harder. Frankly, I assumed it was something between him and Kelli. Marriages have their ups and downs.”

  “Did he mention the disappearance of Greg Hamlin?” Stride asked. “That was the last case he was working on.”

  “He didn’t,” Anna told him, “but Percy rarely talked about work. I know Hope and Greg, of course. Everybody does.”

  “I met Hope today,” Stride said.

  A faint smile crossed Anna’s face. “Enjoy the experience, did you?”

  “Not much.”

  “No, Hope is hard-boiled. They both are. She’s smart, I’ll give her that, but some people will bank in Green Bay just so they don’t have to deal with her. Greg can be just as difficult. Your uncle probably knows him. Greg was a teacher and coach at the middle school for a long time, but I think the school board got tired of his temper and encouraged him to move on. He became a realtor, and he’s done very well with commercial properties. He and Hope make a lot of money, but their battles are legendary in town. Although I have to say, it seemed to me that Greg had softened a bit lately. His dad died last fall, and that kind of thing can make you reassess how you live your life.”

  Stride nodded. He spotted a teenage girl in the doorway of the living room with a one-year-old baby in her arms. The baby’s face mimicked Tom Bruin’s plump red cheeks and bright eyes, like a reminder of her father. Anna bloomed with happiness, seeing her child, and the bond of mother and daughter made Stride conscious of what he’d missed by never becoming a parent.

  “Well, Mya and I have some errands to run in town,” Anna told him.

  “Yes, of course. I appreciate your time.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help. I’d like to know what happened to Percy, too, as much as Kelli does.”

  “I’m afraid these things rarely have easy answers,” Stride said.

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  They shook hands. Her grip was limp. He left the house and made his way down the icy driveway to his truck, which was parked facing the river. The road ended at a boat launch. Slushy water slapped at the asphalt, but the milky blanket of ice began again just offshore. He unlocked the door and was about to climb inside when he smelled cigarette smoke behind him.

  When he looked up the road, he saw the same teenage boy who had been watching the activity at the graveyard the previous night.

  The boy sat astride a red moped in the middle of the country intersection. A hand-rolled cigarette drooped from his lips. His black hair was long and greasy. He wasn’t tall, and he had to stretch his legs to graze the ground with the toes of his sneakers. In the daylight, he looked younger, because he was skinny and the sleeves of his jean jacket hung almost to the ends of his fingers. Stride dropped his keys in his pocket and walked up the road toward the boy. Getting closer, he saw that the teenager had pale blue eyes, which were trained on him with curiosity and a hint of fear, like someone outside the lion’s cage at the zoo. The boy’s face wasn’t sullen or mean; he didn’t have the typical teenage arrogance. He looked smart, but he looked like a loner. Those were qualities Stride recognized from his own teenage years.

  The moped engine sputtered to life. The boy swung the handlebars and headed down Wolf River Road. His long hair flew into tangles. Rocks and spray spattered the red metal frame. Stride watched him go.

  “He’s cute, isn’t he?”

  Stride glanced at the driveway, where Anna Bruin’s teenage babysitter stood at the curb. He figured she was about the same age as the boy on the bike. She wore a cream-colored dress that fell to her knees and neon yellow sneakers. Her unzipped down coat had a fur hood. She had scraggly brown hair with a headband and bow and wore yellow glasses that matched her shoes. A knit purse, heavy with sequins, swung from her fingers. She was tall and skinny.

  “You know him?” Stride asked.

  “Oh, sure, that’s Mike Black.”

  It took Stride a moment, and then he made the connection. Black. That was the name on the grave that had been vandalized. The grave only steps away from where Percy shot himself. He didn’t like coincidences.

  “Anna called you Sophie, is that right?” he asked the girl.

  “Yep, that’s me.” She pointed a finger at him playfully. “And you are Jonathan Stride of the Duluth Police, and that policeman’s wife asked you to find out why he killed himself, right?”

  “You know a lot,” he told her.

  “I like to listen. You learn a lot when you listen. No one pays attention to kids, because they think we’re stupid.”

  “I don’t think you’re stupid.” He added: “No school today?”

  “Nope. A pipe burst. The place is flooded. Bummer, huh?” She grinned.

  “Yeah, I used to be glued to the news after snow storms to see if they closed the Duluth schools,” Stride said. “It’s nice of you to help out Mrs. Bruin on a day off.”

  “Oh, sure. I like kids, and Mya’s great. I mean, Mrs. Bruin pays me, but it’s fun.”

  “Let me ask you something, Sophie. What’s the deal with Mike Black?”

  “Mike? I don’t know, he’s a little weird, but that’s okay. I’m weird, too. He loves animals, which I think is cool. Him and his mom, they’ve got dogs and cats and rabbits and stuff. Mike rescued most of them.”

  “Nice.”

  “Yeah, I like him. He mostly hangs out by himself, but that’s the way I am, too. I feel bad for him. The other kids at school are pretty awful to him.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Oh, you know, they figure, like father, like son.”

  Stride frowned. “Father?”

  Then he remembered. Sophie didn’t need to tell him who Mike Black’s father was, because he already knew the story from the newspapers. Chester Black, who went by the nickname “Jet.” Black was a scrawny auto mechanic and high school dropout who routinely beat up his wife and son when he got drunk on Saturday nights. After one particularly vicious assault, he pled guilty to domestic assault to avoid jail time. He got probation, with the requirement that he get counseling for anger management.

  His court-appointed counselor was a young psychologist named Kelli Westmark.

  Jet didn’t want anyone putting their fingers inside his troubled mind, particularly not a strong, attractive woman. He had other plans for her. He kidnapped Kelli and imprisoned her inside the ruined Novitiate on the banks of the Red River, where he tortured her for days. That was where Percy Andrews eventually found them.

  That was where Percy shot and killed Jet Black.

  Sophie watched him. “You know who he is. I figured you would.”

  “Percy Andrews killed Mike’s dad,” Stride said.

  “Yeah.”

  “How did Mike feel about that?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t really tell if he liked Percy or hated him. He was a little obsessed with him, that’s for sure. Followed him everywhere, wouldn’t stop talking about him. That figures, huh? I mean, it sucks when your dad is murdered, even if he deserves it.”

  “What happened at the Novitiate wasn’t murder, Sophie,” Stride told her.

  “That’s what people say, but tell that to Mike. I mean, he knows who was really in the ruins with his dad that night.”

  Sophie slapped a hand over her mouth, as if she wanted to shove the words back inside and lock them away. Secrets were big, scary things, and they were tough to keep. Especially when you’re a young gir
l and a cute boy tells you something important.

  Stride knelt down until they were eye to eye, and he spoke calmly to the girl. The girl who liked to listen.

  “Who was in the ruins?” he asked.

  “Nobody.”

  Stride waited, saying nothing, staring at Sophie as the girl blinked nervously.

  “I mean, nobody human,” she went on.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Sophie chewed her lip and adjusted her yellow glasses. She looked as if she wanted to dig a hole in the ground and crawl down inside and cover it up. Stride heard a car engine, and he saw a vintage pick-up rattling toward the house. Relieved, Sophie tugged her purse higher on her shoulder. She saw her escape.

  “That’s my dad,” she said. “I gotta go.”

  “Sophie, who does Mike think killed his father?”

  The girl’s eyes flitted everywhere except Stride’s face. She was like any twelve-year-old, bubbly until the world got hard, surrounded by a wall as fragile as an eggshell. He didn’t think she was going to answer, but then she put her cupped her hands around her mouth and her voice croaked like a wind-up doll.

  “The Devil,” she whispered.

  7

  No one in the town of Shawano had forgotten Jet Black.

  Homegrown monsters lingered like ghosts long after they were dead. Jet had been born and raised here. He’d become what he was right here. In the schools. In the parks and campgrounds. On Main Street and the dirt roads. Nobody liked it. You could blame evil on bad-to-the-bone genes, but somewhere in the back of everyone’s mind was an unwelcome thought: Was it us?

  Did we make him who he was?

  Stride found the Black house on the west end of Old Highway 29, two miles from town, where land was cheap. The driveway was rutted with mud and snow. The old rambler was dwarfed by soaring trees. Near the street, the mailbox had been knocked off its post and lay on the ground, dented and open. He got out of his car, and he heard a mournful baying, like a wolf pack under a full moon. It was dogs, locked inside the house, howling. From the different pitches, he guessed at least five.

  He trudged up the driveway and saw that Jet’s family was still paying the price for his sins. The yard was neat, but vandals came regularly in the night. Windows had been shattered into starbursts by rocks and taped over. Venomous profanity had been spray-painted across the garage door. Frozen chocolate-colored smears clung to the white siding. Feces.

  Leaning against the garage, parked in the dirt, was Mike Black’s red moped.

  Stride heard the front door open and then the bang of a storm door. A young woman emerged into the sunlight. Behind her, a furry pack of dogs pawed and jumped at the glass, and the howling became a frenzy of barking. He shaded his eyes and saw that the woman held a shotgun cradled in her arms. It was aimed directly at his chest, and her finger was poised near the trigger.

  Stride stopped immediately and held up his hands.

  “Who are you?” she called.

  He explained, but it took another minute—and the sight of his police shield—before she tilted the shotgun toward the ground.

  “Sorry,” she said, but the apology didn’t sound sincere. “I have to be careful about strangers. Usually, they’re not here for anything good.”

  “I can see that,” he told her.

  “It’s mostly drunk kids who do this shit, but you never know.”

  Stride approached the porch. “And you are—?”

  “Ginnie Black.”

  “Jet was your husband?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Do you mind if I ask you few questions?” He added: “Preferably not at gunpoint.”

  “If you like.” She disarmed the weapon, looking like someone who had done it many times before. “I don’t have much time,” she told him. “I have the middle shift today. Come on, we can talk inside.”

  Dogs surrounded Stride as he followed the woman into the house. He’d undercounted. He saw two Rottweilers, a golden retriever, two black labs, a white standard poodle, a sheltie, and a miniature schnauzer who appeared to be the meanest and toughest of the lot. The cacophony of barking was deafening, but when Ginnie snapped her fingers, the dogs fell silent.

  “They’re well trained,” Stride said.

  Ginnie shrugged. “That’s my son Mike. He’s like a whisperer or something with animals.”

  “Is he around?”

  “No.”

  He thought of the moped outside and knew she was lying.

  Stride studied the living room of the small house. The dogs were only part of the menagerie. He counted seven cats sprawled on furniture, four rabbits sleeping in a cage, and one iguana enjoying the sunshine on a coffee table. Despite the animals, the house was impeccably clean. He saw no dust or clutter on the surfaces, and fur hadn’t gathered on the sofa cushions. The carpet smelled freshly washed, and there was no hint of urine or vomit lingering in the closed-up space. Nothing in the house was new, but Ginnie Black kept her surroundings organized and neat.

  Like her house, Ginnie was neatly but cheaply put together. She wore Wal-Mart fashions—simple checked top, dark skirt, practical shoes—but everything fit, and she clearly ironed whatever came out of the drier. Her brown hair was long and straight, and it was tied in a tight ponytail behind her head that gave her a high white forehead. She wore makeup, but her face was severe and plain. She didn’t smile. She looked beaten down by life, but she didn’t look like someone who quit.

  “I have to keep the animals inside,” Ginnie told him. “We used to let them out, but I lost a dog and a cat that way. Killed. Dropped on our doorstep with their heads cut off. Fucking savages.”

  As harsh as her words were, her voice was calm.

  Stride sat down on a sofa. A black-and-white cat lazily re-located to his lap, purring loudly. “Have you talked to the police about it?” he asked.

  “Nobody cares. I’m Jet’s wife. Sheriff Weik sends a cop out so they can put it in their files that they responded, but they don’t try to stop it. Most of the time, I don’t call anymore.”

  “You had nothing to do with what your husband did.”

  “You think that matters? They want me out, that’s the bottom line. I remind them of Jet. Nobody’s looking for reminders, believe me. Nobody wants to see my face in town. I had to go to Green Bay to get a job.”

  “What do you do?” Stride asked.

  “I work at Lambeau. It’s a good job, lots of overtime. I need the money. Jet left me a pile of debt.”

  Stride noticed her left knee twitching to a beat he couldn’t hear. That was the only glimmer of the emotions churning inside Ginnie Black. She kept everything else locked away. Nothing made it onto her face.

  “You heard about Percy Andrews?” he asked.

  “Yes, I did. That’s a terrible thing.”

  “He killed your husband,” Stride said.

  “So? I wish I’d thanked him for it. I hope that doesn’t shock you.”

  “No.”

  “What I feel bad about is that I didn’t kill Jet myself years ago. Other people suffered because I was a coward. Not that I didn’t think about it. I kept a knife under my pillow. I would lie there and listen to him breathe and think about slitting his throat.”

  “I can imagine what you went through with Jet.”

  “Can you? I doubt it.”

  “I knew a woman about your age in Duluth. Her name was Michaela. She had a husband very much like Jet. Michaela needed protection.”

  “And did you protect her?” Ginnie asked.

  “I tried, but he killed her anyway.”

  Her face froze in an instant of compassion. Then it drained away. “Well, I guess she should have kept a knife under her pillow, too.”

  “The point is, none of this is your fault.”

  Ginnie shrugged. “Then whose fault is it?”

  Stride didn’t answer her. He thought about Anna Bruin. You look for someone to blame. Even when there was nothing and no one. Even when
God stood aside as evil things happened.

  “Sooner or later, you have to take responsibility for who you are,” Ginnie went on. “Jet wasn’t some dumb-ass slacker. He was smart. Clever. Athletic for a small kid. Track, tennis, swimming. Yes, he was bullied. Humiliated. He had things done to him I wouldn’t wish on anyone. But you know what? Bad things happen to everybody. Jet could’ve gotten past it, but instead, he decided that he was going to pay back every hurt, and he did. Starting with me and Mike, and ending with Kelli. He became worse than any of the people who tormented him. So you tell me, Mr. Stride. When does the victim become guilty himself?”

  He knew she was right. There was no line in the sand between guilt and innocence. It kept getting washed away. He’d put hundreds of abused children in jail after they grew up and became molesters, rapists, and killers. He could have said many things to her, but he said: “Why did you marry him?”

  Ginnie cast her eyes around at the neat, clean, organized space in which she lived. He had a sense that she was a woman who liked to bring order to chaos. Jet Black was chaos. “At first, I felt sorry for him,” she said. “Later, by the time I knew who he really was, it was too late. I thought he would change. I thought I could change him if I loved him enough. Stupid.”

  “Not stupid. Naïve maybe. But you’re not alone in that. It’s a big club.”

  She shrugged. In the silence that followed, the cat on his lap hopped down and strolled over to Ginnie, where it stretched across her feet. One of the dogs began to howl, but she snapped her fingers again, and the quiet returned. He watched her compulsively smoothing her skirt, and he knew she was anxious for him to be gone.

  “About Percy Andrews,” he said.

  “What can I tell you? I didn’t know him.”

  “What about his wife?”

  “Kelli? No, of course not. I’ve never met her. I should have talked to her years ago, but I didn’t have the stomach for it. I doubt she’d have any interest in talking to me.”

  “I gather you don’t hold any ill will toward either of them for what happened.”