by Cold Blood
She finished stretching and thumped down the dock and through the parking lot. Took one of her usual routes. North across the Wabasha Bridge, glancing down at the Mississippi as she crossed it. The leaves on the trees lining the river were orange and yellow and rust. A gray morning. Cold and windy. She ran through downtown to the State Capitol mall. Fallen leaves crunched under her feet. Back south down Wabasha. For variety, she took a left at Kellogg Boulevard and cut through the riverfront park to run across the Robert Street Bridge. She looked downriver as she ran. Jammed with barges. Soon enough they’d be gone, chased south by the ice. She hung a right on Plato Boulevard and watched for trains as she went across the railroad tracks. North up Wabasha and a left onto Harriet Island. A couple of weeks had passed since the Twin Cities Marathon. It had been a good race for her—she’d come in at 3:41—but it left her sore and she was having trouble going back to a regular running schedule.
She started walking when she got to the yacht club parking lot. Thumping toward her boat, she spotted her copy of the St. Paul Pioneer Press in the middle of the dock. The paper carrier was getting better; at least it wasn’t floating in the water this time. She bent over to retrieve it, stood up, inhaled the river air. What did it smell like today? Some days it smelled like dead fish. Other days, motor oil. On rare occasions, like something fresh and clean. She didn’t mind. Murphy loved living on a working river jammed with barges and towboats. Sure there were speedboats and paddleboats and rowboats, but they all knew to steer clear of the metal behemoths that ruled the Mississippi. She couldn’t imagine living on a body of water without the barge traffic. Too quiet and boring. She tucked the paper under her arm, walked into the boat, heard the shower upstairs. Damn. He’d beaten her into the bathroom. She’d have to put a shower in the downstairs guest bath one of these days. She turned on the coffeemaker and scanned the paper while the pot dripped. There he was again. Justice Trip. On the front page, above the fold. She stared at his photo. “Sweet Justice,” she said. She poured herself a cup and sat down at the kitchen table to read the story. Trip was a shirt salesman. He traveled around northern Minnesota and western Wisconsin selling shirts to clothing stores in small towns. He’d helped during a search years ago. A Wisconsin town. A missing girl. He found her necklace in a cornfield. The cops concentrated their search and found the child at the edge of the field. Dehydrated but alive. It made him feel good, he said in the story, and he wished this search had the same happy ending. “But it doesn’t look good,” he said.
“No shit,” Murphy said.
Jack walked downstairs while digging in his ears with a Q-Tip. “Talking to yourself? You’re losing it, lady.” He bent over and nibbled on her neck. He saw the front page spread out on the table. “They’re sure making a big deal out of him.”
“Something isn’t right; these stories aren’t the whole story,” she said, more to herself than to Jack.
He walked over to the coffeepot and poured a cup. “How so?”
“The way Sweet’s portraying himself. It’s as if he’s talking about someone else. Some character he made up.”
Jack leaned against the counter and sipped his coffee. “I’m sure we’d all exaggerate, try to make ourselves sound better in the newspaper.”
“Genuine good guys are embarrassed when people call them heroes, especially on the front page. Sweet’s wallowing in it. Promoting himself. He was never that way.”
“That was high school. People change.” Jack took another sip of coffee.
“Look here. He’s talking about how he feels a connection to this Bunny Pederson because she was an Elvis fan. Who says she was an Elvis fan? And he hates Elvis. Heavy metal was his music. He’s constructed this bizarre fantasy world.”
Jack set his coffee cup in the sink. “Her music tastes aside, anything else new about the unfortunate owner of the finger?”
Murphy folded the paper and set it down. “They ran out of stuff to say about the disappearing bridesmaid. Sweet’s the latest angle, you know.”
“On that cynical note, I’m outta here.” He pulled on his jacket.
“What about breakfast? I’ve got omelet fixings.”
“Nope. Early shift. By the way, that showerhead is leaking.”
“I’ll add it to the list,” she said. “Right after the paint job and new deck railing and a second shower.”
“I’ve offered to help. I spend enough time here.”
She shook her head. “It’s my own damn fault.” She’d saved for repairs at one point, but blew it all on upgrading her galley. She had to have a great kitchen. “I’m a big girl. I’ll figure it out.”
He kissed her on the cheek and left. The sound of the door slamming made her feel sad. Another weekend spent together and not a word uttered between them about their relationship. She couldn’t remember what they’d talked about. What they’d said to each other that mattered. Lately they both kept moving and doing because when they weren’t in motion, they had nothing to say to each other. It used to be the silent moments they shared were intimate and comfortable. Now they were awkward. First-date awkward. Not a good sign for the marriage, she figured. Something had changed, and she decided it was her fault. The affair had hit her harder than she expected. She was spending too much time thinking about it, analyzing the word itself. Affair. Had it lasted long enough to be called that? She and Erik had slept together only once. If it wasn’t an affair, what was it? She avoided thinking about the other A word. Adultery. Whenever it crossed her mind, she told herself it wasn’t adultery because she and Jack were separated at the time and working on getting back together. Like they were now. It seemed as if they were always working on it. What did Erik say? If it takes too much work, maybe it isn’t there. She had to admit she missed him. Missed his hands on her. His mouth. She ran her finger around the rim of her coffee cup. “Damn you, Erik.” She shivered, cold in her damp running clothes. She’d have to turn up the temp on the boat; winter was on the way.
She ran upstairs, pulled off her clothes and turned on the shower. She stepped into a lukewarm spray; a new water heater moved up a notch on the home improvement list. She heard ringing while she was drying off. She twisted the towel into a turban around her wet hair and went into the bedroom to search for the cell phone. She fished it out from under the covers. “Murphy.”
The Homicide commander: “Got a little job for you this morning.”
“Let’s hear it.” She braced herself. Commander Axel Duncan was new to the job but not to the department. He’d worked in Vice for years. Since moving to head Homicide he’d shaved his beard, cut his wild blond hair and stopped dressing to pass for a drug addict, but he was still behaving like a loose-cannon undercover cop. His act wasn’t translating well in Homicide; he summoned his detectives at all hours to send them off on strange missions. Some of the other cops called Duncan “Yo-Yo.”
“That Moose Lake case,” he said. “They haven’t been able to reach her ex. Baby-sitter says he took off with the kids Friday night.”
“So?”
“So he’s a West Sider. Check out his place. See if anyone’s seen him or his kids. Sniff around the garage. Maybe he’s a sentimental fool and took part of her home in the car trunk.”
“They’re looking at him for this?”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t suppose anyone’s explored the nine hundred other possibilities.” The state had a medium-security prison in Moose Lake with nearly nine hundred male inmates.
“All the naughty boys have been accounted for.”
“Good.” Then a question for which she already knew the answer: “Have we got a search warrant for the ex’s place?” Duncan rarely worried about legalities, rules, jurisdiction.
“For what? We’re not searching jack. We’re poking around. That’s all. Poking around.”
She paused and then asked, “Is this official or unofficial poking?” That was code for: Are you going to get both our butts in trouble with this one?
He ignored
her question. “You’re from that end of town. You can canvass it in your sleep. Shit. With that big fucking clan of yours, he’s probably one of your relatives and you don’t even know it. Get on it, Potato Head.”
She didn’t want him calling her that, but she let it go. With Duncan, it was best to let it go. He was always ready for a fight. “What’s the address?” she asked.
EIGHT
MURPHY DIDN’T NEED to write down the address. It wasn’t far from the Murphy family home, where as a kid she’d claimed the root cellar as her bedroom to escape the rest of the beehive. That’s how she’d earned the title “Potato Head.” A family nickname. She didn’t want anyone using it except relatives and a couple of close friends; Axel was neither one. She thought he was a pain in the ass. A hot dog and a show-off.
She pulled out of the yacht club parking lot and went south on Wabasha Street. She took a right on Water Street and passed the Great River Boat Works, where yachts and speedboats and houseboats were on blocks and lined up behind a fence, waiting for repairs in the yard. She took a left on Plato Boulevard and a right on Ohio Street and snaked up the winding hill. She hung a right on George Street, crossed Smith Avenue and drove into Cherokee Park.
Chad Pederson lived in a compact bungalow off the park. Murphy circled the block once and then drove down the alley. She parked her Jeep in front of a garage a couple of houses away from Pederson’s. Before getting out of the car, she opened her shoulder bag and checked her service weapon, a .40-cal. Glock Model 23. When she didn’t wear a belt or shoulder rig, her purse doubled as her holster and had a special sleeve to carry her gun. She walked down the alley, surveying the trash cans huddled next to all the garages. The cans were empty; the neighborhood had recently had a garbage pickup. If Chad Pederson had disposed of any evidence in the trash, it was already at the dump. A cedar privacy fence enclosed Pederson’s backyard, but there was a gate from the alley. She peeked through a crack between the fence boards and then opened the gate and walked in.
Against the back fence was a garden the size of a doormat; it was a tangle of dead tomato vines. On one side of the yard she saw an aluminum playground set with two swings and a slide. On the other side was a tree with slats of wood nailed onto the trunk; the rungs led up to a wooden platform set between the lowest branches. A fort. Her brothers built lots of them when they were kids. A deck ran alongside the back of the bungalow. Tucked into one corner of the deck was a doghouse—a miniature of Pederson’s bungalow—with a sign nailed across the top. Spike’s Place. A couple of shallow holes in the dirt against the fence had to be Spike’s handiwork. There were no suspicious mounds or patches of fresh sod, and she’d expected none. She’d never come across someone stupid enough to bury his ex in the backyard. She remembered one genius who’d dumped his wife in the lake behind their house. Another kept his girlfriend in a trunk in the garage. Better check the garage, she thought.
The service door was open a crack. She put her ear to it and listened. Nothing. She pulled out her flashlight and pushed the door the rest of the way with her hip and walked inside. She sniffed. No suspicious smells. She flicked on the flashlight and ran the beam around the garage. No car. No trunk, either. A snowmobile sitting on a small trailer took up half the two-car garage. Tools hanging from the walls. Kids’ bikes and rakes pushed against the side. She shined her light overhead. A plastic snowman and a set of reindeer tucked into the rafters. A bunch of hockey sticks. Couple of shovels. She turned off the flashlight, stuffed it in her purse and went back outside.
Both the garage and the house needed a coat of latex; white paint was flaking off in spots. Murphy could sympathize; her boat needed a paint job. She walked onto the deck and peeked through the sliding glass doors. No signs of movement. She knocked on the back door and listened. No response.
A big voice from next door: “They went duck hunting.”
Murphy turned to her left; a man was standing on his deck looking over the fence at her. He’d returned from his own hunting trip. He was dressed in camouflage and had an armload of shotguns in camouflage cases. He was fat and all the green he was wearing and carrying made him look like an army tank.
“How’d you make out?” Murphy asked.
“Got our limit.” Three boys in camouflage came up behind him on the deck, their arms empty. He looked at them as he struggled to open the back door. “You lazy turds. Go help your mother unload the car.”
“I gotta pee,” said the littlest.
“You can hold it. Go help your mother.” The three boys turned around and stepped off the deck.
“No school today?” Murphy asked.
“Kids have been off since Thursday. Teachers’ convention. They should have been back in school today but I let them play hooky so we could hunt longer.”
“When did Chad leave for hunting?” Murphy asked.
The man pushed open his back door. Two big dogs ran up the deck steps and shot through the door ahead of him. “He was having a hard time getting off work. Said he wasn’t leaving until after work Friday. Was gonna swing by his ex’s house and pick up his boys and go.”
“Know when they’re due back?”
“He was talking about taking today off, like we did. Send them back to school tomorrow.” The man set his guns down against the side of the house and looked at her. “You the new girlfriend?”
“No.”
He smiled. “Too bad. Chad’s a good egg. Deserves a babe.” His wife came up behind him, arms loaded with gear. She was as big as he was and was also dressed in camo. She pushed past her husband to get into the house.
“Know where they were hunting?” Murphy asked.
“Chad’s buddy has got a cabin. Not sure exactly where. You social services or what?”
Murphy heard barking from inside the man’s house, and then his wife: “Fred! Get these filthy animals out of here!”
“Gotta go,” he said. He picked up his guns and walked through the door.
MURPHY went to the front of the Pederson house, stood on the porch, peered through a couple of the windows. An elderly voice: “Nobody home. Went duck hunting.” Then a hacking cough. Murphy turned and saw Pederson’s neighbor on the other side of the fence. The elderly black woman was wrapped in a heavy sweater and sitting on a porch swing. In her lap was a white poodle dressed in a matching sweater. Murphy swore to herself she’d never own a dog that wore sweaters.
She smiled as she walked up the old woman’s steps. “Hello.”
“You’re a cop,” said the woman. She coughed again. Her skin was as gray as her hair. She had a cigarette between her boney fingers and was holding it away from her so the ash wouldn’t drop on the dog. She wore red lipstick; it was smeared all over the cigarette butt. “Paris Murphy, right?”
“Yeah. Do I know you?”
“Mrs. McDonough. Recognized you from your mom and dad’s joint.” More hacking. “I saw you punch a fella after he pinched your ass. You were a tough little shit.”
“Tell me about this Pederson. Is he a decent neighbor or a jerk?”
“Chad. He’s a nice kid. Moved down here from up north. Juggles two jobs to make his child support.”
Murphy took her notebook out of her purse. “Where’s he work?”
“Machine shop in Minneapolis. Third shift. Tends bar during the day at that titty club on West Seventh Street.”
“I know the place,” said Murphy, writing in her notebook. “Ever see him lose it with his kids or his ex or anyone else?”
“Never met his ex.” She stopped talking to pick a dog hair off her tongue. “Cute kids. A little wild.”
“Does he yell at them a lot? Slug them? Hear any racket over there?”
“That stupid monster, Spike. Barks at everything that moves. Scares the living shit out of my baby.” She scratched behind the poodle’s ears and kissed his head; she left a lipstick mark on his fur.
“What else about Chad?”
“Quiet. Shovels my walk in the winter. Won’t take a dime fro
m me. Sent tomatoes over all summer. Big Boys. Real meaty.” She paused to take a drag off her cigarette, coughed, took another pull. Then it occurred to her: “Christ Almighty! That’s his ex on the news, isn’t it? You’re not thinking he killed her. No way he did it.”
“Know how I can reach him?”
“He’s at a friend’s cabin. No phone. No electricity. Outdoor crapper.” She coughed so hard she dropped the cigarette. A gust of wind made her shiver and pull her sweater tighter around her thin body. “I think he’s nuts. Especially this time of year.”
“He ever mention the friend’s name? Where the cabin is located?”
“Nope. If he did, I’d remember.” More hacking, then: “The body’s going, but the mind still works. Your folks, Sean and Amira, they still alive?”
“Alive and kicking,” Murphy said.
“Tell them Tootie says hello.”
“I’ll do that. You take it easy Mrs. McDonough.” She closed her notebook and slipped it back in her purse.
“Try tonight on Chad,” she said as Murphy stepped off the porch. “He’ll be back tonight. Probably bring me a duck all cleaned and ready for the oven.” She bent over and picked the cigarette off the porch floor and took another puff. “No way in hell he killed her.”
Murphy checked her watch. Close to lunchtime, and she could go for a bar burger and fries. She took Smith Avenue and crossed the High Bridge over the river. She hung a left on West Seventh and drove a couple of miles. There used to be several strip joints in St. Paul, but one by one they were shut down by neighborhood activists. One on the East Side was now an Embers restaurant in the front and a bingo hall in the back. Another on University Avenue had been converted into the police department’s Western District Office. The West Seventh club was one of the last two left in town.