Marathon

by Brian Freeman

  “Be cool?” Travis exclaimed. “Are you kidding? How am I supposed to do that?”

  “I’m saying, you’re in big trouble, so you better not panic.”

  Travis eyed the dirt road for the twentieth time to make sure they were alone. “Man, you have to believe me, I didn’t know anybody was there! Far as I could tell, the place was empty! How was I to know those people were upstairs?”

  “You think that’s going to matter to the cops?” Wade asked.

  “I know! Shit, I can’t believe this. I killed those people, man. I burned them up. They’re going to put me away.”

  That was true.

  Wade knew Travis was looking at twenty-five years behind bars, maybe more. They might even hang a terrorism charge around his neck and call it murder one and put him away for life. Wade couldn’t imagine what that would be like. He’d rather die than spend year after year staring at the walls of a small cell.

  “Did anybody see you?” Wade asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “What the hell were you thinking, huh? Are you out of your mind?”

  “I was just so pissed,” Travis told him. “I mean, seeing Shelly like that, and thinking about Joni. I wanted to do something. Just like you told me. God saved me so I could hit them back.”

  “Don’t be saying I put this idea in your head, Travis,” Wade snapped. “This was all you.”

  “Yeah, but you told me—” Travis stopped talking and shook his head. “No, I get it, man. This is on me. I’m not bringing you down with me. The thing is, what the hell do I do now?”

  Wade thought about it. He’d expected Travis to do something stupid, but he’d never thought that the kid would do something so stupid. Regardless, he didn’t want any fingers pointing his way. Travis had probably gotten lucky, because if anybody had spotted The Bug Zappers on a truck speeding from the firebombing, the cops would already be knocking on his door. But they were alone, and there were no sirens. Not yet. They had a little time.

  “What do I do, Wade?” Travis asked again.

  “First thing you do is air out the truck. Thing smells like a Texaco station. Open the doors and windows and spray the whole thing down with Lysol. Wash the exterior, too. What did you do with the gas tanks?”

  “They’re still in back. I was gonna put ’em back in the garage.”

  “You used my tanks?” Wade asked. “Shit, Travis, are you kidding me?”

  “I’m sorry, man. I saw the tanks, and I thought, yeah, that’s it. That’s what I’m supposed to do. Burn down a Muslim building. Eye for an eye.”

  “The tanks were empty. Where’d you fill them up?”

  “I stopped at a bunch of different places. I figured, if I did it all in one place, somebody might notice, you know?”

  “No kidding.”

  Wade thought about any evidence that might trace this whole thing back to Travis and from Travis to himself. He wasn’t sure if the cops could match gasoline from the fire to gasoline that was left in the tanks, but he wasn’t taking any chances. His own fingerprints were on those tanks. And the Feds loved a conspiracy.

  “Take the cans into the woods and bury them. Then dump leaves, branches, and pine needles over the whole area. Got it? I better not be able to go back there and figure out where you did it.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, will do, man. Then what?”

  “Then strip naked behind the house and hose yourself down. Wash everything— your hair, your eyebrows, your nose, your fingernails, your toenails, everything.”

  “What about my clothes?” Travis asked.

  “Burn them. You got any spare clothes at my house?”

  “Uh, yeah, I think so. Joni did some laundry for me after I got caught in the last storm.”

  “Okay, I’ll get it,” Wade told him, frowning. “Don’t you set foot in my house, you got that?”

  Travis nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I got it. Thanks, man.”

  “Don’t go anywhere near Shelly’s place tonight,” he told Travis. “Hide the van somewhere, and stay under the radar. If the cops come after you, you’re a sitting duck staying at her apartment, and I don’t want you anywhere near me.”

  “Yeah, no problem,” Travis replied. “Do you think they’ll figure out it was me?”

  Of course, they will, you dumb shit.

  “I have no idea,” Wade said. “If they do, we never talked about any of this, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Okay, get the shovel, and get moving.”

  Travis stood frozen on the ground. He blinked back tears. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, Wade. Really. No way I wanted to kill anybody. Especially not a kid.”

  “It’s too late to cry about it,” Wade said.

  “Shelly’s going to be so mad.”

  Wade jabbed a finger in the kid’s face. “Do not tell Shelly.”

  “She’ll know,” Travis said. “She always knows when I’ve done something wrong.”

  “Then don’t go see her until you can keep it together.”

  “No, I gotta see her. I told her I’d be back at the hospital tonight. I don’t want her all alone.”

  “I’ll go,” Wade said. “You lay low until we figure out if the cops are on to you.”

  Travis shook his head. “I’m telling you, Shelly will figure out the truth. She always does. And her and her God stuff, she’ll say I’m going to hell.”

  Wade reached out to grab a fistful of Travis’s shirt, but he pulled his hand back. He smothered the rage he felt. He wanted to take the shovel from the garage, swing it into the kid’s brain, and bury him in the forest with the gas cans. He never wanted to see Travis’s face again. He wished he’d never met him. He wished Shelly had never brought her brother to work at Ralston Extermination and that Joni hadn’t twisted his arm to hire the kid.

  “Maybe you are going to hell,” Wade told him. “I don’t know how those things work, Travis. Fact is, you crossed a line. You’re a murderer. All you can do is get used to the idea, because there’s no going back.”

  * * *

  Michael Malville sat on his front porch in Cloquet with a copy of the photograph of Khan Rashid in his hand. He’d studied it a thousand times, until he could see it even when he closed his eyes. The man’s face. His expression. His torso, twisted as he looked back over his shoulder, waiting for the bomb to explode. The anticipation. The nervousness. The guilt.

  It was the same face that he’d seen on Superior Street. The same face, filled with hatred. It was him.

  Michael swallowed down his regrets about what he’d done. Khan Rashid was guilty. He was the bomber. And yet Michael’s whole world was filled with doubt now. Ever since the news about the gallery fire and the death of the Rashids, he’d done nothing but replay the last few days in his head. He wondered, if he could go back in time, whether he would still push the button and tweet the photo of Khan Rashid, knowing what would happen next. Knowing that two people would die.

  Beside him, Alison was quiet. She’d been quiet all day. Through the open windows, he could hear Evan playing inside, waging an imaginary battle against imaginary monsters. In front of them, gentle rain soaked the lawn and played music on the metal gutters.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” he asked, although he already knew.

  Alison had one foot tucked beneath her on the Adirondack chair and one on the porch. Her blond hair was unwashed. “It’s nothing.”

  “Come on, we’re past those games,” Michael said.

  “Well, then, I don’t want to get you angry. Not today.”

  He was self-aware enough to know that her worries were well founded. He got angry easily and too often. “I’ll try not to—that’s all I can say.”

  “Okay. I’m upset. I keep thinking about that woman and her child dying the way they did. It’s horrible.”

  “And you think it’s my fault?” Michael asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

  “I didn’t say that. If you’re g
oing to get like this, then I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “It must have been so terrifying and painful. And for a mother—to know that her child was going to perish in her arms . . .”

  “Try not to dwell on it,” he told her.

  “I know, but I can’t think of anything else.” She reached out and took his hand. “I do not blame you, Michael.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But I do blame Dawn Basch,” Alison went on. “I told you from the day she arrived in town. that woman made me uncomfortable, and this is why. She had no reason to tweet out those photos except to incite people.”

  Michael didn’t reply for a long time. “It’s still free speech. It’s not against the law.”

  “Maybe, but we both know it’s wrong.”

  “She couldn’t have known what would happen,” he said.

  “Yes, she could. You’re not naïve.”

  “Come on, Alison.”

  “I’m serious. Innocent people died because of what she did. She knew something like that could happen.”

  “We don’t know for certain that the wife was innocent,” Michael said. “I’m not excusing what happened, but I’m just saying, she could have been a co-conspirator.”

  “And the child?”

  Michael hesitated. “That was a terrible thing, of course.”

  “I have a request.” Alison’s voice was soft but firm.

  “Okay.”

  “I don’t want you to have anything more to do with Basch or her No Exceptions crowd. No rallies. No books. Throw away the buttons and the hats. I don’t want them in our house. I don’t want Evan hearing about any of this.”

  He was about to protest, but he had to make a choice, and he chose his wife. “Okay, if that’s what you want. I’ll give it up.”

  She closed her eyes in relief. “Thank God.”

  “I don’t support what she did, you know. She went too far.”

  “Yes, she did.”

  Michael stared at the photo in his hand again. “Are you being honest with me? Or do you think I’m partly to blame?”

  “What do you think?” Alison asked.

  “I think I pushed a stone downhill, and I had no idea how far it would go.”

  His wife got up and knelt beside him and reached out to stroke his face. “You feel guilty, don’t you?”

  “A little.”

  “Well, unlike Dawn Basch, you couldn’t have predicted any of this,” Alison said. “I know you, Michael. Sometimes you rush in where angels fear to tread, but it’s never with malice. You’re a good man, and you have a good heart.”

  “But you wish I’d never gotten involved,” Michael replied.

  “You’re right. I wish you’d been able to let it go, even though I knew you couldn’t. I worry about the heartache this will cause you for the rest of your life. I hate that.”

  “Yes, but I know what I saw. I had to say something.”

  Alison kissed him before he could dive into his pool of self-justification. “I know what you think you saw, but it’s easy to convince yourself of things that aren’t true. I’ve been there, remember? Two years ago, I thought my husband, the love of my life, was capable of being a killer. I couldn’t have been more completely, horribly, terribly wrong. I still live with that guilt. That’s what scares me, Michael. What if you’re wrong, too? What if you simply made a mistake?”

  36

  “A single gunshot wound to the back of the head,” Stride said, staring down at the body of Eagle amid the debris of the Nopeming Sanatorium. Hot, damp air blew through the open window.

  Serena stood in the bedroom doorway. “Based on the amount of alcohol he’d consumed in here, Eagle was probably passed out cold. It wouldn’t have been hard to sneak up on him. Guy comes in, takes the shot, and makes his escape.”

  “Did anyone hear anything?” Stride asked.

  “Not that we know of. There’s a caretaker apartment on the other side of the complex, but apparently it’s been empty for weeks. Otherwise, we’re in the middle of nowhere, so if you’re going to shoot someone, this is a good place to do it.”

  Stride joined her in the hallway, which was a wreck of standing water, fallen ceiling tiles, and broken glass. He saw hundreds of tiny yellow paint pellets, remnants of mock battles played inside the ruins by war gamers. Among the debris was the head of a chicken, too, and the horned skull of a ram, surrounded by candle wax. Even Satanists found their way to Nopeming.

  “Good luck with the forensics in this place,” he murmured.

  “Yeah.”

  “Assuming nobody else heard the shot, what do we know about time of death?”

  “The M.E. thinks somewhere from two to four days ago. The autopsy may tell us more, but the heat and humidity won’t make it easy to narrow down. It could have been before the marathon, could have been after. According to Cat, Curt Dickes said that someone spotted Eagle on the railroad tracks near Becks Road on Friday. He was heading in this direction.”

  Stride studied the corridor

  “You said Eagle was hard to find,” Stride said, “so how did the perp locate him out here?”

  “It could have been an arranged meeting. Or our guy could have slipped a GPS tracker onto Eagle to follow him. Based on the way this played out, I think the murder was premeditated. This guy came out here specifically to kill him. The guy took Eagle’s boots, too. Eagle wasn’t wearing any shoes. That’s important.”

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  “Curt saw Eagle wearing brand-new boots from the Duluth Outdoor Company. That was last Wednesday, the day after the incident at the shop. The boots aren’t here, which means the killer took them with him.”

  “So maybe the killer wanted the shoes for himself,” Stride said. “It wouldn’t be the first time a homeless guy killed another one over something like that.”

  “Okay, yeah. You’re right, that’s possible. Or maybe the killer didn’t want us to make a connection to the store, because that would have given us a connection to the marathon bombing.”

  “You’re convinced Eagle’s murder is related to the bombing?”

  “I am. The timing is too coincidental to think anything else. Eagle was inside the Duluth Outdoor Company shop creating a scene just days before the bomb went off at the marathon. Then Eagle turns up with a bullet in his head. Whoever did this was tying up loose ends.”

  Stride nodded. This time, the coincidences went too far. He thought Serena was right.

  “Where’s Cat?” he asked.

  “Outside. She’s pretty shaken up.”

  The two of them made their way to the ground floor of the complex. Outside, spitting rain tapped on the green grass. The yellow brick building loomed above them. Stride could see Cat standing against a tree fifty yards away. Her arms were folded, and she stared at the sky.

  “So what was Eagle really doing at the shop last week?” Stride asked Serena.

  “I have a theory,” she said, “but you and the FBI aren’t going to like it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Durkin thinks Eagle was at the store to cause a diversion. Throw a fit, and distract the staff. She thought it was part of a burglary scheme, and, yeah, okay, she might be right. But I just don’t believe anybody killed Eagle over a pair of boots.”

  “Then why the diversion?” Stride asked.

  “That’s when the guy planted the bomb,” Serena said.

  Stride stared at her. “You think the bomb was sitting on the floor of the store for days, and no one noticed it?”

  “Not on the floor,” Serena said. “He could have slipped it into the front display window. It could have been sitting there with a dozen other backpacks, and no one would have paid any attention to it. But to do that, he needed a few seconds with the staff distracted. Eagle gave him those few seconds.”

  Stride shook his head. “You’re convinced of this?”

  “I may be crazy, Jonny, but I think we
’ve all been on the wrong track from the beginning. The bomb was already in the store long before the marathon.”

  “That’s a big risk for this guy to take,” Stride said. “The thing could have gone off at any time.”

  “Yes, but he also didn’t have to get the bomb into the store on marathon day, when we have Canal Park flooded with security. All he had to do was set it off remotely. For all we know, the bomber wasn’t even at the marathon. He could have dialed a phone number to trigger it.”

  “If you’re right, the suspect pool just got a lot bigger,” Stride said.

  “It also means we don’t have any real reason to suspect Khan Rashid of anything,” Serena added.

  “Except Dennis Kenzie’s murder.”

  “I know. I’m not necessarily saying he’s innocent. But whether Rashid had a backpack or not doesn’t mean a thing if the bomb was in the store before the marathon even started.”

  Stride tried to rewire his thinking. He’d spent three days looking at the bombing one way, and suddenly, he had to go back and start over. If Serena was right, the whole investigation needed to start over. They’d been looking for a needle in the wrong haystack.

  “How do we find Eagle’s partner?” he asked her. “Eagle was part of the homeless population, but there’s no way someone from that community had the resources or know-how to build this bomb. So how did the bomber even cross paths with Eagle?”

  “I don’t know,” Serena admitted. “Cat says Eagle hung out all over town, so they could have bumped into each other anywhere. However, if my theory is right, they were both in Canal Park a week ago. Eagle went into the Duluth Outdoor Company shop on Tuesday evening, and so did the bomber. Our guy was there. And the marathon people keep a high-def camera on the roof of their building that takes pictures up and down the street. Maybe they caught him on the camera feed that evening.”

  “Okay, except that camera’s visible from the street. Everybody knows it’s there. Why wouldn’t he use the back entrance to the shop? Why take the risk of coming in on the Canal Park side? There are no cameras in the alley.”