Marathon

by Brian Freeman

  “The right rear tire is low,” Maggie said.

  She grabbed a flashlight from her pocket and bent down and aimed the beam deep into the jagged treads of the tire. She whistled and moved to each of the other tires and did the same thing. Everywhere she looked, she saw the shiny glint of something like diamonds.

  “What is it?” Guppo asked.

  “Glass. There are fragments of glass stuck in the treads on all the tires. One of them must have gone deep enough to produce a slow leak. The gallery blew, the windows shattered, and Travis drove through a field of broken glass as he was getting away. He brought all the evidence with him.”

  “It’s nice when criminals are stupid,” Guppo said.

  Maggie gestured at the locked rear doors of the van. “Let’s take a look inside and see what else he left for us.”

  “Sure.”

  The round detective finished his scone with a large bite and waddled to the back of his tan 1998 Oldsmobile and popped the trunk. He took out a thin aluminum stick with a hooked end and gracefully slid it into the window well on the van’s driver’s door. In a few seconds, he undid the lock. With a gloved hand, he opened the door and pushed a button inside to unlock the remaining doors of the vehicle.

  Maggie swung open the rear panels. The interior of the van was lined with metal shelves, and she saw a supply of animal cages, rubber gloves, ventilator masks, and plastic canisters labelled as poison. She also saw a large, clear plastic bag on the nearest shelf, and when she squinted, she realized that the bag was stuffed with the corpses of at least thirty rats. Where an orange bucket had tipped, she saw hundreds of dead cockroaches spilling across the rubber-matted floor.

  “Holy crap, it’s like a Stephen King novel in here,” she said.

  Guppo’s mustache wrinkled with distaste as he assessed the van. “But no gasoline cans,” he said.

  “No, he must have jettisoned them. Hang on, though.”

  Maggie bent forward until her nose was almost touching the floor of the van. She avoided the bodies of the bugs. The strong odor from the mat made her jerk backward, and she saw drips of dark liquid staining the floor.

  “He spilled,” she told Guppo. “The tanks leaked when he was taking them in and out. The floor reeks of gasoline.”

  “So we’ve got him,” Guppo said.

  Maggie nodded. “Yeah, we’ve got him. Now we just need to find him.”

  * * *

  Travis froze as he was about to push open the glass door that led to the roof of the parking ramp. Not far away, the rear panels of his van were open. He recognized the Chinese police officer from the hospital, and his whole body convulsed with fear. They’d found him. They knew what he’d done.

  The cop’s head swiveled in his direction, and Travis stumbled out of sight before she could spot him. With heavy, lumbering footsteps, he ran down the stairwell. He stopped before he reached the street, at the entrance to the second-floor skywalk over Lake Avenue. On the street, any cop in a squad car could come around the corner and pick him out. In the skywalks, he could blend into the workday crowd.

  Travis shoved his hands into his pockets and wandered across Lake Avenue in the glass tunnel. He tried to hide the anxiety that swirled in his brain.

  The skywalks connected buildings throughout miles of downtown, which meant that Duluthians could avoid the subzero temperatures in January and get around the city without ever going outside. The corridors were long and dark, with a shut-in smell. Popcorn littered the carpet. Air-conditioning hummed. As Travis hurried from building to building, other pedestrians passed him, but no one looked at him twice. He glanced over his shoulder, in case the cops from the parking ramp were following him, but for now, he’d eluded them. Even so, the police were everywhere. When he crossed over Second Avenue, he spotted two squad cars roaring through the intersection, and he turned around to make sure his face wasn’t visible through the glass.

  Travis knew they were looking for him.

  He ducked into a café in the Holiday Center and bought a cup of black coffee. He nervously eyed the businesspeople moving back and forth around him. He took a seat near the tall windows looking out on the street, away from the skywalk traffic, and dug his phone out of his pocket. He wondered if the police were already monitoring it, but he turned it on, anyway, and dialed Wade’s number. The phone rang and rang, until he got Wade’s voice mail.

  “Wade,” he murmured. “Hey, man, it’s me. Call me.”

  Travis sipped his coffee. The caffeine added to his jittery nerves. As he sat there, the reality of his situation sank into his brain. When the police found him, they’d arrest him. They’d put him on trial, and the jurors would stare into his face with their hard eyes and say, “Guilty.” Travis Baker, murderer. They’d put him in a cell, and that was it. End of story.

  The thought of being stuck in prison for the rest of his life overwhelmed him. He squeezed his coffee cup so hard that he crushed it, and coffee squirted up like a fountain over his clothes and the table. It burned his hand. Now everyone was looking at him. One of the café employees came running over with a towel. She looked straight at his face. She’d remember him. When she saw his photo on the news, she’d say, That’s him. That’s the guy who spilled his coffee.

  “Are you okay, sir?”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

  “Let me get you a refill.”

  “No, it’s okay, never mind.”

  Travis got up, toppling his chair. He dried his hand on his T-shirt. He shoved his way through the tables and back to the skywalk without looking behind him. He felt a flush on his face.

  He couldn’t stay there.

  Travis hurried through the food court and was about to cross over Superior Street when he spotted a security guard heading toward him. He reversed direction and exited the building into an alley behind the hotel. He waited outside, making sure that the guard wasn’t following him, and then he jogged across Third Avenue. Already, he felt unsafe. The intense sunlight was making him sweat. Cars were parked up and down the block. When he took a quick glance down the hill, he saw the perfect place to lie low.

  Half a block away, on the sidewalk, was a small iron railing bolted to a building wall, with a gate that gave access to a set of dirty concrete steps leading into the subbasement of the building. He and Wade probably spent more time underneath that building than anyone else in the city. They’d waste hours there, alone, playing music and cards, without a soul disturbing them, other than the occasional rat.

  Travis hurried down the street. No one looked his way. He swung open the gate and hugged the brick foundation wall to the bottom of the steps. The stairwell was barely wide enough to let him through. Where the steps ended, he found a locked metal door. Moisture leached from underneath. Garbage had been tossed from the sidewalk overhead, and Travis kicked it aside with his boot. He yanked keys from his pocket, and then he took out his phone, too. He backed up out of view from anyone on the sidewalk above him and dialed Wade’s number again.

  This time, Wade answered on the first ring.

  “What do you want, Travis? Why are you calling me?”

  “I got trouble, man. I need help. The police are on to me. They know I did it.”

  He heard a loud sigh from Wade. “Yeah, that cop came by the hospital and talked to me and Shelly. She was asking lots of questions about you. Do they have any proof?”

  “They found the van. I tried to clean it, like you said, but they’ll figure it out. They know it’s me, man.”

  Wade was quiet for a long time. “What do you want from me, Travis?”

  “I need help. I need to get out of town.”

  “You’re going to run?”

  “What choice do I have, man? They catch me, they put me away—you know that. I need a car and some money. Soon as I’m settled, I’ll pay you back.”

  Wade laughed. “Sure. That’ll happen.”

  “I mean it. And, hey, Wade, I probably need a gun, too. You got one I can take with me?”
>
  “I’m always carrying, Travis, you know that. Where are you planning on going, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere south.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’m heading into the subbasement at the building on Third. You know, the one where we hang out sometimes? I figure it’s safe there for a while.”

  “Yeah, I know the one,” Wade said. “Okay, hang tight, Travis. Get out of sight, and stay out of sight. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  48

  Stride found Michael and Alison Malville waiting for him in the interview room at police headquarters.

  He remembered both of them from the investigation two years earlier. Since then, Alison had ditched her long red hair for a short, blond, soccer-mom style, and she was dressed down in a way she never would have been when she lived in her McMansion in Duluth. Michael hadn’t changed as much as his wife. He still looked tense and angry. He was a poster child for the fact that having all the money in the world didn’t make you happy.

  Stride sat down across from them. He noticed that Alison reached out and took her husband’s hand. It was good to see them still together. Back then, he hadn’t been certain that their marriage would survive.

  “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Malville,” Stride said. “What can I do for you?”

  Alison looked at her husband, but Michael stared down at the table. His face and his bald head were beet red. “We’re very sorry about the deaths of your police officers,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Can you tell us if Khan Rashid was the man who blew himself up last night?” Alison asked.

  Stride didn’t answer immediately. He tried to anticipate where this conversation was going, but all he saw was a cauldron of emotion bubbling under Michael Malville’s skin, even when the man didn’t say a word.

  “The FBI will be conducting DNA tests to be sure,” Stride replied. “Until then, we’re not confirming the identification.”

  Michael spoke for the first time. “Do you know if Rashid was guilty? Was he the one who bombed the marathon?”

  “We’re not sure yet. Why do you want to know?”

  Alison looked at Michael, and Michael looked at Alison. They waited for each other. Finally, Alison said under her breath, “It doesn’t change anything, Michael. Even if Rashid really is guilty, they need to know the truth.”

  Michael scowled. He didn’t want to talk. It was obvious that Alison had dragged him here without his consent.

  “My husband has something to tell you,” Alison announced, not giving him a choice.

  “And what’s that, Mr. Malville?” Stride asked.

  Michael stared back without blinking, as if he didn’t want to give Stride the satisfaction of not looking into his eyes. “I made a mistake,” he announced.

  “A mistake?”

  “When I saw the photograph of Khan Rashid in Canal Park, I was certain that he was the man who bumped into me on Superior Street. The man with the backpack. You have to understand, Lieutenant, I was sure he was the guy. I didn’t have the slightest doubt.”

  “Now you’re not sure?” Stride asked.

  “Now I realize I was wrong. It wasn’t him.”

  Stride wasn’t surprised at all. Eyewitnesses got it wrong all the time. Even so, he had to bury his anger at the man in front of him, because this eyewitness mistake had rippled into a violent disaster. Dennis Kenzie was dead. Ahdia Rashid was dead. Pak Rashid was dead. So were two more police officers, along with a man they assumed was Khan Rashid.

  All those deaths had begun with Michael Malville’s tweet.

  And Michael Malville was wrong.

  “Didn’t you tell Sergeant Bei that you were one hundred percent certain that the man you saw with the backpack was Khan Rashid?” Stride asked.

  “Yes, I did, but—”

  “And now you’re one hundred percent certain that it was not him,” Stride said.

  “That’s right.”

  Stride allowed a long stretch of silence to linger in the room. “Okay. Well, thank you for coming in, Mr. Malville. I’ll have an officer show you both out.”

  Michael leaned across the table. “That’s it? Don’t you want to know who I really saw?”

  “No.”

  “Why the hell not?” he demanded. Alison frowned and shot him a look that said: Calm down.

  Stride ran both hands back through his wavy hair. His face was stone. “Mr. Malville, right now, your memories of what you saw or didn’t see have no credibility with me. We’re done listening to you, and my advice is that you keep any information you think you have off social media, too.”

  He stood up to leave, but Alison interrupted him. Beside her, Michael stewed with resentment.

  “Lieutenant, wait,” she said. “We are both very sorry. I know that doesn’t change a thing, but it’s true. Michael won’t give you any excuses, but I can tell you he simply made an honest mistake. He didn’t post that photograph with malice toward anyone.”

  “You’re right, Mrs. Malville. That doesn’t change a thing.”

  “At least look,” Michael interjected. He pushed a white piece of paper across the desk. “I’m not going to pretend I didn’t screw up. I was wrong about Rashid, and I have to live with that. The reason I made a mistake is that I never saw the real man in any of the photographs online. If I had, I would have identified him immediately. I didn’t see him until today, and as soon as I did, I recognized him.”

  Stride moved the piece of paper closer with one of his fingers. “Where did you see him?”

  “On television. He was being interviewed. I did a quick screen capture from the CNN website and printed it. This is the guy, Lieutenant. He had a backpack, and he bumped into me on Superior Street. I know what I said before, but this time, I’m right.”

  Stride took the page into his hands and turned it over. The photo taken from the video feed was blurry, but he knew the face.

  It was Haq Al-Masri.

  * * *

  Stride found Serena waiting for him in his office. She handed him a can of Coke. “You don’t like the Malvilles very much, do you?” she asked.

  He sat down next to her and took a swig of pop from the can. “Not really. In fairness, they have plenty of reasons not to like me, either. The Spitting Devil case almost broke up their marriage.”

  He was conscious of the silence from Serena, and he knew what it was about. She hadn’t been a part of that investigation, and that was because it had happened during the winter months two years earlier when she and Stride were split up. Those were the short-lived days when he and Maggie had been sleeping together, before they both realized they’d made a terrible mistake. The case wasn’t a bad memory just for the Malvilles. It was his own dark time, too.

  “Anyway,” he murmured. The past was the past, and he couldn’t change it.

  He put the photograph of Haq Al-Masri on the desk between them.

  “Do you think Malville is right this time?” Serena asked. “Was Haq at the marathon?”

  “I don’t have much confidence in anything Malville says at this point. His memories are too colored by everything that’s happened. I do believe that he was wrong about Khan Rashid. Malville and Dawn Basch destroyed that man’s life, and he didn’t do a damn thing.”

  “What about last night in Woodland?” Serena asked.

  “That’s a good question. Durkin thinks Khan was pushed so far that he finally pushed back. The working theory among the FBI is that Malik Noon gave Rashid a suicide vest.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “No.”

  “What’s another explanation?”

  “That it wasn’t Rashid who died last night,” Stride said. “The voice on the phone call sounded familiar to me. I think it was Rashid calling to warn me. Plus, the original 911 call that identified Rashid in the Woodland neighborhood came from a burner phone. It was untraceable. Somebody wanted us to walk into that situation thinking Khan Rashid was the man in the s
hed.”

  “Why?” Serena asked.

  “If we were convinced Khan was dead, we’d stop looking for him. He’d be able to escape.”

  “Have you told Maloney or Durkin about your suspicions?”

  “I haven’t. I don’t have any proof; it’s just a hunch. We’ll wait to see what the DNA results tell us.” He hesitated, and then he added, “If Rashid is alive, I’m not sure it’s a bad thing if he gets away. He’s a victim, along with all the others.”

  Serena leaned back in the chair. She had a strange look on her face. “Every now and then, Jonny, you surprise me.”

  “What, you think I’m getting soft?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  He smiled. “Sometimes you have to know who to arrest and who to let run.”

  “What about Haq? Are you going to talk to him?”

  “Because of what Michael Malville said? No. I know Haq. He’s not the marathon bomber.”

  Serena frowned. “It’s not that I don’t trust your instincts, Jonny . . .”

  “But?”

  “But I really think you should talk to Haq.”

  His brow furrowed. “Because he bumped into Malville at the marathon? Because he had a backpack with him? You’re the one who’s been telling me the bomb was probably in place for days before the race.”

  “Yes, but there’s something else,” Serena said.

  “What?”

  “I’m still working my way through the parade of people who were in the marathon offices on that Tuesday,” she told him. “The list includes representatives from the local mosque who were making arrangements for a special group of Muslim runners. Haq was one of them, Jonny. He was at the marathon office on the day the street camera was disabled.”

  49

  Haq ran hard. His anger propelled him. He went out the back of his house to avoid reporters who might be waiting for him, and he made his way to College Street, where he headed west along the border of the university. He got into a rhythm. The air was heavy, and his body poured sweat, but when exhaustion tempted him to slow down, he ran faster.

  He followed College Street to the end and turned south. His route was downhill, with the wind at his back, and he raced along a mostly wooded route until he reached Skyline Parkway. There he turned back uphill, on a scenic drive high above the lake, where the steepness made each step a battle. He barely noticed the view. He was too consumed with his own thoughts.