The Burying Place

by Brian Freeman

  She didn't add that she had tried to come inside with him then and share his grief and help him through it, and he had shut her out.

  'I think it's worse to feel nothing,' he said. 'I'm somewhere else. Gone.'

  Maggie caressed his neck with the back of her fingers. 'You're not alone.'

  'I know. Thanks.'

  'It's not a sin to need help.'

  'Maybe, but I'm used to dealing with things on my own,' he said.

  'No, you don't deal with them at all, you stubborn ass.'

  His face softened. He laughed. 'I've missed you.'

  'Me, too. Don't go running away again, OK?'

  'Deal.'

  It felt normal to continue to caress him, and she did. She saw what looked like an invitation in his eyes, and she brought her fingertips along the line of his chin and then across his lips.

  'You haven't said a word, you know,' she said.

  'About what?'

  'About me.'

  He blinked, not understanding. He stared at her until he finally saw her. Really saw her. She watched herself get inside his head. She had been standing on the outside for so long that it felt disorienting to have him look at her that way.

  'Oh, my God,' he said with a smile. 'Look at your hair.'

  He reached over and pushed away the bangs that fell over her eyes, and the intimacy of the gesture took her breath away.

  She smiled back. Just with her lips. Teasing. 'Like it?'

  He didn't have to answer. His expression said everything. She didn't know if it was gratitude or desire, but she didn't care. His hands slid around the back of her neck and pulled her toward him. Her chin lilted upward. Their breath was warm on each other's faces. Their lips moved closer, as if drawn by gravity, and came softly together. He kissed her; she kissed him back. When he pulled away, she thought in the recess of her brain, so that's that. It was over, a moment where they had danced at the edge of a dangerous line and then come to their senses, exactly as they needed to do.

  But it wasn't over. The first kiss ended, and with the fragile ice breaking underneath them, they began again. Their need was ferocious and immediate. Before she knew it, the dangerous line was so far behind them that she couldn't see it any more. A voice sang in her head - mistake, mistake, mistake - but she shut the door firmly, and the voice grew faint and unimportant. They didn't think about what they were doing; they just did it. She helped him undress her, and she peeled away the silk boxers around his waist, and when they were both naked, he pressed her downward into the carpet. He loomed over her, and his arms scooped under her shoulder blades. She rose upward to meet him, clutching his face. In the next instant, as her legs spread and tightened around his back, he filled her with a single, wanton thrust.

  Mistake, the voice said again.

  She didn't listen. She didn't care any more. She drowned out the voice by telling him how much she wanted him. She told him to make love to her. She held on to him so tightly that her fingernails drove into his skin. She couldn't be too close, couldn't have a square inch of her body not touching him. He responded with the same intensity, making love to her with the same urgent abandon.

  Somewhere, drifting outside herself, she wondered if there was a voice in his head, too, whispering that this was wrong. If so, he didn't listen either. They simply clung to each other and leaped from the bridge together, and for a time she was convinced they could fly. Even if they couldn't, it made no difference, because the water was so far below that she couldn't see it coming closer.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Serena found Regan Conrad sitting alone in the hospital cafeteria. The nurse picked at a green salad and drank from a plastic bottle of Aquafina. She wore lilac scrubs. When Serena sat down opposite her, Regan glanced at the other tables to see who was within earshot.

  'I guess you talked to Valerie,' Regan said with a small smile.

  Serena leaned across the table. 'This isn't a joke. You're lucky I'm not arresting you.'

  'It wouldn't be the first time,' Regan said, chewing on her salad. 'But I suppose you know that by now, don't you?'

  Serena did. She had done her homework.

  'When you were nineteen, you were picked up for breaking and entering in Two Harbors,' she said.

  Regan shrugged. 'I was sitting in my boyfriend's car. I didn't know what he was doing.'

  'I read the police reports,' Serena told her. 'He said it was your idea. He said you egged him on. The house belonged to a man you'd been sleeping with.'

  She stabbed a grape tomato with her fork and pulled it between her teeth. 'Men will say anything. You know that.'

  'When you were twenty-four, you left threatening messages for a girl you blamed for stealing your boyfriend,' Serena continued.

  'She did steal him. Little bitch.'

  'The girl found her cat beheaded in her backyard,' Serena said.

  'It wasn't me,' Regan replied, 'although I'm not much of a cat person.' 'Someone put a pipe bomb under her car, too. The police were convinced you were involved.'

  'I had an alibi. They never charged me.'

  'They thought you got someone else to do your dirty work.'

  'I must be really persuasive,' Regan said.

  'You had an alibi when Callie Glenn disappeared, too,' Serena told her.

  'Oh, I get it. There's no way I could have done it myself, so that must mean I had someone else do it for me. Are there any other crimes I couldn't have committed that you'd like to talk to me about?'

  'You told Valerie Glenn you know what happened to Callie.'

  'Sure I do. So do you. It was Marcus.'

  'Do you have any evidence that he was involved?'

  'Marcus is smart. I don't think he's likely to leave any evidence behind.'

  'Why did you contact Valerie?' Serena asked.

  'I thought she deserved to know the truth.'

  'The truth? What exactly did you tell her?'

  Regan shrugged. 'Just that Marcus said the same things to me that he said to that girl in Vegas. He wished Callie had never been born.'

  'That's all?'

  'If there was anything else, I'm sure Valerie would have told you.'

  'Don't be cute,' Serena said. 'Why didn't you want her calling the police?'

  'I didn't think she wanted you to know the kind of person Marcus is. Wives have to make difficult choices about what they can live with.'

  Serena jabbed a finger in Regan's face. Her patience with the nurse was gone. 'Don't pretend you're doing anything noble. You have no proof about Marcus. You simply want to sabotage their marriage.'

  'I'm being honest,' Regan replied. 'You're the one who's filling Valerie's head with false hope. Desperate mothers will believe anything you tell them. If their child is at stake, they'll believe a lie even when the truth is staring them in the face. You tell Valerie that Callie will be coming home, but in your heart of hearts, you don't believe that. You think exactly what I do. So does your partner. So does Blair

  Rowe. The only difference is, I've got the guts to say it to Valerie's face.'

  'Stay away from her,' Serena snapped. 'You're hindering a police investigation.'

  'Investigation? It looks to me like you're at a dead end.'

  'I think you're hiding something,' Serena told her. 'When I first talked to you, you were pushing me to look at Micki Vega. Do you know something about her and Marcus? Do you think she was involved in Callie's disappearance?'

  Regan shook her head. 'I have no idea, but I imagine Micki would do anything that Marcus told her to do. She was obviously in love with him.'

  'Why did Micki lose her baby?'

  'Women miscarry. Bad things happen. There was nothing unusual about it.'

  'How did she react?' Serena asked.

  'How would you expect her to react? She was hysterical.'

  'It must have been hard for her to lose a baby and then turn around and take care of Callie.'

  'I'm sure it was,' Regan said. 'What are
you suggesting? That Micki stole Callie Glenn to replace the baby she lost?'

  'Is that possible?' Serena asked.

  'Anything's possible. I already told you, mothers can be desperate creatures.'

  'Desperate people can be manipulated.'

  'By me? You think I persuaded Micki to steal Callie?'

  'Did you?'

  'Of course not.'

  'You have a history of twisting people around your finger and getting them to do what you want,' Serena persisted.

  'I haven't talked to Micki in months. If anyone manipulated her, it's Marcus. Who knows what ideas he put into Micki's lovesick head?'

  'Why would Marcus want Micki to harm his child? Or take her away?'

  'If you can figure out why,' Regan said, her voice dropping into a whisper, 'then I guess you'll know everything.'

  'I'm asking you.'

  Regan stood up. 'Sorry. I don't want to hinder your investigation:

  Serena stood up too and got in Regan's face. 'Were you involved in Callie's disappearance?'

  'You know I wasn't. I was here at the hospital that night.'

  'Do you know what happened to her?'

  'We both know, but you don't want to face reality. You want to take something simple and make it complex. Marcus was obviously involved. Maybe Micki, too.'

  'Who was in your house the night I talked to you?' Serena asked.

  'Excuse me?'

  'There was an old Escort in your driveway when I arrived. When I left, it wasn't there any more. Someone sneaked out while I was with you. Who was it?'

  'I'm a medical professional. It's none of your business who I talk to.'

  'So it was a patient?'

  'I think we're done,' Regan said. 'If you want to talk about my nursing, you can get a judge to give you a warrant. And good luck with that.'

  'This isn't over. You'll see me again.'

  'I'm sure I will,' Regan told her. 'You're obviously obsessed with me, Ms Dial. But I wish you'd give it up and do something useful. Like catching the killer in my neighborhood.'

  'The Duluth Police will get him.'

  'Really? Is that supposed to be a comfort?'

  'The police are doing everything they can.'

  'Tell that to the four women who are dead,' Regan said. 'Me, I'll keep sleeping with my shotgun.'

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Stride parked on the steep west-side slope of Lake Avenue in the area of downtown Duluth known as the Central Hillside. It was the seamy section of town, prone to vagrants and hookers during the warmer months. Winter sent most of the itinerant population south like migrating birds, but a few hearty souls always hung around to keep the cops and the social service agencies busy. As he parked, he saw a cluster of youths in heavy coats eyeing his car suspiciously from the corner of 4th Street.

  Maggie sat next to him with her chin on her fist as she stared out the window. They hadn't spoken much since it happened.

  'Is this Nick Garaldo's place?' Stride asked, nodding his head at the four-story brick apartment building with the broken windows.

  Maggie nodded. 'Yeah, this is it.'

  He knew he should be the one to go first. It was his fault. For more than ten years, he had tiptoed around Maggie, aware of her feelings for him and careful not to lead her on. Now he had put both of them in an impossible situation.

  He stared at her on the other side of the car. The fire-engine red hair - that was so Maggie. Wild and hip. Doing whatever she wanted. Same with the diamond in her nose. He had always been closed-off and serious, and she was funny and on the fringe, but they had clicked. Yin and yang. He couldn't imagine the idea of her not being in his life. That was one of the reasons he had always kept a safe distance between them, even in those moments when she had made it clear he could cross the line. Now the safe space was gone.

  Mistake. He had to say it. Mistake. She was waiting for him to break the silence and give them both a chance to pretend it had never happened.

  Except he didn't feel that way. Something was different. He felt alive again. He realized that the coffer dam of dead logs and debris inside his head had finally broken free, but the flood that came with it was out of control. Emotions ricocheted around his soul, threatening to do serious damage. As if he hadn't done enough damage to his life already.

  Serena.

  He felt a stabbing wave of guilt. Serena. She had been the center of his life for the past three years, and he had turned his back on her and cheated on her. Serena was no fool. She had always known how Maggie felt about him. If there was one thing she had feared in their relationship, it was that he would sleep with Maggie one day.

  And now he had.

  'Mags,' he said.

  She swiveled her head to stare at him. He watched her face, which was patient and expectant. She assumed he was about to run like hell. She was waiting for him to say it. Mistake.

  When he didn't say anything, Maggie rode to his rescue again.

  'Look, do we have to make a big deal out of this?' she asked. 'You feel guilty as hell, but you shouldn't. I don't. We needed each other, and something happened. Serena never needs to know. You can go back to the way things were.'

  'What about us?' he said.

  She turned away without replying. He knew why. Even if he entertained the fiction that he and Serena could go on as they had before, he was certain that his relationship with Maggie had changed forever. They couldn't pretend otherwise.

  'Let's go check out the apartment, OK?' she said, ducking his question. 'That's probably the manager over there.'

  They climbed out of his truck and approached a short black man who paced in front of the apartment building. He greeted them with a firm handshake and introduced himself as Rufus Durand. Durand had steel-gray hair and was in his late fifties. He used his key to let them inside the street door.

  'Mr Garaldo's apartment is on the top floor,' he said, handing them a master key with an old wooden spoon tied to the chain with a rubber band. 'It's number four hundred and five. I guess you guys want to do this by yourself, huh?'

  Durand's tone made it clear he didn't want to go upstairs with them. If there was a body inside, he didn't want to see it. It probably wouldn't be the first time one of his tenants had gone out feet first.

  'We'll bring the key back,' Maggie said.

  'Yeah, take your time, I'll sit down here and do the crossword.' He withdrew a newspaper from under his arm and sat down in a card table chair on the wall opposite the elevator.

  Stride and Maggie took the elevator upward. It was old and slow. Maggie shoved her hands in her jeans and danced impatiently on the balls of her feet.

  'When was this guy last seen?' Stride asked.

  'Saturday.'

  'And nothing since then?'

  'Nope. No calls on his cell, and he didn't show up at work. I called his parents in Des Moines. They haven't heard from him.'

  They found Nick Garaldo's apartment and knocked. No one answered. Maggie twirled the key on the spoon and pushed it into the lock and let them inside. Garaldo's apartment had a single bedroom, an open space that doubled as living room and dining room, and a kitchenette. The furniture was sparse and had an estate sale smell. Stride headed for the bedroom, and he heard Maggie opening drawers in the kitchen. He found a twin bed, unmade. Garaldo had a nightstand next to the bed with a lamp and alarm clock and a dog-eared paperback book. It was a Minnesota private eye novel by David Housewright.

  Stride snapped on gloves and opened the nightstand drawer. Garaldo hadn't accumulated much junk. The drawer included a half-empty box of condoms, Old Spice cologne, several other paperback mysteries, and debris ranging from paper clips to potato chip crumbs. He closed the drawer and got down on his knees to look under the bed, where he found several dusty pairs of athletic shoes. Next to one of the shoes he saw a black disk no bigger than a postage stamp, which he removed and held between his fingers. It was an XD picture card for a digital camera. He bagged it.

&
nbsp; He checked the attached bathroom and found nothing unusual. No illegal drugs in the medicine cabinet. A prescription for allergy medication. Soap-crusted bottles of shampoo. He returned to the living room.

  'Anything?' he asked Maggie.

  She shook her head. 'He likes red pistachios. Big honking jar in the kitchen. Otherwise, nothing.'

  He handed her the photo card. 'He's been taking pictures.'

  'Did you find his camera?'

  Stride shook his head. 'No.'

  'That's interesting,' Maggie said.

  A phone sat on an end table near the television, and they noticed the red light flashing to indicate that Garaldo had messages. She pushed the button to play them. There were seven messages in all, three from his girlfriend, two from his boss in the harbor, and two from his parents, who mentioned that the police were asking about him. They sounded concerned.

  'I don't see a calendar or PDA,' Stride said. 'How about his mail?'

  'Bills. He does a lot of shopping at REI. Must be a backpacker or camper.'

  'So maybe he went hiking and had an accident,' he suggested.

  'Maybe. I'll put out an alert with the park service.'

  Stride surveyed the room again. Garaldo owned a television set propped on laminate shelves on one wall. There was a pair of iPod speakers on the shelf above the TV, but the iPod dock itself was empty. Beyond the shelves, he saw an oak desk with a Dell computer monitor.

  'Did you find hiking boots in the closet or under the bed?' Maggie asked.

  Stride shook his head.

  'No way this guy doesn’t own boots,' Maggie said.

  'What about his car?'

  'He's got a Chevy Malibu registered in his name. I've got an ATL out on it. Nothing yet.'

  'Let's check out his computer,' Stride said.

  The green power light glowed on the monitor on the oak desk. Stride pulled out the keyboard drawer and moved the mouse around.

  Nothing happened. He swung open the panel on the desk. Inside, he found a surge protector and a slot for a CPU tower.

  The computer CPU was gone. Cables from the keyboard, monitor, and Ethernet connection hung uselessly inside. Beside him, Maggie whistled.