“Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me!” Darden screamed. “I’ve got your money, the full two million dollars. Please just give me back my daughter!”
Afton watched in horror at the tableau that was unfolding below them. The snowmobile buzzed around him in a wide circle and then stopped.
Darden hurled the duffel bag of money toward the snowmobile driver.
“Here’s your money!” Darden cried. “Take it.”
The driver, wearing a black helmet, bubble facemask, and snowmobile suit, leaned sideways on his sputtering machine and swung one leg over. Then, in one quick motion, as if fearing a trap, he tossed down a small bundle and snatched up the bag of money.
Darden scrambled forward on his knees toward the bundle. “Elizabeth Ann!”
The snowmobiler jumped back onto his machine. The engine roared loudly as he kicked it into gear. Then, tossing up an enormous crest of powdered snow, he sped off in the same direction from which he’d come.
That’s when it all went ka-pow crazy.
Darden scooped up the bundle, cradled it against his body, and suddenly screamed. “It’s not her!” His voice rose up in a pitiful wail. “It’s just a rolled-up blanket!”
“Dear Lord,” Afton cried.
At the same instant, a volley of shots exploded from beneath the bridge. Thacker’s sharpshooters were firing at the snowmobiler, the shots seeming to come from inside one of the caves as well as from a tangle of brush down near the riverbank.
Afton saw the snowmobiler swerve wildly, trying to take evasive action and escape the bullets that were intended to bring him down. As loud pops continued to ring out, the snowmobiler changed course and went screaming down the steep riverbank. Seconds later, he skittered out onto the flat, dull gray ice of the Mississippi River.
“He’s on the river,” Max shouted.
The snowmobiler was really pouring it on. Zigzagging back and forth, pushing his snowmobile’s engine to the max.
He’d almost made it to the middle of the frozen river and Afton was starting to wonder what his escape strategy would be. Head down the river in the direction from which he’d come? Run straight across and ditch the machine on the opposite bank? Make a run for it and try to get swallowed up by the city? If she could keep the snowmobiler in her sights, she knew it would be a tremendous help to all the law enforcement personnel that had to be converging on the area right now.
All of a sudden there was another crack—a sound not quite as loud as a rifle shot but even more ominous.
“The ice,” Afton said, pointing. “The river’s not completely frozen over in the middle. Look there, it’s breaking up.”
“Must be a fast current,” Max said. “So only a thin skim of ice was able to form.”
Afton and Max watched as the snowmobiler throttled back. The ice was obviously unstable and he was struggling to find a safer route.
An enormous hunk of ice broke loose and suddenly jutted up like a slippery on-ramp. Jagged and dangerous looking, the piece of ice looked like an enormous broken windowpane.
The snowmobiler, far from being an expert with his sled, wobbled slightly as he tried to change direction yet again.
The slowing down was what did it, of course. A snowmobile running at top speed can practically skip across open water. But a hint of hesitation and it suddenly becomes a heavy piece of machinery, subject to the whims and principles of thin ice and basic gravity.
Two more enormous jagged cracks yawned open. Then an entire network of cracks, almost like a spider’s web, spun out from around the snowmobile. The snowmobiler gunned his sled left in a last-ditch effort to save himself.
But it was too late.
From up above, from their bird’s-eye perch on the High Bridge, Afton and Max watched in horror as the ice parted and a gaping black hole appeared. The snowmobile’s skids teetered for one long moment on a snaggle-toothed shard of floating ice, and then it plunged into the dark water.
The snowmobiler sank to his waist in the freezing water. Clearly having abandoned his sled and the duffel bag filled with ransom money, he struggled and paddled desperately amid a froth of bubbles. As hypothermia quickly set in, his arm motions slowed to a pathetic pace and he sank to his neck. Now only his round snowmobile helmet appeared to float on the surface like a dark bubble. He hovered there for another thirty seconds and then, with nary a sound or cry, disappeared completely.
* * *
BY the time Afton and Max raced back to their car and careened down the bluff, the scene had evolved into chaos. Thacker and Jasper were in the epicenter, shouting at a dozen officers, screaming into their radios.
“Now. Now!” Thacker cried. “Send a helo down the river to see if they can spot any sort of vehicle with a trailer. Our guy had to park and unload his snowmobile somewhere in the area.” His eyes flicked across Afton and Max. “And get hold of the cops in Lilydale and Mendota. Shake ’em out of bed if you have to. I want a full-court press on this. Saint Paul PD is jumping in, too.”
“If we can locate the vehicle,” Max said to Afton, “we can trace the registration and ID the kidnapper.”
Thacker continued to scream into his police radio. “Yes, check marinas. Especially check marinas. I don’t care if they’re closed. This shitbird had to park somewhere.”
Sirens blasted and bright lights split the night as two enormous trucks thundered in. Saint Paul’s Fire and Rescue Squad. A dozen men jumped down, manning ladders, ropes, and long poles with barbed hooks on the end so they could fish around in the murky water. Two men scrambled to pull on dry suits. It was the same frantic scene that was repeated dozens of times all over the frozen Midwest whenever a car, person, or snowmobile plunged through the ice.
“You think they can find the kidnapper?” Afton asked. “Pull him out?”
“If it even was the kidnapper,” Thacker snapped as he came over to join them. He was hopping up and down, stomping his feet against the relentless cold. “For all we know, this snowmobile guy could’ve been a phony who was hell-bent on collecting the ransom money.”
“He’d have to have some pretty decent inside information,” Afton said.
Thacker grimaced as a TV van humped its way toward them. “It happens.”
“Maybe this guy was just the errand boy,” Max said. “Hired by the kidnapper.”
“If that’s the case, he’s a bad luck errand boy,” Afton said. “Because now all that money’s at the bottom of the Mississippi.” She wondered what two million dollars of waterlogged money looked like.
“This has been bad luck all around,” Thacker said. He glanced over at Richard Darden, who’d since been retrieved from the woods. Darden sat shivering on the back end of an ambulance, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His head was bowed and he was weeping while one of the EMTs, a young African-American man with soulful eyes, tried to comfort him.
* * *
FINALLY, there was nothing left to do but regroup. Which was how Afton found herself sitting in Mickey’s Diner in downtown Saint Paul, guzzling hot coffee with Max, Deputy Chief Gerald Thacker, Don Jasper, Harvey Bagin, and Andy Farmer.
“Nothing to show for tonight but a damn hole in the ice,” Thacker said. His hair was plastered flat against his head from wearing a stocking cap and he looked beyond haggard. He seemed to be taking tonight’s failure personally.
“Maybe the divers will have better luck in the morning?” Jasper asked.
“Maybe,” Max said. “But it’s going to be treacherous as hell. There’s an even bigger storm rolling in.”
“Does it ever stop snowing here?” Jasper asked. “In Chicago we get wind off Lake Michigan and a couple weeks of below-zero temperatures. But this much snow . . . it’s almost apocalyptic. I mean, what’s next? Frogs and locusts?”
“This year’s snowfall is unusually heavy,” Afton told him.
“That so?�
� He looked like he wanted to believe her.
“No. It’s always like this,” she said.
A faint smile creased Jasper’s face. “You were just trying to make me feel better, is that it?”
“Did it work?” Afton asked. She liked this rangy FBI agent who was able to maintain his cool as well as his sense of humor.
“No,” Thacker said in a tone that indicated their banter wasn’t one bit welcome at the table.
Afton cleared her throat. “What happened with Darden?”
“Ambulance took him to Regions Hospital,” Thacker said. “They thought he might be suffering from hypothermia.” He placed his hands flat on the table and then pushed himself up. “Okay, everybody. Party’s over. Go home and get some shut-eye. We start again first thing tomorrow.” He pulled out his cell phone, scowled at it, and shuffled off to make another call.
“We’re in limbo,” Jasper said. “Still haven’t located the dead snowmobiler’s vehicle. Maybe when we fish him out, we can get a positive ID and work from there.”
“Might have to thaw him out first,” Bagin said.
“Hopefully the current hasn’t carried his body all the way down to Hastings,” Max said.
“If that’s the case, there won’t be a lot to go on,” Jasper said.
Afton set her coffee cup down with a loud clink. “Then we start over, just like Thacker said. We go back to square one, review the case files, and try to get a fresh perspective.”
Jasper, looking slightly bemused by her tenacity, hooked a thumb in Afton’s direction. “Is she always such a pit bull?”
Max shook his head. “You have no idea.”
39
MARJORIE was finishing a bowl of Grape Nuts Flakes when the newsflash came across the morning show. She’d been watching Wake Up with Terri and Tony, which aired early each Saturday morning on Channel 7. Terri was showing Tony how to make a graham cracker piecrust, laughing her fake TV personality laugh and making a big show of slapping his hand whenever he did something wrong. Which was, of course, fake TV bumbling.
When the anchorman’s face came on, Marjorie stood up and walked to the sink to rinse out her bowl. She turned on the faucet, tuning out the anchorman and the stupid, screaming red graphics that whirled about his head. But when the anchorman uttered the fateful words Darden baby and bungled ransom, her world suddenly tilted on its axis.
What?
The words crashed inside Marjorie’s brain like a freight train careening off its tracks. She spun around and rushed to the TV. Frantically jacked up the sound.
She watched in horror as the anchorman, who cautioned viewers that this was, as yet, an unconfirmed report, laid out all the dirty details. He explained about the ransom call that had been received by Richard Darden, the mysterious directions that had led him to the Wabasha Street Caves, the bungled ransom, and how the kidnapper’s snowmobile had plunged through thin ice. He closed his report by noting that the drowned man, whose body had just been recovered some forty minutes ago, was suspected to be that of Lars Torbert, a prominent Saint Paul attorney.
Marjorie’s jaw dropped.
Ransom demand? Wabasha Street Caves? Saint Paul attorney?
None of that had remotely figured into her plan. So what the hell had just happened?
As her cold, reptilian brain strained to process this bizarre information, the realization of what had probably happened began to fall into place. And finally, the answer lit up like a cool blue neon beer sign hanging in the front window of a bar.
That asshole Torbert had rolled the dice and tried to pull an end run on her. He’d attempted to negotiate a phony exchange that would net him a big fat pile of money. Only it had worked out badly for him. And now he was dead, drowned like the filthy weasel he was, probably laid out on a cold slab in the Saint Paul morgue.
Marjorie walked into her doll studio and sat down so hard she practically jounced the fillings in her teeth loose. She needed to focus. She needed to think. Most important, she needed to weigh her options.
She picked up a Krissy doll and sat there stroking its silky blond hair. Studied its little girl lips, idly decided that they should be bolder, maybe even give them a Hollywood pout.
Marjorie figured she had twenty-four hours at best before the net would begin to settle around her.
If the police tore through that scumbag Torbert’s records, and surely they would, then sooner or later they were bound to find something—paperwork, phone records, whatever—that linked him to her.
That would be a disaster of epic proportions.
Of course, having that little hot potato asleep in the crib upstairs was fairly incriminating as well. Something would have to be done. New plans would have to be put in place. And fast.
Marjorie picked up a pair of scissors and started trimming the doll’s hair. She snipped methodically at the long, flowing tresses, turning them into a shoulder-length bob. As her mood darkened, her anger and frustration grew, until it seemed to encompass her like a black, amorphous blob. She snipped away more hair. The doll’s bob was becoming a pixie cut.
The police will be coming, she told herself. And when they do, they’re not going to show one lick of mercy. All they’ll care about is what happened with the Darden baby and the Pink woman.
She hacked aggressively at the doll’s hair, making one side spikey and stubbly.
I’ll be sent to prison. For life. I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.
Marjorie threw down the scissors and watched them skitter across her worktable. Exhaling heavily, she bent sideways and slid open the bottom drawer of a metal filing cabinet. Pulled out a gun.
Better to settle this now, on my own terms.
She leaned back and caressed the dull metal of the gun. Thought about how easy it would be to shoot Shake and Ronnie. They were stupid and docile, like cows. They’d never see it coming, never think to defend themselves. She could pack up her good dolls and just get the hell away from here.
Maybe, just maybe, she could bundle up the two babies and take them along. She could dump them on the black market somewhere, maybe in Kansas City or Saint Louis. Someplace like that. She knew a few people. She’d been dabbling in this business long enough.
Kill them and then I’ll drive down to . . .
Marjorie gazed out the window. Pulled herself out of her mad fantasy long enough to see that there was a winter storm raging outside. Icy crystals of snow tick-ticked at the window like ragged fingernails. She saw that the snow had drifted up and over the cars in the driveway, turning them into soft, white humps. With this much snow, the roads would be damn near impassible. Hell, their driveway was completely drifted in. Still . . . if she couldn’t get out, then the police couldn’t get in. That brought her some small degree of comfort.
I’ll have to wait. But probably no more than ten or twelve hours. Don’t want to push my luck any more than I have to.
As soon as the snow eased up, she’d call Ort Peterman, the farmer who was their nearest neighbor. He was a big old Norski who owned a big old snow cat. He’d come over and plow her out if she asked. Have to pay him forty bucks, but what the hell. It was a small price to pay for her freedom.
That was it then. That was her plan. Shoot and scoot. Marjorie’s snarling expression turned into a grin as she began to hum tunelessly.
And make plans. Lots of plans.
Lately, she’d been nursing a secret fantasy. Make some kind of big score and then get the hell out of Dodge. Move somewhere where she could rent a little apartment and go on disability. Get that monthly mailbox handout. She’d seen an episode on 60 Minutes about how, down in Kentucky, everyone and his brother-in-law was on disability. If those stupid hillbillies could work a decent con, why couldn’t she? She was ten times smarter than they were. Besides, if she ever wanted to go back into business, there were probably plenty of dumb hillbilly
girls with unwanted hillbilly babies.
40
SUSAN Darden was the last person Afton and Max expected to see this Saturday morning as they huddled at Max’s desk. But here she was, pulling off a knit stocking cap, looking anguished and expectant.
“I just came from Regions Hospital,” Susan told them. “Checking on Richard.” After Darden had been transported to Regions Hospital, he’d been treated for overexposure and kept overnight. Some sedation had been involved, too.
“How’s he doing?” Afton asked.
“Not too many ill effects,” Susan said. “Aside from the fact that he’s angry and bitter about what happened. And upset about the money.” She glanced around the Robbery and Homicide squad room. “The doctors say he can be released later today.”
“His actions were very brave last night,” Max said.
Susan gave a shrug. “Redemption.”
“Really?” Afton asked. She wondered if something like this could bring the two of them back together. Tragedies sometimes became the binding tie, the shared emotion, that pulled families back from the brink of separation. Of course, she would never take a scumbag like Richard back, but Susan might.
“No, not really,” Susan said. “Nothing’s changed between us. I’m still going to file for divorce. But it’s nice to know that Richard finally grew a pair of balls.”
“Huh,” Max said.
Susan swallowed hard and seemed to fight for control of her emotions. “What I really came here for, what I really want to know, is do you still think we have a chance?”
“If we didn’t believe that, we wouldn’t be here,” Max said. “We wouldn’t still have an entire team working overtime to find your baby.”
Susan touched a hand to her chest. “Thank you. I guess I needed to hear that directly from you.” Her eyes glistened with tears. “I really do believe that my baby is alive and is coming back to me. I have to believe that.”
“We’re doing everything we can,” Afton said. It was the first time she’d given her assurance to Susan when she didn’t believe it one hundred percent.
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