Stalked Read Free Page B

“I
know
what’s coming. Cops tramping through the house. Hours of interrogations. Newspapers. Television. I didn’t want to deal with it, not right away.”
    “This is a murder investigation. Minutes count.”
    She scoffed. “Investigation? This is going to be a witch hunt. Let’s not sugarcoat it. I’m in big trouble.”
    He didn’t disagree with her. “Did you search the house?” he asked.
    “No.”
    “All right, let me look around.”
    “I told you, he’s gone.”
    “He?”
    “I’m assuming it was a he. Then again, we’re talking about Eric, so I shouldn’t assume.” She gave a sour laugh.
    Stride frowned. “I’m going to tell you something as a friend, Mags. Not as a cop. You should
not
say things like that. Okay? You should shut up.”
    Maggie kicked at an imaginary piece of dust on the floor. “Yeah, but I don’t want to shut up. I want to get mad. I want to scream at someone.”
    “That won’t help.”
    “No? It’ll sure make me feel better.” She saw his face and softened. “I know, I know, you’re right. Look, you shouldn’t be here. If you want to leave, that’s okay.”
    He didn’t reply, but it was true. He was on thin ice being here, because this wasn’t going to be his case. He and Maggie had been partners and friends for more than a decade, and as a result, he would be walled off from the investigation. He was the lieutenant in charge of the Detective Bureau that investigated major crimes in Duluth, at the southwestern corner of Lake Superior, where the lake narrowed like a knife point plunging into the city’s heart. Duluth was small enough that Stride played a lead role in most of the serious cases himself, but this homicide would wind up in the hands of one of his senior sergeants.
    He knew that was why Maggie wanted him here before the others arrived. She wanted him to see the scene, to talk to her, to form his own opinions. She was drafting him onto her team.
    “Make us both some coffee, okay?” he said. “I’ll check out the house.”
    Maggie screwed up her face. “You know I don’t drink coffee.”
    “You do now,” Stride told her. He added, “I could smell the alcohol on your breath when you opened the door.”
    Her face blanched as she turned away.
    Stride began in Eric’s office, but he stayed at the threshold and didn’t go inside. He saw the single gunshot wound in Eric’s forehead. His muscular body was stretched out on a burgundy leather sofa, a white blanket draped over his legs and stomach. His hairless chest was bare. His head and its long mane of blond hair lay propped on a pillow, which now cradled blood like a punch bowl. The gun was in the middle of the floor, at least ten feet away from the body. Too far to be a suicide. He looked for dirty water on the floor that might have been left by snowy boots, but whoever had done this had been careful. He had probably left his boots in the entryway where everyone else did and then crept through the house in stockinged feet.
    Assuming anyone had been in the house at all.
    He felt nothing looking at Eric’s body—he had deadened himself to that kind of emotion years ago. Even so, he knew Eric well. Eric and Maggie had been married for more than three years, and Stride had been to their house many times. It was awkward for all of them. Stride and Maggie had a long history before Eric entered the picture. For years, Maggie had indulged a quiet crush on Stride, and he wasn’t sure it had entirely gone away. Eric knew it.
    Stride went room to room on all three levels. It took him nearly half an hour. The house was huge and ghostly for two people, full of cubbyholes with strange slanted ceilings, and secret spaces where cold breezes sneaked through the walls. It was in a neighborhood of vintage estates, clustered together a few blocks west of the north-south highway near Twenty-fourth Avenue. Once this had been an old money enclave, and now it was dominated by city professionals and entrepreneurs. Eric