Stalked (15 page)

She closed her eyes. “That fucker.”

“I’m sorry. I was going to tell you tomorrow.”

“What did he want?”

Maggie tensed, waiting. Eric, what the hell did you do?

“He wanted my help in figuring out how you can spot a sexual predator,” Tony went on. “He was planning to see someone after our meeting.”

“Someone?”

“He didn’t say who.”

A few hours later, Eric was dead. Now Maggie knew why.

I know who it is
.

On Sunday morning, Serena found herself among the deserted fields and open sky in the northeastern section of the city. The urban center of Duluth was clustered in a few square miles around the lake, on terraces carved into steep hills, like a miniature replica of the roller-coaster streets of San Francisco tucked into a snow globe. On the plateau above the lake, however, the land quickly leveled off and became flat and desolate. Arrow-straight highways stretched for miles. Houses were spaced far apart, with acres of land separating neighbors.

She felt as if she would drive off the end of the world if she ever reached the horizon line. Light snow skittered and danced on the asphalt like water in a sizzling pan. For Serena, there was something big and intimidating about this place. If the desert was like a snake—quick, sneaky, and secretive—then the north land was like a bear, lumbering and huge, full of fur, fat, and muscle. Living here felt like trespassing on land reserved for giants.

She turned left on a dirt road marked with a Dead End sign and drove another mile to the wooded lot where Tony Wells kept his home. It was a 1970s-era rambler, and Maggie liked to point out that the house, like Tony, was brown. Tony’s SUV, a camel-colored Lexus LX, was parked in the gravel driveway.

She pulled in behind the truck and got out of her car. It was a bitter morning, the temperature hovering around zero. She exhaled a cloud of steam. Despite the cold, she always lingered here before going inside. Partly she could roll up her day-to-day worries into a ball and leave them on the hood of the car, to be picked up later. Partly she could enjoy the solitude of this peaceful, beautiful spot. The woods were made up of young birch trees and spindly brush, a tightly knit web with a carpet of snow underneath. There was hardly an evergreen anywhere, so she could see for a surprising distance through the trees. There was one narrow trail cut into the forest and cross-country ski tracks running through the snow. Another wrinkle in the trees was made by a tiny creek, now frozen solid.

She made her way around to the side of the house. Tony had built an addition onto the back for his office, with a glass wall looking out on the woods. You entered through a side door into a windowless waiting room, decorated with Ikea furniture and drab watercolors, and then you came through to this magnificent space with a vaulted ceiling and a view that stretched forever.

Tony kept a video camera overhead, so he could see patients coming into the waiting room from his desk. Serena waved at the camera and sat down. She could hear the beat of heavy metal beyond the office door.

“Walk this way,” Steven Tyler sang.

Serena laughed. Like Maggie, Tony was a fanatic for hard rock, although no one would guess it by looking at him. He was the kind of serious collector who haunted eBay to find odd paraphernalia, like a hypodermic used by one of the bad boys of Mötley Crüe to shoot up with cocaine, or a maintenance memorandum about damage to a Philadelphia arena following a Metallica concert. Both were framed and hung over the sofa, next to his three University of Minnesota diplomas. He could rattle off the stats for every album, concert tour, and Grammy by Aerosmith and took two months off each summer to follow bands around the country. The flip side was that, the rest of the year, he kept office hours seven days a week. Many of his patients were cops and victims recovering from sexual trauma, so he saw people at all hours.

It was almost impossible to get a rise out of Tony, but Serena enjoyed the challenge and tried to come up with something new at every visit. Today, she got up and did a mock 1960s rock dance in front of the camera, shaking her head so that her hair twirled and pumping her arms like pistons in a go-go move. Ten seconds later, the music cut off, and the door to the office unlocked with a soft click.

She strolled inside. Tony was seated at his big oak desk in front of the glass wall. The wilderness loomed behind him. He was writing on a yellow pad and didn’t look up. “Funny,” he said blandly.

Serena flopped down in a sofa on the opposite side of the room. “I thought so.”

Tony got up from the desk and took a seat in a leather armchair near Serena. His eyes were bloodshot. “I suppose I’m going to get another lecture now about George Strait and Diamond Rio.”

“A little steel guitar wouldn’t kill you, Tony.”

Tony harrumphed. He was about five feet ten, with a soft, well-fed physique. He and Serena were the same age, past thirty-five and on a downward slope toward forty. He had a professorial air about him, grave and concerned, which made his taste in music seem so unlikely. But you never could tell. She knew grandmothers who collected porn. Tony wore loose-fitting tan corduroys, a white dress shirt, and a chocolate-colored vest that matched his beard and his thinning crown of hair.

“You look tired, Tony.”

His heavy eyelids drooped over his dark eyes more than usual. The bags under his eyes bulged like overpacked luggage. “Late-night phone call,” he explained.

“Ah. Sorry.”

“Coffee?” he asked.

“No thanks.”

Tony went to a mahogany bureau with a mirrored bar. He had a coffeemaker plugged in on the bar, and he carefully poured from the pot into a black ceramic mug. He ripped open five sugar packets and emptied them into the mug and stirred.

“You want a little coffee with your sugar?” Serena asked.

“I like it sweet.”

“Then why drink coffee? Have a Mountain Dew.”

Tony sat down again and sipped his coffee. He reached inside his vest and withdrew a silver Cross pen, which he twirled between his fingers. “What do you want to talk about today?”

“Rape fantasies,” Serena said.

Tony’s face showed no surprise or disapproval. “That’s a new topic for you.”

“They’re not mine.”

“Oh?”

“I’m talking about Tanjy Powell.”

He frowned. “I see.”

“She’s missing, you know.”

“I know.”

“I’d like to help Jonny figure out what happened to her.”

Tony’s face was pained. “I wish I could help you, but not this time.”

“Why not?” Serena thought about it and then said, “Damn, is Tanjy a patient of yours, too?”

Tony sighed. “You know I can’t say. But speaking hypothetically, if you were looking for a therapist in this city who specialized in mental issues related to sexual violence, who would you see?”

“I would see you, Tony, no one but you!” Serena gushed. She winked at him.

Tony said nothing at all, and his bearded face stared at her like a sleeping dog.

“As long as we’re speaking hypothetically,” she continued, “what can you tell me about a woman who fantasizes almost exclusively about rape?”

“That depends on the individual,” he said.

“Let’s say this woman is otherwise conservative and religious. Is that a contradiction?”

“Hypothetically?”

“Exactly.” Serena smiled.

“No, that would be psychologically consistent,” Tony said. “Rape fantasies are most common among women who are sexually repressed and have been taught that sex is wrong or a sin. They express themselves sexually through these fantasies because they don’t have to feel guilty. The rape aspect removes their control. By being
forced
to have sex, they can enjoy it.”

“That’s pretty sick.”

“Not really. Many professional women use these fantasies to adopt a submissive role when they have to be powerful and controlling in the rest of their lives. It can be a healthy way to relieve stress.” He added, “Given your own background, of course, I understand why you would think this is abnormal.”

“I can’t believe men are turned on by that kind of woman.”

Tony played with his pen and shook his head. “For some men, it’s like the virgin and whore rolled into one. These women can be—not always, but can be—sexually explosive. They may also have a needy, vulnerable streak that appeals to some men. I don’t need to tell you that men also entertain rape fantasies of their own.”

“Okay, okay,” Serena said, sighing. “I hear Eric came to see you on Wednesday night. What was that about?”

“Once again, I’d like to talk about it, but I can’t.”

“But?” Serena asked, sensing that he had more to say.

“But I’d like to get Maggie’s permission to talk to the police about Eric’s visit.”

“Would that help her?”

“Hypothetically again, it might give them a very different idea of why Eric was killed and who killed him. And dispel this nonsense about Maggie killing him herself.”

“Is Maggie reluctant to give permission for some reason?”

“Extremely reluctant.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Serena said. “But she’s stubborn, you know.”

Tony finally smiled. They both knew Maggie.

“How do you feel about all this, Serena?” he asked after a pause.

“What do you mean?”

“Is it stirring up bad memories of your own past?”

Serena settled back into the sofa. She was paying for this hour; she might as well get some benefit out of it for herself. “Yeah. Jonny asked me if I ever had rape fantasies, like Tanjy, and I flew off the handle.”

“What were you feeling?”

“I was pissed off. For women like Tanjy, rape is a game. For me, it was a daily ritual in Phoenix for more than a year. Blue Dog did what he wanted to me, because I was basically his slave, and mommie dearest sat there and watched, while she was as high as a kite.”

“Does thinking about those experiences bring back feelings of fear? Helplessness?”

Serena thought about her midnight meeting with the blackmailer. “Sure it does.”

“How have you dealt with that?”

“I tried the self-soothing technique you suggested. I literally reminded myself that those feelings came from the girl I was, not who I am today.”

“Did that help?”

“It did. I was able to manage the fear.”

“Good.”

“I want to go back to my hypothetical fantasy girl for a minute,” Serena said.

Tony was guarded. “Yes?”

“Could a woman like that be prone to violence? If she was in a sexual relationship, and her partner broke it off in a way that humiliated her, could she seek revenge?”

He rubbed his tired eyes. “You’re asking me if it’s possible Tanjy killed Eric?”

“I guess I am.”

Tony pursed his lips and then shook his head. “I think it’s unlikely Tanjy killed anyone. I’m sorry. I don’t think that’s what this is about.”

“Do you know why she disappeared?”

“I have no idea. Truly, I don’t. Obviously, I hope she’s alive and well.”

“So do I,” Serena said. “Tanjy may be the only one who knows what really happened to Eric.”

Sherry studied the fish house dubiously.

It was a wood-and-aluminum box not even as big as a pickup truck. She stood with her boyfriend, Josh, a hundred yards from shore in the midst of a city of dozens of similar shanties. They had walked across the lake, but plenty of people had driven cars and trucks and parked them nearby. She expected to feel the ice give under her feet, or hear the water beating at the surface to get free.

“You’re sure this is safe?” she asked.

“There’s probably eighteen inches of ice underneath our feet,” Josh assured her.

Sherry looked out across Hell’s Lake where it broadened into a wide open space beyond the trees. “Why do they have those flags way out there?”

“Well, the ice is thinner out that way,” Josh said. “You can have hot spots on any lake. You know, places where the ice isn’t safe. You might have underwater currents from a stream, or warm water runoff from somewhere, or simply spots where the ice has thawed and frozen a lot, and so it’s got a lot of cracks in it.”

“This thing’s not going to sink, is it?”

“No way. Not here. I wouldn’t drive my dad’s Cadillac out where the flags are, but right here, we’re fine. Promise.”

Sherry rolled her eyes. “Let’s get inside.”

It was ungodly cold. She wore a white down coat with bubble sleeves, which she hated because it made her look like the Michelin tire man, but it was her only winter coat. She wore it half-zipped and sported a pink turtleneck underneath. She had a fleece band around her head, protecting her ears from the wind, but otherwise, her blond curls blew freely. She wore Guess jeans with her initials in gold spangles on the rear pocket and Uggs that kept her feet and ankles from freezing.

She hadn’t adjusted to the Minnesota weather. She was a California girl, born and raised in San Jose, and she had been appalled when her dad took a job as CFO of an airplane manufacturer in Duluth. She was eighteen years old, a senior, and instead of graduating with her friends back home, she was stuck here in the icebox of the nation, trying to fit in among a crowd of teenage rednecks.

That included Josh. He was a football player, big and slow. Even so, he was six feet three and a Scandinavian beauty, and they looked good together.

Josh undid the padlock on the fish house and let them inside. It looked like a prison cell in Siberia. No windows. Pitch-black. He turned on an oil lamp that illuminated a garage sale sofa and a couple of Sam’s Club wooden chairs. Inside was just as cold as outside, and the wind blew through the aluminum siding as if it wasn’t there.

“Oh, man, does it get any warmer?”

“I’ll get the heater going,” Josh said.

Sherry shrugged off her coat. “You just want my nips to show.” She followed his eyes and glanced down at her turtleneck. “Looks like you win. The headlights are on.”

She rubbed her arms vigorously and stamped her feet in the small, claustrophobic shanty. She wrinkled her nose at the fishy smell. There was a large circle cut into the ice in the center of the floor. She peered down into it and saw slushy water about a foot down. It was opaque.