Stalked (33 page)

The second glass of shiraz made Helen Danning’s head swim. She usually avoided alcohol, but a few days at Evelyn’s house had relaxed her. She sat in a fraying easy chair and hummed as she listened to the soundtrack from
Damn Yankees
on the stereo. She had seen nearly every performance of the show at the Ordway, with Jerry Lewis in the role of the devil. He was a great devil.

Helen filed her fingernails to perfect crescents and swung up her legs to do the same with her toenails. She was particular about her nails, makeup, lipstick, and hair. Everything had to be clean and in place. She ironed all her clothes, even her socks and underwear, when they were fresh out of the dryer. She kept her countertops disinfected and sparkling and never left a dirty dish in the sink. Evelyn wasn’t so fussy. Her friend liked mess creeping in at the edges, but she didn’t complain when Helen obsessively cleaned her house.

Evelyn warbled the chorus from the show tune on the speakers. She dipped to one knee and spread both arms wide as she bounded into the living room.

Helen laughed.

“That’s what I like to see,” Evelyn told her. “You laughing. You with your feet up.”

“I’m a little drunk,” Helen said.

“Good.”

Evelyn reached inside the hall closet and took out a fleece jacket covered with strips of silver reflective tape. She shrugged it on.

“You’re going jogging?” Helen asked. “It’s late.”

“I know, I got caught up in my latest masterpiece.” Evelyn wiped a smudge of paint from her cheek.

“It’s slippery out there.”

The windows were pasted with snow.

Evelyn shrugged. “I’m used to it. Anyway, there’s nothing but flurries now. The storm tracked north. Duluth is getting buried.”

“I’m hungry,” Helen said.

“I won’t be long, and then we can have dinner.” Evelyn sighed as her golden retriever launched a frenzy of barking in the front of the house. “That dog barks at every damn deer that wanders into the woods. Edgar! Leave Bambi alone! You know, I found him nose to nose with a moose one morning, and the moose was looking at that dog like he was nuts.”

Evelyn padded over to the ottoman in her white socks, pushed Helen’s legs aside, and sat down. She began putting on her tennis shoes and eyed Helen thoughtfully.

“So did you write back to that woman who sent you the e-mail? Eric’s wife?”

Helen frowned. “I told her to leave me alone.”

“You think that’s the right thing to do?”

“She’s a cop. I don’t want anything to do with cops.”

“She’s also a woman whose husband was murdered. You might be able to help her. Don’t you think you should?”

“I don’t want to get in the middle of this.”

“You already are.”

“What do you mean?”

Evelyn dug into the pocket of her sweat pants and pulled out a scrap of paper. She handed it to Helen. It was a phone number with a 218 area code.

“Somebody called me at the shop today,” Evelyn said. “He was with the Duluth police.”

Helen tensed. “Oh, my God.”

“They’re looking for you, honeybun.”

“You didn’t tell him anything, did you?”

“Of course not, but he knew we were best friends. He gave me his number and said I should ask you to call him.”

Helen bolted up. “I have to go.”

Evelyn put a calming hand on her chest. “Whoa there, girl. Think about this. Why don’t you call and talk to him? What would a phone call hurt? I know you had a bad time with the police in college, but this is different.”

“Evelyn, I just want this all to go away. I want to live my life and not have anyone bother me, you know?”

“It’s too late for that,” Evelyn told her. “You might be the one person who can help them catch this guy.”

“All I ever wanted was to put this behind me.”

“I know. Look, have some more wine, and think about it, okay? We can talk about it over dinner.”

“I may not be here when you come back.”

“And miss my spinach spaghetti and meatless meatballs? Bite your tongue.”

“I’m scared.”

“Don’t be. I told you before, you’re safe here. Okay? Just hang on, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Couldn’t you skip your run tonight?” Helen asked.

“I could skip it every night, but then I’d never do it. I won’t be long.” She jogged over to the front door. The golden retriever was still barking outside. “Edgar! You don’t even like venison! Stupid dog.”

When she was gone, Helen shut the music off. She put the second glass of wine down on the edge of a bookshelf. She was keyed up, and she got out of the easy chair and paced. She used the remote control to turn on the television, and she stood with her arms folded, watching an old sitcom, before she realized she wasn’t even listening to the dialogue. She shut the television off, too.

Helen thought about Eric Sorenson, the attractive man with the flowing blond hair. When he first approached her at the theater, she didn’t trust him, and she didn’t want to hear his story. It was only when he told her what had happened to his wife that she agreed to meet him for dinner after the show. That was a mistake. She didn’t want to get involved. She had been running away from the assault in college since she was twenty years old, and the last thing she needed was this stranger bringing it all up again.

Then, three days later, it was all over the news. The man who had sat across the table from her was dead. Murdered. His wife was the suspect.

His wife, who had sent an e-mail on Helen’s blog.
I need your help
.

Helen didn’t want to help. She didn’t want to be pulled into any of this. She had lived a long time on her own, keeping her world immaculate, losing herself in musicals every night. She wanted to be left alone, to be safe, to forget. But Evelyn was right. It was too late to do that. She was in the middle of everything, whether she liked it or not.

She retrieved her glass of wine and finished it. She sat back down in the easy chair, closed her eyes, and turned on the rest of the
Damn Yankees
soundtrack. She listened to it all the way to the end, where the devil gets outsmarted, where the good guy gets his soul back. When it was over, Helen wondered if that could happen in real life. She wondered if you could ever outrun the devil, or if he would always get you in the end.

She looked at the scrap of paper with the phone number on it.

Call the police. It sounded so simple, but Evelyn didn’t know what she was asking Helen to do. And for what? She had no evidence of anything. For all she knew, Eric’s wife did kill him. She had nothing to tell them, not really.

Helen picked up the phone, felt its weight in her hand, and put it down again. She was having trouble breathing. If the cop answered, she wasn’t sure if she could talk. She didn’t know what to say. Her mouth was dry. She walked away from the phone and stared at it from across the room. She didn’t owe Eric anything. She didn’t owe his wife. The only person she owed was herself.

Then do it for yourself
, she thought.

Helen marched back to the phone and dialed the number before her hesitation made her freeze. She held her breath as the phone rang, and an instant later, someone picked it up.

“Hello,” the voice said.

Helen was speechless with surprise. “Oh,” she blurted finally. “Is this the Duluth police?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Well, does a policeman live there?”

“No, you’ve got the wrong number.”

“I’m sorry,” Helen said.

She hung up and repunched the buttons carefully, reciting them aloud from Evelyn’s note. She waited as the phone rang.

“Hello,” the same voice said.

Helen didn’t say anything this time. Her brain raced. Her heart took off like a rocket.

“Who’s there?” the man asked loudly. When Helen was silent, he swore and hung up on her. The dial tone buzzed in her ear.

She laid the phone gently back in its cradle. Her body went warm with sweat, and her bowels constricted. Her skin bubbled with gooseflesh.

If Evelyn were here, she’d say,
Get a grip, honeybun. So I got the number wrong
.

But Evelyn wouldn’t make a mistake like that.

Where was she? She should be back by now. Evelyn never jogged for more than half an hour in the evenings, and when Helen checked the mantel clock, she realized that an hour had slipped by while she was listening to the music.

Get a grip, honeybun. So I’m a little late
.

Maybe Evelyn had sprained an ankle. Maybe she had found an injured animal by the highway and was trying to rescue it. She was always doing that.

Maybe.

Helen backed up slowly and silently until her hand grazed the north wall of the house, and then she stood motionless, studying the shadows in the hallway that led to the bedrooms. She sucked her upper lip between her teeth and bit it hard.

The dog wasn’t barking anymore. Why?

Maybe the deer was gone. Maybe Edgar was asleep.

You’ve been drinking, she told herself. You’re paranoid.

Helen followed the wall toward the rear porch that overlooked the river. When she reached the easy chair where she had been sitting, she reached behind and shut off the lamp, bathing the house in darkness. She navigated around the wicker furniture and then put a hand on the cold glass as she stared outside through the storm door. Somewhere in the night, below the garden, behind the weeping willow that brushed the ground with its dangling branches, was the Mississippi. She couldn’t see a light anywhere. It reminded her again of how much she hated darkness and open spaces, how much she preferred to be cloistered where it was bright and crowded.

You need to go. Now
.

He’s here
.

Helen cracked open the porch door and slid outside into the bitter air. The wooden deck was glazed with ice. She nearly fell as she hurriedly took two steps down to the grass, which crackled with frost.

Her car was steps away, parked beside Evelyn’s old tool shed.

All she had to do was make it from here to there.

All she had to do was get in her car and drive away. She could call Evelyn from the road. Evelyn would be safe at home by then and cross at Helen for leaving. Nothing had happened to her. Helen was imagining the fog of menace around her. The presence of the devil.

She could drive to Duluth and find Eric’s wife and put an end to a lifetime of running.

Twenty yards of open space, twenty yards of night, lay between her and the car. Then she would be free.

She remembered that the soundtrack to
Show Boat
was in her CD player, and she smiled at the idea of listening to it as she drove. She was thinking about that black man singing “Ol‘ Man River” as she ran for the car. She was thinking how scared she was of dying as she felt the hands around her throat.

Dan Erickson had a crystal glass of gin in his hand, and he was dressed in black slacks and a dress shirt, with a loosened tie hanging around his neck. His hair was mussed. When he saw Stride in his doorway at midnight, his mouth squeezed into a frown, and his eyes betrayed his anxiety. Stride laid two hands on Dan’s chest and shoved him back into the house, where he stumbled on the wood floor, his drink and ice cubes spilling, the heavy crystal rolling away and bumping on the wall.

“What’s wrong with you?” Dan demanded.

“He’s
got
her, you stupid, arrogant son of a bitch!” Stride shouted. “He’s got Serena, and I want to know
who he is
!”

Dan brushed his hair out of his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play games with me. Don’t even think about it. Someone put your balls in a vise, and you went and hired Serena to get you out of it.”

“She told you that?”

“What, do you want a refund on your bill? It’s time to come clean, Dan. I don’t care if it means you lose everything. You’re going to tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t have to tell you a thing.”

Stride shook his head. “Lauren may have January lake water in her veins, but not you. I don’t think it’s only been about power and money with you.”

“Then I guess I’m shallower than you think.”

“Okay, maybe you are,” Stride said. “I don’t give a shit. What I’m telling you is that the life you know is
over
one way or another. It’s all coming out. You can tell me right now and help me try to save Serena’s life, or you can shut up and let the reporters start feeding on you tomorrow. Take your pick.”

Dan leaned against the wall, exhaling like the air squealing from a tire. When he retreated down the hallway, Stride followed. A walnut door led into a dark office, where a computer screen glowed on Dan’s desk. He took a seat in the reclining chair and rocked back, staring at the ceiling, his legs spread, his arms dangling. There was a photo of him and Lauren on the wall over his head, the two of them smiling and looking prosperous.

“I’m sorry about Serena.”

“Sorry doesn’t change anything,” Stride said.

Dan sat up straight. “You know why I’m so good at putting people in prison? I understand how criminals think. I know what it’s like to go after something you want and not give any thought to the consequences. I’m like a teenager getting laid and not using protection.”

“You’re wasting my time, Dan.”

“I just want you to understand, okay? But you don’t. You’re too disciplined, Stride. Always in control.”

“That’s the last thing I am.”

“Well, you’ve never let a woman lead you around by the cock, have you? That’s my life.”

Stride heard movement behind him and saw Lauren waiting in the pale light of the doorway, listening. Their eyes met. He had never seen her blue eyes so intense and bitter cold. She sauntered into the office, her hands in the pockets of stonewashed blue jeans. She wore a navy-blue flannel shirt, untucked, with the top two buttons undone, and suede boots.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Dan glared at her, and Stride saw in his expression what it was like to spend a lifetime of impotence under a rich woman’s thumb. “This doesn’t concern you.”