The Body Reader (15 page)

CHAPTER 31

T
he light turned green. Jude toed the bike into first gear, let out the clutch, and shot through the intersection, her floral-print skirt threatening to come loose from under her leg where she’d tucked it. In her backpack was a bottle of wine purchased for the cookout.

What was she doing? A summer dress. Wine. Cookout. When Uriah sent a text reminding her of Ortega’s invitation, she’d tried to ignore it. But at Target she’d found herself looking at the dresses, and she found herself trying one on, and she found herself fantasizing about going somewhere in different skin. Before she knew it, she was in the checkout line paying for the dress.

I can always return it.

And then she was at the liquor store, shopping for wine.

I can always drink it myself.

The thing was, not going was cowardly. She knew that, and she wouldn’t allow herself to be a coward, not even when it came to something as harmless as a cookout. So here she was, on her bike, heading for Chief Ortega’s place in Tangletown, a neighborhood that felt like old, solid Minneapolis, a neighborhood that felt safe and hadn’t suffered the ravages of blackout looting.

The house ended up being a pale-blue Victorian that sat on top of a hill overlooking Minnehaha Creek and a jogging path. She shut off the bike and settled it on the stand. Adjusting her backpack, she took the steep cement steps to the Victorian. At the door, she paused, hand hovering over the doorbell.

Push the button. Don’t run.

It took a while, but a small man with dark skin and gray in his hair eventually answered the door. He was wearing a red apron, which led her to believe this must be the infamous grill master.

She shrugged off the backpack, unzipped, and produced the wine, holding it out to him as if it were an offer required to gain entrance. “I’m Jude Fontaine.”
Shouldn’t have come.

He smiled. “Welcome, welcome!” He motioned for her to follow him inside. “Everybody’s in the backyard. I just stepped in to grab more barbeque sauce, when I heard the doorbell.”

It was kind of him not to point out that of course he knew who she was. His wife was chief of police. He read and watched the news. “Can I use your restroom?” Jude asked.

“Down the hall on the left.” He pointed. “When you’re done, just come this way to the backyard.” He pointed again.

She nodded, spun around, and strode to the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind her.

At the sink, she turned on the water, then flushed the toilet. Checked the mirror to see if she looked as weird as she felt. The mascara and lipstick—another impulse buy—looked ridiculous. She pulled tissue from a box, wiped what lipstick she could from her mouth, and tossed the tissue in the trash container. The cut above her eye was healing but still there. Probably should have gotten stitches.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to leave the bathroom and walk down the hall to the kitchen. Through the big window above the dining room table, she saw Uriah, Ortega, and Vang. They were sitting in lawn chairs drinking and talking while three young girls tore around the yard, screaming.

Jude felt a stab of something deep in her belly. She tried to pinpoint the sensation, catch it as it flew away, dismissing it when she couldn’t place it. Another shout, another laugh. There it was again. That stabbing pain. When she finally recognized it for what it was, she inhaled in surprise. Minutes earlier she’d felt panic, but this was fear. Deep, inexplicable fear. The kind of fear that had no solid foundation, the kind of fear that was faceless and nameless and made no sense. And it came from looking through a kitchen window at a family.

A door opened, and Uriah stepped inside. Jeans, T-shirt, empty beer bottles in his hand, along with a glass containing melting ice and an abused lemon. “I heard you were here.” He put the empties and glass on the counter, scrutinizing her, taking in her dress, but more than that, her mental state. She could tell he hadn’t been drinking, and guessed the empty glass was his.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I can’t do this.” She dragged her hand through her hair. “Tell Chief Ortega I said thanks for inviting me.”

“Too soon?”

Relieved that he understood, more relieved that he didn’t seem set on trying to talk her into staying, she nodded. “I thought I could experience a normal day, normal life. Thought it might even be nice, but I can’t be here.”

He processed that with a nod. “I like the dress.” The words were matter-o’-fact, like saying the dress was at least a nice thing about this moment.

She looked down, spotting her black boots. The boots were the only things that felt right.

“I’ll walk you out.”

Every step toward the front door made her feel better. Once outside, she pulled in a deep breath. Behind her, Uriah leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. And then it seemed he just couldn’t help himself. “I hear there’ll be homemade ice cream.”

She smiled at the unspoken plea for her to stay, turned, and walked away, a moment later hearing the soft click of the door closing behind her.

On her bike, she dug through her backpack and found the piece of paper Chief Ortega had given her a few days ago. She stared at it, then pulled out her phone, entered the number, and hit the “Dial” button.

When Eric answered, his voice was distracted.

“It’s me,” she said. It wasn’t lost on her that those were the exact words she’d spoken to him the night she’d escaped.

“Jude.” The pain was still there, laced with caution and maybe a little hope.

“I wondered if you’d like to meet for coffee.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

“Just like the old days, right?” Eric asked.

He wanted it to be, and maybe Jude wanted it to be, and maybe it could be. They were sitting in an Uptown coffee shop, both of them with lattes, sun streaming past the plants in the window, falling across the bistro table. The door had been propped open with a hand-painted chair, and she could hear the corner musician strumming an old Replacements song as the smell of bus diesel mixed with the scent of roasted coffee beans. Through the window, she saw hipsters standing on the curb smoking cigarettes beneath a telephone pole layered in years of staples and ragged flyers, while street punks pedaled past on tall bicycles.

They used to come here together. When he’d suggested this place, she’d balked, but then she’d thought maybe it was the right thing to do. She’d been deliberately avoiding the familiar, but maybe it was time to embrace it, face it head-on.

Eric wouldn’t stop staring; she stared right back. His face was the same, yet different. His light-brown hair was longer than it had been, and he had a hint of a beard. So far, he hadn’t taken a single sip of his coffee, and she wondered if it was because he didn’t want to mess up the leaf design.

He’d already told her how nice she looked, and he was the second person to compliment her dress.

“Are you still a physical therapist?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said with satisfaction.

They’d met when she was investigating a homicide. A drug deal gone bad that had played out in the middle of the street. He’d stepped forward and spoken up when the rest of the witnesses had been afraid to. That had impressed her. He did what was right. Was that what this was about?

“I did look for you, you know. I did wait for you. The police thought you were dead. Everybody thought you were dead.”

Or maybe it was about absolution. “It’s okay. I understand.”

The heavily tattooed waitress with jet-black hair and torn tights appeared and asked if they needed anything else. Jude liked that she probably thought they were just any other couple. Maybe two people on a coffee date. She’d come to realize she preferred interacting with strangers because there was none of that awkward weirdness that went along with the people who knew her history.

Once the waitress left, Eric leaned forward, elbows on the table, shirtsleeves pushed up. “I want you to come home.”

His words were unexpected—from coffee to this. “What about her?” They both knew who she was talking about.

“She’s gone. After you returned, it just wasn’t the same with us. Our relationship quit working. We both realized it pretty quickly. She’s been gone a couple of months.”

“Are you just doing this because you think it’s the right thing?”

“I’m doing it because I want you back in my life.” He reached across the table and brushed her knuckles with his fingertips, cautiously at first. His touch was unexpectedly familiar. She liked that. When she didn’t pull away, he grasped her hand. “Just give it a try. What do we have to lose?”

“When?”

He laughed, gave her hand a squeeze, and released it, as if he knew holding on too long might make her uncomfortable. With a shrug and a smile, he spread his arms wide. “Now. Today.”

“I have to think about it.” Did this make
any
sense? But then, did
anything
make sense? “I signed a six-month lease.”

“Move anyway. Keep the apartment another month; then sublet. It’s not like it’s going to cost you any more to move in with me. I’ve gotten raises in the past few years. I can support us both. You wouldn’t even have to work.”

Her face must have changed, because he rushed to say, “Unless you want to work. I’m just saying that you don’t have to. I was surprised to hear you’d returned to Homicide. Surprised you’d gone back at all but also surprised they let you so soon.”

“You aren’t the first person to mention that.”

“So what do you say? I think it would be good for you. To get you in a familiar, safe environment. It’ll help with the healing. And I’ll be there for you. Who do you have now? Who do you talk to?”

“I’ve been trying
not
to talk to people.”

“That’s not good, Jude.”

She took a sip of coffee. “I don’t want anybody to take care of me or pamper me.”

“How about a backrub? Would that be okay?”

She laughed.

He gave her a contemplative look, then said, “Come home. We belong together.”

Nothing about this new existence felt right, and Eric cared about her. He wanted her. That counted for something. Maybe Uriah had been right. Maybe she needed to find the person she used to be. Maybe she could be that person again. This was a chance for a do-over, a chance to play out the movie in her head. “I’ll come.”

The words were no sooner out of her mouth than her phone vibrated in her pocket. She checked the screen:
Uriah
.

“I’ve got to get this,” she said with apology in her voice as she turned away slightly to answer.

“Just got a call from the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office,” Uriah said. “A headless body has been found north of here, not far from Saint Cloud.”

She glanced at Eric. “Female?” was the only word she risked speaking.

“Yep. I’m getting ready to drive up there.”

They were city detectives. Unlike the sheriff’s office, they didn’t have statewide jurisdiction, but if the body belonged to Lola Holt, Jude wanted to see the crime scene.

“Pick me up at my place in fifteen minutes.”

“Will do.”

They disconnected. She put her phone away and grabbed her backpack. “I’ve gotta go,” she told Eric. “I’ll call you.”

CHAPTER 32

G
oing “up north” was a summer tradition for people in the Twin Cities. It was one of the things that made living in such a frigid state worthwhile. On Friday afternoons the interstate was clogged with cars heading north; Sunday meant bumper-to-bumper traffic as people returned to their jobs and city life.

Jude had ridden up Highway 10 north of Saint Cloud often as a child, but she hadn’t been this direction in years. Now, as she watched the landscape roll past her window, she spotted familiar landmarks, like the billboard for the touristy gas station where they used to stop for snacks on the way to the family cabin. The sign was still the same: a kitschy wooden cutout of a black bear and cub.

Uriah was driving. They’d flipped a coin and he’d “won.” She’d been glad about that, but an hour into the trip she wondered if it might have been better for her to be behind the wheel so she could just concentrate on the road.

Instead, her mind drifted and she found herself thinking about the scrapbook she’d put together after her mother’s death. As a child, she’d saved newspaper clippings about the shooting, along with the obituary. She’d even saved flowers from the funeral. When she got older, she added photos of the cabin, along with drawings and snapshots of the surrounding grounds. Now, thinking of the scrapbook, she wondered where it was. Still at Eric’s?

“I don’t want to stop here,” she said when she saw that Uriah intended to pull into Black Bear Station. She couldn’t deal with more memories right now. “I think there’s another place a few miles up.” Yet at the same time, after all these years, she had an overwhelming urge to see the family property where her mother had died.

Without a word, he shut off the blinker and accelerated.

Fortunately there
was
another place to get gas. They filled up, grabbed some snacks, and hit the road again. Fifteen minutes later the GPS led them to the crime scene.

The terrain was typical of the area. Hilly, with a dense field of evergreens flanked by acres of woodland and white-trunked birches. The weedy dirt lane running alongside a broken barbed-wire fence must have seemed the perfect place to dump a body. Or maybe the killer had panicked. It happened more often than not.

There were several cop cars on site, parked in disarray, most belonging to county deputies.

They pulled to a stop and got out.

The temperature was at least ten degrees cooler here than in the city, a little too chilly for no jacket, but the sun was warm. And the air, filtered by the Boundary Waters and untouched landmass, was so pure it was like breathing stars. Even the colors and shadows were deeper and more intense.

They had to question a few people before being directed to the officer who’d found the body—a middle-aged man in a brown deputy uniform.

“People take this route when riding bikes to the Boundary Waters,” Deputy Pruett told them after they flashed their badges and introduced themselves. “It’s a big deal in the summer. A bunch of riders stopped along the highway, and there it was. A hand. Course at first they thought it was rubber. Some Halloween thing. But nope.” He passed the bagged, severed hand to Uriah, whose reluctance to take it was obvious. Not because it was a hand, but because, like Jude, he was probably horrified by the lax treatment of evidence.

“So I went home and got my hunting dog, let her get a good whiff, and off she went.”

“Where was the hand in relation to the body?” Jude asked, accepting the bag from Uriah and exchanging a concerned looked. She hoped the BCA arrived soon.

“Two miles away. I just got lucky. Thought about this piece of woodland that’s easy to access from the highway and brought the dog here. I’m guessing whoever did it forgot to get rid of the hand and just gave it a toss as they drove down the road.”

“That seems a likely theory,” Jude said.

She didn’t mention that the dog might not have been a good idea either. The area had been compromised, with dog prints as well as boot prints everywhere. Even now, officers were milling back and forth, and it was obvious the lane that led to the woods had been traveled by so many vehicles that it would be impossible to get a tire print. The BCA had their work cut out for them. They’d also have to set up containment at both sites—the shallow grave and the location along the highway where the hand had been found. Judging from the processing of the crime scene so far, Jude felt doubtful Pruett had marked the highway location.

The officer led them up the lane, past cops leaning against cars, all waiting for the BCA to arrive, most looking queasy and disturbed by what they’d seen in the woods.

The brush was dense, and thorns snagged their clothing as they walked. “It’s over there.” Pruett pointed to a mound of soil in the distance located in deep shade surrounded by trees. “And yes, I dug around. Know I probably shouldn’t have, but I wanted to make sure it was human before I called it in.”

He put a fist to his nose and strode away, leaving them alone.

Beneath the sweet, sickening smell of rotting flesh was the unmistakable odor of gasoline. The body had been dropped in a trench, doused, set on fire, then covered with dirt. “Burned on site,” Jude said. “And
both
hands are gone.” Female, but impossible to tell the age. “Only half the body is charred, so I’m guessing they were in a rush.”

“This might be the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen.” Uriah made an anguished sound as he stared down at the charred, headless flesh. “Standing here, looking at this? Makes me thankful I don’t have kids. The world’s gone to hell. And right now, at this moment, I want to walk away. Just get in the car and drive. Go up to the Boundary Waters, maybe. If you’ve never been, you should go. Maybe we should do that right now. Drive up to Ely, rent a canoe.”

“Why did you become a homicide detective if not to stop people from doing bad things?” Jude asked.

He turned his back to the body and took a few steps away, moving upwind. “My dad was a cop. I always admired him, saw him helping people. For some reason I had this naïve idea that I was going into a noble profession. But you know what? Eighty percent of people hate us.
Hate us.
We can’t even mingle with the rest of society, and the only people we can really hang around with are other cops—other cops everybody hates. And then we have to deal with this kind of thing, with the kind of people who do this kind of thing to others. And people hate us. How does that make sense? In what other occupation are people so despised?”

“Lawyers?” Jude suggested.

“I don’t think the percentage of hatred is as high as it is for cops.”

“You’re probably right.”

“How would that break down?” He took a few more steps away from the body. “Cops, then lawyers. What comes after lawyers?”

“It has to be something to do with cable companies.”

“Or how about landlords?”

“They’d probably be in the top ten.”

“So yeah . . . when kids are little and talking about growing up to be a fireman or a policeman, they don’t say they want to grow up to be the most hated man in town.” He shook his head. “I guess I got kind of offtrack. How’d this start?”

“You were glad you didn’t have kids.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Think it’s her?”

“It’s impossible to tell, but I’d bet the farm on it.”

“Why would someone be so blatant with the head, then attempt to hide the body? Does that make sense?”

“It would if the killer thought the body might give up some clues.”

“What about the hands?”

“A half-assed attempt to get rid of prints? I’m guessing the perpetrator planned to cut her up even more, then decided to burn the body instead. And
that
wasn’t even done right.”

They heard an engine and looked up to see the white BCA van lumbering up the dirt lane. It pulled to a stop, and the crime-scene team exited the vehicle, carrying their processing kits.

“I’m going to assume we’re all on the same page in suspecting the body belongs to Lola Holt,” said the head of the team, a man named Scott James. “We should have a DNA match in a couple of days. When we have the results, someone will contact you.”

Jude passed him the bag with the hand, then moved away to an area of privacy and pulled out her phone, relieved to see it had three bars. She scrolled through her contacts and called Charles Holt. When he answered, she asked if he was driving.

“I’m still home recuperating from the gunshot wound. Plan to go back to work tomorrow.”

“I want to let you know about something before it hits the news,” Jude said. There was no way to soften the blow, so she didn’t even try. “A headless body has been found in a wooded area northeast of Saint Cloud. We won’t know the identity of the victim until DNA tests are run.”

Mr. Holt let out a choking sound, and Jude imagined him reaching for support.

“There’s nothing you can do at this point,” Jude said. “I just wanted to let you know before you heard it somewhere else. I’ll contact you as soon as we get results.”

Jude disconnected and let out a breath.

An hour later, she and Uriah were heading back for Minneapolis when Uriah unexpectedly exited the highway. “I need a drink,” he said in answer to the question on her face.

“You haven’t been drinking.”

“How do you know?”

“I can tell.”

“Crashing the wine cellar in my old house was a wake-up call. I decided I’d better leave the booze alone, but after what we just saw out there this seems like a really good time to start again.”

The car bounced into the parking lot of a bar called Crossroads. The wood-sided building was long and low and almost looked like someone’s home except for the neon beer signs in the windows.

Uriah cut the engine and pocketed the keys.

“I’m moving back in with my boyfriend,” Jude said as they got out of the car and slammed their doors.

He paused long enough to give her a look. “Is that wise?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

His thoughtful stare continued until she began to think he was never going to speak. “Good for you,” he finally said. “When are you moving?”

“Soon.”

“Need any help?”

“No. Thanks. I don’t have much.”

“I suppose not.”

“I have mixed feelings about it.”

“It doesn’t have to be permanent. And not living alone is a good idea. It’ll be safer.”

They walked toward the bar. “We used to talk about having kids,” Jude said.

“Really?” He sounded surprised as he held the door open for her.

It was one of those entryways common in Minnesota. Two doors, the first leading to a small five-by-five vestibule that buffered the frigid air when it was forty below zero.

“Is that so strange?” she asked. “Me? Kids?”

Inside, the bar was cool and dark, no other customers except for one guy in a plaid shirt sitting at the end of the counter watching a soap opera on the television.

“You with a baby? Kinda.”

“Thanks.”

“The world is too messed up for kids. If you set out to have kids, you have to hope things are going to change. You want to give them a better future.”

“There have always been evil people,” she said as they slid into a booth that afforded them some privacy. “There will always be evil people. That will never change. How you fight them,
if
you fight them, is key. I think for us, for people involved in what we just saw out there in the woods, the secret to life is in the moments. We can’t look back, and we can’t look at the big picture. It’s too much. It’s just too much. We have to focus on whatever the headlights illuminate and nothing more.”

“So you think you have a calling.”

“Not a calling, but purpose. I’m going to find the person or persons who did this to Lola Holt.”

“She’s already dead. It’s already happened. We didn’t stop it. We weren’t able to keep it from happening.”

“I’m sorry.” Sorry he was in pain. Sorry Lola Holt was dead. Sorry they weren’t any closer to finding the killer or killers.

“I have to admit that the atrocities perpetrated against women have been getting me down lately. And I know it seems selfish of me to dwell on my own feelings in light of what you’ve been through, when I’m only looking at it from the outside, but there you go. I’m a selfish bastard.”

The bartender put paper coasters down in front of them. Jude ordered a Coke, Uriah a whiskey.

Two drinks in, he began talking.

And then it came out. Why he’d gone to his old house. “Did you know my wife committed suicide?” he asked.

“I heard that.”

“For a long time I blamed myself. She was taking classes at the University of Minnesota. I was working long hours. There were times she wanted to go out, wanted to talk, wanted to have sex, and I wasn’t there for her. But then it seemed like things got better.” Without looking at her, he took a drink.

“Did she leave a note?”

“Nope.” He emptied his glass. “Ellen was just a small-town girl. I dragged her up here. She didn’t want to move. She was homesick. Afraid of a lot of things, and I think my job amplified that. Shined a light on the possibilities. I talked her into going back to school, maybe getting a degree. Things got better for a while. She seemed happy.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what happened. Worse, I don’t know why I didn’t see it coming. The thing that keeps bugging me, the thing I can’t quit thinking about, is her suicide. Why did she do it?”