Blind Spot Page 2

  “Not a stick!” The boy rolled onto his knees, wrapped one arm around his gut, and vomited. He started coughing and crying.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” The older boy glanced at the pole his brother had dropped along the shore. He jogged over to it. His eyes followed the line. The end of it led to the river’s edge. A speedboat had just zoomed past and kicked up a wave. Water curled over the catch so the older boy couldn’t see it clearly. He bent over, picked up the rod, and stared at the mess. “Crap!” He dropped the pole and backed away from it. He ran his eyes up and down the shoreline and saw no one. He looked across the river. A wall of trees. With trembling hands, he patted the pockets of his jeans. Empty. Ramming his hands into his jacket pockets, he pulled out his keys. He wrapped his fist around them and went over to his brother, still kneeling on the ground and crying. He pulled the boy up by the collar of his jacket and lifted him to his feet. “Move! To the car.” He pushed his brother ahead of him as they crawled up a steep, sandy incline. They both lost their footing and started sliding down. The younger boy grabbed a dried-up vine and pulled himself up to the grassy ledge. His older brother did the same. They ran across an open, mowed area dotted with picnic tables. A tar trail cut across the green expanse. The older boy scanned the black ribbon as they ran but saw no hikers or bikers, no one to help them. He eyed the woods on his left with suspicion and silently cursed himself for picking such a quiet fishing spot.

  “Lee!” wailed the younger boy as he ran ahead of his brother.

  “Keep moving!” The parking lot was just ahead of them. The teenager’s mind was racing. Was his cell phone in the car or sitting on the kitchen table? He tried to visualize the inside of his car and couldn’t. All he could see was the thing at the end of his brother’s line.

  Just upriver, in the shady wooded bottomlands next to the Mississippi, a man lay facedown. He turned his head to the right and spat out a mouthful of grit and blood. He tried to draw his knees up under him and couldn’t. His legs were tied together, from knees to ankles. His left arm was tied behind his back with more coils of rope. He used his free arm to raise himself a few inches. He couldn’t stay up; the pain was too great. He groaned and collapsed back in the dirt. He released one last breath and died with his eyes wide open, locked on the bleeding stump at the end of his right wrist.

  Two

  A line fell between the two of them, dangling in front of their faces. The rope wasn’t part of the rigging; it had a noose at the end. Her husband slipped the loop over his head. “Help me this time,” he said. She reached over and tightened the noose. The line lifted him while he kicked his legs and tugged at the rope around his neck. He stopped struggling, and she was relieved. Staring at the flat bottoms of his deck shoes, she watched as he continued going up and up until he disappeared.

  She ran to the stern to jump off, but saw the water was different this time. The blue was surrounded by tall grasses, like green lashes hedging an eye. In the middle of the eye stood a robed woman, her palms up and her arms stretching down. The woman raised her arms and turned her hands down, as if reaching for the boat. Then the woman turned to stone.

  She didn’t want to go overboard; she feared sharing the water with the stone figure. Her attention was instead drawn heavenward, the previously seamless sky now marred by two rounds of light. She shook her fist at the twin moons and screamed three words, a strange phrase she’d never before uttered: “Life for life!”

  Bernadette Saint Clare jerked and sat up; she’d nodded off during her break on the couch. She looked at the utility knife, locked in her hand with the blade pointing out. Sensing something wet running down her cheeks, she feared she’d cut herself in her sleep. She dropped the knife and tentatively touched her face with both hands. She examined her fingers. Damp with tears. “I’m losing it,” she muttered, wiping her palms on the thighs of her pants. She retrieved the box cutter, got up, and shuffled across the floor to a sealed box. Kneeling in front of the cube, she slipped the razor under the flap and sliced through the tape. Peering inside, she found mostly framed stuff. She picked up some of the rectangles and set them on the floor next to her. Commendation. Commendation. A couple of awards. A medal. Things given to her over the years by her supervisors and their supervisors. Why had she bothered packing the junk? None of it meant anything. The letters of censure weren’t framed, but they were the only part of her file the bosses cared about. She grabbed the edge of a wastebasket and dragged it to her side. She plucked the framed pieces of flattery off the floor and dropped them into the metal can. The clank satisfied her. She continued sifting through the box, uncovering a plaque shaped like a badge. FBI was engraved in large script. “Famous But Incompetent,” she muttered as she chucked the plaque into the wastebasket.

  The next layer was family photos. She lifted out an unframed snapshot of her mom and dad standing in front of one of the barns on the farm. All were gone now, her folks dead, the farm sold, and the barn replaced by a townhouse development. The edges of the photo were curling and pocked with pinholes. Over how many different desks in how many different cities had she tacked that photo? She dropped the picture back in the box and dug around until she found the framed high-school portrait of Madonna, the last picture snapped of her, not counting the ones taken by the state troopers and the coroner. Bernadette lifted the photo out of the box. Had it really been twenty years? She touched her fingertips to the blue eyes staring back at her. Would her twin have aged any differently than she? Would Maddy have gray mixed with the blond? Probably not. They would look the same. She and Madonna knew they were identical twins even though everyone else said that wasn’t possible because their eyes didn’t match. Bernadette had a set of brown eyes, at least up until the moment of the crash.

  She set the photo on the floor and rummaged around inside the box. Bernadette spotted her favorite picture, the eight-by-ten of her husband caught in a rare moment of stillness, when he wasn’t sailing or rock climbing but was simply sprawled out on the sofa. She got up off the floor, walked over to her desk, and hesitated before propping the photo on top. Maybe it would be better to take the picture home. People in the office would ask about him, and she didn’t want to tell the story to a whole new set of co-workers.

  She glanced around the office and set the picture down on her desk. Who in the hell was she kidding? What coworkers? There were two other desks in the room, and neither one of them looked occupied. One had an empty letter tray and a computer monitor sitting on top of it; the screen was black and the box under the desk looked dead. The other desk was covered with file folders that reeked of mildew. The cases inside of them probably predated Wounded Knee. The ancient couch she’d napped on could have been requisitioned by Hoover. They’d hidden her away good this time, burying her in a basement office across from the electrical room, on the same level as the parking ramp. At least it was bigger than her last place. What was lower on the bureau food chain? An agent with a basement office in St. Paul, or one with a first-floor closet in Shreveport?

  She heard ringing and ran her eyes around the room until she spotted her jacket draped over the chair behind the moldy-files desk. She went over, dug the cell out of her pocket, and flipped it open. “Yeah?”

  Her latest boss, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Tony Garcia: “Got a good one for you.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Couple of kids—the Vang brothers—were doing some fishing and reeled in a nasty trophy this morning. A juicy hand.”

  She pressed the phone tight to her ear. Sounded intriguing and creepy. Creepy was her specialty. She hadn’t expected a case so soon, and found her exhaustion being replaced by excitement. “Location?”

  “Hidden Falls. South entrance. Know where that’s at?”

  “I’m from Minnesota, remember?”

  “Figured you didn’t know the cities.”

  He made it sound like she had manure caked on her shoes. “I’ve got cousins in town.” She knew it didn’t matter, but had
to ask anyway. “Which hand?”

  “The right. Why?”

  “No reason. Curious.” She leaned against the edge of the desk, reached inside the holster tucked into the waist of her jeans, and took out her gun. Checked it. “And why do we care?”

  “We care, Agent Saint Clare, because this is the second person separated from his hand. A month ago, we had a dead guy up north. Same deal. Right hand cut off. Body found in the woods. Plus, this second guy has got a history with St. Paul cops. They want it cleared fast, so it doesn’t look bad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll see when you get there.”

  “This our case or theirs?”

  “We can share. There’s plenty of treats to pass around.” Garcia paused. Cleared his throat. “I’ll meet you.”

  She slipped her gun back in her jeans and gritted her teeth. He was keeping tabs on her like the last one, watching her like she was the latest addition to the zoo. An unpredictable exotic. “I can handle it solo.”

  “I know,” he said. “It’s Saturday. Weather’s crap. Got nothing better to do.”

  She hopped in and started up her truck. While the Ford rumbled in front of the Warren Burger Federal Courts Building, Bernadette took inventory of her wardrobe. Dressed in jeans and a hooded St. Louis Rams sweatshirt under a jean jacket, she looked like half the people she arrested. She flipped down the visor and studied her face in the mirror. Her husband had told her she looked like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby. She wondered which movie her husband would place her in this morning. Her short, boyish blond hair stuck out in spots, like she’d gone to bed with a wet head. Mia Farrow on a bad-hair day. The red veins in her eyes and the gray smudges under them advertised her lack of sleep. She rarely got enough rest, and last night was worse than usual. She’d stumbled into a new home in the dark and curled up on a bare mattress surrounded by boxes. Her night had been filled with disturbing dreams, and now the nightmares were getting weirder and starting to seep into her daylight hours.

  “Night of the Living Dead,” she said out loud to the mirror.

  She fished her shades out of her jacket pocket. Unlike a lot of women, she didn’t drag around a shoulder bag. Purses were oversized cosmetic bags, and the only thing she ever smeared on her face was ChapStick. Her husband had always told her she was beautiful without makeup, and she was glad he thought so. She didn’t have the skill or patience for applying cosmetics. Now that he was gone, she figured she had even less reason to fuss with her face. She slipped on her shades and checked in the mirror again. Why bother with eye makeup when sunglasses were handy? She flipped the visor up.

  Bernadette looked north and south on Robert and hung a U-turn so she was headed south. She stopped for a red light at Kellogg Boulevard. A cold drizzle misted the air and coated her windshield; she clicked on the wipers. The light turned green. She hung a left onto Kellogg and drove a block. She took a right on Jackson Street and went down a short hill and under a railroad bridge before hanging another right, onto Shepard Road. The Mississippi, a meandering band of chocolate studded with barges, was on her left. That damn brown water seemed to be tethered to her, pulling her back like a muddy umbilical cord. All she’d been able to snag were assignments in river states: Missouri. Louisiana. Minnesota. What would be next? Maybe the bureau would ship her off to the state of Mississippi itself.

  Bernadette spotted the South Gate to Hidden Falls Park and hung a left. Police tape crisscrossed the entrance, with a uniform stationed on each side of the yellow X. The bigger officer stepped away from his post and went up to the driver’s window. “Who’re you?”

  “FBI.”

  “Flash me,” he said.

  She whipped out her ID wallet and held it in front of his nose. “Bernadette Saint Clare.”

  His eyes went from the ID to her face. “Lose the specs,” he said.

  She hesitated and then pulled off her sunglasses. His eyes shifted back and forth as he studied her face. Like most people looking at her for the first time, he struggled to figure out which eye to focus on. She hated that; it made her feel like a freak. She slipped her glasses back on. “Okay?”

  “Heard you were coming.”

  She sensed the resentment in his voice. She wondered what else he’d heard about her. Could be it was just the usual pissing match between local cops and the feds. She forced a smile. “What’s the skinny?”

  “There’s a God after all.”

  She frowned. “What?”

  He winked and stood straight. “You’re in for a treat, FBI.” He stepped away from the truck. He undid his end of the tape, dropped it, and waved her through. She rolled forward a few yards. Before she steered down the steep drive that led to the riverfront park, she glanced through her rearview mirror. The big cop was putting the tape back up. He and the other uniform were laughing, like they were at a picnic.

  Three

  A crime scene like a thousand other crime scenes, Bernadette thought as she surveyed what was at the bottom of the hill. She’d be the only oddball. Would anyone pick her out? It’d be like an exercise in a child’s workbook. Which object doesn’t fit in the picture? Draw a circle around it.

  She pulled in between a squad and a paramedic unit. While she turned off the truck and dropped the keys in her jacket, she took in the view through her windshield. She spotted her boss at a picnic table with two boys, the Vang brothers. A couple of crime-scene photographers. The cops’ crime-lab van. Bunch of uniforms and their squads. Two paramedics talking to one of the uniforms. The Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s hearse. A gurney sitting behind the hearse, waiting for a body.

  She popped open the driver’s side and hopped out. While she walked across the grassy expanse toward the picnic tables, she dug inside her pockets for her notebook and pen. Garcia eyed her from his seat on the picnic bench. He got up and said something to the two boys. They nodded and stayed sitting. The older one rested his elbows on the table and propped up his chin with his hands. The younger one wiped his nose with the back of his jacket sleeve; his eyes were red. Bernadette figured he was the one who’d pulled in the prize. Gross thing for a little kid to see.

  As Garcia walked to meet her, Bernadette took in his face and physique. Even under his trench coat, she could see he was built like a weight lifter, with a trim waist and big arms and shoulders. He had olive skin, and short black hair with gray creeping into the sideburns. The buzz cut was getting overgrown, and the ends were starting to brush the tops of his ears. She approved. Bosses who were too meticulous about their grooming and dress were often anal jerks in the office. As Garcia drew closer, his mouth stretched into that tight grin she knew too well, that familiar smile Minnesotans employed to hide their real feelings. She told herself she was reading too much into it. He’d sounded decent over the phone and seemed straightforward when she came into town to talk to him before getting the assignment.

  As they met and stopped on the grass, he held out his hand and she took it. He towered over her, but then, so did most people. “How’re you doing?” she asked.

  “You come from your new place?”

  “From the office. I was unpacking.”

  He eyed her sweatshirt and frowned.

  “I was unpacking,” she repeated.

  “Media’s gonna love this one.” He scanned the sky above them for news helicopters and saw nothing but gray. The mist was getting heavier, turning into a drizzle that clouded the air like a fog. “Wonder where those dogs are this morning?”

  “It’s a little early for them. Give them time to have their coffee.” She flipped open her notebook. “The dead guy?”

  “Sterling Archer.”

  Bernadette’s eyebrows went up. She’d heard about him; he’d made the national news. Archer was a juvenile judge who’d molested a string of children and teens over a dozen years. Most of the victims had been in his courtroom. In one case, he’d elicited sex from both a girl and her mother in exchange for leniency on the bench. Archer’s team of
attorneys got half of the charges thrown out and, during the trial, tore apart the credibility of the kids. The defense’s tactics and the resulting verdict—an acquittal—infuriated the cops and citizens. One of the young women who’d testified committed suicide. Some of the families had publicly vowed revenge.

  Bernadette: “A vigilante thing, right? There’s gotta be a line of suspects snaking all the way down to the Iowa border.”

  Garcia: “Maybe. Maybe not. Here’s the deal. After he was cut loose, Archer left the state, went to Florida. Miami. No one knew he was back in town except his Realtor lady. He came back for a day—to close the sale of his house.”

  “Where’d he live?”

  “Right up there.” Garcia tipped his head toward the top of the hill. “Mississippi River Boulevard.”

  “Know the neighborhood. Nice little shacks.”

  “St. Paul Watch Commander said the Realtor lady called the cop shop last night to report her boy missing in action. He didn’t show for his closing Friday afternoon, and she was worried.”

  “So Realtor lady reports Archer missing last night.” She nodded toward the brothers sitting at the picnic table. “Then, this morning, the boys reel in a whopper.”

  “With a ring still on the pinkie finger.”

  The right side of Bernadette’s mouth curled up. For some reason, that detail pleased her. She clicked her pen a couple of times and started writing. “With a ring still on the pinkie.” She looked up from the notepad. “What about the rest of him?”

  “As the squads are pulling into the South Gate, some hikers parked at the North Gate are giving the cops a jingle. They tripped across the judge halfway between here and there.”

  “Cops already sweeping the park?”

  He nodded. “They found some shoe prints around the body. Could produce some decent casts. They’ve got some boats doing some checking, too. Maybe they can dredge up the murder weapon.”