Outburst (17 page)

So what did they get in the end, three, four hours' sleep?

Wondering if the police had dug up anything new on the case, he was just opening the paper when the phone rang. He reached past his coffee and grabbed the cordless. Please, he thought, let it be Rawlins. Letting him walk out of here hadn't been easy, not by any means.

“Hello?” said Todd.

“It's
moi
.”

It seemed as if they hadn't spoken last night but days ago, and Todd said, “Hi, Jeff. What's up? Did you find out anything?”

“A bit.” He kept his voice low. “Listen, I'm at work, so I can't talk long. But I called one of the bartenders last night, and he said, sure, he remembered Mark Forrest. Apparently a lot of the guys down there knew of him, because last winter Forrest was the cover boy for a feature
Q Monthly
did on gay cops.”

“You're kidding. I must have missed that issue,” said Todd, making a mental note to dig up that issue.

“I guess besides being a cop he was quite the looker.”

“Yeah, he was.”

“Well, he was there, at the Gay Times.”

Suddenly Todd was very awake, more than he had been yet that morning, and he pressed, “When? In the last few days?”

“That's where the bartender gets a little fuzzy—he's a sweetheart, but he's certainly no rocket scientist, I'll tell you that much. He did one too many chemicals, I do believe. Anyway, he's not positive, but he's pretty sure Mark Forrest was in a day or two before he was killed. Then again, it could've been last week.”

“Was he alone?”

“Nope, not this last time, or so says my bartender friend. Forrest usually came in by himself, he said, but the last time he was with some guy. He's sure of that because there was kind of a scene. There was a bachelorette party—about a half-dozen women—and they started giggling and laughing because Forrest and this guy were making out in the next booth. Apparently Forrest's friend got all bent out of shape and—”

“This guy, what'd he look like?” demanded Todd.

“I asked, trust me I did, but all I got was that the guy had brown hair.”

“Nothing else?”

“Zip.”

A pulse of excitement rushed through Todd. It very well might have been him, this guy who'd gunned down Forrest. But even if it weren't, perhaps he knew something about Mark Forrest's last few days.

Todd asked, “Would your friend be willing to talk to me?”

“Maybe, but then again you are a reporter, and I bet he wouldn't want to do anything on TV.”

“I just want to talk, that's all.”

“Well …” Jeff thought a moment. “Well, if you came down when I was there, say, like, tonight or tomorrow night, I could introduce you. But, Toddy, dear, don't get your hopes up. I think I got all there was to get.”

“Jeff, thanks. Thanks a million. I'll be in touch.”

Todd hung up, then jumped to his feet. He took a quick slug of coffee, next stood at the balcony door overlooking the lake. This wasn't much, but at least it was something, a foothold into Mark Forrest's personal life. So who was this guy that Mark Forrest had been kissing? Had they just picked each other up, or was this someone Forrest had known for a while, perhaps someone he'd even brought home?

Now, there's an idea, thought Todd.

He turned and half trotted across the living room. Reaching the front hall, he grabbed his briefcase, brought it back to the dining room, and, giving it a good shake, dumped it out on the table. Pens and paper clips and scraps of paper spewed out, and there it was, Mark Forrest's address, which Todd had scribbled down just after they'd found his body in the Mississippi. Should he go? Absolutely.

Barely thirty minutes later Todd was pulling down Young Avenue South to a tall, white clapboard house with a front porch, one of thousands like it built in the Twin Cities in the early part of the century. Todd checked the address on the scrap of paper one last time, then climbed out. As he turned from the sidewalk to the front walk, he saw the pot of red geraniums at the base of the porch steps. Had Forrest planted those or had someone else? Someone such as a relative? Todd had learned that Forrest's parents lived south of The Cities, so who was he about to meet, a sister? A brother?

There was only one way to find out, and Todd swung open the screen door, stepped onto the wooden porch, and pressed the doorbell. He hated this kind of cold call, but he had no choice, and he stood there, his hands clasped in front of him as footsteps bustled somewhere inside. A moment later a lace curtain covering the window on the large oak door was pushed aside, and an older woman peered out, her white hair short and curled.

“Yes?” she said through the glass.

The best way was to be terribly up-front about it, and he took a deep breath and said, “I was wondering if I could speak to you for a few minutes about Mark Forrest?”

“I've already talked to the police. I've already told them everything I know.” Her brow crinkled in suspicion. “Who are you anyway?”

So Rawlins had been here. Yesterday afternoon either he'd come out here or had sent someone else. Was this then a waste of time?

“My name is Todd Mills. I'm from WLAK TV,” he said.

“Oh.”

Evidently Todd needed no further introduction. Too midwestern to simply slough him off, she unlocked the door and pulled it open, her eyes running over him. And as she sized him up, Todd studied her as well. No, he realized with a sense of relief, this wasn't a family member. This woman, short with pale skin and plain glasses and wearing blue pants and a white blouse, was sullen, even visibly sad, but her eyes weren't red or watery.

“Sure, I recognize you. You're on Channel Ten,” she said, her voice direct and even. “I'm Anna Johnson. I was Mark's landlady.”

“He lived here in this house?”

“Sure. He rented my apartment.”

Todd glanced over her shoulder, saw the oak staircase, another predominant feature of these homes. “You have an apartment here in the house?”

“Yes, up on the third floor. There's a staircase out back. It's not a big apartment, but it's nice and clean. Mark, bless him, moved in almost a year ago. Nice fellow. Did all my shoveling last winter, and did a real good job too.” She paused, then said, “I've been wondering if any of you reporters would come around.”

“I'm the first?” Todd casually asked, quite curious to know if the competition had been around.

“Yep.” She peered past him toward the street. “Say, I don't want any cameras snooping around my house, okay?”

“Don't worry, I'm here by myself. I'm just trying to understand what happened.”

“It's just awful, isn't it?” she said, raising one hand to her chin and shaking her head. “Nice kid like him. A police officer too. I was so happy to have him living here, to have a cop living in my house. And here he gets himself killed!”

“Yeah, it's terrible.” Todd hesitated, wondered if she knew Mark was gay. “Could you tell me if any guys used to come around? You know, if Mark had any particularly close male friends?”

“Like a boyfriend? That's what the police asked too. And I told them no, not that I ever saw. Oh, I knew Mark was gay, but I didn't give a bit about that. All that I cared was that he took good care of the apartment, which he certainly did. He was a nice, quiet fellow.”

“So you don't remember any guys visiting Mark?”

“No, not any that come to mind. You see, it's small up there, real small. A room with a bed and a kitchenette and bath, that's it. Not much room for entertaining, really. But it's cheap. And Mark took it because he said he was saving up to buy a house. That's what he wanted to do, buy his own place.”

“Of course.” Already sensing this was going to be a bust, Todd asked, “So you don't remember anyone coming around? You never heard anybody else up there, particularly not in the last few weeks?”

“Nope, not at all. And I would've heard it too. You have to understand, this place is built as tight as a drum. There's a wood floor up there—all maple—and I would've heard if he'd had anyone with him. But he never did. All I ever heard was just one set of footsteps.”

“I see,” said Todd, quite certain that she had in fact been listening.

He asked her a handful of other questions—was he on time with his rent, was he recently gone more than usual?—none of which shed any light. Then, as discouraged as he was desperate, Todd thanked her and slowly made his way down the front walk and back to his vehicle.

Okay, he pondered, now what?

As he passed around the front of his Cherokee, he looked up and saw a white piece of paper pinned between the windshield and the wiper blade. He immediately scanned the street up and down, but saw not a single car speeding off. He then searched the yards on both sides of the block. No one, not even a dog. Weird, he thought. He'd been standing right up on that porch, right on Anna Johnson's threshold, and he hadn't heard or noticed a thing out here.

His heart filling with dread, Todd reached for the paper, which was folded in half. But rather than announcing a neighborhood meeting or garage sale, as Todd so hoped, there was one simple typed line that read: Don't forget, asshole, he's still the bait for a trap that you set.

It was enough to
make Todd nauseous, but Rawlins took it in professional stride and told him not to worry.

They met at the curb right outside City Hall, and when Todd passed him the note, which he had handled as little as possible, Rawlins slipped it directly into a plastic bag. With the hope that they could recover a fingerprint, Rawlins said he was going right down to forensics. Speechless, Todd then watched as Rawlins disappeared back into the massive granite building, finding solace only in the fact that Rawlins was, for the time being at least, safely ensconced behind the brutally thick walls of the city's heart.

When Todd finally got to the station shortly before noon, it was clear that the story of Sergeant Forrest's murder was going to sink to the number-two spot on the midday news. Todd, however, couldn't have cared less.

Going directly to his office, he shut his door and sat there, his mind racing for a way to defuse this. Hoping that Forrest's killer would phone, he took virtually every one of his calls, letting none slip into Voice Mail. Then again, undoubtedly the man who had gunned down Mark Forrest and taken a shot at Rawlins suspected that Todd's home and work phones were tapped, as they most definitely had been since eight that morning. Under police advice—namely Rawlins's—any call coming into Todd's office or his cellular phone was immediately traced. Not wanting to lose anything, Todd took it one step further and had a small tape recorder on hand virtually all afternoon. Any time either of his phones rang, the first thing he did was slap the small suction cup with the microphone onto the receiver.

“That's cool, very cool,” said Nan, the producer, loving the idea. “Get me a recording of a cop killer's voice, and, no prob, I'll make sure you lead ‘em all—the five, six, and ten o'clock.”

But no such call came.

As it was, Todd busied himself the rest of the day getting as much information as possible about Mark Forrest. First he called
Q Monthly
and requested the back issue on gay cops, which they said they'd dig out. Following that, he spoke with a public-relations person at the Minneapolis park police, then with Lieutenant Adams, Forrest's superior, and finally with two other police officers who had worked side by side with Forrest and could vouch for his character. Simply, everyone gushed about what a great guy he'd been and how terrible this was, the shooting. By all accounts Park Police Officer Mark Forrest was beloved, a farm boy who worked hard, was without question totally honest, and who got along with everyone. He had no temper, not that anyone knew of. And he'd never been reprimanded, not by any means. That he was gay was almost beside the point. And, no, no one knew if Mark had been dating anyone, least of all some guy with brown hair.

Todd jotted it all down, and it all fit. What everyone said about Mark Forrest matched Todd's initial impressions of the handsome young man Todd had met briefly on the Stone Arch Bridge. Knowing nothing of Forrest's family, Todd had no choice but to be obnoxiously aggressive. He found out where Forrest's mother and father lived, and while all of his instincts told him he should just grab a photographer and head out there, he was reticent to leave the station in case a call came in from the self-identified killer. Instead, he sent Bradley to the farm just outside of Faribault, and he got some footage of the grieving mother and father as they climbed in a car and hurried away.

At the end of the day, unfortunately, Todd had learned nothing new, at least not of any real significance, and he found himself fixated on when Forrest's killer might next emerge. And what he would do. Unbelievable, thought Todd, cursing himself for the hundredth time. He'd been standing right up there on that porch, and that jerk had slithered right on by.

A mere forty minutes before the 5:00 P.M. news, a gas main ruptured in northeast Minneapolis, the explosion ripping open a street. And while no one was killed, a half dozen people, including two kids on bikes, were injured. No doubt about it, it made for very dramatic coverage, and a reporter and photographer rushed to the scene. The 5:00 P.M. news opened with live shots of ambulances screaming down the street, steaming pavement, a ten-foot-deep crater, and, among other things, a bent bike.