'You'll need him,' Foster said.
Lane shrugged. He had cornflower-blue eyes and blonde hair, and a tiny moustache that made him look like a dance-band leader in a thirties musical. 'Right now I'm more concerned about Emma.'
'What about her?' Foster said. He had to be very, very careful.
'I can't get hold of her. I've left about twenty messages on her phone machine, and she hasn't gotten back to me in three days.' He shook his head. 'Waybright is asking for her again.”
Waybright was one of Foster's largest clients and a man who had a fairly serious crush on Emma. 'You haven't seen her?'
'No.'
'Or heard from her?'
'No.'
'I wonder where she is.'
Immediately an image of Emma stuck inside Brolan's freezer came to Foster. As soon as he left Lane, he was going to call the police and tell them where they could find Emma.
'She'll turn up,' Foster said.
He glanced around the coffee shop. The place was all got up us a forties diner. Art deco meets blue collar. The waitresses wore hair nets out of the Rosie the Riveter era and little buttons that read 'Buy War Bonds.' Lane often talked of wanting to produce dinner-theatre musicals there. He took his frustrations out on his coffee shop.
'So, expect him anyway,' Foster said. 'Fair warning.'
'You sure are uptight. Relax, for Christ's sake, Foster. Everything's going to be fine.'
'Yeah, I suppose.'
'I'll call you as soon as Brolan leaves. Just to let you know that everything's okay. All right?'
Foster stood up. As he did so, he bit at the nail on his forefinger. He hated it when he started biting his nails. It was such an unbecoming habit. 'And let me know if you hear from Emma, too.'
Lane stared at him for a long time. 'Sure, Foster. I'll call her again, see if I can scare her up.' The way he was looking at him, Foster had the uncomfortable feeling that the man had become a mind reader.
Maybe in Foster's mind he could read the image of Emma lying dead and rigid inside the freezer.
'Talk to you in a while,' Foster said, and left the coffee shop.
In the lobby he watched as two very good-looking stewardesses checked in for the night. As people came in from the outside, they made loud noises stamping their feet on the big rubber mats over by the row of newspaper vending machines.
Foster found a phone booth. He went inside and closed the door. Then, as an afterthought, he opened the door again and checked out the booths on either side of him.
Back in his own booth again, the door closed, he deposited thirty-five cents, looked up the number of the downtown police department, and placed his call.
When the receptionist answered, Foster asked for Homicide. 'Anybody in particular?'
'No, sir.' Foster had a handkerchief over the receiver. An old trick, to be sure, but an effective one.
'Then you can talk to me. I'm Sergeant Inspector Nordengren.'
'All right' He paused.
'What is it you'd like to tell me, sir?'
'About a murder.'
'About a murder?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well, what about a murder?'
'There's a dead woman in the freezer.'
'I see. And where would this be?'
Foster gave the man Brolan's address.
'And would you know how she got there?' the detective asked.
'I think so.'
'And how would that be?'
'He put her there.'
'He?'
'The man who lives there.'
'Ah. And would he possibly also be the man who murdered her?'
'I don't want to say any more. I've said enough already.'
'But-'
'I've been a good citizen. Now I just want to forget about it.' And with that he hung up.
He imagined Inspector Sergeant Nordengren was going to be quite busy the rest of that evening.
31
Around six o'clock, just as dusk was becoming black night, and snow flurries began to increase, and the winds from the north-west cranked up several miles per hour, Brolan pulled up in front of Greg Wagner's duplex. He had spent two dollars in change trying to locate Stu Foster by phone, trying the office again, Foster's home, and several downtown bars where Foster liked to go. Nothing.
Denise answered the door. She wore a bulky blue pullover sweater that he suspected belonged to Greg. The jeans he recognized from the previous night. She had her blonde hair tied in a ponytail with a red Christmas ribbon. She looked younger and even prettier than she had before.
'You look like a guy who could use a straight shot of hot chocolate,' Wagner said. Behind him the TV was rolling into the six o'clock news. It was the usual team of hair-sprayed and lacquered TV news people.
'Yeah, I could,' Brolan said, sitting down on the edge of the couch, pawing at his face with a big hand. He frowned at Wagner. 'I figured out who killed Emma.'
'What?' Wagner, whose attention had been drifting to the news, snapped his head back in Brolan's direction.
Brolan nodded. 'My partner. Foster.'
'Then the envelopes make sense.'
'What envelopes?' Brolan said.
First Wagner told him about the videotape showing various men in the same hotel room at different times with different women (including Emma), and then he told him about the envelopes Emma had received each month from Foster. Just as he was finishing his explanation, Denise said, 'Look, Frank.' Brolan switched his attention to the screen. A reporter in a trench coat stood screen left with a microphone, while in the background there was a night shot of Brolan's house. Red emergency lights flashed blood-red in the gloom. Bundled-up neighbours stood watching fascinated as a large, boxy ambulance backed up to the side door.
The reporter said: '… At which time, about an hour ago, police were notified by an anonymous caller that a body could be found in the freezer downstairs. Police, who've been in the house, have now confirmed that this is indeed the case. Repeating: A body has been recovered from a chest-type freezer in the basement of a suburban Minneapolis home. Police also confirm that the body is that of a young woman. So far there has been no identification.'
'I'm dead,' Brolan said. 'He's set it up perfectly.'
Wagner snapped off the TV set. 'Why would Foster do this to you?'
'I'm not sure exactly, but I think I know somebody who might be able to tell me.' He took the hot chocolate Denise carried over to him. 'Charles Lane. Somehow he ties in to all this.' Brolan felt his stomach knot, felt acid sear his stomach lining and oesophagus. His mind kept returning to the screen-the reporter grim, the emergency lights flashing off the otherwise unremarkable white house. There was no way the police would believe his story of merely storing the body in the basement until he could find out who had killed her…
Wagner said, 'If I say something, will you promise not to get mad? I'm just trying to help.'
