Sigrid wraps her fingers around the skull-shaped door handle that will open the Gates of Hell to the Inferno. She does not hesitate so much as pause. Draped in leather and surrounded by beards and chrome, she feels as though she’s stepping backwards half a decade into that shithole in Västerås, Sweden, northwest of Stockholm, where she was to meet a Norwegian contact. The main difference here is that everyone is speaking English.
“Oh, Marcus,” she says to the skull.
She pulls. The handle not only opens the door but pulls with it a cloud of gray tobacco smoke that rises as it hits the outside air and stings her eyes. The orifice to the Inferno looks less like an entrance than something you’d throw a virgin into to appease an angry god, but Sigrid presses through the sulfur and brimstone—helmet dangling from one arm—as some kind of death metal pounds a dark rhythm around her legs, threatening to pull her into shadow. The door closes behind her, leaving her inside a bar that smells of grease and unwashed, bearded men. Behind the bar, in a frame, is a black piece of cloth with a patch on it that says THE 1%.
Sigrid recalls that expression from reading the Norwegian newspaper. There it referenced the world’s richest people. Here it seems to mean something else.
The clubhouse is busy but not crammed. Everyone is dressed in a version of the same uniform, carefully calibrated to blend in rather than stand out. Confederate flags are more popular here than Sigrid might have expected this far north in the United States, but culture isn’t bound by location. A quarter of the bikers are women and none of them is young. With her own tired countenance, dirty hair, and glazed eyes Sigrid feels well-camouflaged aside from not showing as much cleavage as seems to be the norm, and weighing significantly less than most of the women. She leaves the jacket on so she doesn’t upstage the competition.
There is an empty barstool beside a woman wearing black chaps over jeans and a black tank-top—the ribbed neck cut off to show the tops of her breasts—that reads CHOPPER. Sigrid sits in it and turns to her:
“I need a ride,” she says.
The woman pulls from her beer, her eyes dulled by the future she can easily imagine. She glances at Sigrid, sees nothing interesting, and turns back to the television above the bar showing a sporting event.
“I don’t do women.”
“Someone stole my bike and I think a cop is following me,” Sigrid says. “I’ve got to disappear. I need a ride.”
“I don’t know you. What kind of accent is that?”
The wrinkles around CHOPPER’s eyes become mascara-black as she squints at Sigrid. There is a beer sud parked on her upper lip.
“Sweden,” Sigrid lies. “I’ll ask someone else.” Sigrid places her palms on the counter and has begun to shift her weight when the woman says, “Aryan, huh?”
Sigrid sits back down on the barstool.
“What’s in it for the rider?” CHOPPER asks her. “I might know a guy.”
“Money and gratitude.”
The woman makes a practiced and unflattering noise.
“I’m going south of Malone,” Sigrid says. “The cops are in the parking lot. I need to slip out now.”
“You might as well stay. This is the last place they’re going to look,” she says, ordering another beer and a shot.
“They know I’m around here someplace. Aside from Target it’s the most obvious place to look.”
“I didn’t say they don’t know where you are. I said it’s the last place they’re gonna come inside to look.”
A Depressing Spot
Sheriff Irving Wylie sits alone in his 1989 Jeep Wagoneer in the parking lot of Target, sipping from a safety mug filled with coffee and listening to a bluegrass band on NPR. He stares out the windshield into the darkness as the folks at Target start to close the shop up for the night.
Melinda opens the passenger-side door and slips into the beige leather seat beside him.
“Spot her?” Melinda asks, scanning the parking lot.
“Walked right out the front door,” says Irv, gesturing. “Jogged along there, and turned into that dark spot at the corner.”
“Cory pick her up on the back side?”
“She was in the alley for a bit and then he watched her cross the two hundred yards from the ally to the Inferno,” Irv says, turning down the music. “Cory says she’s in there right now.”
“Maybe we should call the coroner now, save some time,” says Melinda.
“I’m not so sure. Cory got a good view of her from his position and says she emerged wearing a black leather jacket and carrying a motorcycle helmet; two things she did not have when she slipped the surly bonds of the parking lot. A minute later, Juliet McKenna walks out of the same alley—here on my side—leans her boobs into a Honda Accord, and drives off with the guy.”
“Huh,” says Melinda.
“That’s what I said.”
“How does Sigrid know Juliet?”
“They met at Marcus’s place before she came over to us asking for help.”
“Hard to see them as friends. Not exactly the same type,” Melinda says.
“Hardly,” says Irv. “What we’re learning about Chief Sigrid is that she plans ahead and plays everything close to the vest. When you called back Professor Williamson while Sigrid was sleeping . . . what did he say again?”
“Said they were talking about the Adirondacks and how much Marcus liked it out there.”
“And he specifically directed her to Saranac Lake?”
“Yeah. She’s definitely going to the ’Dacks, Sheriff. Can’t quite figure out how, though. She still in the bar, you said?”
“Yes. You can see the entrance with the binoculars.” Irv glances at Melinda and smiles.
