Turning Angel

”Kate!“

”Wade Anders was Marko’s alibi.“

” That’swhat I’m telling you! Coach Anders’s story was bullshit!“

I blink in disbelief. ”Don’t say another word.“

Mia laughs. ”Told you.“

I think quickly. ”Do you know where Jewish Hill is?“

”The City Cemetery?“

”Meet me there as soon as you can.“

”I’m on my way.“

Daniel Kelly and I stand on the edge of Jewish Hill, waiting for Mia in a softly falling rain. Beyond the twin bridges over the Mississippi, the sun is sliding down the last of its arc; soon it will slip silently into the great river. I turn and look out over the cemetery. Kate’s grave is only a low mound of mud now. The faded green tent that protected it is gone, and there’s been no time to carve a gravestone. That takes weeks in this town.

Looking down the road that runs along the bluff, I spy a solitary figure in the rain. The Turning Angel. She’s not turning now, but merely standing with her head bowed, trying to weather the coming storm. As I stare, a hundred thoughts sweep through my mind. Ellen told me she killed Kate, and I believed her. But if Ellen killed Kate, why did Marko Bakic get Coach Anders to lie about his whereabouts that day? Could he have been doing a drug deal? If so, and Kate happened to get killed at the same time, then Marko must have improvised the alibi to cover his dope deal, not a murder.

It’s a plausible theory. But something has been bothering me ever since I heard Ellen’s confession. It’s the sequence of events as she described them. Ellen told me that after she began choking Kate, Kate quickly ”went out“-or became unconscious-and then fell and hit her head on the buried wheel rim. But the pathologist who autopsied Kate determined the cause of death to be strangulation, not head trauma. I believe Ellen choked Kate long enough to make her unconscious, but probably not long enough to kill her. In fact, my impression during Ellen’s confession was that she believed Kate died from the blow to her head. Ellen must have read otherwise in the newspaper, but she probably figured Kate was dead before her head hit the wheel.

But what if Ellen didn’t kill Kate at all? What if Marko-unknown to Kate-was at the crime scene, too? What if the person Ellen heard walking through the woods after Kate fell was not Drew, but Marko Bakic? That would have put Marko with Kate after Ellen left her, but before Drew arrived and discovered her corpse. The more I think about that scenario, the more convinced I become that it might be true.

But why would Marko have been there?

The answer comes to me so fast that it leaves me breathless. Marko met Kate there to sell her-or more likely, give her-Lorcet Plus. Cyrus had cut off Kate’s supply of pills; Cyrus’s e-mails to her told me that. Cyrus had warned Kate not to go to Marko in search of Lorcet, but what alternative did she have?

Because Marko gave me his hair so willingly at the X-rave, I discounted the possibility that he’d raped Kate. But maybe he gave me that hair because he knew he would be long gone before the police could arrest him. No…that would have been stupid. He would only have given me the hair if he was positive it could never come back and bite him on the ass.

”Oh, God,“ I say softly. Marko gave me that hair because he knew I would be dead in a matter of hours-long before I could deliver his DNA to anyone who mattered.

”What is it?“ Kelly asks.

”Wait a minute.“

The events of the past two weeks are realigning themselves in my head with nauseating speed. Why is the chain of cause and effect so hard to see sometimes? Sonny Cross sticks his gun into Marko’s mouth to interrogate him. Five hours later, Sonny is dead. Murdered by the Asians. Three days later, I track Marko down at the X-rave and question him about Kate’s murder. Four hours later, the Asians try to kill me in the lobby of the Eola Hotel. Coincidence?

Not likely.

Marko and the Asians have been working together all along-probably against Cyrus. That’s why Cyrus didn’t kill me when he had the chance. Cyrus never saw me as a threat. I was after Kate’s killer, and Cyrus knew he was innocent of that crime. But to Marko…I was a genuine threat.Jesus.

At Drew’s trial, Shad painted the jury a picture of Marko as the ”mystery man“ who’d left the other semen sample in Kate’s vagina. Shad chose Marko not based on evidence, but because Marko was conveniently missing, and thus offered the most possibilities for exploitation in court. But Shad painted Marko as Kate’s consensual partner-and Drew as the jealous killer. But what if those roles were reversed in reality? The rightness of this logic settles into my soul with the weight of gospel.

”That’s it,“I whisper. If Marko discovered Kate’s prone body just after Ellen fled, he might well have killed her, and then witnessed Drew finding her body. If so, Marko could have been the blackmailer who extorted money and drugs from Drew on the night of the crime. Was Marko the man on the motorcycle that we chased through the woods behind St. Stephen’s? Or was he the rifleman by the press box, shooting as we tried to get through the fence?

Another rush of images fills my brain. The lone killer dressed in black who shot so many of Cyrus’s men…who was that but Marko Bakic? What makes me sure is that it was the same night-just hours later-that the Wilsons were brutally murdered. And they weren’t gunned down in the style of the Asian gang, but stabbed dozens of times, as though in uncontrolled fury. What was that attack but retaliation by Cyrus’s crew against the man they believed responsible for the attack on their safe house?

Marko…

”There’s your girl,“ Kelly says. ”Blue Honda Accord?“

Mia’s car is racing up Cemetery Road. She slows by the second gate, turns in, and speeds along the narrow lane toward the superintendent’s office. I watch her turn and climb the road to Jewish Hill.

”What do you want me to do?“ Kelly asks.

”Give us some space, but watch us. I have no idea where Marko is, but I have a feeling that kid’s a lot more dangerous than I thought.“

”You’re covered.“

As Kelly walks down through the stones on the back side of Jewish Hill, Mia’s car noses onto the grass and drives along beside the wall shielding the graves. When I motion for her to stop, she opens her passenger door and waves me inside. I shake my head and beckon her out.

”It’s raining!“ she calls.

”That’s what’s keeping me awake!“

She nods and gets out of the car. She’s wearing old jeans and a royal blue St. Stephen’s sweatshirt. When she reaches me, she looks me up and down. ”You look really sick. Are you all right?“

”I’ve definitely been better.“

Mia tries to smile, but it doesn’t work. She buries her head in my chest and hugs me hard. I hold her for a minute, then gently separate us and lead her to the far edge of the hill, where the view of the river is unobstructed.

”Why did Coach Anders lie for Marko?“ I ask.

”Because Marko knew about Wade and Jenny.“

”What else did Jenny say?“

”Coach Anders has been really stressed out for the past week and a half. Really stressed, like talking to himself and stuff. Jenny didn’t know what that was about, but today at school she was worried he might have a heart attack or something.“

”Go on.“

”Jenny went into Wade’s office after fifth period, and he was crying. She begged him to tell her what the matter was, and he finally did. It was Drew’s conviction. Apparently Wade had suspected for some time that Marko had something to do with Kate’s death. He told Jenny all about Marko and the fake alibi. But he was afraid to tell the police, because he knew Marko would blab about Jenny, and he’d lose his job. Maybe even his career as a coach.“

”It’s worse than that,“ I tell her. ”Wade’s in a position of trust as defined by statute. He’d be facing the same kind of sexual battery charges as Drew. Thirty years in the pen. He might even be charged as an accessory-after-