Read Online Stalked by Brian Freeman - Free Book Online Page B

have to ask her. I don’t know how much she knew. Mr. Sorenson was gone a lot, and sometimes Mrs. Sorenson would call, wondering where he was. And, uh, who he was with.”
    “Did he take any personal trips recently?”
    Elaine nodded. “Yes, he was in the Twin Cities over the weekend.”
    “Doing what?”
    “He didn’t talk about it. I made reservations for him at the Saint Paul Hotel. He was gone over the weekend and came back on Monday afternoon. He seemed distracted.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know. He talked about seeing a play at the Ordway, but other than that, he didn’t say anything about his trip.”
    “What happened after he got back on Monday?”
    “He wasn’t in the office for more than a few minutes before he was gone again. Then he was in on Tuesday and Wednesday, but he had the door closed almost the whole day.”
    “Did he talk to his wife yesterday?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What about his calendar? What appointments did he have?”
    “He didn’t have any meetings during the day, but he had me set up an appointment for yesterday evening.”
    “He met someone last night? After-hours?”
    Elaine nodded.
    “Was it a woman?”
    “No. It was a psychiatrist named Tony Wells.”
    “Tony?” Abel asked, surprised.
    “That’s right.”
    Abel knew Tony Wells; he was the department’s primary profiler on sex crimes. He also did trauma counseling for a lot of the region’s cops and crime victims.
    “Was Mr. Sorenson seeing Tony professionally?” Abel asked.
    “Oh, no, Mr. Sorenson never saw a therapist. He was as solid as a rock. It was his wife. Mr. Sorenson told me that she had been getting counseling for months.”
     
     
     

Chapter 9
     
     
    Stride lit a cigarette as he waited on the porch at Tanjy Powell’s downstairs apartment. This was his first of the day, and it was already late afternoon. The wind mussed his wavy, salt-and-pepper hair with cold fingers. He glanced up at the sky, which was a bumpy mix of browns and blues. A few stray flurries floated in the air. After a few seconds, he turned back to the yellow door and pounded on it again with his fist, then listened carefully. There wasn’t a breath of life inside.
    According to Lauren Erickson, Tanjy hadn’t come to work since she fled the dress shop on Monday afternoon. She didn’t appear to be home either.
    He came down off the porch and looked up at the old Victorian. The windows were shuttered; no one peeked out at him. The house was a relic in need of fresh paint and new shingles. Duluth was a city of old neighborhoods and aging beauties like this one, which reflected the money and glamour of the city in its heyday, when taconite flowed like a river and filled the coffers of the entire northern region. The mining river was a trickle now, and the houses showed it. Unlike the Twin Cities to the south, which boasted new suburbs with manicured lawns, Duluth was left with its old homes and their fading glory. Stride actually preferred it that way. He didn’t mind if the floors slanted and the doors hung twisted in their frames. He hated cookie-cutter houses.
    He followed the stone foundation around to the rear and wound up in a backyard no bigger than a postage stamp. The house butted up to an alley and then to the back sides of homes on the next street. They were all in disrepair. Most of the houses here were subdivided, turned into low-rent apartments for students and nurses. A summer lounge chair was half-buried in snow. A charcoal grill sat rusting. He saw animal tracks cutting across the yard. Two windows on the wall of a one-car garage were broken. He trudged over to the garage and looked inside. The shards of glass were dirty and dull. There was no car in the garage.
    Back at the rear door of the house, he knocked and shouted, “Tanjy!”
    He pushed hard against the door with his shoulder. It was locked. He tried to see through the white shutters, but they were closed up tight.
    “Meow,” said a voice at his