Dead Boyfriends Page 11

  “Beer?” asked Weiner.

  “Grain Belt Premium.”

  “She must have been warming up, then, because a preliminary drug screen says she had ingested methamphetamine.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Why doesn’t it make sense?” Rask asked.

  “She wasn’t sophisticated enough to do meth,” I said.

  “Any moron can buy meth,” Weiner said.

  “If the moron knows what to buy, where to buy. Mollie would have had to have a connection, and she didn’t. Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?” said Weiner.

  “Unless she was lying,” Rask said. “Could she have been lying, McKenzie?”

  “Why would she?”

  “I don’t know. Why would she?”

  I remembered Mollie peeking at me from the other side of her living room drapes.

  “Richard,” I said. “She might have been protecting Merodie’s ex-boyfriend Richard.” I told him how Mollie had reacted when I agreed with her ex-husband that Richard might have been dealing drugs out of Merodie’s house. “Maybe she was Richard’s best customer and didn’t want me to know.”

  “Richard who?” Rask asked.

  “I don’t know his last name, but the Anoka city cops do. They were called to Merodie’s address enough times when he was with her. They must have his name in their incident reports.”

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. McKenzie,” Weiner said. “We’ll be in touch.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I glanced at Rask. He seemed as surprised by Weiner’s behavior as I was, but he said nothing—he was in Weiner’s house.

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  Weiner came from behind his desk and took my elbow in his hand. He led me to the door. “We can forgo the blood test for now.” He literally shoved me into the corridor.

  “Hey.”

  “Good morning, Mr. McKenzie.”

  The sun had shifted while I was in Lieutenant Weiner’s office, and instead of shade, now my Audi was bathed in sunlight. I left it where I had parked it and walked along Main Street toward the Rum River. I was still upset about both Mollie Pratt’s murder and Weiner’s behavior, and I wanted to think it over. I passed the Avant Garden because I thought it was a damn silly name for a coffeehouse and instead crossed the street and strolled a couple more blocks to Body of Art. It was a tanning salon and tattoo parlor as well as a coffeehouse, which appealed to me for reasons I didn’t want to explore. I bought a frozen concoction topped with whipped cream. I ate it with a plastic spoon at a small table in front of the window. I looked across the street at the Anoka City Hall and the dam built across the Rum River just beyond. Outside the city hall, an electronic sign flashed the time, date, and place of various community events, BRUNCH WITH COUNTY ATTORNEY DAVID TUSEMAN 10:30 A.M. TODAY GREENHAVEN GOLF COURSE read one of the messages.

  I glanced at my watch. If I hurried, I figured I just might make it before they ran out of hash browns.

  The banquet hall of the Greenhaven Golf Course had been set for four hundred people, yet only about three hundred sat around the large round tables covered with white linen. A long, straight table had been set near the far wall between two large windows. Tuseman, wearing khakis and a blue shirt with the creases ironed in, stood at a podium mounted at the center of the table. His red, white, and blue campaign sign—DAVID TUSEMAN STATE SENATE FOR A BRIGHTER TOMORROW—was taped to the podium.

  A microphone had been placed on a stand in the center of the room for supporters who wanted to ask the candidate a question. A half dozen lined up behind the microphone. I was hoping someone would ask how Tuseman had the nerve to charge fifty bucks for a plate of cold scrambled eggs, three strips of bacon, soggy hash browns, and a blueberry muffin the size of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, but no one did. (There was also a plate laden with fresh fruit, but I ignored it.)

  Tuseman had a microphone, although he didn’t need it. He spoke as though someone had taught him how, with a deep, hard baritone that gave polished nuance to every word and carried easily across the room. Sometimes he actually answered the question. More often, he recited a short, biting position on an issue that had only a nodding acquaintance with the subject the supporter had asked about.

  I didn’t know what Tuseman was for. However, in the course of about fifteen minutes, I learned that there were a lot of things that Tuseman was against. He was against taxes. He was against more funding for the public school system without accountability. He was against both abortion and sex education that didn’t stress abstinence. He was against increasing the minimum wage. Mostly, however, he was against crime. When asked why he should be elected to the State Senate, Tuseman bragged about Anoka County’s low crime figures, his high conviction rate, and the fact that people convicted of crimes in Anoka served longer prison sentences than the state average. The supporters liked hearing that. Truth be told, so did I. But then some smart-ass asked, “Are you prosecuting Merodie Davies to help your reelection chances?”

  Tuseman’s smile gave away nothing except how careful he was with his teeth. “I take exception to your insinuation, sir.”

  “I don’t mind,” I told him.

  An anxious murmur spread across the room. The man sitting immediately to Tuseman’s right motioned for a server. He whispered something into the young man’s ear, and the server departed, moving swiftly toward an exit. I figured I had about two minutes, tops.

  “I am not prosecuting Merodie Davies for personal benefit of any kind,” Tuseman said.

  “I’m only telling you what I heard.”

  “From who?”

  “People. You know, around the courthouse.”

  “They’re wrong,” Tuseman replied. His raised his hand as if he wanted to brush something off his forehead, thought better of it, and let his hand fall to his side.

  “That’s what they’re saying,” I told him.

  “Tell you what. Next time someone says that, remind him that this is not a high-profile case. Court TV is not going to cover Merodie Davies’s murder trial.”

  “The Anoka County Union and the Coon Rapids Herald will. So will the Minneapolis Star Tribune if it’s juicy enough.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “How many murders have been committed in Anoka County in the past decade? A dozen?”

  “Probably less.”

  “The Merodie Davies murder case—it’s the only one you’ve got.”

  “Crime is the cancer of our society,” Tuseman declared. “Like cancer, it must be eradicated completely if we are to survive. We cannot live with even a little bit of cancer.”

  That brought a lot of applause.

  “I’m not above trying to get some good publicity to further my career. I understand how politics works. But I will be damned if I’ll make a prosecutorial decision based on whether or not it’ll get votes.”

  More applause.

  “Merodie Davies is guilty of murder, and I’m going to see that she spends the rest of her life in prison. Why? Because she’s guilty. Not because it makes me a more desirable candidate. If she weren’t guilty, I would release her, and I wouldn’t care how it looked to the voters.”

  A heavy hand fell on my shoulder as Tuseman’s supporters erupted into even louder applause.

  “Well, it was nice chatting with you,” I said, but Tuseman didn’t hear me. The microphone had been switched off.

  I turned. City of Anoka Police Officer Boyd Baumbach was smiling at me.

  “This way,” he said.

  Baumbach hustled me out of the banquet hall, out of the clubhouse, and into the parking lot as if he had done it a dozen times before. He was pushing me forcefully toward his police cruiser when I broke his grip and spun him around.

  “We going somewhere?” I asked.

  “Resisting arrest,” he told me. “You’re in for it now.”

  “Arrest for what?”

  “Trespassing. Disorderly conduct.”

  �
�Really? I thought I was exercising my right to free speech. Or are you as dumb about the Constitution as you are about the law?”

  Baumbach smiled like a kid with a secret. “We can make all this go away,” he said. “Isn’t that what you told me the other day?”

  “I was trying to do you a favor.”

  “Now I’m trying to do a favor for you. If you promise to shuddup about what happened . . .”

  “Have I signed a complaint? Have I gone to IAD? Have I done any of that shit?”

  “You told the sarge, and now he’s on me.”

  “I hope he fires your ass.”

  “That’s it. You’re going to jail for keeps this time. Now we can do this the easy way”—Baumbach held his cuffs out for me to see—“or we can do it the hard way.” He slid his sixteen-inch-long flashlight out of the loop on his belt and tapped the tip of his shoulder with it. “You choose.”

  “Let me guess. You’re a manly man who does manly things in a manly way.”

  “Choose.”

  I surprised him by stepping in close.

  He raised his flashlight over his head.

  I hit him with two left-hand jabs and at least six straight rights, the last two as he was falling to the asphalt.

  Baumbach wasn’t unconscious, yet he might as well have been. He opened his mouth, but no sounds came out, and his eyes wouldn’t focus. I grabbed the handcuffs from where they had fallen and clamped them on his wrists. I took the flashlight and reattached it to his belt.

  An older gentleman pulling his golf clubs in a three-wheel cart across the parking lot stopped to watch.

  “How you doing?” I asked him.

  “He’s a police officer,” he told me.

  “Appearances can be deceiving.”

  I grabbed Baumbach by the collar of his thick shirt and dragged him across the asphalt to his car. It was hard work in oppressive heat. By the time I reached the police cruiser, the back of my own shirt was saturated. I propped Baumbach against the front tire and wiped sweat out of my eyes.

  “Boyd.” I slapped him gently on both cheeks. “Boyd. Hey, Boyd. Are you still with me?”

  “What are you going to do?” There was genuine fear in his voice. I liked that.

  “What’s your call sign?”

  “My what?”

  “Your handle. What’s your handle?”

  “Bravo-three. What do you—”

  I leaned in and activated the microphone attached to the epaulet of his shirt.

  “Bravo-three,” I said.

  “Bravo-three, go.”

  “Bravo-three requires a supervisor at the parking lot of the Green-haven Golf Course. Is Sergeant Moorhead available?”

  “Bravo-three. Boyd, you sound funny.”

  “Bravo-three. Let’s pretend that we’re a professional police organization, shall we? Is Sergeant Moorhead available?”

  “Bravo-three. Yes, but—”

  “Dispatch him to the parking lot of the Greenhaven Golf Course immediately. Bravo-three, out.”

  I straightened up and gazed toward the private road that led to the golf course, half expecting to see Moorhead racing toward me.

  “You’re in trouble,” Baumbach said, yet there wasn’t much vigor in his words.

  “One of us is,” I said.

  Sergeant Moorhead’s hand was resting on the butt of his gun when he slipped out of his cruiser. I held up my empty hands and turned slowly, proving that I was unarmed. He moved closer.

  “Do you want to hear my story first, or his?” I asked.

  Moorhead used his thumb to direct me toward his cruiser. I went and stood next to the driver’s door while he lifted Baumbach to his feet and uncuffed his hands. Baumbach was talking earnestly. I couldn’t hear what he had to say, and quite frankly, my dear, I didn’t give a damn. Instead, I was debating which lawyer to call and wondering how much it would cost me—no way I was going back to jail. Not for thirty-six hours. Not for thirty-six minutes.

  The conversation lasted over five minutes. At no time did either officer raise his voice or look at me. It ended with Sergeant Moorhead putting his arm around Baumbach and leading him to the door of his car. He slapped his officer on the back. Baumbach slipped inside and started up the cruiser. He said something through the window, and Moorhead smiled. A moment later, Baumbach drove off. Moorhead watched him go. He didn’t turn toward me until Baumbach was out of sight.

  “Say something funny, McKenzie. Any smart-ass remark will do.”

  “I’m innocent?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “So I take it we’re not going out for coffee and donuts.”

  “You mess with one of my officers, you’re lucky I don’t kick your ass up and down this parking lot and throw you in jail for a thousand years.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “I owe you a favor.”

  “Not that big a favor.”

  “Then let’s say I’m doing it for Baumbach. Believe it or not, the kid has a chance to be a decent cop. The only blemish on his record was when he screwed up at the Davies’s residence. If I had known about it at the time I would have fallen on him and that would have been the end of it, but he lied to me. That’s two strikes against him, and he knows it. Ever since he’s been trying to prove that he was justified for what he did. That’s what this was all about. You resist a dis-con, he has to use his light—it makes his story that you got rough with him before sound more plausible. Question is, now what?”

  “That’s a good question,” I told him.

  “If we forget the whole thing, pretend it’s a foul ball instead of strike three, I can extend his probation, give him a chance to grow into his badge. If I arrest your sorry ass—man, that’ll give me a lot of personal pleasure, but Baumbach will probably lose his career.”

  “He deserves to lose his career.”

  “Yeah? You deserve to spend a year in the county workhouse. I don’t give a damn about your time on the job. I don’t care about your money. You are way out of line, McKenzie. I should take a club to you myself.”

  “I was—”

  “You were what? Trying to show a kid how smart you are? Give him the benefit of your years of experience? You’re not a cop anymore. It wasn’t your place.”

  He had me there.

  “So, what’s it going to be?” Moorhead asked.

  “Why the hell are you protecting this kid? He’s a bad cop and you’re not. You should flush his ass.”

  “He’s my nephew.”

  “So what?”

  “So, so . . . so maybe I owe him something. He always looked up to me when he was a kid. He wanted to be like me. And I encouraged him. I helped him get his law enforcement degree. I helped him get through the academy. I picked his field training officers, made sure they nursed him along. If he’s not ready, if he doesn’t know how to behave yet, that’s on me.”

  “Be that as it may . . .”

  “Boyd just needs another chance.”

  “Sarge, what if he screws up again?” I asked. “Next time it could be serious. Do you know what I mean by serious?”

  “He’ll be all right. I’ll take care of him.”

  “Sure you will.”

  “So, what’s it going to be, McKenzie?”

  “I don’t have a problem if you don’t have a problem,” I said.

  “Let’s keep it that way, shall we?”

  “Am I free to go?”

  “Yes. Please go. Go as far away as possible.”

  “I can’t go too far. I’m kind of involved in this Merodie Davies thing.”

  “So I’ve heard. I hate kibitzers, McKenzie.”

  “I don’t blame you. Listen, do I have any credit with you at all?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “About a year ago, you used to make a regular run to Merodie Davies’s house because of noise complaints, I don’t know what else, involving her and her boyfriend Richard something. What’s Richard’s last name? How can I find him?”

&nbs
p; “You just don’t know when to quit, do you? Look, McKenzie, this is way bigger than Merodie Davies. Way bigger. Let it go. Walk away while you still can.”

  “I can’t. I gave my word.”

  “You think this is a fucking game? There’s no place for playground honor out here. People are going to get hurt.”

  “What people? What do you mean by way bigger?”

  Moorhead shook his head as if he felt sorry for me. “I got nothing more to say to you.”

  He brushed past me and moved to his cruiser, slid inside, started it up, and drove off without so much as a backward glance.

  A few moments later I reached my own car. The brunch had finally broken up. David Tuseman was among the first to leave the clubhouse. I thought he might linger outside the door and hobnob with his supporters. Instead, he moved quickly toward two cars parked in the first row of the parking lot, his staff fast on his heels. I threw him a wave. He didn’t acknowledge it.

  “I liked the way you handled the cops.”

  The voice startled me, and I spun toward it.

  A man I knew only as Norman stood ten feet away.

  I immediately drew my hand to the place on my hip where I would have holstered my gun if I had thought to carry one. The last time I saw Norman, he was drilling holes into my Audi with a stainless steel Charter Arms .38 wheel gun. In return, I put a nine-millimeter slug into his shoulder. I was pretty sure he was still nursing a grudge.

  “Norman,” I said.

  “McKenzie.”

  “How’s the shoulder?”

  “Hmm? Shoulder? It’s fine. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason.”

  He was wearing a black sports jacket over a slate gray polo shirt. His hands were hidden behind his back. It worried me that I couldn’t see them. I edged toward the Audi, trying to put it between us as I had during our last encounter.

  Norman grinned. He brought his hands out slowly to show that they were empty.

  “Our personal business can wait until another day,” he said.

  My sentiments exactly.

  “Mr. Muehlenhaus would like to see you.”

  Seven words. That’s all it took to convince me that Sergeant Moor-head was correct. This was bigger than Merodie Davies.