Pretty Girl Gone Page 12

  “Still love you? I thought it meant simply, ‘I love you.’ ”

  “No, that’s three roses. Nine roses means ‘We’ll be together forever.’ A dozen means ‘Please be mine?’ Two dozen means ‘I’m forever yours.’ Fifty roses professes ‘Unconditional love.’ Nine dozen means ‘Will you marry me?’ and nine hundred ninety-nine roses means ‘I will love you till the end of time.’ ”

  “What does fifteen mean?

  “ ‘Please forgive me.’ ”

  A short time later I was again parked on the shoulder of County Road 13 opposite Milepost Three. I left the Audi, went to the edge of the road, and tossed the bouquet of fifteen red roses back where I found it.

  “Who is it, Elizabeth?” I asked. “Who’s apologizing to you? Or are the roses meant for me?”

  If the flowers hadn’t been purchased in Victoria, then they must have come from outside. As I had.

  “I’m being played, sweetie,” I said aloud. “I can feel it. I don’t suppose you could tell me who’s plucking the strings?”

  Elizabeth didn’t answer.

  I stood alongside the ditch, not moving, not really thinking much, either. Someone driving by could have mistaken me for a cow in a pasture. After a few minutes I dropped a single white chrysanthemum next to the roses. The woman at the flower shop told me it meant “truth.”

  “It would be nice, Elizabeth,” I said, “if we could find some.”

  The huge, overstuffed chair had been upholstered in blue mohair and the large sofa against the wall was covered in the same material. Both had ornately carved woodwork on the arms and along the backs. The large rug was a faded Persian. A coffee table made of ancient wood stood on the rug in front of the sofa and a matching end table had been placed at the elbow of the chair. There was a lace doily in the center of the end table and a crystal lamp in the center of that. Mounted on the wall in front of the sofa was a series of photographs. Mrs. Rogers identified the subjects—Elizabeth, her daughter, murdered by assailant or assailants unknown, Michael, her son, killed in a car accident, Thomas, her husband, dead of a heart attack.

  “It has been very difficult,” Mrs. Rogers said.

  Her eyes had known anguish, yet suffering had not made them hard. Instead, they somehow had remained soft, even kindly and I wondered how Mrs. Rogers had managed it.

  “After Beth was killed, my anger was powerful,” she explained. “I hated. Since the Lord didn’t show me whom to hate, I hated the world, I hated Him. I hid that anger, that hate, buried it deep inside because there were so many others who were hurting as I was, so many others who needed help. My husband, I needed to help him deal with our loss. My son—my son was so young at the time, only ten years old when his beloved sister was taken from him, and like the rest of us, he did not know why. So many others. Relatives. Friends. Neighbors who did not know Beth except as a cheerleader at the high school. They were all suffering, all desperate for comfort. I needed to be strong for them. When they no longer needed my strength, I tried to regain my anger, my hate; I went searching for it in the lowest part of my heart and discovered that it was gone.”

  “I can’t imagine getting over something like that,” I said.

  “You do not get over it, you do not forget. It is not a photograph you paste in an album and put on the shelf to examine only on occasion. It is with you always, like the air you breathe. You must learn to accept it and move on in order to live life according to God’s will.”

  “God’s will?”

  Mrs. Rogers smiled slightly and I realized that I wasn’t the first person to question God’s will in her presence.

  “God does not murder young women, Mr. McKenzie. He does not tell children to drink and drive. He does not cause inactive, overweight men to die of heart attacks. We”—she tapped her breast—“are the cause of the world’s ills. Not God. I do not hold him responsible.”

  I do! I didn’t speak the words, yet Mrs. Rogers seemed to hear them just the same.

  “Did you lose someone close, Mr. McKenzie? Someone you loved.”

  “My mother. My father.”

  “How did they die?”

  “She died slowly of cancer when I was very young. He died quickly of a brain tumor a few years ago. They say the tumor could have been growing for years.”

  “For years,” Mrs. Rogers repeated. “I wonder how many extra years he was given.”

  Not damn near enough, my inner voice answered.

  “I didn’t come here to talk about that,” I said.

  “What did you come here to talk about?”

  “Elizabeth. I’d like to find out what happened to her.”

  “Chief Bohlig said—”

  “I don’t believe him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Pretty young women are not kidnapped off the street and just killed, Mrs. Rogers. They are sometimes robbed and killed. They are more often abused and killed. Sometimes other things happen. But they are not just killed. Not by transients. Not by strangers. I think she was killed by someone she knew.”

  Mrs. Rogers shook her head.

  “I have thought long about that, about the possibility that Beth was murdered by someone she trusted.”

  “What have you decided?”

  “I do not believe that anyone who knew Beth could have hurt her.”

  “So, you think someone killed her at random for no particular reason?”

  “Mr. McKenzie, do you believe in evil?”

  I’ve heard the question before. It had often been bandied about in the squad room and in the corridors of the Ramsey County Court House. For most people, evil is abstract, a theoretical means of describing human behavior that is otherwise incomprehensible to them. To others it is very real, in the way drugs and guns and anthrax letters and airplanes crashing into skyscrapers are real. Only I had been a cop a long time and I knew better.

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “I do not believe in evil. I believe in motive.”

  Mrs. Rogers thought about that for a moment.

  “Whom do you suspect?” she asked.

  “Your daughter was seeing Jack Barrett.”

  “No,” Mrs. Rogers said abruptly. “I do not believe that. I know Jack’s heart. He could never have done such a thing.”

  I was surprised by how glad I was to hear Mrs. Rogers’s defense of Barrett, yet just the same I said, “Witnesses said Elizabeth and Jack had an argument the night Elizabeth was killed.”

  Mrs. Rogers shook her head, refused to consider the possibility. I let it slide.

  “Were there any other boys who were interested in your daughter?” I asked. “Boys who were jealous, perhaps?”

  “I believe that most of the boys were interested in Beth and that many of them were jealous because she would date only Jack.”

  “Did any of them bother her?”

  “No.”

  “Did any call, send letters, follow her?”

  Again Mrs. Rogers shook her head.

  “What about girls? Did Elizabeth have any enemies?”

  “All high school girls have enemies. It is the politics of their age.”

  “Anyone in particular?”

  “No.”

  “Afterward, did anyone act strangely? At the funeral perhaps.” I noticed something move behind the woman’s eyes. “What?”

  “The day after the Seven won the championship, just after the town threw them a parade, Josie Bloom came to see me.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He hugged me. I opened the front door and found him there. He said, ‘Mrs. Rogers, I am so sorry,’ and he hugged me and he cried for a very long time. The entire town was celebrating the basketball team. It did not wish to be reminded of Beth. So, for Josie to do that—I was very touched.”

  Josiah Bloom the alcoholic, who dedicated his game to Beth.

  “Mrs. Rogers, I found a bouquet of red roses at the site where your daughter’s body was found.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes.”


  “When?”

  “About a half hour ago.”

  “How odd. Who could have left them?”

  “That’s what I was going to ask you.”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Has anyone left flowers at the site . . . ?”

  “Since Beth was killed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like a shrine?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. This is the first I’ve heard of anyone—Who would do such a thing? Why now, why after all these years?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mrs. Rogers stared at me for a few beats as if she were seeing me for the first time.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked suddenly. “Why do you need to learn who killed my daughter?”

  “Until this morning, I didn’t. Yet somehow it’s become very important to me.”

  “Perhaps you were sent by God to finally put the matter to rest.”

  “I doubt it.” The very suggestion made me nervous.

  “Why do you doubt it?”

  “If God needed help, I’m sure he could find someone more competent than I. Besides, I haven’t prayed, really prayed in many years.”

  “Since your mother died.”

  I nodded.

  “The Lord works in mysterious ways, wondrous to behold.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “I should tell you before you pursue this any farther, Mr. McKenzie, that while I wish you well, I have already forgiven the person who killed my daughter.”

  I thought that was the most amazing statement I had ever heard.

  I paused before turning into the parking lot of Fit to Print to allow a young woman wearing a ponytail and a Victoria High School letterman’s jacket to cross the street in front of me. There were six patches sewn to her left sleeve representing basketball, speech, debate, band, scholarship, and track and field. When I was a kid she would have been labeled an overachiever. These days kids are expected to be Renaissance men, they’re supposed to compete in sports, learn a language, play an instrument, write poetry, study physics and algebra. That’s a lot of pressure. More than I grew up with. Still, I suppose it beats wasting their time in front of the television or playing video games.

  “Pretty,” I thought as she passed my car, even with the anxious expression etched across her face. I didn’t look to see what made her anxious. Instead I waited for an oncoming vehicle to pass before wheeling into the lot. I silenced the Audi and opened the door.

  The word was so loud and expressive that I was sure it was meant for me.

  “Bitch.”

  I spun toward it.

  Two young men, both dressed in jackets with A-1 Auto printed on the back, were blocking the woman’s path. She tried to move past, but they kept sliding in front of her, forming a wall, nudging her backward along the sidewalk.

  I recognized them immediately. They were the white guys whispering encouragement to Brian Reif in the Rainbow Cafe. The names stenciled over their breasts told me they were Mitch and Steve.

  “You like those bean burritos, don’t you,” Mitch said. “You like those chili-shitters.”

  Steve lifted the woman’s ponytail. She slapped at his dirty hand like it was a mosquito. He pulled it out of range and laughed.

  “Does he wear Hispandex to bed?” Steve said, laughing at his own weak joke. “Does he go to the Latrino?”

  They’re hassling her because she’s seeing a Hispanic, my inner voice said. Well . . .

  I called to them in my best high school Spanish as I approached. “¡Oyen, chicos! Por favor. ¡Dejen de molestar la chica!” Hey, guys. Please. Stop bothering the girl.

  They looked at me like I had come from Mars.

  “What the fuck do you want?” Mitch asked.

  I asked him if that was a nice way to talk. “¿Eso es una manera agradable de hablar?” My tone was deliberately mocking.

  “Who are you?” Mitch asked.

  “Ain’t that the guy from before?” his friend answered.

  “Are you okay?” I asked the girl.

  She told me she was fine. As for the other two, I told them to go away.

  “Váyanse.”

  “I knew you weren’t no American,” Mitch said.

  That’s when I backhanded him across the mouth. The force of the blow spun him on his heels and propelled him across the narrow boulevard against the side of a parked car. Steve spit “Bastard” at me, curled his fingers into a fist, and cocked his right arm. He took way too much time doing it. I grabbed Mitch by his collar and yanked him back, putting him directly between Steve’s fist and me. Steve connected with the side of Mitch’s face with a lot more force than I had. Mitch would have fallen if I hadn’t been holding tight to his collar.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . . ,” Steve repeated.

  “Shit,” said Mitch, cradling his face with both hands.

  I shoved him hard. Steve had to grab him to keep him from falling.

  “¡Váyanse!,” I said to them. “¡Ahora!”

  They took three steps backward before Mitch tore himself from Steve’s grasp.

  “This ain’t over,” he said. “You got a fight coming. It’s coming soon.”

  I told them to stop it, they were frightening me. “Dejen de hacer est. Me están dando miedo.” I smiled while I watched them scurry across the street toward the Rainbow Cafe. Only the young lady didn’t share my joy. The name stitched to her letterman’s jacket read JACE.

  “What did that prove?” she wanted to know.

  “That a young woman can walk the streets of Victoria unmolested?”

  Her expression reminded me of Mount Saint Helens right before it exploded.

  “Okay, it didn’t prove a damn thing.” I raised my hand to eye level, squinting through the space between my thumb and index finger. “But didn’t seeing those bigots get theirs make you feel that much better?”

  “Violence isn’t going to change their minds,” Jace said. “It isn’t going to make the problem go away. It only makes it worse.”

  She had me there.

  Jace looked both ways when she entered Fit to Print and smiled coyly at Rufugio Tapia. I followed her inside, but she wasn’t paying any attention to me.

  “Hi,” she said as she moved toward him. It was a small word, yet she filled it with promise.

  “Hello,” Tapia replied.

  They stared into each other’s face, their eyes waltzing together in four-four time. She reached the counter and leaned halfway across it. Only he didn’t bend to meet her.

  “Aren’t you going to kiss me, R.T.?” she asked.

  Tapia gestured in my direction with his head.

  “Don’t mind me,” I said. “Kiss the girl.”

  Tapia found something on the counter to interest him. The young woman looked down and away. They weren’t going to kiss and the only explanation that I could think of was that she was white and he was Hispanic and there was a witness.

  “Mind if I use this?” I asked, gesturing at the nearest Apple.

  “Help yourself.”

  I had stopped at Fit to Print to gain access to the Internet, using my credit card just the way my mysterious e-mailer must have. While I surfed, Tapia and the young woman bowed their heads toward each other and spoke softly. I tried to give them as much privacy as possible.

  I had found all the names I wanted in the yearbook Suzi had lent me and was now looking for addresses. Dr. Dave Peterson was easy. He had his own Web site. I called his number in Mankato on my cell and arranged for an appointment the following morning. Grace Monteleone was now principal of West Mankato High School. I found her number easily enough, too, but I had to climb over three tiers of bureaucracy before I could arrange a meeting about an hour after I was set to speak with Dr. Peterson. Gene Hugoson, Brian Reif, and Nick Axelrod were all in Victoria. I recorded their addresses in my notebook and decided to visit them in person without calling first. It took a while to find Josiah Bloom. He was also in Victoria, bu
t apparently he moved around quite a bit. I nearly gave up on Lynn Peyer before I found records of her numerous marriages and divorces. Unlike Monte, Lynn had changed her name three times and now went under the name Lynn Matousek. She also lived in Victoria.

  I logged off the Apple. Tapia was standing next to me as I put on my jacket. The young woman was standing at the counter. She might have been waiting for a bus for all the attention she paid me. Tapia extended his hand and I shook it.

  “I want to thank you for helping my girl.”

  I grinned.

  He said, “What?”

  “ ‘My girl.’ I like the sound of it. I bet she does, too.”

  Tapia suddenly found something on the floor that needed looking at. Jace began to blush. Her cheeks were the color of a winter sunset.

  “Have you two ever read Romeo and Juliet?” I asked.

  “You mean the story about the two lovers who die because their families hate each other so much they can’t be together?” Jace said. “That Romeo and Juliet?”

  “Bad example,” I told her.

  “You think?”

  “There has been trouble in town recently between Latinos and Somalis and the white residents,” Tapia said.

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Usual thing. Whites complain that immigrants are taking all the jobs, which is nonsense. The jobs they are taking—it’s in the slaughterhouse. People coming up here are taking the dangerous, low-paying jobs—the hard work, low-prestige work—that the white, U.S. born residents just won’t do. I don’t blame them. My father, he worked hard, so very hard, worked two jobs when I was young so I could go to school, so I wouldn’t need the slaughterhouse.

  “I don’t know,” he added. “I didn’t see much discrimination in college, but down here . . . Sometimes it is bad and sometimes it is not so bad. Right now it’s bad because kids—children of immigrants—they were arrested for using drugs, using methamphetamine. Now people are saying that along with ruining the economy we’re bringing in drugs. Yet people are also excited because Victoria might win another state basketball title after all these years because of the kid who plays center—a young man from Somalia. I just don’t know.”

  “Did you ever think of leaving? The both of you going somewhere else?”