Curse of the Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel Read online

  Cops have protocols and procedures when dealing with criminal activities, and few of them are executed in a hurry. Policing is, after all, a civil service job and prone to bureaucracy. More and more officers appeared at the scene. Lights were erected. Measurements were taken. Photographs were snapped. Statements were recorded. All this was made even more cumbersome by the simple fact that the exact same thing was happening in the park around Noehring’s body. The ME appeared and then disappeared. Forensic specialists arrived and stayed for a long time. Vans with the call letters from WCCO, KSTP, KARE-11, and FOX-9 blocked traffic, their cameras and lights adding to the chaos. Crowds of bystanders gathered, lingered for a bit, and then scattered when they discovered there was nothing going on that was intriguing enough to keep them standing out in the cold.

  Eventually Lieutenant Rask came up from the park and crossed the street. He glared at me for a moment through the passenger window before taking verbal reports from his men. When he finished, he had the officer open the rear door to the squad car. I didn’t wait for him to ask questions. Instead, I spoke as succinctly as possible.

  “I was going for the Lily—the money is in the trunk of the Audi—the dead man tried to take it from me—he might have been the one who shot Lieutenant Noehring, I don’t know.”

  “Did you witness the shooting?” Rask asked.

  “I saw Noehring fall, but I can’t identify who shot him. Lieutenant, I need to contact Mr. Donatucci and have him secure the money.”

  “What was Noehring doing here?”

  I looked away and then looked back. Rask saw the answer in my eyes.

  “Don’t say a word, McKenzie,” he said. “Just this once, keep your mouth shut.”

  * * *

  I eventually gave a detailed statement to Rask. I then repeated it to Rask, a second investigator, and a video camera. Afterward, I gave it a third time to Rask, a second investigator, a video camera, two prosecutors from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, the chief of police, and Mr. Donatucci, who confirmed everything up to the moment I drove out of the parking ramp. I found myself sliding into a monotone while I spoke. Trust me when I tell you that I wasn’t bored. But I was feeling depressed, deflated. It was the inevitable fall after the adrenaline high, but knowing the cause didn’t change it. Several times I was asked to speak up. Nearly everyone had a question about Lieutenant Noehring, and each time I saw a look in Rask’s eye that told me to keep my opinions to myself.

  “I have no idea why he was at Loring Park,” I said. “My guess is that he was there on a different matter and the thieves somehow made him, but I’m only guessing.”

  Afterward, I was installed in the same interrogation room where I met Hemsted and Pozderac and told to wait. I did so, for nearly four hours. I did not complain. Rask had a cop killing on his hands. Nothing took precedence over that, least of all my comfort and convenience.

  When he finally did arrive I was struck by the exhaustion on his face and the look in his eyes that suggested he was silently wishing the goddamned apocalypse would come already.

  “Did Mr. Donatucci secure the money?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “So your problems are over. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “I killed a man last night, LT.”

  Rask pulled out a chair from under the conference table and sat down.

  “One of mine was killed, too,” he said.

  “So we’re both hurting.”

  “I suppose we are.”

  Rask leaned back in the chair, his chin pointed at the ceiling, and closed his eyes. “McKenzie,” he said, “sometimes I think I spend more time watching the sun go up and watching it go down than a person should, you know.”

  “Did Tommy kill Noehring?” I asked.

  “No,” he said without opening his eyes. “There was no gunshot residue on his hands or clothes. Plus, Tommy was carrying a nine-millimeter that hadn’t been fired recently. Noehring was shot with a .25.”

  “The same caliber as the gun that killed Tarpley,” I said.

  Rask glanced at his watch. “I should be hearing from ballistics at about—at about right now, goddammit.”

  “Think it’s a pro?” I asked.

  “No. Tarpley took one round to the throat. That’s sloppy work. Noehring was shot in the back of the head; I’ll give you that. The first round, though, hit him on the right side just below the shoulder blade. It’s possible the second shot—the shooter might have been aiming at his back again and missed.”

  “Or not,” I said.

  “Or not. This Tommy, no priors, nothing. What the hell was he doing?”

  “I have nothing more to add to what I’ve already told you. I only knew his first name and that he was involved with Heavenly Petryk.”

  “There’s a piece of work for you.”

  “Have you interviewed her yet?”

  “Briefly. I left her alone in the interrogation room to think about it awhile before I go back down.”

  “What else do you need from me?”

  Rask opened his eyes and lurched forward in the chair. “There are no cameras in this room,” he said. “No audio.”

  “Okay.”

  “I want you to tell me everything that you left out of your statement.”

  “Even the stuff you don’t want to hear?”

  “Everything.”

  “Clay.” I used his first name because I wanted him to know that I was on his side. “Noehring was dirty.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I don’t know how he knew I was at Loring Park, but he was there to kill the thieves and steal the money or kill me and steal the money, one or the other, maybe both. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re sorry. Tell me how you know this.”

  I gave Rask a near verbatim account of my conversations with Noehring, first at the restaurant early Tuesday evening and then later at the parking ramp of the museum.

  “All right, you told me,” Rask said. “You got it off your chest. Now there’s no reason for you to tell anyone else.”

  “LT—”

  “Do you understand what I’m saying to you, McKenzie? You don’t repeat this story, not to anyone, not ever.”

  “He was a bad cop.”

  “I fucking know that. You don’t think I know that? He was paying alimony and child support, yet he drove a fucking BMW. He wore Italian overcoats and Armani suits and fucking silk ties. I know he was dirty, but no one else needs to know. Noehring was a hero cop—a hero cop who went down in the line of duty. The governor is going to speak at his goddamn funeral. There’s going to be a twenty-one-gun salute, so help me God.”

  “Okay.”

  “You know why, don’t you, McKenzie? I don’t have to explain why.”

  “You don’t have to explain.”

  Rask reached into his pocket and withdrew a small GPS transmitter that he tossed on the table.

  “Department issue,” he said. “It was attached to the bumper of your Audi. That’s how Noehring knew you were at Loring Park.”

  I picked it up, glanced at it, and dropped it on the table.

  Now, if I only knew how Tommy found me, my inner voice said.

  “You probably have one on your Jeep Cherokee, too,” Rask said. “If you do, destroy it, just get rid of it.”

  “Okay.”

  “I keep thinking, if I was allowed to investigate Tarpley’s murder the right way none of this would have happened.”

  “You might be right.”

  “This Lily, this fucking Jade Lily—it’s not just between the thieves and the museum anymore. Or the state department or that bitch Petryk or anyone else. Right, McKenzie? Right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “It’s about cop killers. So if you get anything—anything at all…”

  “I’ll let you know, LT.”

  “I spoke to the prosecutors. This thing with Tommy is going into the books as self-defense. The gun plus the witness who saw the gun in Tommy’s hand pr
oves he came at you with deadly force, and the law allows you to respond with at least equal force, so no charges will be filed.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re free to go.”

  “Thank you.”

  “This thing with the Jade Lily, if you continue to pursue it—I’m not saying you should. It could be dangerous for you, McKenzie, but if you do, don’t fuck around. Call me. Give me time and place. I’ll do my best to cover your ass.”

  I held out the pinkie of my right hand. “Best friends forever, Clay?” I said.

  “I changed my mind. Don’t call me Clay.”

  I took that as a yes.

  EIGHT

  The media made it official—Lieutenant Scott Noehring was a hero cop, shot in the back by an unknown assailant. I heard it on the radio while I was driving home Thursday morning. But the sun was rising and the turkeys were pecking at their corn in the backyard, and I didn’t really care about Noehring. I didn’t rush into the house and turn on the TV to hear what the local stations had to say about him, and I only skimmed the brief article that the St. Paul Pioneer Press managed to cobble together before it went to press. Seventeen-year veteran, three commendations early in his career, divorced, two kids, the governor asked that flags be flown at half-mast, yadda, yadda, yadda.

  None of it pleased me; none of it made me angry. Truth was, Noehring probably had been a good cop, a very good cop to make lieutenant. He had been smart, he had been resourceful, and he had “protected with courage and served with compassion” like the motto says. Somehow that changed, maybe during his divorce. Maybe when he took that first free taco he spoke about. Before that he had been a real cop, so sing his praises, bury him with honor, why not? Shakespeare wrote, The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. Well, screw that. Bury the evil, too.

  Let Noehring be a hero. The world needed heroes. The Minneapolis Police Department certainly needed heroes. In the recent past, an officer had been accused of planting a gun on a Hmong teenager who was shot and killed by mistake, a SWAT team member was arrested for robbing a Wells Fargo bank, members of the Metro Gang Strike Force were charged with stealing cars, cash, and jewelry from suspects, and a cop was indicted for providing confidential police records to a known gangster. A hero might help the remaining nine hundred very fine and ethical police out there get their due.

  In the end, that’s what Lieutenant Rask wanted, I decided. Law enforcement is a tight fraternity because the members of that fraternity know that in a life-and-death situation, the only people they can depend on are each other. That’s why good cops often turn a blind eye to the bad conduct of their brothers and sisters—Rask knew Noehring was dirty long before he was shot. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, the criminal behavior. When a cop goes bad, good cops suffer, and not only in a loss of reputation and prestige in the neighborhood. It makes them sick at heart. That’s not just an ex-cop blowing smoke. I know it to be true personally.

  So let’s pretend that Noehring was a hero. Build him a fucking statue, what did I care? The only thing that interested me that morning was a tiny story tucked in the newspaper’s “Daily Briefing” column.

  MINNEAPOLIS MAN HIT BY CAR, KILLED DURING SCUFFLE

  Thomas O’Brien, Minneapolis, was killed Wednesday night when he fell in front of a speeding car during a scuffle near Loring Park.

  Authorities report that O’Brien, 24, had been fighting with an unidentified man on Willow Street on the east side of the park when he slipped on the ice and fell in front of a car driven by Irene Campbell, 29, of Pequot Lakes. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

  Officials said the investigation is ongoing, but the incident appears to be a case of self-defense and no arrests were made.

  That was it. Apparently no one was going to build a statue for Tommy.

  I had killed men before. Sometimes I felt sick and ashamed afterward, and sometimes I felt relieved if not downright exhilarated. With Tommy I felt—embarrassed. I had not meant to kill Tommy. It was an accident. I had not seen the car coming any more than he did. He had shoved the business end of a 9 mm into my face and threatened my life. Yet I didn’t know if he meant to use the gun or if he was merely bluffing. In any case, once I disarmed him, he was no longer a threat to me. If it hadn’t been for the car I would have sent him limping back to Heavenly.

  I read the article until I had it memorized, then balled up the paper and tossed it into the recycling bin.

  This should not have happened, my inner voice told me.

  “Damn, Tommy,” I said aloud. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

  I might have said more, maybe even uttered a prayer or two, but my phone rang. Mr. Donatucci wanted to know what went wrong last night. I reminded him that he was in the room when I made my final statement.

  “Did you think I was lying to the cops?” I asked.

  “No, it’s just—this should have been simple. What the hell happened?”

  “Greed happened, Mr. Donatucci. Pure greed.”

  Mr. Donatucci sighed deeply. Greed, yeah, that’s a story he knew very well.

  “The question is, what happens next?” I asked.

  “The police do not want us to pay a ransom for the Lily. If we decide to go ahead anyway, they want us to include them in the exchange so they can arrest the artnappers. However, we are under no obligation to follow their instructions.”

  “Do you actually believe the thieves will try again?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. Maybe.”

  This time it was my turn to sigh dramatically.

  “I’m not sure about this, Mr. Donatucci. The artnappers killed at least two guys, and one of them was police. Do we want to reward them for that?”

  “Do we know that for sure?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do we know that the artnappers killed Tarpley and Noehring?”

  “Who else?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? Who else had motive?”

  I decided I was too tired to play Mr. Donatucci’s mind games and told him so. “Remember at the museum when I was told that it wasn’t my job to catch the thieves or to solve the crime?” I said. “I’m holding you to that.”

  Mr. Donatucci said that he would contact me—and I should contact him—if the thieves called. Then he hung up.

  I stood in the empty, silent kitchen for a moment. My entire body longed for sleep. Yet I decided to make breakfast first. It wasn’t that I was hungry—although I was—as much as that I felt a need to do something. So I fried up a skillet of scrambled eggs with plenty of hot sausage, jalapeño chilies, green onions, tomato, and cilantro.

  I didn’t taste any of it.

  * * *

  The phone rang. I rolled across my bed to answer it. It was 10:00 A.M. I had all of four hours of sleep.

  “McKenzie,” I said.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” a man’s voice asked.

  I hung up the phone. I rolled over and shut my eyes. The phone rang again. I gave it six rings before I answered, catching it just before the call rolled over to voice mail.

  “McKenzie,” I said.

  “Don’t you dare hang up on me again,” the voice said.

  I hung up. I stretched, yawned, and waited. Sure enough, the phone rang a third time. This time when I answered it, I said, “Good manners are how we show respect for one another.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Mr. McKenzie,” the voice said finally. “This is Jonathan Hemsted of the U.S. State Department.” Apparently he needed to remind me of that. “I hope I did not catch you at a bad time.”

  “It’s been a long night,” I said.

  “Yes, I know. I would like to speak to you about your long night.”

  “Why?”

  “Could you meet us at our hotel suite in, say, an hour’s time?”

  “Us?”

  “Mr. Pozderac will be sitting in.”

  “Where is the h
otel?”

  He told me. I hung up without saying good-bye. Like I said, good manners are how we show our respect for one another.

  * * *

  The hotel was located west of Minneapolis on the I-394 strip within easy shuttle distance of Cargill, UnitedHealthcare, Minnesota Disposal and Recycling, General Mills, and a couple of other Fortune 500 companies. I crossed the lobby and caught the attention of a pretty clerk at the front desk. I kept my leather coat closed so she wouldn’t see the 9 mm I was wearing behind my right hip. She smiled brightly and asked how she could help me.

  “Mr. Hemsted, please,” I said.

  She accessed her computer. The smile became a frown.

  “I’m sorry, sir, we do not have a Mr. Hemsted registered.”

  “Jonathan Hemsted. H-E-M-S-T-E-D.”

  “No sir, I’m sorry.”

  “Perhaps it’s under the name Branko Pozderac. Please don’t ask me to spell it.”

  She checked again.

  “I’m sorry, sir, there is no Mr. Branko Pozderac registered with us, either.”

  “Are you sure? I spoke to the man an hour ago. He said he had a suite here.”

  “A suite—” She checked her computer a third time. “Oh, I am so sorry, sir. Of course, both Mr. Hemsted and Mr. Pozderac are here. They’re staying in the suite owned by MDR. Please forgive me.”

  “Think nothing of it.”

  “A number of companies rent rooms and suites from us year-round for their business associates. We track their guests differently.”

  “I understand.”

  “Would you like me to call up and announce your arrival, or would you prefer to use the house phone?”

  She pointed at a red telephone on a low round table surrounded by several chairs in the center of the lobby.

  “If it’s not too much trouble, please call up. Tell whoever answers the phone that McKenzie will be waiting in the bar.”

  “No trouble at all, Mr. McKenzie.”

  “Thank you for your consideration.”

  I turned away from the desk, reconnoitered my position, and then headed for the bar just off the lobby. As I did so, I wondered, MDR? How did Hemsted and Pozderac score a luxury suite owned by a waste management company?