From the Grave--A McKenzie Novel Read online

  “I do.”

  “Don’t use it unless you have to. Try to keep the beam low.”

  “Bobby, why me?”

  “Do I need to explain the rules of evidence to you? I can’t search this woman’s property without a warrant.”

  “So get a warrant.”

  “Based on what? A psychic medium’s vision? Get up the hill, McKenzie.”

  “Bobby, look at me. I’m dressed to go dancing.”

  “Whose fault is that? Get going. Oh, and leave your keys so I can start the car if it gets cold.”

  * * *

  There was snow and ice in New Richmond. Not a lot, but enough to make my dress shoes inadequate for the task of following the fence line for a half mile. They made a disconcerting crunching sound as I walked on the frozen grass.

  It was all of fifteen degrees above zero, and it didn’t take long before my feet became cold, followed by my legs beneath the thin dress pants. I was wearing a sports jacket beneath a gray trench coat, so there was that. And gloves. Yet I wasn’t wearing a hat, and by the time I reached the corner of the property my ears were numb. I was also breathing harder than you’d expect from the short distance I traveled. I was sure the puffs of breath escaping into the night sky must look like smoke signals to anyone watching.

  The fence consisted of three horizontal strands of heavy barbless wire, and I wondered if it was electrified. I reached out and gently tapped the top wire. I wasn’t immediately electrocuted, so I tried again, holding it longer this time, prepared to feel a painful electric shock that didn’t come. Satisfied, I slipped between two of the strands and made my way to the wooded area.

  It was darker there; the light from the stars overhead had a difficult time penetrating. Plus, it was quiet. The only sounds I heard were made by me.

  I moved slowly from tree to tree, seeing very little. I flicked on my flash, pointed the beam at the ground, saw nothing but shallow snow, grass, and trees, turned it off, and kept moving until I reached the far edge of the tree line. The pond was located at the bottom of a gentle slope; the frozen water reflected the stars like a mirror. Beyond the pond was Molly Finnegan’s farmhouse. I didn’t see any lights burning in the windows, yet decided not to take any chances and slowly backed into the woods.

  Again I used the flash, holding it close, my body positioned between the light and the farmhouse, as I chose a path among the trees. I flicked the light off and continued exploring.

  I walked carefully, the way a blind man might in unfamiliar country. It was because I was being so careful that I didn’t trip when the toe of my right foot caught on something. At first, I thought it was a tree root. When I turned on my flash, I saw that it was a shovel with a pointed tip made for digging. Next to the shovel was a purple-and-gold quilt rolled up around what I knew was Ruth Nowak’s body. Both the shovel and the body were pushed up against two trees. Even in broad daylight they would have been difficult to find.

  I wrapped my hand over the business end of the flash so that only a tiny bit of light could escape and squatted down next to the quilt. After a moment, I turned it off entirely, hoping the beam hadn’t alerted anyone like, I don’t know, the bitch who lived in the farmhouse on the hill overlooking the wooded area. Of course she was a bitch. She helped murder Ruth. At least, she helped the boyfriend dispose of the body.

  It was obvious what had happened, too. Robert Nowak and Molly Finnegan had carried Ruth up to the wooded area where they planned on burying her. Only the damn ground was frozen, so they had just dumped her there, probably thinking they could finish the job come spring.

  “I’m sorry, Ruth.”

  ’Course, I didn’t know her, any more than I knew her husband or Molly. She might have been a terrible human being. Only, she had deserved better than this.

  God rest her soul, I thought.

  Except her soul isn’t resting, is it? my inner voice suggested. Not if it’s following homicide cops around and making itself known to psychic mediums that would be better off worrying about their college classes and not talking to the dead.

  “Jesus,” I said aloud.

  I stood slowly and edged away from the body. I hadn’t touched the quilt or the shovel, and I hoped my wanderings wouldn’t confuse the crime scene guys when they came to investigate. My intention was to make my way through the woods back to the fence.

  The noise stopped me—a crunching sound of someone walking on the frozen grass and snow.

  I remained still.

  The crunching sound was on my right.

  I listened hard, tilting my head in that direction.

  It stopped.

  Next I heard it on my left.

  My head turned toward it even as my hand moved to my hip. Only, I was unarmed. I had hoped to go dancing with my girlfriend, after all, not search a dark grove for the body of a murdered woman.

  The crunching sound on my left slowly circled me until it was on my right side again.

  It grew louder before stopping altogether.

  I flicked on my flashlight and pointed it at the noise.

  I was startled enough by what I saw that I nearly cried out.

  Two alpacas were staring back at me with huge brown eyes.

  They were just over three feet tall with long necks that made them look bigger.

  One was rust colored. The other looked like a pile of dirty snow.

  “Fucking scared the hell outta me,” I said.

  They hummed at me like polite cows. It was such a soothing sound, I nearly apologized to them.

  Then I thought, Do they bite?

  I started backing away from them just in case.

  “Nice alpacas,” I said.

  I flicked off the light, quickly returned to the fence, and slipped back through the two heavy wire strands. The alpacas followed me, until they were stopped by the fence. For a moment they reminded me of bored dogs looking for a pat.

  “’Night, fellas,” I said and started following the fence line back toward my Mustang parked on the country road.

  * * *

  I climbed inside the car and slid behind the steering wheel. The car was running. I hadn’t realized how cold I was until I felt the warmth of the heater.

  Bobby had been working his smartphone. He slid it into his pocket. “Well?” he said.

  “I was nearly assaulted by two giant alpacas.”

  “Alpacas are among the gentlest creatures on earth. They have them in petting zoos, for God’s sake.”

  “If you say so.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Mrs. Nowak is there, wrapped in her purple-and-gold quilt just like Kayla said. They left her against the side of a couple of trees because the ground was too frozen to bury her.”

  Bobby stared at me for a few beats. Either he thought I was kidding him or he was having a difficult time digesting the news.

  Finally he said, “She was telling the truth, then. Kayla Janas. She actually knew. How is that possible?”

  “Kayla said that Ruth told her where we should look.”

  “How is that possible?” Bobby shook his head as if he needed to dislodge a thought. “When she told me about Mrs. Nowak, my first impulse was to slap her in the mouth. I had this feeling, though—something told me I needed to be here. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”

  “I’m starting to.”

  “We can’t tell anyone about this,” Bobby said. “Can you imagine what the assistant county attorney would say? I’ll have to find a way to connect Finnegan with Nowak and use that to get a warrant to search her property. Dammit. How is this possible?”

  “I don’t know. If one thing is true, though, does that mean all the other things they’ve been saying are true as well?”

  “You’re asking me, after the speech I gave Hannah Braaten in my living room?”

  I put the Mustang in gear and started working my way back toward St. Paul. We didn’t have much more to say to each other until we reached the St. Croix Crossing.

>   “Hey, Bobby,” I said, “I did you a favor. Now you need to do one for me.”

  “What?”

  “Tell me where I can find Ryan Hayes.”

  SIXTEEN

  Ryan Hayes worked for one of those big-box chain stores that sold everything you could possibly need to take care of your house and yard, which kind of threw me. He had spent the last twenty-two years of his life in federal custody. I wouldn’t think he’d have much experience with landscaping, carpentry, or plumbing. If someone asked him for a thingamajig to attach the whatchamacallit to the doohickey beneath the kitchen sink, how would he know what to tell them?

  I found him in the millwork aisle. I didn’t know what millwork was, although the doors, molding, trim, wall panels, and flooring suggested that it had something to do with wood.

  He turned to face me. Hayes was about five years younger than I was, but he could have easily passed for ten, maybe even fifteen. He was wearing a cheerful smile, an orange apron, and a Santa hat. His name tag was on one side of the apron, and a button proclaiming that he was Employee of the Month was pinned to the other.

  “How can I help you?” he asked.

  “I’m McKenzie.”

  I didn’t know what I was expecting. Fear? Anger? Indifference? What Hayes gave me instead was an even brighter smile.

  “I thought you’d be taller,” he said.

  “I thought you’d look older.”

  “Nah. In prison you have regular meals, regular exercise, a good night’s sleep, free medical care, a general lack of stress—it does a body good.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for that.”

  “’Course, I’m talking about federal prison. I have no idea what goes on in those state shitholes.”

  “I hear you’re looking for me,” I said.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “I can think of 654,321 reasons.”

  “Do you believe in ghosts, McKenzie? Do you really believe the old man would come from the grave to pay that kind of coin to zero you out?”

  “I don’t know what to believe.”

  “You’re here, so you must believe somethin’.”

  “Mostly I’m here to find out what you believe.”

  “I owe you one, McKenzie, so tell you what. There’s a snack bar towards the front of the store. Why don’t you meet me…” Hayes looked at the silver watch around his wrist. “Thirty-five minutes? Is that too long a wait?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “You might want to take a look over in electrical. We’re having a sale on all of our light bulbs, including the ones that your computer can turn on or off. Brighten up your life, McKenzie.”

  I gave him a nod and walked away.

  Now you know how he got to be Employee of the Month, my inner voice told me.

  * * *

  I killed some time wandering through the store. It had so many “perfect” Christmas gifts for sale that I began to reevaluate the meaning of the word. Plus the music; one Christmas song after another played over invisible speakers. It made me want to run out into the cold. On the other hand, it also reminded me that I still had plenty of shopping to do. What could I get Nina that was better than a brick of nickels? Two bricks?

  Eventually I wandered over to the snack bar. It sold what you’d expect: hot dogs, Polish sausages, popcorn, chips, candy, coffee, soft drinks, ice cream bars and cones. I bought a small bag of popcorn and sat on a metal chair next to a round metal bistro table like the kind you could buy in the store’s outdoor furniture department. Five minutes passed before Hayes appeared. He gave me a wave and went to the snack bar. A couple minutes later, he sat across from me. He had a paper boat filled with a Polish sausage in a bun with mustard, ketchup, and relish, a bag of barbecue potato chips, and a black coffee.

  “In prison, all of the meals are nutritionally balanced,” Hayes told me. “The first time I ate fast food, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. But after eating it for a solid week or so I thought I really would die. It made me feel sick and lazy. Just wasn’t used to it, I guess. All that sugar and salt. I had to go back to the diet I’ve known for the past twenty years. Every once in a while, though…”

  Hayes took a bite of the Polish sausage and hummed almost exactly the way the alpacas had hummed at me the night before.

  “Other stuff,” Hayes said. “I have no taste for pop, Coke, Pepsi, whatever. Those energy drinks, too—they just zap me, man. It’s all just too damn sweet. And alcohol—I drank two beers the day I got outta the joint and threw ’em both up. I suppose I could develop a taste for it, but what’s the point? Really, the only thing I can drink is coffee. Black coffee, too. I can’t doctor it up like they do in all those coffeehouses, Starbucks and Caribou and Dunn Brothers and—I can’t believe there are so many coffee shops. How the hell do they all stay in business? In them Hallmark movies, the coffeehouses are always about to go out of business till the women who own ’em find the men of their dreams and they work together to save ’em, you know? Coffeehouses and bookstores.”

  “You watch the Hallmark Channel?” I asked.

  “Not when I was at Big Sandy. That was all community TVs, and I watched whatever the other inmates watched; didn’t say a word about switchin’ no channels, either. You learn to pick your battles inside, and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna fight over Law & Order: SVU, you know?

  “In Sandstone, I was able to watch TV in the cell; forty channels, man. I bought myself a thirteen-inch flat-screen from the commissary for $200; paid for it outta my wages working maintenance, forty cents an hour. That’s how I got the experience for this job. Whaddaya think, McKenzie? On the Hallmark Channel, even the villains are nice people. Think it’s like that in the real world?”

  “No.”

  “I learned that in a hurry. Gotta tell ya, though, gotta tell ya—if you’re nice to most people, mostly they’ll be nice to you. Am I talking too much, McKenzie? I’ve been told that I have a tendency to talk way too much.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Lot of people do. They don’t wanna hear the sound of someone else’s voice when they can hear their own, you know? So what do you want to talk about? My old man, who came to me when I went to see the psychic? Hannah Braaten? Man, I’ve never seen anyone as beautiful as her. Growin’ up in prison, I thought women like that only existed on TV, you know? Somethin’ created by the special effects guys. I had sex only once before I went inside, and she was pretty but not that pretty. I didn’t get laid again until—I hired a prostitute after I got out. She wasn’t as pretty, either.”

  “Why did you go to see Hannah?” I asked.

  “There was this woman I met, nice woman; met her after my thing with the prostitute. She heard about this Hannah Braaten and said we should go, kinda like a date, and I said sure because, well, a date. Then I fucked it up, grabbing Hannah like that and yelling. Shoving that guy. I don’t know what I was thinking, what came over me. Never done anything like that, not even when I was inside. It was like I was possessed. Do you believe in possession? Anyway, the woman … I don’t blame her for telling me to get lost.

  “Then I did it again when I went to see the other psychic, the young one. She was pretty, too, but real, you know? Not like Hannah. And I lost it. Well, I didn’t lose it; I didn’t start screamin’ like I did the first time. But I was rude to her, tellin’ her to fuck the money, like who gives a shit, really? It’s the fucking old man being an asshole. I don’t give a shit about him. I didn’t go to the psychics to see him, anyway. I wanted—you want to know the truth, McKenzie? When the woman suggested going to see a psychic, my first thought was that this was a chance to talk to my mom.

  “All I really know of the world is what I’ve seen on television, ’kay? I watched all them shows about psychics talkin’ to the dead—the woman on Long Island and the kid in Hollywood and the guy drivin’ the taxi and the other woman, the big woman, I don’t know where she lives. Saw the paranormal shows on TLC and Destination America and the Tr
avel Channel. The Travel Channel, no kidding, like they’re expecting people to visit all those haunted houses when they go on vacation or something. I believe it, too, you know? I mean, they can’t be making up all of this stuff, can they? So when the woman mentioned seeing a psychic, I thought maybe I could talk to Mom.”

  “I get that,” I said.

  “Do you?”

  “I’d like to talk to my mother, too. She left me when I was twelve, just like yours.”

  “Did she leave you with a sadistic sonuvabitch who spent the rest of his life fucking up yours?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then we don’t have as much in common as you think. My mom, all I had of her was a single photograph that I kept hidden beneath the floorboards of this shed we had out back where I’d go to hide from the old man, which was stupid because that was like the first place he’d look when he wanted to give me a beating. He’d find me, but I made sure he never found the photograph. I knew he’d tear it up or something if he did.

  “I’ll tell you, McKenzie. The reason I’m even here talking to you is because I figure I owe you one for putting a round in that bastard’s head. The best thing that ever happened to me. That piece of shit—the only person I’ve ever hated. Except for maybe that prick judge who put a seventeen-year-old kid in prison for twenty-five years and one month for somethin’ his fucking old man made him do. Ahh, you can’t dwell on it. Can’t dwell on it. Gotta move forward.”

  “Speaking of which…”

  “Speaking of which, what exactly do you want, McKenzie?”

  “First, I’d like to know that you’re not going to shoot me for the reward your old man offered.”

  “What the cops wanted t’ know, too. Did I shoot some guy named Fogelberg thinking it was you cuz I wanted to collect a reward from a dead man? Whaddaya say to a question like that?”

  “What did you say?”

  “I asked ’em when the murder took place, and then I showed ’em my time card to prove that I was here when it happened. Got the boss to vouch for me, too, which was hard cuz then I had t’ explain what was going on, all the time wondering if I was going to lose my job because, you know, cops comin’ here thinkin’ I’m a person of interest every time somethin’ goes down, the boss ain’t gonna like that. He was cool, though.