From the Grave--A McKenzie Novel Page 15

  “McKenzie, I’m not a criminal. I know that asshole judge slapped the word across my forehead and stuck me inside, but tellin’ the truth, man, I never hurt anyone in my life, except for maybe that guy I shoved at the reading, and I’m really sorry ’bout that. That’s why I went to that thing yesterday, that fair, and told Hannah I was sorry. I ain’t my old man, ’kay?”

  “You went to see Hannah?”

  “I didn’t want her t’ think I was this raving lunatic, you know? She was cool about it, though. Friendly. Way friendlier than I thought she’d be. What else do you wanna know?”

  “I’m thinking about going after the money,” I said. “If I find it, it’ll take the incentive out of shooting me. Want to help?”

  Ryan chuckled. “That’s what Hannah wanted, too; probably why she was so friendly,” he said. “She wanted me to help her find the money. I nearly said yes because—have you seen Hannah? I mean seen her up close?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow.”

  Wow, indeed, my inner voice said.

  “But you know what?” Ryan said. “I haven’t thought about the money once in all these years. Why would I?”

  “It would give you a nice start on the rest of your life.”

  “No, man. What I told Hannah, it would just chain me to the past, you know? Besides, even if I did know where it was and went out and dug it up, I couldn’t keep it. If I tried, they’d toss my ass back inside. You’re not allowed to profit from your crimes, McKenzie. Don’t you know that?”

  “What if I found a way around the statute?”

  “A legal way?” Ryan asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know, man. I gotta think this would only dig up a load of bad shit for me, you know?”

  “Worse than your old man calling your number from the grave—one one eight eight zero zero four one?”

  “That’s another thing. All this is based on the idea that the ghost of my old man is speakin’ from the other side and that he’s tellin’ the truth, which he’d never done once when he was alive. I still have a hard time believin’ it even after goin’ to the second psychic to get, you know, confirmation. I just wanna forget the whole thing. Gotta move on, man, like I said.”

  Another employee wearing an orange apron walked up next to our table. He was about thirty with Hispanic features and looked as if he spent a lot of time outdoors even in the winter. His name tag read ROGER.

  “There you are,” he said.

  Ryan looked quickly at his watch. “Am I takin’ too long a break?” he asked.

  “No, no.” Roger set a hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “No, God, take as long as you want. If everyone was as conscientious as you my job would be a breeze.”

  “If there’s somethin’ that you need…”

  “I need you to move a display, no problem. It can keep.” He offered his hand. “Roger Flores.”

  I shook his hand.

  “McKenzie,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah, boss, this is the McKenzie I told you about,” Ryan said.

  Roger’s face lit up as if he’d just discovered that the Tooth Fairy was real after all. “No kidding,” he said.

  “Listen, I gotta get back to work,” Ryan said.

  “No hurry, kid,” Roger said.

  “I’ve already wasted too much time.” Ryan stood and gathered up the remains of his snack. “Good t’ see you, McKenzie. You take care.”

  “If I find a way for you to keep the money…?”

  He waved at me. “I don’t want it,” he said.

  I stood abruptly and reached into my pocket. Ryan waited while I withdrew a card with my name and cell phone number. I offered the card and he took it.

  “If you change your mind or if there’s anything I can do for you,” I said.

  “Why would you do anything for me?”

  “If you’re nice to most people, mostly they’ll be nice to you—words to live by.”

  Ryan waved the card at me in a kind of salute. A moment later, he deposited his debris in a waste can and disappeared deep into the store. I sat back down. Roger sat across from me.

  “‘Kid,’” he said. “Ryan’s eight years older than I am and I call him kid. I suppose it’s because everything seems so new to him that he’s like a kid. The world today is way different from the one he knew when he was sent to prison a couple of decades ago. He’s still trying to figure out how computers work, smartphones. Heck, he just got a driver’s license last month. If you’re McKenzie, you know all about that.”

  “A little,” I said.

  “He told me about you and what happened to his father and all that nonsense with the psychics. Ryan’s not very good at keeping secrets. You’d think he would be after spending all that time behind bars. In prison, he said, you don’t talk to anyone about anything. Out here, all he wants to do is jabber. He won’t talk about prison, what happened to him in there. He’ll talk about everything else, though. What he had for dinner last night. I can see that.”

  “Still…”

  “Yeah, probably not the best thing. He’ll grow out of it. Listen to me—he’ll grow out of it. Like he really is a kid. So, you’re McKenzie.”

  “I am.”

  “None of my business, but you mentioned money. Are you talking about the money Ryan’s father stole?”

  “If Ryan told you what’s been happening, then you should know, it is not about the money. Rather it’s about what some people might try to do to get the money.”

  “Ryan’s a good kid. He’s trying to get past all that. I wish you’d let him.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s not just me. There seems to be a growing movement toward finding all that cash. Others might want to see if Ryan is interested in joining it. Just so you know.”

  “All right.”

  “He looks like he’s doing okay.”

  “My wife keeps trying to line up women for him, but I don’t know. Can you imagine being thirty-eight years old and having been on a grand total of three dates?”

  “It’s nice of you to look out for him.”

  Roger shrugged the way some people do when you congratulate them on being decent human beings, like it was no big deal. But it was.

  “Good-bye, Roger,” I said. “Thanks for your time.”

  * * *

  A few moments later, I was in the parking lot and walking to my Mustang. Out of my peripheral vision I noticed a man moving quickly on an intercept course. It was twenty-two degrees and cloudy, yet his jacket was unzipped and he wasn’t wearing a hat or gloves. That suggested he just threw on his coat when he saw me.

  Had he been waiting in a car or the store? my inner voice wanted to know.

  He couldn’t have followed me, I decided. I had checked my car for a GPS transmitter before I left the condominium and was extra careful ensuring that I wasn’t being tailed. Which meant he had been sitting on Ryan or …

  The man reached me just as I reached the Mustang. I quickly raised my hand, a cop stopping traffic. He stopped and stared.

  Amateur.

  “If you’re a friend of Ryan’s you have no problem with me,” I said. “Just ask him. If you’re not a friend you should walk away right now, because I’m feeling a little cranky.”

  He smirked and moved forward. His hand dipped into his coat pocket.

  “You think you’re so fucking smart,” he said.

  I pulled the fingers of my right hand back and tucked in the thumb, preparing for what the karate guys call Shotei Uchi. As soon as he was within striking distance I drove the heel of my palm hard under his nose, knocking his head back. The blow wasn’t necessarily meant to break his nose, but a cracking of cartilage suggested that I might have. He staggered and brought both hands up. He took two steps backward and sat on the dry pavement. Blood began spilling between his fingers.

  “What are you doing?” he wanted to know.

  “What are you doing?”

  I stepped next to him and reached into his jacket pocket. Instead o
f a gun, I found a thin wallet. I opened the wallet. It contained a gold coplike badge with the word DETECTIVE embossed on it and a laminated card with a name, address, photograph, physical description, and the words PRIVATE printed across the top and INVESTIGATOR across the bottom in block letters reversed out of black bars.

  “Karl J. Anderson, Private Investigator,” I said. “Why are you following me?”

  Anderson pinched the soft part of his nose just above his nostrils and tilted his head forward so the blood would drain through his nose and not down the back of his throat. Breathing through his mouth made him sound like he had just finished a race.

  “I’m not,” he said.

  “Maybe not this time, but before.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “That wasn’t you following the Braatens all the way from the Minnetonka Community Education Center in Excelsior last Thursday? That wasn’t you waiting for me outside Gracie’s Power Academy Friday? C’mon.”

  Anderson didn’t have an answer for that.

  “Esti Braaten told me that you were stalking her daughter,” I said.

  Anderson tilted his head toward me and lowered it back down again.

  “If she said so, it must be true,” he said.

  I nudged his leg with the toe of my shoe.

  “C’mon, Karl,” I said. “May I call you Karl?”

  “May I call you asshole?”

  “You should have identified yourself before you put your hand in your pocket.”

  “You’ve got a point. Look, Esti wanted me to keep an eye on Hannah from a distance. She was worried because of what happened with Ryan Hayes, but she didn’t want her daughter to worry. Afterward, she asked me to check you out. She wanted to know if you were going to be a sail or an anchor.”

  “Sail or anchor?”

  “Words she used.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “To find the money.”

  “What money?”

  “I can’t believe I let someone so dumb get the jump on me.”

  “Yeah, okay, the money that Leland Hayes stole. Why do they want to find it?”

  “Guess.”

  “So they can give it back in front of every TV camera they can find.”

  “Was that so hard?”

  “You’re starting to annoy me, Karl.”

  “You have no idea how upset that makes me.”

  “When did the Braatens hire you?”

  “None of your business.”

  “C’mon.” I nudged him with my toe again. “Let’s be friends.”

  “With friends like you…”

  “Partners, then, to go after the money.”

  Anderson tilted his head again to look up at me. “Did Ryan tell you something?” he asked.

  “He told me a lot of things; said he owed me for shooting his old man.”

  Anderson lowered his head again.

  “When did the Braatens hire you?” I asked again.

  “I met them for the first time last Monday.”

  The day before the reading that Shelby attended, my inner voice reminded me. Before Leland Hayes made his appearance.

  “Did you tag my Mustang with a GPS transmitter?” I asked.

  “The St. Paul cops asked me the same question. I didn’t give them a straight answer either. McKenzie, I had nothing to do with what happened to Frank Fogelberg. As soon as I realized that I was tailing a silver Lexus, I knew you pulled a fast one and I let it go.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “I already have, to that female homicide dick—what was her name?”

  “Jean Shipman.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Anderson said. “A real ballbuster, but I like her.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  “She’s smart. She’s pretty. She’s a good cop.”

  “If you say so. Why are you here?”

  “After Esti decided that you were an anchor, they asked me to sit on the kid, Ryan Hayes. They were hoping that he might have a brainstorm and go searching for the money or that someone might come looking for help in finding it. Imagine my surprise when you showed up.”

  Anderson released his nose and snorted a couple of times. The blood stopped flowing. He slowly stood up. I could have helped him up but decided against it.

  It’s not like we’re friends all of a sudden.

  “This is where I warn you to stay out of it,” Anderson said.

  See?

  “Hannah and Esti came to me last night and asked for help,” I said.

  “And you turned them down, so now you’re out of it. Stay out of it, McKenzie.”

  “Since you asked so nicely…”

  “Next time I won’t give you the benefit of a doubt.”

  “Next time you had better not let me see you coming.”

  Anderson stared at me.

  I stared back.

  “We’re having some fun now, aren’t we?” I asked.

  “Shut up.”

  Anderson turned around and walked off. I watched him go. Once I became bored, I slid inside my Mustang and started it up.

  Now what? my inner voice wanted to know.

  I made a hands-free phone call even though I hadn’t left the parking lot yet.

  A man’s voice said, “Special Agent Brian Wilson.”

  “Harry,” I said. “About those Minnesota Wild tickets I mentioned…”

  SEVENTEEN

  Harry agreed to help me—sorta. He refused to expend so much as an iota of FBI resources on what he termed “another one of your leisure-time pursuits,” but he gave me the name of someone who might. In exchange, though, I had to give him both of my hockey tickets, which meant that, instead of our attending the game together, I had to spend Monday evening watching it on TV while Harry took his wife. I didn’t mind too much. Harry’s wife once called me a wastrel. I wasn’t sure what the word meant, so I looked it up—a wasteful or good-for-nothing person, spendthrift, squanderer. The following day I sent three dozen long-stem American Beauty roses wrapped in baby’s breath to her office. The next time we met she asked what she’d get if she called me a penny-pinching skinflint. We’ve been friendly ever since.

  * * *

  I didn’t bother to call, but instead drove to the headquarters of Midwest Farmers Insurance Group bright and early Monday morning. I managed to finagle my way upstairs, where I was stopped by an officious woman who demanded to know my business. I told her. She told me not to move. I didn’t, not even to sit in one of the chairs in a lobby that was tastefully decorated for Christmas, while she disappeared into a suite of offices. A few minutes later, she returned and escorted me to an office with a splendid view of the Mississippi River as it flowed between downtown St. Paul and Harriet Island. There was a desk in the office. On the desk was a nameplate that read MARYANNE ALTAVILLA. Behind it sat a young woman dressed in a severe black jacket and skirt and white dress shirt. Her hair was nearly the same color as the jacket and skirt. It was pulled back in a ponytail.

  “Mr. McKenzie,” she said.

  I waited for my escort to depart before I replied.

  “Really?” I asked. “Mr. McKenzie? How ’bout a little love?”

  Maryanne left her chair, circled her desk, and gave me a hug.

  “How are you?” she asked. “It’s been a long time.”

  “I’m well. You?”

  “Couldn’t be better.” Maryanne returned to her chair. “How’s Nina?”

  “Spectacular.” I glanced around her office. It looked like she had moved in three days ago; there were very few personal touches to be seen and not a single Christmas decoration in sight. “I love what you’ve done with the place.”

  “You don’t like my office?”

  “You’ve only been here, what? Fifteen months? I thought you millennials were all about your creature comforts.”

  “No, that’s you boomers.”

  “Hey, hey, hey. Gen X.”

  “No kidding? I thought you were
older than that.”

  “Really, Maryanne?”

  “Anyway, millennials are minimalists. We like to keep it simple.”

  I stared at her for a few beats. Maryanne was pretty enough to be a psychic medium. She was also the smartest woman in the room no matter what room she was in, which was a big reason why she was named chief investigator in Midwest Farmers’ Special Investigations Unit before her thirtieth birthday.

  “So?” she asked. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Two words—the Countess Borromeo.”

  “That’s three words. What about it?”

  “How much money did I save your insurance company when I recovered it?”

  “Four million, give or take a few dollars. Why? Have you heard about another missing Stradivarius?”

  “No, but I’m in a position to save you some more money.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Leland Hayes.”

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  “He robbed an armored truck for $654,321. A friend with the FBI told me that Midwest Farmers took the hit.”

  Maryanne retrieved the electronic tablet that was lying on top of her desk and transcribed what I told her.

  “When did this happen?” she asked.

  “About twenty-two years ago.”

  That made her pause.

  “I was in the second grade twenty-two years ago,” Maryanne said.

  “I bet you were at the top of your class, too.”

  “I could go all the way up to five on the multiplications table. McKenzie, I don’t know anything about this.”

  “If I could see the case file…”

  “No.”

  “I might be able to recover the loot.”

  “How much would that cost us, I wonder.”

  “Less than $654,321.”

  Maryanne stared at me while she drummed a tuneless solo on her desk with the fingers of her right hand. I waited.

  “You have a track record with us going all the way back to that embezzler, Teachwell,” Maryanne said. “The Countess, the Jade Lily—that cuts you some slack.”