What the Dead Leave Behind Page 20

“Mrs. Szereto is very generous.”

  “Seems not everyone is happy about that.”

  Rebecca tilted her head and paused as if she were wondering what to make of my remark before deciding she didn’t care.

  “McKenzie, I want you to leave me alone,” she said. “I want you to leave Diane Dauria alone. I want you to go far, far away and never come back.”

  “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

  “Please. I’m serious. It’ll be better for all of us. You included. I mean it. Bullshit aside. We can still be friends. We can have a few drinks, get something to eat, and later if you want I’ll take you home and screw your brains out—if you will just promise to walk away.”

  “Helluvan offer, I have to admit.”

  “But you’re going to turn me down.”

  “’Fraid so.”

  Rebecca glanced at her smartphone and back at the door.

  “Yeah, I figured you would,” she said. “But there’s no harm in trying, is there? Tell me, though, just out of curiosity—would you have accepted the offer if Diane had made it?”

  “No.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I was just wondering if you preferred her over me. The woman looks good in black even if she is older.” She glanced at her cell again. “McKenzie, I know what you’re doing for Mrs. Szereto.”

  Diane must have told her, my inner voice said. So why is she telling you?

  She’s killing time, I told myself.

  “It has nothing to do with me, I promise you,” Rebecca said. “I am not involved in any of that. Neither was Diana. We had nothing to do with what happened to Jonny Szereto. Not a thing. I’m trying to be honest here.”

  “What are you involved in?”

  Rebecca exhaled dramatically and shrugged as if to say, “I tried,” then began gathering up her belongings.

  “You’re cute,” she said. “I didn’t expect that, either, what with the names Diane called you. I’d hate like hell to see someone mess up your pretty face.”

  It was the most blatant threat I had ever heard from a woman—and you have to remember, I live with two girls who have threatened to kill me on numerous occasions. The fact Rebecca mentioned damage to my face made me assume it was something that she feared and figured I would fear as well.

  “It is a pretty face,” I said. “Some people say I look like Bradley Cooper.”

  Rebecca slipped her phone into her bag and stood.

  “Not that pretty.” She looked toward the entrance. “Gotta go.”

  I spun in my seat to look at the door, too. There was no one there. By the time I turned back, Rebecca was buttoning her coat. She put on her hat, positioning it just so.

  “I wasn’t kidding before,” I said. “I really like the hat.”

  “Thank you. I found it in a consignment shop. Ten bucks. Crazy. Good-bye, McKenzie.”

  Rebecca headed for the door. I gave her a head start and followed.

  The restaurant-slash-bar actually had two doors, inside and outside, separated by a small foyer. A large man opened the outside door just as Rebecca opened the inside door. He held it for her as she passed through the foyer and went outside. The man let the door close behind him just as I stepped into the foyer. He set a beefy hand against my chest. I stopped. He was bigger than I was but not by so much that I was anxious about it. The inside door closed behind me, leaving us alone inside the foyer with no one to hear him say “You’re Rushmore McKenzie” except me.

  The man continued speaking with a voice that suggested he was used to getting his way, reciting in surprising detail the facts of my life: my name and exact address in Minneapolis down to the number on my condo door, the year and color of my Mustang and its license plate number, where I went to college, what I used to do for a living. He didn’t pause a moment for me to reply. Apparently he expected me to shut up and listen, so I did.

  “You’re an ex-cop who sold his badge to collect a reward on a felon everyone was chasing,” he said. “You grew the reward with some very smart investments that someone else made for you, and now you have a net worth of about five million, all of it in low-risk, low-yield mutual funds. You live with Nina Truhler, who owns a club called Rickie’s on Cathedral Hill in St. Paul. She has short black hair and silver-blue eyes. She drives a Lexus that she parks on the far side of the lot so her customers can park closer to the door. It’s not unusual for her to be the last one to leave after the place closes. She has a twenty-year-old daughter named Erica who attends Tulane University in New Orleans, although she’s staying with you for the holidays. She was state champion in fencing her senior year of high school, it was épée, I believe. Honor student. Should I tell you what dorm she lives in on campus? Her roommate’s name? It’s Caroline. I can reach out and swat either one of them anytime I like.”

  His words were meant to terrify, and they probably would have if I hadn’t used the same ploy myself; if I hadn’t tried it on Rebecca Crawford just an hour earlier. A complete stranger stopping you on the street, telling you stuff about yourself that he shouldn’t know, of course it would make you feel exposed and vulnerable; make you believe that he actually could hurt you or someone you love anytime he wanted, and there would be nothing you would be able to do about it.

  I have to admit, it did give me a twinge, except—the intelligence he had gathered was superficial, the kind of thing you might learn by running someone’s license plate number or reading someone’s Facebook page, just as I had attempted to do with Rebecca. He didn’t mention, for example, that I had friends in the St. Paul and Minneapolis police departments as well as the BCA, FBI, and ATF; or that an assistant U.S. attorney named Finnegan owed me a huge favor that I had been hoarding like a rare bottle of wine that could only go up in value. Nor did he list the names of the people I’ve killed or mention that fourteen months ago I was in the newspapers for shooting a man who hurt someone I cared for a lot less than I cared for Nina and Erica.

  “Do not concern yourself with things that are none of your business,” he said.

  “Do I look concerned?”

  My response seemed to catch him by surprise. His response was to double down. He shoved a finger in my face.

  “Stay away from Szereto,” he said. “Do you understand?”

  I didn’t say.

  He leaned in close. His breath smelled of the lunch he ate that day.

  “Do you understand?” he repeated.

  I nodded my head.

  “Thank the boss you’re getting this warning,” he said. “If it was up to me, I’d kill you right now.”

  He turned, opened the outside door, and left the foyer. I gave him a slow five count and started following; I was going to count to ten, but he was moving too fast. He was halfway across the parking lot before he noticed me. He stopped. I stopped. He stared at me. I stared at him. His coat was zippered tight, and his pockets were flat; he was wearing thick gloves. If he was carrying, I would have plenty of time to decide what to do before he could turn a gun.

  He started walking again. I followed. I slowed a little bit when he reached into his pocket, but sped up when I realized that he had pulled out a black key fob. He aimed it at an SUV. Its lights flashed, and I heard a distinct click.

  He stopped again. I did the same.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

  “I’m following you, can’t you tell? Is this your car?”

  I pulled my cell from my pocket and took a pic of the rear of the SUV.

  “What the fuck?” he said.

  “Say cheese,” I said.

  I made a production of taking his pic.

  “Stop it,” he said, adding “asshole” for dramatic effect.

  He took a step forward.

  “Have you forgotten what I told you already?” he asked.

  I took a step backward while slipping the cell back into my pocket.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know where I live,” I said. “You told me las
t Friday over the phone.”

  He took another forward step.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” he said. “I never called you.”

  I took another backward step.

  “Whatever.”

  He moved toward me. I stopped and went into my stance—shoulders sideways, feet at 45-degree angles and a shoulder’s width apart, knees slightly bent, left hand up so my left fist was chin high and my right fist was even with my rib cage.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked.

  I spoke slowly and succinctly. “Pricks like you get away with your bullshit because you refuse to play by the rules, but you expect everyone else to. I’m not that guy. You dare threaten the people I care about? You should have done better research.”

  To prove it, I raised my rear leg high into the chamber, and snapped it up and out so that my heel hit him square in the face. The force of the blow sent him backward against the SUV.

  I bet he didn’t know I could do that, I told myself, although in all honesty, I hadn’t practiced in nearly six months—which is probably why he was able to peel himself off the car, shake his head, and, despite the cut that had opened up above his eyebrow, move forward in a boxer’s crouch, both hands up.

  I did a little hop and kicked him again. Only this time I brought my front knee up until my foot was in the blade position and then struck down as hard as I could against his knee. I heard a satisfying crunch. He screamed and crumbled to the ground as if he had been hit with an air-to-surface missile.

  While he was rolling around on the asphalt, holding his knee with both hands, I searched him until I found his wallet in his back pocket. He screamed some more, adding a few poorly chosen obscenities, while I pulled out his driver’s license. I read it aloud, starting with his name—“Ronald Cardiff”—and threw the wallet in his face.

  “I’m going to keep this,” I said. “I’m going to show it to all my friends. If any of them tell me they saw someone who looks even remotely like you, I will find you. It will not be a fair fight. You will not see me coming. Do you understand?”

  He didn’t answer, so I nudged his smashed knee with my toe.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said.

  “Tell Crawford she and I are going to have words.”

  “Who?”

  I heard footsteps coming fast behind me. Probably some good Samaritan rushing to the rescue, I told myself.

  I turned to look.

  A man raised a short section of pipe high in the air and swung it down hard toward my head.

  I dropped the driver’s license and brought my left arm up to ward off the blow.

  The pipe hit the bone above my wrist.

  I knew it was fractured before I felt the pain.

  I also knew that if I stopped to assess the damage, the next blow might kill me. One of the things Dave Gracie taught—you never stop fighting.

  The thug raised the pipe again. I noticed the white athletic tape wrapped around the end he was holding. Apparently he had used the weapon before, probably with considerable success.

  Instead of attempting to block it, though, I pivoted out of the way.

  The pipe caught nothing but air; the man who was wielding it nearly lost his balance.

  I dodged around him, holding my left arm close to my body.

  This is on you, my inner voice said. You should have made sure Ronald was alone.

  Yeah, but he took so long coming forward, I told myself. What was I supposed to do?

  Careless, careless, careless.

  The thug swung the pipe again, this time sideways as if he were attempting to cave in my ribs.

  I danced away, then steadied myself.

  He lifted the pipe high again and came toward me.

  I knew I couldn’t outpunch him with a broken arm.

  This is going to hurt, I told myself.

  As soon as he was in range, I jumped up and fired my left foot into his solar plexus.

  The blow staggered him. He dropped the pipe, but he didn’t fall; I thought I hurt myself more than I did him, the way the pain in my wrist reached my spine.

  I braced my arm against my body some more and kicked him in the groin just as hard as I could.

  He howled in pain, yet still did not fall.

  I kicked him again.

  He cupped his groin and fell sideways almost in slow motion; it was like a scene in a Sam Peckinpah movie.

  By then Ronald was standing. Most of his weight was on his undamaged leg while he leaned against the SUV; blood poured down his face from the cut above his eyebrow. He had an oddly quizzical expression. It was if he were watching something he had never seen before and couldn’t quite make sense of it.

  I bent with my knees and scooped up his driver’s license, making a big deal of stuffing it into my pocket. I turned and walked away, letting my left arm swing freely at my side despite the pain the movement caused, because I didn’t want them to know that I had been hurt.

  *   *   *

  I went to the North Memorial Health Care Clinic near the Ridgedale shopping center because the voice on my onboard computer told me it was closest. It wasn’t easy getting there because I was too damn old-school to own a Ford Mustang with an automatic transmission. Oh, no—I had to drive a stick. Try managing a stick shift with one hand someday.

  Everyone there was nice to me, though, even if they did seem to take their own sweet time fixing me up—two hours and twenty-seven minutes by my watch. As it turned out, x-rays revealed I had suffered a simple fracture of the ulna bone just above the wrist. There was plenty of tenderness, inflammation, and bruising over the fracture site, yet no sign of nerve or vascular damage. They gave me a couple of pills for the pain, put me in a cast, and said it would take six to eight weeks to heal but that I should go in for additional x-rays in a couple of weeks to make sure the bone was knitting properly.

  I was quizzed a number of times about what had happened. I invented a simple lie consisting of ice and a metal railing. I suppose I could have told the truth and called the cops, called Detective Sergeant Margaret Utley of the St. Louis Park Police Department, except—I hit Cardiff first, as I recalled, so …

  Neither of my dance partners turned up at the clinic. Either they weren’t badly hurt, which would have been disappointing, or else they had gone elsewhere for treatment. Or maybe they died from the fright I gave them.

  What a moron, my inner voice told me. You could have handled that so much better.

  Who was I to argue?

  While I was being treated, I checked my cell phone. The log told me that Evelyn Szereto had called three times. I took a deep breath and called her back.

  Her first words—“What happened to you? I waited for half an hour.”

  “Didn’t Diane Dauria tell you?”

  “I haven’t spoken to Diane.”

  “I left a message on her phone.”

  “I never received it.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “I called and called. Where are you?”

  “The hospital.”

  “The hospital?”

  “Specifically, the North Memorial Clinic. Nice people here. You’d like them. They’d like you.”

  “McKenzie, are you all right?”

  “I’ve been better.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s a long story. I may or may not tell you about it, depending on how things go from here on in.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Where are you?”

  “At my home on Lake Minnetonka.”

  “I might come by and see you in a little bit. I’ll let you know. In the meantime…”

  “What?”

  “Tell me about Rebecca Denise Crawford.”

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  “Sometimes goes by the name R. D. Crawford.”

  “I don’t think I know her.”

  “You don’t think or you don’t know?”

  “McKenzie
…”

  “Because she knows you. She says she’s been to your house.”

  “If she came to one of my parties—McKenzie, I don’t know the name of every one of our employees.”

  “Fair enough. I want you to call Annabelle Ridlon. She’s your human resources—”

  “I know who she is.”

  “Tell her that I have questions that you expect her to answer.”

  “What questions?”

  “Just tell her.”

  “It’s getting late in the day…”

  I glanced at the time displayed on my cell phone: 4:46 P.M.

  “Tell her to wait for me,” I said.

  “I will. McKenzie, are you all right?”

  This time she actually sounded concerned.

  “To be honest, Evelyn, I’m a little pissed off,” I said. “You might want to tell Annabelle that, too.”

  *   *   *

  I don’t know who called whom or what was said, but it was Candy Groot who met me when I stepped off the elevator at the Szereto corporate offices twenty minutes later.

  She pointed at the cast and said, “You’re hurt.”

  “Was hurt. I’m healing now. Did Evelyn tell you to keep an eye on me?”

  “She wants to see you as soon as you’re done here.”

  “What does Diane Dauria want?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I hope that’s true. I’m here to see Annabelle Ridlon.”

  “I know.”

  “Would you care to lead the way?”

  “Of course.”

  *   *   *

  I walked into the office without knocking, Candy trailing behind. Annabelle was sitting with her feet up on her desk and a keyboard in her lap while she stared at a computer screen. By then I had removed my winter coat, so my cast was on full display. Her eyes found the cast and settled back on the screen.

  “I lost track of you Friday night,” Annabelle said. “I was going to make you dance with me.”

  “What would your husband have said?”

  “He wouldn’t have liked it at all, which is why I wanted to do it. I see you broke your arm.”

  “Just a few hours ago. Want to be the first to sign my cast?”

  “Tell me you weren’t injured on Szereto property or while on Szereto business.”