Tin City (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels) Read online

  I glanced around the barn. Like Mr. Mosley’s house, it was immaculate. Even the cinder-block walls and concrete floor looked as if they had been scrubbed.

  “You’ve been working hard,” I said.

  My voice startled Hernandez. He dropped his rag and took two steps backward. He smiled slightly when he recognized me.

  “McKenzie,” he said.

  I nodded at him and repeated, “You’ve been working hard.”

  Hernandez glanced around him. Pride shone in his face.

  “I want to keep it nice,” he said. “For Mr. Mosley.”

  “Sure.”

  Hernandez came toward me, his hand outstretched. I shook it. It was like shaking a frozen pork chop. Yet, while his hand was cold, his face suddenly seemed flushed. Beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead and upper lip.

  “Good to see ju,” he said, his accent sounding thicker than usual.

  “Good to be seen.”

  Hernandez brought forth his handkerchief, unfolded it, blew his nose one nostril at a time, refolded the handkerchief, and returned it to his pocket.

  “Wha’ can I do for ju?” he asked.

  “Let’s talk.”

  “Talk? Okay.” He pronounced the word “ho-kay.”

  He retrieved his rag from the spotless floor and moved to the counter Mr. Mosley had built against the wall of the barn. There were many tools neatly arranged on the countertop and hanging from nails in the wall—frames, frame lifters and scrapers, bee brushes, uncapping trays and knives, tap strainers, smoker bellows, hive straps, and gloves. Several drawers had been built into the counter. Hernandez set down the rag and reached for one, hesitated, and left it unopened.

  “Ju want coffee?” he asked.

  “I could do with a cup.”

  “In the kitchen. I be wit’ ju in a moment.”

  I left the bee barn and made my way back to the house. Once inside, I slipped the Beretta out from under my jacket and activated it. I sat at the kitchen table, balancing the nine on my lap. My hands were both flat on the table when Hernandez entered the room. He was carrying a small white and blue towel. The towel was stained and dirty, but it was neatly folded. Hernandez set the towel carefully on the counter next to the sink.

  “Mr. Mosley always liked coffee black,” Hernandez said. “Ju like it black, too?”

  “Yes.”

  Hernandez opened a cabinet and pulled out two mugs. While his back was turned I adjusted the gun in my lap.

  Hernandez poured coffee into the mugs. “Did ju find Mr. Mosley’s killer?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Wha’ ’appen to ’im?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  Hernandez slid the mug across the table. I made sure he saw me reach for it with both hands.

  “Wha’ ju mean?” he asked.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Don’t you?”

  He shook his head.

  “I had a suspect. I believe he’s innocent, now—innocent of Mr. Mosley’s murder, anyway.”

  “How ju know?”

  “This guy—if he had done it, he would have said so. He’s that kind of guy. Anyway, after he was eliminated, it was fairly easy to determine who the real killer was.”

  I leaned back in the chair, letting my right hand fall casually to my lap while slowly turning the mug in circles with my left.

  Hernandez moved closer to the towel.

  “Three things a cop looks for when a crime is committed—motive, opportunity, and means. You revealed the motive when you spoke at Mr. Mosley’s memorial, when you said that working for Mr. Mosley helped you escape the poverty of Guatemala, that it allowed you to remain in the United States. But he was threatening to take your job away, wasn’t he? Did you think if you lost your job you would be deported?”

  I watched his brown eyes. I thought he would deny everything, proclaim his innocence, but for some reason he didn’t bother.

  “Opportunity—that came when you met with Mr. Mosley to discuss your employment situation. There were two mugs on the counter when Mr. Mosley was killed. He was pouring coffee for someone he knew. Someone he trusted enough to turn his back on.”

  “Ju can’t prove anything,” Hernandez said. But there was no force to his words.

  “That brings us to means.” I gestured at the towel with my chin. “I’m betting there’s a .22 tucked inside that towel.”

  Hernandez looked at the towel, then back at me.

  “Ju can’t prove anything,” he repeated, just talking now.

  “The .22 proves it.”

  “’Ere’s no .22.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about.”

  He looked at the towel again, inched toward it. The Beretta was in my hand. I settled it on his chest, aiming through the kitchen table. I had killed a man for a crime he didn’t commit. But Danny had committed other crimes. He had raped Susan Tillman, the wife of my friend. He had tried to kill me. I had no regrets. Only I wanted no more of it, so I begged him, “Please …”

  His hand hovered in midair.

  “Don’t do it, Lorenzo. Please, don’t.”

  He stopped.

  “Give yourself up.”

  He looked at me for a moment and dropped his hand to his side. He walked over to the back door. I thought he might try to make a run for it, but he just stood there staring at the hives.

  Without turning he said, “Ju no cop. Ju can’t arrest me. Ju ’ave no authority.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t ‘ave to say nothin’ to ju.”

  I took a sip of the coffee. It wasn’t bad. Not as good as Mr. Mosley’s, but better than mine.

  I said, “Doesn’t it hurt, Lorenzo? Keeping it all inside?”

  He lowered his head and sighed. Something went out of him then.

  “I loved ’im. Mr. Mosley.”

  “Why did you kill him?”

  “I didn’ mean to.” Hernandez turned away from the door and walked back into the kitchen, settling near the towel. He had moved slowly, yet I tightened my grip on the Beretta just the same. “Somet’ing ’appen to me. Inside of me. I try to get rid of it, but it don’ go ‘way. I thought, Mr. Mosley, ’e make it go ’way. But ’e don’t.”

  “You were afraid.”

  “I cannot go back to Guatemala.”

  “So you killed him.”

  “Sí.”

  I don’t know exactly what I felt for Hernandez at that moment, but I didn’t hate him. There was no hate left in me, no rage. I had used it all up on Danny and Brucie and Frank. I felt my grip on the Beretta relax.

  “Why don’t you lock up, Lorenzo.”

  “Wha’ for?”

  “I want you to come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “I want you to go to Chaska with me and talk to a cop named Dyke.”

  “Ju wan’ me to confess?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “You’ll feel better.”

  “No.”

  “You said you loved Mr. Mosley, you said you didn’t mean to kill him …”

  He moved closer to the towel.

  “We’ll tell them that. They’ll believe you.”

  He looked at me. His expression was childlike. “Wha’ will ’appen to me?”

  “You’ll be all right.”

  “I cannot go to prison.”

  “It’s better than the alternative.”

  He studied me hard. He saw that my hand was under the table. He had to know that it wasn’t empty.

  “Please,” I said again. “Come with me. We’ll talk to the county attorney. I’ll help you get the best deal possible. It’ll be so much better.”

  “Better?”

  “Better than reaching for the .22.”

  He didn’t believe me.

  The assistant county attorney for Carver County sat next to me at Mr. Mosley’s kitchen table. He had run out of questions to ask and had pac
ked up his tape recorder and notebook. Lieutenant Dyke was leaning against the kitchen counter, his arms folded across his chest. The three of us were watching the wagon boys zip Hernandez into a black vinyl body bag. Dyke sighed deeply and sidled up next to the table. He rubbed the tips of his fingers over the four ugly holes I had drilled through the wood with the nine.

  “Well,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I told him.

  He worked a pinkie into one of the bullet holes.

  “He never had a chance, did he?”

  “No,” I agreed. “But I gave him a choice.”

  “Looks like he chose poorly.”

  ALSO BY DAVID HOUSEWRIGHT

  Featuring Rushmore McKenzie

  A Hard Ticket Home

  Featuring Holland Taylor

  Penance

  Practice to Deceive

  Dearly Departed

  Just So You Know

  Reverend Winfield spoke over the grave of Lorenzo Hernandez although no one else had come to hear him. He told me that even a killer deserved a decent burial. He said when the time came he’d be happy to preside at my funeral, too. I wasn’t quite sure how to take the remark, and let it go.

  Sykora resigned from the FBI and returned to New York with Pen. But he went out a hero, hailed for killing a suspected terrorist—that would be Brucie—who had targeted him and his wife after his heroic efforts helped shut down a cigarette-smuggling operation that was using profits to finance Islamic organizations with links to al-Qaeda. As evidence, the FBI singled out three Twin Cities convenience store owners—one Pakistani and two Saudis—who were prosecuted for donating money to a Moslem charity that the Justice Department claimed was funneling cash to the PLO.

  Frank Russo’s moldering body was discovered in the locked trunk of an abandoned automobile with Minnesota plates. The car was found in Hunts Point in New York City, only a few blocks from where Russo had been born. It was labeled a “gangland hit,” and despite the description of Nick Horvath that Sykora and I had supplied, and the physical evidence obtained from his trailer, no arrests were made.

  Roseanne Esjay’s story was never printed in the Times, or anywhere else for that matter. She didn’t explain what had happened, and I didn’t ask.

  The Seeking Information Alert issued on me was obviated, and the AIC of the Minneapolis field office made it clear that for the good of the bureau my name was never again to be uttered in the hallowed halls of the FBI—at least that’s what Harry told me. I had invited him and his wife for dinner, seating them next to Chopper, who seemed to delight his wife but made Harry nervous. He kept checking to see if his wallet was missing.

  Nina, Margot, Bobby, and Shelby also came to dinner. Shelby returned my shoe box. I was happy to get it back.

  Nina forgave me for not staying in touch. I always knew she would. Shelby also forgave me, but not until after dessert. She told me when we were alone in the kitchen that the next time I pulled a stunt like this she’d kick my sorry butt up and down and around Merriam Park. She wasn’t kidding.

  Finally, after all the dust settled, I called Sweet Swinging Billy Tillman and told him that the men who had attacked his wife were dead.

  “Did you kill them?” he asked.

  I told him I was responsible.

  He paused for a moment, said, “Thank you,” and hung up. There was no enthusiasm in his voice. I have no idea what the news meant to him, or if it meant anything. I called several more times over the next few months, tried to visit, but the conversations were always abrupt and I was told to stay away.

  I never saw or spoke with Penelope Glass again. But whenever I hear a song I like, I now check the liner notes to see who wrote it.

  TIN CITY. Copyright © 2005 by David Housewright. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  eISBN 9781429924504

  First eBook Edition : May 2011

  EAN 978-0312-32151-2

  First Edition: May 2005