Curse of the Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel Page 28

  “That sounds nice,” I said. “Still…”

  “It’s true,” India insisted.

  “You were in for a third of the ransom once Tarpley was killed. You, Dennis, and Von—three bags containing approximately four hundred and thirty thousand dollars each. How much does a curator make in a year working for a small midwestern museum? Listen, Lieutenant Rask of the Minneapolis Police Department is waiting outside. He did me a big favor by letting me pretend to be Philo Vance for a while. Tell him whatever you like.”

  “The police are outside?” Fiegen asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Also, Special Agent Brian Wilson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He should be taking Pozderac and Hemsted into custody even as we speak. No doubt Branko will scream diplomatic immunity. We’ll see how that works out for him. Hemsted, on the other hand, does not enjoy that privilege. His testimony might be more easily coerced. As for you…”

  “I will not be arrested.”

  “No?”

  “I have committed no crime.”

  “Bribing a foreign national isn’t a crime?”

  “It was not a bribe. The Jade Lily was a gift, a copy of a priceless artifact no more valuable than tickets to the opera.”

  “I like it,” I said. “I’d hang on to that defense if I were you.”

  The room emptied soon after Fiegen dashed for the door in search of his co-conspirators. I sat down next to Mr. Donatucci. Heavenly sat across the table from us.

  “Well, sir, is this what you had in mind when you came to my house last week?” I asked.

  “Almost exactly.”

  “Sure.”

  Donatucci removed a check from his inside pocket and set it on the table in front of me.

  “One hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars made out to cash as requested,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Batman.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

  Donatucci patted my shoulder and left the room. I glanced at the check, set my hand on top of it, and slid it across the table to Heavenly.

  “It’s not quite the payout you were hoping for,” I said.

  She took the check and put it in her bag.

  “Just as long as we come out ahead, that’s the main thing,” she said.

  “Thank you for saving my life.”

  “My pleasure. McKenzie?”

  “Hmm?”

  “How did you know the Jade Lily was a fake?”

  “They told me I had ten seconds to live. If they had wanted to kill me, they wouldn’t have called. So why did they call? They wanted me out of the room so they could blow up the Lily and I would be around to tell the tale. Why would they want to do that, blow up the Lily? Because they hated it so much? Because they didn’t want anyone else to own it? It’s kind of obvious once you think about it. After that, everything fell into place.”

  “But when did you figure it out?”

  “While I was holding the telephone in the motel room just before the bomb went off.”

  “You’re the master of intuitive thinking.”

  “It’s a curse.”

  JUST SO YOU KNOW

  In hindsight, it probably would have been better all around if I had allowed them to blow up the Jade Lily in that damn motel room instead of risking my life to save it.

  First of all, Von Tarpley and Dennis Cooper both pled guilty to killing Patrick Tarpley and Lieutenant Scott Noehring. Normally, you shoot a cop they drop you in a hole and you never get to see the sun again, but they cut a deal, Von and Dennis did. They gave up their right to a jury trial—during which they would have presented irrefutable evidence of Noehring’s many dastardly deeds—in exchange for the possibility of parole hearings after seventeen years. They also managed to swap the bomb charges for the names and whereabouts of the people who sold them the explosives (I guess making a bomb is worse than exploding a bomb).

  That was it as far as the courts were concerned. No one—including India Cooper—was ever charged with the theft of the Jade Lily, largely because both the museum and Jeremy Gillard refused to press charges and the insurance company claimed it had not been defrauded. I got a kick out of that—Gillard refusing to press charges against himself. There was plenty of talk about conspiracy to do this and conspiracy to do that, only nothing came of it.

  The original Lily, by the way, has yet to resurface despite Tatjana Durakovic’s tireless efforts to locate it.

  Branko Pozderac was granted diplomatic immunity and sent home, although his government removed him from the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency. Jonathan Hemsted was fired by the State Department in the morning and hired by Minnesota Disposal and Recycling in the afternoon to work as a liaison between the company and the governments of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro—yes, Fiegen got his garbage and wastewater cleaning contracts. Big surprise. Plus, any plans to charge Fiegen under the antibribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act were discarded when India, testifying on Fiegen’s behalf, argued that while it was an inspired facsimile of the original, the Jade Lily held little monetary value and therefore could hardly constitute a bribe.

  Hell, even El Cid skated. All charges against him were dropped at just about the same time various joint task forces conducted a half-dozen large-scale gun and drug raids across the Twin Cities. Apparently Cid was correct when he said he could always make a deal with the police.

  As for Jeremy Gillard—Fiegen never did cancel the check as I thought he would. When the feds were trying to jam him up on the bribery beef, they suggested that paying Gillard $3.8 million for a “worthless knickknack, isn’t that what you called it, sir?” was awfully excessive. Fiegen told them that how he spent his own money was none of their damn business.

  Months later, long after everything had settled down, I checked out a few exhibits at the City of Lakes Art Museum. Perrin Stewart told me that she’d had no choice but to fire India and had not seen her since, but that a mutual friend told her that Gillard had given India some of Fiegen’s money—she didn’t know how much—and took her to Las Vegas. Personally, I hope they had a wonderful time.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I wish to acknowledge my debt to Tom Combs, M.D., India Cooper, Tammi Fredrickson, Keith Kahla, Alison J. Picard, Lisa Vecoli of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and Renée Valois.

  ALSO BY DAVID HOUSEWRIGHT

  Featuring Rushmore McKenzie

  Highway 61

  The Taking of Libbie, SD

  Jelly’s Gold

  Madman on a Drum

  A Hard Ticket Home

  Tin City

  Pretty Girl Gone

  Dead Boyfriends

  Featuring Holland Taylor

  Penance

  Practice to Deceive

  Dearly Departed

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DAVID HOUSEWRIGHT has worked as a journalist covering both crime and sports (sometimes simultaneously), an advertising copywriter and creative director, and a writing instructor. He has won both the Edgar Award and the Minnesota Book Award for his crime fiction. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

  Visit the author’s Web site at www.davidhousewright.com.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE CURSE OF THE JADE LILY. Copyright © 2012 by David Housewright. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein

  Cover photograph by Jason’s Travel Photography/Getty Images

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Housewright, David, 1955–

  Curse of the Jade Lily: a McKenzie novel / David Housewright.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-312-64231-0 (hardcover
)

  ISBN 978-1-4668-0262-9 (e-book)

  1. McKenzie, Mac (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—Minnesota—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3558.O8668C87 2012

  813'.54—dc23

  2012005490

  e-ISBN 9781466802629

  First Edition: June 2012