The Taking of Libbie, SD Read online

  CHAPTER TWO

  She swept into the interrogation room. That’s an apt verb—swept. She moved quickly to the table, walking tall like a model inviting you to look but not touch. She was wearing a fitted white blouse tucked inside a flirty salmon skirt that revealed a lot of leg. Her hair was long, heavy, and blond-red, her features golden and pretty. There was a big-city sheen to her and, also, an odd kind of harshness around her eyes as if she had seen things that had hurt her. She looked around, found the folding chairs leaning against the wall, took one, unfolded it, and set it in front of the table.

  “I’m Tracie Blake,” she said.

  She offered her hand even as she settled into the chair. I raised my own hand to give her a good look at the chain securing me to the table.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Oh,” I repeated.

  She sighed dramatically and said, “We thought you were someone else.”

  “Who did you think I was?”

  “Rushmore McKenzie.”

  “What a coincidence. I thought I was Rushmore McKenzie, too.”

  “Yes, but not the Rushmore McKenzie.”

  She smiled as if she had told a joke and was waiting for her audience to get it.

  “Who are you?” I said.

  “I’m a member of the Libbie City Council.”

  “And you’re here because…?”

  She stared for a moment as if she were considering various answers and then opted for the truth. “They think I have a better chance of convincing you not to sue the town into oblivion.”

  I glared at the one-way mirror, trying to see the faces of the men I knew were standing behind it. “They do, huh?”

  “Yeppers.”

  “Honey, you may be the prettiest girl these guys have ever seen, but you’re not the prettiest I’ve seen. If you think a come-hither smile is going to work on me, you’re mistaken.”

  Tracie shrugged as if she didn’t quite believe me.

  “What would work?” she asked.

  I clenched my fist and yanked my arm up as if I were going to punch her. I would have been about three feet short of her face even if the chain hadn’t shortened my swing, yet she flinched and leaned backward just the same.

  “You can start by unshackling me,” I said.

  “People are afraid of you, of what you might do.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’m afraid of what you might do.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m hundreds of miles from home, no friend knows I’m here, dressed only in soiled shorts, no wallet, no ID, chained to a table—think about it.”

  She did, for a full ten seconds before she smiled a most beguiling smile and said, “Oh, that’s just silly.”

  “You think?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then why am I still chained to this table?”

  “I’m not—”

  “Do you agree that I’m not the guy you’re looking for?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why don’t you apologize and let me go?”

  Tracie spun in her chair and studied the interrogation room mirror as if she expected the answer to magically appear on the glass. When it didn’t, she turned back to face me.

  “Can I tell you what happened?” she said. “Can we just sit here, calmly, like adults, and I’ll explain what happened?”

  I made a big production of showing her the chain again. “Do I have a choice?”

  “Rushmore.”

  “Only one person gets to call me Rushmore, and you’re not her. My name is McKenzie. Just McKenzie, all right?”

  “See, that’s one difference right there—between you and the other McKenzie, I mean. He always told people to call him Rush.”

  I leaned back in the chair and made myself as comfortable as I could. I had a feeling this was going to take a while.

  Tracie had a compelling voice, an actor’s voice, and as she told her story I flashed on Scheherazade telling tales for a thousand and one nights until the king, hardened by the betrayal of his first wife, learned both morality and kindness and renounced his vow of vengeance against all women. Somewhere along the line, I gave up my plans for payback, too. Well, most of them, anyway.

  According to Tracie, the man who called himself Rushmore McKenzie came in the spring. He did not look like me, but Tracie said he was the same height, weight, hair color—if you went solely by physical description, people would have thought we were the same person.

  “Although you are much more handsome,” Tracie said. She smiled at me, but I refused to give her anything in return.

  The Imposter did not announce himself. He drove into town and settled in at the Pioneer, Libbie’s one and only hotel. He took his meals alone in the hotel restaurant. During the day, he would drive the county’s roads. Residents remembered seeing him parked on the shoulder at various intersections taking notes; they would wave to him, and he would wave back. He also spent time in the county assessor’s office, studying abstracts, deeds, and zoning maps without once explaining why. Anyone who attempted to engage him in conversation learned his opinion on the weather, and little else. Not even thrice-divorced Sharren Nuffer, who worked behind the desk and sometimes in the hotel’s restaurant, could get words from the Imposter no matter how breathlessly she asked if there was anything she could do for him.

  It wasn’t until several days later that the Imposter stepped into the office of the City of Libbie’s director of economic development. A man named Ed Bizek—the department’s sole employee—was there to greet him. The Imposter told Bizek that he was the front man for a syndicate of developers from the Twin Cities. He said he’d found the perfect parcel of land at the intersection where Highway 20 met Highway 73. Unfortunately, a dryland farmer named Michael Randisi owned the parcel, and it was zoned for agriculture. The Imposter said he wanted to meet with the county commissioners and the Libbie City Council. He wanted to be assured that the county would rezone the land for commercial use if he bought it, and he wanted the negotiations kept confidential for fear that if word of his intentions leaked out, Randisi would demand more for the land than the syndicate was willing to pay. That would kill the deal, the Imposter said. It was this fear—that the deal would be killed—that would induce so many people to do so many foolish things in the coming weeks.

  “What were his intentions?” I asked.

  “The Imposter wanted to build an outlet mall.”

  “Is that like a shopping mall?”

  “A shopping mall where manufacturers sell their products directly to the public through their own stores. Mostly you see them in locations far away from major cities. That’s because the rents are cheaper, which reduces overhead, and because most of these manufacturers have contracts with conventional retailers that sell their products. The malls have to be located in places where they won’t compete with them.”

  “Okay.”

  “I know what you’re thinking, McKenzie—a mall in a town with a population of twelve hundred, in a county with only thirty-three hundred people? But it was a good plan. The plan would have worked. An outlet mall here would have drawn customers from Prairie City and Bison, Meadow, Faith, Isabel, Timber Lake, Dupree—where else?—Lemmon, Reva, Lodgepole. You have to remember, we’re five hundred thirty miles from Denver, six hundred miles from Minneapolis, and about the same distance from Omaha. The nearest decent shopping—we’re nearly four hours by car from both Rapid City and Aberdeen. An outlet mall here would have been huge.”

  “Except he did not intend to build a mall.”

  “No. All he wanted was our money.”

  “How much did he take you for?”

  She said, “Nothing from me,” in a way that made me think she was lying. “The city, though, and some others—he picked us clean and disappeared.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Tomorrow will make a week. McKenzie, can I rely on your discretion?”

  “Not even a little bit.”

  “McKenzie, if we let
you go—”

  “What do you mean, if?”

  “That came out wrong.”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “I meant when we let you go—McKenzie, we need your help.”

  “To do what?”

  “To catch Rush—to catch the Imposter.”

  “Call the cops.”

  “Chief Gustafson is working on it.”

  “Call the real cops. Call the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation. Call the FBI.”

  “We don’t want—we’re trying to avoid—our losses were severe, McKenzie. The city was forced to borrow to maintain basic services. Others were hurt, as well—the bank, some Main Street businesses, other investors. McKenzie, small towns all across America are drying up and blowing away. We were doing okay, except now—if we get the money back, a lot of people will be embarrassed, but life will go on. If we don’t, if people learn the city is bankrupt…”

  “Do you expect me to care?”

  Tracie’s eyes lost their harshness then. They became soft and moist, and I found myself looking away so I didn’t have to see them. You are the mushiest person I know, my inner voice told me. It also reminded me that Libbie’s problem wasn’t my problem. Your problem is getting home.

  “What do you expect me to do?” I said.

  “Chief Gustafson said the only way to catch Rush, to catch the Imposter, is by finding out who he really is, where he really lives. We can do that, he said, by investigating the things the Imposter said that were true that might have slipped through all the lies he told us. Rush was here a long time and spoke to a lot of people, and the chief thinks he might have divulged information that he didn’t mean to. The problem is, we have no way of knowing what was a lie he told about you and what was the truth he might have told about himself. Only you would know the difference.”

  It was a realistic plan, probably the only plan. We are all creatures of habit and of our own experiences. Over time, even the best-trained actor will slip out of character to reveal something of himself. He’ll start ad-libbing, remembering when he did this, or when he went there, or when he saw that. It’s only breadcrumbs of information, and we all know what happened to Hansel and Gretel when they tried to rely on them. Still, a guy could get lucky. It would probably take an enormous amount of work, yet I had to admit, I found the prospect challenging.

  On the other hand, they kidnapped me from my home and chained me to a table—my head had been aching for hours. I could sue them for everything they had. ’Course, if the Imposter looted the city’s coffers, they probably didn’t have much …

  I stared into Tracie’s eyes for a good long time, and then I beat on the metal table with both hands—shave and a haircut, two bits.

  “What does that mean?” she said.

  “Let me go.”

  “Will you help us?”

  “I’ll think about it. Now let me go.”

  Tracie spun in her chair and looked at the one-way mirror. A few moments later, the interrogation door opened, and Chief Gustafson walked in. He was followed by the desk officer who had chained me to the table and the old man who had slugged me. Behind them was a teenaged girl with a mature body and a child’s face.

  I stood as the chief walked to the table and uncuffed my hands.

  “I’m sorry about this,” he said.

  I flexed my shoulders and swung my arms about the way people sometimes do when they’re cold and want to warm themselves. My wrist was chafed and sore, and I wanted to rub it, but I refused, not unlike a professional baseball player who jogs nonchalantly to first base after being plunked with a fastball—I didn’t want the chief to know I was hurt. I didn’t want any of them to know how vulnerable I felt. I had no real idea where I was, but I knew it was too far from home.

  I tried to make my voice sound tough. “Where are the bounty hunters?” I said.

  “The two men who brought you in?” the chief said.

  “Where are they?”

  “They’re gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “I don’t know. They left before I arrived.”

  “Who are they? Where can I find them?”

  The chief shrugged a reply.

  “Who hired them?”

  The old man stepped deeper into the interrogation room. The desk officer sidled up next to him, ready to step between us if necessary.

  “I hired them,” the old man said. There wasn’t a trace of regret in his voice.

  “Well, I hope you at least stopped payment on the check.”

  He snickered at that and stepped closer. “I’m Dewey Miller. I own most of what’s worth owning around here.”

  I recognized the look in his eye. He believed in the privileges of power. He had the most, so he demanded the most. Something else, there’s an old movie that you can catch on TCM—She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Whenever one of his subordinates would say he was sorry for screwing up, Captain John Wayne would tell him, “Don’t apologize, mister. It’s a sign of weakness.” Miller was from that school.

  “Excuse me if I appear less than conciliatory,” I said.

  “I did what I had to do,” Miller said.

  “I bet.”

  “I thought you were the man who raped my daughter.”

  I glanced at the teenager standing behind him. There was at least a fifty-year difference in their ages. Other differences, too. The old man wore a hooded expression of brooding anger, as if he became pissed off at the world one day and never changed. The girl’s face, however, was open and filled with virtues—strength, humility, humor, and goodness. It was not something you could fake. This was a girl that you could hurt without even trying, I told myself.

  “Now you know different,” I said.

  Miller nodded his head. He had nothing more to say. The teenager filled the void.

  “How many times do I have to say it?” she said. “I wasn’t raped.”

  Miller spun and slapped her across the mouth with a full-arm swing, driving her back so that she stumbled and nearly fell against the wall. In a sharp baritone, he shouted, “Have you no shame?”

  I reached for the girl, the only one who did so, but she waved away my assistance. She regained her balance and gave her father an oddly neutral, unangered look while she touched the corner of her mouth where the blow had fallen. Satisfied that nothing was broken or bleeding, she let her hand fall to her side.

  “No, I don’t have any shame,” she said. “At least none for myself.”

  She turned slowly and left the room.

  Miller called to her, “Saranne.” She didn’t stop.

  Miller gradually became aware that we were all staring at him. He saw the contempt in my eyes. I called him a bastard. His head jolted upward. There was a kind of hysterical expression on his face, and he clenched his fists, but I knew nothing would come of it. I wasn’t chained to the table anymore.

  “She’s my daughter,” he said.

  “Why don’t you treat her like it?”

  Eventually his hands went limp, and he rubbed his face with them. He took Tracie’s chair and sat looking at nothing in particular. He wasn’t going to apologize for this, either.

  The desk officer patted his shoulder in a forgiving manner. “It’s tough,” the officer said. “A man could lose his head.”

  So much for law enforcement in Libbie, South Dakota, I told myself.

  “Mr. Miller brought Saranne here to confirm your identity,” the chief said.

  “Really? I thought he did it to show us how tough he was.”

  Miller gave me a look that he probably thought was threatening and clenched his fists again. All he did was remind me how much I wanted to hit someone, anyone.

  “The bounty hunters,” I said. “I want their names. I want to know where I can find them.”

  “You don’t talk to me that way,” Miller said.

  “One way or the other I’ll have the names before I leave. Get used to the idea.” I silenced any potential argument by turning my
back on him and facing the chief. “The Imposter—did he actually pretend to be me, or was it just a coincidence that he was using a name that happened to be the same as mine?”

  “He had your actual address. He said he retired early from the St. Paul Police Department. He said he helped find some gold that a gangster hid in the city seventy-five years ago. He said he had numerous friends in high places. Does that sound like you?”

  “Everything but the friends in high places.”

  “Then he was pretending to be you.”

  “What you told me, the Imposter could have learned that just by Googling my name on the Web.”

  The chief could only shrug at that.

  “Car? Tracie said that the Imposter drove into town.”

  “Rental. Originated in Minneapolis. He used your name on a credit card to rent it.”

  “The Imposter stayed at the Pioneer Hotel. Most hotels demand a credit card.”

  “I checked,” the chief said. “The card was issued in your name; it was the same as the one that he used for the car.”

  “I have a financial adviser who runs a credit check every month to help me avoid this sort of thing. If a guy was using a credit card in my name—you say he’s been here since spring?”

  “Since early April,” Tracie said. “He didn’t stay all that time. He came and went.”

  “Still, if he used my credit cards during all that time, I would have known it.”

  “Not necessarily,” the chief said. “Apparently he stole your identity, not your cards. He opened accounts in your name, but he had the invoices delivered to a different address. He also used a birth date and Social Security number that were different from yours—at least they were different from the ones you gave me. There’s no way you could have known the Imposter was pretending to be you.”

  “Where were the credit card invoices sent?”

  “To a mail drop in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What?”

  “I own some property near Grand Rapids. A lake home.”

  “Hmm,” the chief said. “The Imposter rented a PO box in your name for six months. It expired last week.”

  “You checked it out, huh?”

  “We’re not completely helpless.”