Dead Boyfriends Read online

  “Your client?”

  “I’m G. K. Bonalay. I represent Merodie Davies. Does the county attorney know you assaulted my client, or do I have to tell him?”

  “I didn’t do nothing like that.”

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  Baumbach looked hard at me. “I don’t care what you heard,” he said.

  “Are you saying it’s not true?” G. K. said.

  “I never touched that woman.”

  “Will you testify to that under oath?”

  “I ain’t testifying to nothin’.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re very nervous, Officer,” G. K. said. “Why are you nervous?”

  “I ain’t.”

  “Sure you are you, Boyd,” I said. “I don’t blame you, either. Sooner or later you’ll have to answer questions under oath, and when you do, Ms. Bonalay is going to clean your clock. Then it’ll be my turn.”

  “You want a piece of me? You want a piece of me right now, asshole?”

  Normally I would have been offended, except after what Merodie Davies had called me, Baumbach’s epithet sounded like a compliment.

  “Oh, yeah. I want a piece. Why don’t you get out of your car and give me some.”

  Baumbach came out of his car quickly. “Let’s settle this like men,” he said.

  I took G. K. by the elbow and pulled her behind me. Baumbach moved close, well within striking distance, his hands stiff at his side.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  I deliberately tucked my hands between my belt and the small of my back and leaned toward him.

  “Take your best shot, woman-beater.”

  Baumbach brought his hands up, his face red with anger. But he hesitated. He wasn’t as dumb as he looked.

  “Go ’head,” I told him. “The first one is free.”

  He glanced from me to G. K. and back again.

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked.

  “You chicken? C’mon.”

  Baumbach stepped backward until his butt was pressed against his car door. I brought my arms out and folded them across my chest again.

  “What’s going on?” G. K. asked.

  “Cameras,” I said.

  “Cameras?”

  I pointed at the boxes mounted high on the concrete walls at the top and bottom of the ramp.

  “Security cameras. I provoke Boyd. He takes a shot. I bust his ass using the video as evidence, and he’s the one who does time in a holding cell.”

  “I like it.”

  “You sonuvabitch,” Baumbach called me.

  “Ah, well. It was worth a try.”

  “You’re trying to set me up,” Baumbach said. “You’re trying to set me up because—you ain’t a man. You have a problem, you should settle it like a man.”

  “You’re a bad cop, Boyd, and it’s this childish notion of manhood you have that made you a bad cop. I’m going to take you off the board. It’s my civic duty.”

  Baumbach clenched like a man about to throw a punch. “This ain’t over,” he said.

  He flung a glance at G. K., pivoted, and climbed back into his Impala. The sound of his squealing tires echoed through the ramp.

  G. K. grinned as she moved to the driver’s door of her own car.

  “Well, that was fun,” she said.

  3

  To say Nina Truhler was smart and sexy was like saying the world was big and round—mere words simply didn’t do her justice. I would have told her so, too. If only she had been at Rickie’s when I arrived.

  It took G. K. twenty-five minutes to drive from Anoka to Minneapolis even though, like me, she considered the posted speed limit to be more of a guideline than a law. She dropped me off at the Dunn Bros, coffeehouse after giving me her business card. On it she had written her personal cell and home numbers, as well as her home address. She told me to call her anytime. I pressed the card between the pages of my notebook and dropped it on the bucket seat on the passenger side of my Audi.

  By then it was already late. Most of the people who weren’t hopelessly tangled in rush hour traffic were probably sitting down to dinner by the time I drove 1-94 from Minneapolis across the Mississippi River into St. Paul. Certainly, there were a great many people at Rickie’s doing just that. The upstairs dining room, which featured live jazz starting at 9:00 P.M., was nearly filled with diners by the time I arrived, and most of the sofas, stuffed chairs, and small tables in the downstairs lounge were occupied.

  I searched for Nina. I wanted to see her before she left on her date. I wasn’t sure what I was going to tell her. “Please don’t go” came to mind. Only I couldn’t find her.

  The bartender waved me over. “Hi, McKenzie,” she said. “Looking for the boss?”

  “I am.”

  “She left a few minutes ago.”

  “Did she go home?” I glanced at my watch. Maybe I still had time to intercept her.

  “No, she left. . . Just a minute.” She went to the beer taps and poured a Summit Ale, my usual. She set it in front of me.

  “You’re going to bad-news me, aren’t you, Jenness?” I said, pronouncing the name Jen-ness, as she once instructed me.

  “Nina left five minutes ago with the guy who took her to the charity ball.”

  I drank some of the beer.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “I already knew she had a date.”

  “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “Nina’s been grumbling about you for two days now.”

  “How bad has it been, her grumbling?”

  “Pretty bad.”

  “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “You mean about getting arrested?”

  “She told you that, too?”

  “When things are going well, Nina keeps her life pretty much private. When they’re going bad, she kinda talks to herself out loud, if you know what I mean.”

  “I know.”

  I drank more beer.

  “Did you meet this guy she’s dating?” I asked.

  “Daniel. Not Dan or Danny. Daniel. He’s an architect. Has money if you go by his clothes and car.”

  Snob, my inner voice said.

  “What does he look like?” I asked.

  “He’s about your size, your height and weight,” Jenness said. “I figure he must work out because he’s in good shape but, I don’t know, he seems soft to me. Like he’s never actually done any physical labor or played a contact sport.”

  Wuss.

  “And he wears glasses.”

  Four-eyes.

  “Where did they go?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. But if I did, McKenzie, I’d keep it to myself.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? So you won’t go over there and slap the guy around. I gotta tell you, that’s not the way to a girl’s heart, if you know what I mean.”

  “Jenness, would I do a thing like that?”

  “I don’t know. Would you?”

  Good question.

  I pushed the beer away.

  “Bourbon,” I said. “No ice.”

  Jenness frowned at me.

  “Don’t give up, McKenzie. So what if Nina dates this guy? It’s a onetime deal. In a couple of days she’ll cool off and the two of you will get back together.”

  “You think so?”

  “I’m betting on it.”

  “Make it a double,” I said.

  When people ask where I’m from, I answer St. Paul. If the question comes from someone who actually lives in St. Paul, I tell them I’m from Merriam Park and they know immediately what I’m talking about. True, I actually live in the suburbs. When I came into my money I bought a house for my father and me that I thought was in St. Paul’s St. Anthony Park neighborhood, only to discover too late that I was on the wrong side of the street, that I had accidentally moved to Falcon Heights. Still, I’ll always be a Merriam Park boy at heart.

  St. Paul
is a city of neighborhoods. There are seventeen in all not counting the neighborhoods within neighborhoods that are loosely defined by parks and churches, and the attitudes of the people who live in them can best be described as parochial. Take the Greater Eastside, an island between Interstate 35E and the City of Maplewood. It’s a neighborhood of working-class people and immigrants who tend to stay close to home. The big joke there is that the city ends at Lexington Parkway, which cuts St. Paul roughly in half, because no Eastsider has any reason to go farther west. At the same time, you have the folks who live in the Macalester-Groveland neighborhood, just west of Lexington Parkway. They believe they’re the intellectual and cultural center of the city for no better reason than that three liberal arts colleges—Macalester, St. Thomas, and St. Catherine—just happen to be located within its boundaries. And if you think these people like each other, you haven’t been around for one of our more hotly contested mayoral races.

  As for Merriam Park, it was developed in about 1885 by John Merriam as a commuter suburb since at the time it was located midway between what was then downtown St. Paul and Minneapolis. It attracted upper-middle-class residents because he insisted that every house built there cost at least $1,500. Many of those homes are still standing. So is Longfellow School, where I chipped a tooth falling off a playground slide, and Merriam Park Community Center, where I discovered hockey, baseball, and girls, not necessarily in that order. As for our attitude toward St. Paul’s other sixteen neighborhoods, it’s simple: If we ignore them, maybe they’ll go away.

  I had two more drinks at Rickie’s—which, by the way, is located in the Summit Hill neighborhood—and drove to Bobby Dunston’s house. Bobby lives directly across from Merriam Park Community Center in a home that he and Shelby bought from Bobby’s parents when they retired, the house Bobby grew up in. I knew it as well as my own childhood home, an old Colonial with an open wraparound porch. Despite the heat, Bobby and Shelby were sitting on the porch when I drove up, sipping lemonade, looking like an old married couple in a Norman Rockwell painting.

  We tend to lose our friends as we grow older. Without the glue of shared experiences—school, sports, the job—they drift away despite our best intentions to hold them close. Instead, we turn to family. Only I had no family, unless you count an aunt and uncle who send me Christmas cards from Colorado and a few distant cousins I’ve met maybe twice in the past three and a half decades. Bobby, Shelby, and their daughters were my family and my heirs.

  I parked and made my way up the sidewalk. As I reached the porch Bobby said, “How’s the Audi running?”

  “Okay, but it hasn’t been the same since the snowplow ran me off the highway.”

  “At least the insurance company paid for the damages.”

  Bobby was on his feet. I shook his hand.

  “Those damages, sure, but they wouldn’t pay to fix the bullet holes.”

  “I can’t believe your policy didn’t cover that.”

  Shelby was also standing. She winced at the word “bullets,” but then she always was a worrier. I hugged her and kissed her cheek.

  “Where were you the other day?” she asked. “The girls wanted to go over to your house and play with the ducks.”

  “Listen. You guys have a key. You’re welcome to come over anytime. Feed the ducks. Feed yourselves. Use the mini-donut and sno-cone machines. Hell, if you’re alone, use one of the bedrooms.”

  “Camp Rushmore McKenzie,” said Bobby.

  “Exactly what I’m saying. Same with the cabin up north. What’s mine is yours.”

  They were both sitting now, and Shelby was pouring fresh-squeezed lemonade into an extra glass as if she had been expecting me. The sun was setting and it was growing cooler, but it was still hot enough for a man to sweat even while seated on a porch railing. Bobby and Shelby were both wearing shorts and T-shirts. Bobby’s swore allegiance to the St. Paul Saints minor league baseball team, while Shelby’s featured the logo of Buddy Guy’s Legends, a blues club in Chicago. Bobby had taken her there in the spring while I babysat their two daughters.

  “Where are the kids?” I asked.

  As if on cue, Victoria and Katie appeared at a living room window that opened onto the porch just behind their mother’s shoulder.

  “McKenzie,” they called through the screen.

  “How’re my girls?”

  “Did you bring us something?” they asked in unison.

  “Not this trip.”

  They both made disappointed noises, and I said, “Sorry.”

  “Is it because Mom threatened your life last time?” asked Victoria.

  “You have to admit ten pounds of Tootsie Rolls is kind of excessive.”

  “It isn’t,” said Katie.

  “Mom has been doling them out a few at a time for good behavior like we were prisoners in a Russian gulag,” Victoria said.

  “A gulag?”

  “You know. Like where they kept Solzhenitsyn.”

  “How old are you again?”

  “She’s no fun,” Katie insisted.

  “Who?”

  “Mom. Gol, McKenzie.”

  “Your mother was a lot of fun when I first met her.”

  “She was young then,” Victoria said. “Now she’s really old.”

  “That’s it,” Shelby announced. “The spankings will now commence.”

  “Oh puhleez, mother,” Victoria said.

  Shelby’s eyes bore down hard on her daughter.

  Victoria said, “I think I’ll go upstairs and read.”

  “Good idea,” Shelby said.

  “Good night, all.”

  Victoria left the window. Katie followed her deep into the house.

  Shelby sighed significantly.

  “Victoria’s almost a teenager,” she said.

  “Don’t you just love that?” Bobby said.

  “Have you ever spanked your children?” I asked.

  “The threat of violence is usually sufficient, and when it’s not, Bobby pulls his gun.”

  Bobby held up his hand, three fingers curled into his palm, his index finger extended, his thumb back, and made a clicking noise with his tongue.

  “I can see how that might keep order.”

  “So, McKenzie,” Bobby said. “I heard you were arrested the other day.”

  “Taken into custody, but not booked.”

  “Important difference.”

  “You heard this—how?”

  “I had a conversation with an Anoka cop named Jerry Moorhead.”

  “No kidding. Why’d he call you?”

  “He didn’t. He knew a guy in the department. Moorhead asked about you, the officer knew we were tight, so I got the call. He was impressed that you had a friend who was a lieutenant in homicide.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “He was also impressed when I told him what a sterling example of law enforcement you were until you decided to take the price for Teach-well and live a life of undeserved luxury.”

  “What do you mean, undeserved?”

  “He wants to arrange a sit-down, Mac. Buy you a few drinks.”

  “Does he?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “I wonder why.”

  “The man made a mistake, he wants to apologize. What’s the big deal?”

  “Does he want to apologize because he was wrong or because he wants to get me out of his hair?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The woman Moorhead’s deputy slapped around, they’re trying to jam her up on what looks like a bogus murder charge. I told her lawyer that I’d look into it.”

  “Ahh geez,” said Shelby. “Not again.”

  “What?”

  “Why do you always get involved in these things?” she asked me. “If you’re bored, go shopping.”

  We’d had this conversation before, and truth be told, I always came off looking silly defending myself. I decided to change the subject.

  “Besides, is Moorhead going to call Nin
a, apologize to her? I was supposed to take her to that damn charity ball the other night, but I couldn’t because I was in jail, so she went with some other guy and guess what? They have a date tonight.”

  “A date?” said Shelby.

  “They went to dinner, la-de-da.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I was over there.”

  “At Nina’s?”

  “No. At Rickie’s. He picked her up at her place of business, do you believe that? Didn’t even have the courtesy to call for her at home. The jerk.”

  “How do you know he’s a jerk?”

  “He’s an architect. He wears glasses. His name is Daniel.”

  “Sounds like a jerk to me,” said Bobby.

  “If he wasn’t a nice guy, Nina wouldn’t date him,” said Shelby.

  “Oh, I don’t know. She dates McKenzie.”

  “Way to stick up for me, Bobby,” I said. “You’re a real pal.”

  “Anytime.”

  “It’s probably for the best,” I said. “I should be moving on anyway.”

  Shelby stood abruptly, balled her hands into fists, and pressed them against her hips. She looked down at me and spoke without blinking.

  “Don’t. You. Dare.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you dare. Every time you become involved with a woman you do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “You start looking for something, anything, as an excuse to break up. ‘Just didn’t work out, time to move on’—you always say that.”

  “I do not.”

  “Always.”

  “Na-uh.”

  “You want a list? Should we start with Annie?”

  “Whatever happened to her?” Bobby asked.

  “She. Married. Someone. Else.”

  “Oh.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do?” I asked. “Nina’s dating this guy. . .”

  “An architect,” said Bobby.

  “You can start by apologizing for standing her up,” she told me.

  “I did.”

  “Do it again.”

  “But it wasn’t my fault.”

  “It. Doesn’t. Matter.”

  “It really doesn’t,” said Bobby. “I’ve apologized to Shelby for a lot of things that weren’t my fault, and . . .”

  Shelby gave him that look. You know the one I mean. Bobby turned and stared past the porch toward Merriam Park as if there were something out there that was suddenly very interesting.