Tin City (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels) Page 6

  “Okay.”

  “Whatever satisfaction you hope to gain, it won’t be worth it if something bad happens to you.”

  I didn’t understand her logic until she kissed me. And then I pretended not to.

  The next day was Sunday. Here’s what happened. I was alone. The phone rang, but I didn’t answer it. Messages were left, but I didn’t listen to them. Music spilled from nineteen speakers scattered through eight rooms and my basement, but I didn’t really hear it. The TV was on—the Timberwolves were in the NBA playoffs and the Twins were playing the White Sox—but I wasn’t paying attention. Food was cooked; most of it was left untouched. The sun rose. The sun arched across the sky. The sun set. That’s what happened on Sunday.

  Except late in the evening the phone rang. The caller ID said Brehmer. I answered it. I said, “Sarge?”

  “McKenzie?”

  “Right here.”

  “I checked you out. They told me you were solid. A good cop. I wouldn’t call you otherwise.”

  “Okay.”

  “The reason I called, I wanted to give you a heads-up. I’ve been taken off the case. They gave it to a bureaucrat, Lieutenant Brian Dyke. He’s head of the county’s Criminal Investigation Division, but he doesn’t belong there. He’s not smart enough to find Mr. Mosley’s killer.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you hear what I’m telling you? He’s not smart enough to find Mr. Mosley’s killer.”

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s more.”

  “More?”

  “Frank Crosetti doesn’t exist. At least not according to any records I could find.”

  “What do you mean, he doesn’t exist?”

  “There’s no record of him—the Frank Crosetti you’re looking for, anyway. No Social Security number. No driver’s license. No birth certificate or passport. No credit cards. No health care. No subscription to Sports Illustrated.”

  “Lundgren-Kerber was renting to him.”

  “Lundgren-Kerber never heard of Crosetti, claim the property has been vacant for months.”

  “He was there.”

  “I believe you. But he’s been erased.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Of course it’s possible.”

  “You can’t erase a person’s existence. There’s always something left behind. A cable bill, a name on a lottery ticket, an order for Girl Scout cookies …”

  “You could do it if the person never existed in the first place.”

  “Identity theft? Crosetti stole someone’s identity?”

  “Try again.”

  “A entirely new identity. Crosetti created a new identity for himself. Fine. It’s been done before. But he must have left a trail.”

  “Not this time.”

  “Listen, Sarge. I worked a couple of missing person cases like this, okay? If it’s worth your time, effort, and expense, you can find anyone. People don’t just disappear. They always, always, always leave behind a trace of themselves.”

  “He could pull it off if he had help.”

  “From who? Who has the resources for a gag like that?”

  “Who do you think?”

  The answer came to me quickly, but I didn’t want to say it.

  “Hey, McKenzie,” Sergeant Brehmer said after a brief pause.

  “Yeah.”

  “We didn’t have this conversation.”

  4

  I was surprised by how calmly the news reader at MPR said, “Authorities are still seeking suspects in the apparent gangland slaying of an elderly Carver County beekeeper Saturday morning.” But then Minnesota Public Radio always gave the news without hype or suspense or fury, and while you could detect a certain liberal sensibility, it sure beat hell out of the “nuke ’em ’til they glow” self-righteous fervor found on the so-called conservative radio stations.

  Still, I had had enough bad news. I switched on the Jeep Cherokee’s CD player and found the Badlees. They carried me west along I-394 and then north on Highway 100 into Golden Valley.

  There were few African Americans living in Carver County and no church that spoke to him, so Mr. Mosley drove all the way to King of Kings Baptist Church for services. It occurred to me that it took Mr. Mosley as much time to go to church as it took me to drive to his house, yet he had managed to visit the first-ring suburb of Minneapolis at least once a week while I couldn’t visit him a half dozen times a year.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” I heard myself mutter. “I should have …”

  Don’t go there. Don’t think about the many things you should have done for that good old man.

  The parking lot was empty. I found a space near the front door and went inside. Churches make me uncomfortable. I haven’t entered one in twenty-five years without feeling like a trespasser, and King of Kings was no exception. I had gone there with Mr. Mosley on a few occasions over the decades because he had insisted, and although the spirituals and gospel music were astounding, I found the free-flowing emotions of the parishioners embarrassing. And the spectacle of the normally reticent Mr. Mosley giving voice to his faith unnerved me. Perhaps it would have been different if my own relationship with God hadn’t been so strained. Since my mother died, I’ve seen only glimpses of him.

  Funny how tragedy brings some people closer to God while pushing others away. I figure it’s because one group doesn’t expect as much from him as the other.

  King of Kings was built like an amphitheater. The sanctuary seated eighteen hundred, with all of the pews sloping gently down toward the pulpit and a thirty-seat choir. I found Reverend Winfield in the pulpit, reading silently to himself. He looked up when he heard me and quickly removed his glasses, concealing them in a pocket.

  “McKenzie,” he said. Reverend Winfield spoke in a musical baritone, and his voice wafted gently up to me.

  “Reverend,” I replied.

  “I can’t tell you how deeply sorry I am. Violence—so many black men die today of violence.”

  I sat in a middle pew. He descended from the pulpit and crossed to the railing in front of the first pew. His hands were at his side, his fingers tapping a rhythm against his thighs, a nervous habit, perhaps, that I hadn’t noticed in our previous meetings.

  “I’ve been trying to remember the last time I saw you in church,” he told me.

  “So have I.”

  “How can I help you?”

  I asked about funeral arrangements.

  “Since he was a Korean War veteran, Mr. Mosley will be interred at Fort Snelling with military honors.”

  Fort Snelling National Cemetery, I thought. They would add his bleached-white headstone to its 430 acres of monuments, all laid out in tidy military columns, some dating back to the Civil War. I had been there with my father, watched him salute long-ago comrades. Many fell in battle. Others from accident, disease, or just old age. How many were murdered? I wondered. And did it matter? Fort Snelling was very strict about the uniform dimensions and composition of the headstones. Most were marble or granite; a few were made of bronze. Yet after all was said and done, wasn’t one stone as cold as any other? Wasn’t death just as final?

  “Mr. Mosley had no immediate family,” Reverend Winfield said.

  “I know. He was property of the state.”

  “Mr. Mosley was no one’s property.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “The church was his family,” the reverend said.

  “I know.”

  “He left all of his worldly possessions to the church.”

  “I know that, too. That’s what I came to talk about. I’m concerned about his business, about Mosley Honey Farms. Are you going to sell it?”

  “Do you want to buy it?”

  “I might.”

  “You don’t strike me as a beekeeper.”

  I had to laugh. “I’m not. Far from it.”

  “Why, then, are you interested?”

  “A man should leave more behind than just the joyful memories of the people
who knew him.”

  “I personally believe that’s the best a man can leave behind. But no matter. The church is going to keep Mosley Honey Farms, McKenzie. We’ll continue to operate it under Mr. Mosley’s name, with the profits going to the church. Lorenzo Hernandez, Mr. Mosley’s employee, has volunteered to run the business for us.”

  That didn’t exactly fill me with confidence, remembering what Mr. Mosley had to say about Hernandez, but I let it slide.

  “Obviously you cared for Mr. Mosley,” Reverend Winfield said.

  “I loved that old man. He helped raise me.”

  “You should speak of him at the memorial. The funeral can’t take place until the county medical examiner releases the body. We don’t know when that will be. But the church is holding a memorial service for Mr. Mosley tonight.”

  “I don’t like funerals.”

  “Who does? I expect to see you, McKenzie. At 7:00 P.M. sharp.”

  “I’ll be there if I can.”

  “What could possibly keep you away?”

  I didn’t answer.

  The reverend seemed to read my mind.

  “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.”

  I headed for the doors. Reverend Winfield called my name. I answered with a wave.

  I didn’t tell him, but as far as I was concerned, the Lord could get in line.

  Norwood Young America had two downtown areas, separated by Highway 212, and I searched them both. It didn’t take long. Norwood and Young America had originally been two independent cities, but the single community that was created following their 1997 merger could still fit inside the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome with room left over for a few nonincorporated townships.

  My plan, such as it was, was simple. Like bees, people tend to stay close to their hives, and judging by Crosetti’s enormous stomach, he was a man who indulged his appetites. So it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that he might have frequented a bar or restaurant within, say, a ten-mile radius of his house on the hill. Possibly he revealed something of himself to someone he met there. Possibly that someone might give me the information I needed to identify him, to find him and his thugs. Possibly.

  The search began cheerfully enough. I even bought drinks and sandwiches and joked with the help at Richard’s on Main, Kube’s, Daboars Bar and Grill, the Flame Lounge, and Siggy’s on 212. But I began losing patience by the time I reached the Elm Street Station. I had asked for Crosetti by name and described him to each manager, bartender, and waitress and all the patrons who would talk to me, yet no one admitted to knowing him. My frustration reached its peak when I stepped out of the Last Call to discover a parking ticket tucked beneath my windshield wiper. Murphy’s Law. If I knew where the SOB lived, I’d go over there and kick his ass. I crumbled the ticket into a ball and tossed it in the direction of my backseat. “You’ll never take me alive, coppers,” I snarled in my best Edward G. Robinson. Sometimes I like to entertain myself.

  A roadhouse near Braunworth Lake late in the afternoon showed promise, but only because the bartender was belligerent. It was cramped and dark and had sticky rubber tiles on the floor. The clientele was 90 percent male—not a gay bar, just a joint where you don’t take women.

  When I entered, the drone of conversation decreased in volume while the dirt and dairy farmers, creamery workers, construction workers, and county highway employees assembled there assessed my value. It took only a moment for them to decide that I wasn’t worth noticing, and the volume quickly returned to normal.

  The bartender was leaning against the stick. He looked like a man whose idea of a mixed drink was water on the side.

  “I’m looking for Frank Crosetti,” I told him.

  “Should I care?”

  “I owe him a few bucks.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I bet on the Wild to win the NHL title.”

  “Why’d you do a stupid thing like that?”

  “Wishful thinking. So, has he been around?”

  “Maybe.”

  I felt a flush of anger at his remark, as if the bartender were trying to cheat me out of my share of the lottery. I tried to keep it out of my voice.

  “Look, pal. If you know Crosetti, you know he’s not somebody you welsh on. Do you expect him around or not?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “My name’s McKenzie.”

  “Sometimes he comes in, sometimes he doesn’t. He don’t keep to no schedule.”

  “Have you seen him around lately?”

  “Not for a couple of days.”

  “Know where I can find him when he’s not here?”

  “No.”

  I believed him. Crosetti had moved in only six weeks earlier, and I doubted that he would have become so valuable a customer that the bartender would protect him. Only what did I know? Maybe they had been Boy Scouts together.

  I ordered a draft. The bartender poured it. I slid a five across the stick, and he put it in his pocket. I knew there would be no change.

  “If you want to talk to Crosetti so bad, why don‘tcha call ’im?” he said.

  “Do you know his number?”

  “No.”

  “Neither do I.”

  The bartender folded his arms across his chest and watched me sip the beer. From his exaggerated sigh, I had the distinct impression I wasn’t drinking fast enough. I drained the glass and set it down in front of me. He made no effort to refill it. I took that as a hint.

  I was running out of possibilities. All the names on the list I had compiled from the Norwood Young America telephone directory had been scratched out except for the name of the roadhouse, which I had circled, and two others.

  My next stop was the Norwood Inn. The folks there were pleasant enough, but no one had ever seen or heard of Crosetti. That left Carver Suites on Highway 212, just east of the city.

  The lounge was light and airy, and so was the conversation of the women and men who gathered there—more women than men—all of them dressed for business that was conducted in an office. The happyhour piano player was beating the daylights out of some very good Cole Porter, and for a moment I could imagine Nina Truhler beating the daylights out of him. She loved Porter, and Hoagie Carmichael and the Gershwins and anyone else who could put words to melody and create magic.

  I sat at the bar. A table tent recommended a lite beer. I ignored it. The bartender smiled and welcomed me warmly—actually said, “Welcome”—and asked what I’d have. I ordered black coffee with a slug of bourbon in it and wondered if Mr. Mosley would approve. The bartender served it on a napkin that told me Carver Suites was a proud sponsor of Stiftungsfest, the annual founders festival, and then went off to welcome other guests. While he was gone I dragged the room with my eyes. There were a few couples, but mostly groups of four or more gathered at the tables. Against the wall, as far away from the piano player as she could get, sat a woman alone. She wore a thin dress and an expression that solicited company. I had the feeling that any company would do. There was a cast on her left hand.

  When the bartender returned, I asked him, “Have you seen Frank Crosetti lately?”

  “That fat pig?” Talk about taking the happy out of happy hour. “No, I haven’t seen him, but if I do I’m going to kick his ass. Why? You a friend of his?”

  He asked the question like he was inviting me to step outside.

  “He’s no friend of mine,” I assured him. “And if you want to kick his ass I’ll be happy to hold your coat.”

  The bartender’s smile returned just as quickly as it had left. “Sorry ’bout that.”

  “No problem.”

  “Let me freshen that for you.” He refilled my mug. “So you don’t like Crosetti, either.”

  “What’s to like?”

  “Not much.”

  “I take it he was a customer.”

  “Briefly.”

  “But not anymore.”

  “If I ever see him again …” He shook his head bitterly.

  “What did he do?”
/>
  “He broke a woman’s hand.”

  “Why?”

  “For the fun of it.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like my guy. When did you see him last?”

  “About a week ago.”

  “Know where I can find him?”

  “No, but—” His eyes wandered to the woman sitting alone. “Are you screwing with me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You say you’re no friend of Crosetti. So why are you looking for him?”

  “I want to hurt him just as badly as I can.”

  I regretted the words the moment I spoke them—I could already hear the bartender repeating them to various cops and county attorneys. But playing off his anger seemed like a good idea at the time.

  The bartender nodded and looked again at the woman, who was looking back. “You should talk to Janel.”

  He gestured with his head. The woman smiled expectantly and rose from her chair. In her heels she ran to five-ten, most of it in her legs. I caught the blue in her eyes halfway across the room.

  “Gentleman would like to speak with you,” the bartender told her when she approached.

  “What would the gentleman like to speak about?”

  “Frank Crosetti.”

  The woman spun around neatly and, without a suggestion of haste, returned to her table.

  “Guess she doesn’t want to talk,” said the bartender.

  “What’s she drinking?”

  “Gimlets.”

  “Bring her one.” I drained the coffee and bourbon. “And another one of these.”

  I left the bar and sauntered over to the woman’s table.

  “Hi, Janel. My name’s McKenzie.”

  “Are you a cop?”

  “Do I look like a cop?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your instincts are good. I used to be one, but not anymore. May I join you?”

  She didn’t say I couldn’t, so I took the chair opposite her. She watched me suspiciously.

  “Like I said. I’m not a cop. I’m not a prosecutor. You have nothing to fear from me.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for Frank Crosetti.”

  “Why?”

  I glanced down at her cast.