Dead Boyfriends Page 6

  “McKenzie,” Shelby said. “She’s the best of them. Mary Beth, Annie, Judy, Theresa, Robin, Kirsten—Nina is the best of them.”

  “No, you’re the best of them.”

  “Balderdash.”

  “Balderdash?”

  “I’m just the excuse you use. You pretend to be in love with your best friend’s wife, and since you can’t have her, you won’t marry anyone. ‘Pity me, the poor lonely bachelor.’ It’s balderdash.”

  “There’s that word again.”

  “If I were suddenly free—if Bobby got hit by a truck tomorrow—it’d be the same ol’ thing. Just didn’t work out, time to move on.”

  I looked at Bobby.

  “It’s true,” he said. “If it wasn’t, I would have blown your brains out back when we were in college.”

  “It’s fear of commitment,” Shelby said. “That’s what we’re talking about.”

  “Balderdash.”

  Shelby looked at me as if I were nuts.

  “You said it first,” I reminded her.

  “We’re trying to cut down on the cursing because of the girls.”

  “Yeah, but do you really want your kids to go around saying balderdash?”

  Shelby refused to be distracted.

  “She’s the best of all the women you’ve known, McKenzie,” she said. “She really is.”

  “I know.”

  “We’ll make Moorhead buy drinks at Nina’s place,” Bobby said. “He can apologize to her at the same time. Whaddya say?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Bobby, the dream came back.”

  “The dream? The shotgun dream?”

  “It came back when I was in jail and then again last night.”

  “I thought you were done with that.”

  “So did I.”

  “You were supposed to get therapy,” Shelby said.

  “I did.”

  “You went three times and then you quit—pronounced yourself cured and started dating the therapist.”

  “Dr. Jillian DeMarais. She was a babe.”

  “She was a bitch,” said Bobby.

  “Nonetheless.”

  “McKenzie, the dream,” said Shelby.

  “It doesn’t freak me out,” I told her. “It wakes me up sometimes, but it’s not like I can’t sleep or I’m afraid to sleep. I don’t shake, rattle, or roll—I can still function. It’s just a dream. Like the one I used to have about not being able to find the classroom during finals. It’ll go away just like it did before. Don’t worry about it.”

  “What if it doesn’t go away?”

  “It will.”

  “You have to see someone, seriously this time.”

  “Not a bad idea,” said Bobby. “It wouldn’t hurt.”

  “I’d have to be nuts to go to a psychiatrist,” I said.

  No one laughed at the joke.

  Lemonade was sipped.

  Silent moments passed.

  “What are you going to do?” Bobby asked.

  “About what?”

  “About Moorhead,” Bobby said.

  “About Nina,” Shelby said.

  They looked at each other. Shelby scowled and said, “First things first.” Bobby surrendered without firing a shot.

  “About Nina,” Shelby repeated.

  “I’ll apologize. Again. I’ll try to win her back. Will that make you happy?”

  Shelby smiled like it would.

  “About Moorhead?” asked Bobby.

  “The bastard put me in jail. He gave me bad dreams. Fuck ’im.”

  “McKenzie,” Shelby said.

  “Balderdash.”

  It just didn’t sound the same.

  I looked at my watch. Eleven forty-seven. Eleven forty-seven at night and I was sweating in my car, the windows rolled down, crickets chirping all over the damn place. I could have closed the windows and used the AC, but that would have been a dead giveaway. A car parked along a residential street with the engine running—I might as well hang a sign from both bumpers reading UP TO NO GOOD. AS it was, I was surprised the good folks in Mahtomedi weren’t more observant. I was surprised someone hadn’t already called the cops. I was surprised that the cops weren’t shining their bright lights inside my Audi and demanding that I state my business.

  “It’s like this, Officer, I’m spying on my girlfriend.”

  Yeah, that would go over big.

  What the hell are you doing here? my inner voice wanted to know.

  Just curious, I told it.

  What else?

  Angry, excited, afraid, jealous, guilty, hopeful. . .

  Hopeful?

  Especially hopeful, although hopeful for what I couldn’t say. I had been parked down the street from Nina’s home for the better part of two hours, and I couldn’t explain my motives to myself any better than when I first arrived. I guess I just wanted to see it for myself—Nina with another man. I could believe it if I saw it for myself.

  What good would that do?

  My God, you ask a lot of questions.

  I looked at my watch again. Eleven forty-nine. How long does it take to eat dinner, anyway?

  I turned on my radio and hit the scan button until it stopped at 89.3 FM, the Current, Minnesota Public Radio’s new alternative rock station. Some people have labeled it the radio station for music connoisseurs, and it certainly is that. The first hour I listened to it I heard Otis Redding, Chet Baker, Johnny Cash, the Jayhawks, Little Eva, Blind Willie Johnson, the Byrds, Chaka Khan, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and five bands that were new to me. I was hooked and remain so, although I must admit that as good as its selections usually are, sometimes the Current plays music of such stunning awfulness that I figure the DJ must have lost a bet. Like now. They were playing something I could only describe as Pakistani hip-hop.

  I switched off the radio.

  Where in hell was Nina? Didn‘t she know what time it was?

  Eleven fifty-two by my watch.

  A high-end Beamer captured my attention as it turned onto the street where Nina lived. I watched as it inched forward and turned into Nina’s driveway. Its engine was switched off and its headlamps extinguished. Nothing moved for five minutes. I imagined what a couple could be doing in a parked car for five minutes and my hands tightened on my own steering wheel. Finally, the driver’s door opened. A man slipped out of the car—Daniel the architect, if Jenness’s description held true. He moved around the car and halted. His body language told me that he was disappointed Nina didn’t wait for him to open her car door.

  Attagirl, Nina.

  He followed her to the front door and stood close to her while she worked the lock with her keys. The door opened. She turned to face him.

  Don’t kiss him!

  She didn’t. Instead, Nina took his hand and led him inside. The door closed behind them.

  I stared at it for a long time.

  You could kill him, my inner voice told me. It would be easy.

  Yes, it would be easy. I’d get away with it, too. Simply wait for him to get into his car, follow him out of the neighborhood, pull up next to him when he stops at a light, roll down the window, say “Hey,” and when he leans over put two rounds between his eyes and drive away. No muss, no fuss.

  Yeah, but what about the next one? Or the one after that? If I started piling up dead boyfriends, Nina was bound to get suspicious. And how long could I get away with it before Bobby Dunston carted me off to Oak Park Heights?

  I shook the idea from my head.

  You could beat him up instead.

  But what if he wasn’t as soft as Jenness thought he was? There’s nothing worse than picking a fight with a guy to impress a woman and getting your ass kicked.

  What other options do you have?

  A voodoo priestess once taught me a simple way to hex my enemies. She said I should write the evildoer’s name nine times and insert the paper into the mouth of a snake.

  Except you don’t have a snake.


  “Nina.” I said the name out loud just to hear the sound of it. It didn’t do me any good.

  I started the Audi, flipped on the headlights, and put it in gear.

  Well, you saw Nina with another man. Are you happy now?

  4

  I stood in the silent kitchen, doing a slow three-sixty, taking it all in. I loved my gadgets, and the counters and cupboards were loaded with them—pasta maker, bread maker, Cuisinart, blender, microwave oven, food dehydrator, deep fryer, rotisserie, ice cream churn, Macho Pop popcorn popper, mini-donut machine, sno-cone machine, pizza oven. Only it was my silver Vienna de Luxe coffee machine that I was searching for.

  I had poured myself another drink before I went to bed. And another. And one more. Now I had awakened with a hangover that rocked my head and sent my stomach into a whirlpool of nausea. Still, I’ve had hangovers before, and I knew I would survive. Pepto-Bismol, toast, coffee, lots and lots of coffee, and I would function fine until noon, a respectable hour when I could have a stiff drink to help take the edge off.

  Ingredients were already loaded into the machine. I pressed a button and a predetermined amount of French vanilla almond coffee beans was reduced to a fine powder in about six seconds and sprinkled into a filter; spring water was poured, and the coffee brewed.

  I split a bagel and dropped the two halves into my toaster. While it was toasting I put on a CD, Tosca, by Giacomo Puccini. I don’t have a lot of opera in my collection—normally, I’m a jazz guy—except I had been introduced to opera by Kirsten Sager Whitson, the very lovely, very wealthy woman who dumped me just before I met Nina, and somehow it seemed appropriate.

  The opera was filled with heartache. It was all about Tosca, a beautiful singer who is forced to sacrifice her body and soul to the villainous Baron Scarpia in order to save the life of her boyfriend, Mario, whom the baron has imprisoned. Naturally, everyone dies in the end. Yet while I sipped my coffee and munched my bagel and listened to the incomparable Maria Callas sing the hell out of the lead, I had to wonder—when did I become Baron Scarpia?

  Stalking Nina, lurking outside her home, contemplating the murder of her boyfriend even in jest—are you kidding me? I don’t do things like that. I’m a good guy. Even the people who hate my guts would have to admit I’m a good guy, and where I come from, being a good guy isn’t just a compliment. It’s a responsibility. You’re expected to step up. You’re expected to take care of business. You’re expected to behave like a man who can be trusted at all times.

  I still had high hopes that I could win Nina back. After all, I’m rich, I’m good-looking, I can cook—I’m a helluva catch. Yet if I couldn’t, certainly she must know she could trust me to take it like a man, like a good guy. Otherwise, I had no business dating in the first place.

  I toasted Nina with my coffee cup at just about the moment in the opera when Tosca jumps off a parapet after first vowing to meet her tormentor in hell.

  “Here’s to you, sweetie,” I said.

  Then I went to work.

  My PC was located in what my father used to call the “family room”—one of the few rooms in my house that was actually furnished—where I also kept my CD player and CD collection, my books, my DVDs, and my big-screen plasma TV. I was using the PC to surf databases, gathering background information on both Merodie Davies and Priscilla St. Ana of Woodbury, Minnesota. It wasn’t difficult. Nor did the social scans trouble my conscience.

  The right-to-privacy zealots who fight tooth and nail to keep our deepest darkest secrets from prying eyes don’t get it. It has always been possible for someone to learn an individual’s employment, medical, and credit history, as well as the schools he’s attended, the addresses he’s lived at, his criminal record, whether or not he’s married, whatever. It merely demanded more effort. An investigator was required to actually visit the sites where records were stored and physically sift through mountains of paper to find the information he needed.

  Now he can accomplish the task with just a few strategic cursor movements and keystrokes. The government is even helping us. County Web sites list citizens’ property tax information. The Department of Motor Vehicles will happily reveal a driver’s record for a mere nine dollars and fifty cents. The Minnesota Court Information System allows anyone with a PC to immediately access all orders, judgments, and appellate decisions. If you want filings by private parties that aren’t generated by the courts, or charging documents such as criminal complaints, you’re welcome to use the public access terminals available at the courthouse.

  The depth and breadth of data available never ceases to amaze me. So much of it is tied to the nine-digit number the government assigns to each American shortly after birth. Yet even without a Social Security number, I can easily zero in on a target, trapping him in a snare of computer printouts. It’s just a matter of knowing where and how to look and I know. I had been taught by a South Korean computer genius named Kim. Her massive tip sheet made the task easier—I had it laminated—along with other helpful hints on what to look for and how. Yet even without them, I was pretty adept at exposing an individual’s history.

  By ten fifteen I had learned nearly everything that was public record about Merodie Davies and Priscilla St. Ana, and a few phone calls gave me more. I arranged the information in a file folder and then made appointments to visit a few people. I was about to call G. K. to give her an update when the phone rang.

  A recorded voice told me: Qwest has a collect call from Merodie Davies, an inmate at the Anoka County Correctional Facility. To refuse this call, hang up. If you accept this call, do not use three-way or call-waiting features or you will be disconnected. To accept this call, press 1 now. Thank you.

  I pressed 1.

  “Hello? Merodie?”

  “Hi, McKenzie. Yeah, it’s me. I’m still in jail.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I guess. I just got done with treatment. They make you go through treatment in here and—G. K. said I could talk to you. Can I talk to you?”

  “Sure, but, Merodie, you need to be careful what you say. They tape these phone conversations, and anything you say can be used against you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

  “McKenzie—your first name is Rushmore, isn’t it? What kind of name is Rushmore?”

  “My parents once took a vacation in the Badlands of South Dakota. They told me I was conceived in a motor lodge near Mount Rushmore, so they named me after the monument. But it could have been worse. It could have been Deadwood.”

  I’ve told that story many times, and each time I got a laugh. Merodie didn’t laugh. She said, “I’m so sorry.”

  “No, no, no—”

  “It musta been hard on you.”

  “It’s not that bad—”

  “I understand what you’ve been through because, well, because of my name.”

  “Merodie?”

  “Yeah. I’m probably the only woman in the world who has it. At least I hope so.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Merodie is the name of a man’s underwear manufacturer. I don’t even know if it exists anymore.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Uh-uh. My mom, she saw the name on a box in a store somewhere in South Dakota—same place your name comes from, isn’t that a coincidence? Anyway, it was years and years ago when she saw the name. She always thought it was a good name for a girl, and when I was born . . .”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true. My mother named me after men’s underwear. You know what? Like the guys say, I’ve been taking it in the shorts ever since.”

  She laughed when she said it, but there was no humor in her voice, and for a moment I thought the laughter would change to tears.

  “I’m sorry, Merodie.”

  “It’s okay. My mother’s done worse to me than give me a crummy name. A lot of people have done worse. You kinda get used to it.”

  “I’m sor
ry.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Hey, are you all right?” she asked me. “You sound funny.”

  “I’m good.”

  “You sound like you have a cold.”

  “Maybe a little one.” Somehow, telling her about my hangover didn’t seem like a good idea.

  “It’s this weather,” she said. “It’s been so hot everyone’s got their air-conditioning running full out and you go from the real cool air to real hot air and then back to the cool air and you get a cold.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “You should put some Vicks on it.”

  “Vicks?”

  “VapoRub. Put it on your chest and a little dab under your nose, it’ll clear you right up.”

  “You’re in jail, yet you’re worried that I might have a cold. That’s kind of amazing, Merodie.”

  “I don’t know why. Just cuz you have problems doesn’t mean you can’t worry about your friends, right?”

  “Right.”

  “You’re my friend, aren’t you, McKenzie?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s good, cuz a girl, she can’t have too many friends. But really, you gotta get some Vicks. You gonna get some?”

  “I will. I promise.”

  “McKenzie?”

  “Yes, Merodie?”

  “I did therapy today. I think I told you. It was so early. You wouldn’t believe how early. Up at six, shower at six fifteen, breakfast at seven. It’s like—I know it’s a jail but, my God. At seven thirty they bring me to this room, kinda like a classroom, you know, in school, and this woman was there, this chemical dependency counselor, a woman I’ve never seen before who was asking about my drinking problem. And I’m like, I don’t know this woman, so I tell her, ‘I don’t have a drinking problem,’ and she says, ‘You were in a house for two weeks with a dead man and didn’t even know it. That suggests you have a drinking problem,’ which I guess is true enough. But I didn’t kill him, McKenzie. I swear. I didn’t kill Eli. That’s what I told the counselor, and she just shakes her head and says, ‘That’s not my department,’ and I’m like, ‘What is your department?’ ”