What the Dead Leave Behind Page 7

  It was an unexpected courtesy, especially given the circumstances. In Minnesota in winter, visitors are usually asked to deposit their shoes and boots at the front door.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Still, I wiped them vigorously before I followed him into an expansive living room. It was also well decorated; it reminded me a little bit of the holiday displays in the Mall of America.

  “Mrs. Szereto, whatshisname is here,” he shouted.

  “McKenzie,” I said.

  “Whatever.”

  A woman entered the room. She was tall and thin with short white hair; her face was made up as if she were expecting someone to take her photograph. Her clothes looked like something advertised in next month’s Vogue, yet her eyes were as old as Babylon. I knew from my research that she had been a model; a full twenty years younger than her husband when they married and twenty years older than her son when he died. Which made her, what? Sixty? Sixty-five?

  “Are you McKenzie?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Mrs. Jonathan Szereto.”

  She offered her hand and I shook it. The thirtysomething watched us. Mrs. Szereto threw a glance at him over her shoulder. I didn’t know enough to decipher their private code, yet something in her smile must have relayed specific instructions, because he announced, “I have things to do.” He left the room, though not before pausing to straighten a pillow that didn’t need straightening. The look he gave me—you didn’t need to be a code-breaker to translate its meaning. “Be very careful,” it said.

  “Housekeeper?” I asked.

  “Jack McKasy,” Mrs. Szereto said. “He’s my man-about-the-house; takes care of things for me and Nessa, does what needs to be done, runs errands. He has rooms above the garage.” Her face brightened. “Housekeeper, though. I’m going to call him that; hear what he says. Bet he doesn’t like it.”

  She reached out her hand. I removed my coat and handed it to her. Mrs. Szereto draped it over the back of a chair.

  “I must say that I was quite intrigued by your phone call. That, however, is not why I agreed to meet with you. Should I tell you why I agreed to see you? It’s because I know who you are, McKenzie. From the newspapers.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “I was a good friend of Reney Rogers; played poker with her every Wednesday at Club Versailles for years. I liked her very much.”

  So did I, my inner voice reminded me.

  “I cried and cried when I learned that she had been raped and murdered. I didn’t stop crying until I read that you found the man who did it. Tell me, McKenzie, how did it feel when you shot him?”

  “Can’t say I felt much of anything.”

  “Now you want to kill the man who murdered my son.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. If that was what Mrs. Szereto was hoping for, saying no might cause her to toss me out of her house, and I would lose the access to the Szereto Corporation that I was hoping for. If I said yes, she’d probably know I was lying. The truth is, I’ve killed people both as a police officer and whatever you would call what I do now, and it’s taken its toll. I often have trouble sleeping, and when I do sleep I sometimes have distressing dreams. I find that I’m occasionally irritable, too, and prone to angry outbursts for no particular reason. In moments of solitude, I actually mourn the people I’ve shot, even the ones who were trying to shoot me. Except for the man who murdered Reney Rogers. Killing him didn’t bother me one damn bit.

  “Well?” Mrs. Szereto said.

  “I’d like to find out who did it before I make any promises.”

  “You do want to see the person punished?”

  “Yes,” I said, although after speaking with Stuart Mason, I wasn’t sure that was true.

  Mrs. Szereto nodded her head as if she found the answer acceptable.

  “Some people think I might have killed him,” she said. “Detective Sergeant Margaret Utley of the St. Louis Park Police Department—do you know her?”

  “We’ve met.”

  “She didn’t say it to my face, but I know she considers me a suspect. McKenzie, do you think it’s possible for a mother to murder her only child?”

  “Yes.”

  Mrs. Szereto folded her arms across her chest and stilled herself. An electrified fence of hostility spread from her eyes.

  “You do?” she said.

  Uh-oh, my inner voice said. You had better say something smart or she’s going to fry your ass.

  “Some sons need killing,” I said.

  She took a measured step toward me.

  You call that smart?

  “’Course, that’s what wives are for,” I said.

  She halted and slowly dropped her arms to her sides. The barrier lowered with them.

  “If you knew Nessa…”

  The squeal of a young voice interrupted her. A moment later a boy dashed into the room. He could not have been much more than two years old. He flattened himself against the wall just inside the doorway. A woman entered. She might have been Mrs. Szereto forty years ago; her golden hair was even cut short like the older woman’s. She was hunched over, pretending to be some kind of animal.

  “Arrrrrg, where are you?” she said.

  The boy giggled. The woman pivoted toward him.

  “Arrrrrg, there you are.”

  She gathered the boy in her arms and started kissing his cheek and neck. He laughed as if it were the most fun he’d ever had.

  Mrs. Jonathan Szereto said, “McKenzie, this is Mrs. Jonathan Szereto.”

  By then, the younger woman had flipped the boy over and was holding him upside down by his ankles. She spoke to me from between his sneakers.

  “Hello. My mother-in-law told me you were coming over.”

  Mrs. Szereto gestured at the boy.

  “And this young rapscallion is Mr. Jonathan Szereto the Third.”

  “Hi,” I said.

  I shook the boy’s hand. The fact that he was upside down at the time made him giggle some more.

  “It must get very confusing around here,” I said.

  “We’re forever opening each other’s mail,” the younger Mrs. Szereto said. “It’ll be easier if you call me Vanessa.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You can call me Evelyn,” the older Mrs. Szereto said.

  I bent over and looked at the boy, holding my head sideways.

  “What should I call you?” I asked.

  “Mommy is a bear,” he said.

  “A very pretty bear.”

  Geezuz, my inner voice said. You just can’t help yourself, can you?

  “Arrrrg,” Vanessa growled. She swung the boy by his ankles and carried him from the room. “Time for you to hibernate.”

  “What’s that?” the kid asked.

  “Nap.”

  “Noooooo.”

  “Cute boy,” I said when they were gone.

  “Unfortunately, he’ll grow up to be a man,” Evelyn said.

  “Not necessarily. Some boys never grow up.”

  “Like my son?”

  I turned. Evelyn was standing so close to me that for a moment she was all eyes. I was startled enough to take two steps backward. Evelyn lowered herself onto a sofa that looked as if it cost as much as my car. She patted the cushion next to her. I sat. She turned toward me, propping herself up against the back of the sofa with an elbow. The V-neck of her blouse fell open slightly, and I caught a glimpse of her lace bra. I think I was supposed to, the way she smiled when she saw my eyes flick down and up again.

  What the hell? my inner voice wondered.

  “I used to model,” Evelyn said. “I was very successful at it.”

  “I believe that.”

  “I went by the name Eve back then. It was how Jonathan and I met, at a photo shoot for one of his products. He was smitten with me.”

  “I believe that, too”

  “He took me to dinner that very evening, and so on and so forth.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do
you know what I mean by ‘so on and so forth’?”

  “I was told that touching the model is off-limits.”

  “The rule applies to the photographer, not the client.”

  “That’s convenient.”

  There was something purring in her laugh, a sensual something, and I wondered how long it had taken her to get the sound just so.

  “McKenzie, am I making you nervous?” Evelyn asked.

  “Yes, you are.”

  She laughed some more and squeezed my thigh.

  She’s playing you, my inner voice said.

  You think?

  I wonder why.

  Sex?

  No. Something else.

  “Nice to know that a girl still has it after all these years,” Evelyn said.

  She surprised me by leaving the sofa and taking up residence in a chair on the other side of the coffee table.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Only marginally.”

  “You’re cute. Don’t worry, McKenzie. I’m taken.”

  I flashed on Jack McKasy; my inner voice said, Hmmm.

  “Oh?” I asked aloud.

  “My grandson is the only man in my life now.”

  “Ahhh.”

  “My daughter-in-law is available, however. She also modeled. She was twenty when she met my son at a photo shoot, family history repeating itself. She’s twenty-five now. And very wealthy. One day soon—well, not too soon, I hope—she’ll have more money than God. Rich, young, and beautiful. Sounds irresistible, doesn’t it?”

  “Hard to resist, anyway.”

  “You said she was pretty.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “You’re thinking about sex now, aren’t you?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Men—that’s all you have on your minds. They say a man thinks about sex every seven seconds.”

  “Not true. Speaking from experience, when I’m playing hockey or watching a ball game, or reading a book, I can go as many as three or four minutes without thinking about sex.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “It’s one of my proudest achievements.”

  “My son thought about sex constantly. I think now that he might have been addicted to it. McKenzie, I know what he was accused of. I believe those accusations. I didn’t at first. I told the detective that they weren’t true, but I knew. Jonathan … shocked me by some of the things he did. Do I look like someone who’s easily shocked?”

  “No.”

  “He shocked me. For a long time I couldn’t think about any of this, much less talk about it. Now, so much time has passed … Jonny was sick: a terrible thing for a mother to say, I know. I hated him for what he did to those women. He was also my son, so I loved him, too.”

  “Stuart Mason said you covered up for him.”

  “Paid to cover up for him. There’s a difference. Well, maybe there isn’t. It was a difficult situation. I knew Jonathan had to go—from the company, I mean. He couldn’t be allowed to run the company, but his name, my husband’s name—in the beauty industry, fashion industry, the name is everything. It was the name I was protecting. I didn’t kill him, though, or have it done, I don’t care what Detective Sergeant Margaret Utley might suspect. I couldn’t have done that. No. And Nessa—having seen her, met her, do you think it’s possible that lovely young woman could have murdered her husband?”

  “You’d be amazed at what people can do given proper motivation.”

  “You’re a cynic, McKenzie.”

  “Really, I’m not. A cynic is someone with a high opinion of people who becomes disappointed when they don’t live up to his expectations. I’m rarely disappointed in people.”

  “Is that because you have such a low opinion of them to start with?”

  “I’m just saying most people are pretty dependable.”

  “I can use a man like you.”

  You can?

  “In what capacity?” I asked.

  “There you go, thinking about sex again.”

  No, I wasn’t. Was I?

  “No,” Evelyn said. “What I want— My grandson—he’s two years old now. McKenzie, I believe the most important things happen to us while we’re young. Successes and failures, significant emotional events—they’re what turn us into the people we become. What will happen to my grandson, I wonder, if he grows up amidst rumors that his mother or grandmother murdered his father? Do you think that might affect his life? Maybe ruin his life?”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Precious few people know about Jonny, what he did, including the people at the corporation, and I’ve worked very hard to keep it that way. If it ever got out … Yet even so, a lot of people suspect I killed my own son, or Vanessa killed him, or that we conspired to kill him together, take your pick. It’s a lie.”

  “Okay.”

  “I want you to prove it.”

  “Me?”

  “McKenzie, I want you to clear my name—clear it for my grandson’s sake. I’d offer you money, except that you don’t do these things for money, do you? No one paid you to find Reney Rogers’s killer.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Well, then?”

  “I won’t make a promise I can’t keep.”

  “When we spoke on the phone you told me about young Malcolm Harris, about trying to learn who killed his father. What promise did you make him?”

  “Only that I would look into it.”

  “That’s acceptable to me. Besides, didn’t you say there was a possibility that Jonathan’s murder and Frank Harris’s murder were connected? Isn’t that why we’re sitting here?”

  “Yes.”

  Evelyn showed me the palms of her hands.

  “Did you know Harris?” I asked.

  “I met him once. Him and his wife. At my party. I always throw a New Year’s Eve party for our employees, those in our corporate offices. We spoke for ten minutes at the most. I doubt I would have even remembered him except that his wife”—Evelyn’s fingers went to her throat—“she was wearing a dress with a very high collar, but I could see the bruises on her neck anyway. He was another man who abused women, wasn’t he?”

  “That’s what the cops think.”

  Evelyn looked up and away as if she were trying to fix something in her mind. After a moment she shook her head.

  “You came here to ask for a favor,” she said. “What is it?”

  “I need access.”

  “To…?”

  “The Szereto Corporation; your employees. I spoke to Diane Dauria, but I doubt she’ll let me interview anyone else over there unless…”

  “Unless I tell her to.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Help me and I’ll help you. It’s that simple.”

  Why do I have the feeling you’re making a deal with the devil?

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I’ll speak to her, then.”

  “Speak to whom?” Vanessa Szereto asked. She moved across the room and sat in the chair next to Evelyn’s, tucking her feet beneath her the way some women do.

  “I was just about to invite McKenzie to the party.”

  “You should.”

  “My annual New Year’s Eve party tomorrow night for the employees, shareholders, important vendors, anyone connected to the Szereto Corporation. We hold it here. I could introduce you around, make sure people know you have my blessing.”

  “Blessing for what?” Vanessa asked.

  “Frank Harris, one of our employees, was murdered a year ago.”

  “I remember. Poor man.”

  “McKenzie thinks his death might be connected to Jonny’s murder.”

  I watched Vanessa’s face for some sign of guilty knowledge.

  “Do you think that the killer might be at the party?” she asked. “That is so Agatha Christie. Will you unmask him the way it’s done at the end of her books?”

  Not the reaction you were expecting, my inner voice told me.

>   “Probably not,” I said.

  “You should come anyway. It’s always a lot of fun. We’ll have live music.”

  “We start early,” Evelyn said. “About six o’clock, so employees who have other commitments can make an appearance and then leave. Unfortunately, those who stay—by midnight half of them will be thoroughly intoxicated. I end up sending them home in shuttles I hire for the occasion.”

  That sounds promising, my inner voice said. Alcohol and loose lips. On the other hand, Nina won’t like it. ’Course, she’ll be busy at the club—and it’s not like you have to stay until midnight.

  “That’s very kind of you,” I said.

  “I’ll count on your presence, then,” Evelyn said.

  “Please do.”

  “Nessa, you should wear your strapless red silk. I bet McKenzie would like that very much. Wouldn’t you, McKenzie?”

  “I’m sure your daughter-in-law would look fine in anything she chooses to wear.”

  Vanessa chuckled at the compliment. “Don’t mind my mother-in-law,” she said. “She’s been trying to fix me up ever since … for a couple of years, now. It annoys her that I’ve chosen to live the life of a single mom.”

  “I can take care of the boy,” Evelyn said. “At your age you should be taking care of yourself.”

  “I always have.”

  “McKenzie. I demand that you dance with Nessa at the party.”

  “It would be my pleasure,” I said.

  “And so on and so forth.”

  “Evelyn,” Vanessa said.

  “What did I say?” Evelyn asked.

  I rose slowly from the sofa.

  “The call to Dauria,” I said. “You’ll make it today?”

  “As soon as you leave,” Evelyn said.

  I retrieved my coat and gave the two women a Minnesota good-bye, meaning I took my own sweet time at the door thanking them for their courtesy and telling them how much I looked forward to seeing them again. It wasn’t a matter of being polite. I just didn’t want them to know how discombobulated they had both made me feel.

  After the final good-bye, I slipped out of the front door. Evelyn called to me.

  “Oh, by the way, McKenzie—the party is black tie.”