“Absent friends,” he said.
“Absent friends.”
Janke downed all of his drink while I drank only half of mine. He looked at my glass, raised his eyes to mine, and grinned.
“I didn’t know it was a contest,” I said.
“Life is a contest, son.”
He poured another inch of bourbon into my glass and two into his.
“What’re ya gonna do about Ella?” Janke asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
“The men she—that she might have shot, they threw her off the back of a truck, you know.”
“Yes, I know. Unfortunately, it’s a little more involved than that.”
Janke raised his glass.
“Cheers to those who wish us well, all the rest can go to hell,” he said.
“Hear, hear.”
This time I emptied my glass while Janke drank only half of his. He grinned some more.
“We’re even,” he said.
He topped off his glass and refilled mine. I might have protested, except the idea of getting ridiculously drunk was starting to appeal to me.
“Did you know what El and her friends were into?” I asked.
“Not really. I knew it was somethin’, though. When they first arrived, money was tight—they were late with the rent a couple of times, complained about how hard it was for a youngster to get work in this economy. Then that Mitch character started hangin’ around, and suddenly it all sorta got straightened out, the money thing I mean. I figured the kids musta found decent jobs, but the hours they kept, no one gits t’ work those kinda hours.”
“You never thought to ask?”
“I ain’t their mommy and daddy.”
Janke raised his glass again.
“May we get what we want, but never what we deserve,” he said.
“From your lips to God’s ear.”
We heard someone pounding on Janke’s front door.
The intensity stopped us both, glasses hovering in midair.
“Now, who’d that be?” Janke asked.
He made for the door. I set down my drink and grabbed his elbow.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, you are way too trusting,” I said.
“Can’t live without trust, son. Can’t even drive down the street without trust.”
“Nonetheless…”
I halted Janke’s march to the door and stepped in front of him. The knocking was too loud, too demanding. It sounded angry to me. My internal alarm systems demanded caution. Like Mr. Janke, I had also seen and done things …
“Just a sec,” I said.
I made my voice sound low and conciliatory. It should have calmed our visitor. Instead, the knocking resumed with even greater vigor.
A copy of the Minneapolis Star Tribune was resting on Janke’s coffee table. He watched from a safe distance as I picked it up with my left hand and moved to the right of the doorjamb. The pounding continued. I waved the newspaper in front of the spy hole, so anyone watching on the other side would see its shadow.
The door exploded.
The paper was torn from my hand.
Wooden shards and buckshot pierced my palm and wrist.
I heard somebody shout, probably Mr. Janke, but it was like listening to a voice from underwater.
A huge hole appeared in the center of the door.
I saw someone peeking through it. I recognized the young man by his hat—Waldo, from the coffeehouse where I met Emily Hoover, the real estate agent.
I drew my SIG Sauer with my right hand and stepped in front of the door. I used my left to steady the shot. Blood seeped from many holes, but I wasn’t feeling the pain yet.
Waldo seemed surprised to see me.
He tried to bring the sawed-off shotgun back up.
I fired five times.
The bullets tore through what was left of the door into his body.
They threw him back against the wall on the far side of the foyer. He died at the foot of the stairs.
I stood there for what seemed like a long time, my gun aimed at the door. My vision had narrowed. All I could see was the hole and the body of the young man beyond. Mr. Janke was at my side; I didn’t see him so much as I felt him. His voice was like a rumble in my stomach.
“FUBAR,” he said. “That’s all I can say, son. FUBAR.”
* * *
It took a while to gather my thoughts. By then the place was swarming with Minneapolis police, crime scene investigators, and emergency personnel. Mr. Janke was standing next to the door, speaking both carefully and calmly to a couple of uniforms. He pointed at the hole.
“Ain’t that somethin’?” he said.
I sat on the sofa. My left arm rested on one of Mr. Janke’s towels on my thigh. Most of the wounds had stopped bleeding, yet the pain was intense. An EMT was carefully removing splinters and a few pieces of buckshot from my hand and wrist with a tweezers, occasionally adding to the pain. I tried not to let it show. He told me I should go to an emergency room when he finished for a tetanus shot. I grunted something in reply, I don’t remember what. The EMT pulled a tiny lead ball out of my skin and held it up for me to see.
“Will you look at that?” he said.
Everyone seemed to be having a better time than I was.
It finally occurred to me to call Detective Shipman. While the EMT worked on my left hand, I used my right to operate the cell. She answered on the third ring.
“Please, McKenzie,” Shipman said. “Don’t ruin my day off. I get so few of them.”
“I’m sorry, Jeannie.”
I told her where I was and what had happened.
“You were right,” I said. “You were right and I was wrong. I will bet you a thousand dollars that El is hunting Emily Hoover at this very minute.”
“Who’s Emily Hoover?”
I explained.
“I’d be really upset that you withheld that little tidbit of information, McKenzie, except that I should have figured it out for myself. I didn’t even notice the FOR SALE signs. You just might be a better investigator after all.”
“You’re a better cop. Jeanne, the kid I shot—he wasn’t at the coffeehouse to threaten Hoover. He was there to protect her. From El. And now he’s gone. You need to find her.”
If Shipman said something in reply, I didn’t hear it because Detective John Luby snatched the cell out of my hand. He shook it at me as if it were a Bible and he was damning me for all time. In his other hand he was holding a clear-plastic evidence bag. The bag contained my SIG Sauer.
“You did it this time, McKenzie,” he said. “I am going to put you away.”
The duplex became very quiet.
“I’m not messing around,” Luby said. “You think I’m messing around? I am going to fuck you up.”
Yeah, my inner voice said. Like you haven’t heard that before.
I leaned back against the sofa and closed my eyes. Everyone resumed what they were doing, including the EMT, who kept working on my hand and wrist as if it were all just another day in the life …
* * *
Headquarters for the police department was located in Minneapolis City Hall, sometimes called the Pink Palace because of its Gothic architecture and the color of its granite facade—or maybe I was the only one who called it that. Truth be told, I was a little groggy after three hours in an interrogation room waiting for something to happen. Not to mention the aching pain in my hand and wrist. I hadn’t actually been arrested, so whether or not I had the right to call an attorney was open to debate. In any case, I politely refused to answer any of Luby’s questions—the man clearly wanted to put me in the jackpot, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to help him. Instead, I waited patiently for the crime scene techs to confirm what Mr. Janke insistently and consistently kept repeating—“McKenzie saved my life.”
“You think you’re a hero?’ Luby told me. “You aren’t a fucking hero.”
It was the only thing he said that I agreed with.
Finally Luby walked into the interrogation room, leaving the door open behind him, which I took as a good sign. He returned my smartphone.
“There’s a hostage situation in St. Paul,” he said. “She’s asking for you.”
* * *
I forced Luby to drive me to my condominium first. He agreed only because it was about a mile from City Hall and more or less on the way. The address was in the Macalester-Groveland area of St. Paul, not far from St. Catherine University. By the time we reached it, the block had been cordoned off and the houses all around it had been evacuated. Luby’s badge got us inside the police lines.
Bobby Dunston stood behind a patrol car with a sergeant and several officers, including Shipman.
“You took your time getting here,” he said.
“The DQ had a sale on Dilly Bars.” I pointed at a house with a blue and white Kenwood Real Estate sign in the front yard. “Is that it?”
“That’s it.”
“Why did she ask for me?”
“I don’t know. She says she won’t speak to anyone else. McKenzie, you don’t need to do this.”
“El doesn’t want to kill anyone.”
“Hell she doesn’t,” Shipman said. “Emily Hoover was conducting an open house. Elbers was threatening her with a semiautomatic when I arrived. She threw a couple of shots at me. It’s been a stand-off ever since.”
“Are you armed?” Bobby asked.
“No.” I jabbed a thumb toward Luby. “My gun was confiscated.”
Bobby drew his Glock and offered it to me. I shook my head at it.
“I’ll be all right,” I said.
“Famous last words. Take it.”
“I’m not shooting anybody else, today, Bobby. I’ve had my fill.”
“Okay. Now, listen to me. Elbers is sitting down. We haven’t got a clear shot. You need to get her up out of the chair. Get her into the center of the room.”
I turned my head just enough to confirm that members of the Specials Weapons and Tactics Team were deployed all around the house.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said.
“We have only a couple hours of daylight left.”
“I understand.”
I gave Bobby my smartphone. The gesture seemed to confuse him.
“You’ll thank me later,” I said.
I turned toward the house. Shipman put a sturdy hand against my chest, stopping me before I could take a single step. She held up a Kevlar vest.
“Put it on,” she said. “I won’t take no for an answer.”
“I won’t need it.”
“This is all on you, McKenzie. If you had told me that Hoover was supplying the locations for the garage sales when you found out six days ago, none of this would be happening. But you just had to prove that you were smarter than everyone else.” Shipman threw the Kevlar at me. It bounced off my chest; I caught it before it hit the ground. “Now put on the goddamned vest.”
I removed my heavy coat and donned the body armor.
“What happened to your hand?” Bobby asked.
I paused to study the bandages, but only for a moment before putting my coat back on and zipping it to my throat.
“It’s been one of those days,” I said.
* * *
The house seemed almost rustic, with a steeply pitched roof, tall narrow windows, a ground floor built of red bricks, and a top floor of white timber. It reminded me of a country home in England, and maybe that’s where the style of architecture originated. It was built at the turn of the century—the twentieth—on top of a small hill. I had to climb a half dozen concrete steps to get to a cobblestone sidewalk at the top of the hill and another half dozen to reach the entrance. The storm door was closed, yet the inside door was wide open. I could see elegant paintings on the wall and a wooden staircase leading to the second floor through the frosted glass. I rang the bell; it chimed like an ancient clock.
“McKenzie?” El called. “Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Come in. Hurry. Please, close the door behind you.”
I did what I was told and stepped inside the living room. It was a little small for my taste. A large, stuffed rust-colored chair with arms and a high back stood in the corner. Emily Hoover was sitting in the chair. She was no longer handsome despite the stylish clothes she wore. She reminded me of photos I’ve seen of women peering through the barbed-wire fence of a concentration camp; there was no hope in her eyes.
El was hiding behind the chair. She came out when she saw it was me and I was indeed alone. She was holding a nine-millimeter Beretta. I recognized it immediately.
“That’s mine,” I said.
I held out my hand as if I expected her to return it. Life would have been so much easier if she had.
“I’m afraid I need to hang on to it a little longer,” she said.
“Tell me, Fifteen. How do you think this is going to end?”
“You keep thinking of me as Fifteen. You don’t know how much I appreciate that. Look, McKenzie, I know that I’m in trouble, if that’s what you mean.”
“Trouble?”
The word seemed so inadequate.
El stepped toward me.
“Is…” For a moment she was the little girl who appeared at my condominium on a cold Monday evening. “Is Nina—is she…”
“She’s fine.”
“Thank God.”
“You missed. Ruined her good coat, though. She’s pretty upset about that.”
“She must hate me.”
“Actually, Fifteen—Nina might be the only person left who’s still on your side.”
“You, though. Are you still on my side?”
I showed her the flat of my hand and gave it a shake.
“I’m wavering,” I said. “Holding a hostage at gunpoint—that’s not helping your cause any.”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen. That police officer came out of nowhere.”
“What were you going to do if she hadn’t?”
“I just wanted to make her say.”
Hoover remained in the chair, staring straight ahead. If she was listening to our conversation, she didn’t show it.
“Say what?” I asked.
“What she did. Everything is her fault, you need to know that.”
“What’s everything?”
“I don’t know where to begin.”
“Why did you shoot Nina?”
“I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. I didn’t even see her until they started shooting at me and I shot back.”
“They?”
“Mitch and Craig. I walked up to them and they just started shooting.”
Perhaps they were afraid, my inner voice said
“Why were you even there?” I asked aloud.
“Mitch and Craig were supposed to be my friends. I wanted to ask why they were helping this bitch hire someone to kill me—some guy named Dyson.”
“But…” Emily Hoover’s voice was so low, that we barely heard it. “But … he’s Dyson.”
“What? What are you saying?” El turned her full attention on me. “Dyson?”
I gestured with my hands as if I had just sawed my assistant in half.
“Ta-da,” I said.
“You’re Nick Dyson?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
El stepped deeper into the living room. She brought the gun up with one hand and sighted on my chest. At the same time, two red dots appeared on the blue shirt she was wearing. They moved slightly and then became steady on her heart. I stepped around El until I was between her and the window. I knew the dots were now centered on my back. I recited a silent prayer. I was sure the Kevlar would stop a nine-millimeter slug even at close quarters. Yet a round from a high-powered rifle…?
“Put the gun down, Fifteen,” I said. “Do it now.”
She lowered the gun until the muzzle was pointing at the floor. I drifted back to
my original position to allow the spotters to see that El was no longer an imminent threat. The dots did not reappear. The young woman returned to the chair and stared down at Hoover.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“I was in disguise,” I said.
El thought about it for a few beats and came to the conclusion I wanted her to reach.
“You were looking out for me,” she said. “After everything I did, you were still looking out for me.”
“I said I would. Remember?”
“That doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change what this bitch tried to do.”
El brought the gun up again, this time with both hands, and pointed it at Hoover’s head. The older woman closed both eyes and angled her chin away, waiting for the bullet.
“Fifteen.” My voice was too loud. I deliberately lowered it when I spoke again. “Fifteen, did you really bring me here so I can watch you shoot your partner?”
Both women looked at me like I had just recited the entire Gettysburg Address by heart. El lowered the gun again.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“That you and Emily together were the Boss?” I stepped closer to the woman in the chair. “The clues were all there. Take the time we spoke in the coffeehouse. You said that Mitch and Craig were blackmailing you, that they had video of you buying stolen property. Yet they never heard of you, they had no such video, they didn’t know who was supplying the locations for the garage sales, and they didn’t communicate with you over the phone like you said. It was all done by e-mail. Your e-mail was the key, by the way.”
I stepped back so I could watch both El and Hoover at the same time. I spoke to El.
“They never knew where you were, yet you always seemed to know where they were. For example, you knew Karl Olson was going to Mr. Janke’s duplex—”
“I saved your life, McKenzie,” El said. “He was going to kill you.”
“It sure felt like he was going to kill me. Anyway, you also knew that Peter Troop was going to Oliver Braun’s funeral.”
“Troop was going to kill you, too. You and the lady detective. I saved both of you.”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “Troop was surrendering when he was shot.”
“How was I supposed to know that? It looked to me like he was attacking you. I was trying to help.”
Unidentified Woman #15 Page 26
