by Stephen Frey
“Huh?” I ask innocently.
“Don’t play dumb with me. I saw her come out.”
I glance up and down Main Street. It’s a little before nine o’clock. The shops are dark and the sidewalks are deserted. “Okay,” I admit, “she was here. She was drunk and I tried to sober her up. I didn’t want her going home and getting into it with Ike.”
“Did you screw her?”
“What?”
“Did you screw her?”
“Of course not. Why would you ask—”
“Because she wants you to.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“I just do.”
We stare at each other for a few moments as the mist from our breath rises and disappears into the air above us. “You’re out of your mind,” I say. “And I don’t care if she does want me. You know I’d never do that.”
“Mmm.”
“I wouldn’t.”
He nods. “Good. Stay the hell away from her. She’s poison.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I pull the collar of my jacket up around my neck. It’s colder out here than I thought it would be. “Hey, thanks for giving Davy an earful at the meeting this afternoon. He deserved it.”
Bear snorts. “He’s a little prick and so are the other two. We ought to replace all of them. I’ve been telling you that for a while.”
“And it was good to see Karen.” Bear might be right about making some personnel changes on the force, but I don’t want to give him even the slightest clue that I’m thinking about it because he’ll shove it right in their faces. It’s better just to avoid the issue right now. “Thanks for having her come to Bruner. I know that was tough, but it helped me.”
“It was,” he admits.
I shouldn’t bring this up, I should just let it go. But that’s not my nature. “I need to ask you something, Billy.”
“What?”
“Today at your place …” My voice trails off as I second-guess myself.
“Yeah, what?”
Here I go again, suspecting my best friend in the world of something terrible. It’s crazy and I wish I could stop. Pretty soon he’s going to give up on me and I won’t be able to blame anyone but myself.
“Come on, Professor,” he urges. “What’s up?”
“I saw that big new television in the other room.” I could tell he was trying to keep me out of there when we were meeting with Karen but I saw it. It was impossible not to. “Christ, it takes up half the room.”
“So?”
“So where’d you get the money for it?” I’ve got my suspicions, but I want to see what he says. I want to see if he can come up with a credible answer. “The thing must have cost ten grand.”
He stares at me intently for several moments and I’m sure he’s about to take a swing at me, or at least tell me to mind my own damn business. But then his eyes drop to the steps and he gets this defeated look on his face.
“It’s all part of the thing with Karen,” he explains, his voice low.
“How do you mean?”
He swears under his breath. “I took out a life insurance policy on her a while ago with an agent down in Madison.”
“With Mickey?”
“Yeah, Mickey.” He looks at me with a curious smile. “Didn’t I introduce you to him?”
“You sure did.” It was about a year ago and Mickey reminded me more of a loan shark than an insurance salesman. After he left my office all I wanted to do was take a shower. “He was an interesting guy,” I say sarcastically.
Bear rolls his eyes. “Which is Professor-speak for you couldn’t stand him.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Anyway … well …” Bear hesitates. “This is tough.”
“Tell me, Billy. Come on, it’s freezing out here.”
He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth a few times. “Okay, here’s what happened. Mickey and I reported that Karen was dead to the insurance company. It was a fifty-thousand-dollar policy, and I gave her ten grand of it to change her name when she left me. Mickey and I split the other forty thousand down the middle.”
I put a hand to my head and take a deep breath. Bear just admitted to me that he’s committed insurance fraud. It’s a felony; he could go to jail for years, and I should arrest him for it right now. I’m a police officer, for Christ sake, and he just admitted to a crime. But he’s saved my life twice and I still feel guilty as hell about suspecting him of killing Karen. What am I supposed to do, blow the whistle on him? Of course, I should. That’s easy to say when you’re not involved. But when it’s your best friend in the world it’s different. At least the money didn’t come from where I thought it did.
“God damn it, Bear, why the hell’d you do that?”
He rolls his eyes. “Why do you think I did it?”
“Don’t they need a death certificate or something to give you the money?” I ask.
Bear chuckles. “Mickey’s got friends in the morgues. I don’t think it’s the first time he’s pulled this one.”
I wave a finger at him. “You’re gonna get—”
“I’ll deal with that when the time comes.”
“God, I worry about you.”
We stand there in the darkness for a few moments, then Bear does something that takes me completely by surprise. He hugs me. And it isn’t a quick lean-in that could be taken as one of those shoulder-to-shoulder things men do at clubs as they’re shaking hands. It’s a real, both-arms-all-the-way-around-me hug that nearly takes the wind out of me it’s so hard. I don’t think a man’s ever hugged me like that before. It feels strange and I feel stupid for feeling strange.
“You’re my brother, Paul,” he says when he finally pulls back. “I love you. I really do, like a brother.”
I shake my head, the fact that he just called me Paul hitting me hard. That he told me he loves me hitting me even harder. Those awful moments in the barn are careening back at me, too. After my father had made his final confession and put the gun to his head. When he looked at me and told me he loved me so damn much. I was only sixteen but I knew what he desperately wanted was for me to tell him that I loved him, too. But I couldn’t, the words wouldn’t come. When it was obvious I had nothing to say, my father pulled the trigger and that was that.
Ever since, I’ve wondered whether I could have saved my father if I’d just told him I loved him back. The question has haunted me every day now for twenty-three years.
Maybe Bear is searching for the same compassion. He’s a much tougher man than my father was, but you never know.
25
VIVIAN’S WAITING for me in the kitchen when I come through the back porch door. She’s standing by the stove and she looks nice. She’s done her hair and she’s wearing a pretty dress. She’s trying hard and I appreciate it.
“Hi, there.”
“Hi.” She smiles sweetly and trots to me, then slips her arms around my neck and kisses me. “I should be suspicious of where you’ve been, Sheriff Summers,” she murmurs when her lips fall from mine, “but I’ll try not to be. I guess this is the new me.”
It all feels and sounds good, which is why I can’t believe what I’m about to do. It’s like when I asked Bear how he got the money to buy that big new television. I shouldn’t get into this with her, like I shouldn’t have gotten into it with him. I should just leave well enough alone, but I can’t. Along with the husband I have to be the sheriff.
“You don’t have to be suspicious. You know that.”
“Uh huh.” Vivian forces a wary smile to her lips and nods at the oven. “I made some dinner for you. Ribs just the way you like them. Lots of barbecue sauce.”
I smelled them when I walked through the back porch door and my stomach’s already grumbling. But when I have something as important as this on my mind I have to get right to it. I wish I had more patience. Maybe life wouldn’t have turned out much different if I did, but the ride would have been a lot smoother.
“Let’s go into the
living room, Viv.”
She was headed to the oven to fix me a plate, but she turns around and gives me an aroused look. “What’s wrong?”
She can hear that tone in my voice, I know it. “Come on,” I say gently, taking her hand and leading her to our couch. “Sit.”
“Okay,” she says hesitantly.
I ease down next to her, trying to figure out how best to start this. I tried to figure out how to do it all the way home but I didn’t come up with anything good. Any way I do it this conversation could send her into outer space. “Viv, I want you to listen calmly to what I have to say.” Right away I see fear in the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes. I knew this would happen. “Please don’t overreact.”
“What are you going to tell me?” She grabs my arm. “Oh, God, Paul, are you going to divorce me?”
“No, no, honey. This isn’t about divorce.” It never crossed my mind that she might think this was the beginning of a divorce conversation. “Don’t worry.”
She lets out a heavy sigh, almost a sob, and puts a hand to her chest. “You scared me to death. I really thought you were going to—”
“Are you in the cult?” I ask her directly.
“What?” Her mouth falls open and her hand goes quickly from her chest to her lips so I won’t see her teeth. It’s such a natural reaction for her after all these years. “How could you think I was part of that awful thing?”
She took the bait. “Well, how did you know it actually exists?”
“Well, I guess I … I mean … well, you’ve told me.”
“I’ve never said anything to you about a cult in Dakota County.” I’m sure I haven’t, too. I’ve been careful not to all this time so I could have this moment with her. In the back of my mind I’ve always worried that if there really was a cult there was a chance she might be in it. “Never.”
“Then I must have heard about it at work. Janet must have told me.”
Janet Carlson manages the Bruner Washette for Charlie Wagner. I seriously doubt Vivian would have heard anything about the cult from Janet. Last I heard they hadn’t spoken more than a few words in a month.
“I know you and Janet don’t talk. How could she have told you?”
Fire dances in Vivian’s eyes. “Do you know everything about my life?” she snaps.
“Don’t blame me.” I never miss an opportunity to drive the wedge deeper between Vivian and Mrs. Erickson. “Blame Mrs. Erickson. She told me about you and Janet not talking.”
“That bitch. I ought to—”
“You ought to what, Viv?” For several seconds after I ask the leading question I’m sure she’s about to explode. But then she shuts her eyes, inches closer to me on the couch, and puts her head on my shoulder. She’s trying hard, and all of a sudden I get a warm feeling in my heart. I really love her again. It’s crazy. “You ought to what to Mrs. Erickson?”
“Nothing, Paul,” she answers in a soft voice. “Nothing at all. What I ought to do is be glad you’re home.”
I love her very much but I have to press, I can’t let it go. That’s just who I am. “If I called Sheriff Wilson down in Brower County and asked him to go out to Loon Lake to see Heather and Marty, would they tell him you’ve stayed at their house as many nights as you’ve told me you have? I’ve kept a record of the times you’ve told me that, Viv. I have it all written down. Or were you somewhere else a lot of those nights?”
“Why are you asking me this, Paul? Why don’t we just relax and have a nice night?” Her hand slides to my knee.
“Vivian, I—”
“I love you, Paul. I love you so much.”
As I stare down into her dark eyes I don’t think I’ve ever felt so guilty, I don’t think I’ve ever been so sorry for something I’ve done. Why did I have to go back out to the Prescott estate that last time? “I love you, too.”
26
AN HOUR AGO I dropped off a copy of all that financial information that was crammed into the box Chelsea gave me with a friend of mine named Doug Cooper. Doug’s an accountant who should be able to confirm with authority exactly what all those numbers in the Prescott Trading annual report really mean and, more important, what the implications are for Lew Prescott and Jack Harrison. Doug’s got an office in St. Paul, and since I needed to be down in the Twin Cities again anyway, I didn’t have to make an extra trip. I told Doug a little about what was going on when I gave him the stuff, but only what I felt I had to tell him to get him on board and get that bloodhound nose of his in gear. It’s better if he doesn’t have the full picture right now. For his own good. Just in case this thing turns out to be even bigger than I already think it is.
I got to know Doug while I was on the force in Minneapolis, when I helped track down the killer of his thirteen-year-old daughter. He wanted justice any way he could get it, and I worked overtime finding the guy so Doug wouldn’t turn vigilante and get himself in big trouble. Doug and his wife seemed like a nice couple, and I know cops aren’t supposed to get emotionally involved in cases, but I couldn’t help it. I pored over the evidence and the clues time after time during my off-hours. I even went to the murder scene four times after the crime scene guys were finished with it. Then it hit me one night at two in the morning like a hurricane, as I was watching an old movie in my barely furnished apartment. Suddenly I knew who the murderer was. It was like an epiphany, because it all came to me in a few seconds. Everything. The how, who, and why, and suddenly the case was solved.
The next morning I went to see the detective in charge and I laid it all out for him. He gave me a quick thanks and a pat on the back that was more of a shove out of his office and that was the last I heard from him. That afternoon he and his partner arrested the guy I named as the killer and by nine o’clock that night he’d confessed to the murder. The following day the detectives called a press conference and explained in detail to a mass of reporters how they’d broken the case wide open. Thing was, I called Doug at two in the morning, right after I figured out who the murderer was. So when the detectives took all the credit for solving the case, Doug was so mad he couldn’t see straight. He told me he was going to make it right with the higher-ups on the force, but I told him not to. I told him the most important thing at that point was for his wife and him to get closure with what had happened to their daughter and not to worry about who got credit for solving the case.
Doug’s never forgotten what happened, how hard I worked on the case. As thanks he’s done my income taxes for free every year since. It’s not like filling out my return is any big deal—only a few of the lines on the form require ink from me—but it makes me feel good to know a professional is doing it, and maybe what’s even more important to me is that he still appreciates how I helped him. He’s been a CPA for thirty-two years, the first twenty-two with one of the big national firms working with several large corporate clients in Minneapolis. So he’s eminently qualified to look at the Prescott Trading stuff, and I know he’ll never say a word to anyone about it.
After I left Doug’s place it was still early, still a little before daybreak, because Doug’s a night owl. He always has been. So I got another cup of coffee at a 7-11 before I drove over to Edina Engineering. I tossed the empty cup from home in the trash can outside the 7-11 doors as I was going in, and it was then that I realized it was the first cup of coffee I’d finished in a long time. I actually stood there staring down into the can for a few seconds looking at how empty the cup was. The clerk saw me doing it and figured I was crazy, because she gave me that look when I got to the counter, but I didn’t give a damn. I realized that for the first time in a long time I was going in the right direction.
Now I’m standing off to one side of the Edina Engineering parking lot behind an SUV waiting for Henry Steinbach to show up—I parked my Cherokee down the street so it wouldn’t create a stir with its Dakota County Police Force down each side. Last night I went to the “People” section of the company’s website to see what Steinbach looked like, and it was
easy to find him. He’s got his own page because he’s one of the senior executives, and he was in the companywide picture, too. He’s a bald, middle-aged-looking guy with a dark beard and mustache who I recognize right away when he climbs out of his minivan after parking in the spot marked “H. Steinbach.” It’s the same van that was parked in that spot last week when I came here and was so trusting of Mrs. Driscoll, the firm’s receptionist. I figured one of the other nonexecutive employees must have used Steinbach’s spot that day since he was traveling. I guessed wrong.
“Good morning, Mrs. Driscoll.” The receptionist looks up from her keyboard and I can tell I’m the last person in the world she wants to see standing in front of her desk right now. “Remember me? I’m Sheriff Summers from Dakota County, Wisconsin.”
“Uh, yes, I remember.”
I watch her fingers carefully as I give her a friendly smile. There won’t be any secret alarm delivered to the executive offices with the push of a hidden button. Not if I can help it. “I was here last week looking for Henry Steinbach, but you told me he was in California.”
“I remember.”
“I never did get a call from him.”
“Well, I gave him the message.”
“I’m sure you did.” I lean over her desk so no one else can hear us. “I just watched Mr. Steinbach park his car in his personal spot outside. It’s the same van that was parked in that spot last week when I was here. I know it’s the same van because I remember the license plate. JKT-719.” I nod at the credenza behind her desk. “I’m sure you have a record of that somewhere in your files, Mrs. Driscoll. You probably help the personnel department with all of that kind of information, right? That’s probably one of the things you do here.”
She’s staring at me now as though she’s hypnotized, as though I’m swinging a pocket watch on a chain back and forth in front of her eyes. I know it’s not just because of what I’m saying, but because of how I’m saying it, too. See, I’m using this certain tone I’ve perfected over the years. I don’t use it often but when I do, people listen.
