by Matt Goldman
When it was over, Luca Lüdorf had been ejected along with Coach Kozjek. They walked into the tunnel to a mix of cheers and boos. Officers Terrence Flynn and Julia Mason walked onto the ice, badges around their necks. They gathered half a dozen uniforms and followed Kozy into the tunnel. In the locker room, they’d ask Kozjek to come in for questioning. If he refused, they’d arrest him on the spot. Either way, news would break late tonight or tomorrow morning, depending on how publicity hungry the police were feeling.
Maintenance personnel scooped away the bloody, broken ice and replaced it with wet snow, packing and scraping as they went, as if they were spackling a damaged wall. It’d only take a few minutes for the refrigeration coils in the floor to freeze the repair job into hard ice.
Detective Jamie Waller had disappeared from her seat. I texted her something about not being good at sharing and I was taking my toys and going home. She didn’t respond. But I did receive a text from Mel Rosenthal.
Mel: It’s Mel. Are you still here?
Me: I am. Need another drink?
Mel: I do. Downtown Minneapolis to get away from this mess? I should stay until the game ends, but then?
Me: Yes. Wherever you’d like.
Mel: The Bachelor Farmer.
Me: See you there.
I tried to convince myself meeting Mel Rosenthal was for work. I failed. I pictured taking Mel home to a bed Lauren had slept in last night. It would smell more like Lauren than me. I had slept on the couch. The night probably wouldn’t go that way—we’d just met—she didn’t seem the type, and that had never been my style. But you never know.
The players skated tentatively. They’d seen violence unleashed, felt its potential in themselves, and it frightened them. They wanted no more trouble and seemed willing to go through the motions so the clock could tick away. Warroad lost 3–2.
19
I parked my car at the coat factory and walked over to meet Mel Rosenthal at the Bachelor Farmer. The top two floors are a restaurant that serves foodie-grade Norwegian fare. It’s good but specific—I doubt they get a lot of requests to franchise. The basement is a bar, accessed in back through a gray steel door set in yellow brick. The room is small, long, and narrow with a bar of white marble over a plywood base. Scandinavian chic.
We found two spots at the end of the bar near some twentysomethings wearing too many layers and winter-like hats made of something light so they could display the fashion without getting sweaty heads. Mel ordered a martini and I ordered a Redbreast, neat. The two cocktails cost more than thirty bucks, yet people still have the gall to call Minneapolis Minnie-no-place.
Ivy wouldn’t be coming home tonight, Mel said. The entire trumpet section of the marching band was sleeping in a mansion on Lake Minnetonka in a neighborhood you call home if your name is Pillsbury or Cargill. We talked about Linnea and Roger and Anne, then our conversation transitioned to personal.
Mel hadn’t dated anyone since Howard died a few years ago. She’d been on dates, but nothing had come of them. Nothing wrong with the guys—okay that was a lie, she said—plenty was wrong with most of them—but she wasn’t ready. Ivy would be leaving for college next fall and then, Mel said, is when she thought she might make more of an effort.
“You had her young,” I said.
“When I was twenty-three,” said Mel. “Howard didn’t want more children. He has two from his first marriage, and I was indifferent. But it happened, and I’m glad it did. Do you have children?”
“No,” I said. “I was married and we lost one at four months.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, thank you. It wasn’t fun. My wife didn’t want to try again after that. It’s not the reason our marriage ended, but it gave it a little push.”
She sipped her martini as I calculated she was forty-one, give or take a year.
“I apologize,” I said. “I don’t know why I told you that. I just met you.”
“No need to apologize. It’s good you can talk about it.”
I pictured Lauren walking away from the dinner table and felt a wave of grief. A dying relationship is like an Alzheimer’s patient. When it finally succumbs, it’s less tragic because a big part of what you loved is already gone. It can even feel like a relief. But the finality still stings. The loss is just as noticeable. I’d had no intention of asking Mel out for a drink. But when she asked me, I didn’t say no.
Somehow I felt less guilty because Mel was a widow. Jesus Christ, I was having a drink with a widow. It felt so grown-up for no good reason. There are plenty of young widows. Too many. And yet, it made me feel like I had to be responsible, that Mel was extra vulnerable, as if she weren’t capable of protecting herself and thus the job fell to me. That was bullshit, of course. Mel was perfectly capable of protecting herself and maybe that’s the last thing she wanted to do. Maybe she wanted a quick lay to see if she cared or maybe she knew she didn’t and wanted one anyway.
I was feeling quite proud of myself for giving her the freedom to do what she wanted when she leaned over and kissed me. It was a small, polite kiss, and I responded with gratitude.
“I wasn’t planning on that,” she said, “hope it was okay.”
“You’re lovely.”
She smiled and looked down for what felt like a long time. Then she said, “Thank you for saying that.”
We finished our drinks and each ordered another. A group of designer types entered sporting attention-getting haircuts like the kind you see in magazines and think, no one would actually ever look like that on purpose. They were loud and drunk and pushed themselves to the back where they’d bump into us and apologize but not mean it.
We endured it for a while then Mel said, “Know anywhere around here we can go to sober up before driving?”
We walked to the coat factory and drank water and made out. I told her I’d just had surgery on my shoulder but not why, in fear it would kill the mood. Adjusting position for my injury led to some laughs, and we somehow understood it wouldn’t go too far. After a while we ran out of steam. I left the couch and dropped a couple of purple Nespresso pods into the machine and made us each a hot cup. We sipped coffee and talked like two people who were happy to have met each other. I walked Mel to her car. We kissed good night and ended with a long hug. I watched Mel Rosenthal drive away, walked back to the coat factory, and fell asleep in the sheets that smelled like Lauren.
20
I lay in bed reviewing my stumbles with women when my phone buzzed. The screen’s faint glow did nothing to lighten the never-dark coat factory. Too many windows and city lights. I had propped myself into a comfortable position and was afraid I’d never re-create it, so I left the phone where it was. In the last forty hours, I’d taken an arrow to the shoulder, nearly bled out, undergone surgery, and looked for a missing girl but instead found three cold bodies and one warm one. The text could wait.
I needed sleep to end a day of awkward good-byes. So long, Roger Engstrom. You were the easiest good-bye of the day. It was a pleasure, Winnie Haas. I wish I’d had a chance to know you better. Later, Ellegaard. I walked out of your office feeling your disappointment in my choice of cases. All right then, Lauren. I didn’t even say good-bye to you. You were halfway out the booth when you said, “I have to go.” Sweet dreams, Mel Rosenthal. I wonder if I’ll see you again.
I left my phone on my nightstand and did what detectives do. I told myself stories about who sent the text and analyzed which felt most plausible. Lauren didn’t want our last conversation to end the way it did, so she texted to make a plan for a proper good-bye. Mel Rosenthal hadn’t felt anything for anyone since Howard died. She felt a little something for me and wanted to say one last good night. Maybe a thank-you. Or perhaps an apology because she’s not ready and shouldn’t have let the evening go where it went. Ellegaard wanted to meet first thing in the morning to dissuade me from continuing on the Engstrom case. Jamie Waller returned the snarky text I’d sent at the Xcel Center. James
on White chastised me for missing my final wound cleaning and redressing of the day. They all felt plausible, but I didn’t have to play detective. The answer lay on my nightstand. It buzzed a second time to remind me.
I inched myself up into a sitting position and reached for my phone with my right hand.
Dude if you have $500 I have info about Linnea Engstrom.
I’d forgotten about that awkward good-bye. Ernesto Cuellar walked away from the white bucket, hands in his pockets. I returned the text with my right thumb.
When and where?
Do u have the cash?
I do. Let’s meet in public. No offense.
That’s cool.
Dunn Brothers on 50th and Xerxes at 7. Give you enough time to get to school?
Yeah dude.
I sent one more text before attempting to get comfortable. I asked Jameson White for an 8:30 A.M. wound dressing. He responded saying he thought less of me for missing tonight’s wound dressing, but he’d be there. I set my alarm.
At 6:00 A.M. I checked my phone and saw no emails, voice mails, or texts about Gary Kozjek’s arrest. I checked the St. Paul Pioneer Press website. Nothing there, either. I showered with my shoulder in a bag, then tried to contact Linnea’s friend Guy Storstrand, who played for the Montreal Canadiens. I left messages with the Canadiens’ front office, on Twitter, and on Facebook. I didn’t expect a reply and didn’t get one.
I kept a thousand dollars in cash taped inside the body of a ceramic lamp. One day the internet would go down for a while and take the ATMs with it, and I didn’t want to run out of peanut butter funds. I took five hundred, put it in a gas bill envelope, and drove out of the coat factory.
Dunn Brothers on Xerxes hadn’t changed in the year since I’d moved out of the neighborhood. Same baristas. Same “hello how you doin’s” as if I’d never moved away. Ernesto Cuellar waited for me at a table near the front window. He wore jeans, a white Southwest Lakers hoodie, and the same scared expression I’d seen the day before. He said, “Do you have the money?”
“Can I interest you in a beverage?”
“I’d take a hot chocolate.”
“Whipped cream?”
“Yeah, man.”
I got our drinks and a few muffins. “So what do you know, Ernesto?”
“First the money.”
I removed the gas bill envelope from my jacket pocket and handed it to him. He took it, lowered it below the table, and counted the money. To anyone else he looked like he was bowing his head in prayer, thanking God for the hot chocolate and muffins before him. He raised his head, satisfied that the money was all there.
Then he took a sip of hot chocolate and said, “After you were such a dick yesterday I went back to school and rigged a camera in my locker so it looked out a hole where the number plate used to be screwed on. Whoever gave me the note must have been watching me or something, ’cause he knew I delivered his message. So when he paid the second fifty like he promised, the camera got a good look at his face.”
“You’re not just book smart, are you, Ernesto?”
Ernesto tried not to smile, failed, and covered it by taking another sip of hot chocolate. “The kid on my camera is named Joaquin Maeda.” Ernesto swiped his finger through the whipped cream and stuck it in his mouth.
“That’s all I get for five hundred?”
“No, man. Joaquin lives in my neighborhood. He’s the only other kid there who goes to Southwest. Sometimes we ride to school together on the city bus or one of our moms drives us. I know him okay.”
“Is he a good student like you?”
“Kinda. He’s good at writing and poetry. He’s in a hip-hop band. But he sucks at math and science, so I help him out sometimes. Guys he hangs with in the neighborhood are pretty rough, though.”
“Gang rough?”
Ernesto just looked at me then said, “What’s this bright green muffin? Lime or something?”
“Pistachio.”
“Like the nut? No way.” He took a pinch from the top, put it in his mouth, and made a not bad face. “Joaquin didn’t want me to know it was him who wrote the note telling you to back off. I think that’s kinda weird. So I figured he knows that girl you’re looking for. I checked his Twitter and stuff. Linnea follows Joaquin on Instagram. Then I cross-referenced who follows Joaquin and Linnea Engstrom and found Miguel Maeda. He’s Joaquin’s cousin and lives in Mexico.”
“When are you going to stop impressing me, Ernesto?”
“I can’t help it.” Suppressed smile. “And I googled you. You’re that dude who solved the Edina murder last year. That’s kinda cool.”
“So you thought you’d show me your detective skills.”
“It’s just logic and shit.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. But you’ve only earned about two-fifty of that five hundred so far.”
“I ain’t done, man. Here’s the superweird thing. Joaquin posts a bunch of pictures of Call of Duty on Instagram.”
“He posts screenshots of him playing a video game?”
“No. That’s what’s weird. He posts just the cover of the DVD. Sometimes it’s World War II or Black Ops III or Black Ops II or Modern Warfare. And just the covers, nothing else. So I figure, it has to be some kind of code, you know. I downloaded the posts and zoomed in on ’em and then I found it. In the Y of Call of Duty, there’s these little bullet holes. Sometimes there’s three or four or five. Sometimes more. Sometimes less.”
“And there aren’t normally bullet holes in the Y?”
“There aren’t normally bullet holes anywhere.”
“Wow. You really wanted that five hundred.”
“It’s a lot of money. I need it. I’m building this dope computer.”
“So what do you think those bullet holes are?”
“Three holes, play the game at 3:00. Five holes, play the game at 5:00.”
“So Joaquin’s Instagram followers who know the code, they know what time to play? Like in a private lobby?”
“Yeah, man. I think that’s what it is.”
“Why are they using a code to communicate when they’re playing a video game?”
“Dude, it ain’t about the game. Yeah, they play it, but everyone on the team has a microphone. I bet what they’re really doing is just talking.”
“And the NSA can’t listen in.”
“I don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m not in the lobby. You have to know what it’s called to join and you need to be invited. Can’t get in if you’re not. But since he’s the one who put a hundred bucks and the note in my locker telling you to back off Linnea, it could be about her.”
A group of Southwest kids in purple-and-white letter jackets sat down at a table near the locomotive-shaped coffee roaster. They carried full backpacks and spoke with loud voices. A girl said hello to Ernesto, and he said hello back.
“Are you worried about them seeing you with me?”
“Nah, man. I’ll just tell him you’re interviewing me for the summer jobs program or you’re a mentor or something. No one cares.” He downed the remainder of his hot chocolate then wiped his lips with his sleeve.
“So your friend, Joaquin, can talk with whoever he invites to his private lobby without cell phones or email or Facebook. And the government will never know about it.”
“More like without Reddit or Snapchat, but yeah.” Ernesto finished the pistachio muffin then peeled the paper cup off the banana one. “Oh, sorry, man. You want this one?”
“No. It’s all for you.”
“Thanks, dude.”
“You want another hot chocolate? Something else to eat?”
“I’d take another hot chocolate.”
I went to the counter and bought Ernesto a second hot chocolate and a chocolate croissant as backup. My phone dinged.
Jamie Waller: Expecting you in Woodbury at 8
Me: I don’t travel on one-way streets.
Jamie Waller: Bring coffee. The station’s stinks.
Me: Where’s Gary Kozjek?
Jamie Waller: See you at 8
I didn’t respond.
I waited for the hot chocolate and bounced around some ideas. Joaquin Maeda knew where Linnea Engstrom was. I just had to get him to tell me. That might be easy or it might be impossible. I had to learn more before I made my approach. When I returned to the table, I said, “Do you know Joaquin’s Call of Duty screen name?”
“I know the one he uses when I play with him. But he’s probably got another for private lobbies.”
“Any way to get it?”
“I’d have to get on his machine.”
“Console or PC?”
“Xbox.”
“Is it possible for you to get on his Xbox?”
“No, man. I don’t go to his house. I just see him around.”
“Can you hack into it if you’re playing online together?”
“I don’t do that kind of stuff.”
“But could you?”
“Maybe. But I won’t. It’s not cool. Dude’s my friend. If I thought he would hurt that girl, I’d do whatever. But I don’t think he would.”
“You think Linnea Engstrom is on those chats?”
“Maybe. And I bet it involves his cousin, Miguel. Joaquin, he’s kind of emo. Can’t keep his mouth shut. He has to get it out or he’ll explode or something. He wrote this verse about his cousin Miguel being locked out of the country. And Miguel knows Linnea online. And he was here last year. I met him a couple times.”
“Why isn’t Miguel allowed in the country?”
“He was here as an exchange student then got in trouble for something and got deported and the government won’t let him back in.”
“Do you know what he got in trouble for?”
“No, but I could probably find out.”
“How much is that going to cost me?”
“How much you got?” Ernesto Cuellar stopped trying to hide his smile.
“How can someone from Minnesota get into a private game lobby with someone in Mexico? Don’t they have to be on the same regional server?”
