“Yeah.” Lucas spun around in his chair, looked out at the parking lot. Then, “Kline was involved. But he got shot, and that’s some kind of punishment. Maybe we let him go: work a deal, get Sanderson. She’s a killer, or close to it.”
“How do we cut him out?”
Kline had checked out of the hospital, in a rental wheelchair, and had gone back to his apartment. Lucas and Del arrived at ten o’clock the next morning, Lucas carrying a briefcase full of paper, including the murder book on the Brooks killings, as well as files on Pruess, the Polaris vice president who’d been thrown in the dumpster, on the killing of Rivera, and the shootings of Uno and Dos.
He planned to take the whole mass, as he told Del, sharpen it to a fine point, and shove it up Kline’s ass.
When they arrived at Kline’s apartment building, they could see, from the street, a light on in the bathroom through the new window. They went up and pounded on the door.
Nothing.
They pounded again, and then a weak, nervous answer: “Who is it?”
“Lucas Davenport, BCA. I spoke to you before.”
After a long pause, Kline called back, “How do I know it’s you?”
“You could look out the peephole,” Lucas said.
“But if it’s not really you, as soon as I look out the peephole, you could shoot me again.”
“Ah, for Christ’s sakes, Kline, it’s me,” Lucas said. “Call your building manager and ask her to come up and look.”
There was another long silence, then the peephole darkened, and finally a chain rattled on the inside. Kline, unshaven, white-faced, peeked out, saw Del, looked up and down the hall, and said, “All right.”
He’d been on his feet, and now he settled back, in the wheelchair, and rolled himself backward into the apartment. He’d been watching a morning talk show: a man stood behind a microphone, turned to a stunned-looking young man, and said, “Sean, you are … NOT … the father.” The crowd cheered, or jeered, and Kline clicked it off.
“Trying to keep from going insane,” he mumbled, apparently embarrassed to be caught watching the show. “What do you want?”
“We need to talk to you about this whole case,” Lucas said.
“I talked to a guy in the hospital,” Kline said, “And he told me that one thing I shouldn’t do is talk to the cops. You’re probably recording all of this.”
“We’re not recording it, and we don’t want you to say much anyway. We’re here more to make a presentation,” Lucas said.
“A presentation?”
“Yes. All you have to do is sit there and listen.”
Kline looked from Lucas to Del, and back and forth a couple of times, and then, “I guess I can do that. But I’m not answering any questions.”
“Just listen,” Lucas said.
Kline said to Del, “Nice tie, dude.”
“Hermes,” Del said, in his best French.
The place smelled weird, like hot dogs and sweat, brittle yellowed wallpaper and dry rot, with a little old-bathroom smell thrown in. The couch was covered with newspapers, and when Lucas looked for a place to sit, Kline said, “Throw those papers on the floor,” and Del did that, making a stack and dropping it beside one couch arm.
Lucas took the paper out of his briefcase, put the case between his feet, and started talking:
“Don’t say anything. Don’t argue with me, just listen,” he said. “Now, we know you were involved in this theft from Polaris. There’s no question in our minds about that.”
“Oh, bullshit, you’re-”
“Shut up,” Lucas said. “Just listen to the case.”
Lucas laid it out piece by piece. How ICE had found two back doors into Polaris and had documented them before she took them out. How they had to be done from the inside. How Kline had migrated to Hennepin National, where he’d hooked up with three other people for the theft: Turicek, Sanderson, and eventually, Albitis.
“We can tie you to the other three. We can tie Turicek to Albitis, and Albitis to the gold purchases. We believe we can tie Sanderson to the attack on Albitis-she called nine-one-one on a phone Albitis used to call Turicek, and I recognized her voice on the tape. The tape is being analyzed in our laboratories now, and after we get the forensic voice analysis done, we’ll be able to hook that to Sanderson. So, we’ve got you all in a bundle.”
Kline broke in, shaking his head: “You don’t have me. All you have on me is that I sat in the same office. And I’ll tell you what: banks deal with each other all the time, system to system. I think Ivan found a way into Polaris from our system, picked out an account to loot, and did it. He never told me about it. I think it was him and Albitis, and everything else you’re telling me is bullshit.”
Lucas shook a finger at him: “Not bullshit. I think we can make a powerful case. But you’re right about one thing-our case against you is the weakest. We don’t care about Turicek, because he’s dead. So it comes down to you and Albitis and Sanderson. We’ve decided to settle for two out of the three. We’re going to give somebody partial immunity, in return for testimony against the other two.”
“Partial immunity,” Kline scoffed. “That’s worth a lot. Go to prison and get killed for being an informer … get banged by a bunch of faggot convicts … that’s an attractive deal.”
Del said, “Listen, Jake, you know what happened here. The Brookses, David Rivera, the cop from Mexico, Pruess, the VP from Polaris … we’re not going to come after you for stealing a little money. We’re coming after you for multiple murder. You and the others touched this off. How old are you? Close to thirty? You’ll be sixty years old, under Minnesota law, before you’d have your first chance to see the outside again.”
“But I’m innocent,” Kline said.
“Oh, bullshit, Jake,” Lucas said. Then, into a moment of deadlocked silence, “But there’s something else. And I brought some stuff to show you.”
“I need to talk to a lawyer.”
“You do, but for now, listen another two minutes,” Lucas said. “Have you been watching television? All the news reports about these Mexican gangsters?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it.”
“I’ll tell you what-they don’t have the gold. We’re lying about that, hoping to confuse things.”
“So they can’t go back,” Kline said. “The killers. That’s cruel. Funny, but cruel.”
“Sooner or later, the truth is going to come out,” Lucas said. “When it comes out, these gangsters are going to say to themselves, ‘Jacob Kline and Kristina Sanderson and Edie Albitis have our twenty-two million dollars.’ They’re going to come after you. They’re going to want their money. You understand?”
“I understand what you’re saying, I’m not sure I believe it. There seems to be a lot of bullshit going on here.”
“So look at this,” Lucas said. “Does this look like bullshit?”
He reached down between his feet, got the color prints of the murder scenes, the Brookses, Rivera lying in a puddle of blood, the Mexican guys shot on the couch and in the middle of the parking lot, Pruess folded like an old banana in the dumpster, and then lying on the street partially unwrapped, one butchered hand sticking out on the blacktop.
Lucas pushed out a close-up of a finger joint. “This belonged to Patrick Brooks. Cut them off one at a time. Used them to write a message on the wall.”
Pulled out the “Were coming” scrawl.
Kline looked at the photos, first in fascination, then in revulsion, and finally he turned away and said, “I don’t want to see that shit.”
Del said, “This is what they were going to do to you, dude. You were smart enough to get away, but you might not get away the next time.”
Lucas added, “They’ll get you, unless you get some protection…. If we get that gold back, and make a news story out of it, that’ll take away any reason for them to come after you.”
“What about revenge?” Kline asked. “They’ll still want revenge.”
“Listen, t
he average life span of these guys, these gangsters, is a couple of years,” Lucas said. “We cover you for a couple of years … we could make that part of a deal. Eventually, they’ll forget about it. It’ll seem pointless, if the money’s gone.”
“I’ve got no idea about the money,” Kline said.
“If you help us out with Sanderson and Albitis, one of them will cough up the money,” Del said. “We think Sanderson took out Albitis because of the gold.”
Kline put his head down, seeming to think about it, reached out and pushed one of the photographs aside, to expose a shot of the dead Brooks children, and said, finally, “I’m innocent. But maybe I can find a way to help you. I’ve got to talk to a lawyer first. I’ll start calling around today, see when I can get one. Maybe this afternoon.”
“You need to move fast,” Lucas said. “I’ll tell you what, if Albitis wakes up, and if she’s willing to cooperate … then our deal with you is off. She gets the protection, you get the thirty years.”
“You can guarantee this deal?” Kline asked.
“You get your attorney, you work through the terms, and we’ll put you with a county attorney to get the deal in writing,” Lucas said.
“I’ll start looking for a guy right now,” Kline said.
Lucas said, “Good.” He started gathering the murder pictures.
Del smoothed down his new silk tie and said, “Let me tell you something, Jake. You’re a smart guy. If you think really hard about this, you’ll realize it’s the best deal you’ll get. It might be the best deal of a lifetime. Don’t fuck it up.”
Kline whined and prevaricated and lied some more, wheeling around the apartment, and eventually Lucas and Del picked up the pictures, gave him a last warning about how little time he had to act, and left.
Out on the street, Lucas asked, “Did he buy it?”
Del said, “I don’t know. I can usually tell, but he … I don’t know.”
Lucas said, “I guess we’ll find out this afternoon.” He looked back up at the apartment and caught a flash of movement in the bathroom window.
They walked back down the street and around the corner to the Lexus, and on the way, Lucas called the hospital about Albitis’s condition. The charge nurse said that she was still unconscious, but that the operation the night before had gone well, the bleeding had been less severe than expected, and she was now expected to recover “to some extent.”
“What does that mean?” Lucas asked. “To some extent?”
“Can’t ever tell, with cases like this,” the nurse said. “She could be fine. On the other hand, she could be a wreck. What usually happens is that they lose something, at the start, then they get most of it back. But you just can’t tell in advance.”
Up in the apartment, Kline stood next to the bathroom window, looking down, and saw the two cops come out of the apartment door and stand talking on the street. Then Davenport looked up at the window, and Kline pulled his head back. A few seconds later, he peeked from behind the shade and saw them walking away down the street. He couldn’t see them turn the corner, but they didn’t come back, either.
When he was sure they were gone, he went to the bedroom and asked the bed, “Did you hear that?”
The bed said, “Yes. Are you sure they’re gone?”
“They’re gone. The door’s locked.”
Sanderson edged out from under the bed and said, “It smelled like something died under there. You might have mice.”
“I’d be shocked if I didn’t,” Kline said. “So now what?”
“First, I swear to God, I swear to God, I didn’t just attack Edie. She came after me with Daddy’s gun, for Christ’s sakes. I was lucky to get away from her.”
“I believe you-but the cops won’t believe it,” Kline said.
“I still don’t think they have enough to take me to trial,” Sanderson said.
“We need to get lawyers.”
“We can get lawyers, but I swear to God, if you drag me into this, I’ll take you with me,” Sanderson said. “I’ll tell everybody that you knew you were stealing drug money and that you’ve got it all hidden. Then these Mexicans will come after you. They will chop you to pieces.”
“You don’t have to threaten me,” Kline said.
“Yes, I do,” Sanderson said. “I can see you’re thinking about it, about a way out. I promise you, that’s not the way.”
Kline wheeled himself around the apartment, ran both hands through his long oily hair. “Christ, I go around telling everybody that I don’t care how it comes out. I’m cool. I’m cold. Now, they’re talking about prison…. You know what I found out? I don’t want to go to prison. I mean, I really don’t want to go to prison.”
“Davenport’s just mean,” Sanderson said. “Mean and smart. But we’re as smart as he is, and we’ve got more to work with. We just have to fix things so he can’t get us.”
“What about Edie?” Kline asked. “What if she wakes up and says, ‘Kristina hit me’?”
“Then I’ll have to deal with that then. But I don’t think she will. Anything she says brings it back to her. Anything she says gets her deeper in trouble. Right now, she could say that she was buying gold for a Syrian buyer, some guy trying to get his fortune out of the country. She didn’t know who he was … nothing illegal with any of that.”
Kline said, “For Christ’s sakes, Kris, nobody’s gonna believe that.”
“They don’t have to,” Sanderson said. “All we need is for them to not have enough to put us on trial. Or not enough to convict us, if they do put us on trial.”
“We need to get lawyers,” Kline said.
“But what we really need to do, you and me, is sit down and figure out how we can get out of this mess. We’re smart. Let’s use it.”
Kline cocked his head and said, “You don’t sound like a hippie anymore.”
“And you don’t sound like a cynical depressive,” Sanderson said. “We’ve changed. We’ve become criminals.”
20
When Lucas looked at his phone on the way back to the office, a note popped up on his calendar software: Cast, tomorrow, 9 am.
The cast was coming off. Hallelujah.
Kline called Lucas after lunch and said, “I’ve got an appointment with an attorney this afternoon. He said there’s no possibility that we can talk to you before tomorrow morning. Don’t do anything before then.”
“I can’t promise,” Lucas said. “Whatever happens, happens.”
“Please, don’t do anything. I gotta talk to the lawyer.”
“Who is it?”
“His name is Jay Keisler. I got a recommendation from a friend.”
“I don’t know him,” Lucas said. “But you tell him, there isn’t much time.”
“I’ll tell him,” Kline promised. “Please don’t do anything.”
Lucas clicked off and called an attorney named Annie Wolf, who had once been a prosecutor and was still big in the Bar Association, and asked about Jay Keisler.
“Yeah, used to be an Anoka County public defender,” she said. “Has a general-law practice in Minneapolis. Does some criminal and personal injury.”
“Good trial lawyer?” Lucas asked.
“As a trial lawyer, on a scale of one to ten, I’d give him about a seven.”
“Not the sharpest arrow in the quiver, huh?”
“It’s not that-it’s that he looks like a fourteen-year-old Albert Einstein, with this fright-wig hair,” Wolf said. “He’s just no damn good with juries. I understand that he is excellent in pretrial negotiation, and trial prep. Excellent with insurance companies, where nobody wants to go to trial. When they do go to trial, he has an associate, Don Pew, who’ll usually handle it. Pew looks and acts like Jimmy Stewart. Between the two of them, they get the job done.”
“So, if we’re trying to work a deal, get a guy to turn state’s evidence in return for a reduced charge…”
“That’s how Jay made his living for a decade or so. He’s done hundreds of t
hem. Be ready for him.”
“Thanks, Annie.”
Satisfied that he’d stampeded Kline, but a little worried about Kline’s choice of attorney, Lucas called the Ramsey County attorney they’d be working with and told him about Keisler.
“Not the best news, but not the worst,” the prosecutor said. “He’ll wring every inch out of us … but in the end, he’ll deal.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Lucas said. “You’ll be around tomorrow?”
“All day. Give me a call.”
Lucas checked with Shaffer, learned that there was nothing new with Martinez or the last shooter, but Shaffer said, “The hunt’s gone viral. Everybody in the country’s looking for her. You see the thing about Brooks, the last hour or so?”
“No…”
Lucas was standing in the doorway of Shaffer’s office, and Shaffer leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk. Lucas had never seen him do that before; had never seen him look quite as pleased with himself.
“Sunnie will now be owned by Brooks’s brother, Stan. Stan was the final disaster inheritor in Brooks’s will. You know, one of those provisions that lawyers put into wills in case the whole family dies in a plane crash?”
“I know about those,” Lucas said. “I got one.”
“Anyway, he’s also on the company board of directors,” Shaffer said. “He got the board to offer a hundred-thousand-dollar reward for anyone who spots Martinez. Anyone who spots her. Don’t even have to convict her. Just call the cops on her. It’s like a nationwide Easter-egg hunt with a hundred-thousand-dollar egg. Plus, everybody’s talking about all that gold they think she has.”
“Easter egg with a Mac-10,” Lucas said. “Hope nobody gets killed.”
Shaffer pulled his feet down. “Well, yeah…”
“I wonder if this Stan had anything to do with setting up the fake Bois Brule account? Seems to me that there are going to be a lot of claims on Sunnie. Maybe it’d be better not to get too enthusiastic about Stan’s reward offer.”
Stolen Prey p-22 Page 28
