by Eskens,Allen
“I have to ask you something,” the man says. He tries to sit up in the snow, taking on as much alpha as a bound man can muster. “You say you brought me out here to kill me. And you’re cutting holes through the ice to make me believe that you’ll drop me into the lake when it’s all said and done. Fine. Let’s say I buy it. Okay? I concede. You have the balls to do it. That make you happy?”
I ignore him.
“But you won’t talk to me, because you don’t want to know that you’re wrong. You have doubts. I get it. It’s best to keep those doubts to yourself—keep ‘em secret. You’re here to get your payback and you can’t let those doubts get in the way.”
I scoop ice chips out of the hole. Christ that man can prattle on.
“You need your vengeance—your compensation. I understand that. You’re a man who feels cheated. You don’t want to walk away from here empty handed.”
I now see where he’s going with this.
“I don’t know what I supposedly did to you, but whatever it is, I’m sure we can come to an understanding.”
I don’t stop drilling, but I look over my shoulder and say. “Understanding? What understanding?”
He gives me a smarmy grin. “Well, all that stuff I said before—that I was going to sue you, get you fired. I don’t see any reason that we have to go there. I can tell that you’re operating under some terrible misunderstanding. You seem to have considerable conviction, even though it’s based on a mistake. I can’t hold that against you. I admire a guy who can act on his convictions. I mean, under other circumstance, I could see you and me being friends, so I can’t fault you for doing what you think is right. You made a mistake. It happens. You let me go now, and I’ll make it worth your while. You know what I mean?”
“You’d do that for me?” I say.
“Come on. Stop cutting that hole and talk to me.”
I don’t stop drilling.
“I’m a rich man. I can make it worth your while to let me go. I can give you a sack of money—a hundred thousand dollars. You ever hold a hundred thousand dollars in your hand? Two hundred. I can get you two hundred grand. I can have it to you by sundown.”
I keep turning the auger. “Two hundred thousand dollars?” I say.
“Yeah. Cash. Maybe more. What do you say? You strike me as the kind of guy who could take that seed money and become a millionaire in no time.”
I contemplate what I would do with two hundred thousand dollars. What’s the thing I would most want to buy? The answer comes rushing into my head. If I had that kind of money, I would give it all up for just one more day with Jenni. I would give everything. I would offer up my life to have her back, to have our child born.
My hands start to shake with anger. I pull the auger out of the hole and lunge at the man, jamming the shovel up against his throat. “You’re offering me money?” I scream. “Money! You kill my wife and my child and you want to give me money?”
“Whoa! Whoa!” His eyes are bulging out with fear. “I never did! I . . . I didn’t kill your wife. I’ve never killed a child in my life. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t lie!” I push the auger blade into his neck as he stretches to pull away. “Don’t fucking lie to me!”
Tears well in my eyes, and the blade against the man’s neck becomes a blur. I fear that I may cut his throat by accident. I don’t want that. I’m not ready for that. I pull the auger back and step away to see what looks like fear or maybe confusion in the man’s face.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispers. “You think I killed your wife? Your child? No. You’re wrong. I never . . . Christ, I—”
“Her name was Jenni Rupert.”
“I’ve never even heard of your wife before. I don’t know that name. I swear.”
“I could understand how a man with your resume might forget the names of some of his victims.” I put the auger back into the hole. “How many people does a man have to kill before it’s okay to forget a name or two?”
“I don’t know your wife. And I sure as hell didn’t kill her. I swear to God, I’m innocent. You’ve got to believe me.”
I go back to turning the auger. “You know, I’ve always wondered why people say stupid shit like that. You tell me I’ve got to believe you—like it’s proof that you’re not lying. Well, excuse the hell out of me, but I don’t have to believe a God-damned thing you say, seeing that I’m the one with the auger and you’re the one tied up.”
I punch through to the lake and water comes rushing out of the third hole.
I set the auger blade into the fourth starter hole and rest my arm across the top. “You’ve been lying to me ever since you started talking. If you want to start telling me the truth, I’ll listen. But if you’re going to keep going on with this ‘I’m innocent’ crap . . . well, I got holes to drill.”
Chapter 20: Minneapolis—Yesterday
Chapter 20
Minneapolis—Yesterday
In the three years since Niki and I became partners, we’ve shared many a cup of coffee at Eddie’s Soup and Sandwich, a notch in the side of the down-town skyway, a couple blocks from City Hall. Eddie’s had great coffee, and we could walk there in bone-brittle weather without ever having to step foot outside.
I found Niki seated at a corner table with two cups of coffee in front of her. A thirtysomething man in a charcoal suit and rubber covers on his shoes—my guess an attorney on his way back from court, grabbing a cup of joe on his client’s dime—waited at the counter for his order, his back turned to the register, his eyes brushing up and down Niki’s body, tiny, fit, a lock of her hair suspended in front of her eyes, dark and twisty like a jungle vine. No doubt he was judging her, knowing her only with his eyes, appraising her worth by the physical qualities that pressed against the cotton of her blouse and filled the curve of her jeans.
If she noticed the gawker she didn’t show it. “I saved you a seat,” she said, moving my chair out with her foot.
“You’re so kind.”
The guy in the suit swiveled back to pay for his coffee, apparently yanked out of his daydreams by my presence.
“What took you so long?” she asked, sliding one of the coffees to me.
“Got tied up with a phone call,” I said.
“Good news, I hope?”
“Just the opposite.”
I sipped my coffee and replayed my conversation with Commander Walker. I watched her eyes grow damp as I told her about his cancer. I saw her face sag in despair when I explained how Lieutenant Briggs would be Walker’s likely replacement. I didn’t cushion the blow. She needed to see how grim her future might be, especially if she continued helping me dig into Jenni’s death.
“Briggs? Head of Homicide? That empty-suited, pencil pusher? He doesn’t know the first thing about investigations.”
“He’s been put on this earth for bigger things, Niki. He’s a great man suffering the indignity of having to build his own pedestal. Have a little compassion.”
“He’s a worm who thinks he’s a caterpillar, that’s what he is.”
“Regardless, there’s no denying he’s a wiz at climbing ladders,” I said. “While you and I have our brains soaking in the muck of criminal cases, he’s playing a whole different game. Fuck all that crime-solving crap. It’s a distraction.”
“Screw him,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“You need to take this seriously, Niki. If Walker’s right, Briggs will come after you. You’re a threat to his plan.”
“I’m a threat? How do you figure?”
“You’re smart, well-liked, and would make a great commander. Briggs sees that.”
“I don’t have the seniority to be a commander.”
“Walker thinks you’d give Briggs a run for his money, even with Briggs having his nose smashed up against Chief Murphy’s prostate. He needs to take you out of the running. He’s going to be looking for a reason to muddy your record.”
“Let him come after me. See what happens.�
��
“Niki, if he was digging through the computer, he saw the Cappers search you did on Jenni. He’ll know I’m back on the case and that you’re helping me. Briggs is an asshole, but he’s not stupid. If he’s looking for a hook to take you out, he may have already found it.”
“I don’t care,” Niki said. “If that’s what it’s going to be like to work under Briggs, then I’d rather he fire me.”
“He can’t fire you if you aren’t doing anything wrong.” I hesitated before I spoke again, bracing myself for the pushback I knew would come. “I want you to quit working on Jenni’s case,” I said. “If Briggs asks, you tell him that you were looking stuff up for me, but I didn’t tell you why.”
Niki didn’t speak; I waited. She just stared at me.
“Niki, this is my problem, not yours. I can’t have—”
“And if this were my problem, would you turn your back?” She spoke in a whisper, but yelled nonetheless. “If I told you to stay out of it, would you?” She raised a finger to my face. “Hell no, you wouldn’t. You’d be right there at my side. God dammit, Max, sometimes you make me so mad I want to . . .”
Her hand went rigid, her index finger curling back to complete a fist. For a second there, I thought she might actually hit me. Then she turned in her chair to face away, crossing one leg over the other. She stayed turned away while she calmed down. I’d never seen her that angry, and I had been the cause of it.
When she turned back to the table, she smiled. “You’re not the boss of me,” she said raising a defiant eyebrow. “I can be just as ornery as you when I want to be, and . . . well, I want to be. So go ahead and give your little orders, say what you got to say, but I’m going to keep working on this case, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. You don’t like it? Take it up with my boss. His name is Lieutenant Emil Briggs.” She cocked her head as if to say—your move.
I had no move, other than to squirm in my seat. “Fine,” I said. “And by fine I mean: it’s not fine at all, but I don’t have much of a choice.”
“I thought you’d see it my way.”
“With one caveat,” I said. “Promise me that if Briggs comes after you for this, you tell him that I was keeping you in the dark. You tell him you didn’t know what I was up to.”
“I’ll tell that blow hard that he can go—”
I reached across the table and grabbed Niki’s hands and squeezed them. “No!” I said. My interjection punched the air with a sharpness that brought our conversation to a halt. Then quietly, I whispered, “No. I don’t want you stepping into Brigg’s trap. He wants you to be insubordinate. He needs you to be insubordinate. It’s one of his favorite weapons. You have to promise me: if he confronts you—you tell him that you didn’t know.” I squeezed her hands a little harder. “Please, promise me.”
She hesitated, looking into my eyes as if searching for a crack in my resolve. She found none. I wasn’t about to let her skip merrily along at my side as I charged down the dark path unfurling before me. She didn’t know about the wolves. She didn’t know the lengths that I would go to hunt them down. She had no idea how deep my rage and hatred ran. There would be carnage at the end of this; I felt it in my bones. I would protect her from that at all costs.
“Okay,” she whispered. “I promise.”
“You’re looking into things because I asked you to. Understand? I told you that it was part of the Jane-Doe cold case. That’s all.”
“I got it, Max.”
“Good.” I loosened my grip on her hands.
“But this is about the Jane Doe case. That’s not a lie.”
“What do you mean?”
She reached into a briefcase beside her and withdrew a file. From the file she pulled out two photographs, laying them on the table in front of me. One, I recognized as the autopsy photo of Jane Doe. The second picture was of the same girl, only she was alive, badly beaten, bruised, but alive. My confusion could not have been more obvious.
“Meet Zoya, the girl they brought into HCMC the day your wife died.”
“Where did you get this?”
“It bothered me that Cappers had a folder for the pictures but no pictures. Why would the officer take the time to create the folder and not transfer the photos? So I went down to the Tech Unit this morning. There’s a lady there that I knew back when I worked Vice. She’s a wiz at metadata and computer forensics. She used to track IP addresses for us in child-solicitation cases. This morning, she ran a forensic examination using the metadata for the picture folder and found the deleted photos still in the system. They were deleted the same day they were uploaded.”
“Deleted? Why? How?”
“Could have been an accident, or it could have been intentional. The data doesn’t say. All we know is that the photos were there and then gone.”
I looked at the pictures again. There’s no mistake. These girls were one and the same.
“I also did some research on the tattoo. Vice keeps records of tats that are linked to prostitution. I looked in the database but no ruble.”
“Is every known pimp brand in the database?”
There’s always scuttlebutt in Vice, tats that we believed were brands but couldn’t prove.”
“So someone in Vice . . . say, the guy who runs the unit—”
“Don’t even go there.”
“He might have some information. We should at least call.”
“Who’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about?”
“Whitton likes you. He’ll talk to you if you call.”
“That man is a pig, and I’m not talking to him.”
“I’m not so sure he’ll speak to me,” I said. “He hasn’t said a word to me since I stole you away from him three years ago.”
“You didn’t steal me away. I wanted the transfer. I couldn’t stand to be around that bastard.”
“It’s good to let it out. You should call him. It’ll be therapeutic.”
“Did I ever tell you that he once told me to take my top off during a sting? We were doing hotel busts and a couple of the tricks wouldn’t talk money unless I showed them my tits. Commander Whitton told me to go ahead and strip down. ‘Take one for the team,’ he said. ‘Women walk around topless all the time in Europe.’ I think he just wanted to get my breasts on surveillance footage for his private collection.”
“Well, he was plenty pissed when I convinced Chief Murphy that you should be in Homicide. Called me all kinds of names. Like it or not, he may be able to help.”
“We may never know,” she said. “If you want to call him, more power to you. But I haven’t spoken a word to that jackass for three years and I’m not about to break that streak.”
“Fine, I’ll call him about the ruble tattoo—and by fine, I mean you win again.”
“Do send him my love, would you darling?”
“I’ll do that. You have a number?”
“In my desk, I’m sure. I’ll text it to you when I get back to the office. Then I’m heading over to the Government Center.”
“Warrant?”
“No, doing you a favor,” she said. “I have an idea where we might get a copy of Kroll’s voice.”
“The Government Center?”
“Court records. I checked MNCIS, and he made his first appearance without an attorney. Most courts use electronic court reporters—basically it’s a fancy digital recorder. Kroll would have had to answer a couple questions at that first appearance: name, address, does he understand the charges, that kind of stuff. They may still have that recording somewhere in the courthouse.”
I grinned, then chuckled. “You’re brilliant, you know that? You were made for this job.”
She gave a humble shrug of her shoulders. “I don’t know if a recording exists,” she said. “But keep your fingers crossed. We might get lucky yet.”
Chapter 21
Chapter 21
Arriving early for my meeting with Farrah McKinney, I bought a cup of coffee and found a table in the back of the
cafeteria where someone had left a newspaper. I might have paid no mind to the news of the day had a headline not jumped up and caught my eye.
BODY FOUND IN BURNED VEHICLE
“Aw, shit,” I muttered.
I read the story, which gave very little insight beyond the basic facts of the fire and presence of a body. I assumed that the source for the story had been one of the patrol officers, or maybe a firefighter. I held that thought until I read the second paragraph. There, the story referenced what the reporter called “suspicions” of the investigators. The story quoted an anonymous source as saying authorities believed the incident to be “gang-related.”
“What the . . .” That’s no firefighter saying that.
I leaned back in my seat, pressed a thumb and finger against opposite temples and rubbed. I had hoped to put Fireball aside for my meeting with Farrah. I didn’t need that blight of a human being stealing brain cells as I listened to Jenni’s last recorded words.
I had just started whittling away at possible sources for the story, a short list with an ending that I was pretty sure I already knew, when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to see a text from Niki: the name Whitton and a phone number. I called the number.
“Whitton here.”
“Commander Whitton, this is Detective Max Rupert. You have a minute? I’d like to get your help on a case.”
Silence met my request, and in that silence, the memory of our last exchange came flooding back to me, a confrontation we had after Whitton lost his argument to keep Niki in Vice. Niki knew about most of that fight, but there was one part she didn’t know.
I’d gotten Niki as a partner on a temporary assignment to handle a spate of murders three years ago When things calmed down, Whitton requested that Niki be transitioned back to Vice. She was attractive and Asian, and Whitton saw little beyond those assets. I fought to have her remain in Homicide. I won that battle, which ended with Whitton storming out of Murphy’s office.
