Jelly's Gold

by David Housewright

  “Do you think Josh hid them here somewhere?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  Ivy shook her head. “It’s not that big a place, and I’ve been—I’ve been collecting all of his things for his parents, going through all the drawers and closets. If the letters were here, I would have found them.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ve been thinking—McKenzie, ever since you left the other day I’ve been thinking about Josh and me. You believe he was lying to me; you believe that he was just using me until he found the gold and then he and the gold would be gone and I wouldn’t have anything. It isn’t true.”

  “I’ve learned a few things about Josh during the past couple of days,” I said. “He wasn’t always the most scrupulous guy.”

  “You’re wrong about him, McKenzie.”

  I came very close to telling her about Genevieve Antonello but quickly changed my mind. What was the point? Instead, I nodded my head as if I might agree with her.

  14

  I tossed a penny into the reflecting pool and made a wish. There were two preschool children wading in the water on the far side of the pool while holding the hems of their shorts up with their hands. Their young, well-dressed mother watched them vigilantly from one of the wide pebbled-concrete steps that led to the pool. I guessed that they were waiting for the children’s father, who probably worked in one of the steel and glass towers that loomed overhead, creating the skyline of downtown Minneapolis. The kids were laughing and hopping up and down in the cool water and their mother was smiling and I wished that they would always be as happy as they seemed. I guess I’m sentimental that way.

  The mother and her children weren’t the only people seeking relief among the shade trees, angular waterfalls, and cascading fountains of Peavey Plaza. Others also sat on the steps leading to the rectangular pool. Some were catching an early dinner, eating the hot dogs and Polish sausages a street vendor sold from his cart. Others, by the way they craned their necks, were obviously waiting for companions. Still others sat quietly contemplating the water. Perhaps they were waiting for rush hour traffic to clear before heading home, or maybe they were waiting for their heads to clear.

  Peavey Plaza is located on Eleventh Street and Nicollet Mall on the south side of downtown Minneapolis, and most people think it’s part and parcel of the acoustically magnificent Orchestra Hall that stands adjacent to it. Certainly the Minnesota Orchestra uses the plaza for many musical events, including its July Sommerfest concert series and Macy’s Twenty-Four Hours of Music, an all-day jam featuring just about every musical genre you could think of and a few you can’t. Actually Peavey Plaza is a Minneapolis-owned park, and most of the bands that play there are hired by the city. Unfortunately, the Tunes at Noon and Alive After Five concerts wouldn’t begin until June.

  I wanted to make another wish, only I’d run out of pennies. Instead, I tossed a quarter into the reflecting pool and watched it settle to the bottom.

  “You’re wasting your money,” a voice called out behind me. I turned to find Timothy Dahlin standing alone on a pebbled step, his arms flung wide, as if he were claiming the entire plaza for himself. He was short and round and revolved toward me as he eased off the step like the globe on a kid’s desk.

  “Why’s that?” I said.

  “Wishes don’t come true. I’d think a grown man would realize that. Besides, late at night homeless people, bag ladies, scoop the coins out of the pool and use the money to buy alcohol and drugs.”

  “Or food?”

  He smirked as if I were just too dumb to comprehend what was being said to me and sat on the step. I proved he was correct by tossing the rest of my change into the pool, making half a dozen splashes. He smirked some more.

  I moved to where he sat. Dahlin was wearing a suit that probably cost more than my car; his shoes were shiny and unscuffed. So was his face. Dahlin had spent a lot of money to disguise his age, yet you could tell he was fast approaching seventy-five years; you can always tell.

  Allen Frans, the young man who had been following me in the Corolla, was sitting two steps up and about ten yards to the left of Dahlin. He was watching me intently. Greg Schroeder was sitting three steps up and about fifteen yards to the right. He was eating a chili dog and acting as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “I believe you called this meeting, Mr. McKenzie,” Dahlin said. “What can I do for you?”

  I gestured toward the young man. “I do not want Allen following me, for one thing.”

  Dahlin glanced over his shoulder at the young man. “Does he make you nervous, Mr. McKenzie?”

  “Not particularly. I’ve dealt with his sort before.”

  “Surely you would not compare Allen to Ms. Petryk’s associates.”

  He knows about them, my inner voice said. The man gets around.

  “Allen appears a good deal smarter,” I said, “but no tougher. In any case, I find his presence disconcerting.”

  “Why should that trouble me?”

  “I was thinking of Allen’s welfare. If I catch him following me again, he’s going to get hurt.”

  I glanced up at Allen as I spoke. He didn’t so much as arch an eyebrow. I turned back to Dahlin.

  “Allen can take care of himself,” he said, “as you will soon discover if you continue to involve yourself in matters that do not concern you.”

  “What matters would those be?”

  “My family.”

  “I have absolutely no interest in your family—or you, either, for that matter.”

  “In that case, I expect you to return my property.”

  “Your property?”

  “The letters my mother wrote.”

  “Actually, those letters belonged to your aunt’s daughter’s daughter. That would make her your what—second cousin?”

  “A very silly girl,” Dahlin insisted.

  “She’s not a silly girl. She’s a woman. I like her. I like her a great deal better than I like you—but why quibble?”

  “Why quibble, indeed, Mr. McKenzie? I will pay you for the letters.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten thousand dollars.”

  “That’s not much money,” I said. “Especially when you consider that people have died for them. Josh Berglund comes to mind.”

  “Others could die as well.”

  “A pretty good threat, Dahlin. Nice and subtle. Except it would only work if I was convinced that you were involved in Berglund’s murder. Are you saying that you were involved, Mr. Dahlin?”

  “I most certainly am not saying that.” Dahlin glanced around as if he were looking for a TV camera.

  “No, I wouldn’t imagine that you would.”

  “I want those letters, McKenzie.”

  “What makes you think that I have them?”

  “I am aware that Mr. Berglund passed the letters on to you before he died and that both Ms. Petryk and Mr. Whitlow have made you offers to secure the letters.”

  “Who told you that?” My eyes were fixed on Allen.

  “So far you have resisted their entreaties,” Dahlin said. “Do not make that mistake with me.”

  “What exactly are you afraid of, I wonder.”

  “Do not be presumptuous, Mr. McKenzie.”

  “It’s just that, from what I know, you seem to be going to a great deal of trouble for a not very good reason.”

  “My reasons are my own.”

  “Mr. Dahlin, are you aware that your father was blown up in a car in 1936 just weeks before you moved to St. Paul?”

  Dahlin’s face grew tight and red and his eyes became alarmingly bright, even as his voice grew cold and colorless. “My father died in his sleep in February 1975, three months after my mother died in her sleep,” he said.

  His response made me feel like a jerk. Dahlin was right. Whatever emotional wounds he was suffering because of his parentage belonged to him and him alone. I had no business picking at them.

  “I apologize, sir. Allow me t
o rephrase the question? Are you aware that Brent Messer—”

  “I didn’t even know he existed until three months ago,” Dahlin said.

  “Do you believe that he was Frank Nash’s partner, that he was his fence?”

  “It is all about the gold with you, isn’t it? The gold you people think is hidden in St. Paul.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “The gold doesn’t exist.”

  “You’re probably right. Still—”

  “What can I do to convince you to walk away from this, this”—Dahlin gestured at the reflecting pool—“this silly wish? What’ll make you stop?”

  “The arrest and conviction of Josh Berglund’s killer, for one.”

  “I know nothing about that.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  He looked at me as though his eyes were focusing on something inside my head. He spoke very slowly. “I can break you, McKenzie.”

  “No, I don’t think you can. I’m not some poor schnook who’s worried about feeding his family, paying his mortgage, sending his kids to school. You can’t take my job away or blackball me in my profession. Nor can you foreclose on my house, condemn my property, repossess my cars, or push me into bankruptcy. As for other, more subtle weapons that might be at your disposal, if you come after me, pal, you’ll find I have more than enough money and resources to fight back. You won’t like how I fight.”

  “There are other ways, less subtle.”

  “Such as?”

  “Allen.”

  Dahlin turned his head and watched Allen rise from his perch on the step. He turned it again to see how I would react as Allen slipped his hand under his coat and moved toward me. I don’t think he expected me to smile. When I did, Dahlin looked back to see Greg Schroeder pressing the business end of a .40 Glock into Allen’s ear.

  “Can I shoot him?” he said. “Can I, can I, huh, huh?”

  “What about it, Mr. Dahlin?” I said.

  Dahlin seemed more disappointed than angry. “You made your point,” he said.

  “You got guys with guns, I got guys with guns, and my guys are scarier than your guys.”

  “I said you made your point.”

  “This doesn’t need to be an adversarial relationship, Mr. Dahlin. We can help each other if only you get past the idea that this is personal. It’s not. This is about who killed Berglund and about Jelly’s gold. That’s it. I know your monumental ego can’t deal with the reality of it, but I’ll tell you just the same. Nobody gives a crap about you. You could live or die or move to Wisconsin, no one gives a shit. No one cares who your parents were or who they weren’t. No one is trying to embarrass you. You threaten people to protect your name. What name? I could shout it at the top of my lungs and all the people wandering around Peavey Plaza will go, ‘Who?’ Honestly, I don’t get it, why you’re so bent out of shape over this. You’re the one writing a book, another rich white guy screaming, ‘Look at me, look at me.’ If you really want to get noticed, put it in. Tell the world about your parents, about Brent Messer. That’s what’ll get you on Oprah.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about, McKenzie,” he said.

  “Then enlighten me.”

  “Are we done here?”

  Dahlin was standing now and looking up at Allen and Schroeder. I gestured at Schroeder to lower the Glock. He did, concealing it under his jacket but holding on, ready to draw it again. Why the dozens of pedestrians streaming by didn’t notice that he had been pointing it at Allen and go screaming for the cops I couldn’t say.

  Dahlin began walking across the plaza. Allen quickly joined him. I heard him say, “I apologize, Mr. Dahlin. I didn’t see him coming.”

  Schroeder and I stood silently until Dahlin and Allen disappeared into the traffic.

  “What do you think?” I said.

  “This guy, what’s-his-name, Dahlin—he doesn’t strike me as a quitter.”

  “No, I don’t suppose he is.”

  Schroeder and I lingered in the plaza together for a few minutes, talking it over. When he left I pulled out my cell phone and called Bobby Dunston. He said I’d saved him the trouble of contacting me.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “The log book Ivy Flynn gave us. Turns out Josh Berglund wrote with a nice, strong hand. Forensics was able to raise the letters on the page beneath the one that was torn out. Know what it says?”

  “Milk, eggs, bread—”

  “It says that he passed the letters on to you.” That’s almost exactly what Dahlin said, my inner voice reminded me. “Berglund wrote that he met SS as scheduled and secured Kathryn’s letters. Then he wrote, and I quote, ‘Passed letters on to McKenzie.’ Do I need to get a search warrant for your house?”

  “Honest to God, Bobby, I don’t have the letters. Berglund didn’t pass anything on to me. I only met him the day before he died. Hell, I didn’t even know for sure that Berglund found any letters until this morning.”

  I explained what I had learned, pointing out that SS must have been Shelly Seidel. “You should contact her,” I added. “Do you want her address and phone number?”

  He did. “If you don’t have the letters, who does?” Bobby said.

  “I have no idea—but I do have another suspect for you. Timothy Dahlin. He’s desperate to find the letters, too. He all but admitted that he’d kill for them.”

  I told him about my meeting with Dahlin, leaving out only nonessential details, like the presence of Greg Schroeder and his Glock.

  Bobby took a deep breath before he replied. “What the hell, McKenzie. Suddenly I’m Inspector Lestrade and you’re Holmes telling me how to do my job?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “All these suspects you keep sending my way. Whitlow, the Antonello girl, now Dahlin. Is there something going on I should know about?”

  “Bobby, you have a very suspicious nature.”

  “Yes, I do. I also know bullshit when I hear it. What are you up to, McKenzie?”

  “I’m just trying to help out.”

  “Uh-huh. Sure. In the meantime, if you find those letters, you had better call me. I’m not kidding.”

  “If I find the letters, I’ll think about it.”

  “Don’t go there, McKenzie. It’s deep, it’s dark, it’s cold.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to that, so I folded up my flip phone and went on my way.

  15

  It was a pretty good crowd for a Thursday night. All the tables on the bottom floor at Rickie’s were filled, and I was willing to bet that the dining room on the second floor was SRO as well. Local chanteuse Connie Evingson was singing jazz up there, and she always drew a crowd.

  I found an empty stool at the stick. The bartender knew that Summit Ale was my usual beverage of choice. He also knew not to pour one without asking first. Sometimes I preferred something harder. Like black Jack with water back. The bartender poured the Jack Daniel’s Black Label sour mash whiskey into a shot glass and slid a stein of water next to it. “So it’s been one of those days,” he said.

  “Sometimes it seems like my entire life has been one of those days,” I said.

  The bartender was too busy to chat and shuffled down the stick to serve other customers. Just as well, for I had nothing to say to him. I glanced up at the walls, although I couldn’t tell you why. Nina forbade TVs in her place, so there was no ESPN or Fox Sports to watch. Also just as well. The Twins were off to a slow start. As for the Wild and Timberwolves, let’s just say they had just finished up what had been long seasons and let it go at that. Actually, make that very long seasons. I took another slug of Jack followed by a sip of water.

  A moment later Nina was standing across the bar from me, balancing a coffee mug by the handle. “From your expression, I’m guessing you didn’t find the gold,” she said.

  “Remember when I told you that this wasn’t about righting the wrongs of the world, that it was just for fun?”

  “I do.”


  “Could be I spoke too soon.”

  “You’d think picking up eight million dollars in gold bullion wouldn’t be such a trial.”

  “Just goes to show how mistaken a guy can be.”

  Nina pointed her mug at the Jack Daniel’s. “Are you going to have many more of those?” she asked.

  “That depends. Are you coming over tonight?”

  “I could be talked into it. In fact—”

  Before she could finish, Heavenly Petryk shoved her way between me and the guy sitting on the stool next to mine, a wine cooler leading the way. “McKenzie, I need to talk to you,” she said.

  “Ahh, geez—”

  “It’s important.”

  “So important you can’t be polite?” I said. “You can’t say, ‘Excuse me’? You can’t say, ‘Sorry to interrupt, McKenzie, how was your day, McKenzie, has anyone threatened your life since I saw you last, McKenzie?’ ”

  Heavenly looked at me as if I were speaking a language she had never heard before. “I’ve been anxious to hear what Dahlin said,” she told me. “What did he say?”

  “Yes, McKenzie,” Nina said. “Tell us.”

  Heavenly scowled at Nina; it was the first time she acknowledged her existence. They locked eyes, and for a moment I was reminded of a painting I had once seen at the Minneapolis Institute of Art—two samurai about to strike. I gestured from one woman to the other.

  “Nina, Heavenly; Heavenly, Nina.”

  “Oh?” Heavenly regarded Nina carefully from across the stick. “You’re much younger than I’d thought you’d be,” she said. “ ’Course, it’s hard to tell in this light.”

  Nina’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  “Heavenly,” she said. “What a charming name. It’s clear to see your parents had a sense of humor.”

  I drank the rest of the Jack in one gulp. I was glad for the way it burned all the way down. It kept me from smiling; it kept me from laughing. Do either, my inner voice said, and you will probably pay with your life.

  “McKenzie says he’ll only get involved with women who have voted in—how many elections, ten? Isn’t that cute?”

  I waved at the bartender for another round.