Pretty Girl Gone

by David Housewright

  The ME glared at Mallinger like he expected the Chief to do something. Only the Chief was still too shaken to appreciate what I was telling her.

  “Listen to me,” I said. “The wound—it’s a downward path.” I pressed a finger against my own temple, pointing the finger at my jaw. “It’s an awkward way to hold a gun. Usually, the path of the bullet is upward.” I adjusted my finger accordingly. “There’s tattooing around the wound, but no abrasion collar, which means the barrel wasn’t pressed against the temple when it was fired. Something else. The gun.”

  “What about it?”

  “It was large caliber.”

  “So?”

  “He shouldn’t be holding it. The gun should have fallen from his hand.”

  “Ever hear of cadaveric spasm?” the ME said. “I’ve seen suicides who go into spontaneous rigor mortis, who grip the gun so tight you have to pry it from their fingers.”

  “Only he’s not gripping the gun. It’s just resting in his hand like someone set it there.”

  The ME was looking at me now like he was amazed to hear that we spoke the same language. I’ve met a lot of half-smart people like him before. It was always difficult for them to believe that there were other people in the world just as half-smart.

  “I’ll bet if you try to lift fingerprints, you’ll discover the gun has been wiped clean,” I told him.

  “Who’s the professional here?” The ME was addressing Mallinger. “He’s getting in the way.”

  “Maybe I’m wrong,” I said. “Maybe I am. Will it kill you to find out for sure? If this were Ramsey County you’d have a GSR—a gunshot residue kit. Swab his hand and test it for gunpowder. What would it hurt?”

  “What would it hurt?” Mallinger asked weakly.

  “We don’t have the facilities,” the ME said. “I’d have to send it to a private lab and that’s gonna cost the county a thousand dollars.”

  “Is that what we’re talking about?” Mallinger asked. “A thousand dollars?”

  “Chief—”

  “Bag the hand.”

  “I’m telling you—”

  “Bag the hand,” Mallinger shouted.

  The ME threw up his own hands in disgust.

  “Something else,” I said.

  “What?” the ME asked.

  “This is going to be even more expensive.”

  “What?”

  I looked directly into Mallinger’s eyes so she would better understand what I was telling her.

  “There are signs of methamphetamine cooking all over the place. The odor of cat urine? That’s what it smells like. Ephedrine from the cold medicine, lithium from the batteries—that’s part of the recipe.”

  “Are you saying Josie Bloom was cooking meth?” the ME asked.

  “Yes. In his bathroom. You can see the stains on his bathtub.”

  “No way. Josie wasn’t smart enough.”

  “If you can make chocolate chip cookies, you can make meth.”

  “Are you sure?” The strength was returning to Mallinger’s voice.

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Then where is the lab paraphernalia?” the ME wanted to know.

  “Good question,” I told him. “I couldn’t find any of the meth Josie cooked, either.”

  “How hard did you search?” Mallinger asked.

  “Not as hard as you will, I bet.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Call the Nicholas County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “No, this is my case.”

  “This is murder, Danny. Don’t make the same mistake your predecessor did.”

  “If the GSR test comes back negative, then I’ll call the sheriff.”

  “Look, you’re going to have to call him anyway. After you finish with Josie, you’re going to need someone trained in dealing safely with meth to go over the scene. Then there’s cleanup. For every pound of meth, there’s six, seven pounds of hazardous waste. Josie could have poured it down the drain. He could have tossed it into his backyard.”

  “I understand,” Mallinger said. “I’ll take care of it. Thank you.”

  “Danny,” I said.

  She glared at me like I had just committed a cardinal sin using her first name.

  “Chief Mallinger,” I said. “Be smart.”

  “If you’re so smart, maybe there’s something you can explain to me,” the ME said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The screwdriver protruding from Josie’s VCR. What’s that about? Was he hiding his drugs in there?”

  “People who use meth, they become so damned paranoid, they wonder where those people on the TV are. They attack the TVs and VCRs with screwdrivers and hammers to find them.”

  “Stay here,” Mallinger said. She sauntered over to her officers and gave a few orders. They dispersed in opposite directions, each happy to be finally doing something, although what they were doing I couldn’t tell you. The ME went back inside the house. Mallinger retired to the inside of her police cruiser and started working the radio.

  I stood outside and shivered.

  There was no traffic on the county road, and I was surprised when a battered SUV arrived, shuddering to a stop behind the ME’s van. Kevin Salisbury stepped out of the SUV in a hurry, afraid he was missing something. Like the ME, he carried his own camera.

  “Whaddaya got?”

  “Are you talking to me?”

  Salisbury glanced about, looking for someone to talk to. Finding no one, he returned to me.

  “The police scanner said there’s been a shooting.”

  “The ME’s inside. You should talk to him.”

  “Yeah.” Salisbury made for the house. Mallinger stopped him.

  “Whoa, Kevin,” she called as she left her vehicle. “Where are you going?”

  “I want to go—”

  “No, no, no. Come here.”

  Mallinger took the reporter aside and spoke to him like she had been doing it her entire life. For his part, Salisbury furiously wrote down her words in a notebook. After a few minutes Salisbury raised his camera. Mallinger shook her head. From his body language, I had the impression he was pleading with her, apparently without success. After a while, Salisbury began taking photos of the house, but he didn’t attempt to enter it.

  Mallinger rejoined me at the car.

  “I don’t want you speaking to Kevin,” she said. “Okay?”

  “Not a word. I promise.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  We watched the reporter circling the property, looking for an angle to shoot from that would make his photos seem ominous.

  “What do you think happened?” Mallinger asked.

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “I already don’t like it.”

  “I think Josie’s death is connected to the murder of Elizabeth Rogers.”

  “How could it be? That was thirty years ago.”

  “I spoke to Josie last night. He made some reference to—When I asked him about the night Elizabeth was killed, he said, ‘Oh, what did we do?’ When I pressed him, he said, ‘I can’t tell you.’ Then he passed out. I came here today to learn what he meant.”

  “Do you honestly think someone killed Bloom to keep him from telling a complete stranger a secret that he’s managed to keep to himself for over three decades? That’s kind of a reach, isn’t it?”

  “This morning I went to see Dr. Dave Peterson in Mankato. He was willing to talk to me yesterday. Now all of a sudden he’s too busy to even say hello. That’s when I did something foolish.”

  “No. Foolish? You?”

  “I left a note telling Peterson that I was going to ask the BCA to reopen the investigation. The next thing I know, someone runs my car off the highway and puts a bullet in Josie Bloom’s head. If it wasn’t for the deep snow in the ditch, I’d be as dead as he is now.”

  Mallinger shook her head.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Chief—”

  “I buy
the first part. You started asking Josie a lot of questions, his partners found out about it, panicked, and kill him. I’m willing to accept that. Bloom was a weak sister and he was getting weaker. I think he was killed because his accomplices were afraid he would tell you something about their operation, and that’s as far as it goes. The thing on the highway this morning—there’s no evidence that that was anything more than road rage. The fact that you’re asking questions about Elizabeth Rogers, that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “You can’t just eliminate the possibility.”

  “Sure, I can. You know, the guys in the truck, that could just as easily have been the two punks you punched out in front of Fit to Print. Did you ever think of that?”

  “You know about them?”

  “It’s my town.”

  “C’mon, Chief.”

  “I’m lazy, McKenzie. I admit it. I don’t like to work hard. That’s why I want to be chief of the Victoria City Police Department instead of going to a bigger city. I was looking forward to a long, uneventful career. Now this.” Mallinger sighed deeply and massaged her temples. “We’ll test Josie’s hand for gunshot residue. If it comes back positive, we’re going to call it a suicide brought on by drug abuse.”

  “If it’s negative?”

  “If it’s negative—ah, dammit. Wait here.”

  Mallinger disappeared into the house. The ME was following her when she returned ten minutes later. He smiled broadly as he approached Salisbury, as if speaking to the media was the most fun he could have. Mallinger flagged down one of her officers and spoke to him. The officer nodded his head like he was taking instructions.

  “Come with me,” Mallinger said as she approached her cruiser.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To our tiny, antiquated law enforcement center. I’m only doing this to get it out of the way, understand? We’ll take a hard look at Elizabeth Rogers’s file to see if there’s anything that even remotely supports this goofy theory of yours.”

  I bristled at the word “goofy,” but decided to let it slide. After all, it was nice of her to let me tag along.

  Mallinger was a quick, assertive driver with even less regard for traffic regulations than I had.

  “Have you ever been given a ticket?” I asked her.

  “Of course not. I’m a cop.”

  Five minutes later we were walking under bright fluorescent lights through the bowels of the Victoria City Center, arms and legs moving in perfect synchronization, to a door labeled RECORDS. Along the way we passed Officer Andy.

  “How’s it going?” I asked him.

  “I sent off the paint chips to PDQ. My girlfriend said she’d try to expedite the search. We should get a hit right away.”

  “Who the hell do you work for, Andy?” Mallinger wanted to know.

  Andy looked from me to her like he wasn’t sure.

  “Wait here,” Mallinger told me when we reached the door.

  I waited.

  And waited some more.

  Finally, Mallinger reappeared.

  “Let’s go,” she said as she brushed past me.

  “Where?”

  “To see Chief Bohlig.”

  “Why?”

  “The file on Elizabeth Rogers. It’s missing.”

  Chief Bohlig was a tall man, creased like old leather and wearing a thermal shirt that was faded from frequent washings and threadbare along the collar and cuffs. We found him chopping wood in the backyard of his lake home with a double-bladed ax. There was a pile of logs sawed into eighteen-inch lengths on his right. One by one, he split them into halves and quarters and tossed them into an even more impressive pile on his left. He chopped the logs on a thick, wide tree stump. The snow was trampled all around him and wood chips were littered everywhere.

  Mallinger asked him why he didn’t hire someone younger to chop his wood.

  “I’ve seen it before,” Bohlig said. “Seen it many times, how the soft life takes a man around the neck and slowly strangles him.”

  He looked at me.

  “What do you think?”

  “I never argue with a man who’s holding an ax.”

  “Good idea,” he said.

  We watched him chop a few more logs. I grew impatient, yet said nothing. It was Mallinger’s play. Finally, she asked, “Chief, what happened to the file on Elizabeth Rogers?”

  Bohlig kept chopping as if he hadn’t heard.

  “Chief?”

  “Why?” Bohlig asked in between swings.

  “Josie Bloom is dead. Suicide or murder, we’re not sure yet. We think it’s connected to the Rogers killing.”

  “The murder was over thirty years ago.”

  “Where’s the file?”

  “Gone. Destroyed. When I retired I purged a lot of old case files. I figured you could use the space.”

  I couldn’t contain myself any longer.

  “The only murder committed in the history of Victoria, Minnesota, and you destroyed the file?”

  Bohlig ceased chopping.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I can’t believe you threw away the file,” Mallinger said.

  Bohlig continued splitting logs.

  “Probably shouldn’t have,” he said. “I didn’t think it was important.”

  “Really?” I said. “Some people might think you knew exactly how important it was and that’s why you destroyed it.”

  That stopped Bohlig in midswing.

  “McKenzie,” Mallinger called.

  “McKenzie?” asked Bohlig. “Is that your name? McKenzie, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Enlighten me. What was in the file you didn’t want anyone to see?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why did you destroy it?”

  Bohlig didn’t answer.

  “You covered it up, didn’t you?”

  “You have no right to say that to me.”

  “Why? Why did you do it?”

  Bohlig continued to chop wood.

  “Who killed Elizabeth?”

  When he refused to answer, I stepped inside the arch of Bohlig’s swing, like a boxer getting close to an opponent. Bohlig could have split me in half if he had wanted to.

  “Who killed Elizabeth?” I repeated.

  “It’s in my report.”

  “What report?” Mallinger asked. “The report you destroyed?”

  Bohlig didn’t answer. Instead, he shoved me out of range. I nearly tripped on a log. Mallinger and I continued to watch him work. After a few moments he stopped and leaned on his ax.

  “I don’t know who killed Beth Rogers,” he said without looking at either of us. “The town is better off for my not knowing. Look at it. Look at what it’s become.”

  “You sonuvabitch.”

  “McKenzie,” Mallinger said. “Enough.”

  “You were a cop for forty years,” I told Bohlig, “and the one time you had a chance to get it right, you sold out.”

  “You don’t know anything about it.”

  “Then tell us.” I waved at Mallinger. “Give us the benefit of your wisdom.”

  Bohlig continued to work on his woodpile.

  “It’s in my report,” he said.

  We drove back to town in silence. Not a sound emanated from the radio and for a moment I thought Mallinger might have switched it off. I had never heard a police radio so silent. But then we were in crime-free Victoria.

  “I looked up to him when I was a kid,” Mallinger said eventually. “I wanted to be a cop partly because of him.”

  I was too busy watching the trees whizzing past the window to reply. The sun was nearly down and the trees were like shadows.

  “Did you have to accuse him like that?” she asked.

  “Some days I just can’t remember if I’m the good twin or the bad twin.”

  “Maybe the county attorney has a copy of the file,” Mallinger said.

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe it’s a moot point, anyway.
Maybe Josie Bloom really did commit suicide.”

  “Take me to my car,” I said.

  Fifteen minutes later we stopped behind my Audi, parked across the street from Bloom’s house. There was yellow tape all around the house, but no officers keeping watch. I asked her if that was a good idea. Mallinger was more interested in my future plans.

  “What are you going to do now?” she asked.

  “What makes you think I’m going to do anything?”

  “Are you going home?”

  “Do you want me to go home?”

  “Chaos, panic, murder—I’d say your work here was done.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until I get the answers I came for.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  Mallinger waited until I started my car before driving off. I watched her taillights disappear around a corner while the Audi warmed. A second car, a smaller one moving slow, turned the same corner and approached from the opposite direction. I paid little attention until it abruptly veered out of its lane and accelerated toward where I was parked.

  I brought my hand up to shield my eyes from the bright glare of the headlights.

  The car came closer.

  It’s going to hit you, my inner voice shouted.

  I lunged across the stick shift, half my body settling in the bucket seat next to me, the other half still curled beneath the steering column.

  Only the car didn’t hit me.

  At the last moment it straightened and came to an abrupt halt next to the Audi.

  “Hey, McKenzie,” a muffled voice shouted.

  I straightened in my seat and powered down the window. There were less than twenty inches between the two cars.

  “How you doin’, pal?” the voice asked.

  “Schroeder.”

  “So,” he said, “are you scared yet?”

  “I’m getting there.”

  “Goin’ into that ditch this morning, I thought I lost you.”

  “You saw it?”

  “Oh, yeah. I called it in.” He gestured in the general direction of Josie Bloom’s house. “Now this. My, my, my, my, my.”

  I studied him for a moment. The hard, cold wind set my teeth to chattering despite the warm air that the car heater spilled over my legs and torso.

  “Did you kill Bloom, Greg? Did you try to kill me?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  A gun appeared in his right hand that I recognized only as an automatic. He pointed it at me, letting it rest casually against the crook of his left elbow.