Broken Ice--A Novel

by Matt Goldman

  “Then it gets ugly. Dick picks aplenty and dildos in desk drawers and lust letters. They’re lewd at best and some are downright threatening. So for my sake and the sake of other women on the force and civilians who might get pulled over on a dark road, I felt I had to do something. It’s just a few bad apples, but they shouldn’t be carrying badges.”

  “I agree. But what’s this have to do with the fingerprint on the arrowhead?”

  “The day I filed suit, I called a reporter friend at the Strib. He’s been documenting the whole thing and plans to write a series of articles about it. SPPD got wind of it and now it’s a shit show flambé. I have to go before a review board, and regardless of the review board’s decision, my days as a Ramsey County medical examiner are soon to be over. Ramsey County isn’t all about St. Paul, but St. Paul’s got enough pull that if they want me out, I’m out. After last night, they wanted to suspend me without pay, but the other two M.E.s had their hands full with that chain reaction multifatality in the fog on Interstate 94. This morning, when you called me directly about the Woodbury bodies, I ran right over before someone pulled me off the case.”

  “Sorry you’re going through all that,” I said, still not understanding the connection.

  Char looked down at her latte then continued. “Anyway, the reason all this matters is because now I’m on my way out so I got nothing to lose.”

  “Ah. Now I get it. What’d you do?”

  “I called Warroad Police at 2:00 A.M. and spoke to an Officer Stensrud. I may have misrepresented my position in Ramsey County law enforcement, but I’m sure he didn’t question it because of the number that showed up on his caller ID. I used a flirty voice and my real name. He probably googled me while we were talking and saw a mess of pictures from my beach volleyball days.”

  “Good thing. You’re a horrific sight now.”

  She smiled then continued. “Anyway, he got real chatty real fast. So I asked if he could do me a favor and lift a few prints off the lockers of your hockey players, Luca Lüdorf and Graham Peters. I know we took prints on Luca and Graham, but SPPD locked me out of the database.”

  “How did you even know about them?”

  “Before SPPD locked me out of the system, I read reports on the case. Kind of took a special interest in it after I saved your life outside the cave.” She smiled a cocky little smile and may have even winked.

  “This cop in Warroad, he didn’t get fingerprints for you, did he?”

  “Yes, he did. Officer Tony Stensrud is bored out of his mind because eighty percent of Warroad is down here for the hockey tournament and the other twenty percent is infirm. Even Marvin Windows closed up shop for a few days. The school’s empty. So he waltzed in and got the prints.”

  Char raised her eyebrows then took a sip of her latte.

  “And?”

  She set her latte down and took a breath. “And none of the hockey players’ fingerprints match what we found on the arrowhead.”

  “Look at you. You’re all aflutter. I’m just going to sit back and enjoy the rest of the story because I know you got something, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”

  “No we wouldn’t. Because I asked Stensrud to get me someone else’s prints. And guess what?”

  I glanced to my right and caught a pair of eyes on us. A puffy man about fifty with a cheap haircut and no-wrinkle pants, no-wrinkle shirt, and no-wrinkle tie, each a different shade of green. He was clean-shaven and overly pink in the face. Whatever he was drinking had a softball of whipped cream on top ribboned with chocolate and caramel. That’s a cop perk. He had plainclothes written all over him.

  “Keep your eyes on me,” I said under the din of the insurance agents and recovering alcoholics. “Don’t look away and keep your voice down. We got company. A cop to your left, about nine o’clock. I’m getting up to grab a napkin. After I’ve taken a step away, stop me and ask me to get a stir stick or something. You’ll get a look at him.”

  We performed our little skit then I returned with the napkins and stir stick.

  “He’s Woodbury PD,” said Char just loud enough for me to hear. “Probably has buddies in St. Paul.” Char reached into her purse and took out a pen then grabbed the napkin I’d just fetched. She scribbled something on it and slid it toward me. It read: The fingerprint on the arrowhead belongs to Warroad hockey coach Gary Kozjek.

  I stood, took the napkin, shoved it in my pocket, and walked away.

  “Shap?”

  I continued past the Woodbury plainclothes and through the glass door to outside. It was probably forty degrees but it felt like seventy-five. The sun bounced off the white sidewalk. It hurt my eyes and I liked it. I walked through the parking lot toward a crop of new two-stories facing a park of dormant grass. In the far corner of the lot, a minimountain of plowed snow slumped like a drunk. I heard birds tweet, and in the blue sky overhead, a cursive V of Canada geese honked their way north. In the master-planned suburbascape, a few blades of grass leaned toward green, brave early adopters who were willing to pay the price for the March blizzard that was sure to come.

  I had to think. I walked fast, my legs working like bellows to stoke the part of my mind I can’t access. I forgot that whoever shot me might try again. I passed a pregnant woman wearing a man’s T-shirt, her milk-white arms reflecting the sunlight. She walked a pair of blue-eyed silver labs who took their time trying to sniff the brown grass back to life. I continued around the block, which for no apparent reason, was shaped like a peanut. Ten minutes later, I walked back into Caribou Coffee. The inside felt dark and wrong. I passed the plainclothes as he broke a piece off a cookie the size of a manhole cover. Char Northagen was where I’d left her. I sat in my chair and felt a drop of sweat run down my spine. I pushed into the chair back to kill it.

  Char said, “You always get up and walk away in the middle of a conversation?”

  I almost whispered: “Gary Kozjek told me he hunts bow season.”

  “Yeah, I nosed around,” said Char. “Got an ex at the DNR. Kozjek has a bow-hunting license. He registered a doe in September.”

  “But,” I said, “something’s wrong with the fingerprint.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Here,” I said and passed Char a straw. She took it. Then I wadded up a napkin and handed that to her. “The straw is the arrow shaft. The wadded-up napkin is the arrowhead. Show me how you screw the arrowhead onto the shaft.”

  Char held the wadded napkin between her left thumb and forefinger then used her right hand to screw the straw into the napkin.

  “Stop. Look how you’re holding the arrowhead. You need two fingers to do that, at least, but they only found one on the arrowhead. It can’t be done with one.”

  “Maybe it’s the only clean print.”

  “They would have told you if they’d found a partial. Faking one fingerprint is easy. There are several ways to do it. Low-tech and hi-tech. But faking a room full of fingerprints the way a person really uses their hands, on tables and light switches and computers and phones—that’s hard—that’s art. Same is true in this situation. But a monkey can fake one fingerprint.”

  Char let the idea bounce around in her head then said, “But if someone went to the trouble of faking Kozy’s fingerprint, why would they wipe it off?”

  “No idea. Maybe they changed their mind. Or maybe they knew the one would look so obviously faked they assumed the police would use the new technology. And if they found the fingerprint with new technology, it would legitimize the print.”

  “I don’t know, Shap. It’s weird. How could they assume I’d know about this new method of finding wiped-off prints?”

  “Because if it’s new everyone knows about it. It’s the definition of the word news. I bet if you google how to wipe fingerprints off metal, something comes up about the new tech, and new is all anyone cares about. The Web was built for it. It’s not like Pudd’nhead Wilson where the townsfolk are a decade behind.”

  “What’s Pudd’nhead Wilson?”<
br />
  “Something old. Which is why you don’t know about it.”

  Char pulled the plastic lid off her latte then stirred it with the wooden stick. She looked at me. I didn’t respond. Char’s mouth tightened and her forehead wrinkled. “Except…” She shook her head. “Except there was about an hour between when the Engstroms hired you and you got shot. So how would the archer have found out they hired you, had time to fake a fingerprint, then know you’d be outside that cave and when?”

  “How could anybody know?” I said. “And what’s the motive?”

  “I can think of one,” said Char. “Kozy was involved inappropriately with Linnea. He’s trying to cover it up. And as far as the fingerprint goes, maybe he wore gloves most of the time but accidentally touched it once.”

  “That’s a real possibility. Now you’re starting to think more like an investigator than an M.E. Maybe you should use your medical degree and deductive reasoning skills on living people.”

  “Maybe I should. Maybe I will. We’ll see…” Char glanced over at the Woodbury cop.

  “Does SPPD know about Kozjek’s print being on that arrowhead?”

  “I don’t think so. You’re the only person I’ve told. Why?”

  “You can’t withhold the information from them. Not legally. Not ethically. No matter how difficult they’re being. But we can tell Woodbury first. Let them send this morning’s arrows to the Minneapolis lab. See if they turn up the same thing.”

  “You going to invite the Woodbury cop with the whipped cream on his chin to join us?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Do you know a Detective Jamie Waller with Woodbury?”

  “I’ve met her a few times. Seems like a good cop.”

  “She’s awfully interested in working with me. Any idea if that’s personal or professional?”

  “Are you asking me if she’s straight? What’s wrong, Shap, your gaydar on the fritz?”

  “My gaydar works only on dudes. With women, their lack of personal interest in me could be because they’re gay or because of a hundred other reasons.”

  “Oh, I bet it’s more than a hundred.” Char smiled then said, “Waller’s straight as far as I know. You interested?”

  “Nope. Just trying to figure out her game.” I took out my phone and Waller’s card and reached her at the crime scene. I told her Char and I were at Caribou and had some information for her.

  Char said, “You didn’t tell Waller about her colleague being here.”

  “No, I think we should let that awkward scene play out naturally.”

  15

  We only had a few minutes before Waller arrived, so I got to it. “We’re just going to give Waller the basics,” I said. “Gary Kozjek’s fingerprint was found on the hosel of the arrowhead you pushed out of my shoulder.”

  “Okay,” said Char, “that’s what I was thinking we’d say. How is that just the basics?”

  “We don’t tell her we think the fingerprint could have been faked. And we offer no speculation or suggestions on what she should do next.”

  “Why not tell her it could be a fake?”

  “We want Woodbury and Saint Paul PD to have a suspect.”

  “Because?”

  “Because a double murder in Woodbury is the biggest thing to hit this town since it lost the horse racing track to Shakopee thirty years ago. Especially since both victims are rich and white and one of them was a high-level executive at 3M. There’s tremendous pressure on the police to make an arrest. Nothing would make them happier than having a suspect. So let them come to their own conclusions and go after Kozjek if they want. When St. Paul gets wind of it, they’ll join the hunt.”

  “So you’re giving them Kozjek to get them out of your hair.”

  “Seventeen-year-old girls disappear all the time. But the people looking for them don’t get shot by arrows. Something’s wrong here, and I need time to feel my way into it. With the police on Kozjek, I’ll get it. And if Kozjek ends up being the shooter, all the better.”

  Char understood. She took a sip of coffee then said, “Where was the archer when he shot you? Did anyone see anything?”

  “I didn’t. SPPD questioned Ellegaard and the officers outside the cave. No one saw anything. They say they’re investigating, but I haven’t heard a word.”

  Waller entered. She spotted us in the corner and headed toward us, passing her colleague, who she recognized but walked by as if she didn’t.

  She pulled a free chair away from a nearby table and joined us. We said our hellos then I told Waller about Gary Kozjek’s fingerprint on the arrowhead. Waller jumped where I thought she would by instructing Char to send this morning’s arrowheads to Woodbury CSU. Then she looked at me with her skeleton face and said, “Why did you tell me and not St. Paul?”

  “I thought we were helping each other out, Detective.”

  “You are so full of shit. What do you want?”

  I looked at Char. Her eyes widened, as if I expected her to answer. I said, “You’re good at your job, Detective.”

  “Don’t fucking flatter me. Just tell me.”

  “The colleague of yours sitting over there who used a coupon on his haircut—why’s he on us?”

  “He’s not on you.”

  “Yes, he is. And we want to know if it’s Woodbury business or a favor for St. Paul.”

  “Pretty sure it’s not Woodbury. What’s going on with St. Paul?”

  Char told Waller about her impending lawsuit and how SPPD locked her out of the database and that she probably wouldn’t be working for Ramsey County much longer.

  Waller shook her head and said, “Fuckheads. They’re everywhere.”

  “So who is this guy?”

  “McNamara,” said Waller. “But that’s as much as I’m saying. I don’t shit on my own.”

  “Why wasn’t McNamara at the crime scene this morning? A double murder in Woodbury. I would have figured the whole force would be there.”

  Waller paused, started to say something, then stopped. The fingers of her right hand drummed the table. “I don’t know. I’ll get into it. Thanks for the information. Dr. Northagen, I expect those arrowheads this afternoon.” Waller got up and walked away.

  I dropped Char at Crestmoor Bay then drove 94 back to Minneapolis and parked in my reserved space in the City Center ramp. Minneapolis has its share of beautiful buildings. City Center is not one of them. It’s a forty-seven-story rectangle sided with brown granite, but the rock is crushed so, unless you’re standing right next to the building, it looks like brown dirt and something nineteenth-century Pueblos would access via ladders.

  I rode the elevator to the thirty-second floor and followed the sign to Stone Arch Investigations as if I didn’t know the way. Leah Stanley sat behind the reception desk. “Look who’s back from the dead.”

  “Nice to see you, too, Leah.”

  “Got a load of messages for you. Stacked them on your desk.”

  “Is it in your job description to read ’em to me?”

  “It is not.”

  “Hey, Nils! Welcome back!” said Annika, carrying a cup of coffee out of our tiny kitchen.

  “Annika will probably read them to you,” said Leah. “She’s nicer than I am.”

  “A wolverine is nicer than you, Leah.”

  The door opened behind me. Robert Stanley walked in. Leah’s father was a retired Minneapolis cop pushing sixty with medium brown skin and freckled cheeks. He wore a rag wool sweater, jeans, and neon yellow running shoes, though his belly looked like it hadn’t been carried on any marathons lately.

  Robert lived up north in Blackduck, on the northern edge of the Chippewa National Forest. He fished and hunted and only stepped foot in the Cities for newborn babies, funerals, and graduations.

  I said, “Robert Stanley. What’s the occasion?”

  He shook my hand and said, “God damn niece had a baby. And during the last week of ice fishing. Shame.” Robert exchanged hellos with Annika then walked around the reception desk to
hug his daughter. “Hey, baby.”

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  “They treating you okay here?”

  “They are not.”

  Most of the old guard Minneapolis cops aren’t fans of Ellegaard and me because we didn’t return to the force after the layoff. But Robert Stanley never seemed to care. He didn’t understand why cops got mad at us. We didn’t lay us off. The mayor did. When Leah wanted to work for a year before going to law school, Robert called and asked if we needed any help at our newly formed Stone Arch Investigations. We met Leah and hired her on the spot. She was not grateful.

  Robert Stanley said, “Hey Shapiro, if you guys are ever short of personnel, I could use some detective fringe work. I’m getting a little rusty and wouldn’t mind sharpening up my skills.”

  “Good to know. We were just saying the other day we could use a rusty old cop around here.”

  Robert Stanley laughed. “Goddammit, Shapiro. I got four daughters and always wished I’d had a son. Until I met you.” Robert Stanley hugged me hard and lifted me off my feet. “Thanks again for giving the baby girl a position in your illustrious firm. Keeps her out of my house.”

  “You shut up, Daddy.” Leah gathered her purse to go to lunch with her father when I noticed the blinds were up in Ellegaard’s glass-walled office. He sat at his desk across from a skinny guy with short-cropped hair so I said, “Who’s the skinny guy?”

  “Earl Davis. The CEO of BrainiAcme.”

  “Dammit.”

  But it was too late. Ellegaard was on his feet and waving me into his office.

  I said to Leah, “Thanks for the warning.”

  “You are the laziest man I have ever met.”

  “You haven’t met enough men.”

  Annika smiled. Her eye didn’t droop when she smiled.