A Hard Ticket Home (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels)

by David Housewright

  “I remember that,” I lied.

  “He’s also an expert with documentation, making sure everything gets through customs without a problem. Every country has its own rules, you know.”

  “Is your husband here, Charlotte?”

  “No. He flew out to Leningrad yesterday morning. Well, I guess they call it St. Petersburg now.”

  “When’s he due back?”

  “Tomorrow. He hopes to make the ball, but we’ll see. Why? You’re not going to pull a Napoleon Cook on me, are you? Take advantage of a defenseless woman all alone in the hour of her grief?”

  “I wouldn’t think of it.”

  “Well, think of it,” Charlotte said and started giggling again, prompting even more horrified glances.

  When the priest finished, the mourners who had gathered around Napoleon Cook’s coffin began drifting toward their cars. Charlotte shook my hand and said, “Seriously, it was a pleasure meeting you.”

  “The pleasure was mine.”

  “You’re just saying that because it’s true.” She giggled some more. “Am I going to see you at the ball tomorrow night?”

  “Probably not,” I told her.

  “I wish I could skip it, too, but Geno says—anyway, I gotta go.”

  “Take care,” I told her and watched her stroll toward the cars that lined the cemetery’s narrow street, swinging her purse from the strap like a little girl. I like her, I told myself. Talks too much, though.

  I searched the dispersing crowd and found the Casselmans. Warren was shaking hands with a man I didn’t recognize. Lila, the dutiful wife, stood at his side. After Warren and the companion said their good-byes, Warren nudged Lila toward a black limousine. A man dressed in a chauffeur’s uniform appeared and quickly opened the back door and held it until first Lila and then Warren slid inside. Him I recognized immediately, even fully clothed. It was the man in the pale green briefs who had greeted Lila so warmly the evening before.

  And people claim daytime soaps are exaggerated.

  “What have you seen that I missed?”

  Bobby Dunston was resting against the front fender of my Jeep Cherokee when I returned from the graveside.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Same as you. Eyeballing the mourners to see if the killer pays his respects.”

  “Unfortunately, the Family Boyz didn’t show.”

  “Did you think they would?”

  “Should we be talking, Bobby? What would the ATF, FBI, and all the other justice boys say?”

  “You sound bitter.”

  “I am bitter.”

  “You shouldn’t be. They got you out of a jam, whether you admit it or not.”

  Bobby gestured to the big Oldsmobile parked directly behind my Cherokee. Alec Baldwin was behind the wheel. He wiggled the fingers of his right hand in greeting.

  “I see you brought a date.”

  “He brought me.”

  My eyes swept from Bobby to Alec and back again. Something wasn’t right. The way Bobby held his arms across his chest in a defensive posture, the way Alec waited patiently in the car …

  “What’s going on, Bobby?”

  “There’s something I was asked to tell you.”

  “Asked or told?”

  “David Bruder was right-handed.”

  I recalled immediately what Bobby had told me in Rice Park: The killer was a southpaw.

  “See you around, McKenzie,” Bobby said abruptly. He retreated to the Oldsmobile and climbed inside. He never once looked back at me. That should have told me something. But it didn’t.

  The maniac who slaughtered Jamie and Katherine Katzmark was left-handed. Bruder was right-handed. Ergo, Bruder was innocent. Fine. Glad to hear it. Only why would Justice feel the need to share that information with me? It didn’t make sense and thinking about it caused me enough confusion that I nearly sideswiped a minivan when I took the 10th Street exit into downtown St. Paul. I decided to forget about it and instead concentrate on the task at hand, specifically finding an open parking meter within hiking distance of the Minnesota Department of Motor Vehicles.

  I ran the plates on the black Volvo I had followed the previous evening and was disappointed by the result. The car was owned by Geno Belloti, who apparently left for St. Petersburg on a much later flight than his wife had been told. I wondered if Charlotte knew that Lila had gotten to him, too.

  “I’m sorry, Charlotte,” I said out loud. So much betrayal.

  Next I ran the Audi’s plates. No surprise. The car was owned by Lila’s husband, Warren Casselman.

  Only the very rich name their houses as if they were pets. The Casselman house was called “Birchwood.” It said so on the iron arch that straddled the driveway. I drove under the arch and along the curving concrete driveway to the four-stall garage. The door to the second stall was up, revealing the limousine. The man who drove the limo and gave Lila her late night snack was now driving a lawn tractor around a clump of maple trees. There were maple, ash, and fir trees scattered all over the property, but no birch. Go figure.

  When the driver noticed me he steered the tractor in my direction, coming fast, cutting a swath through the tall grass. He was wearing khaki pants and sneakers, no shirt, taking advantage of the unseasonably warm September day. Twenty yards out he hit the kill switch and the tractor shuddered to a halt. He dismounted and moved closer. He was tall and rough looking—dirty blond hair cut short, sweat glistening on taut muscle. As he closed the distance between us I made the gold earring. Closer still and I could see the terrible scar tissue on his shoulder and stomach. I took a deep breath.

  “I don’t need this,” I told myself as I watched the driver approach. “I really don’t.”

  “You want something, asshole?” he asked.

  “I take it you’re not with Welcome Wagon.”

  “We don’t like peddlers here.”

  “Too bad. If I sell enough magazine subscriptions …”

  He threw a left. I ducked under it. Only he was quick. Before I could step away he set a headlock with his left arm and pulled up. I brought my right hand up under his chin and pushed his head to the left, forcing him to release his grip. I slipped out of the headlock and reversed the move, moving my right hand down and around so that my forearm was under his chin. I drilled an elbow just inside his right shoulder blade, putting him down. It should have been enough. It wasn’t. He came up with a left to my head. I blocked it with my right forearm. He followed with a right to my stomach. My right arm swept counterclockwise across my body for another block. Then I uncurled a vicious back fist into his jaw and followed with a four-knuckle punch to his solar plexus. He backed away and grinned at me, a wicked, yellow-tooth grin. Yeah, this sure beats the hell out of cutting grass.

  “Pussy,” he hissed.

  “Chauffeur,” I hissed back. It wasn’t much of an insult but I felt I had to say something.

  He moved closer than I wanted him to be. I could smell his breath—he needed a mint. Yet it was his eyes that got me. Everything you wanted to know was in those eyes. Eyes from a black-and-white movie, the color sucked out. Eyes that said he didn’t care if he lived or died.

  I reached for my gun.

  “Devanter! Devanter, what the hell!”

  I heard the voice and footsteps before I saw the man. It was Casselman. He grabbed Devanter’s shoulder, the one with the scar. “Are you crazy?”

  Devanter pushed Casselman back. “Don’t touch me!” he snarled.

  Casselman backed away. Suddenly he was a five-year-old losing a battle with an ice cream cone on a hot summer day. Yet at the same time he was used to giving orders and having them obeyed.

  “Don’t talk to me that way,” he said evenly. “You will treat my guests with respect.”

  Devanter smirked. I didn’t think Casselman sounded convincing, either.

  “Don’t you have work to do?” Casselman asked.

  Devanter grunted and then deposited a gob of spit next to my shoe b
efore shooting me a mocking “next-time” glance. Not if I can help it, pal. As he restarted the lawn tractor Casselman took my arm and shouted above the noise, “Are you all right?”

  I shouted back, “I heard good help is hard to find.”

  “Devanter is one of my wife’s reclamation projects from the VA. She says he’s harmless.”

  “She’s wrong.”

  “He’s a great gardener—all my friends use him,” he added as if he felt obligated to explain Devanter’s presence. Didn’t surprise me at all that the guy worked in dirt.

  Casselman gave me a grand tour of his home by way of apologizing for Devanter’s treatment, and with each wondrous sight I heard Bette Davis speak her most famous line as clearly as when she did it in the movie: What a dump.

  The outside of the Casselmans’ house was strictly English Tudor, with stone walls and high gables and so many windows you wondered why they didn’t just build the damn thing out of glass. Yet the inside had no particular period. It was all white with vaulted ceilings and arched passageways, ceramic tiles and hardwood floors. It looked like it was thrown together by someone who knew nothing about interior design, but damn well knew what he liked. What Casselman liked was stenciled wallpaper, small bronzes by Rodin, Chinese porcelains, neoclassic chairs, gilded antique tables, numerous jade statues and figurines, and handmade Persian throw rugs that I found myself stepping over and around.

  The place reminded me of an exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and I could well imagine how the plush surroundings might intimidate visitors unused to such opulence—provided they didn’t take time to notice the dust bunnies peering out from under the love seat and the hairline fracture that ran the length of the dining room ceiling. I make a point of searching out such imperfections. I find them comforting. Still, it was a grand house and I told Casselman so.

  He seemed pleased that I was pleased.

  Casselman was dressed casually. He had changed from his somber black funeral suit to little-worn blue jeans and a soft-blue knit shirt with the scales of justice embossed above the breast pocket, the kind of shirt you’d get at LawCamp, where yuppie kids can spend their summers studying torts, trial advocacy, evidence, and how to master the LSAT for a thousand bucks a week. He spoke openly with me like we were friends, like I was no threat to him at all.

  “Can I get you anything? A drink?” he asked, a gracious host quite at home in a house that had its own name.

  “I’ll have a beer if you’ll join me.”

  “Agreed.” He guided me to the kitchen. It seemed bigger than I remembered. I purposely avoided the spot where Lila and Devanter exchanged pleasantries the evening before while Casselman took two Amstel Lights from the refrigerator, handing me one.

  “This okay?”

  “Excellent.”

  Casselman took a long pull from the bottle, no glass for him, and smiled. “So tell me. Who are you exactly and why are you here?” The question seemed silly after all the time we had already spent together.

  “My name’s McKenzie.” I watched Casselman’s face carefully to see if he’d react to my name the way Cook had, but he gave me nothing. I could have been the meter reader. On the other hand, I suspected he knew who I was from the moment he found me in his driveway—why else would he be so gracious?

  “I represent Jamie Bruder’s family,” I added. “They asked me to look into her murder.”

  “I thought David Bruder did it.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “No?”

  “It’s been proven.”

  Casselman quickly turned away, yet I saw enough of his eyes to know that the remark had unsettled him. Like most attorneys, Casselman preferred to ask only those questions he already knew the answer to, and apparently, he thought he had known the answer to that one.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Quite sure. The police will probably make an announcement about it soon.”

  “Do they know who did kill Jamie and Katherine?”

  “Not yet.”

  “My wife is quite shaken by all this. First Katherine, then Jamie. Now Napoleon and David. She feels like we’re being targeted.”

  “The Entrepreneurs?”

  “Yes. It’s as if someone is after us.”

  “Is someone after you?”

  He paused for a moment while he considered his answer. “I can’t imagine why.”

  I took a sip of the Amstel, made him wait for my next question. “You were David Bruder’s lawyer, weren’t you?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Bruder.”

  “You talked to David?”

  “I was with him when he was killed.”

  Casselman moved smoothly to the refrigerator, opened it, rummaged through its contents for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten seconds and closed it again, taking nothing out. I smiled at his back. At heart, everyone is a mystery—the mind, however, is a different matter. I knew what Casselman was thinking even before he did. He was thinking that Bruder had put him on the spot.

  “What did David say?” he asked.

  “He said you were his lawyer.”

  “What else?”

  “This and that.”

  “It’s true, of course. His business affairs were handled by a firm in Arden Hills—I believe that’s where he met his wife. However, I was his personal attorney.”

  “The night he disappeared you called him. You left a message on his answering machine. ‘Something’s gone wrong. Better call me ASAP.’”

  “The police already asked about that.”

  “And?”

  “It was about the ball, the Entrepreneur’s Club Ball to be held tomorrow evening. We were having trouble with one of the bands, but it was straightened out.”

  “So, your call had nothing to do with the Family Boyz.”

  “The Family Boyz? What’s that? A rock band?”

  “A street gang, a little more interesting than most.”

  “I know nothing about them.” Casselman looked me straight in the eye, not daring even to blink. I took it as proof he was lying.

  “Bruder had dealings with them. So did Cook.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Don’t believe it or don’t want to?”

  “I can’t imagine what kind of business dealings David and Napoleon would have had with such people.”

  “You were their lawyer.”

  “But not their keeper.”

  “Nonetheless.”

  “Do you have any proof of their involvement? Any evidence that would stand up to scrutiny?”

  “In court, you mean? No.”

  “Then, Mr. McKenzie, you should be more careful with your accusations.”

  “Sounds like good advice.”

  “It was meant to be.”

  And here I always thought lawyers were supposed to be subtle. I went back on the offensive.

  “Where were you Tuesday night, the night Jamie was murdered?”

  Casselman waited one, two, three, four, five beats and said, “You should be a trial lawyer. Excuse me.” He moved to the entrance of the kitchen. He called, “Lila? Lila, would you come down here for a moment?”

  Casselman took another pull of his beer while we waited. Lila was wearing an oversize black T-shirt that barely brushed her thighs and nothing more that I could see. I tried not to stare.

  “This is Mr. McKenzie,” Casselman told her. “He’s investigating Jamie’s murder.”

  “The paper said David did it.”

  “Apparently the paper is wrong.”

  “Well, who then?”

  “That’s what he’s here to find out.” Casselman asked me to repeat my question. I knew I was wasting my time but I asked anyway.

  “I was here, with Lila.”

  “Is that true, Mrs. Casselman?”

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation.

  “All night?”

  “All night.”

  “How about F
riday night between eleven and midnight?”

  “Friday night? Isn’t that”—Casselman looked to his wife—“The night we went …”

  “To the movies and for a drink afterwards,” Lila finished. “We went to see the new Tom Hanks film. It was a date. We hardly ever have time for dates anymore.”

  Casselman nodded in agreement. He and Lila danced well together. I knew I wasn’t going to get anything more out of either of them until they were separated.

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Casselman. Mrs. Casselman. I can let myself out.”

  Casselman wasn’t as anxious to see me depart as I would have guessed.

  “Mr. McKenzie, do you own your own business?”

  “I’m self-employed,” I admitted.

  “Then you certainly qualify for the Northern Lights Entrepreneur’s Club Ball. It’s tomorrow night at the Minnesota Club. Have you received an invitation?”

  “It must have been lost in the mail.”

  “Please plan on attending,” he told me. “I’ll arrange to have an invitation sent to you by messenger.”

  “That’s gracious of you.”

  “It’s going to be a great party. A great send-off for Napoleon and the others.”

  “I’m sure it will be.”

  “I’ll be looking forward to seeing you there.”

  Through all of this, Lila stood mute, looking first at her husband, then at me, watching our conversation like it was a tennis match. Just for the hell of it, I decided to serve her a high, hard one. I glanced at my watch even though I had no interest in the time and said, “I have to go. I promised to meet someone at Rickie’s.”

  I looked directly into Lila Casselman’s eyes when I said that last part. Her smile froze and her face went pale.

  “I’m unfamiliar with Rickie’s. Is that a club?” Casselman asked.

  “Yes. In St. Paul.”

  “I confess that I rarely get to St. Paul.”

  “You should make more of an effort,” I told him. Lila stared at me without blinking. “Thank you for your time and trouble.”