“A crime was committed,” the male cop announced.
“No kidding, Barney,” I said and instantly regretted it. I had despised being called Barney Fife when I was a policeman.
“Sorry,” I told him.
“Sorry doesn’t cut it,” he said.
He had me there.
I went to the elevators, punched the down button, and thought about Susan. I had dealt with rape victims when I was on the job. Sometimes I told them, “I know how you feel.” Only I didn’t. I was taught how to behave, how to “chaperone” a victim. I was taught that rape was the ultimate violation, just one step short of homicide. I was taught about the fear, shame, anger, shock, and guilt that a woman experiences. I was taught about her inability to sleep and the nightmares she’ll have when she does sleep, the erratic mood swings and the feelings of worthlessness that will come later. But feel what she feels? Who was I kidding?
And Tilly. I could only guess at what he felt, too. The humiliation. The powerlessness. The crushing knowledge that he failed to do what men are taught they must do—protect their families. I’ve seen it suck the heart right out of a guy.
That’s why I wasn’t upset that Tilly slugged me, and I certainly didn’t hold it against him. Having failed the image he had of himself, he’d need to do something rough to restore his self-respect, something that’d absolve him of the sin of helplessness. It’s one way some men cope, and better than the alternatives many choose—blaming the woman for the assault or ignoring it altogether, pretending the rape never happened, out of sight, out of mind. Besides, the way I figured it, he had a few more free shots coming. Yet what I wished most for my friend was that he’d find within himself the strength, courage, patience, humor, and depth of love necessary to help him and Susan heal. That’s what I wished for them both.
As for me—I should have warned him. Goddammit, what was I thinking?
I told Tillman I’d take care of this, and I meant it. I couldn’t make it all right, I knew that. But I could make it better. I could find Frank Crosetti. I could find his thugs. I could grind them into dust. It’s the least I could do for Tilly and Susan. I owed them now.
I took a slow elevator to the main floor and worked my way out of the hospital. It wasn’t until I was in the parking lot that it dawned on me.
“Mr. Mosley.”
I didn’t warn him, either.
I punched his number into my cell phone. There was one ring followed by a voice mail message. “You’ve reached Mosley Honey Farms. We’re sorry we can’t take your call right now …”
Six cruisers from the Carver County Sheriff’s Department and one black Buick Regal were parked every which way on Mr. Mosley’s property. I parked behind the Regal and ran to the house. A female deputy opened the door. She wore pink lipstick, but most of it had been gnawed off where she chewed on her lips.
“Mr. Mosley,” I called and tried to push past her. She was a little thing, but she understood leverage and kept me pinned against the door frame.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“McKenzie,” a voice told her.
Reverend Winfield was sitting on Mr. Mosley’s sofa next to another deputy. He was the minister of the King of Kings Baptist Church of Golden Valley. I had met him on those few occasions when I attended services with Mr. Mosley.
“McKenzie,” he said again, shaking his head. “It’s too late. He’s gone. He’s gone.”
Gone? Gone? What does that mean, gone?
Another voice said, “Let him through.” That got me past the door and as far as the kitchen, where I was stopped again. In the kitchen I found several more deputies, one of them working a camera. Mr. Mosley was on the floor. Suddenly he seemed so small, so fragile, so old. He was lying on his stomach, his face turned to the side. His eyes were open. He was still grasping the handle of the ancient percolator, the coffeemaker now on its side, its contents spilling out on the floor and mixing with his blood. There were two mugs on the counter above him. Mr. Mosley had been pouring a cup of coffee when someone shot him twice in the back of the head.
It was the same kind of day as before. The sky was blue and cloudless. Bees buzzed. Birds sang. People went about their business. Except they did it in slow motion and their voices were like sounds heard from the bottom of a pool. The reverend rose from the sofa and approached me. His arms opened. I could see him so clearly—the deep creases in his face, the gray in his mustache, the tiny specks of lint on his black suit jacket. Oddest of odd, I could see myself, too. A man with a comical expression on his face, tears in his eyes and on his cheeks and dripping from his chin, and no voice, only a strange guttural sound like a man makes when he’s strangling …
“I’m sorry,” the deputy sheriff said. He didn’t look sorry. He looked like a man with questions to ask.
It had taken a while for me to shove the pieces back together. Most of them, I’m sure, were still lying on the floor where I collapsed. I had seen things, some of the worst sights humanity had to offer. Yet none of them—not even the savage murder of Jamie Carlson last fall—had rocked me in the same way as seeing Mr. Mosley zipped into a black vinyl bag. Until now I had managed to keep all those displays of brutality at a distance, even those I had committed myself. True, they had a way of sneaking up on me and messing with my head at the oddest moments—during a ball game, at a supermarket checkout, while doing yard work—but not often and never for long. Now I felt the weight of all of them at once.
Reverend Winfield had discovered the body. He had come by to drop off a turkey-sized deep fryer that Mr. Mosley had lent the church and found him on the kitchen floor. I know because he kept telling me over and over, even as I repeated my own story—I was helping Mr. Mosley with his bees. We’re not at fault, we don’t deserve this, we told each other, told ourselves. This went on, between wails and sobs, for what seemed like a long time.
Finally a sense of acceptance, and with it coherent thought, began to seep through the sorrow. Function returned. Eyes, ears, nose, mouth, arms, legs, hands, feet began working again. I breathed in and out.
“I’m sorry,” the deputy repeated. His name tag read BREHMER. There were sergeant’s stripes on his sleeves. His expression was neutral, and his voice was calm. “What was your relationship to the victim?”
No, no, don’t ask that. Don’t make me think about that. Not now. I took the question and quickly built a wall of brick and mortar around it.
“My name’s McKenzie.” I was speaking quickly. Don’t think, don’t feel. “Let’s cut to the chase. I know who did this. His name is Frank Crosetti. He lives two and a half miles from here—”
“How do you know?”
Don’t interrupt. Let me finish before the wall crumbles.
I spoke over the sergeant’s questions, telling him the story in chronological order, telling him about the bees and Ivy Flynn and the meeting with Crosetti and Billy Tillman—making sure he knew that Tilly and Susan had no intention of cooperating with him but maybe would change their minds once they had time to digest what happened. I withheld nothing except one vital piece of information.
“I don’t know the exact address,” I said. “But I can take you there.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“I can identify Crosetti for you.”
“Thank you, but—”
“I was eleven and a half years on the job. I know how to take care of myself. I know how not to get in the way.”
“Mr. McKenzie—”
“Call Sergeant Robert Dunston of the St. Paul Police Department. He works homicide. He’ll vouch for me.”
“It’s not procedure.”
“I’ll wait in the car.”
Brehmer gave that a moment’s thought. “Are you armed?”
“I am not armed.” I removed the blue sports jacket I wore over my gray sweatshirt, held my arms away from my sides, and spun slowly.
“You’ll sit in the back,” Brehmer said. “You will not get out unless I tell you.”
“Yes,
sir.”
“Don’t do anything that’ll make me regret this, McKenzie.”
“I won’t.”
Sergeant Brehmer locked his eyes on mine and held them there without blinking. He said, “This is Minnesota. People here usually kill only their friends and loved ones. They usually do it in their kitchens, rec rooms, and bedrooms, occasionally in bars. They use guns when they’re handy, otherwise knives, blunt objects, sometimes their hands. With gangs it’s drive-bys. Mostly they hit other gangsters on the street, in clubs, in the parking lots of fast-food joints, sometimes with automatic weapons, more or less trying to avoid collateral damage. But this. A double tap behind the ear with .22 hollow points. That’s professional. That’s organized crime shit, and we don’t do organized crime in Minnesota. Not since the early sixties. Not since they put Kid Cann away.”
“I know.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No, sergeant. There isn’t.”
“There better not be.”
There was no opportunity to approach the house on the hill without being seen, which made me think that’s why Crosetti rented it. So it became a raid. Four cars and an SUV from the Carver County Sheriff’s Department—no sirens, no light bars, driving fast—took the gravel driveway past the ditch, then fanned out and charged up the hill, tearing up the lawn. The cars surrounded the house—three in front, two in back. Deputies spilled out. No one shouted, no one slammed a door. Cover was taken behind the vehicles. Shotguns and Glocks were leveled at every window and door from across car hoods and trunks.
I was in a fifth car, Sergeant Brehmer at the wheel. He stopped at the top of the driveway and approached the front door like he had been invited. The door was flanked by deputies, guns drawn. They were wearing helmets and Kevlar suits and carrying shields. Their backup was wearing Kevlar vests. Only I went without. It was decided that I didn’t need it. I was locked in the back of the cruiser behind wire mesh—I couldn’t break my word to the sergeant if I wanted to.
Brehmer pounded on the door.
“Sheriff’s Department. We have a warrant. Open up.”
No answer.
He nodded to the deputy behind him. The deputy smashed the door open with a portable battering ram. Brehmer and his deputies dashed inside the house.
I heard no shots, only voices.
“Clear,” the voices shouted. “Clear. Clear.”
Then nothing.
I waited.
And waited some more.
It took only minutes, but it seemed much, much longer.
Finally Sergeant Brehmer emerged from the house. He walked directly to the cruiser and unlocked the back door. He held it open for me.
“It’s empty,” he said as I slid out.
“He might come back. You should position your men—”
“The house is empty, McKenzie. And don’t tell me what I should do.”
“I’m saying, if he’s not here now—”
“You don’t get it. The house is empty. No furniture. No clothes in the closets. No dishes in the cabinets. No food in the refrigerator. There are no paintings on the walls or toilet paper in the bathroom or trash under the sink. There’s no sign that anyone lives here. There’s no sign that anyone has ever lived here.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Exactly,” Brehmer said.
“He was here yesterday.”
“But not today.”
“I’m not making this up.”
The thought that Crosetti might escape, that he might get away with the murder of my friend, engulfed me. I felt a seething anger then—like mist clinging to my skin. A rage so primitive, so elemental, that it didn’t have a name. I slammed a clenched fist against the roof of the car. I did it several times. Sergeant Brehmer muttered something about destruction of county property, but I wasn’t paying attention.
You’re losing control, my inner voice chided.
I know. I hit the roof again.
Stop it. I leaned against the car.
You’re taking it too personally.
It is personal. I should have warned Mr. Mosley and Tillman.
You didn’t know.
I should have.
Maybe so, but it doesn’t matter now. Now you have to suck it up. Either start thinking like a cop or go home.
“What about the garage?” I asked.
A deputy approaching the car overheard the question.
“Clean,” he said. “Except”—he held up two stained fingers—“for fresh oil on the floor.”
“That’s something,” I said.
“Is it?”
“It proves I’m not lying.”
Brehmer was checking the roof of his car for dings. “No one said you were. In any case—” He pointed at the fine-trimmed lawn. “This grass was cut just a few days ago.”
The deputy asked, “What do you want me to do, Sarge?”
“The messenger,” I said.
“What messenger?” Brehmer asked.
“The messenger from Billy Tillman’s law office. The man who delivered the letter.”
“What will he tell us?”
“If nothing else, he’ll tell us that Crosetti was here yesterday.”
Brehmer put his arm around the deputy’s shoulder and slowly walked him toward the house. I followed from far enough back to be respectful but close enough to monitor their conversation.
“Canvass the area. There aren’t many houses, but you never know, someone might have seen something. I also want you to get CID up here. I’m looking for fingerprints, something we can match to the Mosley scene, and anything else they can find.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want you to contact all the moving companies in the area, all the truck rentals. Get the names of everyone they’ve done business with in the past forty-eight hours. I also want you to contact all the landscaping companies, anyone who cuts grass, including the kid down the street if there is a kid down the street. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“One more thing.” Brehmer threw a glance at me over his shoulder. “Contact an attorney named William Tillman in Edina. Find out what messenger service he uses.” He looked at me again. “Satisfied?”
“I just had a thought.”
“Feel free to share.”
“The second man. The one who showed up when Crosetti had the shotgun on us.”
“What about him?”
“He was driving a new Mustang ragtop. I don’t have a plate, but—”
“How many Mustangs do you think Ford sold in the past two years?”
“Not as many as they built, but—”
“But.”
“It was yellow.”
Brehmer grimaced. “What kind of guy drives a yellow Mustang convertible?”
My thought exactly.
Brehmer nodded at his deputy. The deputy said, “No one said the job would be easy,” and went away.
I was questioned for nearly five hours inside the Justice Center Building in Chaska, the Carver County seat, but the deputies were pretty good about it. They kept the door to the interrogation room open and brought me cup after cup of surprisingly good coffee and takeout from a Chinese restaurant that served Peking chicken for white suburbanites. I answered all their questions in excruciating detail, explaining as best I could my relationship with Mr. Mosley and my efforts to learn what was killing his honeybees. I gave them Professor Buzicky’s name and number, and Ivy Flynn’s name and number, and told them about the meeting with Billy Tillman. I broke down only once. Fortunately, Sergeant Brehmer was well trained. He managed to both comfort me and get the answers he needed at the same time.
They interviewed Billy Tillman, too. For a short time we were in the same room together. He refused to speak to me, to even acknowledge my existence, until they were leading him to another location. Without looking back, he said, “I’m sorry about Mr. Mosley.”
I stood in the center of the downstairs bar at Rickie’
s, not quite sure what I was doing there. A waitress carrying a tray of drinks stopped to ask if everything was all right. I could have told her a thing or two but didn’t.
I asked for Nina.
The waitress pointed at a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. I went through the door and down a short corridor. I found Nina in her office. She looked up from her paperwork. She smiled. The smile turned into a frown.
“My God, McKenzie. Who died?”
I wept some more.
I drank bourbon—without ice—pouring it from a bottle Nina appropriated from a carton in a storage room. I had three before she cut me off. Then one more over her objections. I told her about Mr. Mosley and my father and me. Occasionally she’d ask a question, but mostly she listened. It took about an hour to talk myself out.
“I never met Mr. Mosley,” Nina said. “I wish I had.”
“I should have introduced you. I don’t know why I didn’t. You would have liked him. He was a good guy. In my neighborhood growing up, that was considered high praise, being a good guy.”
“You’re a good guy, too.”
“If I am it’s because my dad and Mr. Mosley showed me how.”
“You’re going after them, aren’t you? The people who killed Mr. Mosley. Who raped Susan Tillman.”
“Yes, I am.”
“It’s because you blame yourself for what happened.”
“I should have done something after those guys shot at us last night. I should have warned them—Mr. Mosley and Tillman. I should have …”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know. It’s their fault—whoever they are. And I’m going to get them.”
“May I offer you some advice, McKenzie—advice from someone who cares about you?”
“You’re not going to lecture me, are you? About justice and vengeance and all that?”
“After all these months I think I’m starting to know you. I’m starting to understand who you are and why you do the things that you do, so no, I’m not going to lecture. I’m going to tell you this one thing and then let it go. Okay?”
Tin City (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels) Page 5
