The Devil May Care

by David Housewright

  I skipped lunch.

  * * *

  Rehmann Lake Place Real Estate did have a dock on Lake Minnetonka that it shared with a half-dozen other businesses. It was narrow, made of treated redwood planks, and could accommodate three boats on either side. Only one boat was tied up there, though, an 18-foot speedboat with a 75-horsepower Mercury engine.

  Oh, well, I told myself.

  The office was located at one of the few spots on the lake where the road actually hugged the shoreline. The dock was on one side of the road, and a modest office park was on the other. I waited for traffic to clear and pulled into the parking lot. There were three two-story buildings arranged in a semicircle, all of them designed to resemble a Cape Cod cottage. Anne’s office was located on the top floor of the far-left cottage; there was an insurance office on the bottom. All of the cottages were painted white. It occurred to me that most of the structures I had seen on Lake Minnetonka were white, and I wondered if there was a lake association that dictated the color.

  What if you wanted mauve? my inner voice asked.

  There were several cars in the lot. I recognized Anne’s from when we met at Mrs. Rogers’s place and parked next to it. An outside staircase led to her office door. I climbed the staircase two steps at a time just to prove that I could even at my advanced years. The door was unlocked, and I stepped inside. A desk chair was lying on its side as if it had been thrown across the room, and I nearly tripped over it.

  I looked up. There was a man standing behind the desk. I took him in all at once—six feet, 190 pounds, brown eyes, brown hair cut in a military style, wearing a white T-shirt beneath a black leather jacket and jeans. His left hand was gripping Anne’s red-blond hair and yanking it backward so hard that her back was arched. Her white blouse had been torn open. The man’s right hand was violently squeezing her breast through a pink bra trimmed with lace. His mouth was close to her ear as if he had been whispering to her. His entire face was twisted in a snarl. Her face revealed the fear and pain she was suffering.

  They both looked at me.

  I looked at them.

  There was a balcony behind the desk. The sliding door was open, and I could hear the sound of traffic moving in the distance.

  “McKenzie,” Anne said.

  She spoke in a harsh whimper, yet her voice echoed in the office like a starter’s pistol.

  Her attacker released Anne’s breast and lunged for a knife that was lying on top of the desk. He continued to grip her hair with his other hand, and the sudden movement turned Anne’s head savagely.

  She screamed in pain.

  I reached for the SIG Sauer.

  He brought the blade of the knife against Anne’s throat and spun her toward me.

  I went into a Weaver stance, my feet shoulder-width apart, knees bent, weight slightly forward, my gun hand pushing outward while my support hand pulled inward.

  “Don’t move,” he said.

  I took two steps forward.

  He positioned Anne’s body so that it was between him and me and hid behind it.

  “I told you not to move,” he said.

  The tip of the knife pressed against Anne’s skin yet did not penetrate. Her breath came in shallow gasps. I stopped moving.

  “Drop the gun,” he said.

  No, no, no, my inner voice screamed.

  “Drop it.”

  You never give up your weapon, you never give up your weapon, you never give up your weapon … It was my inner voice chanting, yet it was the words of my skills instructor at the police academy. Give up your weapon and everyone dies.

  “I’ll kill her,” he said.

  I didn’t answer. Instead, I deliberately centered the sights on his forehead, my hands perfectly still. It was unlikely I would miss from that distance. He seemed to understand and pulled his head behind Anne’s.

  “I mean it—I’ll kill her.” His voice was louder, yet his words weren’t as certain as before. He was beginning to reconsider his position. His eyes darted around the office. It was as if he were searching for an option—any option.

  “If she dies it’ll be your fault,” he said.

  “Please,” Anne said. Her voice was just above a whisper. “Please.”

  His eyes turned toward the open balcony door and he began edging toward it, keeping Anne’s body between him and my gun.

  “No one else has to get hurt over this,” he said. “We can make a deal.”

  My sights followed his movements.

  “No one else needs to die.”

  He stopped in the doorway leading to the balcony and raised the knife blade as if he were preparing to plunge it into Anne’s throat. My hands tightened around the gun.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  He lowered the knife tip even as his eyes fixed on mine.

  He shoved Anne hard toward me.

  I made no effort to catch her. Instead, I tried to step out of the way to make sure her body wasn’t between me and her attacker. Only she flailed her arms toward me as she fell. It slowed me down. By then he was vaulting the second-story balcony railing. I reached the railing just in time to see him roll to his feet as if he had been jumping from second-story heights his entire life. I brought the SIG up and sighted on him. He was in full stride now, his back to me, sprinting toward the wooded area behind the cottages. I decided he was already beyond the gun’s effective range and let him go. I should have shot at him anyway. I should have emptied the goddamn magazine.

  I turned toward Anne. She was lying in a fetal position on the office floor. Tears stained her cheeks; the sound she made was a painful fusion of dry heaves and breathless shrieks. I recognized her reaction from when I was a cop responding to sexual assaults. Anne had ceased being a person and become something else. I tried to put my arms around her. She shouted “No” and rolled away from me. Her hands gripped the ends of her torn blouse and pulled the material close over her chest. Her blazer was lying on the floor next to her desk, yet I gave her my sports jacket just the same. She wrapped it around herself like a comforter. It was only then that she allowed me to take her in my arms. She rested her head against my chest, and I rocked her back and forth until her humanity returned. It took a long time.

  * * *

  “He was waiting for me,” Anne said. I was still holding her; by then we had moved to the sofa against her wall. “I didn’t see him at first. I came in after my appointments and went behind my desk. Before I could sit down he put his hands on me.” She was watching the balcony while she spoke. The sliding door was still open. “I guess he was hiding out there.”

  “Have you seen him before?”

  Anne shook her head.

  “You try to be careful,” she told me, although I think she was talking mostly to herself. “Never show a property to someone you don’t know, never work an open house by yourself, get personal information you can verify—we should call the police. Should we call the police?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “I want to call the police, McKenzie. I will not be afraid. I will not be embarrassed. I will not be upset with myself later because I was afraid and embarrassed.”

  I punched 9-1-1 into the keypad of my cell and told the operator that we needed assistance. I recited the address. Anne had calmed herself nicely, but I knew the pain and fear were residing just beneath the surface and could return in a moment, so instead of actually saying we wanted to report an incident of criminal sexual conduct, I used the code: 10-33.

  “The police are on their way,” I said after ending the call.

  “I was so frightened,” Anne said. “Then you arrived…” She turned her head to look at me. “McKenzie, why are you here?”

  “Doesn’t matter. It can wait.”

  “No, tell me.”

  “I was hoping you knew where Navarre was.”

  She came off the sofa in a hurry and looked down at me. Her face was flushed and her fists were clenched. She’d buttoned my sports jacket, but the ruined shirt beneat
h it fell open to reveal her breasts. I averted my eyes.

  “Navarre,” she said. “Navarre, Navarre. That’s what he wanted. Navarre. He said … if I told him where Navarre was he said he would make it nice for me, otherwise … he put the knife to my throat and said, he said otherwise he’d make sure it hurt.”

  “It’s okay, Anne.” I was on my feet and reaching for her. “You’re safe now. It’s okay.”

  She pushed me away.

  “It’s not okay. It’s not. Juan Carlos was here. He was hiding here. His boat—he tied up at our dock, the dock we all share. He asked me not to tell anyone. He asked me to get clothes for him. He asked me—he said men were after him.”

  “What men?”

  “Terrorists. From Spain. ETA, he said. They were after him because of something his father did years ago. That’s what Juan Carlos said. Then this man, this man … I told him Juan Carlos wasn’t here. I told him that he left this morning. That’s when he tore my clothes, that’s when he tried … He was going to … Oh, God.”

  “How did he know to come to you?” I asked. “How did this man know that you even knew who Navarre was?”

  She answered just as the cops came through the door.

  “He said Mrs. R. told him.”

  NINE

  They put me in handcuffs and locked me into the back of a South Lake Minnetonka Police Department cruiser that was parked a couple of rows from the front of the building where Irene Rogers had lived. I didn’t blame them.

  From my seat, I was able to watch the comings and goings of deputies from the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department as they swarmed to the crime scene. The lead investigator, crime scene photographer, photographic log recorder, evidence man, and all the rest—some came in plainclothes, some carried equipment, all wore firm expressions. Soon the assistant county medical examiner appeared, with a face that seemed carved in granite. He was followed by a large man dressed in the tan-on-brown uniform of the sheriff’s department, except that his shirt was white, which made him an administrator, and he had gold insignia on his collar, which made him a major. No one smiled except Officer Tschida, who was manning the door. An arson in the morning and a killing in the afternoon—he was having a helluva day.

  Sarah Neamy sat on a bench outside the building with a deputy and stared at her hands. She had discovered the body just moments before the deputies arrived; I was the one who sent her to Mrs. R’s condominium. I longed to speak to her, but my current situation forbade it. Served me right for losing my temper. While I watched, the deputy received a call on his radio. A moment later, he led Sarah inside the building. Her face was pale and tear-stained when she returned. She was having difficulty walking, and the deputy had to hold her upright as they moved toward the club’s main entrance.

  I didn’t realize the building had a name until the media arrived, until a long-legged TV reporter named Kelly Bressandes did her standup in front of a sign—the Villas of Club Versailles. I had no doubt she would lead the evening news. Millionaire socialite raped and murdered in an exclusive playground of the rich—of course she would lead.

  Would Kelly mention that wonderful old broad once danced with Gene Kelly? my inner voice wondered.

  Probably not, I told myself. Her name no longer identified a living, breathing woman with a rich and exciting biography. Mrs. Irene Rogers—Reney to her friends—was a victim now. That is how she’ll be catalogued in the big book. Her history, her accomplishments, her recipe for gin martinis, all of that would soon be replaced in the memories of the people who knew her. Instead, she would now and always be defined by one of the most terrible things that could happen to a woman. Worse, she would also be forever linked to her killer. People would say, “Remember poor Reney Rogers?” “Isn’t it awful what happened to her?” “Did they ever get the guy who did it?” Murder does that.

  Inevitably, Mrs. R’s body was enclosed in a black vinyl body bag and hoisted onto a gurney. The gurney was rolled down the corridor from the door of her condo to the elevator, taken to the ground floor, rolled out into the parking lot, and loaded into an ambulance for transport to the Office of the Hennepin County Medical Examiner on Park Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. Right after the TV crews got the shot, they packed their equipment into sparkling vans with their logos painted on the doors and departed.

  Bressandes was the last to leave. She had waited to get a comment from the major. When he declined, she turned to Chief John Rock of the South Lake Minnetonka Police Department, who took a moment to straighten his tie and wave Officer Tschida out of the shot before agreeing to be interviewed on camera. I knew Bressandes personally and liked her, yet I was glad she didn’t notice me locked in the back of the squad car, glad I didn’t have to speak to her.

  I had spent enough time in harness to be leery of police department administrators. As I watched the major through the car window giving instructions to his deputies, though, it occurred to me that he didn’t seem to be your run-of-the-mill politician. I used to have season tickets for the St. Paul Saints minor league baseball team. You could always tell which of the players had game, which of them had a chance to make the Show, simply by the way they moved, the way they carried themselves on the field. The major carried himself like a cop.

  Soon he was moving toward me; a tall man wearing a suit and tie and carrying a notebook was at his side. When they reached the car they both opened a door and slid inside, the major on the rear passenger side and the plainclothes in the front. They left the doors open, which I appreciated. It was a pleasant seventy-one degrees outside, yet with the windows closed the inside of the car was starting to heat up.

  “Rushmore McKenzie?” the major said. “Is that right? I’m Major Kampa. I’m in charge of the Investigative Division in Hennepin County.” He pointed at the front seat. “Lieutenant Pelzer. He runs our detective unit.”

  Nothing but the best for Mrs. R, my inner voice said.

  “Gentlemen,” I said aloud. “Listen, can you do something about this?”

  I leaned forward on the seat so they could get a good look at the cuffs that secured my hands behind my back.

  “You punch a cop, you take your chances,” Kampa said. There was no compromise in his voice.

  “He’s not a cop,” I said. “He’s a grade school hall monitor with delusions of grandeur.”

  When I spoke, they both looked toward Officer Tschida, still standing at the door of the Villas, still smiling as if this was the most fun he’s ever had. I noticed that neither of them disagreed with me.

  “Nothing we can do about it,” Kampa said.

  “I used to be police myself.”

  “We know who you are, McKenzie,” Pelzer said.

  “At least…” I leaned forward again. “Can you at least take the gun? It’s kinda uncomfortable.”

  Kampa reached behind me and removed the SIG Sauer from the holster beneath my jacket. He showed it to Pelzer.

  “That dumb ass didn’t even…” The lieutenant never finished his thought. Instead, he closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “Tell me you have a permit,” Kampa said.

  “I have a permit,” I said.

  Kampa balanced the gun on his thigh. “Nothing I can do.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Major. My problem, not yours. Tell me how I can help.”

  Kampa gestured at Pelzer, and the detective started asking questions. I liked that—the major deferring to his lieutenant.

  It was clear from what Pelzer asked that they had already spoken at length with Anne Rehmann, as well as the deputies that had responded to her office. Now they wanted to hear my side. I told them everything, starting with Riley Brodin accosting me in Nina’s bar. I had no doubt that Mr. Muehlenhaus and probably Riley, too, would be extremely upset that I spilled their secrets to the sheriff’s department. I was past caring. The sight of Mrs. R …

  After the deputies arrived at the real estate office in response to my 911 call, I told them that the man who attacked Anne might hav
e also attacked Mrs. R, and I begged them to send deputies to her condominium. They did, too, without much prompting at all. At the same time, I called Sarah Neamy and told her to check on Mrs. R, told her that I was worried. The deputies wanted me to remain at the office and answer their questions. Anne wanted me to remain, too, even though she was also concerned about her employer. Yet I was desperate to get to Club Versailles, so I blew them off, after first telling the deputies how to get hold of me and then telling Anne I would call later.

  Even so, from the moment the deputies had arrived at the real estate office to the instant I pulled into the parking lot of the club, at least forty-five minutes had passed. Members of the sheriff’s department and the South Lake Minnesota Police Department were already on the scene. Officer Tschida was at the door to Mrs. R’s building. He tried to keep me from going inside, which was bad enough. Calling me an asshole and saying “The bitch is dead, there’s nothing you can do”—I lost my temper, something I hardly ever do. I smacked him in the mouth and tossed him off the stoop.

  I found Mrs. R’s condominium on the fourth floor. The door was opened. I stepped across the threshold. Several investigators were already processing the crime scene. That’s when I saw her. Mrs. Rogers was lying naked on the floor, her body bearing signs of terrible abuse. Her wrists were bound with an electrical cord and tied to the leg of a heavy chair. Her ankles were also lashed together and attached to her sofa. A clear plastic bag had been pulled over her head and fixed in place with a thick rubber band. Her eyes were open and so was her mouth—she had died fighting for breath.

  Tschida caught up to me then. He cuffed my hands and dragged me outside—although I don’t remember much about that.

  Major Kampa didn’t speak a word while I gave my account, and Lieutenant Pelzer only interrupted to ask a few pertinent questions.

  “What do you know about this ETA that was supposedly stalking Navarre?”

  “I never heard of it,” I said.