The Devil May Care

by David Housewright

  “Did you speak with Navarre?”

  “Only concerning his application for membership in Club Versailles. He didn’t impress me. No, that’s not true. I was impressed by his bank account. The numbers. McKenzie, we’ve already told the sheriff deputies, so I don’t see any reason to keep it from you—Navarre withdrew his application Friday afternoon.”

  “Why?”

  “I think he knew I was onto him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It happened earlier in the week. He—Navarre—was sitting on the patio with Ms. Brodin. They had ordered drinks. It was busy and the waitstaff was falling behind, so I brought the drinks out to them myself. As I approached, I could hear that they were conversing in Spanish. I speak Spanish. I addressed them in that language. Ms. Brodin seemed pleased by it. Navarre became angry, almost violent. He ordered me to stop interfering with them—in English.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Spanish is like any other language; it has different dialects depending on where you’re from. Take English. It’s spoken differently in New England than it is in the South or the West or Minnesota or Canada, for that matter. I spent four and a half years in Spain, and Navarre’s Spanish isn’t Spanish Spanish, if that makes sense to you.”

  “What Spanish is it?” I asked.

  “Mexican, I think.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I was sure enough that I nearly took steps to revoke his guest privileges. Navarre clearly did not belong here, and I have an obligation to protect the club.”

  “I’m sure you’re very good at it.”

  “I didn’t expel Navarre because he was Mrs. Rogers’s protégé, for lack of a better word, and because of his relationship with Ms. Brodin and the Muehlenhauses. It was my intention to inform Mrs. Rogers of my suspicions, and perhaps Mr. Muehlenhaus as well, depending on how Mrs. Rogers reacted to the news. When Navarre withdrew his application, I decided it was better to forget about it. I’ve been regretting that decision all day as well.”

  “For what it’s worth, I don’t think it would have made any difference to what happened yesterday.”

  He raised his hand a few inches and let it fall back on top of his desk as if he weren’t so sure.

  “I don’t know why you took the time to tell me all this,” I said. “I appreciate it, though. I’d like to ask another favor, if I might. That young lady out there is convinced you’re going to fire her. Something about club morale.”

  “No. I promise that will not happen. I’ve done enough things for this club that I’ve come to regret; I don’t give a damn what the other members say. I will resign first. You can tell her I said so.”

  “It would be better if you did.”

  We rose together and filed out of the office. When we reached the lobby, I went left toward the door and he went right toward the reception desk. “Ms. Neamy,” I heard him say. I turned my head just in time to see Curran give her a hug.

  I decided I was wrong before. I liked him just fine.

  * * *

  With the Audi in the shop, I was forced to drive my old Jeep Cherokee with the heavy-duty rock bumper and swing-away tire carrier mounted on the back. I had parked it in the rear of the lot, but not because I was self-conscious. Club Versailles had lost much of its awe for me. Seeing Mrs. R that way, I was reminded that the rich could die just as badly as the rest of us.

  I opened the envelope Sarah had given me and examined its contents. Navarre had claimed Mrs. R’s home as his address and Lake Minnetonka Community as his bank; there was a letterhead statement from Brodin confirming his accounts like the one Anne Rehmann had told me about. Navarre had also claimed ownership of Casa del Lago, which made me go “Hmm.”

  Felipe and Susan were listed as his parents, now deceased; Madrid was given as his home, and under “Education” Navarre wrote that he had a titulo de máster in business studies from the Universitat de Barcelona. That should be easy enough for Victoria to check, I told myself. Navarre also included a photocopy of his passport.

  “That I can check myself,” I said aloud.

  I found my cell phone and used it to call U.S. Customs and Border Protection. After being put on hold for fifteen minutes—there were twelve callers ahead of me—I explained I wanted to determine the genuineness of a Spanish passport. A woman with a polite voice insisted that there was no way to authenticate a foreign passport number. I tried to argue with her. She asked if I wanted to report suspicious activity to Homeland Security. I thought about it, said no, I merely wanted to make sure the man using the passport for identification purposes was who he claimed to be. She suggested that I contact the Spanish embassy in Washington D.C., yet warned, “There’s no way they will give that information to a third party.” I called the embassy anyway. She was right.

  “Well, dammit,” I said aloud.

  * * *

  You had to give Mary Pat Mulally credit—she wasn’t one to waste time. There was already a platoon of carpenters hard at work restoring Casa del Lago to its former glory by the time I arrived in Excelsior that afternoon. I had no idea exactly what they were doing, partly because it has long been established that I am hopeless when it comes to hammer and saw, and partly because of the CONSTRUCTION AREA DO NOT CROSS tape that surrounded the restaurant.

  I walked up to the edge of the tape and peered through the open door. I could see Mary Pat and Maria. They were both dressed as if they were, well, tearing down and rebuilding a fire-scorched restaurant. Yet their clothes did little to disguise their generous curves, and I thought, one thing you have to say about Lake Minnetonka, the women are pretty.

  I caught Mary Pat’s eye and gave her a wave. She waved back. A moment later, she stepped outside, squinting against the bright sun. Her smile was glorious.

  “Isn’t this great?” she said.

  “You’re not one to let life’s catastrophes get you down, are you?”

  Mary Pat flung her hands up as if it were a silly question not worth answering.

  “I bet you’re still looking for Juan Carlos,” she said.

  “I am. Have you seen him?”

  “Nope. You know what? Screw him. If he can’t be bothered to even make a call when his business burns down, screw him. I’ll buy him out.”

  “Can you afford to?”

  “No, but my new partner can.”

  Maria moved to the door and leaned against the frame. Like her boss, she also shielded her eyes against the sun’s rays. I knew she was eavesdropping on our conversation while pretending not to.

  “Who’s your new partner?” I asked.

  “Riley.”

  “Riley Brodin is investing money in your restaurant so that you can get rid of her boyfriend? Wow.”

  “She was never happy that he was spending so much time here instead of with her, and besides—I doubt he’s going to be her boyfriend for much longer. She’s even more upset than I am that he hasn’t contacted her, that he hasn’t told her what’s going on.”

  I flashed on Anne Rehmann’s confession.

  Yeah, there’s a lot of things Navarre hasn’t told her, my inner voice said.

  “The only reason she was dating him in the first place was because of her family, because the people on Lake Minnetonka thought she should be dating somebody,” Mary Pat added. “That’s what she said, anyway.”

  “When was the partnership concluded?” I asked.

  “This morning. During lunch, actually.”

  “Lunch?”

  “Well, I was having lunch. Riley called and said let’s do this. She seemed very excited. She said she should have invested in the restaurant from the very beginning.”

  “Why didn’t she?”

  “We were both afraid that it might get in the way of our friendship. Anyway, Alex Brodin already sent papers over to be signed. I’m waiting to have my lawyer review them first, though. I don’t entirely trust Brodin. If it weren’t for Riley, I probably would have taken my business elsewhere.”
/>   Riley didn’t tell her what happened outside her building that morning, my inner voice said. I wonder why not.

  “How long have you known Riley?” I asked.

  “Couple years,” Mary Pat said. “We met at the U. I was taking a noncredit business course at the Carlson School of Management.” Her eyes took on a faraway look as she wrestled with her memory. “Riley was earning extra credit or something, working as a TA for the professor. She reviewed a paper with me that I wrote for class. I remember the dress she wore. It was blue, and I thought it was a little too revealing. For a while I was convinced she was involved with her professor, that she was more than just his teaching assistant. We went for coffee together and I found out it wasn’t true. Oh, here…” Mary Pat reached into her pocket and produced a business card. “Take this.”

  On one side of the card was a photograph of Casa del Lago taken after the fire but before work began. A headline read: “We’re burned up, not burnt out.” On the back of the card was a photo of the club taken before the fire. The copy read: “Good for one complimentary dessert during our Grand Re-Opening” followed by the restaurant’s address and Web site.

  “I didn’t have the nerve to put down a date,” Mary Pat said. “Why tempt fate, huh? If everything goes according to plan, though, and the county inspectors don’t mess with us, we should be up and running in two weeks. Three at the most.”

  I flicked the card with my finger.

  “I’ll be there,” I said. Mary Pat smiled some more. I glanced over her shoulder at Maria. She didn’t look happy at all. “In the meantime…”

  “If I hear from Juan Carlos, you’re third on my list,” Mary Pat said.

  “Third?”

  “Right behind Riley and the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department.”

  * * *

  I sat in my Jeep Cherokee for a few minutes, unsure where to go next. Navarre was still out there. I could have rented a boat, I suppose, and searched Lake Minnetonka, but if the county deputies couldn’t find him, I doubted my chances. Mrs. R’s killer was out there, too. I had no idea where to look for him. I searched the parking lot and the area around Casa del Lago, thinking he might have staked out the place the way wannabe gangster Arnaldo Nunez had. He wasn’t there. Nor were there any other members of the 937 Mexican Mafia loitering about.

  I called on my long-ago partner.

  “Well, Anita,” I said aloud. “What would you suggest?”

  My inner voice answered, yet it was her words: You don’t know? When in doubt, you always follow the money, Rook. Who did you sleep with to get this job, anyway?

  THIRTEEN

  The receptionist at the Lake Minnetonka Community Bank had green eyes that glowed like the numbers on an ancient calculator, the kind you used to be able to buy at Radio Shack. She was happy to inform me that Mr. Brodin wasn’t available, yet she would not reveal where he was or when he would return. So I dropped a bomb on her.

  “Mr. Muehlenhaus is anxious that I speak to him immediately.”

  Thirty seconds later I was walking away with Brodin’s location written out in a neat and firm hand on the bank’s stationery.

  * * *

  The sign read FUTURE HOME OF BRODIN PLAZA and featured a color illustration of a silver office tower surrounded by green grass, trees, and a glistening lake. All I saw beyond the sign was construction equipment, brown dirt, and a hole in the ground. Granted, it was a big hole …

  I found Brodin standing at a folding table loaded with blueprints and the remains of a large fast-food meal. He was wearing an immaculate suit and a battered white hard hat that made the suit seem out of place and talking to a man, also with a white hard hat, who looked as if he dug holes for a living. Brodin smiled broadly and slapped the man on the shoulder as if they were both teammates on the same basketball team. The man didn’t seem happy about it and left. Brodin bent to the blueprints and studied them while popping french fries into his mouth one at a time. It seemed awfully late for lunch or awfully early for dinner, but what did I know? It’s not like I follow a standard schedule myself.

  Brodin didn’t see me until I was standing next to him.

  “Jeezuz, McKenzie.” He was visibly startled. “Where did you come from?”

  “Mr. Brodin,” I said, “I just came from Casa del Lago. Mary Pat Mulally said she was going to have her lawyer take a quick look at the papers you sent over before she signed them.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t like doing business with that woman. If it weren’t for Riley…”

  I offered my hand. He shook it reluctantly.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “A few minutes of your time if you can spare them.”

  Brodin popped another french fry in his mouth. “I’m a busy man, McKenzie.”

  I thought it would be smart to move him over to my side quickly, so I waved my hand at the construction site.

  “Brodin Plaza,” I said. “Sounds impressive.”

  “Oh, it will be.”

  “A little late in the year to start building, though, isn’t it? I mean in Minnesota.”

  “No, no, no. This is the best time. With a fall start, excavation and foundations can be completed before freeze-up. The aboveground building core and structure can be erected in the winter, and the skin goes up in the spring. Used to be we’d have to wait because the old masonry skins—brick, plaster, stone—they were very difficult to work with in the cold. The newer skins, though, we can put those up almost anytime. And with a mid-September start—that’s when we broke ground—there’s a better market for competitive bids from subcontractors that are winding down from the busy summer season and are looking for one more project to round out the year.”

  He ate another fry and bent to the blueprints. I bent with him. It was all pencil scratches to me, yet to Brodin it could have been the design for the tomb of Tutankhamun.

  “It’s going to be beautiful,” he said. “Just beautiful. Six stories. Ninety-four thousand square feet. Right here—parking ramp, four hundred stalls, connected to the main building with a skyway. Lake is here; trees, park benches. I’ll be moving Lake Minnetonka Community to the ground floor; the drive-through will be right here. There’ll also be space for a restaurant—we’re negotiating with three different national chains and an independent. Caribou has already signed on to operate a coffeehouse. In fact, we’re forty-four percent occupied and the building won’t even be finished for another fifteen months. It’s all mine, too. Thirty-four-point-five million dollars, not counting tenant fit-out and some soft costs. Not a dime of it is Muehlenhaus money. Not a nickel.”

  “How about Navarre?” I asked. “Is any of his money invested?”

  Brodin’s head came up. His eyelids blinked at me like the shutter of a camera.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked. He grabbed a few more french fries and washed them down with soda.

  “Just curious,” I said.

  “I resent your manner.”

  That’s all right, I don’t mind, my inner voice said. Fortunately, I was smart enough to keep it to myself (and that hasn’t always been the case). I needed information; I needed the man to talk, and antagonizing him wasn’t going to get it done.

  “Mr. Brodin, I don’t mean to be rude,” I said. “You’re a serious man and serious things are happening. I need your help.”

  “What things?”

  “Have you heard about Mrs. Rogers?”

  “Yes. Tragic.”

  “Did you hear that Anne Rehmann was assaulted in her real estate office?”

  Brodin reached for what I assumed was a chicken tender, dipped it in barbecue sauce, and took a bite.

  “I don’t think I know her,” he said.

  “The man who attacked them was seen outside Riley’s building this morning.”

  His eyes grew wide.

  “It was just dumb luck that I was there to stop him from attacking your daughter.”

  He took another bite of chicken, and it oc
curred to me that Brodin was compulsive in the same way an alcoholic was compulsive. The difference was that instead of trying to drink his troubles away, he ate them.

  “This person is definitely looking for Navarre,” I said. “I hope you can help me find him first, find him before any more damage is done.”

  Brodin set down the remains of the chicken and wiped his large hands with a napkin.

  “Juan Carlos Navarre.” He pronounced the name slowly and carefully like a child identifying the thing he disliked most. “Mrs. Rogers introduced us at the club. He told me he was a Spanish national, that he was moving to Minnesota. He said he wanted to transfer funds from his bank. He asked if I could accommodate him and I did.”

  “A bank in Madrid?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “How much?”

  “I have a duty of confidentiality to my customers.”

  “I have five million dollars. Can you at least tell me if it’s more or less than that?”

  “Confidentiality is not just confined to account transactions. It extends to all the information the bank has about the customer. And McKenzie, you’re worth four-point-two million dollars.”

  “I am?”

  “Don’t you keep track?”

  “I have people for that,” I said. Actually, I had a person—H. B. Sutton, who was a financial genius even if she did live on a houseboat. She’s been chiding me for months now because I can’t be bothered to come in and review my portfolio.

  Four-point-two million? my inner voice said. Better set up an appointment.