The Devil May Care

by David Housewright

  “Confirmation bias.”

  “Stop it.”

  “There’s only one way to settle the argument.”

  “Find the sonuvabitch, I get it.”

  * * *

  We were on Highway 52 in Inver Grove Heights and fast approaching St. Paul when my cell phone started playing “Summertime” again.

  “Don’t you think it’s time you found a new ringtone?” Nina asked.

  I pulled the phone from my pocket and handed it to her. “Answer that for me.”

  She did.

  “Bebe’s Peanut Shop, Bebe speaking,” she said.

  Serves you right, my inner voice told me.

  I’m guessing the caller must have apologized for dialing the wrong number, because Nina quickly said, “Not necessarily,” and added, “Who’s calling, please?” When she had an answer, she told me, “Lieutenant Pelzer?”

  “Put it on speakerphone,” I said. After she did, I raised my voice again. “LT?”

  “Bebe’s Peanut Shop?”

  “Little something I have on the side. What can I do for you?”

  “There are a couple of things I want to talk about. Meet me at the Casa del Lago.”

  “Any particular reason you want me at the restaurant?”

  “That’s where we found the Soñadora this morning.”

  “It might take me ninety minutes to get there from where I am.”

  “Sooner would be better.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Nina deactivated my smartphone.

  “The entrance ramp to Interstate 494 is just up a ways,” she told me. “This time of day, traffic will be light. We can be in Lake Minnetonka in forty-five minutes.”

  “I’m taking you home first.”

  “Oh, c’mon, McKenzie.”

  “How’s your temple? A little sore? A little puffy? I must say, that’s a becoming shade of purple. Really sets off the stitches.”

  “Don’t be like that.”

  “Besides, I like Pelzer. He’s been very good to me so far. I don’t want you beating him up.”

  Nina folded her arms across her chest, and for a moment she looked just like her daughter when Erica was young—and she was pouting.

  “I promise to call and tell you everything that happens,” I said.

  “It’ll be quicker if you take me to the club. You can borrow my car if you want.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You break it, you buy it.”

  * * *

  The hull of the Soñadora was white with a thin flaming-red racing stripe running from the bow to the stern. Its cockpit upholstery and carpet were white, and so was the sundeck pad. Inside a white 32-inch LED TV, two-burner stove, microwave oven, refrigerator, and stereo system were surrounded by white handcrafted cabinetry, white leather upholstery, and birch floors. Even the innerspring mattress inside the private stateroom was hidden beneath crisp white covers. It was so clean it looked as if it had just come from the showroom.

  “I don’t suppose you found anything when you searched it,” I said.

  Lieutenant Pelzer’s brow knitted as if he were considering the many different ways he could respond to the question and finally said, “No signs of life, if that’s what you mean.”

  “The wastebaskets weren’t just empty,” Special Agent Matthew Cooper said, “they were polished.”

  We stood watching as the boat strained gently against the springlines that secured it to the pier that accommodated customers of the Casa del Lago. Three thoughts came to mind—first, this is a damn expensive toy, and second, I should get one. The thought I gave voice to, however, was “Who reported it?”

  “Ms. Mulally,” Pelzer said. “She said it was here when she arrived this morning to let the workers in. She seems upset.”

  “Why?”

  “She won’t tell me. Maybe she’ll tell you.”

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  Pelzer had been carrying a small package that he switched from one hand to the other. I didn’t ask what was inside.

  “While you’re at it, old man Muehlenhaus won’t answer my questions, either, with or without an attorney present,” he said.

  “I’ll try to talk to him, too.”

  “Good, since that’s the only reason you’re not sitting in jail right now.” He raised and lowered his eyebrows Groucho Marx–style like he wanted to tell me something without actually speaking the words.

  “I did thank you for that, right?” I asked.

  “I don’t remember.”

  We left the dock and started moving toward the restaurant’s patio. We could hear the noise of construction inside the restaurant yet couldn’t see what was being built. Special Agent Zo’ Marin intercepted us.

  “You boys get it figured out yet?” she asked.

  “We were hoping you would explain it to us,” Cooper said. “Feminine intuition and all that.”

  She grinned as if she had heard it before.

  “I just got off the phone.” To prove it, she slipped a smartphone into the pocket of her black jacket. I don’t know if she and Cooper intended to dress like Men in Black, yet they did. “A federal judge has agreed to temporarily freeze all of Navarre’s assets in the Lake Minnetonka Community Bank under Title Eighteen, Section Nineteen Fifty-seven.”

  “Section Nineteen Fifty-seven?” I asked.

  “It’s illegal for anyone to move the proceeds of a specified unlawful activity through a financial institution—or a merchant such as a boat dealership, for that matter—in an amount greater than ten thousand dollars. Navarre could appeal. He would probably win, too. This is a blatant violation of his rights; the man has yet to be formally charged with a crime. To appeal, though, would require that he appear in a federal court of law, and that would give us the chance to prove he’s actually David Maurell. In the meantime, FinCEN is backtracking the deposits. So far, we know they came from Banco Central de España in Madrid. Beyond that…”

  “How much of Navarre’s money is in Minnetonka Community?” I asked.

  “Thirteen million.”

  “That’s ten million euros.”

  “So it is.”

  For a moment I felt a thrill of panic that started below my heart and spread outward.

  “Jeezus,” I said. “What if we’re wrong? What if he really is Juan Carlos Navarre?”

  “Then the United States government will apologize profusely.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s your problem,” I said. “Right now my big concern is Riley Brodin. If she’s with Navarre, then she’s in danger.”

  “What are you talking about?” Pelzer said.

  “Didn’t Greg Schroeder call you?”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “Dammit. Schroeder’s a PI who works for Mr. Muehlenhaus. He was supposed to tell you—I don’t believe it.”

  I explained what Schroeder was supposed to tell Pelzer.

  “Now I know why Muehlenhaus won’t answer my questions,” he said. “He thinks he’s protecting his granddaughter.”

  “His granddaughter or the Muehlenhaus legacy?”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It’s complicated. Listen, we need to assume that Baird is still after Navarre and that Navarre is now traveling with Riley.”

  “Legally,” Pelzer said. “They’re traveling legally, so you know there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “I know,” I said, and for a moment I felt the frustration of all those people who had asked for help when I was police, only to be told that “nothing could be done,” that we couldn’t search for someone unless there was clear evidence that a crime had been committed

  “We’ve sent out e-briefs on Baird,” Pelzer said. “But…”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “What?” Cooper asked.

  “There’s no system set in place that we can use to alert law enforcement statewide, let alone nationally,” Pelzer said. “We have a system called the e-brief to spread information, which is just that—e
-mail briefings that target specific local and county police in the areas where we think the suspect might be. Any suggestions on where Baird might be?”

  “What about the FBI?” I said. “They must have a better system.”

  Marin chuckled at that.

  “We’ve had an FBI Crime Alert on Baird for thirty-one months now,” she said. “We wouldn’t even have known for sure he was in the country if not for McKenzie.”

  There was some communal headshaking.

  Pelzer said, “You’d think we could do better.”

  Cooper said, “You’d think.”

  Pelzer handed me the package.

  “This is yours, by the way,” he said.

  I peaked inside. It was my SIG Sauer. I left it in the bag.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Listen, I want you all to know that I appreciate it very much that you guys have allowed me to stay involved in this.”

  “Why not?” Marin said. “So far you’ve done most of the work.”

  “Speaking of which…” Pelzer threw a thumb at the restaurant.

  I locked the bag inside Nina’s Lexus before I went inside.

  * * *

  Mary Pat Mulally was drinking. I found her sitting alone on a stool at her own bar, a glass and a half-filled bottle of Grey Goose vodka in front of her. I wondered if the bottle had been half full when she started, but the glassy look I saw in her eyes when I sat next to her told me that it hadn’t.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Mary Pat’s response was to stand on the rung of the stool, lean over the bar, grab a glass, place it in front of me, and slide the Grey Goose in my direction. I caught the bottle and poured a shot just to be polite.

  “I promised the deputies I would call if Navarre showed up, and he must have because there’s his goddamn boat,” she said. “The Soña-fucking-dora.”

  “No sign of Riley?”

  “Screw Riley. She’s where she wants to be.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “With Navarre, where do you think?”

  Mary Pat drained her glass of vodka and poured some more. At the rate she was going, I knew she wouldn’t last much longer, and I wanted to speak to her while she was still coherent. I took the bottle, poured a little more vodka into my glass, and set the bottle where she’d have to reach across me to get to it. If she noticed, she didn’t let on.

  “You gave me the impression that Riley was getting ready to kick Navarre to the curb,” I reminded her.

  Mary Pat snorted at the remark.

  “That’s the impression she gave me,” she said. “Riley’s such a…”

  “Such a what?”

  “Confused woman. One day she wants one thing. The next she wants something else. She can be so smart, so mature, so understanding of the world and her place in it. Then she behaves like an eight-year-old.”

  “The girl can be infuriating.”

  “Don’t insult her,” Mary Pat said. “Who are you to insult her? She’s not a girl. She’s a woman.”

  The rebuke should have told me something, yet it didn’t.

  “I’m so frightened,” Mary Pat added. “Riley can take care of herself better than most people except—except when she can’t.”

  “Where would Riley go if she was in trouble?”

  “She used to come to me. I’ve called her, McKenzie—sent texts. She won’t pick them up. What the hell do you want?”

  I didn’t see Maria approach until Mary Pat called her out.

  “The carpenter wants to know—” the young woman began.

  “Can’t you make one goddamn decision on your own? What do I pay you for?” Mary Pat raised her hands as if she were surrendering. “You know what? Who gives a damn?” She slid off the stool, reached past me to grab the Grey Goose by the neck, and stumbled toward her office.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

  “You really have no idea, do you?” Maria said.

  “If I knew…”

  “She’s in love with Riley.”

  “Oh.”

  How the hell did you miss that? my inner voice wanted to know.

  “Oh? Is that all you have to say, McKenzie? For a minute there I actually thought you were smart.”

  “I can’t imagine what gave you that impression.”

  “Me, neither.”

  I took a pull of the vodka, hoping it would restore my powers of observation. I don’t think it did. Maria sat next to me.

  “Will you do me a favor?” I asked the young woman. “Will you keep an eye on Mary Pat for me?”

  “I’d do that anyway.”

  “Let me know if she hears from Riley?”

  “Why not? McKenzie—thank you for not telling her about the fire; for not telling Mary Pat about Arnaldo and the rest of them.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Everything is all messed up. Cesar is furious with Arnaldo about the T-shirts and trying to bring back the Nine-Thirty-Seven. He says if he was here, he’d beat Arnaldo’s ass. At the same time, he despises Jax Abana and wants to see him dead. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Nothing good, probably.”

  “Whatever happens, you need to stay out of it.”

  “That’s what Cesar said.”

  Good for him, my inner voice said.

  “Does Arnaldo know where Navarre is?” I asked aloud.

  Maria shook her head slowly.

  “He’s waiting for you to tell him,” she said.

  * * *

  I found Lieutenant Pelzer leaning against his car when I left the restaurant. Greg Schroeder was arguing with him, waving his hands as he spoke. Pelzer didn’t look too happy about it. In fact, he looked like he was thisclose to expressing his displeasure when he saw me crossing the parking lot.

  “So you two have finally met,” I said. “Are you besties now? Going to have matching bracelets made up?”

  “No,” Pelzer replied in a voice that made me believe that he didn’t appreciate the joke. “Not even close. Did you get anything?”

  I shook my head.

  “Keep in touch,” he said. He made to open his car door. Schroeder stopped him.

  “Wait a sec, LT,” the detective said.

  Pelzer pointed at him yet looked at me. “Is this shamus a pal of yours?” he asked.

  “I never saw him before in my life,” I said.

  “Then you won’t mind if I jail his ass for obstruction if he opens his mouth one more time.”

  “Not even a little bit.”

  “Lieutenant.” Schroeder’s voice was low and calm. “Look at it from my point of view.”

  “No,” Pelzer said. “You look at it from my point of view, because that’s the one that matters.”

  With that, the lieutenant slid into his car, started it up, and drove off.

  “What a hard-ass,” Schroeder said.

  “Yeah, I’m liking him more and more, too. So what did you do, Greg? Draw Muehlenhaus’s name and point it at him like a gun?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You could always go over his head—Major Kampa runs Hennepin County’s Investigative Division.”

  Schroeder stared at me for a moment, maybe wondering if I was joking, and then began to chuckle. “That could only be good for me,” he said. “I know Kampa and he is so much more reasonable.” He laughed again.

  “What did you want to know that Pelzer wouldn’t tell you?” I asked.

  “Everything.”

  “What did you offer Pelzer in return?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Yet you two can’t get along. I just don’t understand it.”

  “McKenzie…”

  “Cops work on a strict quid pro quo basis. You know that even better than I do. If you want this, you have to give ’em that and plenty of it.”

  “I’m just following instructions.”

  “I bet.”

  “What can you tell me?”

  “What d
o I get in exchange?”

  “My undying gratitude.”

  “Greg, everything is about the same as it was yesterday when we spoke on the phone.”

  “Does Pelzer know that Riley is probably traveling with Navarre.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “I did.”

  “Do me a favor—explain that to Mr. Muehlenhaus.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “I’d rather you tell him.”

  “All right, I will.”

  “Come with me—in my car.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Probably I should tell you—the old man’s orders were to bring you to the Pointe. Forcibly, if necessary.”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  Schroeder paused a moment before he said, “You don’t think I can bring you—forcibly?”

  “No, I don’t. Even if you could, though, the price would be too high.”

  “How high?”

  “No more free drinks at Rickie’s.”

  “That would be a tragedy.”

  “I think so, too.”

  * * *

  I wanted to follow Schroeder, but he obviously wanted to follow me, so we sat in the parking lot of the Casa del Lago staring at each other through the windshields of our vehicles for about five minutes before he finally flipped me the bird and drove off. I gave him a healthy head start.

  Eventually I found myself on Shadywood Road going north through the tiny town of Navarre and wondering, not for the first time, if it had just been a coincidence that Juan Carlos chose that name. I hung a right at the intersection of Shadywood and North Shore Drive and drove east across the bridge. It was another place on the lake where the road came between the homes and their docks. It’s also where Arnaldo and the Nine-Thirty-Seven wannabees made their move.

  I admit they caught me by surprise. The black Cadillac came up hard on my rear bumper and blew its horn before I knew it was there. I kept driving and the horn kept blowing—I was startled, yet not particularly afraid. I just wanted a moment to think it through before I did anything rash.

  I took my foot off the accelerator and let the Lexus slow on its own. The Caddy pulled around me. I could see Arnaldo’s face through the passenger window. He didn’t look happy. On the other hand, I’d never seen him look happy. He jabbed his finger more or less toward the shoulder of the road as the Caddy sped past.