The Taking of Libbie, SD

by David Housewright

  “McKenzie,” she said.

  “I am so, so sorry,” I told her.

  I took a deep breath and waited for the angry words, even blows, that I felt I deserved—I promised myself I would accept them all without complaint or defense. They didn’t land. Long moments passed before Cathy spoke.

  “It’s terrible,” she said.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “He’ll probably get away with it, too, just like he did all those other times.”

  She was staring so intently that I found myself taking a backward step.

  “The police can’t help,” she said.

  In that instant, I knew exactly what she was doing. Cathy Danne was reminding me of the promise I had made Church in the Café Rossini: If anything happens to anyone in this room or their property, especially the Dannes—I don’t care if they’re struck by lightning’I will come for you. Not the cops. Me.

  “I’m not the police,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “Good luck to you, Mrs. Danne.”

  She bobbed her head purposefully. “McKenzie,” she said.

  Cathy retreated into her home without a backward glance. The old man was still watching from the sidewalk. I thanked him for his courtesy and turned away from the house. That’s when I saw Church’s pal Paulie. He was sitting on the hood of a car down the street and drinking beer from a longneck bottle. I walked up to him. He smiled.

  “Guess someone was careless with matches,” he said. “Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

  “Tell Church to meet me at the Tall Moon Tavern tomorrow night at nine,” I said. “Tell him not to keep me waiting.”

  “I ain’t your nigger,” he said.

  I grabbed both of Paulie’s legs and yanked hard. His entire body slid off the car and fell straight down. His head banged off the bumper, and the rest of him bounced hard against the asphalt. The bottle shattered and splashed him with beer and glass.

  I kept walking, not even bothering to look back.

  Sharren was behind the registration desk when I entered the Pioneer Hotel. I asked her if she ever went home. She said a fellow employee was on vacation so she was working double shifts.

  “I don’t mind,” she said. “I don’t have anything else to do.”

  “Why do you stay here?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “In Libbie. Why do you stay here?”

  “Where would I go?”

  “Anywhere. Anywhere with a future. There’s no future here. It was used up years ago.”

  “You’re upset because of the fire.”

  “Am I?”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Who said it was?”

  “Everybody knows what happened at the Café Rossini, McKenzie.”

  “What is everybody going to do about it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How many fires has that sonuvabitch set over the years? A dozen? More? Guys like Church get away with their bullshit because the people they hurt insist on following the rules even when the rules work against them, and he’s going to get away with this, too, unless—”

  “Unless someone breaks the rules just like Church,” Sharren said.

  “Yes.”

  “What are you trying to talk yourself into?”

  I flashed on the look in Cathy Danne’s eyes.

  “Not a thing,” I said.

  “I hate to think that you would stoop to Church’s level.”

  “There would be a difference.”

  “Doing wrong for the right reason, is that the difference?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The kitchen’s closed. Everything in town is closed at this hour except for a couple of bars. I bet I could rustle something up for you in the kitchen if you wanted. When was the last time you ate?”

  “I had something at the clinic this morning.”

  Sharren glanced at her watch and shook her head.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said. “Watch the desk for me. Give a shout if someone comes in or calls.”

  I made myself comfortable in an overstuffed chair when she left. No one did come in, and I was starting to doze when Sharren returned with a club sandwich and a tap beer.

  “Evan was just closing the bar, but I got him to pour this for you,” she said.

  I thanked her profusely for both the sandwich and the beer and dug in. I didn’t know how hungry I was until I started to eat. She sat in the nearest chair and watched me. After a while, she said, “I thought about leaving, only I don’t know where I would go or what I would find there. It frightens me. If I were younger … Could you just up and leave your home?”

  “It would be hard,” I admitted.

  “What would make it hard?”

  “Leaving the people I love.”

  “That’s the thing, isn’t it?”

  “Is there someone in Libbie you can’t live without?”

  Sharren looked up and to her right as if she were remembering something. “Yes,” she said. “Finally, at last, yes, I think there is.”

  Her answer surprised me, and I said, “Oh?”

  “You’re thinking about Rush,” she said. “You’re thinking about the times I flirted with you.”

  “More than flirted,” I said. “You opened the door pretty wide.”

  “I suppose I was testing myself, making sure I was making the right decision. Have you ever done anything like that?”

  I thought of Nina. I thought of a red-haired beauty named Danielle Mallinger, the police chief of a small town in southwestern Minnesota that I met months later. I thought of how I didn’t fully and truly commit to Nina until after I spent time with Danny.

  “Sounds kind of juvenile,” I said.

  “I guess, but you need to be sure, don’t you? It’s about peace of mind. Peace of mind is hard to come by for most people.”

  I told her that was probably true.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sunday morning, and the window to my antiquated hotel room was open—when was the last time you were able to open a window in a hotel? Through the window I heard three sets of church bells calling to each other from different corners of the city. Through the window I could smell the lingering smoke and ash from the Danne house fire. Or maybe it was just the clothes I had worn last night and tossed on the floor.

  I lay in bed, my hands tucked beneath my head, and stared at the ceiling. I thought about Tracie Blake. She had been a lonely woman. She asked me to help chase the alone feeling away. I understood the alone feeling; I knew about waking up alone and going to bed alone and all the lonely hours in between with the phone not ringing and the e-mail in-box coming up empty. I believed we all knew it at one time or another. Yet I had turned her down, just as I had turned down Sharren Nuffer. I did it for honorable reasons. I did it for Nina, the woman who had chased the alone feeling away for me. That didn’t make me feel any less guilty about it.

  I thought about Mike, another solitary soul. He and Tracie found each other. Together they had chased away the alone feeling, if only for one night. But who knows? One night could have become two. Then a week. A month. A year. Maybe it would have been permanent if they had time.

  I liked Tracie. I liked Mike. In my neighborhood, they both would have been labeled “good guys”—high praise indeed. Now they were both gone, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I didn’t even know where to start; not that Big Joe Balk would tolerate my kibitzing. He didn’t know me. This was his ground, not mine. My only thought was to keep after the Imposter and see if one thing might lead to another.

  Church, on the other hand, was a different matter.

  I listened to the bells. When they finally fell silent, I spoke aloud—“Brothers and sisters, the subject of today’s homily is”—and stopped. The Old Testament God spoke of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth—proportional justice. The New Testament God preached forgi
veness—“Turn the other cheek,” He said.

  So which is it? Justice or forgiveness?

  He beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil—so wrote Paul in Romans 13 of the emperor’s policemen.

  Et prout vultis ut faciant vobis homines et vos facite illis similiter, wrote Luke in 6:31—“And just as you wish others to do for you, do also the same for them.”

  I decided to let Shakespeare settle the matter: If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

  I don’t even know why I bothered with the internal debate. I had made up my mind when I gazed into Cathy’s eyes, and I confirmed my decision when I found Paulie sitting on the car hood, having a swell time at the expense of the Dannes.

  “Fire and brimstone,” I said aloud. “Today’s homily—fire and fucking brimstone.”

  Sharren wouldn’t approve. Most of the people I knew and cared about wouldn’t approve—Cathy Danne might even be among them once she had time to think about it. I didn’t care.

  Forty minutes later, I was in the lobby of the Pioneer Hotel. I did not know the young woman behind the reservation desk, but she knew me.

  “Mr. McKenzie,” she said, “Sharren Nuffer asked me to give this to you.”

  I took a folded sheet of paper from the woman’s hand. It contained a list of the Libbie City Council members and where I might find them.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I headed for the door. The woman called to me.

  “If you’re hungry,” she said, “our brunch lasts until eleven.”

  I stopped and looked through the arched doorway into the dining room. It was packed. I recognized some of the patrons from last night’s fire. I had no doubt that the fire—and the murders of Tracie Blake and Mike Randisi—were the main topics of conversation of the diners. Except for Perry and Dawn Neske, who apparently had other things on their minds.

  I saw them sitting across from each other in a booth against the far wall, laughing over plates heaped with eggs, hash browns, flapjacks, ham, bacon, sausage, assorted fruits, and muffins. He reached across the white linen tablecloth and took her hand. She leaned toward him, said something, and smiled. He smiled back. A moment later, she pulled her hand free and cupped it beneath a cube of cantaloupe that she forked into Perry’s mouth. He responded with a strawberry that Dawn ate from his fingertips.

  Huh, my inner voice said.

  Apparently my presence was a huge shock to her, because Linnea covered her mouth and stared when I entered Munoz Emporium. “I’m telling,” she said behind the hand. She reached for her red phone as I walked past. A few minutes later, Chuck Munoz found me in the housewares department.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I’m looking for a kitchen timer,” I said. “Something with a double-A battery. Oh, here we are.”

  I took two small timers off the shelf.

  “Anything else?” Munoz asked.

  “Do you have any small glass bottles?” I held my thumb and forefinger two inches apart. “About this big, maybe an inch around.”

  Munoz led me three aisles over to where there were plenty of empty jars of various sizes, including canning jars. It took me two minutes to find the size I needed.

  “Anything else?” Munoz said.

  “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Because I remind you that the woman you disliked so much was murdered yesterday.”

  “I didn’t—I liked—” Munoz closed his eyes. When he opened them, he said, “I liked Tracie very much. She was a friend of mine. We had our problems because of the mall, but we would have gotten past it.”

  “Not if the mall had been a success. Not if you were put out of business.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Did you know Mike Randisi?”

  “No. I knew of him, but I didn’t actually know him. Why? What are you saying?”

  “Rush disappearing, Tracie’s murder—they take care of a lot of problems for you.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Stop repeating yourself, Chuck. You sound ridiculous.”

  Munoz opened his mouth like he wanted to speak, and then quickly shut it.

  “The Imposter disappeared after about 9:00 p.m. Tuesday before last,” I said. “Where were you?”

  “You’re not a cop. You don’t get to ask me those questions.”

  “Then we’ll have Big Joe Balk ask them.”

  “I was here until 10:00 p.m.,” Munoz said.

  Wow, that was the second time using the sheriff’s name scared someone, my inner voice told me. Balk must be some badass.

  “Are you open until ten?” I said.

  “We’re open until nine in the summer. I was doing inventory.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “So we have just your word for it.”

  “What are you say—”

  Munoz cut off his sentence abruptly. I filled the void.

  “After ten?” I said.

  “I went home.”

  “Witnesses?”

  “No.”

  “Where were you last Friday night?”

  “I worked until nine, and then I went home.”

  “Alone.”

  “Goddammit.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “You have no business asking me these questions.”

  “I’m making it my business to find the Imposter and to catch whoever killed Tracie Blake. It better not be you.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Then you should be willing to help.”

  I had heard Munoz’s long, weary sigh before. He sounded like a man who was firmly lodged between a rock and a hard place. Putting him in that position gave me pleasure.

  “What do you want to know?” he said.

  “Tell me about your relationship with Tracie.”

  “We were—intimate.”

  “For how long?”

  “A few months.”

  “And then?”

  “It ended.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. She never told me. We were together and then we weren’t. A while later I learned that she had taken up with someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “Chief Gustafson.”

  “That must have stung.”

  “It did.”

  “When she started supporting the mall, that must have stung even more.”

  “I couldn’t believe she would betray me like that.”

  “I could see why you would be angry.”

  “Angry? I was a helluva lot more than angry. I could have killed both of them.”

  “Did you?”

  Munoz took a step backward.

  “What am I saying?” he said. “No, I didn’t kill them. Of course not. It was just a figure of speech. I could never—no. I didn’t kill anyone.”

  Sure sounded convincing to me.

  Spiess Drug Store wasn’t actually a drug store because it no longer filled prescriptions.

  “Our pharmacist left,” Terri Spiess said. “He decided he couldn’t make a living here, and he left. Can’t really blame him, but it leaves me in a tough spot. I’ve been trying to hire a pharmacist ever since—no luck. If something doesn’t happen soon…” She shook her head as if she were afraid to imagine the possibility.

  Spiess was another of Libbie’s many beauties. Her hair was black, straight, and long, and her complexion was dark, hinting that she had some Native American blood. Her eyes, though, were red, and the wrinkles around them suggested worry.

  “Is it as bad as all that?” I said.

  “Last year, prescription revenue accounted for sixty-seven percent of our total sales,” she said. “Yeah, it’s that bad.”

  “Where do people go for their prescriptions?”

  “Most
use the clinic. It costs a lot more, and they don’t deliver like we did, but what other choice do people have? No pharmacist, no pharmacy—it’s that simple.”

  “Maybe if the mall had gone through—”

  “I don’t have the money to pay rent in a mall,” Spiess said. “More likely they would have moved in a CVS or Walgreens, and that would have been the end of that. This store has been here almost as long as the town, and now…” She shook her head some more. “The way things are going, the town might not be here much longer, either.”

  I remembered what Miller had told me. “It’s the county seat,” I said.

  “What makes you think the county will survive? Twenty years ago we had nearly five thousand residents. Now it’s down to barely three. Besides, we’re the county seat in name only. The school is here, and so are the library, public works, the assessor’s office, and natural resources. On the other hand, human services, the sheriff’s department, the courts, county administration, all that’s up in Mercer. People like old man Miller keep talking about consolidation. They think that everything is going to move here, that we’ll be the town left standing when the smoke clears. C’mon. We’re nearly a quarter million dollars in debt. No one’s going to be consolidating with us. We’re the ones that’re going to be consolidating. We’ll be consolidating with Mercer.”

  “The state could step in.”

  “Why would it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It would be damn nice if you could find all that money, Mr. McKenzie. It won’t do me any good, but the town…”

  “Did you have any dealings with Rush?” I said.

  “Very few. Once he learned about my situation, that I had no money for him, he stayed away.”

  “What about as a member of the city council?”

  “I just sat there and listened and nodded like everyone else.”

  “You knew the password for—”

  “I heard you were looking into that. McKenzie, everyone knew the password, and if they didn’t they could have figured it out easy enough. I mean, we used the same password for all of our accounts, for everything. You want to mess with our Web site the way those high school kids did last October? Just type in LIBBIESD1884. Seems to me that we could have avoided a lot of problems if only we had shown a little imagination. Listen, it’s Sunday. Sunday is my day for staring at my books and feeling sorry for myself. Is there anything else I can do for you?”