Secret Prey ld-9

by John Sandford

  She led him through into Bone’s office, said, "Mr. Bone, Mr. Davenport," and left them, shutting the door behind her.

  Bone was dressed in a subdued single-breasted wool suit with a crisp white shirt and an Italian necktie; but somehow the ensemble came off as a wry comment on Yankee bankertude. He had a telephone to one ear and a foot propped on the N-Z volume of theNew Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, which lay flat on his desk. He waved Lucas in, and as Lucas dropped into a bent-oak chair across the desk, said into the phone, "Two? That’s as good as you can do? Last week it was one and seven… Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll get back to you, but I think we might have to talk to Bosendorfer or Beckstein… Yeah, yeah. By four."

  He hung up, made a notation on a legal pad, and said, "I can give you all the time you’d need this evening, but if you gotta talk now, you gotta talk fast. And this is all off the record at this point, right?"

  Lucas nodded. "Yes. If we need an official statement, we’ll send you a subpoena and get a formal deposition."

  Bone leaned forward. "So?"

  "So do you think McDonald did it?"

  "If one of us did it, it was McDonald. I didn’t do it. Robles, no motive. O’Dell, too smart. Unless I’m missing something. And to tell you the truth, I don’t think it’s McDonald. Way down at the bottom, I don’t think he’s got the grit to pull it off."

  "Then why’s he running the place?"

  "He’s not. He’s only speaking for it. And that’ll only last until O’Dell and I get the board sorted out. Then it’ll be one of us."

  Lucas said, "Huh," and then, "Have you ever heard of George Arris? Does the name ring a bell?"

  "Yes, of course. He was a famous case around here, around the bank. He was murdered-this must’ve been a few months or maybe a year or so before I came here. Must’ve been back in ’85."

  "How was it famous? The name doesn’t ring a bell with me…"

  "It was over on the St. Paul side of the river. Somebody started shooting white guys who were walking in the black areas-there were like three or four of them in a few weeks, shot in the back of the head."

  "Ah, jeez, I remember that," Lucas said. "Never solved. And Arris was one of them?"

  "Yup."

  "What’d he do here?" "Worked with the trust department, setting up portfolios for rich folk."

  "Would he have worked with McDonald?"

  Bone said, "Probably. I’d have to look up the exact dates, but they probably overlapped. They certainly both went through that department. I don’t really know the details. I wasn’t here yet. I just heard about the killing later."

  "Okay. How about Andrew Ingall?"

  "Andy? He was a vice president, also in the trust department, but he died a few years ago in a boating accident up on Superior. You think Wilson had something to do with it?"

  "Why would he?" Lucas asked.

  Bone leaned back, then spun his chair in a circle, stopped it with one foot, reached into a desk drawer where he apparently had a stereo tuner hidden. A Schumann piano piece, simple, easy, elegant, and sweet, sprang into the office, and Bone said, "Schumann," and Lucas said, "I know-Scenes from Childhood," and Bone said, "Christ, we’re so cultured I can’t stand it," and Lucas said, "A friend of mine used to play them. Why would McDonald do Andy Ingall?"

  "Because they were both candidates to run the operation. Then Andy sailed out of Superior Harbor one day, just moving his boat up to the islands. He never got there. No storm, no emergency calls, nothing. Just phhht. Gone. The theory was that he had a leaky gas tank-he had some kind of old gas engine, an Atomic, or something like that-and gas leaked into the bilge, and he fired up the engine out on the water somewhere, and boom. He was gone before he could call for help. That was the theory, but nobody ever knew for sure. No wreckage was ever found."

  "So McDonald got the job."

  "Well, no. When Andy disappeared, everything was screwed up for a while; then we had a general shuffling around, and McDonald wound up as a senior vice president in the mortgage company."

  "Huh," said Lucas, and Bone said, "Yeah," and asked, "Can’t you get this stuff from the FBI or somewhere?"

  "Probably not. Besides, the computer’s down."

  "You too? Christ, it’s chaos downstairs…"

  "Did you ever hear that McDonald might whack his wife around from time to time? Pretty seriously?"

  Bone nodded. "I heard it. I went out with a lawyer lady for a while, old family, she knows that whole country club bunch; and she said something to me about it. She might have some details… You could talk to her if you want."

  "That’d be good…"

  Bone scratched a name and phone number on a piece of notepaper and pushed it across the desk. "Sandra Ollsen, two l’s. That’s her office phone over at Kelly, Batten."

  "What kind of law?"

  "Estate planning, wills, trusts." He looked at his watch and said, "Listen, I’ve got to go to a meeting, but I can talk to a guy who’s gonna be there, and find out if there was anything between Wilson and Arris."

  Lucas said, "Thanks," stood up, and as they shook hands, said, "I understand you used to play a little ball."

  "Yeah, a little," Bone said.

  "How well do you know Dama Isley?"

  "Reasonably well-I heard he played for the Gophers, back when. Hard to believe."

  "Yeah. Listen, next time you see him, take a couple of minutes and talk a little ball, old-time stuff, like college days."

  Bone shrugged. "Sure. Why?"

  "Private project," Lucas said. "You still play?"

  Bone, grinning, said, "I still shoot around a little bit on Saturdays. Always a couple of kids trying to take advantage of me."

  Lucas said, "A banker? Playing for money?"

  "Good grief, no," Bone said. "Not for money. That’d be illegal."

  On the way out, Lucas paused in the open door of Bone’s office, saw Kerin Baki talking to the secretary, and said, loud enough for her to overhear, "I’m probably going to want to talk about McDonald again."

  Bone, already settling back into his desk, distracted, missed the double-directed comment, nodded, said, "Okay," and Lucas pulled the door shut. He smiled at Baki on the way out and said, "Thank you."

  By the time the elevators reached the bottom floor, he thought, the word on McDonald would be out. If Baki was as efficient as she looked, she could never pass on the chance to screw one of her boss’s competitors.

  Like Bone, Sandra Ollsen was really too busy to talk to Lucas; but he mentioned Bone’s name and was admitted to the mahogany offices of Kelly, Batten, Orstein & Shirinjivi. Ollsen was a tall, coordinated woman who looked as though she might once have played some ball herself.

  "How’s Jim?" she asked casually as Lucas settled into the chair across her desk.

  "Looks fine; something of a power struggle going on over there," Lucas said.

  "Yes. With Susan O’Dell. I hope she kicks his butt."

  "Really?" Lucas asked.

  "Really," she said. Lucas, bemused, watched her for a moment, waiting, and then she said, "He sort of dumped me."

  "Ah. I know the feeling," Lucas said.

  She looked him over. "I don’t think so," she said after a minute.

  "You’d be wrong," Lucas said. "Anyway… he seems to think of you as a friend."

  "Right." She rolled her eyes. "Actually, I don’t think he was actually looking for friendship when he started squiring me around. He was looking…" She grinned at him, not a bad smile at all. "Why am I telling you this?"

  "Because of my open face and genuine curiosity?"

  " ’Cause you’re a trained interrogator, that’s why. When I was in college, we called you pigs."

  "When I was in college, I called us pigs," Lucas said. "So what was he looking for when he started taking you around?"

  "Sex," she said, ingenuously. "Any place, any time… Some of the girls around the bank call him the Boner, if you know what I mean."

  "All right," Lucas said. "Listen, the
reason I came by…"

  "Bet nobody would ever call you that," Ollsen said. "The Boner."

  "Only ’cause I carry a big leather sap in my pocket," Lucas said. "I’d beat the tar out of them."

  "Oh, it’s a sap. And I just thought you were happy to see me."

  Lucas held up his hands: "All right, you win the war of wits." And they both laughed. "But listen, the real reason I came around: You know about the Kresge killing, of course. We’re investigating it, and I’m wondering how well you know Wilson McDonald?"

  A sudden wariness appeared in her eyes, and she put a hand to her throat. "You think Wilson did it?"

  "No, we don’t think anything, just yet. But he was one of the four people up there when Kresge…"

  "Bit the bullet?"

  "Exactly the words I was looking for," Lucas said. "Anyway: How well do you know McDonald?"

  "My parents knew the family quite well…"

  "Does Wilson McDonald beat his wife?"

  "Ah, Jesus," she said, softly. "I wondered what Jim told you. What are you going to do, blackmail him with it? Wilson?"

  "Domestic violence is not my department," Lucas said. "I’m just trying to get a reading on him, what kind of a guy he is."

  Again, she hesitated, and Lucas added, "This is all informal. There won’t be any record of what you say."

  "But you could subpoena me."

  "If it got to that point, you’d be morally obliged to tell us anyway," Lucas said.

  She thought about that for a moment, then said, "I was at a pool party last summer-Rush and Louise Freeman, he runs Freeman-Hoag."

  "The advertising agency."

  "Yes. Wilson got drunk. He was getting loud and he went into the pool with his clothes on-Audrey said he fell, but I saw it, and he looked like he was jumping in. Anyway, we got him out, and Audrey walked him around the house out toward their car, and they started arguing. And Louise went over to Rush-I was talking to Rush- and she said something like, ‘Rush, you better go around, they’re starting to argue.’ Something about the way she said it. So Rush went around the house, and I followed, and we both came around the corner just in time to see Wilson hit her right in the head. He just swatted her and knocked her down. Rush ran over and they started arguing, and I thought Wilson was going to fight him. But Audrey got up and said she was all right, and I got between the two guys. And they went off."

  "Nobody called the police?" Lucas asked.

  "No."

  "I thought that was the correct thing to do," Lucas said. "I mean with the lawer-doctor-advertising set. No violence."

  She nodded. "I’ll tell you what, buster. If any guy ever hit me like that, his ass would be in jail ten minutes later. But… sometimes things are more complicated. Audrey didn’t want it. She said he was drunk and didn’t mean anything."

  "So that was the end of it."

  "Yes. Then, anyway. I was talking to Louise afterwards, and she said that he’d beaten her up before. A couple of times a year."

  "And she’d know?"

  "Yes… She’s a little younger. Louise is. She’s Rush’s second wife, used to be his secretary. She knows Audrey’s younger sister pretty well, I don’t know how. The sister told Louise that Wilson beats up Audrey a couple of times a year. Sometimes pretty badly."

  "Do you think Wilson McDonald could have killed Kresge?"

  "Yes," she said. "Not just because I saw him hit Audrey. I was always a little afraid of him. I knew him when I was little-he was five or six years ahead of me at Cresthaven, and my brother knew him. He’s big and fat and mean; he’s got those little mean eyes. He’s a goddamned animal."

  Lucas nodded: "Okay."

  "Even if he did it, you won’t get him. He’s pretty smart, but most of all, he’s a McDonald," she said. "The Mc-Donalds… they’ve got this family thing. They don’t care what a family member does, as long as he doesn’t get caught at it." She stopped: "No, that’s not quite right: they don’t care what he does, as long as he’s not convicted of it. In their eyes, not being convicted is the same as not doing it. That comes from way back. The first McDonalds were crooks, they stole from the farmers with their mill. The second or third generation were still crooks, and they made millions during the Depression with real estate scams that they ran through Polaris. And they’re still crooks. And they’ve got very good legal advice."

  "But don’t quote you."

  "Subpoena me first," she said. "Then you can quote me."

  "Do you think Louise Freeman would talk to me?"

  "Probably. She’s the kind who’d have all the dirt, if I do say so myself."

  SIX

  A grim-faced Helen Bell steered her Toyota Camry into the driveway at her sister’s house and said, "Audrey, you’re crazy."

  "It’s all right," Audrey McDonald said sharply. She had a small black circle under her left eye, now covered heavily with makeup, where one of Wilson McDonald’s blows had landed. "He must be sober by now. He had to work today."

  "He could have gone to work this morning and be drunk all over again," Bell said. She was four years younger than her sister, but in some ways had always been the protective one. "That’s happened."

  "I’ll be okay," Audrey said.

  "You’ll never be okay until you leave him," Helen said. "The man is an animal and doesn’t deserve you. Even the police know it, now-you said so yourself."

  "But I love him," Audrey said. On the drive over, Helen had gotten angrier and angrier with her sister, but now her face softened and she patted Audrey on the thigh.

  "Then you’re going to have to see a doctor, together," she said. "There’s a name for this-codependency. You can’t keep going like this, because sooner or later, it won’t just be a slap, or a beating. He’s going to kill you."

  "You know what he’s said about that, about a doctor," Audrey said. "They don’t go to psychiatrists in the Mc-Donald family."

  "But it’d all be confidential," Helen protested. "Times have changed…"

  "After this bank thing is done with," Audrey said, as she pushed open the car door. "Maybe then."

  Bell watched her go. She hated McDonald. She’d never liked him, but over the years distaste had grown into this curdling, bitter-tasting hatred. Audrey would never remove herself from McDonald. Somebody else would have to do it for her, like a surgeon removing a cancer.

  She liked the metaphor: Dan Kresge had been a cancer on the bank, and he’d been removed. Good for the bank and everybody employed there. McDonald was a cancer on her sister: the sooner he was cut out, the better.

  Audrey eased into the house, moving quietly, wary of an ambush. Was he in the tub again? In the study? She stepped into the kitchen, and the board that always squeaked, the one she’d sworn two hundred times to fix, squeaked.

  "Audrey? Is that you?" He was in the study; he sounded sober.

  "It’s me," she said tentatively.

  "Jesus Christ, where have you been? I’ve been calling Helen, but nobody ever answers." He’d been lurching down the hall as he spoke, a yellow legal pad in his hand, and when he turned into the kitchen, he spotted the black eye and pulled up. "Holy cow. Did I do that?"

  She recognized the mood and moved to take advantage of it: "No, of course not," she said sarcastically. "I’ve been hitting myself in the face with a broomstick."

  "Aw, Jesus…" That was all she’d get. He went on, "But Jesus, we gotta talk. I got a cop following me around. And the board’s gonna meet on Wednesday, but probably won’t make a decision. They’re talking about a search, for Christ’s sake."

  "A search? That’s just a way of slowing everything down."

  "I know that. It’s me or O’Dell or Bone."

  "Have you talked to your father?"

  "Just for a minute, to ask him to stay out of it for the time being. I thought it might be a little too obvious if he got out there. At this point."

  "Good thought… What about the cop?"

  "It’s this fuckin’ Davenport," McDonald said impatiently.
"He was talking to Bone today, and the word is, he’s asking about me."

  "What’s he asking?" Audrey asked. "He doesn’t think you…"

  "I don’t know; I’m finding out. He could be a problem."

  "How can he be a problem? You didn’t shoot anybody." His eyes slid away from hers: "I know… but he could be a problem." He looked back: "I mean, Jesus, if there’s a search, you think they’re gonna pick a guy who the cops are investigating?"

  "Okay."

  "And the thing is, the sheriff up there, Krause, he’s just about signed off on the thing, from what I hear. He’s dead in the water. If it wasn’t for Davenport, it’d be pretty much over with."

  "Maybe that’s something your father could help with right now."

  "Come on in here," Wilson said, and turned back toward the study. The study was a large room with a window looking out on the front lawn, and two walls of shelves loaded with knickknacks, travel souvenirs, and small golf and tennis trophies going back to Wilson’s days in prep school and college. Framed photos of Wilson and Audrey with George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and in much younger days a tired-looking Richard Nixon, looked down from the third wall. Wilson dropped into the brown-leather executive’s chair behind the cherry desk, while Audrey perched on a love seat below Nixon’s worn face.

  "So call your father on Davenport. On the board, we can call Jimmy and Elaine," Audrey said. "Elaine is very close to Dafne Bose, and Jimmy’s been trying to get into the trust department’s legal work forever…" Dafne Bose was on the board. "If we can get to Dafne, we’re halfway there."

  "You know who else?" He looked down at the legal pad. "We’re carrying two million bucks in land-and attachments paper on Shankland Chev, which they couldn’t get a half-million anywhere else. And Dave Shankland…"

  "… is married to Peg Bose." Peg Bose was Dafne’s daughter. "We couldn’t use that right away, it’d look too much like blackmail. But if we got in a squeak…"

  "Here’s the list I’ve got so far," Wilson said. He passed the legal pad to Audrey. "Seventeen board members, so we need nine. Four I can count on-Eirich, Goff, Brandt, and Sanderson. If we can get Dafne, we can probably get Rondeau and Bunde, ’cause they pretty much do what she suggests. Then we’d need two…"