by Matt Goldman
“Fuck…” said Stevey. “Can you believe I’m doing this?”
“I cannot. That’s why I had to see it with my own eyes.”
“Goddamn money. It’s fucks everything up, doesn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t have any.”
“That a boy. Keep it simple.” He grabbed the windup robot off his desk and turned it over in his hands. “So what’s new? How’re things on the lady front?”
“Not great.”
“Yeah, I hear you, man. We should get together.”
“We’ll grab dinner.”
“You got a date Friday night?”
“Is that any way to ask a fellow out?”
“We’ll go to the Bachelor Farmer. Maybe meet some women.”
“I’m all for that. But if we do, we’re not bringing ’em back to your place. I’m still afraid Andrew will jump out of a closet with his tennis-ball bazooka.”
Stevey laughed. “Fucking Andrew. Unfortunately, he hasn’t changed much.”
Kelsey stuck her head in. “Steven, I have Shelly Shultz calling from that recruiting company.”
“Ah, shit,” said Stevey, “I got to take this.” He looked at Kelsey like she’d just told him he had to do his homework. “Tell her I’ll be there in a minute.”
Kelsey smiled her smile and left.
“Looking for a new job, Steven?”
“No. A recruiter wants to lease space here.”
“You’re the man.”
“Oh, don’t say that.”
I stood. “See you Friday.”
“Yeah, looking forward to it.”
“Oh, hey. I almost forgot. Edina PD called me. Apparently your brother was dating that woman who was murdered in Edina. They asked if I knew him.”
Stevey looked directly at me. The smile had left his eyes. “Why would they call you?”
“I got a buddy who’s a detective over there. We were cadets together at the Minneapolis Police Academy. He’s the one who called me. Anyway, you know, it’s Edina. They think all us Jews know each other.”
“What’d you tell them?”
“I said I knew you, but didn’t really know your brother.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Stevey, more to the world than to me.
“I’m not implying Andrew had anything to do with it,” I said. “I don’t even know why I mentioned it.”
He nodded. “I’d better take this call. See you Friday.”
“All right, man. See you Friday.” I left feeling confident Stevey Fine’s older brother hadn’t changed much in the past twenty-five years. It was time to pay Andrew Fine a visit.
7
I grabbed lunch at Chipotle near Lake Calhoun then drove east on Lake Street to the Midtown Global Market. It had once been the iconic Sears building, with a sixteen-story office tower standing over the store, a monument glorifying the great Sears Roebuck, which wasn’t so great anymore. The building had decayed to the point of demolition only to be saved by a nostalgia for recent history and a deluge of urban-renewal tax credits. The retail space now housed an open market that catered to Minneapolis’s growing Latino, African, and Asian populations. Andrew Fine’s call center occupied the entire eighth floor.
I pulled into the parking lot and noticed a black Lincoln SUV idling in a spot far from the building, the same Edina PD vehicle I had ridden in yesterday. It was parked next to a white Porsche Cayenne. I found a space toward the front of the lot, reached under the passenger seat, and pulled out my Nikon with its 800mm zoom lens. A client gave it to me as a bonus after I used a less sophisticated rig to photograph her husband facedown in his assistant’s lap. The husband was a professional photographer and had made the mistake of leaving the Nikon at home in his wife’s care. He may have been a terrible husband, but I had grown to appreciate his insistence on buying the finest equipment.
Looking through the telephoto lens, I saw Chief McGinnis sitting behind the steering wheel wearing that stupid red scarf. Andrew Fine sat in the passenger seat. Blond hair and broad shoulders. He wore sunglasses and a shearling coat and took a hit from a nicotine vaporizer that looked like the handle of a lightsaber.
McGinnis and Fine’s conversation appeared calm. I looked at my watch. 12:47. I snapped off a dozen pictures. Maybe McGinnis was telling Fine he was a person of interest in the murder of Maggie Somerville. Hell, I’d done the same thing just to see the reaction on Stevey’s face. And Stevey’s reaction verified our interest in his brother was warranted. He did not scoff. He did not use the word outrageous.
Or maybe McGinnis was interrogating Fine. Maybe he was warning Fine about my involvement in the investigation. Maybe he was asking Fine if he could fish Fine’s bass pond come May. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Whatever they were talking about, it was in a car in a parking lot without witnesses. Or so they thought. A while later, Fine got out of the Lincoln and into the white Cayenne. I looked at my watch. 1:33. Forty-six minutes wasn’t a short conversation, and who knew how long they’d been there before I arrived. McGinnis left. A moment later, Andrew Fine drove off. I followed.
Fine drove west on Lake Street to the split at Lake Calhoun, where he forked left onto Excelsior Boulevard. I got caught in the left lane and was forced to pull ahead and front-tail him. If he turned off, it wouldn’t be hard for me to circle back unless he got onto Highway 100. But he passed over the highway then pulled into Bunny’s, a sports bar popular with the over-thirty crowd from Edina and St. Louis Park. I drove around the block, giving Fine plenty of time to find a parking place and go in. Ten minutes later, I walked into Bunny’s and sat at the bar.
Weekday lunchtime was a mix of blue and white collars. Most consumed noon beer, which I’ve never been able to manage without a nap. My intolerance for alcohol earned me the reputation of a lightweight, particularly in college when I was nicknamed Two-for-one Shapiro, because anyone who drank with me would get my barely touched drink in addition to their own. Not since I split with Micaela did my consumption pick up, and that never topped three drinks an evening, rarely two, and most often one or none. I am hardly a PI of detective novels, and that has disappointed more than a few people.
I ordered some fries I didn’t want and the Ellegaard Special—a soda with bitters. The McGinnis–Fine powwow in the Midtown Global Market parking lot had sent my stomach tumbling. I took my drink and swiveled around to face the tables where Fine sat with half a dozen other guys his age. They laughed and talked over each other. I guessed they were friends from high school or golfing buddies relegated to Bunny’s because their golf course was under a foot and a half of snow. I don’t know what I was hoping to discover when tailing Andrew Fine, but it was something more sinister than sweater-clad suburban dads laughing it up over beer and onion rings.
I turned my stool back toward the bar and glanced up at the English Premier League soccer game on the TV. Two women, who appeared to be in their midtwenties, sat at the bar next to me. They suckled noon beers and ate burgers. One talked too much and the other listened, or at least pretended to. After a little eavesdropping, I learned they were nurses at Park Nicollet and had just got off their shifts.
“Hey, what kind of beer is that?” said the talker who sat next to me, a recovering towhead with blue eyes wearing one of those turtlenecks where the neck is so big it looks like a scarf. She wasn’t exactly pretty but was attractive in the way most twenty-five-year-olds are—she still had hope. And hope is drop-dead gorgeous.
“It’s not beer,” I said. “I can’t drink until it gets dark out. Kind of like a vampire, but without the blood.”
She looked confused. “Then what is it?”
“Soda with bitters.”
“Can I taste it?”
“I guess, if you like to taste strange men’s drinks.”
She stood on the footrest of her stool, leaned over the bar, and grabbed a straw. “No offense. I’m a nurse. I know about germs.” Apparently she didn’t know that much about germs because a new straw didn’t change what was i
n the glass, but I pushed the drink over to her, she inserted her straw and tasted it. “That’s good. That’s really, really, really, really good.”
“Can I try?” said the listener, who had long, straight black hair, emerald eyes, a roll of baby fat on her neck and a BMI in the red zone, none of which stopped her from carrying herself like the beauty she was. Since Micaela, I’d vowed to stay away from twentysomethings and had done a damn good job. I considered breaking my vow for Emerald Eyes when I heard a voice boom behind me.
“Little Shap! What are you doing in here?”
I looked over my shoulder and saw the big smile of Andrew Fine that showed off teeth whiter than they should have been. He wore a blue button-down oxford under a dusty rose cashmere V-neck and jeans. Up close I could see he hadn’t shaved in a few days and his hair looked a mess, but I couldn’t tell if that was from neglect or expensive hair products and an embarrassing amount of time in front of the mirror.
“Hey, Andrew. How’s it going?”
“Not bad. Not bad at all. Just catching up with some buddies over there.” He motioned over his shoulder then looked at the nurses and back at me with an expectation I didn’t catch. I lost it sifting through his facial expressions as I tried to figure out if McGinnis had tipped him off about my involvement in the investigation. A moment later, I realized the only reason Andrew Fine came over is because he saw me talking to two women and wanted an introduction.
“Oh…” I said. “I’m here alone.”
“Thanks for the taste test,” said Emerald Eyes, and she slid the drink back to me. “That’s delicious. Did you say it’s soda and bitters?”
Andrew caught the bartender’s eye. “Two sodas with bitters for the ladies. And another for my buddy, Shap, and one for me.” They swiveled around on their bar stools. “Hope you don’t mind,” said Andrew. “I saw you talking to Shap here and thought you were all friends.”
“We are friends,” said the loquacious blonde. “We just met and hit it off right away.” Emerald Eyes smiled but seemed tired of her bar mate. “I like your name, Shap. It’s cool.”
“Thanks,” I said. “And you are…”
“Kallie.”
“Lauren,” said Emerald Eyes. She extended her hand and I shook it.
“Kallie and Lauren, I’d like you to meet an old friend, Andrew Fine.”
They said hellos and shook hands and said thank-you when the bartender set down four sodas with bitters. Andrew helped himself to the open bar stool next to Emerald Eyes, and I felt a twinge of jealousy followed by a wave of disappointment in myself. He asked what they did for a living and told them what he did and within ten minutes had invited them to a party at his Indian Hills estate. It would involve broomball on his frozen bass pond, and they should bring bathing suits because the hot tub would be “cranked up.” And while trying to process what it might mean that Andrew Fine so blatantly hit on two women in public knowing he was a person of interest in the murder of another, I’d lost track of their conversation until the blond windbag slugged me on the arm and said, “You are not!”
I had no idea what she was talking about. But Emerald Eyes did and saved me. “Are you really a private investigator?”
“I am.”
“Are you carrying a gun?” said the blonde.
“Not at the moment. But don’t tell anyone. Edina’s a rough town.”
“Yeah, right!” I wished she would go away.
Emerald Eyes said, “Are stakeouts as boring as they seem?”
“Worse.”
Kallie said, “What do you drive, like, a Ferrari or Lamborghini?”
“That would make it kind of obvious when I’m following people, don’t you think?”
“God, you’re right,” said Kallie, as if I’d just revealed a great truth.
“Come on, Shap. Tell ’em about Duluth.” Andrew placed his hand on the motormouth’s back. “Shap’s good. The real deal. Solves the ones the police can’t.”
“That’s not true. I got lucky once.”
“Modesty,” said Emerald Eyes. “It only attracts a certain kind of girl.” She smiled and those green eyes glistened something Irish. “Shap, are you going to Andrew’s broomball party?”
“I sure as hell hope so!” said Andrew. “I saw Shap sitting at the bar here and came over to invite him.” Andrew threw me a look that suggested something in the neighborhood of I should be a good pal and go on a double date with him so he could get laid. I hadn’t seen that look in over a decade, but spending a night at Andrew Fine’s party would be a night on the clock and there was nothing wrong with that.
I said, “When is this party and would I have to bring my own broom?”
“Thursday night because the weekend is for amateurs and you do not have to bring your own broom. Just bring yourself.” He leaned toward my ear. “I got to talk some business with you, too. May need your help on something. I’ll call you.”
I nodded. Phone numbers were exchanged. Andrew Fine returned to his friends. The blonde excused herself to hit the head, and I offered Emerald Eyes cold fries and the bartender my credit card. I wanted to get the hell out of there before yackety-yak returned.
“Well,” said Emerald Eyes, “I hope we’re on the same broomball team Thursday night.”
“So do I,” I said. “And I hope we’re not skins.”
She laughed and I was grateful Kallie wasn’t there to tell me there’s no such thing as shirts and skins in broomball because it’s too cold.
After I left, I called Ellegaard from the car and told him I’d bumped into Andrew Fine and got myself invited to his broomball party. I skipped the part about seeing Fine talk to McGinnis and me then tailing Fine to Bunny’s. I was pretty sure Ellegaard had no idea McGinnis and Fine were in contact. If he found out, his good-soldier complex would jam him into a bad spot. I didn’t want McGinnis to learn I’d seen him with Fine, not yet anyway, and I couldn’t ask Ellegaard to keep that from his boss.
Ellegaard said both Beth and Perry Lindquist were clean—not even a parking ticket between the two. CSU had combed the creek behind Maggie Somerville’s house—they found no cigarette butt or discernible footprints. Ellegaard had no luck finding Ansley Bell, the mysterious frequent phone pal of Maggie Somerville. Ansley wasn’t home and no neighbors who were home knew where she worked. I got Ansley’s address from Ellegaard and told him I’d take care of it.
8
I drove east on Excelsior Boulevard and, a few minutes later, turned south on France Avenue. The monotone on the radio said it was ten below zero and the temperature would plunge to twenty below after midnight. You can’t stake out anything when it’s ten below. You can sit in front of a place with your car running, the tail pipe churning out a cloud of condensed exhaust, but stealth is not an option. I’d need another tactic for Ansley Bell and delayed that task until most people get home from work.
Maggie Somerville’s ex-husband lived in Morningside on a street with backyards the size of football fields. The homes, at one time, had all been hobby farms. They were old and modest and no one had gargantuanized them like the homes in Maggie Somerville’s neighborhood.
Solar panels sat on Robert Somerville’s roof. River birch grew from the low spots in the undulating terrain of his prairiescaped front yard, and I could see the tops of golden, dormant grasses poking up through the deep snow. Several other cars were parked out front or in the driveway. I got out of the Volvo, walked up to the door, and rang the bell.
A woman in her sixties with a tear-stained face answered the door.
“Oh, hello. You must be from the funeral home.”
Wearing a thick down puffer coat is as good as being naked. You’re a blank canvas. “No, I’m sorry. I’m here to see Robert.”
“Sure, of course,” she said without concern, assuming Robert was expecting me. “Come right in, and I’ll get him.”
Robert Somerville’s home was everything his dead ex-wife’s wasn’t. The furniture was old and eclectic and looked more
found than purchased. Large, worn oriental rugs covered hardwood floors that were in need of refinishing. Photographs, European posters, and the kids’ artwork hung on the walls. And there were plants. In pots and planters and vases. Green leaves flowed and fell in corners, on tables, and from the ceiling. The air felt warm and humid, impossibly humid considering the temperature outside. And there were windows everywhere. All without muntins. Just big sheets of glass, triple paned with insulating layers of air between. I felt heat in my feet. No forced air or radiators anywhere. The only similarity between Robert Somerville’s home and dead Maggie’s was the same photographs of children were displayed in each.
Robert Somerville approached with a face of kindness and curiosity. He had shoulder-length brown hair, blue eyes, and a wide jaw like a Kennedy. He wore crystal acrylic framed glasses, a wool sweater, and rust-colored cords. Either he or his sweater smelled a bit ripe. He looked the type to use an ineffective deodorant rock rather than laboratory-tested chemicals. He was barefoot with a dark purple toenail on the second toe of his left foot. Another fucking runner—this town was full of them.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Somerville. My name is Nils Shapiro. I’m a private investigator looking into your ex-wife’s death. My condolences. It’s a terrible tragedy.”
“Thank you. But one of your people was here yesterday.”
“My people?”
“From the insurance company? The kids are Maggie’s life insurance beneficiaries.”
“I’m not with the insurance company,” I said.
“Then who are you working for?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Then I don’t need to talk to you, right?”
“Not at all. It’s your choice.” I took out my notepad and wrote, “Robert Somerville refused to be interviewed…”
“What are you doing? Why are you writing that?”
“In case I’m called to the witness stand. I want to accurately record what happened here.”
“You can’t do that. They’ll think I’m trying to hide something.”
