Gone to Dust

by Matt Goldman

  I chuckled at his joke. It’s part of the job. Just like on a first date. “You come home for lunch every day?”

  “Every day I’m in town.”

  “That’s a good deal.”

  “Sure is. Saves money. Get to see Beth. Helps make up for the times I was away.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind being away this time of year.”

  “I’d rather spend January here than in Afghanistan. None too warm there either, and here you don’t have to wear Kevlar every time you leave the house.”

  “I didn’t know you’re military.”

  “Was for twenty years. But the last ten I’ve worked as a private contractor for DBC Systems.”

  “Oh, I’ve seen that place. Off 77th?”

  “That’s us. I work on the IT side, finding what the bad guys thought they’d hid on their hard drives. I thought business would have wound down by now but it’s booming more than ever. I take no pleasure in that.” He placed both hands into the open top of a leaf bag and pressed down. The dry leaves inside crackled as they compressed. He removed his hands and folded the top of the bag then rolled it down. “Are you here to see Beth again?”

  “Yeah. Just got a quick question.”

  “Come on in.”

  “Thank you.” I followed Perry into the house from the garage. We found Beth in the kitchen, removing a tea bag from a canister the label maker had labeled TEA. Unlike yesterday, she was dressed. A wool skirt over stockings and a heavy wool sweater.

  “Look who I found,” said Perry.

  Beth turned around—she seemed disappointed to see me. “Oh, hello,” she said. “More questions?”

  “Just one. Is now a good time?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Have you’ve seen any workers at Maggie Somerville’s lately?”

  “What kind of workers?”

  “Landscapers. Window washers. Gutter cleaners. Maybe Maggie was having work done inside.”

  “Well, there’s her maid, Marsha Brady.”

  “Marsha Brady?”

  “I know. That’s her real name. We laughed so much over that. Whenever Maggie couldn’t find something because the maid had put it in the wrong place, we’d say, ‘Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!’”

  “Funny to them,” said Perry. “After you hear it a few thousand times, it’s not so funny anymore. Sandwich, Nils? I’m making roast beef today.”

  “No, I’m good. Thanks, Perry.”

  “Suit yourself.” He turned, but stopped. “Nils, you don’t live in the neighborhood, do you?”

  “Kind of. I’m just on the Minneapolis side.”

  “Too bad. We could have used your ‘no’ vote on the big sidewalk issue.”

  “You don’t like sidewalks?”

  “They’d make our lawns smaller. I like ‘em the way they are.” He wandered back into the kitchen.

  “So Beth, is there anyone else you can think of? People working in Maggie’s yard?”

  “Maggie did her own yard.”

  “Even that huge backyard?”

  “She was determined. She did have people come to clean the gutters and the windows once a year. She didn’t have any work done inside since she and Robert split up. Oh, except for some painting. Robert liked colorful walls. Maggie liked neutral, so she had a few rooms repainted.”

  “Did you see any East Africans working at Maggie’s?”

  “You mean Somalis?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. I only see them in Uptown or at the university or working at Target. I think they’re Somalis anyway. You know, the women with the head scarves.”

  “That’s them.”

  “They have beautiful features,” said Beth. “Such pretty faces.”

  “But none working at Maggie’s?”

  “No. I know the painter. I’ve used him for years. A young woman cleans the gutters and washes the windows. She’s an artist and pays the bills with odd jobs. I grew up with her mother. Sweet girl, but she has a lot of piercings and tattoos. Not the mother, the girl. I don’t know why kids do that—it’s not attractive.”

  “And that’s it? No one who might have stuck out in some way?”

  “No. I would remember. Perry and I kind of kept a lookout after Robert left. It’s a safe neighborhood, but still, Maggie being a single woman and all…” The tears came. Beth sat and let her head hang as her shoulders shook.

  “I’m sorry, Beth. I appreciate your taking the time.”

  She didn’t look up, and I left.

  Even inside the car, the cold bit hard so I pulled up my hood. I turned right on 50th and then left on Maple Road. It wasn’t the most direct route to get to Robert Somerville’s, but Maple Road had no cross streets. If the gray Buick wanted to tail me, it had no option for turning off. I saw it in my rearview a couple hundred feet back.

  I took a left on Townes Road and snaked my way up to Sunnyside. At the stop sign at Grimes, Robert Somerville stopped on the other side, facing me in his electric RAV4. He had no way of recognizing me with my hood up, so when he turned right onto Sunnyside, I followed him. He didn’t go far. A few turns and a few blocks later, he parked in the U.S. Bank parking lot near 50th and Halifax, got out of his car, and entered the bank.

  I’m not a big fan of disguises. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don’t. And when they don’t, it’s embarrassing. Tough to say a casual hello when you’re wearing a fake beard. But a baseball hat can do wonders. So can a pair of sunglasses. And a thick parka can hide your natural posture. Sunglasses draw more attention than no sunglasses when you’re in a bank, but I grabbed a navy baseball cap from my backseat that I kept for just such an occasion. I dug my earphones out of the center console, plugged them into my phone, got out of the car, and started toward the bank, hoping it was busy inside.

  It wasn’t. I entered and saw no line for the tellers. No one filling out deposit slips. Just Robert Somerville sitting with a loan officer in the private banking area. And a guard. I opened the Ear Spy app on my phone. Anyone watching would think I was listening to music, but I was listening to the bank’s amplified ambience, including Robert Somerville’s conversation with the loan officer. I walked up to a teller and played the idiot.

  “Hi,” I said. “How do I apply for a car loan?”

  “Let me get you a form,” said the teller. She was young and pale and round-faced. “You can fill the form out over there, and then someone will be with you after that.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “North Dakota?”

  “Yes! How did you know?”

  “Just heard a little something in your voice. Thanks for the form.”

  “You’re welcome!”

  Truth was, I guessed she was from North Dakota because she seemed too goddamn happy to be working in a bank. I took the form to the counter that held deposit and withdrawal slips, which they still had in case anyone wanted to pretend they were banking in 1978. I kept the earbuds in my ears, faced Robert Somerville’s back, and pretended to fill out my form.

  “… come on, Jerry. I’ve been doing business with this bank for fifteen years.”

  “I’m sorry, Robert. The bank just needs to see a return on your bison business before we can lend any more money.”

  “I can’t get that return until spring. The animals’ metabolisms have slowed because of the cold, which means less manure, and what manure there is we can’t get out of the fields when the snow’s this deep. If I can’t get the new barn built…”

  I lost the conversation when two men entered, bellowing away about the importance of keeping up your golf swing during winter. Robert Somerville stood and shook the loan officer’s hand. I turned and walked toward the exit.

  I left my car in the bank parking lot, crossed 50th, and walked east toward France Avenue, passing the movie theater and a clothing boutique and a cosmetics bar, whatever the hell that is. I turned right at Sur La Table after catching a bad case of Le Creuset envy from the window display, then continued half a block south to the Edina Gr
ill, an American bistro featuring local favorites like wild-rice soup and Fulton beer. I found a spot at the bar and ordered a soda with bitters, to honor Ellegaard, and a bison burger, to mock Robert Somerville.

  Thirty seconds later, a dark-skinned black man wearing rimless sunglasses, a blue suit, white shirt, and silver tie sat next to me.

  “How you doing today?” he said.

  “Not too bad. How about yourself?”

  “I’ve been warmer, I’ll tell you that much. Happy to be inside the Edina Grill.”

  He pronounced Eh-deena. Common mistake for an out-of-stater. I said, “Good day for lobster bisque. That and a cup of coffee will bring you back to life.”

  “Thanks for the suggestion,” he said, “I appreciate it.”

  “If you don’t mind another suggestion, next time you’re walking around in weather like this, leave the five-hundred-dollar leather-soled shoes at home.”

  “You don’t like my shoes?”

  “I like your shoes. It’s just the sidewalks and streets are full of salt—they’ll eat those shoes alive.”

  “How do you know I’ve been walking around? Maybe I parked out front.”

  “If you’d done that, those Transitions lenses you’re wearing would be warm enough to transition back to clear. But when they get cold, it takes ’em forever to turn back.”

  He took off his glasses and looked at the lenses. “Damn, I thought it was dark in here.” He put his glasses back on and studied the menu for a few seconds, then flipped it over. “I don’t see the soups.”

  “Check under FBI Special Agent specials.”

  He laughed. The game had ended before it started. “Special Agent Delvin Peterson.” He extended his right hand.

  I shook it. “Nils Shapiro, private investigator. And just so you know, Delvin, the town you’re in is pronounced Ee-dinah, not Eh-deena. They should have taught you that before you left D.C.”

  “I’ll be sure to mention it in my Yelp review of the Hoover Building.”

  “And another thing, Special Agent Peterson, I do not put out on a first date.”

  “Then I’m not buying you lunch.”

  “If you want to start our relationship that way, be my guest.”

  “You’ve been keeping some interesting company the last few days, Nils Shapiro.”

  “Hey, why didn’t you guys grab me off the street and throw me into the back of a Town Car and talk tough to me. That’s on my bucket list.”

  “Smartphones and YouTube, baby. Those two things wrecked all our fun. Now we have to behave all civilized and pretend we want to be pals with every private detective who’s fucking up our investigation.”

  “That last part, that’s the kind of talk I was hoping to hear. Keep going.”

  “We’ve been working around the clock to keep U.S. citizens from going overseas to fight for jihadists.”

  “As you should.”

  “Problem is, you’re nosing around one of our CIs. The more noise you make, the less confidential the informant will be.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know you don’t. That’s the confidential part.”

  The bartender approached Delvin. “You know what you’d like, sir?”

  “Lobster bisque and a cup of coffee, please.”

  “Coming right up.” The bartender took Delvin’s menu and walked to the other end of the bar and punched the order into the register.

  “I was kidding about the lobster bisque,” I said. “It’s shit.”

  Delvin chuckled again. “You should work for us. We could use some laughs.”

  “I don’t like big organizations.”

  “Why not? A chance for advancement. Good benefits.”

  “Travel to beautiful places like Minnesota in January. The thing with big organizations, the people inside them seem to care more about the organization rather than the ideals on which it was founded.”

  “Someone’s thought this through.”

  “I got a lot of free time on my hands.”

  “We’d like you to have even more.”

  “What specifically do you want me to do? Or not do?”

  “I can’t tell you exactly, other than stop working the case you’re on.”

  “Do you know who I’m working for?”

  “Edina PD.”

  “They told you?”

  “We’re the FBI. No one needs to tell us anything.”

  “Golly, Special Agent Delvin. I have a feeling you’re BFFs with someone who listens in on other people’s phone calls.” Agent Delvin Peterson’s glasses had warmed enough to lose their tint. I could see the impatience in his eyes. I said, “Listen. I’m working on a local murder. You’re working on national security. Both noble endeavors and we both want each other to succeed. So your big organization has to be more forthcoming with me, tell me what part of your investigation I’m fucking up, then I’ll accommodate you in any way I can.”

  Our food came at the same time. Agent Peterson sipped a spoonful of lobster bisque. “This is delicious,” he said. “I knew you wouldn’t steer me wrong.”

  The bartender put my check in a glass and said, “No rush. Take your time.”

  Agent Peterson said, “I got this.” He grabbed the check. Our date had just begun.

  15

  The FBI building in Minneapolis isn’t in Minneapolis. It’s in Brooklyn Center, a northern suburb that bears no resemblance to Brooklyn. The building looks like it was constructed yesterday, a five-story box sided in faux brick. The grounds consist of a simple, flat lawn studded with young, skinny trees, staked so they don’t blow over, their trunks taped so rabbits don’t eat their thin bark. Plenty of windows overlook freeways 94, 100, and 694 twisting into one another like an asphalt pretzel.

  I parked the Volvo, got out, and walked toward the heavy black gate. Agent Peterson and another agent got out of a nearby car to greet me.

  Peterson spoke first. “Nils, this is Special Agent Don Olson.” FBI Agent Don Olson stood a little shy of six feet, had dull, pasty skin, lackluster brown hair, gray eyes, thin lips bordering a tiny mouth, and no chin whatsoever—a face so forgettable it was impossible to forget.

  “I recognize Agent Olson,” I said, “from the Duluth case a couple of years ago.”

  “I thought you might,” said Olson. “That’s why I hung back during our surveillance.”

  He hung back like a trophy wife on a plastic surgeon. But I saw no upside in saying it out loud.

  They led me inside and past the security desk. The whole place felt more corporate than federal law enforcement. We got in the elevator and rode up to the fifth floor, where the view of the ugly freeways was spectacular.

  We sat in a conference room and were joined by a woman who introduced herself as Special Agent in Charge Colleen Milton. She was about my height, had shoulder-length brown hair, a wiry body, and a drawn face. Another fucking runner. She probably ran more marathons a year than she has functioning toenails. We sat down at a conference table made of fake woodgrain. No one offered me a hot beverage, and I was none too happy about it.

  “We understand you’re investigating Andrew Fine,” said Colleen Milton.

  “He’s a person of interest in an ongoing murder investigation. But you know that already.”

  “We’d like you to back off him,” said Peterson.

  “Even if he killed Maggie Somerville?”

  “There’s no statute of limitations on murder,” said Milton. “If he’s guilty, Edina PD can arrest him in six months or a year. But not now. Fine’s given us complete access to his call center, which employs a significant number of Somali immigrants.”

  “Actually, almost all of them were born here,” I said. “So they’re Americans—not Somali immigrants.”

  “They’re of Somali descent,” said Milton. “We’re monitoring the activity of eleven of Fine’s employees—it’s vital that we continue that operation. But if you’re snooping around the call center or if Fine gets
arrested, our operation is blown.”

  “Since I’m sitting here alone, I assume you’ve had this conversation with Edina PD.”

  “We have,” said Agent No Chin.

  “I wonder why they didn’t share that with me.”

  “We asked them not to,” said Milton. “We thought it’d be better if you heard it directly from us.”

  “Does all of Edina PD know or just McGinnis?”

  “We told McGinnis. We don’t know what he’s communicated within his department.”

  “Huh. So that’s it? Stay away from the call center and don’t get Andrew Fine arrested?”

  “That’s it,” said Milton. “Think you can do that?”

  “I have one question.”

  “What is it?”

  “Are you going to reimburse me for my gas and time to come out here? Because Delvin could have told me that at the Edina Grill.”

  “Charge it to Edina PD,” said Milton. “We’re not reimbursing you for anything. Any other questions?”

  “Yeah. Is the coffeemaker broken, or am I not cleared to drink coffee?”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Shapiro.”

  I drove back down Highway 100, exited on 50th, and went straight to the Edina police station. It had an architectural exterior of limestone and copper, but the inside felt as bland and as corporate as the FBI building. I asked for Ellegaard at the front desk. He came out and we took a walk over to the city-hall side of the building. We found an empty conference room usually reserved for the power brokers of the Edina Soccer Association and the Fourth of July Parade Committee.

  I told Ellegaard about my meeting with the FBI.

  “McGinnis hasn’t said anything to me about backing off Fine,” said Ellegaard.

  “It would make sense that McGinnis brought me in to take the heat for tailing Fine. But to do that, he would have had to know Fine would be a suspect and cooperating with the FBI. McGinnis asked for a PI to join the investigation an hour after Maggie Somerville’s body was discovered. He couldn’t have known all that then.”