by Matt Goldman
“Listen, I want to talk to you about something.” She sat up straight. “I acquired a start-up that develops apps for surveillance. Webcams, motion detection, heat detection, metadata collection and analysis. I’d like to hire you as a technical consultant. It’s good money, Nils. And benefits. And you’d work in an office with free coffee and a full kitchen. Paid vacation and sick days. You deserve a little stability. And you’d do a great job.”
“Sounds interesting,” I said.
“It’d be a win-win for both of us.”
“Let me think about it.”
“Please do. These cases are taking a toll on you.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not yourself lately.” She reached across the table and grabbed my hand.
“I don’t understand what people mean when then say that. People are always themselves. They may not be the self they want to be at that moment, but they are themselves. Personality isn’t a snapshot—it’s a movie. A long fucking movie.”
“Maybe,” she said. “All I know is I haven’t seen you like this before. Is it fair to say you’re not your best self?”
I looked out the window again and found the runners at the south end of the lake. I rested my forehead on the cool glass.
“Nils, are you okay?”
I couldn’t think anymore. I just let go. My voice came out tired and weak. “I hate that I love you.” I pulled my head off the window and looked at her. She looked hurt but didn’t say a word. I got up from the table and left.
27
Andrew Fine’s estate was on Cheyenne Trail in Indian Hills, a subdivision in west Edina with street names like Navaho Trail, Dakota Trail, Iroquois Trail, and Blackfoot Pass. The trails and passes could have been dubbed “streets” and “avenues,” but I suppose that would have diminished the illusion that Native Americans still wandered this land studded with six-thousand-square-foot homes, four-car garages, swimming pools, hot tubs, tennis courts, bass ponds, and, in winter, private skating rinks.
Fine’s house was a monster of cedar shingles, arched windows, and a roof of at least a dozen peaks and half a dozen chimneys. The gables served no structural purpose, I’m sure, but existed to make a statement that rich people can have as many gables as they want, so, in conclusion, Andrew Fine was rich.
Shortly after 9:00, when I arrived, fifty or so cars were parked along Cheyenne Trail but none in the driveway of the four-car garage. Etiquette dictates that driveway spots are reserved for family and close friends, and, apparently, Andrew Fine had none. I parked my old Volvo right in the middle of that driveway then followed the flagstone walk to the front door. A sign said COME ON IN. So I did.
“Welcome,” said a tall woman with short blond hair and big hoop earrings. She wore off-white wool pants and a red Scandinavian ski sweater with white snowflakes. “May I take your coat?”
“Yes. Thank you.” I handed her my down sweater. She hung it in the front-hall closet and said, “The party’s downstairs and out back. There’s a full bar and a marijuana bar, if that’s your thing. The hot tub is fired up. There’s a bonfire and, further down in the yard, broomball on the pond.”
“Won’t I need my coat for broomball?”
“You will not because Andrew has red coats and blue coats so people know who’s on their team.”
“Just like Bunker Hill.”
“Right on,” she said, having no idea what I was referring to. She was in her early twenties, if that. You can’t blame kids for not knowing their Revolutionary War battles—they’re inundated with so much information now and anything they don’t know they can learn in five seconds on their phone. “One more thing,” she said, “I need to take your keys.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s booze and pot and Andrew wants you to enjoy it all, but if you’re not in shape to drive, we’ll have someone take you home.”
“I’m sure Andrew’s lawyer appreciates that.” I handed her my keys.
The party was in full swing downstairs. The smell of marijuana wafted through the air to the steady four/four beat of Tom Petty’s Wildflowers. Most everyone was outside, woven in a tapestry of smoke, drink, and heat lamps. The hot tub was full of bodies, steam rising off shoulders and heads. Down on the pond, broomball players slipped and skidded on the ice, lit by the reflection of city lights off the low cloud ceiling and falling snow.
The only people inside were a couple of guys immersed in a game of nine-ball on the pool table. Their game mattered—a serious endeavor among frivolous tomfoolery. It is what we all strive for—finding that thing on which to focus—the thing that makes time fly and lets us feel we earn the right to sleep at night. And those two found it on slate and felt with sticks and balls—lucky bastards.
A pretty woman with thick, long dark hair sat at a linen-covered table. Four glass jars, large ones—the kind you might see a brain floating in—sat on the table. Each was full of marijuana buds. Three people waited as she rolled a joint that looked like a tiny paper baseball bat.
I was looking for Andrew Fine when I heard, “It’s super Shap, private eye!” I turned and saw Kallie, the blonde from Bunny’s, stepping out of the bathroom in her bathing suit. “Quick, Sherlock Holmes! What’s wrong with this picture?!”
“You have a cosmopolitan in your left hand and yet you’re right-handed.”
She made a buzzer noise. “Wrong, sir! It is January in Minnesota and I’m wearing a bikini!” She was flat-out drunk—the rack and pinion system that kept her eyes in alignment wasn’t working properly. She walked over and put her arm around me. “But I am right-handed. How did you know?”
“Left-handed people grow up feeling they’re outsiders. Most develop a sense of shame that, when they mature, morphs into a sense of humility. Since you have no humility, you therefore are most likely right-handed.”
“Goddammit, you’re right. Humility means being quiet, right? Because I am not that. I’m loud. I don’t give a fuck. That’s who I am. You know what, Shap? You’re cute. I’d totally drop trou for ya.” She took a big swig of her cosmopolitan then lost her train of thought. “What?” She looked at me with her misaligned eyes, then, “Oh, yeah! Me and Lauren Googled you. You’ve done some cool shit. It’s sexy. But I know, Nils Shapiro, I know you’re here for Lauren, not me. I saw the way you were looking at her at Bunny’s and that’s okay ’cause … don’t tell her I said this … promise?” Another swig. “You have to promise.”
“I promise.”
“Lauren…” She looked around to make sure no one was near, as if she were a secret-teller in a play staged for children. “Lauren likes you. I mean like likes you. So go for it, dude. Ya might get lucky. Oh, fuck! Andrew’s back! I gotta go!” She headed for the French doors leading to the patio.
“Kallie.”
She stopped and turned back toward me. “What, Nils Shapiro, PI?”
“Where is Andrew back from? Where did he go?”
“He said he went to get me more cosmopolitan juice. I like him. A lot. Can you believe how rich he is? Can you? I’ve never been to a house like this before. It’s fucking amazing. He’s going to give me a tour later. Do you think he likes a lot of girls? I bet he does but that’s okay. One of us is going to snag him. I got just as good a chance as anyone.” Then she whispered in the loudest whisper I’ve ever heard, “That’s why I put on my bikini. Let him see the goods. ’Cause I’m a fucking blast in the sack.” She winked, turned around, and opened the patio door. “Andrew! Over here!”
I waited a moment then followed. Emerald Eyes stood with her back against the bar as I walked out. “Look who’s here,” she said, “party’s over.”
Lauren wore a navy down vest over a muted pink turtleneck sweater, faded blue jeans, and white knee-high sheepskin boots made by Robert Somerville’s company. She’d parted her straight dark hair on the side and her lips shone with something glossy but uncolored.
“Hi, Lauren.” I walked toward her and noticed a pendant hanging outside her turtl
eneck, a trance-inducing medallion like those worn by the unattainable loves of my youth. I hugged her as if I knew her—I don’t know why.
“You remember my name,” she said.
“Yeah, yours I remember. What’s her face’s, no clue.”
“Oh, I think you jest, Mr. Shapiro. Can I buy you a drink? The sun went down. You should be able to handle it.”
I was on the job and already had a whiskey in me, so I ordered a Guinness. Everyone thinks you’re drinking hard when you drink Guinness—no one believes it’s a light beer.
The bartender went to work. Emerald Eyes said, “You going in the hot tub tonight?”
“I can’t,” I said. “It’s my time of the month.”
“Shove a tampon up there. You’ll be fine.”
“I just don’t feel pretty. There’s no way I’m getting in a bathing suit.”
“Oh, you’re pretty, sweetheart,” she said. “You got pretty to spare.”
“Shap. You made it.” Andrew Fine walked behind the bar and grabbed a soda. “You bring your suit?”
“He won’t go in,” said Lauren. “He’s on the rag.”
Fine smiled. “You got a minute, buddy?” He took a hit of vapor off his lightsaber and exhaled it in two streams out his nostrils. Like a dragon.
“Of course,” I said. “Lauren, my dear. I’ll be back. Don’t make yourself hard to find.” I flirted with her for Fine’s ears—the poor girl had become my cover. But I will admit she stirred something in me. I doubted it was something good. Maybe that was okay. Maybe that was long overdue.
“I like to hide in small spaces,” Lauren said. “So I can’t promise I’ll be easy to find.” And for that smart-ass remark she got a kiss on the cheek.
Fine led me away from the party and back upstairs into his home office. “Have a seat,” he said. “I got to take a leak.” He put his vaporizer on his desk. The desk was designed to look as if it were made out of old-time storage trunks. I don’t know why someone went to all the trouble to design a desk that looked so stupid, but I was more troubled by Fine, who proved to be even more stupid by buying it.
He stepped into the bathroom and shut the door. I grabbed his vaporizer off the desk, unscrewed it, and took Ellegaard’s tracking device out of my front pocket. I peeled away a spec of paper which exposed the adhesive and stuck it on the inside of the housing. I screwed it back together, then heard the toilet flush as I returned the vaporizer to Fine’s desk. Fine came out of the bathroom and sat behind the faux trunk.
“I got a problem,” he said. “I need your advice.”
“Same thing we talked about last time?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. That’s what I need to talk to you about. The Edina cops have disappeared. No more follow-ups. No more asking about my alibi. Nothing.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“I think so—yeah. I had nothing to do with Maggie’s death and hopefully they know that and are spending their time on whoever did kill her. But why did they back off if I haven’t given them my alibi?”
“You told them you were alone the night Maggie was killed.”
“Well, I wasn’t.”
“Why did you lie?”
“Because my alibi would get me in another kind of trouble.”
“Worse than being accused of murder?”
“Yes,” he said, “considering I’m not guilty of murder.” I didn’t respond and let the silence hang. He took another hit off his lightsaber then said, “I saw you at the funeral. In the lobby by the coatrack. Who was that woman you were with?”
“That was a friend of Maggie’s.”
“Why were you with her?”
“She didn’t have anyone to go to the funeral with. I’d questioned her a couple of times about Maggie. She felt comfortable with me and asked if I’d go with her.”
“Somali?”
“Half.”
“You remember I told you I have trouble resisting the temptation of the employer-employee relationship?”
“I do.”
“Can I trust you, Shap?” He stared at me with cold, dead eyes. “I mean really trust you?”
I could barely hear the party outside through the insulated walls and double-paned windows. These new houses are sealed so tight I felt like half a lemon in Tupperware. “I can’t break the law for you, Andrew.”
“But other than that, I can trust you?” I nodded. “You met my assistant, Khandra Aden.”
“Yes.”
“She’s a high school student. Seventeen years old. On the work-study program. Goes to school between 8:00 and 10:00 every day then comes to work for me. The reason I didn’t give the police an alibi for Maggie’s murder is because I was with Khandra at the time. She spent the night.” He glanced up at me for a reaction.
“Not for business reasons, I’m guessing.”
“I’m sleeping with her, Shap.”
“Why are you telling me this, Andrew? I just said I can’t break the law for you. That’s statutory rape and you know it.”
“Because in the last few days, weird things have been happening.”
“How does that change anything?”
“She’s calling me all the time. Wants to know where I am. What I’m doing. When she can see me next.”
“What’s weird about that? She’s probably in love with you.”
“Yeah, maybe. But this is different. It feels more like she’s keeping tabs on me. And she’s smart. Really fucking smart. Plus she never talks about her friends or school or other seventeen-year-old shit. And the more I’ve been thinking about it, the more it seems like maybe she’s not really a high school student. Maybe she’s not really seventeen. I have not fucked an underage girl before her—I swear—well, except when I was seventeen, but that doesn’t count—so I don’t have a point of reference in recent memory. But I got to tell you, Shap, Khandra knows what she’s doing in bed. I mean, that’s why it’s hard to quit her. She’s good.”
“Andrew, it’s easy to find out if she is who she says she is. I mean, she works for you because of a work-study program at the high school. You can talk to them.”
“Oh, I have. And they say she’s a student. Her Social Security number and driver’s license, it all checks out. But…” He sucked another cloud of vapor into his lungs and held it. Then it leaked out in wisps when he resumed. “… this is the part where I need your trust. Can’t say a word to anyone.”
“Again—”
“This part’s legal.”
“All right.”
“I’m cooperating with the FBI. They’re investigating Al-Shabaab and Daesh recruiting young Muslims in the Twin Cities. I employ a lot of young Muslims and, while working for me, they have access to phones and computers. I let the FBI tap the whole place, their conversations, their e-mails, their Web searches, their IMs to each other. Everything. And Khandra’s been wanting to know so much about me lately. I’m getting the feeling she’s FBI. I’m like an informant. They got to know if they can trust me, right?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Does it matter if she’s FBI? ’Cause if she is, she’s probably twenty-three or twenty-four and just looks seventeen. Then you’re in the clear and can use her as an alibi.”
“No, I can’t, because being with her doesn’t clear me of murdering Maggie. Khandra had a few martinis that night and passed out at 10:00.”
“Andrew, I got to stop you. None of this makes sense.”
“Why not?”
“How can she sleep over at your house if she’s seventeen? Where are her parents?”
“I know, that’s what I’m saying. She says they work nights. Or she tells them she’s staying at a friend’s. But she’s slept over plenty of times. It’s weird. That’s why I think she’s not who she says she is.”
“I still don’t understand. What’s the problem if she’s FBI? You’re on their side. And if she is a Fed and was on the job and had too much to drink and passed out, she’s not going to admit that.”
Fine took
another hit off the lightsaber and kept it in his hand. “What if she says she just fell asleep, that it had nothing to do with alcohol?”
“You’re helping the FBI. They don’t want to fuck that up.”
“But listen. What about when they don’t need me anymore? There’s no statute of limitations on murder. She could turn on me. You know, tie up loose ends. Get me out of the picture.”
“Why would they do that if you didn’t kill Maggie?”
“I told you. To get rid of me when they don’t need me anymore. Edina PD hasn’t arrested anyone yet. Maybe they’re waiting for me to be done with the FBI, then the FBI’s going to feed me to ’em.”
Andrew Fine’s narcissism had spun him into a frenzy—there were just too many ways, in his mind, this was all about him. It was the perfect opportunity to flush him. All I had to do was plant the seed so Ellie and I could follow him to the one place that would prove his guilt. And he’d gift-wrap it for us. But something felt wrong. Either Andrew Fine didn’t kill Maggie Somerville or Andrew Fine had lost his mind. Or maybe both. Or maybe he was just crazy intuitive and Khandra was FBI.
Regardless, the time had come. I didn’t expect Peterson and No Chin to tail my phone up north. I only hoped they’d think I was up there on a fishing trip with my pals Ellegaard and Ansley Bell. That’s what freed me and Ellie to do what we’d planned. But the FBI wouldn’t be fooled for long. Our window of opportunity was small.
Fine’s cell phone rang. He looked at the screen. “Caller ID blocked. No thanks.” He denied the call.
“So Andrew,” I said, “a buddy of mine at Edina PD—”
His cell rang again. “Caller ID blocked again. Hold on. Let me see who it is.”
Fine answered the phone. “Hello?” He looked at me and mouthed, “Khandra.”
I whispered, “Let’s hear what she has to say.”
28
Fine put the phone on speaker and said, “Hey, K. Where you calling from? The connection sucks.”
“A friend’s house. My phone’s dead.” It was a bad connection, but in a strange way, like she was calling from the dark side of the moon, or from 1995.
