Gone to Dust

by Matt Goldman

  “Everything all right?” said Fine.

  “I’m bored. When’s your stupid party going to be over?”

  “Late, darlin’. You know that.” Fine didn’t take his eyes off me. “We’ll get together tomorrow night.”

  “I bet there are a lot of drunk girls around there, Andrew. I don’t like it.”

  “I’m talking to you. What don’t you like?”

  “That it doesn’t sound like there’s a party going on.”

  “That’s because I’m upstairs at the moment.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why am I on speaker?”

  “I was in the hot tub. I’m changing.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Let it go, K. Hang out with your friends. We talked about this. So people don’t get suspicious. You can get me in a lot of trouble.”

  “My friends are boring. And I don’t want to get you in trouble,” she said. “I just want to be with you. It’s not fair you’re having a party and I can’t come.”

  “Man, I’m having a hard time hearing you.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s a crappy phone.”

  “Watch something on HBO Go or Netflix. That’s why I gave you the passwords. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  “My parents went to Iowa State for the weekend to visit my brother. Will you pick me up when your party is over?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me they were leaving for the weekend?”

  “Because I didn’t know. They were going to drive my brother down for second semester next weekend but his soccer coach asked him to come early for indoor workouts. This is so boring I can’t even talk about it anymore. Just come get me after the party. Please?”

  “It might not be until 3:00 A.M.”

  “I don’t care. I want to sleep next to you. I want to wake up next to you.”

  Fine sucked in another lungful of vapor and held it.

  “Andrew? Are you there?”

  “I’ll text you when I’m on my way.”

  “You have to text my friend’s number. I told you my phone is dead.”

  “Why don’t you charge it?”

  “I dropped it in the toilet. She said I have to put it in rice but I don’t know if that will help.”

  “What’s the number?” She told him and Fine wrote it down. “Usual place?”

  “I don’t want to take a bus tonight. It’s snowing.”

  “I can’t pick you up at your building.”

  “I’ll be at my friend’s building a couple blocks away. I’ll text you the address. No one will see.”

  “All right, K. I’ll be there later.”

  “You don’t sound excited.”

  “I am. I promise.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” Fine hung up the phone. He drummed his fingers on the steamer-trunk desk for a moment, then said, “What do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “Is she working undercover for the FBI?”

  “If she is,” I said, “she’s doing a damn good job. She sounds seventeen to me. Listen, Andrew, do what you want. But if I were you I’d assume she’s not FBI. My primary concern would be going to jail for statutory rape. What the hell are you thinking? You get busted and that would piss off the FBI. I don’t understand why you’d take that risk.”

  “I quit drugs. I quit booze. But I’m not perfect.”

  “No one expects you to be. But if it’s women you want, Kallie is downstairs and would love nothing more than if you asked her to spend the night.”

  “Who’s Kallie?”

  “The blonde from Bunny’s.”

  “What are you talking about, Shap?”

  “The other day. In Bunny’s. I was sitting at the bar and you came over. The two nurses? You invited them to the party. It’s why you invited me to this party.”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said. “That’s how I know that girl. Yeah…”

  “She’s under your spell.”

  “I’m not a sex addict, Shap. Well, maybe I kind of am. But who isn’t, right? My problem is I’m … listen, this is going to sound weird but what the hell … I’m in love with Khandra. I fucking think about her all the time. I still hit on other women and flirt with them but it’s just out of habit. Like I’m on autopilot with that shit. But I’m not into it. It feels like drinking and drugs did at the end, just a thing that made me feel shitty most of the time. That’s why I got in the program. And now it’s like that with other women because I’m in love with Khandra.”

  “Well, if you really love her, Andrew, behave until she turns eighteen. Then you can do whatever you want.”

  “Goddammit,” said Andrew, not in anger but resignation.

  “Andrew, I’m not officially working for you so I’m saying this only because we go back. But I’m hearing Edina PD might have a break in Maggie’s case.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I have a buddy over there. I was talking to him earlier today and all he said to me was they couldn’t find any forensic evidence in Maggie’s house because the entire thing was covered in vacuum cleaner dirt. But it was covered in so much dirt, they figure it must have come from an apartment building or office building or hotel or something. So tomorrow they’re going to start taking vacuum cleaner bags from a few key places they’ve identified and see if any of the dirt matches what they found in Maggie’s house. You know, to see if it’s made up of the same kind of carpet fibers and soil that could get tracked in from the grounds surrounding the building.”

  Andrew tilted back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. “About fucking time,” he said. “I know they’ve backed off, but they’re not going to stop suspecting me ’til they catch the fucker who killed her.”

  “Andrew, listen to me. They’re going to check the fibers in the carpet at the call center. And they’ll check the fibers in the carpet from your office park in Bloomington. If they find a match, you’re fucked.”

  Fine ran his fingers through his tousled hair then scratched the back of his neck. He removed the top sheet from the pad on which he’d written the number to reach Khandra. He popped up from his seat, put his cell in his pocket, and grabbed his lightsaber vaporizer. “Come on, let’s get back downstairs. People are going to think we popped up here for a quickie.”

  We went downstairs. Andrew stopped at the bar to chat with friends. I walked outside and down to the pond to watch some broomball and call Ellegaard. I told him about my conversation with Fine and that I’d planted the tracking device in his vaporizer.

  “I’m picking up the signal,” said Ellegaard. “If he leaves, I’ll be on him.”

  “He said he’d pick up Khandra sometime before 3:00 A.M.”

  “Good thing I napped.”

  “Let me know when he moves. I’ll be right behind you with the camera.”

  Lauren walked toward me. “Here’s me making myself easy to find.” She’d put on a long stocking cap of tight horizontal stripes in a million colors. I told Ellegaard I had to go and hung up.

  “I like a girl who can follow directions.”

  “Are you working tonight?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “You appear very serious when you think no one’s looking.”

  “Maybe you should be in my business.”

  “Thanks, but I like my own. Have you been to this house before?”

  “No, this is my first time.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Why?”

  “I want a tour.”

  “Ask Andrew. I’m sure he’ll give you a tour.”

  “I want it from you.”

  Maybe she was drunk or maybe she just decided to go for it but Emerald Eyes stepped right up and kissed me. We kept kissing and part of me hoped Fine would see us to solidify my cover, but most of me felt like kissing her back so I did. After a minute or so we broke.

  “Don’t say anything,” she said, and tas
ted her bottom lip. “You’ll wreck it.” She smiled, but only because she had good manners.

  “I have to go,” I said. She looked embarrassed and her eyes welled. “Not because of you—I just do because you’re right—I am working. I promise.” She looked down at the ground. “You want to grab dinner tomorrow night?” She lifted her head and nodded. “That was a good kiss.”

  “You’re damn right it was.” Then she started to cry, but more out of relief than sadness.

  Her tears unraveled me. I kissed her and backed her against an oak tree. I cupped a hand behind her head, pressed my hips into hers, and her breath found voice. “Don’t go.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Look at your phone like everyone else.”

  I did. It was 11:15. I said, “Let’s go on that tour.”

  We walked up the yard and into the house. I didn’t have to love Emerald Eyes. I just had to fuck her. Fuck her and fuck anybody else until I fucked Micaela out of my system.

  We found a wing of guest bedrooms on the second floor and chose a small one with a full-sized bed. I shut and locked the door and kissed Emerald Eyes hard and put my hand up her sweater and ran it over her soft, fleshy breasts.

  We made love on the floor. She came, and then I came, and then I got her off again with my hand. She turned her back to me in exhaustion or sadness or both. We laid there for a while and said nothing, then I got up and got dressed.

  The moment I met Lauren in Bunny’s, she impressed me with her dignity and humor. And she felt it—I had seen in her the qualities other men looked past because she was thirty pounds overweight or unable to hide her intolerance for their ignorance or ego. So she opened up. I figured she regretted that.

  She spoke first, “At least we don’t have to make the bed.”

  I laughed. “What do you mean ‘at least’? What’s wrong? Are we going to have an awkward dinner tomorrow night?”

  I felt the tag on the outside of my T-shirt. I took it off, turned it right side out, and put it back on again.

  She rolled toward me, her face wet and blackened with run mascara. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, if you’re regretting this—”

  “No, not that. Are you serious that we’re still on for dinner tomorrow night?”

  “That was the plan, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”

  I knelt down to the floor and kissed her knowing full well I had failed, once again, to exorcise Micaela from my being.

  29

  Lauren and I went back downstairs separately but reconnected at the bar where she ordered a beer and I grabbed a bottle of water. She gave me a you’re-no-fun look, and I said, “I really do have to work tonight.”

  “It’s almost midnight,” she said.

  “It happens sometimes.” We sat at a table under the covered patio. The big lazy flakes had given way to a harder snow. Six fresh inches had whitened the ground and rooftops and broomball players’ hats. They ran with ease on the snow-covered ice, their screams and ball whacks muted by the fresh layer of insulation. I looked for Andrew Fine but didn’t see him. My phone rang. It was Ellegaard. I said to Lauren, “I told you,” and stepped away from the table.

  “I’m parked on Gleason at the bottom of Indian Hills Pass,” he said. “I borrowed a neighbor’s Outback to handle the snow. Are you near Fine?”

  “No,” I said. “I can’t see him. What’s the tracking device telling you?”

  “Says he’s still home. You sure he takes that vaporizer with him everywhere?”

  “It’s his latest addiction. That and high school girls.”

  “Text me when you confirm his location. Just want to make sure everything’s working right.”

  “Got it.”

  I told Lauren I’d be back in a few minutes and went to look for Fine. I found him upstairs in the living room talking to Kallie, who was still shit-faced and still wearing nothing but a bikini. They sat together in a chair and a half. Fine held his lightsaber in one hand and Kallie’s thigh in the other.

  “Shap!” he said. “You’re still here, dude. I like it.”

  “Have either of you guys seen Lauren?”

  “Ah…” said Kallie. “I knew it!” she slurred. “You two … love each other!”

  “Haven’t seen her, Shap.”

  “Thanks.”

  “If you find her let me know. I think Kallie here may need a ride home before she passes out.”

  “I’m not going to pass out,” said Kallie. “I’m getting my second wind. Did you know Shap’s a private eye? I’m going to hire him to find out if you have a girlfriend.”

  “I already told you I do,” said Fine.

  “Uh-huh. Likely excuse.”

  I headed back downstairs and stopped at the bottom to text Ellegaard that Fine was still at home and in possession of his vaporizer and didn’t look like was going anywhere soon. I then sat down next to Lauren and told her Kallie needed a ride home and that I had to go.

  “Work,” she said.

  “I promise.” I kissed her good-bye, went back upstairs, retrieved my coat and keys and left. I was still the only one parked in the driveway. I took the giant toothbrush out of the trunk and swept the snow off the car. Ice froze to the windshield, and while scraping it away, I remembered I had already made dinner plans for tomorrow night with Stevey Fine. I had no choice about which one to cancel and decided to call Stevey in the morning. I wondered why he wasn’t at the party.

  I wound my way down and out of Indian Hills and found Ellegaard parked in his borrowed Subaru along the frontage road to Highway 62. I pulled a U-turn so our windows were a few feet apart. “Anybody follow you?”

  “No one,” he said.

  “Coffee?”

  “Yeah, maybe. But I don’t want to leave this spot.”

  “I’ll go get—”

  “Hold on,” said Ellegaard. “Fine’s moving.”

  “One car or two?”

  “Two. Just in case.”

  “Okay. Let’s keep the line open.”

  I raised my window and drove up Gleason toward Valley View. Ellegaard started the Subaru but kept the lights off. Thirty seconds later he said, “Fine just came down. He’s going left on Gleason.”

  “I’ll turn around,” I said.

  “No, don’t,” said Ellegaard. “Keep going the way you’re going—wind your way up toward Highway 100. If he’s headed to the Hyland Lakes Office Park, you’ll be closer. I’m going to follow but stay far behind with the tracker.”

  I took a right on Antrim Road and then a left on 70th. A minute later I was across the highway from Christ Presbyterian, where I’d attended Maggie Somerville’s funeral that morning. I thought of Ansley, alone with her mother’s death. I wanted to call her but couldn’t hang up with Ellegaard.

  I cruised up the highway entrance ramp and merged onto Highway 100 South. There were only a few cars on the highway. We were stuck behind a pair of side-by-side plows that pushed snow from the two rightmost lanes onto the shoulder. I said, “I got a couple of plows fucking up the freeway.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Ellegaard.

  “Is he coming up behind me?”

  “No. He just went north on Highway 100.”

  “North? Then he’s not going to the office park.”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “Fuck. I’ll turn around.” I exited on 77th, went under the highway and got on the ramp for Highway 100 North. “Maybe he’s picking up Khandra early.”

  Ellegaard said, “Maybe he’ll take her back to the office park so she can help him remove vacuum cleaner bags from the garbage bin. Or maybe he has a stash of them in the Midtown office. Tracker’s working like a charm. I’m going to stay back.”

  “I’m a few minutes behind you.” I hit the gas but felt the Volvo slide toward the center barrier. I eased off the pedal and kept it below fifty. Fine and Ellegaard had all-wheel drive. The Volvo did not.

  “He passed Excelsior Boulevard,” said Elleg
aard. “Looks like he’s passing Highway 7, too.”

  “Then he’s not headed to the office.”

  “I’m going to get a little closer. No way he’ll spot me with the snow coming down this hard.” We said nothing for a couple of minutes, then Ellegaard said, “394 East.”

  “I’m behind you a mile or so.”

  “He’s staying in the right lane.”

  “I have no idea where Khandra lives. I should have asked him.”

  I exited onto 394 East and headed for downtown Minneapolis. The skyline glowed soft and warm through the falling snow. Ellegaard said, “94 East.”

  A few minutes later, Ellegaard told me Fine transitioned onto 35W North, went over the Mississippi River bridge, and exited on Washington Avenue. “Looks like he’s headed to the University,” said Ellegaard. “West Bank.”

  The University of Minnesota’s West Bank is part of the Cedar-Riverside area. Few students live there anymore. Now people refer to the area as Little Somalia. The Riverside Plaza high-rises tower above it all. The gray concrete structures feature bright multicolored panels to remind you they were built in the 1970s. The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s Mary Richards moved into the tallest of the structures late in the series. You can see it in the opening credits of the show.

  “He’s on Cedar now,” said Ellegaard. “There are so few cars out here I have to hang back.”

  “I see the Subaru. I’m half a block behind you.

  “Fine’s pulling over near the Cedar Cultural Center. I’m stopping here.”

  “What’s he doing in front of the cultural center? Khandra said she’d be at a friend’s house. That’s too public of a place.”

  “Maybe she’s counting on no one being around. It’s almost 2:00 in the morning.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’m coming up behind you.”

  “Holy Mother of God!” shouted Ellegaard. I heard the gunshots from outside and then through the phone. “Stop, Shap! Stay back!”

  I killed my lights, coasted in behind Ellegaard, and saw the last few muzzle flashes of the ambush. I counted six gunmen. They emptied their sawed-offs into Fine’s Porsche, leaving a cloud of smoke, then they disappeared between the buildings.

  “I’ll call it in,” said Ellegaard. “Goddammit.”

  “Just stay back. There’s no life to save in that car.”