by Matt Goldman
“I think that’s a good idea. Are you going to leave town?”
“I am. I’m going to go somewhere warm. The Caribbean or Hawaii. I’ll call you when I get back.”
“Okay, Ansley. I hope you find a little peace.”
“Thanks, Nils. I hope so, too.”
Ten minutes later I sat across from Ellegaard in his office. Chief McGinnis stood with his arms folded and said, “Why in the hell am I here this early after what happened last night?”
“Because, Chief,” I said, “I don’t think Andrew Fine killed Maggie Somerville.”
“Oh, for shit’s sake get the hell out of here, Shapiro. You don’t even work for us anymore.”
“I’m not happy about it either,” said Ellegaard, “but let’s hear him out.”
McGinnis, as if he were a teenager being stopped by his parents on his way out of the house, glared at me and said, “What.” So I laid it out. All my doubts concerning Fine and how they were confirmed just before he was ambushed.
“But what about the carpet fibers?” said McGinnis. “They’re from his office park.”
“Right,” I said. “I’ll explain that in a second. But for the moment, remove the carpet fibers from the equation. Consider everything else I just said about motive and aptitude and how that murder was plotted.”
McGinnis thought about it and didn’t say a word for a full minute. Then he looked at Ellegaard and saw they’d come to the same conclusion. McGinnis then said, “Shit.”
“Good. You’re with me. Now for the carpet fibers. We know we can’t ignore that the carpet fibers from Andrew Fine’s office park match the carpet fibers in the vacuum cleaner–bag contents found at the crime scene, so there has to be another explanation.”
“There’d better be,” said McGinnis. “And what about the anonymous letters? Do they figure in or not?”
“One thing at a time.”
“We can’t go down the wrong path again,” said McGinnis. “Someone already tipped off the press Andrew Fine was our prime suspect. If I have to undo that, I don’t want to have to undo the next one.”
I hesitated. Something didn’t feel right. My doubt was starting to annoy me.
“Do you need more time, Shap?” said Ellegaard.
“I want to talk this out. See what you guys think.” Neither said a word. They just waited for me to continue. “Before Maggie dated Andrew Fine, she dated a guy Beth Lindquist only knew as Slim. I asked Robert Somerville and Ansley Bell and a few of Maggie’s other friends who this Slim was, but no one seemed to know. Apparently, for Maggie, she never discussed that relationship with anyone. From my experience, that means Slim was just a fling for Maggie. She was just fucking around with him and had no intention of the relationship materializing into anything real. The only reason Beth knew about Slim was because she lived in the neighborhood and saw the guy come over. According to Beth, Slim adored Maggie. He even raked her whole yard when Maggie was away on spring break.
“So I kept wondering about who this Slim might be. Thought maybe we should pull phone records going back to when Beth said he was around, but that’s when our suspicion of Andrew Fine got white-hot so I forgot about it. Then yesterday morning at Maggie’s funeral, I sat in the balcony and saw the back of a man’s head on the ground floor. It looked familiar but I couldn’t see the face and couldn’t figure out who it was. Then it came to me when I got home at five in the morning. It was Stevey Fine.”
“Andrew Fine’s younger brother?” said Ellegaard.
“Yes. And I wondered why the hell Stevey was at Maggie Somerville’s funeral. So this morning I showed a picture of Stevey to Beth Lindquist and asked if she knew who it was and she said—”
“Slim,” said McGinnis.
“Yep. I don’t know why Maggie called him Slim—I’ve known Stevey for decades—I’ve never heard him called that. And knowing that Andrew was such an asshole of an older brother, it made perfect sense that he’d swoop in on Stevey’s ex-girlfriend.”
“And you think Stevey Fine killed Maggie because she dumped him for his brother?”
“It’s possible,” I said. “Especially considering Stevey Fine manages Andrew Fine’s office park. He walks on that carpet every day. He manages the maintenance crew. He knows when the garbage bin is full and what day the trash is emptied.”
“Motive and opportunity,” said Ellegaard.
“You suggesting we bring him in?” said McGinnis.
“No. I’m going to see him at 2:00. He called me this morning. He sounded devastated about Andrew. Andrew was such a prick to Stevey—I was surprised.”
“A big brother’s a big brother,” said Ellegaard. “Even if he’s a bad one.”
McGinnis said, “Maybe part of him hated Andrew for dating Maggie, but the part of him that loved his older brother kept him from going after Andrew. So all the animosity he felt for Andrew and Maggie was focused on just Maggie. This is interesting, Nils. I’d like you back on the case. And I know you haven’t stopped working on it, so your rehiring is retroactive. Consider you were never fired and invoice us accordingly. Do you think Stevey Fine’s a flight risk?”
“No, I don’t. Especially since I doubt Stevey Fine’s our killer.”
“What?” said Ellegaard. “Then why the hell did you drag us in here?”
“I wanted to see how easy it would be to frame him.”
“Goddamnit, Shapiro,” said McGinnis. “You’re driving me out of my gourd.”
“And it was easy. Just like it was easy to frame Andrew Fine. I’ll know for sure when I meet with Stevey in a few hours,” I said. “But it’s highly unlikely he killed Maggie Somerville.”
“Perfect,” said McGinnis. “We’re back to square one.”
Ellegaard sighed. He looked tired and defeated. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “We’ve wasted the first week of a murder investigation. Now we’re in serious trouble.”
“No, we’re not,” I said. “Because I know who killed Maggie Somerville.”
32
I met Stevey Fine at his loft in the North Loop. It was a one-bedroom that overlooked the Mississippi River. The walls were made of hundred-and-fifty-year-old brick. Timber posts, a foot square, met equally thick beams at heavy, black iron connectors. The floors were old, wooden, and undulating. They were coated with urethane and creaked underfoot. The kitchen was new and open to the living space. It had stainless-steel appliances and soapstone countertops and off-white cabinets with flat panel doors and iron pulls to match the beam and post connectors. The place was small and perfect and I decided right then the shitbox’s days were numbered.
Stevey Fine’s grief was real. His face was swollen, his eyes bloodshot, his nose stuffy. He hadn’t showered or shaved and his curls sprung out of coil in places. I gave him a hug when I saw him. He offered me a scotch and, though the sun was hours from setting, I accepted it.
We sat in a couple of chairs that overlooked the river. The water was open except for a few ice shelves along the edge. The river ran dark and gray like the sky, a sharp contrast to the fresh white snow along its banks. We sat in silence for a few minutes, then Stevey said, “What was Andrew doing? Why did they kill him? Especially like that.”
“Andrew was cooperating with the FBI in their investigation of terrorist recruitment in the Twin Cities. Because he employed so many Somalis, and gave those employees access to computers and phones, Andrew allowed the FBI to monitor all communication going in and out of the call center. There’s a lot of questions to be answered still, but somehow, Andrew’s assistant, Khandra Aden, either knew about the FBI investigation and Andrew’s cooperation or suspected it. Her allegiance, it turns out, was with Al-Shabaab. I’m guessing she was instructed to initiate an affair with Andrew to get closer to him. No one knew about that affair because Andrew kept it secret.”
“Because she was an employee?”
“That and she was seventeen.”
“Jesus, Andrew.”
“And on
ce Khandra knew for sure about Andrew’s involvement with the FBI, Al-Shabaab, or whoever it was, killed him. The brutal manner was a message to anyone else who might be thinking of working against them.”
“Like the beheadings. That’s why they posted it.”
“Exactly. I’m sure it’s no consolation, but the way they opened up on him with all those guns, your brother died a painless death. It was over before it started.”
Stevey nodded. I was right. It was no consolation. “I guess I’m not really mourning Andrew’s death,” said Stevey. “He was such a prick to me. From the moment I was born, really. You saw it when we were kids. He did two nice things for me in thirty-eight years. He let me live here for free—I think it was his fuckpad when he was married—and he gave me the job managing the office park. And as generous as those things were, he held them over my head like the son-of-a-bitch he was. But what makes me so sad…” He shut his eyes and tears leaked down his face. He wiped them away with his sleeve. “… what’s so sad is, well, one, my mom and sister have to live through this. And … and I had this fantasy that someday Andrew would come around and we’d be what brothers should be. So I guess more than anything, I’m mourning the loss of that chance.”
“Yeah. That’s a tough one to let go of.”
“On the news they said Andrew was the lead suspect in Maggie Somerville’s murder. Is that true? I mean Andrew was a dick, no doubt about it, but there’s no way he murdered Maggie. I read about all the weird stuff in that case with the vacuum dirt and no forced entrance. To be blunt, Andrew didn’t have the imagination.”
“Stevey, did you know Maggie?”
“Yeah, I knew her.”
“From when she dated Andrew?”
“She never dated Andrew. She thought she did, but Andrew was just sleeping with her.”
“But that’s how you knew her?”
“No,” said Stevey. “No, I knew her because I saw her for a while before Andrew.”
“Romantically?”
“For me, but not for Maggie. She thought of me the same way Andrew thought of her—a fuckbuddy. At best. I took her to a party at his house one night. That’s when she met Andrew. She was wowed by the house and grounds and…” He trailed off. “I saw her as this sweet, kind person. I guess there was something more ambitious going on. These sides people have to them, they’re not mutually exclusive, you know? And Andrew knew how I felt about her. Didn’t stop him though. But that was Andrew.”
“Why did she call you Slim?”
“How do you know that?” Stevey looked at me for an answer but I didn’t give him one. “Are you working right now? Jesus, Shap. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m just trying to wrap this up.”
“Who are you working for? Maggie’s family?”
“Edina PD.”
Stevey ran his fingers through his mass of curls. “What? You think I killed her?”
A pair of mallards glided in tandem toward the river, their wings fixed as they descended then seemed to hover over the water before setting down. Every winter a handful of ducks refused to participate in the exodus south. Real Minnesotans, they didn’t go for that snowbird crap. Instead they found open water, big rivers, spring-fed creeks, and man-made ponds aerated to keep from freezing, fountains bubbling up at their center.
“No, Stevey, I don’t think you killed Maggie. I’m just trying to figure out who did.”
“Are you sure? I’m trusting you as a friend, Shap. Do I need a lawyer?”
I looked him straight in the eye and said, “You can trust me, Stevey. No fucking around. I promise.”
Stevey looked at the river. Three more mallards, all green-heads, joined the original two. They’d found an eddy and let the current take them in circles. “Maggie thought it was cool I knew so many local musicians. We were at the Cabooze for a benefit to raise money for Slim Dunlap after his stroke. Everyone was there, and I introduced her to Bob Mould, Grant Hart, Curtiss A., Chan Poling, Chris Osgood, Paul Westerberg, Matt Wilson, Marc Perlman. And of course, the man of the hour, Slim Dunlap. Maggie was such a fan of the Replacements, she started calling me Slim. It didn’t make any sense, but she thought it was fun and it made her happy so I didn’t fight it.”
“Were you in love with her?”
“I think so, yeah. I don’t know. I only saw her for a couple of months and, to be honest, I have no idea if we were even officially dating. I’d see her once a week on nights she didn’t have her kids, but they were with their dad three nights a week so who knows what she did on the nights she wasn’t with me.”
“Her friend, Beth, thinks quite highly of you.”
“Yeah, Beth’s a nice lady. She and Maggie were good friends. But there was something weird there.”
“Tell me.”
“One night Maggie and I were on the deck out back. We were grilling and drinking wine. Beth and her husband—is it Perry?”
“Yeah.”
“They were working on their backyard. They didn’t live on the same street, but they lived around the corner and you could see from one backyard to the other. So I whispered to Maggie something like, should we invite them over? ’Cause I knew they were good friends. Maggie gave me this reluctant nod and then asked Beth and Perry if they wanted to join us for some wine. Beth dropped her rake and practically ran right over. Really lit up when she got the invitation. Didn’t even consult with Perry. Perry followed with a smile that seemed more gracious than thankful. Like his wife wanted to come, him not so much, but he didn’t want to be the party pooper.
“But Beth was all in, drinking wine and eating shrimp and having the time of her life. She talked on and on about her adventures with Maggie—how much fun they had when it was just the girls. Perry was pretty quiet but pleasant. After a couple hours went by, Maggie started cleaning up and dropping hints for them to leave. Perry got it right away. He carried a few things inside to be helpful and then told Beth they should get going. But Beth wasn’t ready to go. She poured herself another glass of wine—and she’d had a few—and I saw a queasy look on Maggie’s face.
“Then Maggie got all PDA with me. She never did that, even in private, but all of a sudden she was patting my ass and kissing me and draping her arms around my shoulders. Then Beth got the queasy look. And Perry’s grace disappeared. He didn’t get angry—he’s too refined a guy for that—but you could see he was bothered. He finally had to drag Beth out of there, not literally, but pretty fucking close.”
“Did Maggie ever talk about Beth when she wasn’t around?”
“Once. I remember it because it was the longest conversation we ever had. Maggie and I had walked up to the Edina Grill and ate at the bar then hung around after and got pretty hammered. We walked back to her place and Maggie insisted we drink a lot of water so we wouldn’t get too hungover. So we were drinking big glassfuls at the kitchen table, and her mail was on it—she hadn’t opened it yet. She was sifting through and said something like, ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, not another one.’ When I asked her what she was talking about she said she’d been getting letters from a secret admirer. Remember, Maggie was drunk—I don’t think she would have told me all this if she wasn’t. I just happened to be sitting there so I’m the person she told. I asked her about the letters, and she said she’d been getting them for a while and they were actually sweet, but they were getting annoying. I asked Maggie if she had any idea who they could be from. She kind of swung her head in the direction of Beth and Perry’s house. And I said really? She nodded. And then I said, ‘They’re from Perry?’ And she got this incredulous look on her face and said, ‘No. Not Perry. Beth.’
“I couldn’t believe it. I asked Maggie if Beth had a crush on her. She said it was worse than a crush. Beth was in love with her. I said, ‘Did anything ever happened between you two?’ Maggie said not sexually. But Beth confessed her love to Maggie. Maggie told her that she appreciated Beth’s friendship, but at forty years old, Maggie knew who she was and wasn’t and who she wasn�
�t was a lesbian.”
“But Maggie stayed friends with Beth.”
“Yeah, I asked her about that. She said they were neighbors and that wasn’t going to change, so it would’ve been too weird if they didn’t stay friends. And also, Maggie genuinely liked Beth, loved her even, as a friend. So they made it work. Beth wasn’t sad or needy around her anymore. And she was always there in a helpful way—whether it was taking in Maggie’s mail while she was on a trip or talking about Maggie’s love life. Beth remained a true friend and only expressed her love for Maggie in those letters Beth thought were anonymous. She even pretended to be a man in them. But it didn’t fool Maggie—she knew they were from Beth.”
“Did they ever discuss the letters?”
“I don’t think so. Maggie didn’t want to say anything because, as she explained it, the letters were an abnormality that allowed everything else to be normal. Beth was fine as long as she had an outlet to express her love. I guess if you feel a true love like that, you just can’t turn it off. You have to learn to live with it in its unrealized form, just like people have to learn to live with diabetes or herpes or whatever.
“After Maggie told me all that, I kind of admired Beth. She was in this position where she could have played the fool, but instead she played the knight in shining armor. Like, sometimes Maggie would smoke when she drank. But she always felt guilty about it so if you were with her she’d want you to smoke, too. A strength-in-numbers kind of thing. And Maggie told me that Beth, who’s a pretty fucking serious marathon runner, like, way up there in her age class, would smoke with Maggie sometimes, even though she’d never touch a cigarette in any other circumstances. That’s how much Beth loved Maggie.”
“Ah,” I said. “My fleet-footed creekmate behind Maggie’s house.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” The mallards moved out of the eddy and drifted downstream. Maybe they’d decided to go south for the winter after all, floating instead of flying, all the way to New Orleans. “I heard you raked Maggie’s lawn for her once when she was out of town.”
