Dead Man's Mistress

by David Housewright

  Yeah, well, they had it coming, my inner voice said.

  Still, they’re blushing, I told myself. At their age? The world had changed. Not long ago you were considered a man or a woman at eighteen and were expected to behave like it. Get married. Buy a house. Start a family of your own. Nowadays, you’re still a kid at twenty-four. You don’t get married until thirty. ’Course, I should talk. I was forty-four and often behaved like I was eleven. What the hell was I doing in Grand Marais, anyway?

  “Well?” I said.

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” Alden repeated. “Sir.”

  “Should I tell you why I’m here then?”

  Jennica reached for her camera.

  “Don’t you dare,” I said.

  “Spoilsport.”

  “I believe that whoever stole the McInnis paintings is still in Grand Marais. If he contacts me about the reward, fine. Arrangements will be made and I’ll get the paintings that way. Otherwise, I’m going to track him down and take the paintings.” I pointed an index finger at Alden’s face. “You interfere in any way, I will shoot you in the head.”

  “McKenzie,” Jennica said.

  I pointed the finger upward to keep her silent.

  “There’s no doubt in my mind that Flonta sent you up here to watch me and probably Louise Wykoff, too, although how you’re going to do both at the same time, I have no idea. I’m equally sure that he told you that if I recover the paintings, you’re supposed to take them away from me by any means necessary. Yes? No?”

  Alden didn’t answer, yet the expression on his face suggested that I was on the right track.

  “If you try, I will shoot you in the head. By the same token, if by some miracle you happen to recover the paintings first, then I will take them away from you and return them to their rightful owner. If you resist, I will shoot you in the head.”

  “Would you stop saying that?” Jennica said.

  “Just telling your boyfriend what he’s in for.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend”—Alden seemed more jolted by that announcement than by my threats—“and you’re not going to shoot anybody.”

  “Are you willing to bet Alden’s life on that?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Wait,” Alden said. “What?”

  Jennica patted his hand.

  “McKenzie’s just trying to scare you,” she said.

  “Well, guess what?” Alden moved his head like there was a tune lodged in there that kept repeating over and over and he was desperate to shake it away. “UCLA’s Department of Economics did not prepare me for this.”

  “C’mon, McKenzie. Be nice.”

  “You two seem to think this is all fun and games,” I said. “A wonderful treasure hunt. It’s not. It’s dangerous. One man has already been murdered, remember?”

  “Just as long as I get it on film.”

  “Dammit, Jennica.”

  “You’re not calling me sweetie anymore?”

  “No.”

  “Mr. McKenzie,” Alden said. “Everything you said about Mr. Flonta is true, only look at me. I’m not a hero. I haven’t fired a gun in my entire life. I haven’t even been in a fight since the third grade and I lost that. I’m not going to get in your way. I’m here because Mr. Flonta is paying me; paying me to go to Grand Marais which, let’s face it, is not the worst gig in the world. All I intend to do, though, is sit on the lakeshore and drink piña coladas with Jennica. If she’ll let me.”

  “That can be arranged,” Jennica said.

  I pointed a finger in Alden’s face again.

  “She’s underage,” I said. “If you serve her alcohol I will shoot you in the head.”

  “Oh my God, McKenzie!” Jennica said. “Would you stop it?”

  “Just as long as we’re all on the same page.”

  “What page is that?” a voice said.

  At first I thought it was the waiter, but no. It was Mitchell McInnis.

  I sighed dramatically and said, “It just keeps getting better and better.”

  “Good to see you, too, McKenzie,” Mitchell said.

  “Who are you?” Alden asked.

  “He’s your competitor,” I said. “Jennica Mehren, Michael Alden, this is Mitchell McInnis. He’s Randolph McInnis’s grandson. If I’m not mistaken, he’s here to recover the missing Scenes from an Inland Sea for his grandmother, Mary Ann.”

  “No,” Mitchell said. “She’s leaving that to you. I’m here to make sure you don’t get lost taking them back to the Cities. I don’t think M. A. entirely trusts you, McKenzie. She’s afraid you’ll succumb to Louise Wykoff’s charms.”

  “When was the last time you were in a fight?”

  “You mean besides with my sister? I’m an artist, McKenzie.”

  “Let’s say for argument’s sake that I do recover the paintings and return them to That Wykoff Woman, what are you going to do about it?”

  “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” Mitchell smiled broadly and reached for Jennica’s hand. “Jennica. What a lovely name.”

  “It means white wave,” Jennica said. She was blushing again.

  “You’re Jeffery Mehren’s daughter. You’re working on his film.”

  “Our film.”

  “Of course.”

  “Perhaps you can be helpful to us.”

  “In any way that I can.”

  “Your grandmother had agreed to an interview, but now she’s resisting because of her differences with Mr. Flonta. If you could intervene…”

  “Let me see what I can do.”

  Mitchell slipped his cell phone from his pocket and stepped away from the table while he made a call.

  Alden was looking directly into Jennica’s eyes, yet was speaking to me.

  “Aren’t you going to threaten to shoot him in the head?” he asked.

  I was also looking at Jennica when I answered.

  “I’ll let her decide who gets shot.”

  Jennica turned her head to hide her smile, only it didn’t do any good.

  * * *

  I was beginning to feel like the den mother of a Cub Scout troop. After Mitchell returned to the table with news that M. A. had agreed to be interviewed on film after all—to Jennica’s delight and Alden’s obvious dismay—I excused myself. The boys and girl thought I was heading to a restroom. Instead, I left the tavern and started walking along the Gitchi-Gami State Trail.

  I didn’t get very far before a black-and-white SUV bearing the Cook County Sheriff logo screeched to a halt in front of me. Deputy Wurzer was behind the wheel, which left no doubt in my mind that the screeching was meant for dramatic effect.

  “McKenzie.” He spoke my name in the same tone of voice someone might use to say, “Stop or I’ll shoot.”

  I stopped.

  He got out of the SUV and marched toward me. For some reason I was reminded of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, except he was Wyatt Earp and I was Billy Clanton.

  “The sheriff told me you were back,” Wurzer said. “Looking for another lesson?”

  “Actually, I thought I’d wander up to World’s Best Donuts. Join me. I mean that’s what cops do, right? Eat donuts?”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “Only when I was working third shift and nothing else was open. Clayton Rask says hi, by the way.”

  That slowed him down.

  “You’re friends with the lieutenant?” Wurzer asked.

  “Acquaintances might be a better word. I chatted with him just the other day.”

  “Checking up on me weren’t you, McKenzie?”

  “Of course I was. LT’s still pissed off about what happened to you in case you’re wondering. He doesn’t think for a second that you were dirty.”

  “What do you think?”

  “We don’t always get along, Rask and me. But he tells me something, I take it to my bank and deposit it in my personal savings account.”

  “That makes two of us then.”

  “I also spoke to another friend of yours. E
l Cid.”

  “Asshole’s no friend of mine, although someone in the MPD must like him.”

  “Not necessarily. From what I heard, it could be the feds. Could be the BCA.”

  “No. It’s MPD. I could name names but I wouldn’t expect you to believe them. No one else did. Except Rask.”

  “Cid claims he never heard of you.”

  “You believe him?”

  “If the sonuvabitch told me the sky was blue I’d call him a liar on principle.”

  “Nothing to be done about it, though. Besides, it’s all starting to be a long time ago. I’m now a respected member of the Cook County Sheriff’s Department. At least I was. Cuz of you, Bowland is starting to look at me funny.”

  “For what it’s worth, he put me in my place for making scurrilous accusations.”

  “Did he actually use the word ‘scurrilous’?”

  “I’m paraphrasing.”

  “Where does that leave us?”

  “You and me? Standing on a street corner in Grand Marais. There’s something you should know.”

  I gestured with a thumb at the third-floor terrace of the Gunflint Tavern. Jennica was leaning over the railing and filming us with her camera. If I had been her father, I would have been anxious at how far she was leaning.

  “What the hell?” Wurzer said. “I thought all them camera crews had left to chase the next big thing.”

  “Girl’s from Hollywood. Wants to make movies. What are you going to do?”

  “You tell me?”

  “Donut?”

  “No, I don’t want a donut. I want to know what you’re doing here.”

  “You spoke to the sheriff. Didn’t he tell you that I was going to get a list of items stolen from the past few burglaries, maybe some photographs, too, and take them up to Thunder Bay? See if I can find a match at one of the pawn shops.”

  “He’s going to let you do that?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “I suggested doing that myself over a year ago. The sheriff blew me off. Said my badge didn’t mean shit up there.”

  “Neither does mine.”

  “He listens to you, but not to me. All right. If that’s the way he wants to run things.”

  Wurzer smiled at me the same way he did in my room at the Frontier Motel.

  “I’d be interested in hearing whatever you come up with,” he said. “Who knows, McKenzie. You might not be a useless piece of shit after all.”

  “Encouraging words, Deputy. Encouraging words.”

  Wurzer returned to the SUV. Before climbing inside, though, he gave a wave to Jennica. A few moments later, he drove off. I also gave Jennica a wave and continued to World’s Best Donuts, which closed ten minutes before I got there.

  FIFTEEN

  The city of Thunder Bay is located on the Canadian shore of Lake Superior on what the eighteenth-century French maps called Baie du Tonnerre—Bay of Thunder, a name that I liked way better.

  “Where are you from, kid?”

  “The Bay of Thunder.”

  I mean, seriously.

  I followed Minnesota Highway 61 for forty miles to get to the border and Ontario Highway 61 for another forty miles to reach Thunder Bay, which was cobbled together in 1970 with the merger of the communities of Fort William, Port Arthur, Neebing, and McIntyre. It covered more than 330 square miles, which made it nearly three times as large as the Twin Cities if that’s how you measure size. Yet while the Cities had built up, Thunder Bay had built out, so it was mostly flat. I didn’t see a single building that was more than five stories high and precious few that were three or four.

  About 120,000 people lived in the city and surrounding municipalities. Enough to support eight pawn shops and nineteen antiques, collectibles, and thrift stores. I started at the far end of the Bay of Thunder near a place called Amethyst Harbor and worked my way back toward the United States.

  The owners of the first two stores watched me like I was a black kid shopping at the Mall of America. Yet, if they were anxious that I was checking their inventory against the list and photographs that I carried in a manila folder, they didn’t say. I gave them a nod when I left and they nodded back without smiling.

  Come to think of it, Eileen wasn’t smiling either when I retrieved the folder earlier that morning at the Law Enforcement Center. It was the only time that I hadn’t seen her smile and I nearly asked what was wrong. I didn’t because on the list of things I was involved with in Grand Marais that were none of my business, that was near the top.

  The owner of the third store appeared deeply concerned by my behavior, though, and I wondered if he had been involved in some nefarious undertaking in the not-too-distant past. He did however, smile when I left his store without accusing him of committing a criminal act.

  A couple of stops later, I found myself in downtown Thunder Bay. I parked in front of a pawn shop and walked inside. The store was retail-friendly, with bright lights and shelves and counters arranged to provide the discerning customer with a pleasing shopping experience. Think Marshalls or TJ Maxx.

  There was a young woman with the outdoorsy face of a farm girl manning the cash register. She seemed disturbed by my manila folder and quickly summoned her boss. He met me at a glass counter loaded with jewelry and asked what I was doing. I told him.

  “Are you OPP?” he asked, meaning the Ontario Provincial Police. “Are you a Horseman?”

  “No,” I answered to both questions. In the United States, it’s illegal to pretend to be a cop. I didn’t know if that’s also true in Canada, but I wasn’t about to push my luck.

  “Then what are you doing?”

  I explained myself in as few words as possible while emphasizing that the merchandise I was searching for had been stolen in the United States.

  He smirked at me as if the number of morons he’s met over the years had just increased by one.

  “You’ve come a long way for nothing,” he said. “I don’t know what goes on down in the States, but we”—by that I think he meant all of Canada—“don’t buy stolen property. This ain’t no Hollywood pawn shop. A kid comes in with an electric guitar, I’m gonna ask him to play a tune. Customer has a Samsung Galaxy, I’m going to ask to see the charger. A guy says he wants to sell something off the books, I give him a thirty-second head start before I call the police. Whaddya think?”

  I pointed at a gold ring with a square silver setting and a diamond in the center of the square. According to the victim’s statement, “This was an old ring that belonged to my father, couldn’t say what it was worth.”

  “What about this?” I asked.

  “What about it?”

  I showed him a photograph of the ring.

  “Shit,” he said.

  I kept looking and discovered a bracelet and earring set with gold cat heads, a 14K yellow-gold chain with a heart-shaped ruby pendant, and an 18K gold-over-silver chain butterfly pendant with amethyst and diamond accents.

  “I don’t know what to say,” the shop owner said.

  “Do you have a purchase ticket with the name and address of the seller?” I asked.

  “I do. Of course, I do.”

  “Let me see it.”

  He hesitated before replying. “I can’t show that to you.”

  I dropped the only name I knew.

  “You can show it to me or you can show it to Detective Constable Aire Wojtowick,” I said. “She’s with the Criminal Investigations Branch of the Thunder Bay Police Service.”

  The shop owner hesitated some more.

  “I can all but guarantee that the person who sold you this stuff is an American,” I added.

  That seemed to do the trick. The shop owner showed me his paper. All of the stolen jewelry had been sold to him by Christopher Weathers of West Fifth Street in Grand Marais.

  Never heard of him, my inner voice said.

  “I checked the name he gave against his passport,” the shop owner said. “This is for real.”

  “Do me a favor, will
you? Set all this stuff aside for now.”

  The shop owner said he would. He asked if the police service would be contacting him.

  “Eventually,” I said.

  I don’t know if he believed me or not. I do know he was using his phone when I left the shop.

  Probably calling a lawyer, my inner voice said.

  * * *

  There were eight other stores within walking distance of one another, so I left my Mustang where it was and began investigating on foot. My next stop was an antiques store where I discovered a Roman silver denarius coin with the head of Emperor Severus Alexander set in silver bezel as a pendant, a Roman bronze sestertius coin of Severus Alexander also set in silver bezel as a pendant, a Roman silver Republic denarius coin set in gold bezel, and two Roman bronze coins attached to earrings.

  The owner of the antiques store didn’t want to believe that he had purchased stolen property, either, but detailed descriptions provided by the victim, including dates between 150 and 300 A.D., convinced him. I had to drop Detective Constable Wojtowick’s name again to get a look at the purchase ticket.

  Won’t she be happy about that?

  The coins were sold to the antiques store by the same man—Weathers of Grand Marais. I found more merchandise in a pawn shop three stops later, this time sold by a man named Gerard Roach, also of Grand Marais. At my final stop I hit the mother lode—Eddie Curtis, with an address on Margarets Road, Grand Portage, MN, United States of America.

  So it was Curtis behind the burglaries, I told myself. And probably Montgomery. And Deputy Wurzer—what did he have to do with it? Did he have anything to do with it?

  I glanced at my watch—yes, I still use a wristwatch instead of consulting my phone every five minutes—it was a little past one P.M.

  That didn’t take long. So, you have what you came for. Now what?

  It was a good question. I wasn’t entirely sure how things worked between the two countries, how evidence gathered in Canada could be used against miscreants in the good ol’ USA or even if it could, for that matter. I decided to contact my friend Aire Wojtowick, although “friend” might have been a slight exaggeration. It had been nearly four years since I was last in Thunder Bay and that was to investigate a murder that turned out not to be a murder but rather part of an elaborate extortion scheme. While I couldn’t recall her exact parting words to me, I remembered their meaning—keep your crap the hell outta my country.