Criminal Enterprise (12 page)

C
HRIS RUSSELL
PARKED
her Hastings police cruiser behind a beat-up Ford pickup in Tony Schultz’s driveway, turned off the car’s engine, and surveyed Schultz’s tiny farmhouse.
Hardly looks like a drug dealer’s pad,
she thought, as she stepped out onto the snow.
Then again, this is Hastings. Everything’s smaller out here.

Truth be told, Russell didn’t know why she was out here. She’d been working a little B and E action, a string of burglaries in the old storefronts downtown, when Schultz had called and demanded she come out and talk to him. “Sure, Tony,” she’d said. “Scotty said you’d be calling. What’s the problem?”

Schultz had sighed as if she should already know. “The robbery,” he said. “Guy broke into my house, beat me with a piece of lumber, stole my guns. Don’t you want to catch him?”

“Wanted to catch him,” she said. “Three months ago, when it happened. Pretty sure the case has gone cold.”

Schultz paused. “Don’t you at least got to take my statement?”

Russell had looked at her computer screen, where she had the file open to the downtown break-ins. Someone smashing windows, emptying cash registers. “Historic downtown Hastings is a Minnesota landmark,” Randy Telfair had told her. “Scares the tourists away when the crime rate goes up.”

It’s probably some kid,
Russell wanted to tell him,
and anyway, what tourists?
Still, Randy was the mayor, and Russell had been planning to humor him, just to be polite. Until Tony Schultz called, just like Scotty Mo’d warned her he might. Didn’t give up any details, just grinned at her like it was her problem now, the bastard. She’d more or less set it aside, but here Tony was, a day or two later, acting like he had something to say.

Funny he was calling about that old robbery now, months after the fact. Acting as if by rights Russell should have solved the case already, returned him his guns. In her fifteen years in Hastings, Russell figured the only times she’d seen Schultz talk to the police were at the tail ends of bar brawls and maybe an arrest for drunk driving. Sure, the rumors abounded: according to local lore, the big man fancied himself some kind of drug kingpin, had landed a supply of cocaine from the south and was trying to make a living slinging dope to the town’s eighteen thousand residents. Either he wasn’t much of a drug dealer, though, or he was better than anyone figured. So far, nobody on the force had been able to build a case against him.

Now Russell walked from her cruiser up toward Schultz’s little house, aiming to change her department’s woeful batting average. Schultz wasn’t exactly the smartest guy in Hastings, and Russell figured she could convince him to implicate himself while she pretended to help him find his stolen guns.

It beat working those crummy B and E’s, anyway.

—

S
CHULTZ CAME OUT
onto the porch as Russell walked to the house. He was just as big as she remembered, his muscle going to fat now, his hairline thinning. In his younger days, he’d been a force about town, a womanizer and an unpredictable drunk. Since he’d moved out to the homestead, he’d calmed down some, though who knew what he got up to when nobody was watching.

Schultz studied her as she approached, his eyes dark and suspicious. He still had a scar on his cheek from where the robber had hit him, she noticed, though it looked like he’d had his broken teeth fixed.

Russell let his eyes wander over her body as she climbed the porch. Then she fixed him with a look. “You going to stare at me all day, Tony, or you going to invite me inside?”

Seemed to take a moment to register. Then Schultz nodded and waved her through the front door. He followed her in, through the tiny front hall and into the plain living room, a couch and a chair and a rug and a table. Russell sat down on the couch, looked around the room. Nothing incriminating, not yet. Not out in the open, anyway. Russell took out her notepad and a pencil. “I’m going to take some notes while we’re talking,” she said. “That all right?”

Schultz hesitated. Fidgeted. Then he cleared his throat. “I don’t like having you here,” he said. “I want you to know that.”

“Okay, so I’ll go,” she said, closing her notepad. “How about that?”

“You’re not going anywhere.” Schultz glared at her. “Not until we talk this thing through.”

Russell held Schultz’s gaze until the big man looked away. Then she nodded and opened her notepad again. “Okay, Tony,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

S
TEVENS PARKED
his Cherokee behind a black Jaguar at the foot of Carter Tomlin’s driveway. He got out of the Jeep and stared up at the house, admiring the fairy-tale architecture, the sprawling front lawn.
Imagine being the guy who lives here,
he thought.

He’d read somewhere that F. Scott Fitzgerald had lived in one of the mansions along Summit Avenue. The railroad baron James J. Hill had built a huge home for himself down the block; now more than a hundred years old, it was a tourist attraction. Every home on the street looked like a fantasy brought to life, a dream home for movie stars and celebrities. Stevens tried to picture his own family in one of these monsters; couldn’t do it. He and Nancy lived in a perfectly serviceable little home in Lexington—about a mile and a half away by car but worlds apart in terms of lifestyle.

Stevens crossed the front lawn and climbed the stairs to the porch. Rang the doorbell and was met by a girl about the same age as JJ. “Is your dad home?” Stevens asked her, and she gave him a shy smile and ran off through the house.

Stevens waited at the door until the little girl returned, trailing a woman Stevens recognized as Becca Tomlin, Carter’s wife. She was blond and blue-eyed and vibrant, five or six years younger than Tomlin, and almost breathtakingly beautiful.

“Mr. Stevens.” She smiled at him, an all-American smile. “Please, come in.”

Stevens followed her through the front hall to the living room. “Carter’s just fiddling with his trains,” Becca told him. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“I’ll handle the drinks.” Carter Tomlin walked into the living room behind his wife, as tall and confident and flawless as a presidential nominee, right down to the yellow Labrador retriever at his feet. He kissed his wife on the cheek and then held out his hand to Stevens.

The dog got to Stevens first, leaping up at Stevens’s palm and immediately setting about coating it with his slobber. Tomlin met Stevens’s eye and smiled. “Snickers has his own way of saying hello. I hope you don’t mind.”

Stevens shook his head. “Course not. Probably smells ours.”

“A dog man.”

“German shepherd. My son’s Christmas present.”

“So you understand, then.” Tomlin gestured to the couch. “Have a seat.”

Sounds like he’s used to giving orders,
Stevens thought.
Bet it serves him well as a coach. And in business.

Tomlin disappeared into the kitchen. Came back a moment later with a couple of beers and sat opposite Stevens. “So,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Basketball. You decided to answer my cry for help.”

Stevens smiled. “Wife wants me out of the house.”

“The Danzer case break?”

“Waiting on some DNA,” Stevens said. “There’s not much I can do until I hear back from the lab.”

“Must be kind of boring, isn’t it?” Tomlin studied his face. “Going back to these stale murder cases after that big kidnapping thing.”

Stevens laughed. “Pender and company. You heard about that.”

“Read about it in the paper. An acquaintance of mine, Harper, was kidnapped across town.” He smiled at Stevens. “Heard you were some kind of hero.”

Stevens shook his head. “We got lucky.”

“That sounds too much like modesty.” Tomlin glanced out to the hallway. Then he leaned forward again, conspiratorial. “You still keep in touch with that FBI agent? The pretty one, I mean. Wintergreen?”

“Windermere.” Stevens looked out the window. “Carla Windermere. Guess we fell out of contact.”

“Really?” Tomlin said. “She was a looker.”

“Hell of a cop, too.”

“Could tell from her picture she was a force,” Tomlin said. “You guys must have made quite the team.”

Stevens laughed again. “We got the job done.”

“Yeah, I bet you guys were really something.” Tomlin straightened. “Anyway, let’s talk hoops. Basic strategy, right?”

Stevens almost wished they could talk more about Windermere, but he followed Tomlin’s lead and the two men talked basketball for a while. Stevens outlined some strategy, and they made plans to meet again, before Tuesday’s practice. Then Tomlin drained his beer and stood. “We’ll have to have you and the wife over sometime,” he said. “Bring Andrea around, too.”

“Great idea.” Stevens stood, too, and let Tomlin walk him to the door. “I’ll rally the wife. And we’ll be in touch about practice.”

They shook hands at the door, and Stevens walked out to his Jeep, stopping at the car to turn back and wave to Tomlin, who stood watching from the window.

Good to get out of the house some,
Stevens thought, backing the Cherokee onto Summit Avenue.
Maybe this basketball thing will be fun.
As he drove home, however, he thought about Windermere again, replaying Tomlin’s conversation and feeling something a little like longing.

K
IRK STEVENS
TURNED
out to be a big waste of time, as far as keeping tabs on Carla Windermere was concerned.

Even with Nolan Jackson in the ground, the FBI agent continued to call Tomlin a couple times a week. “Just trying to close out these last details, Mr. Tomlin,” she told him. “Get me that receipt and I can quit harassing you.”

He told her he was on it, was harassing the auto body shop himself. “They’re playing hard to get,” he told her. “But I’ll get them.”

“Maybe I can try,” she said. “An FBI badge opens doors. What’s the name of the shop?”

“Got it on my desk at home,” he told her. “Call you back.”

He hung up on her, didn’t call back. Screened his calls, told Tricia to tell her he was out. But Windermere kept calling, and that alone made him nervous. Nolan Jackson was dead. The FBI claimed he was their bank robber. Shouldn’t Windermere have moved on by now?

He worked his way down a list of auto glass repair shops in the Twin Cities. Worked quiet, discreet. Offered to pay cash for a doctored receipt. Got a lot of sideways looks, a lot of dial tones. Kept looking. And Windermere kept calling.

Tuesday afternoon, Tomlin met with Stevens before practice. Talked strategy for a while. Stevens knew basketball, anyway, that was for certain. The BCA cop more or less took over practice, got the girls running drills, trying out a new defense. Tomlin stood on the sidelines and watched. Filled water bottles. Fetched towels.

He tried broaching the subject of Windermere again. Told Stevens he’d seen the FBI agent’s picture in the paper. A shoot-out in Phillips. The bank robbery case. Stevens looked at him funny, like he knew a little bit more than he should. Sent a chill through Tomlin’s body, but then Stevens seemed to warm to the topic, seemed almost eager to talk about Windermere again.

For all that, though, Stevens knew less about Windermere than he did. The dumb cop hadn’t talked to Windermere in months. How the hell could he know why she wasn’t giving up?

Wednesday and Thursday, Tomlin hit the streets. Dropped by any auto repair shop he could find. Asked a couple of questions, drew mostly blank stares. Hit the jackpot with a shitty little back-alley joint just north of downtown.

“You’re saying you want me to fake a receipt for a car window replacement.” The guy behind the counter studied Tomlin, scratching his head. He was an older guy, grease under his fingernails. Torn overalls. “We don’t even do windows.”

Tomlin pulled three hundred-dollar bills from his wallet. “You do now.”

The guy looked at the money, then at Tomlin again. “This some kind of insurance scam?”

“No,” Tomlin said.

The guy looked at the money. Pursed his lips. “I gotta rework the inventory, too. Rejig the computer. In case somebody starts nosing around.”

Tomlin took two more hundred-dollar bills from his wallet. Laid them on the table beside the first three. “Five hundred, even. Can you help me, or what?”

The guy looked at the money some more. Then he nodded. “I’m not going to go to jail, am I?”

“For a receipt?” Tomlin said.

The guy studied his face. Then he shrugged and scooped up the money. “Give me ten minutes.”

T
OMLIN COULDN’T
HELP
smiling as he climbed the stairs to his office. Pushed open the door, and Tricia looked up at him from her desk. “Afternoon,” he said. “Keeping busy?”

She stared up at him, her eyes as bored and lifeless as a lion’s in the zoo. Then she sighed and turned back to her computer. Didn’t say a word. Tomlin walked to her desk and dropped the body shop receipt on her keyboard. “Fax that for me, would you?”

Tricia glanced at the receipt. Sighed again. “Where?”

“The FBI. Minneapolis. Agent Carla Windermere.” He started into his office. “Make sure you fax it today.”

“You have a visitor,” she told him. “He’s in there already.”

Tomlin stopped walking. He looked back at Tricia. She stared at him, frowning. His heart pounded.

Who the hell is it now?
He forced himself to straighten. Forced himself to walk into his office, slow as a prisoner walking to his own execution. His visitor turned in his chair and smiled. “There’s the man.”

Tomlin exhaled. “Rydin.” He shook his friend’s hand. “Thought you were the goddamn IRS.”

Rydin’s handshake was firm. “If you were cheating on your taxes, I hope you’d get yourself a nicer place,” he said. “How’s tricks, anyway?”

“Same old,” Tomlin told him. “Business is business.”

Rydin sat down again. “Ready for a real job?”

“What, another contract?”

“Better.” Rydin grinned at him. “North Star’s hiring a new controller. Looking outside the firm. Thought you might want to throw your name into the ring.”

Tomlin stared at him. “You’re talking full-time.”

“Full-time. Salary and good benefits. Get you back into the straight life.” He leaned forward. “Best part of it is, I chair the hiring committee. I tell my bosses you’re the guy and you’re hired.”

Tomlin shook his head. “Christ, Rydin.”

“Good deal, huh? Should I tell them you’re in?”

Tomlin stared at the man. Then he looked around at the dingy office, the gray window, the stained carpet.
Here’s your reward,
he thought.
You kept your family afloat when things got desperate and now you’re back in the straight life again. This is like a reset button on your life.

Then he heard Tricia humming to herself in the lobby, and something made him pause. “Let me mull it over,” he told Rydin. “Give me a couple of days.”