Jelly's Gold (19 page)

“I was just having a friendly beer with the man. Why would anything happen?”

Heavenly followed me into the kitchen. I drained the remainder of Allen’s beer into the sink, rinsed both bottles, and dropped them into my recyclable bin.

“I’m going to have another Summit,” I said. “Want one?”

“I don’t drink beer,” Heavenly said. “Do you have a wine cooler?”

“No, I don’t have a wine cooler.”

“A hard lemonade?”

“Or a hard lemonade. Lord, you’re high maintenance. No wonder you can’t keep a boyfriend.”

“That’s not fair.”

She spoke so sharply, my head snapped around to look at her. Her blue eyes were wide and bright and earnest.

“You’re right, it’s not fair,” I said. “I apologize. We have vodka in the freezer, Scotch, bourbon, cognac, and assorted wines. I have a pretty good Riesling in the refrigerator if that will do.”

“That would be nice, thank you.”

I served the wine in a crystal glass. “The bottle was already opened,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Heavenly took a sip. “This is very good,” she said. “You know your wines.”

“No, but my girlfriend does.”

“Oh, yes. She of the multiple presidential elections.”

“Why are you still here, Heavenly? Why didn’t you leave with your boyfriend?”

“Boston is not my boyfriend.”

“He used to be.”

“Yes, he used to be.”

Heavenly swirled the wine against the crystal. “Boston isn’t scared,” she said. “Or at least he’s pretending not to be. I am frightened, and I don’t care who knows it.”

“Who’s threatening you, Heavenly?”

She took a long sip of wine before answering. “Can I trust you?”

“Can I trust you?” I asked.

She didn’t reply.

“So we’re back to square one,” I said.

“No, I’ll tell you everything. It’s a long story.”

I pulled the cork from the wine bottle and topped off Heavenly’s glass.

“Do you know who Timothy Dahlin is?” she asked.

“No.”

“He’s a millionaire; made his money in the home mortgage industry. He’s retired now. Sold his company and jumped just before the housing market went ka-phooey, and he and his golden parachute landed in Sunfish Lake.”

“Oh,” I said. “A serious millionaire.”

“Why do you say that?”

“They don’t let just anyone live in Sunfish Lake.”

“Have you been there?”

“Guys like me aren’t welcome.”

“Why not? You’re wealthy.”

“Not wealthy enough.”

“I’ve been thinking that if I found Jelly’s gold, I could afford to live in Sunfish Lake.”

“What can I say? Eight million bucks doesn’t buy what it used to.”

Heavenly sipped more wine before continuing.

“Somehow Dahlin got our names—”

“Our names?”

“Boston and I. We had been partners at one time. Dahlin met us in his office; he has an office in downtown Minneapolis. He hired us to research and write a business book, one of those self-congratulatory I’m-rich-and-you’d-be-rich-too-if-you-were-as-smart-as-I-am books that he would publish under his own name. Dahlin seemed like a nice enough man, funny, kept telling us to call him Tim; certainly he paid well. He made us sign a confidentiality agreement promising that we would never disclose that the
book was ghostwritten, that he didn’t actually write a word. That’s standard. Most of these kinds of books, autobiographies by celebrities, athletes, businessmen, politicians, what have you, they’re ghostwritten. Sometimes the subject admits they had help. Sometimes their ego won’t permit it. ’Course, Boston and I knew going in what the deal was, so we had no complaints.

“Part of Dahlin’s legend, what he told people all his life, was that he was born on a French ocean liner in the middle of the Atlantic during a hurricane on July 23, 1934, while his parents—they were both Americans—were traveling back to the United States. According to the legend, his parents met in France, married, lived there for a while, but wanted their son to be born on American soil. Somehow he thought this story was special. Maybe it is. Certainly it’s different. For purposes of the book, we researched the event, tried to find out the name of the ship, the name of the captain, how bad the storm was, that sort of thing. Instead, we discovered that Dahlin was actually born in a Paris hospital. Now get this—he was born on
February
23, 1934, not in July. Only Dahlin didn’t know that. He didn’t make up the story. His parents did.”

“Why?” I asked.

“That’s what Boston and I wanted to know, so we kept digging. We discovered that Dahlin’s mother was originally named Kathryn Messer.
Mrs.
Kathryn Messer. She had been married to—”

“Brent Messer, the architect from St. Paul,” I said.

“Exactly. Supposedly she went on a European vacation—alone—in mid-June 1933. She traveled to Paris, where she soon met another expatriate, a man named James Dahlin.”

“Where have I heard that name before?”

“Jim Dahlin Homes. For a long time he was the largest builder of houses in the greater Twin Cities. His billboards were everywhere. Jim Dahlin, as coincidence would have it, was from St. Paul. He just happened to be vacationing in Europe when Kathryn was there. Boston believes that they knew each other in St. Paul, that they had an affair and arranged to
meet in Paris. That sounds a little too Barbara Cartland for me. Anyway, it’s just speculation, or wishful thinking, depending on how you look at it. In any case, Kathryn divorced Brent Messer in late September of 1933, married Jim Dahlin in early October, announced the birth of a child in July 1934, moved to New York in the same month, and lived there until they returned to St. Paul in September of 1936.”

“Dahlin’s parents changed his birthday,” I said. “They changed it from February to July, so everyone—including Messer—would believe that he was Dahlin’s son and not Messer’s son.”

“Tim was very angry when he learned that,” Heavenly said. “He told us we were wrong, told us we were incompetent, told us we were liars even after we laid it out for him.”

“I could see how it might be a shock to the man, especially after all these years.”

“So did we. That’s why Boston and I didn’t resign. Instead, with Dahlin’s permission if not his good wishes, we started to research Brent Messer. He was a well-regarded architect. A prominent builder. Had a lot of political connections. He built the Public Safety Building, among other things. Then we found a short piece that appeared in the
St. Paul Daily News
that said he and Kathryn had been seen partying with the”—Heavenly quoted the air—“ ‘notorious Oklahoma gunman Frank Nash.’ That seemed colorful to us, and that’s what you look for in these kinds of books, color, so we pursued it. Eventually, our research led us to a story that appeared in the
Huron Plainsman
detailing the robbery of the Farmers and Merchants Bank. We came to believe that that was what Nash and the Messers were celebrating at the Boulevards of Paris nightclub, Nash’s big score. Boston and I reported all this to Dahlin. He thought about it for a few moments, reminded us that we had signed an ironclad confidentiality agreement, and fired us.”

“None of what you discovered fit his image of himself,” I said.

“Apparently not,” Heavenly agreed. “So, there we were, suddenly out of a job. Boston and I decided to keep digging. At first we thought there
might be a magazine article in it, something about St. Paul’s most prominent families being involved with gangsters, that sort of thing. Eventually, our research led us to conclude that Nash hid his gold in St. Paul before he was killed and that it’s still here. We’ve been looking for it ever since.”

“Why did you and Boston break up? Was it really over shares?”

“He cheated on me.”

“You’re kidding. Where did he find someone smarter and prettier than you?”

“Thank you, McKenzie.” Heavenly spoke in a hushed voice and shook her head from side to side. “I don’t know who he was spending time with. I blame myself.”

“Why?”

“You said it earlier—I’m high maintenance.”

“So is a Ferrari, yet everybody wants one.”

The laugh started low in her throat and increased in volume until it came out loud. “Thank you again, McKenzie,” she said and laughed some more. “Thank you for that.”

“How did you hook up with Berglund?”

“I knew him from school,” Heavenly said. “I knew he was a competent researcher, and I didn’t want to look for the gold alone. After Boston and I broke up—ahh, I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I grabbed hold of Josh to prove to myself that I could, that I didn’t need Boston.”

“Only he cheated on you, too.”

“I know how to pick ’em, don’t I?” Heavenly said. “At least with Ivy Flynn—she’s your friend, but I can’t pretend to like her.”

“I understand.”

“At least Ivy—she’s really quite lovely, so I don’t feel like I’ve been traded in for an SUV or a station wagon or something. It makes a difference. Not a lot, but some.”

Heavenly drained her wineglass and filled it again with what was left in the bottle.

“What about the letters Whitlow referred to?” I asked.

“We’ve always maintained that the key to the gold would be found in letters or diaries or some other correspondence of someone close to the events. There is nothing else to go by, no one to interview, no official record. I want to believe that Josh found something. That’s why he was killed. How Whitlow would know about it, I can’t say. Maybe he’s just guessing, like the rest of us.”

Heavenly took another sip of wine. I waited until she was finished before I said, “The kid outside earlier. Allen Frans. Do you believe he works for Dahlin?”

“Yes.”

“Why would Dahlin care about Jelly’s gold?”

“I don’t know that he does. He already has so much money.”

“Some people can never have enough.”

“I guess. Only I think it’s more likely that he’s afraid that the true story of his origins will get out somehow.”

“Afraid enough to kill?”

Heavenly nodded. “I blamed Boston before, but I was just being pissy. I think Dahlin did it. Or had it done. He’s a proud man.”

“Yeah, I’ve met proud men before.”

“Are you going to talk to him?”

“I hope to,” I said. “If the kid doesn’t deliver my invitation, I’ll find a way to deliver it personally.”

Heavenly spoke in a hushed, timid voice. “If you do speak to him, will you tell him—McKenzie, tell him that we’re honoring his confidentiality agreement, Boston and I. We’re not trying to embarrass him. He doesn’t have to worry about us.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“Thank you.” Heavenly slowly finished the last of her wine and then sighed dramatically. “Where does that leave us?”

I tried to keep it light—“In my kitchen,” I said—only Heavenly didn’t take it that way.

“In your kitchen, but not your bedroom,” she said.

“Nope.”

“You don’t like me, either.”

“Heavenly, I like you fine. Only if I cheated on Nina with you, how would I be different from the other guys you know?”

She chuckled again. “Like I said, I really know how to pick ’em.”

“Want some fatherly advice?”

“Why not?”

“Don’t try so hard.”

She moved close to me, reaching out with her arms until her hands circled my waist. “Maybe I should try harder,” she said.

I pulled her hands away. “Maybe it’s time for you to go.”

She licked her lips. “Maybe I—”

“Stop it,” I said. I turned her toward the living room and gave her a gentle shove. “C’mon. Off with you.”

“You’re throwing me out? Again?”

Heavenly must have thought that was pretty funny because she laughed all the way to the front door, or possibly it was the several glasses of wine that I was hearing. “I can’t believe you’re turning me down,” she said. “Not many men have.”

“Is that right?”

“In fact, you’re the only one.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“Second. You’ve done it twice.”

I opened the door.

“McKenzie, I like you,” Heavenly said.

“So I’ve gathered.”

“No.” She held the door to keep me from closing it. Her face had become serious. She bit her lower lip before she spoke. “I mean it this time. I really like you. You’re a good man, and I haven’t met many good men. Or maybe I have and they stopped being good after meeting me. I don’t know. I do know that this girlfriend of yours, this Nina—she’s a lucky woman.”

I watched from the window as Heavenly walked to her car, climbed in, and drove away. Probably she was too drunk to drive and I should have done something about it, but there’s just so much temptation a guy can be expected to resist.

After she was gone, I went to my phone and called Rickie’s.

“You’re a lucky woman,” I told Nina when she picked up. “

So you’ve said many times. What’s going on?”

I gave her a quick update.

“I met Tim Dahlin,” Nina said. “At a chamber luncheon. He gave the address. He was very funny. I can’t imagine him killing people.”

“It’s all about motivation,” I said. “With luck, I’ll find out what motivates him, tomorrow. In the meantime …”

“Yes?”

“Nina.”

“Yes?”