Madman on a Drum (3 page)

“I know.”

“I listen to what the kidnappers want and I ask, is it because of you, McKenzie? Because of your money? Because of the things you do, the favors you do for people? Is that why they took my daughter? Tell me.”

The idea that I had brought all this down on the Dunston family had occurred to me when I listened to the voice on the tape recording and knew, like Bobby, that I had heard it before. I decided to ignore it. My father and a man named Mr. Mosley—after my mother died, they taught me by their example to keep my emotions to myself. So did eleven and a half years as a St. Paul cop. I was doing that now. Trying to, anyway. Especially the guilt. Only my emotions were dangerously close to the surface and I knew that it wouldn't take much to turn them loose and what good would that do? So
No, it isn't your fault
, my inner voice advised me and I went along with it.

To Shelby, I said, “Someone who knows Bobby and me, someone who knows we're friends—”

“Are you going to give us the money?”

“I'll give you everything I have, you know that.”

Shelby gave a small shake of her head, bent over, her hands clasped together in her lap. When her head came up there were tears in her swollen eyes. An odd sound, a fusion of anguish and laughter, escaped her throat, and she placed both hands over her mouth and stared at me.

I wanted to comfort her, hold her in my arms. When I rose from the floor she held up a hand, stopping me.

My cell phone demanded attention.

While I answered it, Shelby left the room.

 

“H. B. Sutton,” I said after reading the name off the caller ID.

“McKenzie.”

Sutton's voice was cold and hard and humorless, and hearing it always made me want to turn up the furnace. Once you came to know her, Sutton was actually quite pleasant and interesting to be with, but penetrating the thick walls she built around herself took some effort. I blamed her flower-children parents for the walls. After I had known her for three years, Sutton confided to me what the H. B. stood for.

“Heavenly-love Bambi.”

“You're kidding,” I said.

“Try growing up with that name, going to school. Try looking for a job.”

“Do you even speak to your parents?”

“Only during the summer solstice.”

Speaking to her now, listening to her no-nonsense voice, gave me strength.

“What's this about needing money?” Sutton asked.

“I need a million dollars.”

“Sure you do.”

“I need it right away.”

“McKenzie, we've had this discussion before. You have enough invested now where you don't need to spend your own money to buy something. You can borrow—”

“I need it in cash.”

“Who the hell deals in cash?”

I explained.

“Wow,” Sutton said.

“Will you help me?”

“Of course I will, except it's not as easy as it sounds. We can sell off your holdings right now, right this minute, using after-market networks. Except they have a three-day settlement. It would take three days before you could get your money. We can wait until the markets open tomorrow morning, but they demand a one-day settlement.”

“I wouldn't be able to get my money until the day after tomorrow?”

“That's how it works.”

“I can't wait that long, H. B. Give me something. Anything.”

“We could margin the equity in your accounts and take out a loan. One million against five million in holdings, it shouldn't be a problem. I can start the paperwork right now.”

“When would I get the money?”

“We can wire it to your money market or personal checking account by eleven tomorrow morning. Possibly sooner. I'll call you when the transaction is complete.”

“Please and thank you,” I said. “Put it in checking. Do you have my account number?”

“I do.”

“I appreciate this, H. B.”

“McKenzie, that little girl…”

“I know.”

Shelby had returned to Katie's room. I watched her for a moment. She refused to acknowledge me. For the first time in my life I felt like an intruder in her home. I continued down the corridor.

The four FBI agents were gathered in a knot at the foot of the stairs. They spoke quietly. There was no laughing, no smiling; nor were there any grimaces or outbursts of anger. They were suppressing all of their emotions out of deference to Bobby and Shelby, and I admired them for it.

When I reached them, Honsa took me by the arm and led me into the kitchen. There was coffee brewing, and he filled two mugs. I took a sip from mine, put it down, and never touched it again. Honsa drank from his as if it were plasma, as if it were keeping him alive. His reassuring smile never left his lips, not for a moment. His eyes, on the other hand, worked me over like a collector appraising an antique armoire.

“You were once a police officer,” he said. “You were pretty good. I checked. Agent Wilson, for one, thinks very highly of you. Seems you were helpful on a couple of difficult cases. Unofficially helpful.”

I didn't know what to say to that, so I didn't say anything.

“Have you ever been involved in a kidnapping for ransom before?” Honsa asked.

“Not from the inside.”

“What we have here”—he waved toward the dining room—“is a crisis negotiation team. We're here to aid in the investigation.”

“I don't see much investigating being done.”

Honsa regarded me for a moment over the brim of his coffee mug. “You're not supposed to,” he said. “We always try to maintain separation from the family. If this were a bigger house, we'd take over a room and operate from there. Instead, we're operating off-site.”

“Why?”

“You've been a cop. Do you want the family to hear our conversations? Do you want them to hear our brainstorming or case discussions? Do you want them to hear remarks that could be misinterpreted as disagreements or inexperience or, worse, as indifference?”

“Sorry,” I said.

“We're not hiding anything, you know that. We'll keep the family informed about everything that's happening. We'll answer every question.”

“Okay.”

Honsa refreshed his mug with the coffeepot.

“That's only part of the job,” he said. “Investigating. The other part is to work closely with the family of the victim. We establish what we call a NOC, a negotiation operations center. That's in the dining room. We support the family members throughout the ordeal, aid them in negotiating with the suspects, rehearse what they should say, what they shouldn't say, help them respond to threats and demands. We want to immerse ourselves into the family so we can assess family members.”

“Assess family members?”

“Part of that is being able to glean information regarding the victim, regarding Victoria.” Honsa pointed a finger at me. “You know the girl.”

“All her life,” I said. “It seems like all of my life, too.”

“Tell me about her. Is she brave?”

“She'll take the last shot with the game on the line while playing basketball. Beyond that I don't know. Until now no one has asked her to be brave.”

“It might help if we had an idea of how she's holding up.”

“Wherever she is, she's afraid. She wants her mother. She wants her father.”

“I appreciate that. Tell me how she would do locked in a dark closet. If they put tape over her eyes and mouth and chained her to a radiator.”

“As best she can.”

Honsa took a deep breath and closed his eyes. For a moment the reassuring smile disappeared, and he said, “I hate this. Lord God, I hate this. A little girl.” He opened his eyes. “It could be worse. Much worse. Kidnapping for ransom is traumatic as all hell, but it's not—it's not what it could be. It's survivable. The child, the parents, they'll survive. Things won't be the same. They'll go through a period of transition. Who knows? They may even grow stronger. I've seen it before. But it's like beating cancer. In the back of your mind there's always the fear. Always. It doesn't go away. Still, they should be all right.”

“If we get the girl back,” I said.

“There is no ‘if,' ” Honsa said.

Good man,
I thought but didn't say.

Honsa poured himself more coffee.

“The family members of a kidnap victim can easily be overwhelmed by it all,” he said. “Mrs. Dunston—she's sad, angry, confused, distraught—she's showing every negative emotion you can name.”

“Do you blame her?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“She'll be all right.”

“You think so?”

“When it's time for her to step up, she'll step up.”

“You're sure?”

“Yes.”

“Are you and Mrs. Dunston close?”

“Yes.”

“How close?”

“If Shelby and Bobby should ever have a falling-out, I'd probably take her side.”

Honsa raised an eyebrow at that. I didn't know what he was thinking, and I didn't ask.

“What about Lieutenant Dunston?” he said.

“What about him?”

“Some family members—they feel that they need to do something. Lieutenant Dunston is like that. He's acting like a cop. He wants to solve the case. That makes me nervous.”

“Why?”

“He's wound so damn tight he could do anything. I have no idea how he's going to behave when we start negotiating with the kidnappers. He could go off.”

“Don't worry about it.”

“I am worried about it. I wish he would break down, release some of that tension, that anguish.”

“Afterward, maybe. When it's all over. For now he'll do what he has to do. He won't make mistakes. He won't screw up.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Yes, although when it's over and Victoria is safe and the kidnappers are in custody, you don't want him anywhere near the suspects.”

“Or you, either.”

“Goes without saying.”

It occurred to me then that Agent Honsa was assessing me as he had the others. I wondered what he thought, but I didn't ask.

“How long have you and the Dunstons been friends?” he said.

“I met Shelby in college when she began dating Bobby. Bobby and I have known each other since the beginning of time. I don't think we've ever gone more than a couple of days without speaking to each other. This house—I practically grew up here alongside him. When my mother died, I was about the same age as Victoria, and Bobby's mom kind of adopted me, gave me hell same as Bobby when I behaved like a jerk, used to call my father when I did something she thought he should know about. Bobby and I grew up together, went to school together, played ball together, chased girls together, went to the police academy together. I was best man at his wedding and godfather to his girls.”

“That's why you're giving him the money.”

“Yep.”

“He didn't even need to ask.”

“Nope.”

“The kidnapper knows that.”

“It would seem so.”

“How did you come into your money?”

I explained about Teachwell, how I discovered him biding his time in his ex-brother-in-law's cabin on Lower Red Lake in northern Minnesota, waiting for the chance to escape into Canada and eventually to Rio de Janeiro. I explained how I retired from the St. Paul Police Department in order to collect the reward that the insurance company had offered—approximately three million that my financial adviser had since grown to about five million. I didn't explain that I have often regretted my decision.

“I spoke to my money manager a few minutes ago,” I said. “The million should be in my checking account by eleven tomorrow morning. Maybe sooner.”

“Good,” said Honsa. “Very good. We won't tell the kidnappers.”

“No?”

“We'll need time to prepare the money. I'll brief Lieutenant Dunston on what to say when they call.”

“What do you mean, ‘prepare the money'?”

“The kidnappers will ask for old, unmarked bills, tens, twenties, fifties, maybe hundreds, with nonsequential serial numbers. It'll take time to get it together. It'll take even more time to photocopy it.”

“You're going to photocopy it?”

“Of course we are. We have two objectives, Mr. McKenzie. First and foremost, we're going to get the girl back, alive and unharmed. Afterward, we're going to get the men who took her. We might be rough about it.”

“Agent Honsa,” I said, “you're starting to grow on me.”

 

“Do you want to hear the tape again?” the tech agent asked.

“Yes,” Bobby said.

“No,” I said.

Bobby glared at me.

“I've heard that damn thing fifty times,” I said. “Maybe the name will come to us if we stop listening for a while.”

Bobby glared some more.

“You need a break,” I said.

“I'll decide that.”

Bobby readjusted the headphones over his ears. A moment later he pulled off the headphones and tossed them on the table. “I need a break,” he said.

We went to the kitchen. Bobby rummaged through his refrigerator. I thought he might be looking for a beer. Instead, he removed a Pepsi, popped the top, and drank greedily.

“Remember Jolt?” he said. “It was pop that they claimed had ‘all the sugar and twice the caffeine.' ”

“I remember.”

“I could use some Jolt right now. I wonder what happened to it.”

“You can still get it,” I told him. “You can buy it over the Internet in longneck bottles. Although, when you think about it, you can get the same amount of caffeine from regular coffee.”

“Never been a coffee drinker.”

“Nina likes to eat chocolate-covered coffee beans.”

“That's another reason why I question the woman's judgment. That and the fact that she's been seeing you for, what, nearly two years now?”

“I like to think it's a tribute to her good taste.”

“You know, sometimes I'll access the Department of Corrections Web site and study the Level Three sex offender information. I find out the exact location of every sex offender who lives within ten miles of here. I make the girls look at the mug shots. I tell them that if they ever see one of those guys… Shelby thinks I'm being overprotective.”

“Yeah.”

“I'm a cop. I carry a gun. I spend my days hunting down murderers and rapists and thieves and every other piece of trash you can think of, but I can't protect my own daughters.”

“It's not your fault.”

“Who said anything about fault? I know whose fault it is. The bastards who took Victoria, it's their fault. Still, a guy's supposed to protect his family, isn't he?”

“As best he can, yeah.”

Bobby finished his soft drink and hammered the empty can against the kitchen counter.

“There are things that I can't do, that I can't get away with because I'm a cop,” he said. “Do you know what I mean by things?”

“I know.”

“You can do them.”

“You mean after we find out who took Victoria. After we make sure she's safe.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” I said.

From the expression on his face, I knew Bobby would hold me to that promise.

 

Bobby and I returned to the tape recording. A few minutes later, Harry approached us with a handheld radio in his mitt.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “we have something.” He spoke to the tech agent. “Map.”

“City or state?”

“City.”

The tech agent spread the map over the table. Bobby and I and all four agents gathered around it.

“St. Paul PD found the van on Jackson Street near East Seventh,” Harry said. It took him about ten seconds to locate the spot in the northeast corner of downtown St. Paul.

“That's the Badlands,” I said.

Honsa wanted to know, “Badlands?”

“In the twenties and thirties, when St. Paul was a haven for gangsters”—I circled the area immediately east of the state capitol campus casually with my finger—“they called this the Badlands because of the speakeasies and the bootleggers and because it was home to some of the gangsters. Poor Irish, Jews, Mexicans, Italians, blacks—they all lived there, too, and mostly they got along but sometimes they didn't. There's not much left of it now. Mechanic Arts High School is gone, the synagogues—Sons of Moses, Sons of Abraham—the grocery stores, Diamond's Bar. It was carved up in the fifties and sixties when they built the freeways.”

“How do you know these things?” Harry asked.

“It's my town.”

“The immediate area where the car was found has been recently gentrified.” Bobby's voice was low, and he spoke with a measured cadence. He used his finger as a pointer. “Along here they've constructed new condominiums and apartment buildings. On this corner is the Gopher Bar. It's a run-down joint with a lot of upper-class traffic mixing with the lowlifes. It serves the best chili dogs this side of Chicago.”

“Why bring Chicago into it?” I asked just to break the tension. It didn't work. I was starting to worry about Bobby as much as Honsa was.

“The van was reported stolen two weeks ago,” Bobby said. “We could canvass the bar and condos, asking if anyone had seen the driver, make it sound like a simple GTA. Patrolmen only. No plainclothes, no FBI. That should reduce suspicion if there is anyone to see.”

“I agree,” said Honsa. “In the meantime, we'll get a city wrecker to tow the van to our facilities and have a forensics team standing by.”

“Go,” Bobby said.

Honsa turned. He spoke into a handheld as he walked away. Bobby seemed to relax slightly. He was in control.

“Let me hear the tape again,” he said.

 

I was sitting in a maroon wingback chair and staring at the empty fireplace when Shelby descended the stairs. She was carrying a number of large books under her arm. I stood as she crossed the floor. She didn't speak until she was within striking distance.