Pretty Girl Gone (5 page)

I lingered here for a few moments, examining an electronic photograph of Barrett and a startlingly lovely woman in a white gown that someone estimated cost over $50,000. Yet Zee wore it as if she was either unaware or unconcerned by that fact. Barrett, a half-dozen years older than Zee, was wearing a tuxedo cut in the English style with matching gloves and hat. Still, the way they smiled and clung to each other, I could believe they would have been just as happy if they had been married in burlap sacks.

And on and on it went.

John Allen Barrett forms partnership to build motels for travelers on a budget.

John Allen Barrett to provide color commentary during TV broadcast of the Minnesota State High School Boys Basketball Tournament.

John Allen Barrett returns to the University of Minnesota after a brief professional basketball career in Europe to gain his master’s degree in business administration.

John Allen Barrett agrees to play for Milan in the European basketball league.

John Allen Barrett in tears after the University of Minnesota Gophers basketball team is eliminated in the first round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

John Allen Barrett triumphant after leading the “Victoria Seven” to a 52–50 victory over heavily favored Duluth Central to win the Minnesota State High School Boys Basketball Championship before a raucous sellout crowd at St. Paul Auditorium.

The Victoria Seven were as well known in Minnesota as the 1980 “Miracle” Olympic hockey team was to the rest of the nation. Seven kids from tiny Victoria High School overcame incredible odds to win the tournament. This was before the state high school league divided the schools into four different classes, back when there was only one state champion, when it was still possible to have upsets and underdogs and Cinderella stories, when it was still possible to build a legend.

There was surprisingly little information about the team on the Internet, probably because the game had been played so long ago—over thirty years. Most of the stories that mentioned the Seven were connected to the governor’s election campaign, although there was one stand-alone piece written on the eve of the team’s thirtieth anniversary. In it, the writer praised the team for the heroic manner in which it faced adversity throughout the season,
including the brutal murder of Victoria High School cheerleader Elizabeth Rogers one week prior to the state tournament.

So, there was an Elizabeth Rogers, and she had been murdered. I attempted to learn more. Had anyone ever been arrested or convicted of the crime? I accessed the Web sites of both the
St. Paul Pioneer Press
and the
Minneapolis Star Tribune
and browsed their archives. Both papers had stories, but they were short and to the point: A seventeen-year-old high school cheerleader was found murdered in the tiny town of Victoria, according to authorities, with little additional information. Each article linked the woman to the Victoria Seven, but not to John Allen Barrett personally. There were no follow-up stories that I could find.

I switched gears and began searching for intel on the Brotherhood. There was surprisingly little information about Muehlenhaus. Apparently the man shunned publicity, although I unearthed a nice joke about him: “Muehlenhaus is so cheap when he walks onto a green he picks up all the dimes.” Mahoney, Gunhus, and Coole, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy publicity, although they didn’t do much that anyone would be interested in. Troy Donovan was a bit harder to read. He had been everywhere for a while and then apparently decided to keep a lower profile, not unlike
Muehlenhaus. I learned that he was single, that he had inherited a $7 million stationery business from his father and grew it into a $60 million concern, and that a few years ago he began exploring the possibility of building a Kinko’s-like copy and print shop franchise throughout the Upper Midwest. I wasn’t interested enough to read how it turned out.

I was staring at the computer screen, wondering what to do next, when my phone rang.

“Oh baby, oh baby, oh baby,” Kim Truong’s voice chanted.

“Hey, Kimmy. Long time, no see.”

“At least five and a half hours.”

“Seems longer.”

Kim thought that was pretty funny. After she finished chuckling, she said, “I have what you’re looking for.”

“We’re talking about the information I was needing, right?”

“Well, that, too. Write this down: one six zero point nine seven point two eight six point one eight seven.”

“What’s that?”

“The number of the computer that sent your e-mail.”

“That doesn’t exactly help me, Kimmy.”

“How ’bout this, then. The computer is located at—Are you writing this down?”

“I am. I am writing it down.”

“The computer is located at 347 Second Avenue, Victoria, Minnesota.”

“Do you have a name?”

“No, just a location.”

“Victoria, Minnesota.”

“Yeah.”

“Makes sense.”

“In what way?”

“It’s the scene of the crime.”

The Sixteenth Annual Charity Ball to raise money for the Governor’s Endowment for a Drug-Free Minnesota was held at International Market Square, an enormous brick-and-mortar warehouse on the outskirts of downtown Minneapolis. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it had been remodeled to house 135 upscale home furnishing showrooms, designer studios, architectural firms, remodeling resources, and advertising agencies as well as a spectacular atrium located at the heart of the Square beneath a huge glass and steel girder roof.

After depositing our winter coats and Nina’s boots at a makeshift coat check just inside the entrance of the building, we made our way from the lobby down a corridor toward the atrium. There were several retail businesses located along the corridor, all shuttered for the evening, and Nina could see our reflections in the windows as we passed.

She stopped. I was two steps past her when I felt Nina’s hand slip from mine and turned about.

“What is it?” I asked.

My first thought was that she had halted to admire her gown. It was what she was doing when I arrived at her home earlier, posing this way and that in front of a full-length mirror like a model at a photo shoot. Red velvet stretched lovingly over her thighs, hips, waist, and chest, and a shawl, attached to the bodice, rose up from under her arms to hug her neck. There was plenty of exposed flesh both front and back. The hem of the gown grazed the bottom of her ankles and the side slit was high enough to expose much of Nina’s leg, yet not so high as to cause her embarrassment.

I searched my vocabulary for a word and found it. “Sinuous,” I said aloud. The dress was full of devious curves. She liked the word and repeated it twice as she examined herself over her shoulder.

I enjoyed watching Nina, enjoyed her short black hair, high cheekbones, narrow nose, and generous mouth; enjoyed the curves she refused to diet away; enjoyed the way she moved so smoothly and effortlessly. But mostly I was charmed by her eyes, the most arresting eyes I had ever seen in a woman. From a distance they gleamed like polished silver. Up close they were the most amazing pale blue.

Watching her own movements in the shop window, Nina reached out for me. I took her hand, marveling not for the first time at how comfortable it felt in mine.

“What is it?” I asked.

“We make a nice-looking couple.”

“You make anyone look good,” I told her, although I had to admit the tuxedo I wore helped some.

She didn’t reply.

“Nina?”

“Hmm? Nothing. It’s just . . .” She curled her arm around mine. “Nothing.”

Which meant
something
. I knew she would get around to it when she was ready.

Nina tightened her grip on my arm and we moved to the edge of the
atrium. The band was in full swing, playing a cover of one of Elvis’s early recordings for Sun Records. Yet while Elvis was content with guitar, bass, and drums, this orchestra added trumpets, saxophones, trombones, clarinets, violins, and piano to the mix—so many instruments that musicians were in danger of being crowded off the makeshift stage set up in front of the glass elevator. Directly across from it on the other side of the atrium, red-vested waiters and waitresses stood guard behind long buffet tables garnished with trays of hors-d’œuvres, pastries, and salads and shallow pans with silver lids and tiny fires glowing beneath them. A sunken pebblestone floor sprawled between the orchestra and the food. A temporary wooden dance floor in front of the orchestra took up half of it. Dozens of small round tables covered with white linen and adorned with fresh flower centerpieces filled the other half. More tables and chairs were scattered on the perimeter of the sunken floor, and long bars were strategically located in every corner. Most of the tables were occupied and the bars were crowded. Looking up, I could see the moon and a few of the brighter stars through the glass ceiling. It was jarring to think that on the other side of the glass was a world where it was cold almost beyond measure.

We glided to the steps and waited for several couples to descend before us. I studied the throng. All the women wore expensive gowns or cocktail dresses and the men were dressed in tuxedos or elegant suits. They had paid a thousand dollars each to be there. Their affluence was great, but while others might feel small and out of place among them, I did not. In the past few years I had come to understand money and I wasn’t intimidated by it.

Finally, Nina and I descended the short flight of stairs and twisted and turned our way across the dance floor and through the maze of tables beyond. Eyes and occasionally entire heads turned toward us as we passed. Nina pretended not to notice. Eventually, we found an empty space between tables. At least a dozen partygoers glanced our way. Some smiled to indicate they liked what they saw.

“Hey,” I said. “People are watching us.”

“Of course they are. We’re all dressed up,” Nina told me.

“So are they.”

“Yes, but we’re pretty.”

“That’s true.”

“Besides, at the risk of sounding even more conceited than I am . . .”

“You’re not conceited.”

“When I dress up like this, I expect to be watched.”

“Seriously?”

“Why else would I dress like this? Are you telling me you don’t ogle pretty girls as they walk by? Don’t lie, McKenzie. I’ve seen you do it. I’ve even seen you do it when you were out with me.”

“I didn’t think women noticed.”

“Of course we notice. You guys are so obvious. Besides, a woman—we can feel it. It’s almost instinctual. We don’t have to look around for it. We just know.”

“Doesn’t it piss you off, guys always checking you out?”

“No. I find it flattering, as long as they don’t cross the line.”

“What line?”

“If you want to give me a smile, an unobtrusive nod, the clandestine glance when you think your date isn’t looking, that’s cool. Only don’t speak to me unless we’re introduced. Don’t give me, ‘Hey, babe.’ Don’t give me, ‘It must be jelly cuz jam don’t shake like that.’ That’s just plain rude. And don’t stare. It makes me nervous when guys stare. Especially the guys who give you that million-mile stare, who don’t reveal anything in their expression or body language, who just stand there—they scare me most of all.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“No reason why you should.”

Nina glanced about the atrium.

“Do you know these people?” she asked.

“Some to nod at. You?”

“I don’t know anybody. Wait. Yes, I do.”

“Who?”

“The band.”

Nina shaded her eyes with her hand.

“That’s Bobby DeNucci playing piano,” she said. “Nick Weiland. Abby Hunter on violin. Joey Anthonsen and his brother Mark. You’ve heard these guys.”

“I have.”

“Most of them have played my place at one time or another. Played jazz. Tonight, though, they seem to be playing a primitive kind of music that’s popular with young people today. I think they call it rock ‘n’ roll.”

“Philistines.”

“Barbarians.”

“Maybe they’ll let you sit in.”

“Puhleez.”

“Why not?”

“It’s one thing to let me play with them when they’re in my club—it’s my customers we’re driving away. Not here.” Nina shook her head. “Let’s dance.”

I draped my arm over her shoulder and gazed demurely into her eyes.

“How ’bout I buy you a drink, sweetheart.”

“You never dance with me anymore.”

“I’ll dance with you. I just thought a drink first . . .”

“Fine. But we are going to dance.”

“Of course,” I told her while wondering how I could get out of it. I don’t like to dance. The way I dance is sort of like potatoes falling out of a sack.

I selected the bar that seemed least crowded and went toward it. The orchestra swung into a cover of the B-52’s “Love Shack” with Abby
Hunter and Mark Anthonsen supplying vocals. Unfortunately, an opera of loud chatter and laughter rose up around me in opposition to the music, and midway through the song I gave it up.

As Murphy’s Law would have it, the line I picked moved slowest. I engaged in some people watching while I waited my turn. It wasn’t nearly as interesting as it was at, say, the Minnesota State Fair. Too many women wore black, and while some of their hairstyles demonstrated boldness and imagination, most did not. Women enthusiastically greeted other women whose names they couldn’t recall while men nodded stoically and offered perfunctory handshakes during introductions that were quickly forgotten. Small groups formed, swelled with importance, dissolved, and reformed at the next table. Alliances were forged and broken, plans were made and abandoned, and suggestions on how to squeeze even more fun out of the evening were proposed, debated, and rejected. Meanwhile, a handful of wanderers drifted from group to group in search of a familiar face.

Something caught my eye and I turned toward it.

A small hurricane of people swirled and grew larger as it tracked slowly along the atrium opposite where I was standing. At the eye of the hurricane was a man I recognized immediately. John Allen Barrett. Governor of the state of Minnesota. He was part of the crowd, yet seemed to stand apart from it at the same time, as though some trick of light brightened the area immediately around him while casting everyone else in shadow. It was a wondrous trick, and I tried to determine how he managed it. He certainly had the size to have once played college basketball, and instead of the pale cast of most Minnesotans in winter, his skin had the glow of good health. I could see the blue in his eyes all the way across the room, and his smile, which never seemed to leave him, threw off sparks like a welding torch you’re not supposed to view with the naked eye. Yet it was more than physical appearance that attracted. It was attitude. Barrett had the look of victory about him.