The Equalizer (9 page)

Chapter 10

N
aomi, already seated at a
table, gave me a big smile when she saw me. She was wearing a red v-neck sweater revealing more cleavage than I was aware she’d had. When she stood to give me a brief hug, she almost spilled her water glass. “Can you tell I’m nervous?” she said. “I feel like a teenager again.”

“You’ve not dated for quite some time. Feels weird, huh?”

“Actually, it feels good.” She took my hands, looked me in the eye and said, “Thank you for agreeing to go to dinner with me.”

Although the moment felt a bit awkward, I said, “My pleasure,” and felt compelled to give her a kiss on the cheek.

When the server approached with menus in hand, Naomi dropped my hands. I suddenly realized I was dressed like the wait staff: black pants and white shirt. He said his name was Rex and asked what we’d like to drink. Naomi asked me what kind of wine I liked—I told her the truth—anything’s fine by me—except that wine Zinfandel crap. She suggested a bottle of Pinot Noir to the waiter and off he went.

She appeared to have relaxed a little. “So, how’s the case coming?”

“It’s early. We’re gathering evidence, interviewing everybody and anybody.”

“What the heck happened out there? Some drug deal or something?”

“That’s what everyone seems to think. Time will tell.”

“Yeah, and let’s agree not to talk about it tonight.”

“Thank you. So what should I know about Naomi Moberg?”

She blushed. “I’ve never been asked that before. Um, maybe that I’m a perfectionist.”

“I think I could say that of myself as well. Where does that come from?”

“I always thought it was because I was an only child and I had to be perfect for my parents.”

“Really? I think we perfectionists are born that way.”

A smile crossed her face. “Yes, maybe. My room was the most organized room in our house.”

“Mine too. My mom enjoys clutter. I do not.”

She sat back and laughed. “Boy, me either.”

“So, what would Jeremy say if he knew we were out?”

She wiggled her brows. “Maybe I should call and tell him.”

“Nah.”

“Were you aware that he’s always been jealous of you.”

“Me? Why?”

“Look at you. You’re gorgeous—and he’s so—average. If I so much as looked at another man, he’d accuse me of having an affair, but as it turns out, I was the one who should have been worried.”

“Maybe he left you before you could leave him.”

She appeared to be digesting that notion, then smiled. “Never thought of it that way.”

“So you’re living in your mom’s house?”

“Yeah, the only house on the block that hasn’t been remodeled.”

“You haven’t been there that long. You can always fix it up later.”

“When Mom found out she had pancreatic cancer, I moved in to take care of her. It was only three months before she died. Two weeks later, Jeremy announced he wanted a divorce.”

“What an asshole,” I said. “So he got the house?”

“No use in fighting for it. We’re upside down on it anyway—and with the repressed housing market, he can’t put it up for sale. At least, we share custody of the kids.”

“How old are they now?”

“Jackson’s five and Maggie’s three. They’re sweet kids. I miss them when they’re with their dad.”

“I bet you’re a good mom.”

“I try to be. So, Tamika told me you had an accident on the way out to Emmaline.”

“Yeah, someone rear-ended me into the intersection just as poor Mrs. Salmi was driving through with her tank of a car.”

“What are you going to replace it with?”

“I have no idea. I’m too busy to car-shop. Man, I don’t want car payments.”

“I know what you mean,” she said.

After a bit of an awkward silence, I moved the conversation into typical first date topics. Turned out we had a lot in common: we both enjoyed being outdoors, golfing, biking, hiking, and fishing. She also liked most kinds of music, reading thrillers and mysteries.

Naomi grew up in Prairie Falls. I grew up in the Brainerd area. She was a single child and I grew up as one—after my little brother, Hank, drown at age six. I shared that my mom and Grandma owned a gift shop. Her mother, Neva Hunt, owned and operated Hunts’ Cleaners until she got sick. Naomi went to U of M Crookston for her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I went to St. Cloud State University, then the Police Academy in St. Paul.

By the time we’d finished our walleye dinners it was ten thirty. We’d been listening to a singer/guitar player who’d been playing all evening. But I was tired and thinking of leaving when and Naomi took my hand and led me to the small dance floor. As she snuggled in close, I smelled her light cologne.

“You smell good,” I said.

“I feel even better.”

Whoa.

After a couple slow dances pressed up next to Naomi, my Mason Dixon man parts were thinking they were being called up for duty. After I insisted on paying the check, I asked her if she wanted me to follow her home.

She said, “No, not necessary.”

Really? What was all that rub-a-dub-dub on the dance floor?

After I got home, I sat and made notes of everything I wanted to get done tomorrow, including check out Johnston’s story. But even if he had been at Dotty’s, it didn’t mean he didn’t kill before breakfast.

Chapter 11

DAY THREE

B
y seven-thirty Sunday morning, I
was standing in a short line at Northwoods Coffee Shop fantasizing about what didn’t happen last night, wondering if Naomi and I would be even good for one another, when I felt a tap on the shoulder. I turned to find Snow White grinning at me.

“Remember me?” she asked. “I’m the one who bumped you.”

“Don’t you think ‘bumped’ is an inadequate word when my car gets hauled off to a junkyard, Ms. Lewis?” I asked.

She giggled. “Victoria. So, that means you’re getting a new car?”

I made a grim face. “That’s what it means,
Victoria
.”

“Well, that’s a good thing. Your car was a real piece of junk. Oops. Sorry.” She giggled again.

My eyes narrowed. “A crash is never good,” I said.

“No, of course not. I’m
really
and
truly
sorry. The dinner offer is still good. Are you free tonight?”

I shook my head. “Nope, sorry.”

Her smile remained fixed. “At least let me buy you a coffee.”

“Okay, sure,” I said hoping it might end her guilty suffering.

While we waited for our order to be filled, she told me the auto-body shop promised her car would be ready in three days.

“How
nice
for
you
,” I said.

When I picked up my coffee, I thanked Victoria for the coffee and made for the door.

She came up behind me and grabbed my arm, causing my coffee to splash through the hole in the lid.

“Wait. You’re leaving?” she asked incredulously. Her look of disappointment gave me a jab of guilt so I stopped to explain.

“I’m working a big case. I should think you’d get that.”

She continued to follow me out to the Taurus. “You’re afraid I’m going to pump you for information. Aren’t you?”

I liked her directness. “The thought did cross my mind.”

“That’s not what this is about. Look, I’m new in town and lonely for some companionship.”

God, she was pretty. “Okay, how about dinner one night this week?”

A grin erupted revealing her white, perfect teeth. “Okay, give me a call. You still have my number?”

“Yes.”

What was I doing? I don’t date two women at a time. But what was one date?

Back at the office,
I called the county’s cell phone provider and asked them if Ronny’s cell was active, and if so, to find its location. I was on hold for at least fifteen minutes before they gave me a general tower location but recommended I use the Find my Phone application. Good point. I entered his number in my phone and discovered Ronny’s phone was in the area of the Parks Department. I drove over and pulled into the lot where the parks’ department trucks were parked.

As I walked through the lot, I called Ronny’s number. A ring sounded leading me to county pick-up truck #10—not the one Ronny was driving the morning he was killed. I copied down the vehicle number and left Naomi a message.

I went back to the office to research Ronny Peterson’s friends. Within a half hour, I learned Aaron Young was in Madison, Wisconsin, and hadn’t been home since August, and Max Becker lived in a house on Fourth Street owned by his father, Dennis Becker. Nothing showed on the Hackett brothers’ latest address. When I called their mother, Connie, I didn’t get an answer.

At nine o’clock, I got in my assigned Ford Explorer and made my way over to Fourth Street. No one was parked in the street in front of Becker’s house, so I drove around and down the gravel alley. A black Ford Focus was parked alongside the garage behind the Becker house. I did a quick check and found the registered owner was Maxwell Lee Becker. By the looks of the state of the lawn, the occupants used the back yard for a parking lot. I blocked the Focus in and got out to check the garage through a dirty side window. It was piled high with junk.

I knocked several times on the front door before a guy with bed hair and sleep wrinkles on his face stuck his head out the door. The daylight made him squint.

“Maxwell Becker?”

“Yeah,” he said.

I flipped him my badge. “Deputy Investigator Sheehan. May I come in?”

He scratched his head. “Ah, sure. Just let me grabbed some pants first.”

I waited outside the door, my ears keen for sounds of someone splitting out the back, but a few seconds later, he reappeared and let me in. He was wearing a soiled white T-shirt and a rumpled pair of jeans, and no shoes.

The odor of marijuana lingered in the air. Beer cans, pizza boxes, and nasty, over-filled ashtrays were scattered across the room. I ignored it all, moved some game controls off a chair that looked like it could tattoo its unusual stain pattern to the seat of my pants. I took a chance.

Max sat on the equally disgusting sofa and lit a cigarette.
I can’t believe how many young people smoke.
I turned on my small recorder and placed it on top of a
Hustler
magazine on a wobbly coffee table. “I’m investigating the shooting out on Emmaline. Your name was given as a buddy of Ronny Peterson’s,” I said.

Max took a drag of his cigarette. “He’s not really a buddy.”

“Oh?”

“Maybe they said it because we played sports together in high school, but I haven’t hung out with him all that much since we graduated.”

“What was he like?”

He cleared his throat and looked at the recorder. “I dunno. Just a regular guy.”

“Why didn’t you want to hang out with him then?”

He uttered a small snort. “Because he was a jerk.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Let me put it this way, he was always trying to prove he was tougher than the next guy. It was like the dude was back in high school. He still talked about the state wrestling tourney four years ago and how the ref was dirty and had it out for him. He lost. Get over it, right? Anyway, after that he changed. Never saw the dude turn down a fight.”

“You know of anyone he pissed off?”

“I don’t know of anyone he
didn’t
piss off—but enough to kill him? No.”

“What do you know about Snake and his pal, Pierce Redding? I heard they had a run in with him?”

“I wasn’t there, but the way Ronny talked, he got the best of him.”

“Do you know where the Hackett brothers live? Heard they moved out of their mom’s.”

“Uh, they’re living here.”

“What a coincidence. Are they home?”

“No, they’re at work.”

“What do they do?”

“Janitors at the hospital.”

I was surprised the hospital had hired them considering they were skinheads, neo-Nazi wannabes with tattoos, piercings, and bad attitudes. Seemed to me they’d frighten the patients.

“And you, Max?”

“I go to Birch County Community College and work part time at the Quick Stop.”

“Aren’t Todd and Chad going to Community as well?”

“Used to.”

Their mother wasn’t informed about the “used to.” “Where were you Friday morning?”

“Working at the Quick Stop. You can ask my boss.”

“You read the Bible?”

“Huh?”

“Do you read the Bible?”

“Why you asking me that?”

Yeah, he didn’t seem the type to be into scripture reading and quoting. “Did you know Ted Kohler?”

“He the accountant killed with Ronny?”

“Yes.”

“That’s all I know ’bout him.”

“Max, we’ll figure out what happened to Ronny.” I stared him down for a few seconds see if I could catch a reaction. He nodded and looked at the floor.

“One more time. Do you know anything at all about Ronny that would help us find his killer?”

“No, sir.”

He knew something he wasn’t telling me and was purposefully distancing himself.

I drove to Birch County
Regional Hospital and was directed to Neal Howard, the custodial services supervisor. Howard said both brothers were working today seven to three—and confirmed they worked the same shift last Friday. That should clear both but I still wanted to talk to them. Howard let me use a small conference room. I asked Neal to call them down one at a time.

Chad, the older brother, entered the room first. He knew me, but I introduced myself anyway. I’d placed the small recorder and my notebook on the table and pressed the
on
button, explaining I was gathering information about Ronny Peterson. He folded his arms across his chest, slumped back, and gave me a belligerent look.

“Too bad about your friend, Ronny,” I said.

Stoned faced he said, “Not my friend.”

“Hmm. That’s weird. I heard he hung out with you guys.”

“Not with me, he didn’t.”

“You go to high school with him?”

“He was in my brother’s class.”

“You know of anyone that had problems with Ronny?”

“Nope.”

“Nevada Wynn or his buddy, Pierce Redding?”

A steely look crossed his face as crossed his arms and sat back. He refused to answer any more questions. Now, I was beginning to think this had everything to do with Wynn and Redding.

“Thanks for all your help.” I turned off the recorder before I said, “Be careful now, you don’t want to piss off whoever Ronny pissed off.”

He stood defiantly and left the room without a word. I asked Howard to send Todd in. Five minutes later he took the chair across from me. I repeated the introduction and purpose of our talk.

“Too bad about your friend, Ronny.”

“Yeah,” he said.

Hey, I was getting somewhere. “So, who had a grudge against Ronny?”

He smirked. “Why?”

“Why do you think? To help find his killer, of course,” I said. Then I leaned in and looked really serious. “Well, especially since you could be next on the list. Know what I mean? Your giving me a little information might save your own ass.”

His eyeballs zigzagged as he thought it over. “You think somebody killed that accountant because they had a grudge against Ronny?”

“What I think is that you know something.”

He blinked repeatedly. “Maybe he pissed off the wrong guy.”

“My thoughts exactly. You have a name for the wrong guy?”

“Nah.”

“Nevada Wynn, perhaps?”

Todd’s expression hardened. He looked at the ceiling. “I don’t know him.”

I laughed. “Like hell you don’t,” I said. “He was a passenger in your car last year when I stopped you for speeding.”

“That was you?”

I smiled. “Yes, ’twas me.”

He leaned back and grinned. “You thought you caught our asses with something big.”

He was right. The Multi-jurisdictional Drug Task Force (MJDTF) thought the Hacketts were running drugs. When I made the stop, Troy had heard the call and showed up on scene. He said the driver and passengers were acting suspicious and he had probably cause for bringing out the drug dog. Todd walked away with a speeding citation. I stared at him and let the silence eat at him.

“So what if I do know Wynn. Haven’t seen him since he moved to the Cities.”

“Wasn’t it one of Wynn’s buddies that Ronny beat the shit out of last summer?”

“I don’t know nothing ’bout that.”

“Yeah, you do. Guy’s name is Pierce Redding.”

He shook his head and pulled his lips in.

I moved two fingers from my eyes to his. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

He copied my gesture. “Maybe I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” he said.

“Now that may have been the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. Threaten a law enforcement officer—and on tape.”

“We through here?”

I nodded.

He looked at me, the tape recorder, then got up and left. The Hackett brothers both had the same empty blue eyes—cold little bastards like their sperm donor.

I was on my way
to the office when Naomi called back. She said she’d meet me at the vehicle lot. On a Sunday it was full with the fleet of county vehicles. Soon Naomi rolled up in her Prius and parked near the Explorer. I was standing next to the truck that contained Ronny’s phone. When she hopped out of the car, I noticed she was wearing running gear.

She gave me a big smile. “Sorry, I’m all grungy. I was jogging and turned off my ringer. When I listened to your message, it sounded urgent so I came right here.”

“You look great,” I said. She did—hair still perfect—maybe less make-up than usual.

“How many miles?” I asked.

“Only five.”

“
Only
five? What do you usually do?”

“Between five and ten.”

“Wow,” I said, suddenly feeling like a wuss. “Sorry to bother you on a Sunday morning.”

“No problem at all. I’m glad to help.”

“I’m pretty sure Ronny’s phone is in this truck.” I redialed the number so she could hear it ring.

She glanced at the number on the truck. “Number ten? I’ll get the keys from the office.”

After she unlocked the door to the large building, I followed her in and waited while she located the truck key in a large cabinet on the wall.

“Can you tell me who had it checked out on Thursday and Friday?”

She went behind the desk and sat at the computer. She tapped the keys for a while then looked up at me and said, “Okay, Gus Taylor on Thursday, and Mark Norland on Friday.”

“What time did Norland check it out?”

“At 7:55.”

“What time did Ronny signed out #13?”

“Just a sec . . . okay looks like 7:15—which is unusually early—Gus signed out #21 at 8:05. They were supposed to work together.”

“Do you have the pass codes for the phones?”

“Yes. Just a sec.”

While she was looking it up my cell phone chimed. It was my mother. I walked outside to take the call. Mom wanted me to come for noon dinner, and since I had my interviews in, and there wasn’t another meeting until tomorrow morning, I agreed. She sounded ecstatic. I guess it’d been a while since I’ve been home. I hung up and reentered the office to find Naomi running something off on the printer.