Unidentified Woman #15 (14 page)

My vision cleared slowly. I looked up. I saw the handgun first. A heavy black automatic. I saw him a second later. Bigger than I was by a couple of inches, heavier by a couple of pounds. He stood at a professional distance, his eyes hidden by sunglasses. I knew he was tough because the top button on his winter coat was undone.

“Who are you?” he asked. He could have been asking for directions to the nearest shopping mall for all the emotion in his voice. Meanwhile, my inner voice was screaming.

He doesn’t recognize you!

I tried to keep calm.

“Who are you?” I said aloud.

I didn’t know the name, yet I knew the face. He was the man who had followed Ella and me across the Stone Arch Bridge to the Aster Cafe. I kept it to myself, though. Why give him more incentive to shoot me than he already had?

“Right now I’m the guy pointing a gun at your head,” he said. “You gonna fuck with me, what?”

Play it innocent,
my inner voice said.

“Hey, I’m just looking for a friend,” I said aloud. “I wasn’t trying to burgle the place. The door was open…”

“What friend?”

Since her name was already listed on the mailbox, I answered.

“Ella Elbers.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, now I remember. You’re the guy in Minneapolis. So she got away from you, too, huh?”

Dammit!

“So what do you want her for?” he asked.

“To get her recipe for coq au vin.”

“Cute. What’s your name?”

He doesn’t know who you are,
my inner voice said.
You were just a guy walking with the girl, as far as he’s concerned.

“Call me Ishmael,” I said. “What’s yours?”

He took a step closer, raised the gun like he was going to hit me again, stopped, and backed away, leveling the gun back at my face.

“Nice try,” he said. “Goad me into making a mistake. Draw me close enough for you to fuck with me. Know what? I don’t need to know who you are or what you’re doing here. Get up. Real slow.”

I did.

“Turn. All the way round.”

I turned.

“Real good. Now. Hands flat against the table. Keep ’em there. Move your feet back toward me. A little more. More.”

I was positioned as if I were doing push-ups against the kitchen table. Even then he was careful, using quick taps of his fingertips to search the areas where I might have been carrying a weapon and a few where no one goes armed. Satisfied, he stepped back again.

“All the way up,” he said.

I straightened.

“Why are you looking for El?” I asked.

“I’m looking for all of them.”

“Why?”

“What you do now is shut the fuck up and walk—slowly—into the living room. You walk to the door. You touch the door and I’ll blow your head off. You go down the staircase. You try to run, I’ll fire a warning shot into your spine. Stop at the bottom of the stairs. Let’s go.”

I was in trouble and I knew it. With amateurs, you could always count on a moment or two of hesitation before they pulled the trigger. That at least gave you a fighting chance. This guy, he wasn’t going to hesitate. Not for a second. My only hope—he didn’t actually want to shoot me, I told myself. He could have done that already. Instead, he wanted to take me somewhere. Along the way, who knows what might happen?

I stopped at the bottom of the steps as instructed. I glanced behind me. He had been momentarily distracted by the door with the flowers attached, probably wondering if danger lurked behind it. Yet he was too far away for me to take advantage.

“Eyes front,” he said.

I turned toward the closed front door.

“I want you to open the door. Open it wide. You walk out onto the stoop away from the door and stop. No sudden movements. You don’t need to look behind you. I’ll be there.”

Again I did exactly as he instructed.

I heard the door shut behind me. I felt his presence.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Which one is your car?”

“The Jeep Cherokee.”

“You walk slowly down the steps, down the sidewalk to your car. You get in on the passenger side. Do not try to close the door. You get in and ease yourself across the seat until you’re behind the steering wheel. You put both your hands on top of the wheel.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll know when we get there.”

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with winter air. I did not feel cold, though. I felt as if it were summer and ninety degrees in the shade.

“Now,” he said.

I took two short steps. Before I could manage a third, I heard it—a sound like a man being punched hard in the chest followed instantly by the thud of weight being thrown against the duplex door; the sudden exhale of breath. I felt it, too—liquid spraying the back of my neck and head. I turned.

The gunman stood against the door as if he had been glued there. A spreading red stain in the center of his chest sopped the fabric of his winter jacket. His head faced the street, his sunglasses firmly in place. He coughed weakly and blood ran from the corners of his mouth and down his chin. His arms hung limply at his side. He dropped the gun and it clattered against the cement. The glue gave, and he slid slowly along the door, leaving a streak of blood behind, until he was sitting on the stoop, his knees up.

I dove off the stoop into the snow and rolled, rolled, rolled until I was lying against the foundation of the house next door.

A Minneapolis Police Department cruiser was on the street. Its brakes locked up and the car slid sideways on the icy pavement in front of me. Detective Jean Shipman came out of the passenger side, her Glock in both hands, using the car for protection. The driver, a uniformed officer, dove out of his door and found cover behind a car parked on the far side of the street. Together we scanned the houses, parked cars, trees, and snowbanks. There was no movement that any of us could see.

“McKenzie,” Shipman said.

“Here.”

“Where did the shot come from?”

“I don’t know.”

“Rifle?”

“Subsonic round. Something big.”

“Stay where you are.”

Sounds like a plan.

It seemed longer, yet only ninety seconds passed before the air was filled with the sound of sirens. Enough cops with enough guns appeared on the scene that you’d think they were storming the beaches at Normandy. They searched the area with great vigor and found nothing except a couple of kids walking home from the U. They interviewed every neighbor, including the old woman a block over whose backyard deck had a clear view of the front door of the duplex. She hadn’t heard a thing but was pretty sure that the footprints in the snow leading to and from the deck weren’t hers.

EIGHT

I was sitting on the bottom step of the staircase inside the duplex feeling numb, wondering what the hell happened and did I cause it. The Minneapolis cops seemed to think so. I was questioned a half-dozen times by both them and a Hennepin County assistant attorney. No one seemed satisfied with my answers. It wasn’t personal, though. They weren’t particularly thrilled by what the landlord had to say either.

Leon Janke lived in the ground floor of the duplex. He said he had been renting the top floor to college kids for over twenty years without a lick of trouble.

“These kids,” he said, “were even better than most. Quiet. Respectful. Helped out with the snow shoveling and grass cutting. Good kids.”

Janke said he received a check from them just last week. He had no idea they had moved without telling him, couldn’t imagine they’d break their lease.

That’s the part the Minneapolis cops had trouble getting their heads around: how they were able to move all of their belongings down that narrow, twisting staircase without him noticing.

In reply, the old man cupped a hand around an ear and said, “Huh? Speak up.”

I was the only one who laughed. The cops looked at me like I was cracking wise at a funeral. The lead detective on the case was named John Luby.

“Shut up, McKenzie,” he said.

“Are you done with me?”

“No, I’m not done with you. Sit there and shut up.”

So I did while they continued questioning Janke. He explained that he had not been home when the shooting occurred because he was out for his daily walk.

“I do five miles a day come rain or shine,” he said. “I never run. Oh, no. Satchel Paige said to avoid running at all times, and I agree with him. At my age you gotta keep the juices flowin’ by jangling gently as you move, also what Paige said. I saw ’im pitch, you know. When I was a kid.”

“Really?” I said.

“Saw ’im that time he was barnstormin’ with Bob Feller,” the old man said. “And later when he had a cup of coffee with the Moorhead Red Sox.”

“Very cool.”

Detective Luby and his colleagues made it known that they were upset that I had interrupted their interrogation, but Minneapolis cops were like that—unlike St. Paul police officers, who were reasonable all the time.

Yeah, right.

The cops became bored after a while. A third of them went upstairs—what they hoped to find there, I couldn’t say. Another third went outside. The final third, led by Luby, commandeered Janke’s downstairs apartment for a strategy session, leaving him alone in the foyer with me.

“The police don’t like you at all, do they, son?” he said.

“Wouldn’t seem so.”

“Got anything to do with all that blood on ya?”

“Little bit.”

“Can I ask…”

“I was standing next to the victim when he was shot.”

“Cops act like you were the one what squeezed the trigger.”

“Cops are like that.”

“FUBAR.”

“Got that right.”

“Know what it means?”

“Fucked up beyond all recognition. It was something the old man used to say on occasion when things got out of hand.”

“Your daddy, did he serve?”

“He was with the First Marines at Chosin Reservoir.”

“Hell you say.” The old man sat on the step below me. “I was with the Seventh Infantry. Your daddy and me, we ate some of the same dirt. He still with us?”

“He passed closing in on seven years now.”

“Sorry to hear that. Not many of us left what did time in Korea.”

“The Forgotten War.”

“Lord knows I’ve been trying to forget it. So, what you doin’ here—McKenzie, is it?”

“Looking for El and the others.”

“You don’t mean ’em any harm, do ya, son?”

“No, sir. Believe it or not, I’m trying to help them.”

“How long you know them kids?”

“The only one I’ve met is El, and that was four days ago.”

“Hardly makes sense you bein’ here, then.”

“That’s the way the cops look at it, too. What can I say? You become attached to people, and how long you’ve known them doesn’t always factor into it.”

“No, it doesn’t. These kids—I grew up in Cohasset. I haven’t really lived there since I was drafted, but these kids come lookin’ for a place to stay, I find out they’re from Deer River what’s ten miles down the road, I kinda adopt ’em, you know? Can’t help but look out for ’em.”

“What else did you know about them? What did they do for a living?”

“This and that. I guess El did some house-sitting. You know how real estate agents have their tricks like puttin’ out flowers and fresh-baked cookies, like makin’ sure the closets are half empty so it looks like there’s plenty of storage space? El says they sometimes also hire people to stay in a house that’s for sale cuz an empty house is harder to sell but also because buyers come in and see these beautiful people livin’ there and they want to be just like ’em. You believe that?”

“Who did El work for? Did she tell you?”

“You soundin’ like the cops now.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

He patted my knee in response. A few beats later, Janke was called into his apartment. He patted my knee again before he left. It made me feel better, but not by much.

*   *   *

Footsteps on the stairs caused my head to turn. Detective Shipman sat next to me. I was aware of her careful and intense stare.

“How are you holding up?” she asked.

“I’ve been better.”

“You should soak your jacket and jeans in cold water. I’m not sure the blood will come out, though. There’s so much of it.”

“Yeah.”

“I might have known you’d get here before me.”

“Honestly, Jeannie, I wish it were the other way around.”

“When I saw you on the stoop as we were driving up, I thought, what a bastard. Then I saw…”

She didn’t finish her thought, and I was glad.

“What about the kids?” she asked. “Do you think they’re hiding?”

“You’re asking me?”

Shipman slipped an arm through mine like we were the best friends in the world.

“Yes, I’m asking you,” she said.

“I think they’re hiding.”

“From Elbers?”

“I don’t know.”

“Their friends Up North, do you think they know where they are?”

“No. The kids left before Cyndy Desler gave me their address. I think she would have told me if she knew they had moved.”

“The gunman on the stoop, his name was Karl Olson. At least, that’s what his driver’s license says.”

“I should have told you about him.”

“Tell me now.”

I did.

“I wasn’t withholding evidence,” I said.

“I didn’t think you were. I mean, what could you have told me? You didn’t know his name, and you didn’t—hell, you didn’t even know for sure he was following you along the river. If you had said anything about him, I probably would have laughed.”

“We seem to have that kind of relationship.”

“On the other hand, it would help explain why Elbers didn’t feel safe in your condo. First Olson and then Howard? I would have been concerned, too. Did he know you, Olson?”

“Not at first. I was just a guy in the room doing what he was doing. Looking for the kids. Later he recognized my face. He didn’t know my name, though.”

“Where was he taking you?”

“Probably to the nearest shallow grave.”

“We ran his prints. Took the FBI’s computers all of twenty-seven minutes.”

“Isn’t technology grand?”