“Okay,” Bobby said.
“What’s important…”
Barbara sat straighter on the sofa and leaned closer to Deese.
“What’s important—the website asks if you want to link to your relatives. There’s a family and friends link. If you say yes, you need to create a profile because they have a policy, the ancestry people. You can’t see your relatives without letting them see you. The profile can be anything you want, though. You don’t need to give your full name and address or anything like that. You can link on with just your initials, for example. And the amount of ID, age and sex, address—you can control all that, too. What I did, I signed on with my initials. Actually, not my initials. I called myself Dee Dee, what you guys sometimes call me at hockey.”
“They call you Dee Dee?” Barbara asked. “But not because of your initials?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Double D, like some women’s breast size?” Barbara fixed her gaze on Bobby. “Men are such jerks.”
“DD stands for Dunkin’ Donuts,” he said.
Barbara didn’t believe him.
“Jerks,” she repeated.
“Anyway,” Deese said. “I clicked on the DNA relative’s link. It turns out I have eleven hundred and sixty-four relatives.”
“Eleven hundred and sixty-four?” Bobby said.
“Yeah, but eleven hundred and fifty-seven matched less than three percent of my DNA so they’re like long, long, long-lost relatives and who cares? But there were seven who were linked much more closely. A first cousin on my mother’s side—he and I had an eleven-point-nine percent match. I had two second cousins, also on my mother’s side; we had about a six percent match. Except then…”
Deese brought his hands to his face and rubbed. At the same time, he began to blink rapidly. Bobby was fluent in body language and knew that Deese was anxious. Bobby leaned forward, indicating that he cared.
“T was on the list,” Deese said. “She used her full name T-H-E-R-E-S-A. We were only about a twenty-five percent match.”
“What does that mean?” Barbara asked.
“Siblings share around half of their DNA,” Deese said. “Half siblings share a quarter.”
“What does that mean?” Barbara repeated.
“Do the math!” Deese immediately reached out a hand and rested it on Barbara’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bark like that. It’s just—my sister whose hair is curly, my sister whose hair is red, is my half sister. That’s what the DNA results prove.”
“She’s not your father’s daughter?”
“More likely I’m not my father’s son.”
“Why do you say that?” Bobby asked.
“T is thirty-eight-point-five percent Scottish.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Bobby said.
Barbara did, though.
“Your mother had an affair with someone,” she said.
“You believe that shit?” Deese said. “My mother?”
“Do you think your father knew?”
“If he did, he sure as hell kept it secret for how many years? Forty-two?”
“Does T know?”
“My little sister who’s always acted as if she was my older sister? I have no idea what T knows.”
Barbara seemed surprised.
“You haven’t talked to her about this?” she asked.
“No. God no. If I didn’t tell you, do you think I’d tell her?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to act differently around her, make her think something was wrong. No, that’s not true. I didn’t want to have this conversation with you. I didn’t want you to know that I wasn’t…”
“What?”
“I don’t know. A Deese, I guess.”
“Who gives a shit?”
Both Bobby’s and Deese’s heads came up as if they were startled by a loud noise. Barbara was like Nina—they almost never cursed and when they did, you best pay close attention.
“Do you honestly think I care what your name is?” Barbara asked. “Do you honestly think I care who your father was or your mother or your sister or your great, great, great, great-grandfather from France? After all these years?”
“Barb—”
“Dammit, David, sometimes you make me so mad.”
Husband and wife stared at each other and Bobby thought he should get out of there. He thought that he should let his friends have their moment; he could always come back in the morning. Only he was a cop, after all, and I was lying in a coma in the SICU at Regions Hospital and he wanted to know who shot me.
“McKenzie,” he said.
“McKenzie,” Deese repeated. “After I found out about all of this, I decided, you know what, screw it. I wasn’t going to say anything to anyone. T called and asked if I took the test and I’d say, ‘Why would I want to do that?’ I could tell, though, that it wasn’t all fun and games anymore. She was really bugged. She didn’t tell me what she was bugged about, but I knew. Of course, I knew. I knew because she had sent Dee Dee a message the same day that my DNA profile was posted. The website allows DNA relatives to contact each other on the website and T sent Dee Dee a message asking if she—T assumed Dee Dee was a woman. She sent Dee Dee a message asking if she was interested in learning more about the connection between them. Dee Dee replied saying”—Deese closed his eyes and bowed his head. He waited for a few beats before he opened them again—“‘Thank you. I have a family.’ I just couldn’t—I love my family, Bobby. If all of my uncles and aunts and cousins and my sister discovered that I’m not…”
“Of course you are,” Barbara said. “Whatever else, you’re your mother’s son.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“Why is it complicated?”
“I inherited half of my father’s business.”
“The business where you’ve been working since you were sixteen; the business that you helped expand; the one that you’re running now?”
“Dad didn’t leave it to me and T, to David and Theresa. The will said he left equal shares to his children. The will was written a long time ago. I guess he thought he’d have more than just me and T.”
“So?” Barbara asked.
“Legally, there might be issues.”
“Have you asked anyone? A lawyer?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
The shrug he gave told Barbara the answer—he was afraid the answer would go against him.
“McKenzie,” Bobby said again.
“McKenzie, yeah,” Deese said. “I couldn’t make myself call an attorney, but I could call McKenzie.”
“Why?”
“After a while, a week, I don’t know—I just couldn’t shake this, all right? Not knowing who I really was…”
“You’re David Deese,” Barbara said.
“Not knowing who my real father was and why he was my real father…”
“James Deese was your real father,” Barbara said. “The man who raised you.”
“You say that, Barb, and it’s exactly what I want to hear. I wish my father and mother were available to tell me that. But…”
“But what?”
“I wanted to know the truth of my life. It’s like those superhero movies that they keep remaking, Spider-Man, Superman. I wanted to know my origin story.”
Deese paused again and in the silence Bobby understood.
“You said that you had seven matches,” he told Deese. “Theresa, a first cousin, and two second cousins make four.”
“There were three others,” Dees said. “One half sibling, a first cousin, and a second cousin on my birth father’s side. They all have French ancestry like me; no connection to T at all.”
“And…”
“And I wanted to find out about them. Find out who they were without them finding out who I was.”
“That’s when you called McKenzie,” Bobby said.
“Yes.”
&
nbsp; “What did he say?”
“What does McKenzie always say when a friend asks him for a favor?”
“He says, ‘Sure.’”
* * *
Detective Jean Shipman was working her notes up for a Supplementary Investigation Report, in case one was needed, when the phone rang. It turned out that members of a motorcycle gang had assaulted a bouncer in a club on the East Side called Haven. It was called Haven because all members of all motorcycle gangs were welcome there as long as they didn’t wear their colors. The fight allegedly started—cops love the word “allegedly”—because members of one gang who were told they couldn’t wear their colors in the bar and be served claimed that they had seen members of a rival gang wearing their colors. Chaos ensued and Shipman thought, Finally, a real crime to investigate.
* * *
It was late when Bobby left Deese’s house and getting later, which is why he decided to go home instead of back to the hospital. He had left orders to be contacted if my condition changed and since he hadn’t heard anything…’Course, he wasn’t a relative and the staff at Regions Hospital didn’t work for him.
Bobby parked on the street in front of his house directly across from Merriam Park. The front porch light was on and the back porch light was on and the kitchen light was on. Bobby was big on keeping lights burning and insisted his wife and daughters strictly abide by his idiosyncrasy—and don’t get me started on his deep affection for locks. The rest of the house was dark, though, and he wondered briefly if Shelby had returned home or was still at the hospital; certainly his daughters were in bed. At least they had better be, he told himself. He stepped out of his car and made his way across the narrow boulevard to the sidewalk.
He saw them before he heard them. Two black men approaching; they were easily identifiable under the streetlamps. His hand went immediately to the Glock holstered at his waist even though one of the black men was in a wheelchair.
“Who are you?” Bobby asked.
Herzog and Chopper glanced at each other, knowing damn well that Bobby knew who they were—I had introduced them.
“You don’t remember us, Commander Dunston?” Chopper asked.
“I remember you, Mr. Coleman. Mr. Herzog.” Bobby’s hand continued to rest on the butt of the nine-millimeter. “What do you want?”
Chopper smiled.
“We can’t talk like old friends?” he said.
“Are we friends?”
“We have friends in common.”
“That’s not the same thing, is it?”
“Fuck, Chopper,” Herzog said. “What we doin’ here?”
“Good question,” Bobby said.
“McKenzie was shot tonight,” Chopper said.
“Me and my people are already on it,” Bobby told him.
“He’s our friend, too. We want to help.”
“Leave it to the police.”
Herzog didn’t speak but he made a mouth noise that suggested he didn’t hold the police department in high regard. Bobby didn’t appreciate the mouth noise, but he had heard worse.
“Give it to him,” Chopper said.
“Fuck ’im,” Herzog said.
“Go on.”
“Give me what?” Bobby asked.
Herzog reached into his pocket.
Bobby’s grip tightened on the butt of his Glock, yet he did not pull it.
Herzog reached out his hand.
There was a flash drive in his palm.
“What is it?” Bobby asked.
“Thumb drive,” Herzog said.
“I can see that.”
“It’s footage taken from a security camera at RT’s Basement,” Chopper said. “It shows McKenzie getting shot.”
“The owner told my people he didn’t have a security camera.”
“Maybe it was how the question was phrased,” Chopper said.
“Or who did the phrasin’,” Herzog added.
Bobby took the flash drive from Herzog’s hand and slipped it into his own pocket.
“Thank you,” he said.
“There are many things we can do that the police can’t,” Chopper said. “Folks we can talk to.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Who knows? Next time we talk you might even take your hand off of your piece.”
“Like I said, Mr. Coleman, Mr. Herzog—I remember you.”
FOUR
Nina was accustomed to late nights: running a jazz joint for the past couple of decades, she rarely went to bed before two A.M. Yet when she did go to bed, she fell asleep quickly and slept soundly. I’d joke, tell her that the zombie apocalypse could break out and she’d still get in a solid eight hours. Only not that night. That night she didn’t sleep, she dozed, waking, nodding off, and waking again, usually with a start just a few minutes later, like an unrepentant sinner listening to a sermon in the back of a church. Still, she remained in bed, telling herself that her body needed the rest, even if her brain wasn’t getting any.
After a few hours, she rose and began wandering through the darkened condominium, wearing a flowing red silk nightgown and nothing else. Normally, Nina was a gym shorts and T-shirt girl, but the nightgown had always been one of my favorites, so …
Our condo had a master bedroom and guest room with en suites, plus a bathroom for visitors. Beyond that, we didn’t have rooms so much as areas—dining area, living area, music area where Nina’s Steinway stood, office area with a desk and computer, and a kitchen area that was elevated three steps above the rest. The entire north wall was made of tinted floor-to-ceiling glass with a dramatic view of the Mississippi River where it tumbled down St. Anthony Falls. She could barely see the falls at night, though. Only the lights of Minneapolis. They easily reached the seventh floor and illuminated the bookcases on our south wall and the fireplace on the east and all the furniture in between.
Nina stood in the center of the large room and spun slowly; taking in all the familiar shapes, yet found comfort in none of them. She mounted the steps and made her way to the kitchen area. She opened the refrigerator door, looked inside, found nothing that she wanted, and closed the door. She opened and closed cabinets without knowing what she was searching for. Finally, Nina descended the steps and moved toward the north wall. She leaned against it and stared at the lights spreading away from her like stars in galaxies far, far away.
I had not wanted to move to Minneapolis. I was a St. Paul boy, born and raised. You’d think that wouldn’t have made much difference, the cities lying directly across the river from each other. Unless you lived here. If you lived here, you’d know that it made a helluva difference which side of the Mississippi you called home. Still, I listened to her arguments while gazing into those astonishing silver-blue eyes of hers and what was it that e. e. cummings wrote? Love is a place. My place was with her, wherever that might be. So that was that.
Only that’s not what Nina was thinking as she watched the cityscape as it slowly evolved from black night to gray dawn with the rising of the sun. She was thinking how she’d have to move from that place if I died.
“I couldn’t live there without you,” she told me later. “I’d have to move.”
Her words made me feel warm. Loved. Only that wasn’t her intention. She meant them as an accusation—see what you almost made me do?
Eventually, she returned to the kitchen area. We had one of those single-cup coffeemakers that used reusable pods that I filled with a variety of coffee blends, mostly from local suppliers like Dunn Brothers, Caribou, and Spyhouse. Only she didn’t know which was which. She grabbed a maroon pod at random and shoved it into the machine—it was a light roast called Highlanders Grog from Cameron’s Coffee, by the way—and waited. Nina wasn’t waiting for the coffee so much as for time to pass.
At exactly seven thirty she tapped an icon on her cell phone. A young woman’s sleepy voice answered.
“What?”
“Erica, it’s Mom.”
Getting a call from her mother was not une
xpected. If anything Nina called Erica entirely too much. Really, neither of their lives was so dramatic that daily briefings were required. But at seven thirty in the morning?
Erica was jolted into wakefulness.
“What happened?” she asked.
“It’s McKenzie. He’s been shot.”
“Is he—”
“No. No, no, he’s fine. Lilly said he’ll be fine.”
“Lilly?”
“Lillian Linder. She’s a doctor at Regions Hospital. Emergency specialist.”
“You know her personally?”
Nina laughed at the question. She didn’t know why she thought it was funny, but she did.
“McKenzie,” she said, as if that explained everything.
“What happened?” Erica asked.
“He was shot in the back. The bullet lodged in his chest near his heart…”
“Oh, God…”
“But Lilly, Dr. Linder says he’ll be fine. He’s not going to die or anything. He’s in a coma now—”
“A coma?”
“Induced coma. They’re letting his brain heal. His heart, too.”
“His brain?”
“It’s complicated.”
“How complicated?”
“Honey, he’s going to be fine. They’ll be bringing him out of the coma sometime today. Maybe even right now. I should get dressed and go back over to the hospital.”
“I’ll see about booking a flight back home…”
“No, don’t do that.”
“I’ll use his credit card instead of yours.”
“McKenzie gave you a credit card?”
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”
“All this time while I’ve been thinking how fiscally responsible you were…”
“It was just before I went off to Tulane my freshman year. He gave me the card. He said he was in love with my mother but he wanted us to be friends, too. I asked him if he was trying to buy my affections. He said if they were for sale, sure, why not?”
“That jerk.”
What Doesn't Kill Us--A McKenzie Novel Page 5