Nina had played relentlessly when she was a kid; it had helped her cope with a lousy childhood. She had made money at it when she was in college, too, and during those first difficult years when she was establishing her club. Except she had stopped playing somewhere along the line. When I asked her why, she simply shrugged and said she had fallen out of the habit. I’ve often encouraged her to get back into it and from time to time she would vow to return to performing, especially after I gave her the Steinway. Only she had never followed through. I don’t think it was fear of performing. After all, she had done it before. I think it was because she had met so many great pianists over the years that she felt inadequate. She had convinced herself that she could not possibly play as well as Knutson, or Butch Thompson, the great ragtime and stride jazz pianist that she had also hired, or Peter Schimke or Laura Caviani or Chris Lomheim.
Mostly she played at home, with me lying beneath the Steinway, my head propped on a huge throw pillow with the logo of the Minnesota Twins. She’d riff on Dave Brubeck and Bill Evans or pound out Jay McShann’s “My Chile” or Otis Spann’s “Spann’s Stomp” and say, “What do you think?” and I’d tell her that I knew of a jazz joint where she could play happy hour gigs or put together a group and play the main stage. “I have connections,” I’d say. Sometimes she would crawl under the piano with me.
That’s what she was thinking of when the knock came on her door, of me and her cuddling beneath her baby grand.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Man to see you,” her bartender said.
“Okay.”
Nina said okay, but she really wasn’t, she told me later. She was tired and frustrated and angry and she was astonished at how much energy it took to be pleasant when she was tired and frustrated and angry. She was sure that the man who came to see her was another one of my friends who was anxious about my health, though, and she was determined to appear optimistic even if that wasn’t how she felt.
She stepped into the downstairs bar. The bartender gestured at a large man sitting alone at a table in the center of the room. He was dressed in a blue blazer, white shirt with blue tie, and gray slacks that reminded Nina of a uniform. She had not met the man before but that was true of most of my friends, including half the guys I’ve played hockey with over the past twenty years.
Nina forced a smile onto her pretty face and approached the table.
“Good afternoon,” she said. “I’m Nina Truhler.”
He gave her a nod and a sneer as if she was a counter clerk who had finally given him the takeout he had ordered after a long wait. He pointed at the chair across from him.
Nina nearly went off yet she managed to smother the explosion, telling herself that there must be a very good reason why this man that she didn’t know, who had asked to speak to her, was being rude to her in her own place while her husband was in a coma in the hospital.
Nina eased into the chair.
“It’s terrible what happened to McKenzie,” the man said, although his tone of voice suggested that it wasn’t terrible at all.
“Yes, it is,” Nina said.
“Maybe now he’ll learn his lesson.”
“Lesson?”
“Not to fuck around in someone else’s business.”
“Who are you?”
“He was warned and now you’re being warned—keep your big mouth shut.”
Nina smiled. At least she told me that she smiled; I have a hard time believing it myself.
“Warned about what?” she asked. “Be specific.”
“Don’t make the same mistake he did, or you’re going to end up just like him. Do you understand, bitch?”
What happened next happened so fast that Nina told me later that she didn’t even think about it. “Just boom,” she said.
The boom was her curling her right hand into a tight fist and punching the man in the mouth just as hard as she could.
The blow spun the man out of his chair. He rose to his feet with his hand covering his lower face. Nina told me she could see blood.
“Are you crazy?” he said.
Nina was also on her feet and holding her arm.
She had felt the shock of the blow surge through her fingers, through her wrist, and into her elbow. She was convinced that she had hurt herself more than she had hurt the man.
“Who are you?” she shouted.
The man backed away.
“You come into my place and threaten me? Who are you?”
The man spun and moved quickly toward the door.
“You’re nuts, lady,” he said.
Nina gave chase even as she tried to shake the pain from her arm.
“Who are you?” she repeated. “Why are you threatening me?”
The man made it to the door and pulled it shut behind him. Nina yanked on the handle and felt a lightning strike of pain ripple through her arm.
She stepped back and shook it some more.
Through the window she could see the man running toward the street. A car stopped for him. She couldn’t identify the make or model; she didn’t know cars, she told Bobby later. Besides, all cars looked the same these days, she said. She also said she had been unable to read the license plate as the car sped away.
She spun to face the bar. Her staff and all of her early afternoon customers were staring at her with expressions ranging from amusement to terror. Nina wanted to say something but didn’t know what.
“I know you would have had some smartass remark to make,” she told me. “It’s one of my life’s great disappointments I couldn’t think of a thing.”
Instead, she went to her office and called Bobby.
* * *
Dave Deese was startled when his office phone rang. Usually his secretary screened his calls; for one to get through unannounced meant the caller was among the small handful of people who had his private number.
“Hello, this is David,” he spoke into the receiver.
A female’s voice said, “Hello, Dee Dee.”
A surge of adrenaline nearly knocked him out of his chair.
“Who is this?” he asked.
“Who do you think?”
Deese rose to his feet even though his legs wobbled beneath him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Jeezus, David. It’s T.”
“T?”
“Your sister T, goddammit.”
“What do you want?”
“What do I—I want to talk. Come over.”
“To your office?”
“To the house. Tonight. I’ll make something for dinner. David, it’s time we had a private conversation.”
“About what?”
“What the fuck do you think? What we should have been talking about two goddamn weeks ago—Dee Dee.”
Deese said he’d be there. T hung up the phone and Deese thought, She would never have spoken like that in front of our father.
* * *
Shipman was jealous. Eddie Hilger and Sarah Frisco, the detectives that Bobby had given the biker case to, burst noisily into the large office that housed all of the detectives working Homicide and Robbery in Major Crimes. They were so very pleased with themselves. It turned out that while Shipman was wasting her time reviewing my notes, they were busy scooping up one of the bikers who had assaulted the bouncer at Haven. The detectives discovered him on the stoop in front of his house, wearing his gang colors. He had been waiting for the police with two handguns and a blackjack in his pocket. The detectives couldn’t help but notice the guns and suggested that the biker move away from them very carefully. He said he had a permit to carry his guns. Sarah said, “Funny, so do I.” They stared at each other for a few beats like gunfighters waiting for the other to make the first move. The biker must have decided he didn’t like his chances against Sarah, especially with Eddie and a couple of uniforms backing her up, because he rose slowly to his feet, leaving both guns on the stoop; his empty hands in the air.
“For a moment there, I
thought things might go sideways,” Sarah said.
Shipman repeated the words under her breath in that catty tone of hers—“For a moment there, I thought things might go sideways”—and looked away. She and Sarah were the only women working as detectives in Major Crimes. You’d think that alone would create a sense of camaraderie between the two, only it didn’t. Maybe it was because Shipman’s desk was toward the back of the room closest to Bobby’s office while Sarah’s was nearest the door, but what do I know?
After the biker was taken into custody, he was tag-teamed by both Sarah and Eddie, yet refused to identify the other men involved in the fight at Haven and eventually refused to answer their questions without a lawyer present. Once he was taken to the Ramsey County Adult Detention Center, though, he demanded to make a phone call. He called his ex-wife. Even though a taped message told him that his call was being recorded and could be used against him in court, he told his ex-wife to call his lawyer. “The cops arrested me because they know I beat on that fuck bouncer at Haven last night and then threatened to shoot up the place and I need all the help I can get,” he said.
“Guy confesses on the telephone,” Eddie said. “What a fucktard.”
Shipman ground her teeth together—at least I picture her grinding her teeth—and told herself, it’s not even one thirty P.M. and they’ve already closed their case. Dammit.
“You think that’s dumb,” Gafford said. He had been sitting at his own desk near Shipman. “The boss and I caught a shooting at a fast-food joint this A.M. Talk about comedy.”
He related the entire story, speculating at the end that the young woman who started it all would probably get a suspended dis con while the “Second Amendment guy” might take a fall for as many as seven years for felony assault with a deadly weapon.
“If he had kept his cool—misdemeanor assault and he ends up paying a fine at the most,” Gafford said.
“He didn’t want to keep his cool,” Sarah said. “He wanted to shoot someone in the worst way and so he did.”
“I love mankind … It’s people I can’t stand,” Eddie said. “Charles M. Schulz wrote that. You know. The Peanuts guy.”
“I’m sorry,” Shipman said. “Am I the only one around here with work to do?”
That generated the response from her colleagues that you might expect including Sarah’s imitation of an angry cat, her hand curled like a claw and her mouth making a hissing sound.
“Bitch,” Shipman muttered quietly to herself.
She turned her attention back to my notes.
What happened to me next.
TUESDAY, MAY 19 (MORNING)
The first thing I had written that morning was DO SOMETHING NICE FOR NINA in all caps and bold type. That was because the woman proved once again that she trusted me implicitly, even though I had involved her in God knows how much nonsense over the years. You need to love a woman like that.
It was about ten A.M. Since Nina rarely went to bed before two it was actually early for her. She saw me sitting at the computer while she prepared to leave for Rickie’s and asked what I was working on. I told her I was doing a favor for a friend, which didn’t surprise her at all. I also told her I was unable to reveal the extent of the favor or the name of the friend without permission for fear of embarrassing him, which didn’t seem to surprise her, either. Instead, she asked if I would see her later. I said I wasn’t sure. She said to give her a call.
She embraced and kissed me good-bye as she headed for the door. Unlike the usual quick hug and peck on the lips or cheek that I usually received, Nina kissed me as if she wanted to be talked into staying home. So, I tried to talk her into staying. “You work way too hard,” I said.
She smiled and laughed and said she enjoyed managing her club almost as much as I enjoyed doing favors for friends, at least during business hours. After closing time was a different matter, though. Nina gave me that look, you know the one I mean, and said, “You will make time for me?”
“Nothing shall keep me away,” I said.
* * *
Jean Shipman wrote on her yellow legal pad: “What kept you away? You are such an idiot, McKenzie.”
* * *
I hadn’t received a phone call from Elliot Sohm’s father or anyone else for that matter and I was wondering if I would. I checked Dave Deese’s DNA website for messages and found two. The first was from Marshall of Minneapolis:
I appreciate the courtesy you showed my daughter yesterday. However, I have discussed the matter with several of my relatives and it was decided that, while we wish you well, we don’t believe it will be helpful to pursue this relationship. You must realize, this revelation does not affect just you and I and Elliot, but a great many other family members as well who will be devastated by the knowledge that you bring us. Thank you for understanding the gravity of our position. Good luck.
The second message I received came from Elliot:
It was so much fun meeting you yesterday. You might not have noticed—I hope you didn’t notice—but I spent a lot of time studying your face to see if we had the same eyes, the same nose, the same chin. I think smile? It’s so cool to have an uncle that looks like he plays sports—please tell me that you play sports. I play soccer and softball. No one else in my family does anything except for my cousin Emma who does everything. I hope to meet with you again soon.
Elliot’s message came a half hour after the one sent by Marshall from Minneapolis, which meant that either she wasn’t aware of her family’s decision concerning me—Dave Deese, actually—or she was rebelling against their wishes. I felt a little guilty about that. All I was looking for was a little information that I would hand off to Deese to do with as he pleased. I certainly didn’t mean to cause a rift between her and her family.
Before I replied to either father or daughter, I decided to do a little more research. This time I surfed the net for Marshall Sohm. The first thing I learned was that Sohm was a German name originating in the high country, wherever the hell that was. It’s not like I looked it up on a map.
The second thing was an article that appeared in the Spooner Advocate, a newspaper published in northwestern Wisconsin:
Marshall Sohm, Sr. of Shell Lake, Wisconsin, will celebrate his 75th birthday at an open house from 2 to 4 P.M. Oct. 25 at the Shell Lake Arts Center.
Cards may be sent to 802 First Street, Shell Lake, WI, 54871.
His children are Marshall, Jr. and Krystal Sohm of St. Paul, MN, Jerome and Tonya Sohm of Ogden, Iowa, and Cynthia and Rob Johnson of Madison, WI. He has seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Marshall was born on Oct. 25, 1941. He married Mary Ann on Sept. 8, 1972. Marshall served in the U. S. Navy, became a farmer, and raised cattle, hogs, and sheep. He was a 4-H leader, a Ham radio operator, and volunteer firefighter. He is currently retired but still raises sheep and continues to donate blood. He has donated almost 27 gallons over the years.
My inner voice screamed at the computer—Mary Ann who? Is she a King? Is she still alive? Is Marshall, Sr. still alive? He was seventy-five when the article was printed. That was eight years ago.
I went to the website of the Spooner Advocate. It had a section devoted solely to obituaries. I searched for Marshall Sohm, Sr. and found the same photograph that appeared with his birthday announcement and the following:
Marshall Sohm, Sr., 78, died on Monday, April 23. He was born on October 25, 1941, in St. Paul, MN. He served in the U. S. Navy for 20 years. After retiring from the service, he studied agriculture at the University of Minnesota. He bought his own farm in Washburn County, raising cattle, hogs, and sheep. In retirement, he joined the Shell Lake Fire Department and was active in 4-H. He was welcomed to heaven by wife Mary Ann, parents Paul and Colleen Sohm, brother Peter and sister Roberta. Marshall will be missed by all who knew him, especially his children, Marshall, Jr. (Krystal), Jerome (Tonya) and Cynthia (Rob); grandchildren Steven, Linda, Martin, Elliot, Robert, Olivia, and Debra; great-grandchild Claire. A memorial serv
ice will be held at Northern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery. Memorials are preferred to Shell Lake Fire Department.
“Oh for God’s sake,” I said aloud. “Aren’t you supposed to list the wife’s maiden name in obituaries?”
I quickly searched for Mary Ann King and came up empty.
“Dammit.”
I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my eyes.
Why is this so hard? my inner voice wanted to know. It shouldn’t be this hard. It’s not like we’re searching for the Lost Ark of the Covenant.
I surfed some more for the name Marshall Sohm, this time adding “Junior” to the parameters. There was more about Elliot online than there was about her father, but then he didn’t have a Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or Pinterest account. I did find a small piece that appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press business section last fall:
St. Paul–based AgEc, Inc., a global provider of food safety technologies and services for agriculture firms, announced that Marshall Sohm, Jr. has been promoted to executive vice president.
“Looks like you didn’t stray too far from the old man’s farm in Shell Lake, Wisconsin,” I told Marshall from St. Paul, even though he wasn’t there to hear me.
So now what, I asked myself.
When in doubt, my inner voice said, agitate.
I went back to Deese’s DNA website and sent two messages. The first was addressed to Elliot.
Baseball and hockey. In fact, I still play hockey despite my advanced years. Unfortunately, I suck at both. I hope to see you again, too.
The second message was sent to Marshall.
Mr. Sohm, as I stated in my earlier message, I want nothing from you or the rest of the King family including recognition. I certainly don’t mean to add to the problems that Charles, Porter, and Jenna seem to be experiencing these days. Hell, I actually own stock in KTech. I am asking only for answers to a few simple personal questions. I wish merely to know where I came from. I was very sorry to learn that your mother had passed. If Mary Ann were still alive, I might have been able to ask her; apparently she was my aunt. I was saddened to hear about your father Marshall, Sr. as well. He seemed like a very good man. Growing up on a farm in Wisconsin must have been quite an adventure for you and something that I simply cannot relate to.
What Doesn't Kill Us--A McKenzie Novel Page 12