What Doesn't Kill Us--A McKenzie Novel

by David Housewright

  “My daughter lives here,” Jenna said.

  When she turned to face him, Jamal was right there, close enough to rest his hands on the woman’s shoulders.

  Again, Jenna pushed him away.

  “Please don’t,” she said.

  “Baby, I know we can get past this.”

  “Stop calling me baby. I’m not your baby.”

  “You’ll always be my baby, Jen.” Jamal stepped closer again. Jenna moved away. “C’mon now, don’t be like that.”

  “You shot him. You shot McKenzie.”

  “I did it for you.”

  “For me? How is this for me?”

  “You said you didn’t want him prying into your past,” Jamal said. “So I stopped him.”

  “No, no, no, God. That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  Again Jamal tried to embrace the woman.

  “Stop it,” Jenna said.

  “Baby, what’s done is done. It’s time for us to move on. Time for us to have the life we talked about.”

  “What life? You’re my fucking drug dealer.”

  Jamal didn’t like being called that and had to work hard to keep his voice low and relaxed.

  “Hey, hey, hey, you know I’m much more to you than just that,” he said.

  Jenna covered her face with both hands and turned toward the fireplace; her back to Jamal.

  “You’re not, you’re not, you’re not,” she chanted.

  “You know we belong together.”

  Jenna refused to respond.

  “I get that you’re upset about this guy, this McKenzie that you’ve never even met before. Only you don’t need to worry ’bout him no more. We can go back to the way things were between us. Tell me that this doesn’t change anything between us.”

  “It changes everything.”

  “Don’t say that. Jenna? Jenna, look at me.”

  “No.”

  “Think about it, Jenna,” Jamal said. “If you think about it, you’ll see that you’re as guilty about what happened to McKenzie as I am. You’re the one who delivered the message. Even used your niece’s name cuz you panicked when they asked you for yours.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Jenna finally turned to look at him. “I know what I did. Why do you think I feel so—to talk, you said. We’ll check him out, you said. Find out if he’s legit, you said. Bring McKenzie to RT’s Basement, a place I had never even heard of. Bring him down there because it would make him feel uncomfortable and he would be more apt to tell us the truth if he was feeling uncomfortable. Find out if he was really related to me, if he was going to hurt me or help me, help save Charles. You said.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. We brought him down there because RT’s was known as a drug haven. Cuz it was known for being a trouble spot; cops had to be called in a half-dozen times in the past few months. No one should’ve been surprised if he got shot down there.”

  “Not ‘we.’ You. You meant to shoot him. You meant to shoot him all along.”

  “We meant to shoot him. That’s the way the police will see it; what you have to understand.”

  “You’re just saying that because you’re afraid I’ll turn you in. Turn us both in. I should. I really should.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Jamal said. “It makes me nervous you talking like that.”

  For a couple of heartbeats, Jenna remembered sitting next to Jamal in the front seat of Jamal’s car just down the street from RT’s Basement. They saw a man wearing an expensive sports jacket enter the club alone.

  “Is that him, is that him?” Jamal asked. “I bet that’s him.”

  Jenna made to open her door.

  “No,” Jamal told her. “Let’s wait.”

  “Why?” Jenna asked. “I thought we were going to talk to him.”

  “Want him to be feel uncomfortable, remember what I said?”

  So, they waited.

  After about fifteen minutes, the man appeared just outside the entrance of the club. He glanced around. Jenna knew he was looking for them.

  “Wait here,” Jamal said.

  He got out of the car and walked swiftly to where the man was standing. The man didn’t see him coming. He was too busy gawking at a woman who looked like a hooker approaching from the other side.

  When he got close, Jenna saw Jamal raise his hand and shoot the man in the back.

  She wanted to scream, but no sound came out.

  Jamal turned and started back toward the car.

  He was smiling.

  Jenna opened the door of the car. She started running, not even bothering to close the door behind her.

  She didn’t know why she had picked the narrow path between RT’s Basement and the building next door except that it led away from the man lying on the sidewalk. She rounded the corner and nearly collided with Dr. Tucker Hammel. She was shocked to see him there. Her first thought should have been to ask for help. Instead all she could think was that he would recognize her. She turned and ran off in the opposite direction. Fifteen minutes later she was in a Lyft and heading back to her home in Summit Hill. She couldn’t bear to return to Lake Minnetonka and face her brothers.

  “Why, why, why?” Jenna asked. “Why did you do it?”

  “I did it for you, baby. How many times do I have to say it?”

  “He could have helped Charles.”

  “Once he’s gone and we’re rich, you’ll feel better about it,” Jamal said.

  “I’m already rich. Wait. Once he’s gone? Who? Charles? I don’t, I don’t understand.”

  “You told me about Charles, remember? Told me he was dying of some liver disease I can’t pronounce. Remember?”

  “I was crying and you wanted to know why I was crying and I told you.”

  “The way I saw it—what happened, I have connections, Jenna. I know people. Not just you. Customers most of ’em. They helped me get my hands on some KTech stock. Thousands of shares that I sold. Now, when Charles dies and the stock prices collapse…”

  Jenna shouted at him.

  “You shorted KTech?” she said.

  “What I don’t get is why the stock price hasn’t kept going down; why it’s going up instead. No one has seen him in weeks, right? They have to think Charles is sick. Have to think he has the COVID or something. You’d think the price would be going down at least a little bit.”

  “Oh my God.”

  Jamal saw something in Jenna’s face then, a mixture of both sadness and contempt.

  “Baby…” he said.

  “This was never about me, about stopping McKenzie from looking into my past, discovering my secrets. You shot McKenzie to keep him from helping my brother. You want Charles to die so KTech’s stock price will drop and you can make a killing. Only the stock price won’t drop, at least not enough to make a difference. I’ve already seen to that.”

  Jamal moved closer to the woman.

  “Jenna, what have you done?” he asked.

  “We’ve been playing an investor named Justus Reinfeld, convincing him that the company was a prime target for a hostile takeover. He’s been buying up shares, keeping the price high. If Charles recovers, we’ll drive a stake through his heart. If he doesn’t, then Reinfeld can have KTech. Let him be the white knight. My brother and I don’t want to have anything to do with the company if Charles isn’t there.”

  It took a few beats before Jamal realized what Jenna had told him.

  “The stock price will remain high?” he asked.

  “That’s the plan.”

  “You did this?”

  “It was my idea.”

  Jamal balled up his fist and hit Jenna.

  She staggered backward.

  “You fucking bitch!” he shouted.

  He hit her again.

  “Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve wasted me.”

  Jamal hit her a third time.

  Jenna crumbled to the floor.

  “I didn’t want to do this,” Jamal said. “I tried to keep i
t from happening and then … and then when I decided if it had to be done, I wanted someone else to do it.”

  Jamal pulled a gun out from where he had hidden it behind his back and pointed it at the woman sprawled across the floor.

  “Why are you making me do this?” he asked.

  Jenna gazed up at him.

  “Not here, not here,” she chanted. “This is her house. This is Emma’s house. Please not here.”

  Jamal knew that Emma was Jenna’s daughter. He had seen her a few times from a distance, yet they had never been introduced. That was Jenna’s doing and Jamal resented her for it. At the same time, he felt a twinge of sympathy for the young woman he had never met. Emma shouldn’t be the one to find her mother’s body …

  “All right,” he said.

  Jamal grabbed hold of Jenna’s upper arm and yanked her to her feet.

  “All right,” he repeated.

  A jinglejangle of chimes sounded around him and for a moment Jamal became convinced that he had somehow caused it.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “The doorbell.”

  “The doorbell?”

  “Someone’s at the front door.”

  Jamal felt the icy fingers of panic seize his heart, yet he quickly brushed them away. He squeezed Jenna’s forearm.

  “Answer the door,” he said. “Get rid of whoever it is.”

  Jamal showed Jenna his gun.

  “I’ll be standing right here,” he said.

  Jenna moved toward the door as another round of chimes sounded. Jamal quickly thrust the handgun under the waistband of his jeans behind his back and stood facing the door as if he were waiting for a bus.

  Jenna opened the door.

  Detective Jean Shipman stood on the porch in front of her. She immediately noticed the swelling on the woman’s face, and knew someone had punched her. She smiled just the same.

  Jenna smiled back, an odd thing to do all things considered.

  Jenna was holding the door far enough open that Shipman could see a young black man standing off to the side, his hands folded across his belt buckle. He was staring at her so she stared back. Watch the eyes, an unheard voice told her. She kept smiling and kept watching the young man even as she spoke.

  “Jenna King?” Shipman asked.

  “Yes.”

  Shipman produced the wallet containing her badge and ID.

  “Detective Jean Shipman, St. Paul Police Department.”

  “What the fuck!” Jamal shouted.

  He reached behind his back, found the handgun he had hidden there and brought it out.

  Shipman watched him do it even as she dropped her wallet and reached under her blazer for the butt of her Glock.

  She knew that the young man would get to his gun first. She crouched down, trying to make herself smaller.

  “No, no, no!” Jenna screamed.

  She slammed the door shut.

  Shipman fell backward, yet managed to maintain her balance. She pulled her Glock, gripped it with both hands, and spun so that her back was pressed against the wall next to the door. She half expected to hear and see bullets ripping through the door, yet none came.

  She could hear Jenna screaming inside the house.

  “Stop it, please stop it,” she said.

  “This is all your fault,” Jamal screamed back.

  Shipman was shouting herself, hoping her voice could be heard inside.

  “Nothing bad has happened yet,” she said. “We can still make this go away.”

  She didn’t hear a reply.

  Shipman told me later that she experienced what she called brain freeze. For a few brief moments the many thoughts that swirled in her head paralyzed her into inaction—kick open the door and confront the assailant, run for cover, grab her phone and call for backup, reach down for her badge and ID; what were they doing on the floor, anyway? What brought her back to the world was the sight of Bobby Dunston strolling up the sidewalk. He stopped when he saw his detective. He looked at her as if he was having a hard time believing that she was there. Shipman, on the other hand, never questioned his presence, not for a second.

  “We have a hostage situation,” she said. “Unidentified black man, armed, semiautomatic handgun, five ten, hundred and sixty pounds, black slacks, white shirt, black suit jacket, black-rimmed glasses. Woman identified as Jenna King, five four, one twenty, short blond hair; face shows signs of swelling where she might have been struck several times.”

  Bobby reached into his pocket. Instead of pulling his piece, however, he withdrew his cell phone.

  Only he dropped his phone and reached for his Glock the moment the front door opened.

  Jamal had been thinking fast. He knew if he was going to get out of the house he would need to do it now. In just a few minutes the place would be crawling with police, he decided; St. Paul’s SWAT team was probably already on its way. He gathered Jenna up, wrapped his arm over her breasts, pulled her tight against his chest, and pressed the muzzle of his handgun against her throat. He pushed her toward the door.

  “Open it,” he said.

  She did.

  He started to ease Jenna past the door when he saw Shipman. He spun toward her, using Jenna as a shield.

  “Get back, get back,” he said.

  Shipman moved backward across the porch even as she trained the sights of her Glock on Jamal’s head, hoping for a clean shot.

  “Get back,” Jamal repeated.

  Shipman kept moving until the back of her legs hit the porch railing.

  “Drop your gun,” Jamal said. “Do you hear me? Drop your gun. Drop it or I’ll kill her.”

  Shipman did not drop her gun. She was too well trained for that.

  By then Bobby was in a classic Isosceles Stance, both hands gripping his Glock near the center line of his body, his arms extended, his elbows bent slightly to control the recoil.

  Jamal’s eyes went from Shipman to Bobby back to Shipman again and then settled on Bobby as if he was wondering where he had come from.

  “Drop your gun,” he told him.

  Bobby replied calmly.

  “You have nowhere to go, no way to get there,” he said.

  Jamal turned Jenna to face Bobby, then back again to face Shipman. He pressed the muzzle against her throat hard enough for her to cry out.

  “Please, please,” she said.

  “What’s your name?” Bobby asked.

  “Fuck you,” Jamal replied. “I’m leaving. You try to stop me and I’ll kill her.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Bobby said.

  “Don’t try to stop me. I mean it.”

  Jamal edged Jenna forward, Shipman on their right; Bobby directly in front of them. Shipman was waiting for Jamal to move even with her so that if she was forced to fire, she wouldn’t have to shoot around Jenna. She would have an unobstructed line of fire. One step. Another. Another. Only Jamal halted just as he reached the center of the porch.

  It was the car that stopped him. A 2017 Ford Escape. It slowed directly in front of the house before the driver cranked the wheel hard, punched the accelerator, and drove on to the boulevard, the nose of the SUV touching the sidewalk, the rear hanging above the street. The doors flew open. Special Agent Brian Wilson came out of the driver’s side, pulling his 9 mm SIG Sauer as he approached the scene in a crouch. Greg Schroeder came out of the passenger side. He, of course, was carrying a .45.

  Harry circled to his right, putting himself at the corner of the porch so that Jamal was now covered on three sides. Schroeder moved to Bobby’s left. Bobby was appalled to see a PI, a civilian, at a live crime scene.

  “Stand down,” he said. “I mean it.”

  Schroeder looked at him as if he had just been insulted. He didn’t leave, though, merely rested his weapon alongside his leg, the muzzle pointing toward the ground.

  Chopper and Herzog watched the scene unfold from the relative safety of Chopper’s black van parked a few houses up the street. Herzog turned to sp
eak to his friend.

  “Don’t let Jamal go int’ the house, I said. Take him while we have the chance, I said.”

  “Oops,” Chopper replied.

  On the porch, Jenna was having a difficult time remaining on her feet. Jamal had to keep her upright with one hand while holding the handgun against her throat with the other.

  “Please,” Jenna said.

  “No one needs to get hurt,” Jamal said. “If you just let me go…”

  He was staring at Harry when he spoke.

  “FBI,” Harry said.

  “C’mon,” Jamal said.

  Herzog and Chopper kept watching through the front windshield of the van.

  “Maybe we should get some popcorn,” Chopper said.

  “Fuck this,” Herzog said.

  He opened the driver’s side door and slid out of the vehicle.

  “Where you goin’, Herzy?” Chopper asked. “Herzy, what are you going to do? Herzy? Ah, man.”

  Herzog walked quickly along the boulevard to Jenna’s sidewalk, then up the sidewalk toward the house. Shipman and the others were so intent on what was happening on the porch that they didn’t notice him. Jamal did, though. His eyes grew wide with both recognition and fear.

  “You, too?” he asked.

  The others finally saw Herzog when he reached the porch steps.

  “What are you doing here?” Bobby shouted. “Get back, get back.”

  Herzog climbed the steps and stood directly in front of Jamal and Jenna.

  “You done playin’?” he asked.

  “I don’t know what happened,” Jamal told him. “This should have worked. I should be rich.”

  “I used t’ think the same way.”

  Herzog held out his hand.

  “This is what you’re gonna do,” he said. “You’re gonna give me the piece. You’re gonna release the woman. You’re gonna let them arrest you. When you meet the county attorney, you gonna trade the doc-tor and his Oxy operation for a reduced sentence. Then you’re gonna do your time like a man; finish that degree you talked about while you inside. Then you gonna come out and make something of your life while you still young enough to do it. You said you wanted t’ go basic. A counselor I talked to when I was inside said sometimes it takes what they call a significant emotional event for you to get from where you at t’ where you need to be. What happened to me. This is your emotional event. Ain’t pretty. It is what it is.”