Nor did anyone mention the name of Ramsey County Commissioner Merle Mattson.
Which, I thought, gave me leverage.
* * *
I bought two hours of time from a meter in front of the St. Paul Public Library. I could have rented a stall in a parking garage and walked to the courthouse using the city’s elaborate skyway system, a network of second-story boulevards and enclosed pedestrian bridges that connect public buildings to one another, yet thought better of it. The purpose of the skyway was to allow people to travel between buildings without forcing them to brave the elements, be it the snow and freezing temperatures of Minnesota’s winters or the heat and humidity of its summers. It had reached the point where often people would go to and from work without actually stepping outside; the skyway allowed them to commute from their attached garages to one of downtown’s many enclosed parking ramps in nothing more than shirtsleeves. Given the overall brutality of our winter, who could blame them? Yet at 10:00 A.M. the temperature was a giddy forty-five degrees, and I was reveling in it.
“Enjoy the pleasant weather while you can,” a TV meteorologist told us before predicting a weekend of plunging temperatures and rain turning to sleet turning to snow and ice. The evening news anchor—no, it wasn’t Kelly Bressandes—was so incensed by the forecast, she tossed her script into the air and stormed off the set, the weather-bunny calling after her, “Don’t blame me, I’m only the messenger.” The anchor returned after the commercial break and said, “Normally, I love winter, but this has been too much,” which wasn’t an apology, merely an explanation that prompted the rest of us to nod our heads and say, “Got that right.”
So I walked the two blocks, thinking with each step, Nature, you mother, bring it on.
The Saint Paul City Hall/Ramsey County Court House—that’s its actual name—was eighty years old, a twenty-one floor monument to what was considered American Art Deco architecture at the period it was built. It had bronze elevator doors, light fixtures, and stair railings, gold leaf ceilings, glass murals, polished marble, and an astonishing array of domestic and foreign woods—American black walnut, Cuban mahogany, Indian rosewood, Mexican prima vera, English brown oak, and African avodire, to name just a few.
As the name suggested, it housed most of the offices for both governments, including the St. Paul mayor and city council and the Ramsey County Commission. Except that wasn’t the reason the security detail at the door forced me to empty the contents of my pockets into a plastic bin, step through a metal detector, stand with arms extended while a security wand was passed over my body, or lift my pant legs to the height of my boots. It was because of the Second Judicial District courtrooms located on the upper floors. I had testified enough times in those courtrooms against suspects who would do anything to escape that I knew better than to carry a gun into the building.
I climbed the steps to the second floor. The first thing I saw when I entered suite 220 was a wraparound reception desk. A stern-looking woman sat behind the desk. I told her I had an appointment to see Commissioner Mattson. I told her I was early. She directed me to a clutch of comfy leather chairs. I sat in one of them and passed the time studying the black-and-white photographs spaced artistically on the walls. Nearly every one featured a member of a minority group; I decided they had more representation in the photographs than in our government.
Ten minutes later, the receptionist spoke to me. “You’re here to see Commissioner Mattson, correct?”
“Yes,” I said.
“At ten thirty?”
“Yes.”
She looked at the clock on the wall, confirmed the time, picked up a phone, and told the person on the other end that I had arrived.
She didn’t tell them you had come early, my inner voice said. She waited until the exact moment of your appointment.
I was both impressed and appalled at the same time.
A couple of moments later, Merle Mattson entered the lobby. She introduced herself, shook my hand, and ushered me down a silent corridor. I was able to look through open doors into the offices of the other commissioners as we passed them. They were neat and orderly, and I wondered if they were used for actual work. Mattson’s office, on the other hand, seemed in disarray.
“You’ll have to forgive the mess,” she said. “Unlike my colleagues, I’ve been having a hard time going paperless.”
The commissioner excused herself and stepped into the adjoining office and issued a few instructions in a soft voice to her assistant. It gave me time to peruse her space. Besides the stacks of reports and files, there were many books, two white hard hats, a golden sledgehammer, several empty coffee cups, a couple of college degrees, a map of Ramsey County with her district highlighted, and dozens of framed photographs. In most of those, she was posing with one or more people in a professional setting. I spotted only one photo of her alone. In it, a much younger Merle Mattson was dressed in the crisp uniform of a Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy and clutching a trophy from the National Police Shooting Championships. I recognized the trophy because I had come thisclose to winning one myself.
A moment later, the commissioner returned to the office, closing the door behind her. She settled behind her desk, and I sat in front of it.
“What can I do for you, Mr. McKenzie?” she asked.
“I’d like to ask you about Ella Elbers.”
“I don’t know her.”
“Yes, you do.”
I had just called her a liar, yet nothing in Mattson’s facial expression or body language told me what she thought about it. No nostril flare or lip compression to indicate anger or frustration; no grin, grimace, lip pout, canine snarl, brow raise, or downward gaze. Her pupils did not expand or contract, nor did she cover her mouth, tug at her ear, or shift her weight in her chair. Instead, she stared straight ahead, and I was reminded of something my FTO told me back at the academy—remember, while you’re studying a suspect’s body language, he might be studying yours.
“Let me rephrase,” Mattson said. “I met El, but I don’t know her. I meet a lot of people in my job that I don’t know.”
“She was Oliver Braun’s girlfriend.”
“He introduced us. I don’t recall him using the term ‘girlfriend.’”
“El was Oliver’s girlfriend. She’s disappeared. There’s evidence that suggests she was involved in his death. I’m trying to help sort it out.”
“What evidence?”
I was glad of Mattson’s question. Most people would have asked why I was involved, and I wasn’t sure I could provide a satisfactory answer.
“A gun was found in Oliver’s car,” I said. “The gun belonged to El.”
Actually, it belonged to me, I reminded myself, but why complicate the story.
“I read the newspaper account very closely,” Mattson said. “There was no mention of a gun.”
“No, there wasn’t.”
Mattson leaned back in her chair and looked up to the right as if she were searching inside herself for information stored there.
“The Pioneer Press speculated that Peter Troop killed Oliver,” she said.
“I read the piece, too. It’s probably correct. Yet it didn’t explain the gun or El’s disappearance or answer the big question—why?”
The commissioner gazed down for a moment as if distracted. When her head came up, she said, “I was glad when I read that the man who murdered Oliver was killed. I hoped the person who murdered Troop got away with it. I might even have said so out loud.”
“I can’t blame you for that.”
“Now you tell me Ms. Elbers might have had a hand in it.”
“No. What I meant—I believe the people who killed Oliver also tried to kill her.”
“Who would that be?”
“The people she used to work for.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Sure you do.”
“Mr. McKenzie…”
“I saw you in Woodbury, Commissioner. I saw you pay off
John Kispert. What stolen property did you buy that they’re now holding over your head?” I gestured at a flower-filled vase sitting on the corner of her desk. “Crystal?”
“It’s possible I resemble someone you saw in Woodbury, Mr. McKenzie. I’m pretty sure, though, I can prove to everyone’s satisfaction that I never left my home office on Sunday.”
“Who said it was Sunday?”
Mattson’s pupils enlarged, and I thought her fight-or-flight instinct was kicking in—either that or she was sexually aroused by my aggressive manner.
“I’m sure you must have mentioned it,” she said. “How else would I have known?”
Her answer was so straightforward and confident, I half believed it myself.
You’re not very good at this body language thing, are you? my inner voice asked me.
“Commissioner Mattson,” I said aloud, “I’m not with the police. I’m not a reporter. I’m not a spy working for your political rivals. You don’t need to be afraid of me.”
“I didn’t know that I was.”
She sure as hell isn’t behaving like she is.
“You aren’t the first woman they blackmailed,” I said.
“I’m not being blackmailed, but since you brought up the subject, Mr. McKenzie—I agree that blackmail is about fear. However, I have nothing to be afraid of. The next election is in three and a half years. I’ll be sixty-two. I’d like to serve one more term before I retire. I could live without it, though. I’ve lost elections before. I was voted into the State House of Representatives because I was tough on crime.” She gestured at the photograph of her in uniform. “The party faithful voted me out in the primary two terms later because I wasn’t tough on gay marriage. So it goes.
“Besides, what would a blackmailer get? Money? It’s true that as a part-time citizen legislator I made thirty-three thousand dollars a year, and now as a full-time county commissioner I make eighty-three. Still, it hardly seems enough to make it worth the effort. It can’t be about government contracts, either. We’ve been removed, the board has, from the selection process in order to eliminate favoritism and nepotism, any allegation of impropriety. Other departments do the grunt work now. All we do is vote yes or no. But tell me, McKenzie—not police, not a journalist, what’s your interest in all this?”
There’s that question after all.
“El,” I said aloud. “I once saved her life.”
“Now you feel responsible for her. The old Chinese curse. That’s something I can appreciate. I used to be a deputy sheriff.”
“I used to be a cop, too.”
“We’re probably thinking the same thing, then.”
“Are we?”
Instead of answering, Mattson stared some more. Again her expression and body language gave me nothing. After a few moments, she leaned forward and rested her elbows on her desk.
“I met El at the party after we won the election,” Mattson said. “In November. Oliver had worked for me as an intern throughout that summer and most of the fall. He came to us in the usual way. He called and asked for an opportunity. We don’t advertise these things. There are no job postings, no formal process. Oliver contacted my assistant, said he lived in the district, said he was a poli-sci major at the U, and asked if there were any summer internships to be had.
“I liked him right away. He was very smart and very enthusiastic. We put him to work around the office. It was an election year, so there was more to do than usual, and he was happy to do it—whatever we asked. Occasionally I sent him to take notes at meetings I was unable to attend—seventy percent of my job is meetings. Often he would accompany me on door knockings. We’d roam the neighborhoods, knocking on doors, introducing ourselves, passing out campaign literature. A lot of legislators rely on social media these days. My experience, McKenzie, nothing beats the personal touch. Tip O’Neill was right when he said all politics is local. That doesn’t mean just city or state, though. It means the street where you live.
“You have no idea how much I appreciated that—Oliver being with me when we did the knockings, taking notes when voters voiced their concerns, and often writing the follow-up letters and e-mails we would send back to them. Also, there were safety concerns. Some people aren’t as nice as you would hope. Standing in someone’s yard, in the corridor of an apartment building, talking to voters who are clearly angry, listening to them vent over issues that more often than not are well beyond my control, telling them, ‘Here’s my home address, here’s my home phone.’ Sometimes I couldn’t believe I was giving them my personal information, yet that’s what you do when you want to get elected on a local level. Having Oliver there made it much easier.
“After the election, there wasn’t as much for him to do, plus he had classes to attend. However, I made sure he was present at our victory celebration. That’s when he introduced me to Ms. Elbers. I had not met her prior to that, yet I knew her name. Oliver spoke of her often. Clearly he was smitten, and when I met her I could see why. She is a lovely young woman and perfectly charming.”
“Did El invite you to a garage sale? Is that how you first got on the hook?”
“Garage sale?”
“Like the one in Woodbury that you didn’t attend.”
“You can repeat the allegation as often as you like, Mr. McKenzie. My response will remain the same.”
What did Einstein say about insanity? my inner voice said. It’s doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
“How ’bout Oliver?” I said aloud. “Why didn’t you tell the police you were having an affair with him?”
I thought the question would jolt her. It didn’t. Instead, Mattson answered as if she knew it was coming.
“I’ve been accused of many things in my political career, Mr. McKenzie,” she said. “I have to admit, this one is new.”
“Are you saying it’s not true?”
“Of course it’s not true.”
“Yet you wept when you found out he was killed.”
“Yes, I did. I get emotional when people I care about are brutally murdered. Who suggested I had a sexual relationship with Oliver?”
“His friends.”
“Hormone-rich college students? I wouldn’t say that’s an entirely reliable source of information, would you?”
“As reliable as any.”
“McKenzie, please. I’m old enough to be his … I met Oliver’s mother. I’m a decade older than she is.”
“What difference does that make? You’re an attractive woman.”
“Are you deliberately attempting to embarrass me? Put me in a position where I need to explain why a young man is not going to come knocking on my door? The odds a single woman my age will find a mate—I’m reliably informed it’s more likely that a vending machine will fall on me. I understand and accept this reality; that doesn’t mean it’s something I like to contemplate. Be fair, McKenzie.”
Spoken like a politician who used to be a cop—oh, she’s very good.
* * *
I left Commissioner Mattson’s office feeling as if I had been played by a certified expert. In a few short minutes, the woman had discovered nearly everything I knew or suspected. Yet I still had no idea what she knew.
Bobby Dunston would be appalled, I told myself.
There’s no reason why he should know, my inner voice said.
As if on cue, my cell started playing “Summertime.” The caller ID told me Bobby was calling.
“I was just thinking of you,” I said.
“I’d say that great minds think alike except you don’t have a great mind.”
“I just discovered that for myself. What’s up?”
“Buy me lunch.”
“Where?”
* * *
The Blue Door Pub was located on Selby and Fairview in Merriam Park, the St. Paul neighborhood where Bobby and I grew up together—home of the Blucy, a burger stuffed with blue cheese and garlic that was just fabulous. Bobby and I sat across from ea
ch other in an old-fashioned wooden booth, the kind with high backs that you can’t see over. I was halfway through both the burger and my second Summit Ale when he got to the point.
“Luby recovered the .30-06 shell casing from the shooting in Minneapolis,” Bobby said.
“Good for him.”
“It had a partial that we were able to couple with the print we took off the casing in Little Canada. Apparently they both came from the same right index finger…”
I stopped chewing, my mouth full of burger, and held my breath.
“If you recall, we took Fifteen’s prints when she was brought into Regions after the freeway incident.”
I held my breath some more.
“The BCA hemmed and hawed all over the place; said it couldn’t make a conclusive determination because the data was too weak, you know how they are. Yet even though there weren’t enough points to positively ID a suspect, I thought there might be enough for me to eliminate one. At least for the time being.”
I exhaled around the burger, chewed quickly, and swallowed.
“El didn’t do it,” I said. “She didn’t shoot those guys.”
“She didn’t load the rifle, anyway.”
“I feel so much better than I did a little while ago.”
“It doesn’t let her off the hook. There’s still Oliver Braun’s murder to explain. There’s still the shoplifting … Problem is, we can’t find her. Elbers doesn’t have any credit cards, so we can’t track her movements through her purchases. Her friends can’t help us because they’ve disappeared. She has no known criminal associates besides Mitch and Craig, who are denying everything, which means our CIs are useless. We finally located her missing Ram truck carefully hidden in the impound lot where it had been towed six weeks ago during a snow emergency, so we don’t know what she’s driving. We can’t brief patrolmen to look for a specific make and model of a car, for her license plate.”
“Someone must be hiding her.”
“You think?”
Bobby picked up his burger and dropped it back on his plate without taking a bite as if he’d suddenly lost his appetite for it.
“Kispert,” he said. “John Kispert. He’s been busted several times for residential burglary; finished a thirty-eight month jolt in Stillwater for aggravated robbery two years ago. Nothing since then.”
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