by Stephen Frey
I catch up to it quickly and check the license tag. It’s the same one as yesterday, hanging by red and green electrical wires from the back bumper. This is the van that was following Cindy. Broken pipe at the Prescott mansion or not, I’m pulling the guy over. Sheriff Wilson told him to stay out of Dakota County and he meant it. I flip on the cherries and the van veers off onto the snowy shoulder immediately.
My pistol’s already in my shoulder holster so I don’t have to pull it out of the glove compartment. I chamber the first round after I hop out of the Cherokee—that scraping sound is always comforting—then I move cautiously toward the driver’s side door. It’s the same guy as yesterday, sitting calmly behind the wheel. He’s smiling serenely at me from beneath the brim of a filthy green John Deere cap with his thin lips and his buck teeth. His long stringy hair falls to the shoulders of his White Snake jean jacket.
“Good morning, officer.”
“What are you doing up here again?” I don’t bother asking for his license; I already know his name. It’s Caleb Jenkins. Sheriff Wilson from down in Hayward told me that yesterday. “You’re supposed to stay out of Dakota County from now on.”
“I had business in Duluth. I didn’t actually stop in your county. Not until now, anyway,” he adds. “And you made me stop.”
I check my watch. “You’ve already been to Duluth this morning?” I glance past him into the van. It doesn’t look like anyone’s back there.
“Yup.”
“It’s only ten-fifteen, Mr. Jenkins.”
He does a double-take when he hears his name, but he doesn’t say anything. “Well, I’m an early riser.”
“What were you doing in Duluth?”
The guy rolls his eyes. “Look, I’m an electrician, been one for a long time. I had a job up there.” He motions behind him. “I got my stuff in the back. Check it out if you want.”
“I’ll check out whatever I want to, Mr. Jenkins. You can be sure of that. How long have you had this van?”
He looks at me like I’m nuts. “A few years, but it’s older than that. I bought it used. What the hell’s that got to do with anything?”
“Careful how you talk to me, son.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“When did you buy this thing?”
“Last fall. Why?”
“I never saw it before yesterday.” Cops in small towns are trained to notice things like who drives what. Even people who live in other counties close by. “I’d remember if I did.”
“I don’t get many jobs in Duluth, Sheriff. Most of my work is in Hayward or south. And when I do get work in Duluth, I usually take I-35 up there. I cut across Route 91 to get to it.”
Interstate 35 heads north from Minneapolis to Duluth and goes all the way south to Texas. Route 91 goes west out of Hayward and intersects I-35 about twenty miles from town. “Why didn’t you take it today?”
“There was a big accident on it between the 91 interchange and Duluth. The traffic people on the radio said to avoid it at all costs.”
I’ll check that out in a minute, on my way to Cindy’s. “From now on take the interstate to Duluth all the time. Even if it’s closed,” I say with a wry smile. “Got it?”
He hesitates. “Yeah, I got it.”
“Good, now get out of here.” I wave him on and he wastes no time moving out. Ninety seconds later I roar past him as I continue to the Prescott estate. A quick check with Mrs. Erickson confirms the pileup on I-35. It was massive, caused by a sheet of black ice that formed out of nowhere. The state boys are only now getting traffic back to normal.
As I speed past my house I don’t see Vivian’s car beneath the big pine tree where she usually parks it, which is a relief. I don’t get an immediate call on my cell phone, either, which is another good sign.
When I pull up to the Prescott mansion ten minutes later, I notice a second set of tire tracks in the circle in front of the front door. Another one in addition to the half-covered set I made yesterday. They’re the tracks Bear made on his rounds last night. They must be.
I hesitate a moment inside the truck and stare out the windshield at the crystal-clear morning, awestruck by the view. I’ve come only a quarter of the way around the circle in front of the mansion, so I’m facing west toward Superior and Duluth as I sit here in front of the main entrance. The mansion is built atop a ridge, and from up here I get a real appreciation for the north-country’s beauty and for how isolated Dakota County is. The sea of pine trees seems to stretch on forever below me like an unbroken carpet. Though I’ve never actually checked records, I’ve heard that Cindy’s father is one of the largest owners of the vast tract of forest I’m gazing out over. I’ve heard that at the bottom of the ridge his land spreads north and south for miles behind all of the other River Family estates.
I hop out and move to the big front door, which is ajar. I slip into the foyer, straining to hear the sound of rushing water. Even in a place this big I ought to be able to tell quickly where the emergency is if the flood’s as bad as Cindy claimed. But I don’t hear anything, it’s like a tomb in here.
“Cindy!”
I move into the kitchen and smell coffee, then spot a half-eaten croissant on the island counter. Past the island one of the drawers beside the dishwasher hangs open. Silverware is scattered all over the tile floor and there are a couple of broken dishes in amongst the knives, spoons, and forks. I back off a few steps, then whip around and go for my gun when I think I hear something behind me. But it’s nothing, just my imagination.
Then I hear something upstairs, someone moaning, and I race up the left side of the dual main staircase. This time it’s not my imagination.
I hear the moan again when I reach the second floor. It’s loud this time, coming from a room down the long corridor. I tear down the hallway and stop just outside one of the rooms when I hear the sound again. My gun is pinned against my heaving chest with its barrel pointed toward the ceiling. The door’s cracked, like the front door was, and I hesitate a moment, then burst inside.
Almost instantly the door slams shut behind me. I swing my gun at the figure standing there and nearly fire. But at the last moment I manage to slip my finger from the trigger and pull the gun up in front of my face.
It’s Cindy, I realize, and I let the gun fall to my side. She’s wearing nothing but a tiny black teddy and baby-doll heels. My God, I could have killed her. I think about how the bullet would have ripped through her chest; how she would have fallen; how her final few gasps would have haunted me forever; how her blood would have been on my hands.
I’m a wreck but she’s not fazed at all by her near-death experience. She moves to where I’m standing, slips her hands around my neck, and kisses my cheek. “I’m not going to be denied this time, Sheriff Summers,” she whispers seductively.
As she presses her body to mine I inhale that perfume she always wears. God, I love it. I was able to resist her yesterday when she tried to seduce me on the couch, but this time it will be infinitely more challenging to keep her at bay. My senses are aroused, my adrenaline’s pumping, and I’m oh so vulnerable. She’s so damn good at getting her way and she’s relentless about it. She’ll do whatever it takes. That’s one of her gifts, one of her special qualities. Besides, resisting Cindy yesterday afternoon didn’t do me any good last night. Vivian’s sure Cindy and I had sex and nothing in the world’s going to convince her otherwise.
“Take me, Paul. Please.”
The snow is six inches deep in the hedge maze, so it’s slow going. The good thing is I’ll be able to find my way back out this time if she deserts me. I’ll just follow our tracks.
“You hated me for what I did to you in here that summer, didn’t you?” Cindy asks.
It’s as if she can read my mind. “No.” Usually it’s Vivian who can do that.
“Yes, you did. I could see it all over your face when I was snapping those stupid pictures. It was an awful thing to do but you never said a word. You were so good about it, such a
good sport.”
Being a good sport had nothing to do with it, and I suppose down deep she knows that, but she’s being polite. “I guess,” I mumble, glancing over at her. She looks incredible, like a movie star. She’s wearing a sexy pair of sunglasses, cowgirl boots, a pair of designer jeans, and a knee-length white coat with fur around the neck that fits her body like a glove.
“God, if I’d been you I would have strangled me, but then you’re always in control. I don’t know how you do it.”
She might not have said that if she’d seen what I did to Vivian last night.
We reach the center of the maze. It didn’t seem to take as long to get here as I remember. “It’s nice in here.”
She giggles. “Especially when you know you aren’t going to get ditched.”
I laugh. It feels so right with her, it always does. I make the mistake of checking my watch. It’s getting late and Bear will be wondering. Worse, so will Mrs. Erickson. “I’ve gotta go.” I wish like hell I didn’t, but it would be stupid to stay any longer.
“No you don’t.”
“Yeah, I really do.”
“I understand … I guess.” She slips her arm in mine as we start to retrace our steps, toes in heels. “I’ll be here all weekend, so come over whenever you want. You don’t even have to call.” She gets a faraway look in her eyes as we trudge through the snow. “Remember when I drove over to Madison to watch you play in the state championship game?”
Remember? Christ, I’ll never forget it, not to my dying day. Not if I live to be a hundred and I’ve forgotten everything else that ever happened to me in my life. I couldn’t concentrate for the first few minutes of the game. I kept looking up in the stands at her—and all the boys who were sitting around her trying to get her attention. I only gained fifteen yards in the first quarter and I fumbled twice. Finally Bear grabbed my face mask in the huddle, shook it violently, and yelled bloody murder at me in front of the whole team.
I gained over two hundred yards and scored four touchdowns after that. I was the star of the game, and it felt like we’d won the Super Bowl. It’s the only time Bear ever yelled at me, but I was glad he did, because I deserved it. As time ran out I hugged him harder than I’ve ever hugged anyone in my life and shouted thanks at him over and over for getting me focused. If he hadn’t yelled at me, I never would have gotten my head in the game and we probably would have lost. And I wouldn’t have gotten to experience an emotional high most people never do.
“You were incredible, Paul. The guys all around me in the stands were shouting your name.”
Cindy went with me to the party the parents threw for us in the ballroom of the Drake Hotel in Madison after the game, and it was the best night of my life. I was the man of the hour, the one everyone in the crowd wanted to talk to, the one everyone wanted to touch on the arm just so they could say they had the next day. And I had this gorgeous girl draped all over me like I was some kind of rock star. Somehow she got away without her father knowing. I don’t know how she did it and I never asked.
Bear got me a room upstairs so Cindy and I could be alone at the end of the night. He had a friend who was a bellman and we didn’t even have to pay for the room. It was our first time and just the thought of it still sends shivers up my spine. Like I said, Bear’s the best friend a guy could have.
Reality set in the next morning. Cindy went back to her world and I went back to mine. But at least I had that night, that one night. Most people don’t, but I wish they could. Even though it’s brutal when you realize how fleeting fame is, it’s still awesome while you’re in the middle of it.
“How’s your house?” she asks.
She asks innocently enough, but it’s hardly an innocent question. When I moved back to Bruner a few years ago, I didn’t have a lot of money in the bank, nowhere near enough for the down payment on my house. So Cindy loaned it to me. She brought me forty thousand dollars in cash in a suitcase one day, and I drove all the way to Superior with it to open a new account at a new bank because I didn’t want anyone in town knowing I’d deposited that kind of cash in the local branch of the bank in town. When I walked out of that bank in Superior, I went and had a beer at the closest bar I could find, because I was still shaking at having all that money on me. And because I felt like the guy who helped me open the new account was looking at me suspiciously the whole time.
Every year I mean to take that autumn bonus I get and repay her at least a little bit, but it seems like there’s always something else I have to use it for. She never asks me for it, she just asks how the house is. It’s her way of reminding me what she did and it’s much more effective than actually asking for money back that she doesn’t need. I think she had an ulterior motive for lending me the money; I think she likes my being close to the estate. But, any way you look at it, what she did was incredibly kind. And all she’s ever asked for in return is my friendship.
“It’s great, thanks. Look, Cindy, I’m really going to try to get you some money this—”
“It’s okay, Paul, don’t worry about it. I just wanted to make sure everything was all right.”
“Okay.”
Cindy and I are silent for a while as we continue to walk through the maze.
Finally she takes a deep breath. “My father’s stealing money from Prescott Trading,” she says, “from the family company.”
My head snaps to the left. “What?” Maybe she needs the money back after all.
“Yeah. I can’t believe it.”
I knew it. I knew her coming up here wasn’t just about Jack beating her or trying to get me into bed. I’ve always been her sounding board, I’ve always been the one she’s confided in. I probably know more about the Prescott family than any outsider, probably more than most insiders. Which is because she knows I’ll never tell anyone, she knows I’m that naturally and completely discreet. Maybe that’s my most outstanding quality.
“How can he be stealing from himself?” I don’t understand much about high finance, which has never been a problem for me, since I don’t have much money. My thoughts flash back to that view from the driveway of all that land he owns here in Dakota County behind all the other estates. And though I’m no cash flow wiz, I can’t help but wonder how in the world he could have money problems. “Doesn’t he own the company?”
“Yes, but remember, he has three sisters. They each own 25 percent of the company, too.”
“So what’s going on?”
“He’s taking money out of the company and putting it in his own account without telling them,” Cindy explains, “without giving them their share of the distributions. He’s telling them he’s reinvesting the money the company’s making into other things, but Prescott Trading isn’t making money, it’s losing money. I overheard him and Jack talking about how the company might not make it, how it might go under.”
“Don’t his sisters look at the books or have people who do that for them?”
“I think so, but Daddy’s too smart. They’d never figure out what’s going on.”
“How did you figure it out? Why are you so smart?” She gives me a raised eyebrow, like she doesn’t appreciate the remark, but she doesn’t say anything.
“I stopped by to see Mom at the compound in Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago, and she asked me to look for something in Daddy’s study. While I was in there I heard him coming and I didn’t want him to think I was snooping so I hid in this little anteroom off to the side. Like I said, I heard him talking to Jack on the phone about it. When he left, I found some papers on his desk. It’s terrible.”
“So Jack’s involved, too?”
She looks over at me. “Huh?”
“Well, Jack must know what your father’s doing. He must know about the money being stolen. You said you heard them talking about it on the phone.”
She hesitates. “Yeah, I guess he does.”
“Jesus.”
“I mean, I thought it was him that Daddy was talking to, but maybe it wasn’t.”
It seems like she’s backpedaling, like she forgot that by telling me all of what she just told me that she was implicating Jack in the fraud, too. She’s so damn concerned about ruining her husband’s political career, and I don’t think it’s because she’s worried about being First Lady. I think it has more to do with staying alive. “But you said—”
Cindy sobs out of nowhere. “I hate Daddy.” It’s a showstopper sob you’d swear was absolutely sincere, which it could be. It’s just that I’ve known her long enough to know that I have to question it. “And he hates me.”
I stop and pull her close. “Your father doesn’t hate you.” The tears are really flowing now.
“Yes, he does.”
“And you don’t hate him.”
She sniffles into my jacket. “You’re right, I don’t,” she admits softly. “Even with all the things he’s done to me.”
I hold her for a few minutes, until she stops crying. Then, reluctantly, I pull her gently ahead. There’s so much I want to say but we’re almost out of the hedges and I’m late. Then, from nowhere, I find the courage. “Could you be with me, Cindy?”
She smiles sweetly as we emerge from the maze. “You know I think about that all the—Oh, God.”
I follow her gaze. A black Porsche is motoring carefully up the driveway, staying in the tracks Bear and I made. It’s Jack Harrison. I’d recognize his car anywhere.
Cindy breaks away and starts trotting toward the mansion as Jack pulls the Porsche to a stop behind my Cherokee. She’s to him right away and she slips her arms around his neck the same way she slipped them around my neck in the guest room a while ago. It makes me want to kill him. It doesn’t make me feel great about her, either, but I figure she’s just doing it so he won’t get angry and beat her later.