by Eskens,Allen
“We do,” Martinez said with an exaggeration that suggested that he was enjoying himself. “The EMTs dug his wallet out. The guy couldn’t talk by then and they wanted to see if they had medical records on him—you know, blood type and that sort of thing. Well, I happened to be standing outside the ambulance. You ever heard of Dennis Orton?” he asked.
“Dennis Orton?” Niki repeated. “As in Deputy Chief of Staff to the Mayor? That Dennis Orton?”
“I only heard the name.” Martinez said. “His face looked like the overcooked ham my wife baked on Christmas, so I couldn’t make an ID, but, again, if I was in Vegas—”
“Fireball has connections,” I said. “Keep his name off the radio. I don’t want the scanner crowd getting information before we’re ready to release it.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Martinez said. “But you know as well as I do, there’s a lot of guys in blue who don’t like Orton.”
“I know,” I said. “Just keep a lid on it for as long as you can. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just another homicide, no different than any other, and I don’t want the press or the brass interjecting themselves.”
“What about the plates on the minivan?” Niki asked Martinez.
“Comes back to a Pippi Stafford. I’m guessing that’s her in the back seat.”
“I don’t see any gas cans,” she said.
“Hey, Max,” Martinez had his gloved hands on his face to warm his cheeks. “If it’s all the same to you . . .” He gave a slight nod toward his squad car.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” I said. “Maybe, if one of your officers doesn’t mind . . .” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet and withdrew a couple twenties. “A round of coffee on me. No sense sitting out here being any more miserable than we have to be.”
“Thanks Max. I’ll get someone on that.”
I turn toward Niki. “Why don’t you go to the hospital and check on Orton. We’ll need a warrant to dig through his clothing, and if he made a 911 call, he has a cell phone.”
“Thanks, Max, but it’s my turn to be the lead. That means I stay here with the ME and Crime-Scene.”
“It’s too cold. You go to HCMC. I can stay here.”
“Max? Do we have to have ‘the talk’ again?”
“Is that the talk where you say you love my idea?”
“Love is such a strong word—and wildly inaccurate.”
“Hey, I’m trying to be chivalrous here.”
“Chivalrous—chauvinist, potayto—potahto. I appreciate the offer, but I got this.”
I chuckle as I watch her lips shiver. “Your call. You’re the lead.”
“Thank you, dear.” Niki gave a slight curtsy. “And tell Rick to order me another dark-roast, as long as you’re buying.”
Honestly, I was happy to go to HCMC and not just because it was face-splitting cold outside, but because that’s the only part of Jenni’s life that held shadows. If she uncovered something dark enough to bring about her murder, I’d find it at the hospital where she worked. It’s the only thing that made any sense.
The enormous, sprawling arms of HCMC serve as the first, and sometimes last, refuge of the injured and the broken in Minneapolis. It was where Jenni worked, and its parking ramp was where she died. I entered the ER and found the attending physician who told me that Dennis Orton was in pretty bad shape when they brought him in. He had been wearing a winter coat made of a flammable material, the doctor thought maybe polypropylene, which caught fire and melted into his skin.
“Second and third-degree burns on his chest and neck and face,” the doctor said. “The third degree burns kill the nerves. It’s the second degrees that hurt. We stabilized him and moved him to the Burn Unit.”
“Where are his clothes and possessions?”
“We bagged ‘em. They’re in a locker on the Burn Unit.”
“I’ll be getting a search warrant to take possession of those, so don’t let him leave.”
“Leave?” the doctor looked surprised. “He’s not going anywhere. Not for a while. We have him intubated right now. I don’t expect him to be awake any time soon.”
“Intubated? So he’s not able to talk?”
“If a person breathes in too much fire it can swell the airway shut. It’s a precaution.”
I pursed my lips and started to rearrange my day in my head. “How long until that changes?”
“We can do a fiber-optic exam later to see how it’s going. If it looks good, we could pull the tube out this afternoon. No promises.”
I thanked the doctor and headed out of the ER. The Burn Unit was nearby, but I had a stop to make before I went to visit Orton.
Just outside of the ER was a small collection of offices that I knew well—one of them used to be Jenni’s office. The hospital keeps a social worker on duty at the ER around the clock to deal with emergency-room patients who need additional services. The battered wife, the abused child, the homeless, these were the people that Jenni helped. I hadn’t been back to her office since she died, and I didn’t know what to expect. I just knew that Jenni’s office was where my digging had to start. What was she doing on the day she died? Who were her patients? What did she know that she wasn’t supposed to know?
I peeked into the Social Services Office, relieved to see a familiar face. I breathed a sigh and knocked. “Karen?”
“Max?” Karen stood up behind her desk, her jaw slack with surprise.
“I see they got you working on a holiday.”
She smiled. “Someone has to be here—and I’m not much of a college football fan. God, it’s been a long time.”
“Four and a half years,” I said. And with those words, a stampede of painful memories came crashing into the room. That hadn’t been my intention. “You look well,” I said, hoping to side-step our shared history.
She pointed to a chair, and we both sat down. “I’m doing my best,” she said. “But, I got to tell you, this middle-age crap is a bitch. I tore my rotator cuff last year just raking the yard.”
“I hope you learned a lesson about the dangers of raking.” I smiled. “I steer clear of it myself.”
She smiled back, not because of my wit but because I believe she was remembering Jenni. They had been close, not best friends, but allies and office confidants. On those days when Jenni came home with a pebble in her shoe because of hospital politics, it had always been Karen who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her.
“What brings you to these quiet halls on a day like today?” Karen asked.
I stepped into my pitch. “I want to talk about Jenni’s death.”
Karen stopped smiling.
“I need to tell you something, and I need you to keep it between us. Okay?”
“Sure Max.” Karen, who had already been sitting rigid in her chair, lowered her hands to her lap.
“Jenni’s case was closed as a hit-and-run. They never found the driver.”
Karen nodded.
“But things have changed, Karen. I can’t tell you how I know, but what if I told you that it wasn’t an accident. What if I said that Jenni was killed on purpose?”
Karen gave a slight gasp. “Who would do . . . Why would anyone . . .?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. That’s why I’m here. I believe that she was murdered because of something she was doing here at work. I think she knew something that she wasn’t supposed to know.”
“Are you sure?”
“Karen, I need to know what she was working on when she died.”
“Oh, no Max. I can’t . . .” Karen brought a nervous hand up to her lips. “We have HIPAA rules.”
“I wouldn’t be here if this weren’t important. I don’t have any other way to recreate what Jenni was doing back then. I have no other option, Karen. There’s got to be something you can do. Can’t you look at her calendar from back then? There might be something there. Please. Anything you can give me, no matter how small. I just need a place to start.”
“I’m no
t even sure . . .” Karen began clicking on her keyboard and shuttling her mouse around. “Our calendars are . . .” She trailed off distracted by something on the screen. “Hmm. It’s still there.”
“What’s there?”
“Jenni’s day planner. I would have thought . . . I guess they don’t delete that kind of thing when you . . .” Karen’s face turned pink. “Well, when someone . . . leaves.”
“Can you tell me what she was doing the day she died?”
“July 29th right? That’s the day she . . .”
“Yes, July 29th, but anything around that time might be helpful.”
“There’s not much here. Just names of patients she met with. I’d get in big trouble if I gave you any of those, of course.”
“Please, Karen. There’s got to be something you can tell me.”
“She had a meeting with some insurance reps that day and an office powwow. Nothing unusual. Just looks like a normal—” Karen squinted into the computer screen. “Well, I’m not sure . . . this may be . . .” She opened a drawer and pulled out a book, running a finger down a list of names, then she looked back at the screen as if confirming a match. She wrote a name and phone number on a piece of paper, sliding it across the desk to me. “She’s not a patient so I’m okay to share this. Her name was on Jenni’s day planner on the day she died. I don’t know if it means anything.”
I read the name. “Farrah McKinney?”
“She’s an interpreter—French, Russian, German, and I think a couple other languages too. I’ve met her a few times. She’s really smart.”
“I appreciate this Karen,” I said. “You were always one of Jenni’s favorite people. I wish I’d gotten to know you better when she was alive.”
“Me too, Max.” Karen’s apprehension gave way to a warm smile. “Jenni was one of my favorite people as well. And Max,” Karen folded her hands together as though she were going to pray. “I hope you find what you’re looking for and that it brings you peace.”
I was taken aback by both her words and her knowing tone. I could do little more than nod my thanks and leave. I was pretty sure that when I found what I was looking for, peace would be the last thing on my mind. I was hunting wolves. Did she understand that? Did she see that in my face? No, I was reading too much into it.
I left the Social Services Office and made my way to the Burn Unit, showing my badge to get buzzed through the locked doors. Just inside the unit, I found a young, uniformed officer leaning against the counter at the nurse’s station, chatting up a pretty young woman in scrubs. I’d seen the patrolman around before, but couldn’t remember if I’d ever known his name. He straightened up when he saw me coming.
“He’s sleeping,” the officer said as I got in earshot. He pointed at a door just a few feet ahead of me. I walked in to that room and saw a man, bandages covering most of his torso and face, an intubation tube taped across his lips. He had an IV in his left forearm, the only part of his body without gauze wrapped around it, and a pulse oximeter on his index finger. I could tell that he was Caucasian, and according to the light hair on his arm, probably a blonde. Beyond that, he could have been just about anybody. I was about to leave when I saw a small tattoo on the back of his wrist, a circle that looked like the points of a compass.
When I left the room the young officer was standing in the hall, almost at attention. The name bar on his uniform read Fuller. I nodded for him to follow me and we walked to the end of the corridor. “Did he say anything when they brought him in?”
“No Sir. He—”
“Max.”
“What?”
“Max. That’s my name. Not a big fan of ‘sir.’ Wasn’t a fan of it back when I was in uniform, so I don’t see why I should go by anything other than Max now.”
“Okay . . . Max.” Fuller seemed to relax. “He was in pretty bad shape. All he did was howl and moan.”
“I’m going to get a search warrant for his clothing and his phone. I’ll need you to sit tight until I get back with that. Once we have his stuff, you can head out. I don’t expect him to try and make a break for it, but if he does, you place him under arrest.”
“Arrest? What for?”
“Didn’t Martinez tell you what was in the van?”
“No. He just said to get down here and make sure the guy doesn’t leave. He said to stay here until I hear otherwise.”
“If he tries to leave, tell him to go back to bed or you’ll place him under arrest for setting a fire without a permit.”
Chapter 6
Chapter 6
The corridors of City Hall seemed eerily quiet as I walked toward the Homicide Unit, almost as if the structure itself were holding its breath, a spectator waiting for a fight to start. The sound of grit crunching under my shoes filled the hallway and pinged off the granite walls around me. I unlocked the door and stepped inside, taking a moment to absorb the emptiness of the room, the closeness of the silence pressing against my skin. I was glad to be alone that day. I had a warrant to write up, yes, but I had other business to tend to, business best performed in secret.
No more half measures.
First, I contacted Dispatch to see where I could find the on-call judge and was told that a Judge Krehbiel had called in to let them know that she was in her chambers working on an order that she needed to get out the next day. If any warrants needed to be signed, she would be in the Government Center, which meant I could walk across the street to get a signature instead of having to drive to her home.
I pulled Farrah McKinney’s phone number from my pocket. I’d never heard of her, or if Jenni ever mentioned her name, it had gone right past me. I dialed the number.
“Hello?”
“Ms. McKinney?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Max Rupert. I am a homicide detective in Minneapolis. Do you have a moment?”
A slight hesitation, then, “Um . . . sure. What’s this about?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you on a holiday like this, but I’m looking into a cold case. Your name came up and I was hoping I might be able to meet with you to ask a few questions.”
“On New Year’s Day?”
“If I could have just a minute of your time. The victim was a social worker attached to the emergency room at HCMC. She was killed in a hit-and-run about four-and-a-half years ago. The case has been reopened and—”
“Yeah, I remember. Her name was Jenni, right?”
A spark of excitement flickered inside me. “Yes that’s right. Your name was in her day-planner. I was wondering—”
“That was terrible, what happened to her.”
“Yes, it was. Can I ask how you knew her?”
“I didn’t know her. I mean, I didn’t know her personally. I worked with her on a case. I’m an interpreter. Russian and Baltic languages.”
“Were you working on a case with her on the day she died?”
“Yes. That’s the first time I met her—that day.”
“Ms. McKinney, could we meet? I’d like to ask you a few more questions. Just some routine, follow-up stuff.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“I promise, I won’t take up to much of your time.”
“I guess. Sure, when?”
“Today, if that’s possible. If not—”
“Today? Um . . . sure. We can meet today. What did you say your name was again?”
“Detective Max Rupert.”
“Rupert? Wasn’t that . . .”
“Yes, that was Jenni’s last name. She was my wife.”
“I’m sorry. She seemed really nice. If I can help in any way—”
“I appreciate that. Would you like me to come to your house?”
“No, I need to make a trip downtown anyway. You know where the Hen House Eatery is?”
“I know it well. Noon?”
“That works. I’ll be wearing a bright yellow coat.”
“I’ll be the guy with a badge,” I said.
Silence.
&
nbsp; “And a smile,” I added.
I hung up and began slapping the search warrant together, typing what facts I knew into the probable-cause statement. As search warrants go, this one was easy. The items to be searched? The clothing, cell phone, and other possessions of the man found next to a burning van which housed a dead body.
I finished the warrant application, stood, and looked around the room, even though I knew that I was alone. Then I sat back down and logged into the Computer Assisted Police Resource System, what we call Cappers, and typed the name Raymond Kroll. Cappers lit up with dozens of entries for Mr. Kroll. I scrolled down until I found the first-degree assault case matching the file Boady brought to me.
Kroll hit a man with a patio brick in a bar fight. I held my breath as I opened the link to see if Kroll had given any statement to the arresting officer—a squad video or body cam capture—anything that might have his voice. I only needed a few words from him and I would know if he was one of the men plotting my wife’s death. My heart sank when I saw no recordings in the file. I didn’t expect to find anything. Had there been a recording, it should have been in the attorney’s file that I had at home. But it was worth a shot.
Next I logged into the Minnesota Court Information System to see what had happened to the case. The file was short. The case hadn’t made it as far as the omnibus hearing before Kroll turned up dead in St. Paul. I had read all about his untimely demise when I was doing my internet research last night. Kroll’s body was found on the bank of the Mississippi River with a bullet in his brain. They never found the shooter. I sent the court record to the printer so I could add it to my collection.
I went back to Cappers and scrolled through other cases involving Mr. Kroll, hoping to find one with audio. Case after case, Raymond Kroll faced his accusers with ruddy silence, a well-trained dog. I was down to the petty misdemeanor speeding cases when a click at the outer door interrupted my reading. I walked to the printer and stacked my reports together, folding them in half. Another click and Niki stepped through the second door and into the office, her nose and ears red from the cold. I leaned awkwardly against the copier aware that my posture looked far from natural.