Jelly's Gold

by David Housewright

  Heavenly stared at me.

  “Okay?” I repeated.

  She nodded curtly and grunted.

  My first impulse was to tear the tape away and see how much of her face went with it, but something about the way Ted cradled Wally’s head in his lap made me feel charitable. I slowly, carefully peeled it off her cheek, lips, and chin. When I finished, Heavenly moved her jaw around as if she were making sure it still worked.

  “Be still,” I told her. I moved my fingers gently along her jawline; she winced in pain at my touch. Nothing seemed broken; still, the side of her face where Ted first punched and then slapped her was beginning to swell.

  “He hit you pretty hard,” I reminded her in case she had forgotten.

  “I didn’t want them to hurt you,” Heavenly said. “I told them not to hurt you.”

  “I know. That’s one reason why I didn’t leave you here. That and the fact that I’m a born hero.”

  “I’m sorry, McKenzie.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I know you’re surprised by my behavior. If you let me explain—”

  “Oh, Heavenly. The I-35W bridge collapsing into the Mississippi River—that was a surprise. Learning that you’re a duplicitous bitch, not so much. I have a question for you, though. This morning—was that a scam or did two men really come to your house?”

  “That was true.”

  “Yeah, I figured,” I said. “It was a ploy to get me out of my house so Tim Dahlin could send Allen in to search it. It worked so well that you decided to try a variation on the theme to get me to come back. You could have just invited me to lunch, you know. I would have fallen for that.”

  “I want those letters, McKenzie.” Heavenly glanced first at her “acquaintances” when she spoke and then back at me. “I want them. Give them to me.”

  “Heavenly, there’s nothing in the letters that leads to the gold. How many times do I have to tell you? Besides”—I tapped the tape binding her wrist to the arm of the chair—“you’re in no position to demand anything.”

  “McKenzie, the letters might not lead to Jelly’s gold, but there are other kinds of wealth to be found in them, I’m sure of it.”

  I gave it a couple of beats, then shook my head. Suddenly, I felt very old.

  “You want to blackmail Dahlin? Are you crazy?”

  “I’m just saying there might be—”

  “Stop it. Just stop it. Heavenly—listen. Ahh, what’s the point? You do what you think is best. Just remember, the next time you call, I’m not answering.”

  I took a tiny Swiss Army knife from my pocket—the kind with a one-inch blade that nonetheless is too dangerous to carry on airplanes—and sliced through the duct tape, careful not to cut Heavenly’s wrists and ankles. This time when I tore the tape off her skin, I wasn’t gentle at all. While she rubbed away the soreness I went into the kitchen. There was an ice tray in the freezer. I dumped the contents into a dish towel, twisted it into an ice pack, and brought it to Heavenly.

  “Here,” I said. I gently pressed the towel against Heavenly’s mouth. She winced some more. “Take it,” I said even as I grasped her hand and brought it up to support the towel.

  “Why are you being so kind?” Heavenly asked.

  “Stop talking.”

  I pulled the Beretta out of its holster and knelt next to Ted and Wally. I tapped Ted’s knee with the barrel, making him flinch.

  “So you’re going to open a can of whoop-ass on me, huh?”

  “You broke Wally’s nose again,” Ted said. “Maybe some teeth. He’s bleeding—” I tapped him on the point of his knee again and he recoiled. “If you didn’t have that gun—”

  I tapped his knee yet again. “I do have the gun,” I said. “I have a lot of guns. Including yours.”

  “Give them back.”

  “No. You keep carrying guns”—I gestured toward Heavenly—“to impress the girls and sooner or later someone like me will come along and shove them up your ass. I’m going to do you a favor and hang on to them. Keep you out of trouble.”

  I patted Ted’s shoulder twice very hard and stood up. I glanced at him and Wally and back at Heavenly, who was now holding her shirt closed with one hand while pressing the ice pack to her face with the other.

  “Kids,” I said.

  I returned to my car, this time using the sidewalk to round the block instead of cutting through backyards. On the way, my cell phone rang. At first I thought it might be Heavenly trying a new scam on me. The display told me otherwise.

  “Hello, Genevieve,” I said. “How are you?”

  “I’m—McKenzie, why did … did you tell the police about Josh and me? Did you tell them that we … that we were … McKenzie?”

  The pain in her voice tore at my heart.

  “Yes,” I said. My voice was just above a whisper.

  “McKenzie, did you?”

  “Yes.” I raised my voice and regretted it—it sounded like I was proud of what I had done.

  “Why, McKenzie? Why? Do you know how embarrassing, how humiliating … they made me tell it, about Josh and me, made me repeat … oh, McKenzie! They came to the dorm. To Nelson Hall. The police. People saw them. My friends. What if my parents find out? What if … McKenzie, how could you?”

  “I’m sorry, Genevieve,” I said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “Then why?”

  “To help a friend.”

  “A friend?”

  “Someone I’ve known a long time.”

  “I thought we were friends.”

  “Someone I’ve known longer than you.”

  “McKenzie—”

  “I am so, so sorry, Genevieve.”

  “Sorry.” She spoke the word as if she had never heard it before. “We are taught the power of forgiveness, not only for those who have wronged us, but for ourselves—but McKenzie, I guess I’m just not a very good student.”

  I wanted to apologize, whether she forgave me or not. I didn’t get the chance.

  “Good-bye, McKenzie,” she said.

  Genevieve broke the connection, leaving me standing alone on the street, speaking into a silent phone. I didn’t blame her for refusing to forgive me. I had deliberately hurt one person in order to help another. There was no greater good in it. No wonder God doesn’t kibitz.

  Back in my car, I found a number I had stored in my cell phone’s memory and called it. I had to dance with a receptionist and a paralegal before I reached my party.

  “G. K. Bonalay,” a pleasant voice said.

  “Hi G. K., it’s McKenzie.”

  “Hey, McKenzie. How are you? Please tell me you’re not in trouble again.”

  “I’m not in trouble again.”

  G. K. sighed as if she had been holding her breath. “I’m delighted to hear it,” she said. “So, McKenzie, not that I’m unhappy to hear from you, because I’m always happy to hear from you, but why am I hearing from you?”

  “I need the services of a top-notch criminal defense attorney.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Not for me, for a friend.”

  “Like I haven’t heard that before.”

  “I have a hypothetical situation I’d like to discuss with you.”

  “Hang on a sec.” I heard the shuffling of paper and the phone being switched from one ear to the other. “Okay, shoot.”

  I explained the circumstances as accurately as I could. G. K. asked a few questions and I answered them without embellishment—I had learned a long time ago, when you’re talking to an attorney, be precise. When I finished, I asked, “What do you think?”

  “You’re cutting it awfully thin, McKenzie.”

  “I know. Can you help me?”

  “You mean, can I help your friend,” G. K. said.

  “Yeah, that’s what I mean.”

  “Yes.”

  That was all I needed to hear.

  True to his word, Bobby Dunston refused to admit me to the offices of the St. Paul Police Department ho
micide unit. We met outside instead. The James S. Griffin Building was on the east side of the sprawling police campus. The Ramsey County Law Enforcement Center anchored the west side. Between them were the Adult Detention Center and the East Metro Firearms Range. Bobby found me waiting for him next to the tall poles flying the American and Minnesotan flags.

  Instead of saying hello, I gave Bobby the carton filled with Kathryn’s letters along with the envelopes they came in complete with post office markings so he wouldn’t think I had been holding out on him. What I didn’t tell him was that I had just spent an hour at Kinko’s making copies of each letter and stashed them in a manila envelope in my trunk.

  “So this is what the fuss is all about,” Bobby said.

  “The stuff dreams are made of,” I said.

  “You read them?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do any of the letters indicate where the gold was hidden?”

  “Nope.”

  “A lot of trouble for nothing.”

  “Oh, it gets better.”

  I told him about Allen and the gun. Bobby said that he had already received a call from Sergeant Sigford.

  “It’s the wrong caliber,” Bobby said. “Berglund was killed with a .25. Nice try, though.”

  “Maybe you’ll have better luck with these,” I said. I gave him Ted and Wally’s guns and explained how I came to have them. Bobby examined each. Neither was a .25, but he slipped them into his jacket pockets just the same. He pressed his hand against the small of his back and spoke between clenched teeth.

  “I don’t have a quarrel with either of them as long as they don’t shoot you in my jurisdiction,” he said.

  “I don’t know what alibi they had for Berglund’s murder—”

  “C’mon, McKenzie.”

  “But I think you’re obligated to check them out—”

  “McKenzie—”

  “Considering the trouble they went through to get the letters from me.”

  “I know my job.”

  “I know you do. I’m counting on it.”

  Bobby sighed deeply. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, McKenzie,” he said. “Maybe I would do the same thing if I were in your position, but it won’t work. You have to know that.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said.

  “Is there anything else you feel compelled to tell me?”

  “I expect that you’ll get another visit from Kelly Bressandes,” I said. “She’ll probably want to know why you’re granting favorable treatment to a prominent suspect in the killing of Berglund.”

  “What prominent suspect?”

  “Timothy Dahlin.”

  Bobby made a kind of moaning sound as he stretched the way he had the night Berglund was killed—I don’t know if it was me or his spine that troubled him.

  “Did you hurt your back?” I asked.

  “Just wrenched it a little bit playing soccer with the girls.”

  “Maybe you should see a therapist or chiropractor or something.”

  “I’ll be fine.” ’Course, he said the same thing when we were kids and he broke his wrist diving for a line drive.

  “I know a guy,” I said.

  “I’m not surprised. Seriously, I’m all right.”

  I stood in front of him, looking for an excuse not to do what I was about to do.

  “Something else, McKenzie?”

  You ’re not a cop anymore, my inner voice reminded me.

  Bobby must have seen something in my eyes because he dropped his voice half a dozen octaves. “McKenzie?” he said.

  Yeah, you are.

  I reached into my pocket and removed the apartment key that Boston Whitlow had given me the evening before. “I was saving the best for last,” I said.

  Bobby took the key from my outstretched hand as I explained how I got it, repeating everything that Whitlow had told me about him and Ivy.

  “Damn, McKenzie,” he said. “That must hurt, giving her up like this.”

  “I have to.”

  “I know you do. You understand, I could bust you for obstruction, bust you for tampering with evidence.”

  “Or you could say that I secured the evidence before Whitlow could destroy it.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what you had in mind.” Bobby stretched his back again. When he finished, he tapped the carton of letters under his arm with the key. “I’m trying real hard not to be pissed off at you right now.”

  “Yeah.”

  He waved his hand at me. “Go do what you think you have to do. Just don’t expect any favors.”

  I turned and walked to my car.

  Ivy Flynn was smiling when she opened the door. The smile vanished when she saw the expression on my face. “McKenzie, what’s happened?” she said.

  “I spoke to the police a little while ago.”

  “About what?”

  “Ivy, I think you should sit down.”

  Ivy led me deeper into the apartment. She didn’t sit, so I didn’t, either.

  “What’s this about, McKenzie?” she said.

  “The clock is striking midnight, sweetie. It’s pumpkin time.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re my friend and I care about you, but you killed Josh Berglund. You have to pay for that. I’ll help you; I’ve been helping you. I’ve done everything I could to protect you so the price won’t be too high. Only you killed him, so whatever it is, you have to pay it. There is no other way.”

  “No, McKenzie. You’re wrong.”

  I pulled G. K. Bonalay’s card out of my pocket and pressed it into Ivy’s hand.

  “This belongs to a very good lawyer,” I said. “A friend of mine. She’s agreed to represent you. Don’t worry about her fee. I’ll pay the bills. I need you to call her. I need you to call her right now. The cops will be here soon. They’re probably already on the way.”

  Ivy’s face was so pale she looked as if every drop of blood had been drained from her.

  “I’ve been collecting suspects,” I said. “There are at least eight besides you. I’ve been trying to distract Bobby Dunston with them, only he’s not one to be distracted. Still, he’ll be compelled to turn over all the information to the county attorney’s office. Eight suspects. That’s a lot. Big hurdles the CA will have to jump over before she can get to you. It’ll make it easier for you to cut a deal when you explain what happened. How you forced Berglund from the apartment, kidding with the gun, just trying to scare him, until you stumbled or stubbed your toe and the gun went off accidentally. How you were so frightened that you lied to the cops, but now you know that was wrong and you decided to do the right thing by calling G. K. and turning yourself in.”

  “That’s not what happened,” Ivy said.

  “I don’t care what happened. That’s between you and G. K.”

  “I can’t believe you think I killed Josh—”

  “Ivy, you don’t have time for this. The cops know about your deal with Boston Whitlow. They know you gave him a key to the apartment. They know you got Berglund out of the way so Whitlow could steal his research. They also know that Whitlow told you about Genevieve Antonello, that Berglund was cheating on you with her, that he was using you, that he wasn’t going to share the gold with you. So many motives, Ivy.”

  “How could they know that?”

  “I told them.”

  “Why? If you’re my friend, if you’re helping me—”

  “I told them because you killed Berglund. It doesn’t matter that he was a jerk, that he probably deserved it. It doesn’t matter that you’re a sweet kid who’s never hurt anyone before. You killed him. You have to pay for that, honey. Why Bobby Dunston hasn’t arrested you yet I can’t say. Maybe he’s still trying to connect you to a .25 caliber revolver. Still, he knows what you did. He knew before I told him about Whitlow.”

  “How could he know that I killed Josh if I didn’t do it?”

  “The keys, Ivy. The keys to your apartment. You said that Ber
glund had his key in his hand and was about to unlock the door when he was shot. Only there were no keys on him or around his body when he was moved. You had keys in your purse; we saw them when you searched for the ticket stubs. Since there was no forced entry, it was assumed that the killer got in the apartment using a key. Your key. You gave him your key and used Berglund’s key, the key with the USA Olympic logo on the chain, to get into the apartment. That’s very thin, I know. Yet it was enough to convince Bobby Dunston that you were guilty and to start him building a case.”

  “You, too, apparently,” Ivy said. “It convinced you, too.”

  “We were right, Ivy. Weren’t we? You lied about the key. You lied when you said Berglund wasn’t involved with another woman. You lied about everything.”

  “I didn’t kill Josh.”

  “If you want to keep denying it, that’s okay with me,” I said. “Except the story you told the cops—what you told the cops won’t hold up, and switching to something new now will be hard to sell to a jury. G. K. and I think you’d be better off trying to make a deal. In any case—”

  “In any case? McKenzie, I didn’t do it.”

  “Ivy—”

  “Everything happened exactly the way I told it. There was a man wearing a ski mask at the door when we got home. A man with a gun. That’s the truth.”

  “Make the call, Ivy. If you don’t want my lawyer, call someone else.”

  Tears welled up in Ivy’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry it has to end this way,” I said.

  “No, McKenzie. What hurts is that you know me, you’re my friend, and still you’re convinced I’m a murderer.”

  I didn’t have anything more to say. After a while, neither did Ivy. She went to her phone and called G. K. Bonalay. I left the apartment while they spoke. There was nothing more that I could do.

  19

  I took a late lunch at Cafe Latté on Grand Avenue. I would have gone to Rickie’s, but I’ve been mooching off of Nina far too much lately. Besides, she would have been full of questions about Kathryn’s letters, Jelly’s gold, and Berglund’s killer, and I didn’t want to deal with that.

  It infuriated me that Ivy killed Berglund. I had wanted so desperately for her to be innocent—or at least not guilty, which was a whole ’nother matter. I told myself that I had done the best I could for her. It didn’t make me feel any better. Another man might have done more—conceal evidence, bribe witnesses, maybe frame someone else. I’m just not that guy. I suppose it’s my father’s fault. Or my mother’s. Who knows how people become who they are? Maybe it’s a result of watching too many old Humphrey Bogart movies.