I was picking at my lemon basil shrimp salad, feeling sorry for myself, when my cell phone rang.
“Good afternoon, Mr. McKenzie,” Genevieve Antonello said. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”
“Not at all. How are you, sweetie?”
“I’d rather you didn’t call me that.” Yet another thing for me to apologize for. Before I could, she said, “Uncle Mike would like to speak to you.”
There was a pause while the phone was passed from hand to hand.
“Hey, copper,” Mike said.
“What do you say, convict?” I replied, playing along.
“The reason I had Sugar give you a call, if you’re still interested, I remember something else about Jelly Nash. Don’t know why I didn’t remember before.”
“What?”
“You were asking who might have the connections to dispose of Jelly’s gold. Coulda been a sharper named John Dahlin, guy I heard was big in the construction trades. He used to run with Brent Messer. They were partners or something. Only this Dahlin, he was older and had more balls, I think. Sorry, Sugar.”
There was a muffled sound before Mike continued.
“Yeah, this Dahlin, he was into things. I seen him chinning with Gleckman and Jack Peifer and Chief Brown at different times. Could be he’s the guy you’re lookin’ for. He could have moved Jelly’s gold.”
“Could be,” I said.
Brent and Kathryn Messer, John and James Dahlin, my inner voice said. What a world.
“The reason I remember him was cuz of my trial,” Mike said. “I got to thinkin’ about them days after talkin’ with you. My trial—you knew I got twenty-five years. I ain’t sayin’ I didn’t deserve ’em. ’Cept Dahlin, I was out there takin’ my chances while he was hidin’ in his office makin’ dough offa other people’s hard work, he doesn’t draw so much as a fine. Doesn’t even get indicted. You tellin’ me the fix wasn’t in?”
“No,” I said. “Knowing what I know about St. Paul back then, I would never tell you that.”
“All I can say, if it weren’t for guys like Dahlin, guys like me wouldn’ta been in business very long. Anyway, you should look into it.”
“I will, Mike. I will look into it. Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Don’t forget, me and Sugar each get ten percent of your end.”
“I won’t forget.”
I drove home and fired up my PC. I told myself that if John Dahlin had been Jelly’s fence the gold was a long time gone, which made a search seem more like a wilder goose chase than ever. Besides, so far nothing good had come of it. Ivy was probably in jail by now, and Josh Berglund was dead, and my interest was waning rapidly. Still, I checked the market. I was surprised to learn that the price of gold had jumped in the past few days to $721.37 an ounce. Which meant that Jelly’s gold was now worth $9,233,536.
Well, my inner voice said, it’s not like you have anything better to do.
I started searching Web sites. I learned a lot about James Dahlin, how his company had been a preeminent builder of single-family dwellings and how he personally was instrumental in developing many Twin Cities suburbs following the war. There wasn’t much on his father. That slowed me down. I was contemplating another trip to the Minnesota History Center when I wondered out loud, “If this was 1936 and I was investigating Dahlin and Brent Messer, who would I talk to?”
Family, friends, neighbors, business associates, the cops, of course—and, oh yeah, Ramsey County Attorney Michael F. Kinkead, the man whose grand jury investigation was blown to hell and gone along with Messer. I googled his name. Again I came up empty except for a small entry on the Hamline University Web site. It mentioned that Kinkead’s family had donated his legal papers to Hamline’s law school in 1972, the year the school was founded.
I didn’t relish the idea of spending the rest of what had already been a long day sitting in a library and considered putting off the search until I was rested—say, next week sometime. On the other hand, I reminded myself that what goes up always comes down, and that included the price of gold.
Hamline University was the oldest university in the state, actually opening its doors a good three years before the University of Minnesota. Leonidas Lent Hamline, an Ohio attorney who eventually became a Methodist bishop, founded it in 1854 in Red Wing with a twenty-five-thousand-dollar grant. It moved to St. Paul in 1880. At one time the Hamline Village, as the campus was known, had its own railroad station. Now it was squeezed so tightly into a few city blocks that most of its student body was forced to live on the school grounds because there was no room for commuters to park.
I found an empty stall in a crowded visitors’ parking lot and walked a block and a half to a blond-stone building with the name HAMLINE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW printed in huge letters above the door. The library took up a chunk of the second floor and most of the third. Two things about it surprised me. The first was the silence. I had never been in rooms that were so large with so many people that were so quiet. The second was a sign that was placed at strategic locations throughout the sprawling chambers: PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE YOUR VALUABLES UNATTENDED. The idea that students studying the law should fear being robbed by other aspiring lawyers made me smile in a smart-ass, isn’t-life-ironic sort of way. Like most people, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with attorneys my entire adult life.
I went to the desk, where a handsome black woman asked if she could be of help to me. I told her I wanted to see Ramsey County Attorney Michael F. Kinkead’s legal papers. She told me she had never heard of him. I told her that Kinkead’s family donated his papers to the library the year the law school was established.
“Really?”
“That’s what the Web site said,” I told her.
“Whose Web site?”
“Yours. Hamline University’s.”
She thought there must have been a mistake because, to her knowledge, the law library didn’t possess any private collections. Still, she directed me to the office of a reference librarian who also wanted to know what she could do for me. I stood in her doorway, and we pretty much repeated the entire conversation I had had with the black woman verbatim. Eventually, the librarian went to her telephone and contacted the Acquisitions Department. She told them what I had told her. Apparently, Acquisitions didn’t know what I was talking about, either. The librarian was transferred to another party, and we started all over again. This time the outcome was different.
“What box?” the librarian said into the phone.
A few minutes later, she led me to the third floor, where a Native American woman told me that there was a box with a sticker bearing Kinkead’s name in an unoccupied office.
“It was never put on the shelf because it was never processed, not after all these years,” she said. “It was never processed because no one could determine a connection between the man and the university. Nor could anyone determine the value of the collection, if there is one. It’s just been sitting there. The box.”
I asked if I could sort through it, and she said, “Be my guest.” So I did, stacking the countless files on the top of an empty desk as I went along. It took a couple of hours because I kept stopping my search to read material that I found interesting even though it had nothing to do with what I was looking for. Eventually, I discovered a copy of a memo Kinkead had written that was dated September 2, 1936. The memo was addressed to Wallace Ness Jamie.
Jamie was the nephew of famed “Untouchable” Eliot Ness and had been a dedicated criminologist in his own right. He and a team of investigators had been hired by the St. Paul Daily News to help expose the rampant police corruption that existed in the city. His efforts proved wildly successful. Working with the full authority of the public safety commissioner, Jamie had installed bugs and wiretaps throughout police headquarters. He recorded over twenty-five hundred conversations generating more than three thousand pages, single-spaced, of incriminating transcripts. Not only did they result in dozens of criminal indictments, they also clearly re
vealed to the readers of the Daily News just how corrupt they had allowed their city to become.
Now, the memo said, Kinkead was offering Jamie, a man outside the current legal establishment of Ramsey County, a new job. He wanted Jamie to discover the identity of the informant in the Ramsey County attorney’s office who had sold Brent Messer to the underworld.
I kept searching.
I couldn’t find Jamie’s reply to the job offer. However, I did locate a letter that was sent to Kinkead from Public Safety Commissioner H. E. Warren dated September 23, 1936, the day after Kathryn Dahlin and her family returned to St. Paul. I read it twice, then asked if I could make a photocopy. The Native American woman had no problem with that. I copied the letter, carefully folded it, and placed it in my inside jacket pocket. Afterward, I packed up Kinkead’s box and returned it to its corner in the empty office.
Signs in the law library had requested that all cell phones be turned off or at least put on vibrate. Mine was vibrating while I walked to my car.
“Mr. McKenzie,” Timothy Dahlin said.
“Mr. Dahlin,” I said in reply. “What can I do for you?”
“McKenzie, you are a man wise to the world.”
“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”
“I need your help.”
“That is a compliment.”
“I would like you to drop the charges against Allen Frans.”
“Why would I do a foolish thing like that?”
“Your quarrel is with me, not the young man.”
“Allen broke into my house. He carried a gun into my home. I take that personally.”
“He was acting at my behest.”
“No doubt.”
“Isn’t it enough that you have given my name to the police, that you have implicated me in a murder investigation? Isn’t it enough that you have plagued me with discourteous TV reporters?”
I began to laugh. I’m sure Dahlin found my behavior rude, yet the image of Bobby Dunston and Kelly Bressandes asking questions and demanding Dahlin answer them filled me with glee.
“McKenzie, must Allen be made to pay for my sins?” Dahlin said.
“He broke my back door.”
“Of course you will allow me to pay for its repair.”
“Mr. Dahlin, I read Kathryn’s letters.”
“You have them?”
“Had. I gave them to the police.”
“No.”
“They are evidence in a murder investigation, after all. However, I made copies.”
“I want to see them.”
“You’re welcome to them. Just so you know, though, I’ve read the letters. I’ve done other research as well.” I thought about Warren’s letter to Kinkead and decided to keep it to myself. “I understand why you’re so angry, why you’re desperate to keep your family history a secret. I guess I don’t blame you. Probably I would do the same. The thing is, you have nothing to fear from me. I have no desire to embarrass you or anyone else. I keep telling you that, but you don’t want to believe me.”
Dahlin paused a few moments before he said, “I believe you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What about Allen?”
“What about him?”
“He’s a good boy.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he is. All right. I’ll take care of it.”
St. Anthony became a township in 1861 and a village in 1945. In 1974, the state legislature decided that all of the “villages” in Minnesota would henceforth be designated as “cities.” Most of the townspeople refused to accept the state’s edict, insisting instead on retaining its original name. That is why it is now known to most people as “the City of St. Anthony Village.”
If that wasn’t enough, St. Anthony is divided between two distinct counties. About fifty-five hundred residents live in Hennepin County, and about twenty-five hundred more live in Ramsey County. They pay different property taxes and receive different services. And you thought your hometown was quirky.
I know this stuff because I almost went to work for the St. Anthony Police Department. It was a couple of years ago, and I was still missing my job with the St. Paul cops—missing the action, missing the camaraderie. Bart Casey was in charge, and he was having the same problem as a lot of small suburban departments, retaining his veteran officers. There are only so many slots in a small department, and unless someone retires or gets fired, it’s hard to move up. So a lot of Casey’s officers, once they learned their trade, took better-paying jobs with St. Paul, Minneapolis, or the counties. I met Casey during a murder investigation, and he liked me, liked that I had eleven years and eight months on the job. He offered me a gig as chief of detectives, which sounded much grander than it actually was—the investigative unit numbered only four. Still, I was very impressed with those three words, chief of detectives. I came this close to taking the job. To this day I don’t know why I didn’t.
I met Sergeant Martin Sigford just inside the secured door of the ultramodern, energy-efficient building that housed the police department, city hall, finance department, community center, parks and recreation department, municipal liquor operations, and water treatment plant.
“I’ve been waiting on you,” he said. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve been busy.”
“Not me. I have nothing better to do than wait on you all day. Anyway, we discovered that the suspect’s name is Allen Frans. Beyond that, he’s not talking. I’m told his big-ticket lawyer is on his way.”
“You still have him?”
“Yeah, I got him in a holding cell. I called your Lieutenant Dunston in St. Paul. The gun we secured isn’t the same caliber as the one that shot Berglund, but Dunston wanted to talk to Frans anyway. Only he isn’t talking.”
“Yeah, about that.”
“What?”
“Sarge, there’s been a terrible, terrible mistake.”
“You sonuvabitch,” he said.
It occurred to me then why I turned down Casey’s job offer. Independence. I wanted the freedom to use my own judgment. If I had been a cop, I never would have helped Ivy, or messed with Bobby, or made a deal with Dahlin. I never, ever would have considered letting Allen walk. Maybe Bobby’s description to Kelly Bressandes was correct. Maybe I had become an unscrupulous miscreant with morally questionable judgment.
On the way home I called G. K. Bonalay.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“McKenzie, we’re going to have to establish some rules. You’re paying Ivy Flynn’s bills, but I’m her attorney. Not yours. You don’t get privileged information.”
“I understand. I won’t kibitz, I promised. I just wanted to know what’s happened to her.”
“Nothing, yet. Ivy claims she’s innocent and refuses to turn herself in for a crime she claims she did not commit, and the St. Paul Police Department has made no attempt whatsoever to arrest her.”
“It’s just a matter of time,” I said.
“Not necessarily.”
“What do you mean?”
“I appreciate that you’ve known Ivy for a couple of years, that you’re friends,” G. K. said. “I know you think she killed Josh Berglund. I’ve looked her in the eye when she says it’s not true. I believe her.”
Nina took a sip of Pinot Noir and scrunched up her face.
“What?” I said.
“Considering how much money you have, it amazes me that you insist on buying cheap wine.”
“Cheap? I paid twenty-eight fifty for this at Big Top Liquors.” Nina rolled her eyes at me. “If I had known you had such demanding tastes when we met—”
She kissed my cheek. “You still would have fallen for me head over heels,” she said.
She had me there.
Nina was sitting up in my bed, in my arms, her back resting against my chest, my back against the headboard. The photocopies I had made of Kathryn’s letters were scattered on the bed and floor around us. We had read them each again, yet they had no
t led us any closer to Jelly’s gold than they had the first time we read them.
“Why do you think the answer is here?” Nina said.
“Josh Berglund thought the answer was here.”
“He was wrong.” Nina took another sip of her wine, this time without the dramatics. I drank some of mine. It tasted just fine to me.
“I’m missing something,” I said. “Something fundamental. I can feel it. I just don’t know what it is.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, McKenzie. I suppose we could read all seventy-three letters again.”
“Wait. What did you say?”
Nina turned in my arms. “I said we could read all seventy-three letters—”
“Seventy-three letters? Why did you say seventy-three?”
“We counted them, remember? Downstairs in the dining room the night we got them.”
I slapped my forehead with the flat of my hand. “Dummkopf,” I said, which was about all the German I knew. I rolled off the bed and put on my robe.
“What are you doing?” Nina asked.
“I want to count the letters again.”
“Why?”
“Because there should be seventy-four.”
Nina slid off the bed and began to help me collect the photocopies we had carelessly scattered. She didn’t put on a robe, which I appreciated very much. After we gathered the letters, we counted them carefully. Twice. There were seventy-three.
“Which one is missing?” Nina asked.
To find out, we arranged the letters in chronological order and examined the dates. Kathryn had faithfully written her sister, Rose, once every two weeks. Except we discovered a four-week gap. On August 30, Kathryn wrote I do not know what to do because Messer wouldn’t give her a divorce. On September 29, she wrote I am free!
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