From the Grave--A McKenzie Novel

by David Housewright

  Stuart Moore lived in the heart of the East Side in one of those small, affordable bungalows built during the Great Depression that had walls loaded with asbestos and lead. Several of the homes surrounding him were decorated for the holidays; his was not.

  Stuart’s front door was only a couple of steps from the boulevard, which was only a couple of steps from the street. He was sitting outside in a white plastic lawn chair despite the cold and sucking on a cigarette. I knew from the court documents that Stuart was sixty-six, yet he looked as old as his house. He also looked as if he wanted to pick a fight with someone, anyone.

  I pulled to a stop in front of the bungalow and stepped out of the Mustang.

  “What the fuck do you want?” he asked.

  “Mr. Moore?”

  “You deaf, boy? I asked you a question.”

  “I’d like to talk to you, if you’d allow it.”

  “I don’t talk to no fucking cops.”

  “Hey, man,” I said. “Do I call you names?”

  That caused Stuart to laugh, which caused him to cough, which prompted him to take a long drag of his cigarette. By then I had crossed the narrow boulevard and stood a few feet in front of him.

  “I don’t like fucking cops,” Stuart said.

  “There are days when I don’t care much for ’em myself.”

  “Who you?”

  “My name’s McKenzie.”

  I watched closely to see if he recognized my name, only his wrinkled face gave me nothing. I didn’t offer my hand; I didn’t think he’d shake it anyway.

  “Do I know you?” Stuart asked.

  “We’ve never met.”

  “Whaddaya want?”

  “Leland Hayes.”

  “Fucker’s dead.”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “Got his head shot off twenty year ago up over t’ Lake Phalen, can’t be more than a mile from here.”

  “Yeah, I heard that, too.”

  “Whaddaya wanna talk ’bout him for?”

  “Actually, what I want to talk about is the money he stole before the cops put him down.”

  Stuart laughed some more, which brought on another coughing fit followed by still another drag from his cigarette.

  “Fuckin’ one of them treasure hunter types, ain’t ya?” he said.

  “You could say that.”

  “You askin’ me where the money is? If I knew I sure as hell wouldn’t tell you. I’d go dig it up myself.”

  “Did you dig it up yourself?”

  Stuart gestured at his modest surroundings; his winter coat looked as if he had bought it from the Salvation Army.

  “Fuckin’ look like it?” he asked. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever gone more than a week or so without thinkin’ of all that cash, fuck. Wanna know what I think?”

  “I do.”

  “I think them Feds took it.”

  “The Feds?”

  “F-B-fuckin’-I, yeah. Sayin’ they can’t find it after all these years—you believe that shit?”

  I squatted down next to Stuart, setting a gloved hand on the arm of his plastic chair to steady myself.

  “Maybe they did,” I said. “If they didn’t, though—you say you’ve been thinking about this for a long time. You knew the man. What do you think he did with it?”

  “Who says I knew the man?”

  “A woman named LaToya Cane.”

  “Where have I heard—oh, yeah, the bitch what lived next door to Hayes back then. She remembered me?”

  Careful, my inner voice said. You’re not going to get the intel you came for by calling out the sonuvabitch. Save it for later.

  “Apparently you made an impression on her,” I said.

  “Yeah, I remember her, too. Good-lookin’ but racist. Wanted nothin’ to do with no white man.”

  I wonder why?

  “She was right, though,” Stuart said. “I knew Hayes. We had some business dealin’s and whatnot.”

  I took a guess on the whatnot based on what I knew of his criminal activities.

  “Pawned some stolen property, I heard.”

  Stuart Moore spread his arms wide and grinned. “We didn’t steal nothin’,” he said. “We found it. Prove it ain’t so.”

  Remember, you’re on his side.

  “Something falls off the back of a truck, what are you going to do?” I asked. “Let it just sit there in the street? It’s a traffic hazard, man.”

  Stuart smiled at me and patted my knee. At the same time, a car rolled slowly down the street. Stuart watched it creep past. I couldn’t see a face, but I could feel the driver’s eyes on us.

  “What the fuck you lookin’ at!” Stuart shouted.

  The car picked up speed and moved halfway down the block to park. A woman got out of the driver’s side carrying a white plastic bag with the red Target logo on it. She hurried to the front door of her house and let herself in.

  “You better run,” Stuart said. “Bitch. Like any man wanna touch you.”

  Keep pretending.

  “Do you get that a lot?” I asked.

  “Fuckin’ courts. Bad enough I gotta tell the cops where I live, they gotta put my name and photograph on a list you can get off the internet. Busybodies like that bitch down the street look it up and spread the word, so now everybody looks at me funny.”

  “What are you? Level Two?”

  “Yeah, fuck. It’s all bullshit. Little bitch wanted me to come into her house. Then, when mommy and daddy found out, it was all ‘he raped me, he raped me’ so she wouldn’t get into no trouble.”

  Yeah, that’s why you copped a plea instead of arguing that the sex was consensual like ninety-eight percent of the other assholes.

  “You know,” I said aloud, “it seems to me that a piece of all that money Leland stole would improve your life dramatically.”

  “How big a piece?”

  “Half?”

  “What I gotta do?”

  “Just remember, man. You know, the statute of limitations has expired. Even if you were in on the heist, the cops can’t say boo after all these years.”

  Stuart patted my knee again. “I remember better when I’ve had a drink,” he said.

  “I passed a place up on Payne Avenue coming over here. Everson’s. What is it? A block away?”

  “That’ll do. But you know what? Why don’t I meet you there in a little bit? I gotta step inside and take care of some shit.”

  “I can wait.”

  “No, no, no.” Stuart patted my knee some more. “I’ll see you there in a minute.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Everson’s Cozy Corner was one of those joints built in the 1940s with windows placed high on the walls to let daylight in without allowing the teetotalers passing by to see who was inside. Stuart said he wanted to walk there, get some exercise, which made me happy because it meant I wouldn’t have to let the asshole inside my car.

  After I parked, I went to the front door, hung around on the sidewalk for a minute, then opened the door and stepped inside. I was immediately slapped in the face by the odor of industrial disinfectant. I tried not to react to it. My shoes ground peanut shells, stale pretzels, and popcorn kernels into the thick rubber tiles that covered the floor. The tiles told me that they didn’t sweep up the debris at Everson’s, they used a hose. I tried not to react to that either.

  I found a spot at the bar, sat down, and shoved my gloves into my pockets. Before I had a chance to order, Stuart Moore arrived. He claimed the stool next to mine.

  “Shot of rye and a PBR,” he said.

  The bartender set a couple of cardboard coasters in front of us without speaking. He pointed his chin at me, his way of asking for my order. The bartender needed a shave, his eyes were unsteady, and his enormous belly strained the buttons on his shirt. I nearly asked if he was Everson before deciding that I didn’t care.

  “Jack,” I said, a tough guy’s drink. “No ice.”

  The bartender turned his back to us. I turned my ba
ck to him and perused the bar. Everson’s was racist, and you didn’t need a sign in the front window to figure it out. Sixty-four percent of the population of the East Side of St. Paul identified itself as being a member of one minority or another, yet the dozen or so men sitting at the bar and in the booths and at the small tables were all white. None of them seemed happy, either. They weren’t there for a quick midafternoon beer or to watch ESPN on the flat screen mounted in the corner above the bar. They were there to nurse their grievances against humanity and plot their revenge. It made me recall all the times I was dispatched to quell disturbances in joints just like this when I was working the Eastern District. I gave the SIG Sauer holstered behind my hip a reassuring pat.

  “You got a permit for that?” Stuart asked me.

  “You care?”

  “I’m supposed to stay outta trouble, the state says.”

  “Yeah? How’s that workin’ out?”

  Stuart started laughing again, which led to another coughing fit. There was no cigarette to lean on, but by then the bartender had served our drinks. He picked up his shot of rye, and I hoisted my glass of Jack Daniel’s.

  “Fuck it,” he said.

  Stuart threw down his shot and chased it with a couple of swallows of Pabst Blue Ribbon out of the can. Apparently Everson’s didn’t offer bottled beer, a smart policy, I decided. Having been attacked with both over the years, I can testify that aluminum cans are definitely less lethal than broken glass. I took a sip of the whiskey.

  “Your party,” Stuart said. “Whaddaya wanna know?”

  I glanced first at my watch and then at the front door while wondering if Stuart was really interested in the treasure hunt or if he was just killing time. I decided to go with my first thought.

  “The place where you’re living now, have you always lived there?” I asked.

  Stuart gave me a look as if he knew where I was going and decided not to get in the way.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Well, not always. That’s where I grew up. I moved away after I graduated from Johnson High School, but came back after I divorced my first wife.” He smiled. “And my second. I inherited it when my parents passed while I was inside and moved in permanent after I got out. Nothin’ the busybodies can do about it, neither.”

  “Were you living there twenty years ago when Hayes took the armored truck?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Hayes was spotted on Arcade Street three hours after the robbery. What was he doing on Arcade three hours after the robbery—without the money? Why wasn’t he running to Canada? Or at least Wisconsin?”

  “How should I know?”

  “My thought—he had a friend living on the East Side that he trusted enough to leave the money with.”

  Stuart thought that was awfully funny. He laughed, coughed, took a sip of beer, and laughed some more. The bartender came over and pointed at the empty shot glass. I nodded for him to refill it because Stuart was laughing too hard to do it himself.

  “Leland didn’t trust nobody,” he said. “Know why? Cuz he was the biggest fuckin’ asshole in the whole shitty world and he figured everyone was just like him.”

  “Okay.”

  Stuart leaned toward me.

  “Besides, if I had all that money—$654,321—I would’ve spent it a long fucking time ago,” he said. “Hos and blow.”

  Stuart laughed some more. The bartender refilled the shot glass, and Stuart swallowed half. At the same time, two men about Stuart’s age entered Everson’s. They stopped inside the door, looked around as if they were searching for someone they knew, saw us at the bar, and found a square table near the far wall where they could watch without looking like it. Stuart pretended not to see them. Instead, he drained his glass and took another sip of the PBR.

  “You’re buyin’, right?” he asked.

  “I am,” I said.

  I finished my own drink, motioned for the bartender, and made a circling gesture with my finger. When he stepped up to serve us another round, I pointed at the two men sitting at the table.

  “I’ve got them, too,” I said.

  That seemed to jolt Stuart, although he tried hard not to show it.

  “Are they the guys you called after you sent me away?” I asked. Stuart didn’t say. “I’m just guessing, you understand, but—Fred Herrman and Ted Poyer?”

  “You’re one smart sonuvabitch, ain’t you?” Stuart said.

  “I practice a lot when I’m alone.”

  “I bet that’s not all you do when you’re alone.”

  By then the bartender had circled the stick and was standing in front of the square table. He threw a thumb in my direction to give Stuart Moore’s friends the good news. The two men glanced at each other and made their drink selections. In the back of my mind I could hear the old man chastising me—“You never volunteer to pick up the tab until after your friends order.”

  Some people never learn, my inner voice told me.

  “Should we join your pals?” I asked. “It’d be easier to talk at a table.”

  Stuart confirmed that he agreed with me by sweeping up his shot glass and the PBR, slipping off the stool, and moving toward where the two men sat. I followed with my Jack Daniel’s.

  “Hey,” I said when we reached the table. “I’m McKenzie.” I gestured at an occupied chair. “Mind if I sit there? I have phobias.”

  The occupant glanced at his comrades. When they shrugged at him, he moved from that chair to the one positioned next to it and I sat down. My back was now to the wall, with Stuart and his pals sitting in a semicircle in front of me. Granted, each man was at least twenty years older than I was, but there were three of them, and Dave Gracie had been right the other day—I was out of practice. The SIG Sauer gave me an equalizer, but I absolutely did not want to pull it.

  “So is this one of those places where everyone knows your name?” I asked.

  “The fuck?” asked the man who vacated his chair.

  “Fred Herrman?”

  He looked at his friends each in turn, a surprised expression on his face.

  I spoke to the second man. “You’re Ted Poyer.”

  “I know you?” he asked.

  “This is fuckin’ McKenzie, like I said on the phone,” Stuart said. “He’s the one who shot Leland in the head back in the day.”

  “You do remember me,” I said.

  “I remember you, too,” Herrman said. “Leland was my friend.”

  I didn’t actually believe that, but what was I going to do? Call him a liar?

  “It’s getting to be a long time to hold a grudge,” I said. “Are you still holding a grudge?”

  Before he could answer, the bartender arrived with drinks. Herrman stared at his for a moment as if he were looking for answers in the dark liquid. He picked it up, took a sip, and set it back on the table.

  “I hate fuckin’ cops,” he said.

  “People keep telling me that,” I told him. “Truth is, I haven’t been one for a very long time now.”

  “Why’s that?” Poyer asked.

  “Let’s just say the St. Paul Police Department and I had a disagreement concerning working conditions and let it go at that.”

  The disagreement being that they wouldn’t let you collect the reward on Teachwell while you wore a badge.

  “What do you want?” Herrman asked.

  “I want to find the $654,321 that Leland Hayes hid before I shot him. Like I told Stuart here, I’ll share equally with anyone who helps me.”

  That caused the three men to communicate with each other using nods and shrugs and frowns.

  “All I know is that he didn’t leave it with me,” Stuart said.

  “Leland did come to you after the robbery, then,” I said.

  “He was lookin’ for a place to hide, like he expected me to put ’im up in my mother’s house while the world was lookin’ for ’im.”

  “Without the money?”

  “He said that he stashed it in a safe place and he’d give
me some once the heat was off. I didn’t believe him, the part where he said he’d share. I told him to fuck off. Fucker actually pulled a gun on me. Didn’t shoot, though.”

  “Why not?” Poyer asked.

  Stuart shrugged as though he couldn’t think of a single good reason.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Didn’t Leland know what he was going to do after the robbery? Didn’t he have a plan?”

  “The plan was that he wouldn’t get caught,” Herrman said. “He didn’t know Ryan would be left behind to identify him.”

  “All right, all right,” I said. “But why involve his son in the first place? I was told Ryan wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic volunteer.”

  Stuart and Herrman both stared at Poyer.

  “Because Leland was an asshole,” he said.

  “Tell ’im,” Stuart said.

  “Fuck.”

  “Tell ’im.”

  “It was supposed to be me,” Poyer said. “Look. I thought Leland was fuckin’ jokin’. We all did. Tellin’ us how he had it all mapped out, hittin’ an armored truck when it was the most vulnerable, he said. At the bank. And drivin’ away like nothin’ happened. And I’m like, sure, sure, why not? And then the day came and I’m like, are you fuckin’ crazy? It’s a goddamned armored truck. With armed guards. Even if we got away with it, the FBI would be chasin’ us forever. So he says, ‘Fuck you, I’ll take care of you later,’ and made his kid do it. I always felt bad about that. His kid. Ryan. He didn’t deserve any of this shit. He sure as hell didn’t deserve a father like Leland, treated him like shit every day of his life.”

  “Maybe Ryan knows where the money is,” Herrman said.

  “I asked him,” I said. “He said he doesn’t.”

  “He’s out of prison?” Poyer said.

  “Half a year now.”

  Poyer nodded his head as if he were glad to hear it.

  “Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, Ryan wouldn’t know,” Stuart said. “Leland wouldn’t have told him. No way. Besides, Leland left him there, didn’t he? Left him in the parking lot for the cops to catch. Didn’t give a fuck about him till later when he realized that Ryan was sure to rat him out. Said he shoulda popped Ryan before drivin’ off. Pop his own kid. Fucker. Anyway, that’s what Leland told me later, the reason he needed a place to hide until they stopped lookin’ for him.”