Shadow Girl

by Gerry Schmitt

  Thacker ruffled through a stack of papers that sat in front of him. “Damn, where is that stuff? I wish Angel was back.” Angel was his regular administrative assistant who was out on maternity leave. “Oh, here it is.” He pulled out a couple of black-and-white photos and passed them to Afton. “This is the guy, Odin.”

  Afton recognized Odin immediately. Large gray bushy eyebrows, crooked nose, steely eyes, and an attitude that projected power; as if he were one of the original Masters of the Universe. She’d seen him in the newspapers and on television, breaking ground for his corporate headquarters, acquiring smaller companies, cutting a ribbon for a new hospital wing.

  Thacker slid the rest of his pile down to Max and Afton. “There’s lots more here, too. Diamond Shopping Network is owned by Leland Odin, but he has a partner, Jay Barber, who holds a minority share. DSN is talking with underwriters about a possible IPO, which would be a very big deal for them. Plus, they’ve recently picked up a possible suitor. A business conglomerate in Saudi Arabia that’s interested in acquiring them.”

  “Saudi Arabia?” Afton said. “If the public hears Saudi Arabia, they’re immediately going to think al-Qaeda was responsible for the helicopter explosion.”

  “Maybe so. But as you can probably guess, we don’t know much about that particular connection. Yet.”

  “We’ll get on it,” Max said. He indicated the pile of research. “This is all good stuff. Where’d it come from?”

  Thacker flipped him the most recent issue of Minneapolis-St. Paul Biz News. “It wasn’t all that tricky. Seems the folks at DSN don’t just love publicity, they court it. And Odin’s online so much, he’s like a teenage girl with an Instagram account.”

  “Free publicity is always better than paid advertising,” Afton said.

  Thacker looked at her. “Who made you a marketing guru?”

  Afton shrugged. “Just paying attention to our brave new multi-platform world.”

  “Anyway,” Thacker said, “back to DSN. They’re nationwide and moving into Canadian TV. Getting bigger all the time, probably gonna give the other TV shopping networks a real run for their money.”

  “What do they sell besides commemorative coin sets and ShamWows?” Max asked.

  “I asked my wife about that this morning,” Thacker said. “She told me they hawk anything and everything. Watches, lawn furniture, turquoise jewelry, bedspreads, turtle cheesecake, socket wrench sets, fancy crystal vases.” He looked tired. “You name it, they sell it.”

  7

  SUNNY Odin looked exactly as her name implied: sunny. She had flaxen blond hair, intense blue eyes that were probably enhanced by tinted contact lenses, a heart-shaped face, and a killer figure that was either the product of excellent liposuction or hard-core crunches.

  She answered the front door herself, the lady of the manor who lived in an Italianate mansion complete with a hand-laid brick driveway on the west shore of Lake of the Isles. This was plum real estate in the wealthiest, classiest part of Minneapolis. Early lumber barons, timber barons, and beer barons had built their sprawling mansions here, up on a majestic hill overlooking downtown, the spot where rich folks always preferred to stake their claim no matter what the city.

  “Thank God you people are investigating this,” Sunny said, once Max had introduced himself and Afton. “I didn’t sleep a single wink last night, knowing that Leland’s life was hanging in the balance.”

  “Have you been able to speak with him this morning?” Afton asked.

  “Yes,” Sunny said. “My daughter and I were at the hospital first thing this morning, but they only let us see him for, like, half a minute. He’s just so weak and he’s still quite sedated.”

  “But your husband knows what happened?” Max asked.

  “He knows he didn’t get his heart, yes,” Sunny said. She put a hand to her mouth and stifled a sob. “Do you know he was practically on the table? They had him all prepped and ready for the transplant surgery, a half dozen different drugs dripping into his veins. Two surgeons and their entire team were standing by.”

  Max raised his eyebrows at Afton, indicating that she should do her thing.

  “Mrs. Odin,” Afton said. “I’m here to serve as liaison between your family and the Minneapolis Police Department. If there’s anything you need, anything at all, please don’t hesitate to contact me.” She handed Sunny one of her business cards. “I’m here to run interference for you. If you have questions, I’ll do my best to find answers. Whether it’s from the MPD or the National Transportation Safety Board”

  “Thank you,” Sunny said, fingering the card. “Right now we’re going to need all the help we can get.” Her eyes fluttered rapidly, blinking back tears, then she said, “You need to come in and meet the others. I know they have questions for you.”

  “The others?” Afton asked.

  But Sunny had already turned and was walking briskly across the white marble–tiled entryway, where an enormous bouquet of exotic flowers, purple orchids and white Oriental lilies, sat atop a white lacquered table.

  “If you’ll follow me,” Sunny’s voice floated back to them. “They’re waiting anxiously in the library.”

  • • •

  THE “they” turned out to be Sunny’s daughter, Terrell Carter, as well as DSN’s corporate attorney, Bob Steckel, and Odin’s business partner, Jay Barber. They were all seated on caramel-colored leather chairs and loveseats in a large library that was lined floor-to-ceiling with leather books.

  All the classics, it looked like to Afton: the Greek tragedies, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, F. Scott Fitzgerald. She wondered if the people who lived here really read these books or if they were just for show. Placed there by a decorator who’d bought out some poor, failing bookshop for pennies on the dollar.

  Once introductions were made, Sunny got down to brass tacks.

  “Shooting down the helicopter . . . that wasn’t just terrorism, was it? It was deliberate. Somebody knew that Odin’s heart was on board.”

  “We think so, yes,” Max said.

  “The question is, who would do that?” Sunny asked. “How would they even know?” She was chattering nervously and kept twisting and worrying a very large diamond ring. On their way over here, Afton had read the rest of the research on Leland Odin and his wife and knew that Sunny was in her late forties, almost thirty years younger than her husband, and had been a former on-air host during the early days of DSN. They were also rich as Croesus.

  Barber slid forward in his chair. With his silver-gray hair and sharply drawn features, he looked like an alert German shepherd. “You’re bringing in the FBI, aren’t you? Because this attack could have international ramifications.”

  “The FBI handles domestic issues,” Afton said. “The CIA concerns itself with international threats.”

  “Still,” Barber said, “it could have been the Saudi buyers, trying to gain some leverage in a potential sale.”

  “Is there a potential sale?” Max asked.

  “We’ve been talking to a couple of interested parties,” Barber said. He lifted both hands, fingers spread apart. “You know how it is. You build a business, make it as competitive and profitable as possible, and then you sit back and reap the rewards.”

  Afton didn’t know how it was to be a corporate big shot, but Barber’s words sounded fairly logical to her. She supposed many business owners had that same endgame in mind, the dream of cashing out big-time. “So Diamond Shopping Network was actually up for sale?” she asked.

  “For the right price,” Barber said.

  “And to the right buyer,” Sunny said.

  “Who were the other buyers?” Max asked.

  Barber and Steckel, the attorney, exchanged meaningful glances.

  “From my point of view, there was really only one serious party,” Steckel said. He was in his early fifties, thin and bespectacled, and wore a three-piece suit. Afton hadn’t seen a guy in a three-piece suit since she saw Elvis Costello in concert.

  �
��And who was that?” Max asked.

  “We took a meeting with Consolidated Sports a few weeks ago,” Steckel said. “They’d put out tentative feelers, so we sat down and talked with them.”

  “They’re a pretty big operation,” Afton said. She knew Consolidated Sports owned a chain of sporting goods stores, Sport Gear Plus, that were located all over the Midwest. She’d even bought bikes and helmets for Poppy and Tess at their south Minneapolis store.

  “Yes,” Steckel said. “Consolidated is a good outfit looking to expand. They see the future fairly clearly and know that it’s not going to be in brick-and-mortar stores. Retail is going online.” He glanced at Sunny. “It’s all going online.”

  “But you had an amicable meeting with Consolidated Sports, am I right?” Max asked. “You don’t think they’d . . . do anything. To weaken your stance or try to force your hand?”

  “I can’t imagine they would,” Barber said. “I’ve known their CEO, Jeremy Shank, for a number of years. He wouldn’t . . . well, he just wouldn’t.”

  “Who knew about Mr. Odin’s heart transplant surgery?” Afton asked.

  “Everyone,” Barber said. “It’s all Leland’s been talking about ever since his docs diagnosed his cardiomyopathy.”

  Max flipped open a small spiral notebook. “So that would be . . . ?”

  “Well, quite a few of his friends at the Metropolitan Club downtown,” Steckel said. He raised his brows and threw Afton a sideways glance. “That’s a private club.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Afton said. “We have that information.” She could spot a putdown a mile away.

  “Who else knew about Mr. Odin’s heart transplant surgery?” Max asked.

  Sunny glanced around at Barber, Steckel, and Terrell. “Who else knew?” she asked brightly.

  “Probably all the guys at his golf club,” Terrell said without looking up. She was a languid-looking dishwater blonde in a pair of faded designer jeans and a beige cashmere sweater. She hadn’t said anything until now and was busy picking at her nails and adjusting an armload of colorful, jangling bracelets. Afton wondered if the bracelets had come from DSN. Somehow she didn’t think so. Terrell struck her as a fairly high-maintenance young woman with a taste for luxury goods rather than mass market. Class not mass.

  “Leland golfs at Minnewashta Hills,” Sunny said. “He sits on their board of directors, too.” She thought for a minute. “Oh, and he’s on the board of the Northern Plains Foundation and the Children’s Cupid Charity, too.”

  “How about the people at Diamond Shopping Network?” Afton asked. “That’s going to be our next stop. How much did they know about Mr. Odin’s transplant operation?”

  Sunny put a hand to her cheek. “I honestly don’t know. I mean, they certainly knew that Leland was sick and all. He’d dramatically cut back on his hours these last couple of months.”

  “They knew he was ailing,” Barber said, as if that somehow lessened the seriousness of Odin’s cardiac issue. “We tried to contain that aspect as much as possible.”

  “Leland was very optimistic about the transplant,” Steckel said. “He was making bold plans for the future. And then yesterday, when we found out there was a donor heart available . . .” His throat seemed to constrict and go dry. “We were all simply overwhelmed with joy.”

  “What’s puzzling,” Sunny said, tapping an index finger against a white marble coffee table, “is that the people at DSN and most of Leland’s contacts weren’t privy to that particular information. They didn’t know there’d been a fatal motorcycle crash in Madison and that a donor heart had been matched and harvested. They didn’t know it was being flown in last night. So who could have . . . ?” Her words hung in the air.

  Max aimed a pen in the general direction of Sunny and her entourage. “Everybody here knew.”

  Sunny’s expression remained frozen. “I suppose that’s true.”

  “Does that mean we’re all suspects?” Barber asked.

  “Persons of interest,” Max said.

  Steckel’s jaw tightened. “We don’t need threats; we need you people to do your jobs.”

  “You don’t think one of us hired an assassin, do you?” Terrell asked. She was lounging in an eight-thousand-dollar leather Eames chair, her legs casually crossed, and didn’t look one bit nervous. In fact, she looked moderately interested. As if this little Q & A session had broken up what could have been a long, boring morning for her. “Goodness, I wouldn’t know where to look for an assassin. Maybe . . . Craigslist?”

  “You’d be surprised how easy it is to have someone killed,” Afton said. It wasn’t really, but it shut Terrell up and put thoughtful looks on the faces of everyone else.

  “Okay, let me ask you folks this,” Max said. “Can anybody give me the name of someone who didn’t want Mr. Odin to receive a new heart?”

  Those were the magic words, of course. But nobody spoke up. Sunny cupped a hand under her chin and, despite the Botox, tried to pinch her forehead together in a thoughtful, hard-working expression. Barber looked down at his shoes, which Afton decided might be Tod’s. Terrell continued to study her fingernails, as if she might be contemplating a new manicure. Steckel just looked unhappy.

  “Mr. Odin had enemies?” Max prompted. Afton thought he sounded like a sports coach, trying to hustle up some school spirit. No dice. They all just shrugged and stared at one another some more.

  “Come on, people,” Max said. “Mr. Odin must have had some enemies.”

  “I suppose he did,” Sunny said slowly. She looked pointedly at Barber, then at Steckel, but they were no help. They cleared their throats, they studied the god-awful modern artwork that hung on the far wall, they did everything but shuffle their toes in the dirt and murmur a collective Gee, I dunno.

  Finally, Steckel stepped in. “Is there a possibility it was the cygnus opponents?”

  Max lifted his pen in anticipation. Now they were getting somewhere. “Who are they, please?”

  “Sunny heads a neighborhood group that is concerned with ridding Lake of the Isles of the myriad flocks of Canada geese,” Steckel explained. “The situation is really quite dreadful. I live two blocks from here and I can personally vouch for how bad it’s gotten. Although some people—well, a lot of people who don’t actually reside in this neighborhood—claim to love the geese.”

  “The problem,” Sunny said, “is that these geese randomly waddle around our walking paths and lawns and freely deposit their droppings.”

  “Excuse me?” Max said. He put a hand to his head as if he feared his brains would blow out his ears.

  “We’ve been lobbying the local residents to go along with the relocation of the Canada geese,” Sunny said. “And then we’d replace them with a lovely flock of trumpeter swans.”

  “How’s that working for you?” Afton asked.

  Sunny looked unhappy. “So far our neighbors have been quite resistant.”

  8

  SHE’S worried about goose poop,” Max said, “while her husband is laying in the hospital with a bum ticker that could implode any moment.” He swung over into the right lane without bothering to flip on his turn signal. They were barreling west on Highway 394, passing Ridgedale Shopping Center, heading for the headquarters of the Diamond Shopping Network.

  “Maybe if you lived in Sunny’s neighborhood,” Afton said, tongue planted firmly in cheek, “you’d begin to appreciate the magnitude of her goose dilemma.” She gripped the door handle as Max rocketed past a large tanker trunk. He was a notorious speed demon, and his driving was giving her a unique brand of heart palpitations.

  “If I lived in a house like that I wouldn’t have any problems at all. Especially not Canada geese, French-Canadian geese, or any other nationality of geese. If that was my zip code, it would mean I was fat-and-sassy rich.”

  “Rich people have problems, too,” Afton said. “They’re like everybody else.” Her ex-husband, Mickey Craig, owned two luxury car dealerships and was fairly well-to-do. He was also on t
his third girlfriend in eight months and was nursing a nasty Oxycontin habit.

  “The thing is,” Max said, “rich people always have the option of buying their way out of a bad situation. If they get sick, they can high-ho themselves to a really good specialist. If they’re feeling stressed or burned out, they can whip out their American Express Gold Card and jet off to a sunny beach in Maui. If their kid is flunking geometry, they can hire a private tutor.” He stopped abruptly.

  Afton shifted in her seat to look at him. “Is one of your boys flunking geometry?” Max had two boys, Jake and Tyler. Jake, his oldest son, was a hockey all-star, but struggled to keep up his GPA.

  “Let me put it this way,” Max said. “The only pi that Jake is intimately familiar with right now is the thick-crust variety that comes from Domino’s.”

  “Sounds like you’re pretty worried about him.”

  “Probably because I work too many hours and don’t spend enough time with either of my boys.” Max worried endlessly about his kids, who were the loves of his life.

  “You could cut back,” Afton said.

  “Two words,” Max said. “College tuition. Jake’s less than stellar GPA is going to hurt any chance he has of getting a hockey scholarship, so I need to keep logging the hours. Tyler . . . well, he’s just my little gremlin guy.” He turned off onto Hillson Parkway. “And right now I’m so hungry I could chew my own foot off. In case you haven’t noticed, my deductive reasoning goes to shit when I’m hungry.”

  “So let’s stop and get something to eat.”

  “But nothing too healthy. None of that fro-yo crap or wheat shooters in a juice box.”

  “I hear you.”

  Afton knew that Max, like most other cops, didn’t like dealing with crime victims’ families. They wanted to focus on the crime itself not the messy aftermath. But Afton was interested in all aspects: the crime, the victim, the collateral damage, as well as the hunt for the killer, kidnapper, perpetrator, whatever. The whole thing fascinated her and tugged at her. Sometimes, when she was brushing Poppy’s hair or helping Tess put together a costume for her dance class, her mind would drift to a certain case, and she’d analyze the evidence they’d gathered so far. And think, What if we just went off in this direction? Yeah, she liked her job as family liaison officer just fine. For now.