Shadow Girl

by Gerry Schmitt

  “Yes?” she said. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Sammy Mah,” he said. “I wash dishes and help prep some of the food here.” He glanced sideways and eyeballed Zhang. “Except I’m guessing that, after I talk to you, I’m probably out of a job.”

  “You know anything about what went on here last night?” Afton asked as Max sidled in to join them.

  “A little bit,” Sammy said. “More than he does anyway.” He nodded in the direction of the owner, Zhang. “I don’t give a crap about that guy. He’s been screwing me blind. Screwing all the people who work here. Most of us are enrolled in school, at the University of Minnesota or Augsburg. The others have green cards, so we’re legal. But this piyan . . .”

  “What’s a piyan?” Afton asked.

  Sammy grinned. “An asshole.”

  “That’s a word that seems to translate fairly well in any language,” Max said.

  “He’s been paying us off the books,” Sammy said. “Paying us shit.”

  “Did you see the two people who were here last night?” Afton asked. “The man and the woman?”

  “I didn’t see their faces,” Sammy said. “But after I dropped a couple bags of garbage into the Dumpster on my way home, I might have caught a look at their car.”

  “Why didn’t you speak up sooner?” Max asked. “We had squads running all over this neighborhood last night.”

  “Because I wasn’t here last night. I left around seven.” Sammy looked worried. “I didn’t hear about the helicopter crash until this afternoon.”

  “But you think you might have seen their car,” Afton said. “How is that possible? You say you walked past it as you were leaving?”

  “I catch the bus just up on Cedar Avenue, and I saw a car with a driver sitting at the curb. The driver gave off this kind of nervous attitude, as if he was waiting for someone.” Sammy held up his hands in a cautionary gesture. “I’m making an assumption now that the car was waiting for the two people you’re asking about.”

  “Can you describe the driver?” Max asked.

  Sammy shook his head. “I never really saw his face.”

  “What did the car look like?” Afton asked.

  “Midsize sedan, red in color. But faded red, like it had been left out in the sun too much and the paint had oxidized.”

  “That’s it?” Max asked. “There must be a million beat-up red cars on the road. Was it a Ford, a Buick, a . . . ?”

  “It just caught my eye for a couple of seconds,” Sammy said. “So I don’t know the make or model.”

  “Not so fast,” Afton said. “There must have been something about it that made you take a longer look at it.”

  “I don’t think so,” Sammy said. “I think I remember it just because it was parked there. And the driver was kind of jittering around inside.”

  “Maybe the license plate?” Afton pressed. “A sequence of numbers that caught your eye? Maybe a bumper sticker or something?”

  Sammy’s brows puckered. “I could have seen . . . I saw . . . what would you call it, on the back window? A sticky? A sticker?”

  “A decal?” Max said.

  Sammy shot a finger at him. “Yes, I think maybe so.”

  “What was the design?” Afton asked. “Like, maybe from one of the colleges? Or one of the hospitals?” There were a university, two colleges, and four different hospitals in the surrounding area, and she figured they all issued decals for access to their parking facilities.

  But Sammy was shaking his head. “No, it wasn’t a university or hospital design. It didn’t have that academic look to it. It was more . . . artsy.”

  “Artsy?” Max said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What kind of artsy?” Afton asked. “Can you describe it?”

  Sammy closed his eyes as if trying to reconstruct the image. Finally, he said, “Maybe blue? With wings?”

  “Blue with wings,” Max said. “Air force?”

  “I don’t know,” Sammy said.

  “We need to get with the FBI,” Afton said to Max. “They maintain a database of all sorts of logos, insignias, symbols, and hallmarks.”

  “How do we get in touch with you?” Max asked. “If we need you to look at a couple of images? Maybe even as early as tomorrow?”

  “Mobile phone,” Sammy said. “Here, I’ll give you my number.”

  • • •

  THEY sent Zhang downtown in a squad car. Not because he was under arrest, but because they wanted to hook him up with a sketch artist while his memory was still relatively fresh and he would hopefully recall a few more details.

  Max got on the phone and called Thacker, told him all about the raid, Zhang the restaurant owner, and Sammy Mah. When Afton climbed into Max’s car, he said, “I’d like to take a run over to that high-rise apartment. The one where the student who shot the video lives. His name is . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to conjure it up.

  “Jason Wold. He’s getting his master’s degree in computer science.”

  “And you have the address?” Max asked.

  Afton riffled through her notebook. “Yeah, I got it right here. And I want to go along.”

  “Awright,” Max said. “Why not?”

  Just as Max started up his engine, another van rolled in. This one was shiny white with a large dish on top and a red swath across its side that read NEWSWATCH 7.

  “So, what are we waiting for?” Afton asked. She shoved her notebook in her bag, glanced up, noticed the TV van, and muttered, “Crap.”

  Portia Bourgoyne, a features reporter for Channel 7, had just jumped out of the passenger seat and was looking around for someone to nail. Afton and Max had had run-ins with Portia before, and they hadn’t been pleasant. Portia had the temperament of a pit viper.

  Portia saw Max easing his car forward and made a beeline for him just as he tried to sneak past her van without being spotted. Too late. Portia was already tapping on his side window, smiling her fake newsperson smile.

  “Portia’s like a T. rex,” Afton said. “A genuine man-eater. But if you don’t move, she can’t see you.”

  “Detective. Oh, Detective,” Portia called out. She was wearing a stylish white wool skirt suit and had her long blond hair done up in a messy topknot. On anyone else, that hairdo would look legitimately messy; on Portia it looked like she’d tumbled out of bed, fresh from a lusty encounter. Which, of course, was the perfect pseudo-sexy look for any female TV reporter who was hot on the heels of a good story.

  “Shit. I think she can see me,” Max said. “So much for the T. rex theory.”

  “Tell her we’re in a hurry.”

  Max’s window slid down an inch. “I can’t talk right now,” he told Portia. “Something on our case just broke.” He eased his car forward another few inches.

  “What you’re breaking is my ass,” Portia spit out. “I missed the five and probably the six. At least throw me something for the ten o’clock.”

  “No can do,” Max said.

  “Your media guy, Gene Hensen, told me to . . .”

  “Screw Gene Hensen,” Max said as he slid the window back up. Then he put his car in reverse and slowly backed down the alley. They could see Portia’s lips moving as they pulled away. The girl could swear like the proverbial sailor.

  “Look, Portia’s nostrils are flaring,” Afton said. “That girl is mad as hell.”

  “She can sit and spin,” Max said. He backed all the way down the narrow alley, made a K-turn, and then sped down the block. “So can Gene Hensen.” He stopped at a stop sign before turning onto Riverside. “Which way?”

  “Left. About ten blocks down. You’ll know it when you see it. It’s a fancy-schmancy high-rise. Got a doorman and everything.”

  • • •

  THIS is some place,” Max said when Jason Wold let them into his eighteenth-floor apartment. Wold’s place wasn’t your typical grad student abode; it looked more like a corporate executive lived there. Swoopy, designer-style furniture, an Aubus
son carpet that had to have run at least two grand, bookcases with hardbound books instead of dog-eared paperbacks.

  “Just out of curiosity,” Max said, “how can you afford a nice apartment like this?”

  Afton was impressed, too. When she was going to school, she’d lived with three other girls in a scuzzy old pile-of-rocks apartment near the Tenth Avenue Bridge that they called the Anthill.

  “My dad is rich,” Wold said matter-of-factly, as if he was talking about the sky being blue.

  “Must be nice,” Max said.

  “Yeah, it is,” Wold said. He was twenty-two, serious looking, and outfitted head-to-toe in Tommy Hilfiger.

  Afton and Max stepped out onto his balcony and gazed across the wide blue ribbon that formed the Mississippi River. Wold’s balcony afforded a sweeping, unobstructed view of the university hospital’s complex, which was composed of a series of several different buildings, all set at differing heights. There was a good view of the helicopter pad, too, tucked right in the middle of it all.

  An afternoon sun, as bright and bitter as a Seville orange, burned low in the western sky, its lengthening rays lighting up the windows of the hospital like golden tiles.

  “Jeez,” Max grunted. “No wonder his video captured the whole damn thing.”

  • • •

  YOU know what we should do now, don’t you?” Max asked when they were back in his car.

  “Go home and drink ourselves into a stupor?” Afton said. “Oh, wait. Silly me. I’ve got book club tonight.”

  “Knowing you, you probably talked your book club ladies into reading some true crime.”

  “You’re one to talk. You bought the boxed DVD set of Criminal Minds.” Afton paused. “But you were saying . . .”

  Max stared at her. “I think we should take a side trip over to the university hospital.”

  “To talk to . . . ?”

  “Leland Odin.”

  “I thought Odin was dying,” Afton said. “I thought his heart was on its final blip, like an old Frogger video game that was low on battery power.”

  “Look,” Max said. “The guy might be on life support, but who better for us to question than the victim himself? Think about it. If we can ask him directly who his number one enemy is, maybe we can figure out this whole thing.”

  “And you want me along for the victim’s-advocate part? The sensitivity part?”

  “That, and because you’re smart,” Max said, a slight harshness coloring his voice. “I think someday you’re going to make a hell of a good detective.”

  “Look, I’m flattered by your high hopes for my career trajectory. But it’s getting late. I gotta go home and fix dinner for my kids.”

  “Isn’t your sister there?” Max asked. “Can’t she handle it?”

  Afton thought for a couple of moments. “I suppose.” She knew this could yield some critical information. She pulled out her phone and dialed her home number. When her sister, Alisha, answered, she said, “I’m going to be late tonight. Can you make burgers for the little muggles?”

  Next to her, Max lifted an eyebrow. “Muggles?”

  Afton ignored him. “Yeah, it’s been defrosting in the fridge. Okay, thanks. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

  12

  LELAND Odin felt like a five-hundred-pound weight was pressing down on his chest. Every time he took a breath, it hurt. Every time he tried to move, it hurt even worse. Lying on his back, his eyes misting over with tears, he couldn’t believe how his life had spiraled downward. He was an invalid now, probably a dying man, trapped in a web of nonstop pain.

  How could this be happening to him? He was Leland Odin, for Christ’s sake, a powerful man, a power broker. He’d sat in the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies and traded dirty jokes with the Twin Cities’ most elite movers and shakers. He’d knocked back thirty-year-old Scotch like it was Hires root beer and smoked Cohibas smuggled in from Cuba, compliments of Raul. He belonged to Minnewashta Country Club, an uptight, white-bread Episcopalian golf club where you practically had to be born into upper-crust Wayzata society to be considered for membership.

  So what if his father had been a postal clerk and his mother a homemaker? He himself had worked two jobs to pay his way through the University of Minnesota, eventually graduating with a degree in business. He’d climbed corporate ladders, then struck out on his own and built a multimillion-dollar enterprise.

  He was a rock god of retail, for crying out loud. Not some stupid, pathetic invalid with a plastic bag full of urine hanging off the side of his bed.

  The heart transplant had been his one big shining hope. The entire time they’d been prepping him last night, he’d been planning his triumphant return. His second coming.

  And when the news came that the helicopter had crashed and his heart had been lost, all hopes were dashed. As the orderlies were wheeling him back to his room, he’d overheard them talking, whispering among themselves that the helicopter had possibly been shot down.

  That’s when he knew. As sure as shit, Leland Odin knew who was responsible for his heart being destroyed. Dr. Graham had come to him last night to tell him the terrible news in person. And even though Odin had been bleary from drugs and gagging against the pain, he’d known immediately who had masterminded the helicopter crash. Who had crushed his hopes of ever being made whole again.

  Odin shifted his shoulders slightly and every nerve and fiber within his chest strummed with pain. It felt like a demon was crouching inside his chest, barbecuing his ribs and pouring on the hot sauce.

  He cursed that bitch. Wished he’d hadn’t stupidly dismissed her as just another crazy, addle-headed woman. But he’d made a move against her, against her organization. Now she was coming after him like some kind of evil black scorpion that had crawled out of a steaming hot jungle.

  What could he do? Nothing. How could he defend himself? He couldn’t. Certainly not like this. There was security on the floor, but that meant nothing these days. Just some half-assed rent-a-cop.

  And what about Barber? Odin wondered. Now Barber was in just as deep as he was. Would the hell bitch come after Barber, too?

  What to do about it? Warn his partner? Or hope that . . .

  “Mr. Odin.”

  Someone was standing over him. Talking to him in a soft, patient voice. He turned his head and cracked open his eyes. They felt sticky and rimmed with grit.

  “You have a visitor,” the nurse said.

  He fought to make his lips form an oval. “Who?”

  Then, like a vision from a Botticelli painting, Fan Ling tiptoed into his room. She touched a cool hand to his forehead and said, “I’m here, darling.”

  “You’ve got two minutes,” the nurse whispered. “You shouldn’t even be here.”

  Odin watched as Fan Ling’s hand dipped into her handbag, pulled out a wad of bills, and passed them to the nurse. He waited until the door closed behind her, then he crooked a gnarled finger at Fan Ling. She leaned over his bed.

  Odin’s spindly white fingers crawled across the blanket to touch Fan Ling on her arm. “You’re so beautiful,” he croaked.

  “I love you, darling,” Fan Ling whispered to him. “You are my everything.”

  “God forbid . . .” Odin tapped his chest weakly. “If there isn’t another heart . . .” He stopped abruptly. The look of sadness that swept across Fan Ling’s face told him all he needed to know. There probably wouldn’t be another heart. Not one that would arrive in time anyway. He’d been told there were something like three thousand people on the general transplant list in Minnesota alone. He didn’t know how the logistics worked. Had he been kicked to the back of the line now? He wanted to ask his doctor for an answer, but was deathly afraid of what that answer would be.

  “Listen to me,” Odin whispered. It took all his strength. His head was spinning as he gasped for air, his vision narrowing and going dark.

  “What is it?” Fan Ling sounded so sorrowful as her face hovered above him.

  “If I
should . . .” Odin gasped in pain. “You need . . . account number.”

  Fan Ling leaned forward and pursed her lips. “Account number?” Her voice was suddenly a shade brighter.

  “Lockbox,” Odin wheezed.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” Fan Ling whispered. “You must never think the worst.” But she leaned in even closer as Odin gasped out the numbers, hastily committing them to memory, making sure they were etched permanently in her brain.

  13

  AFTON followed Max through the sliding glass entrance doors of the university hospital. The place was less than two blocks from the street where so many people had been injured the previous night, and the scars of that conflict were still evident: flapping yellow police tape, scorch marks on the pavement, upturned earth from where emergency vehicles had slewed to a stop and their nubby tires had dug in.

  “It’s getting late,” Afton said. “Won’t visiting hours be over?”

  “When you’re rich like Leland Odin, the same rules don’t apply,” Max said.

  “Must be nice.”

  They paused at the information desk, where a middle-aged woman with short curly hair, bright red cat’s-eye glasses, and a name tag that read MAVIS was talking on the phone.

  “. . . you take the Huron exit off I-94, then go north until you get to Fulton,” Mavis explained. She smiled nervously when she noticed Afton and Max watching her. Held up a finger as she continued to give directions.

  Afton shifted from one foot to the other. Now that they were here, now that she’d agreed to come along with Max, she was more than a little impatient to talk to Leland Odin. From everything she knew, time was critical. What’s more, Odin’s family and business associates seemed to know little to nothing about any enemies that Odin had made—or maybe they just weren’t telling. Afton was beginning to suspect the latter. It seemed nearly impossible that Odin wouldn’t have stepped on more than a few toes, or even crushed a few people like bugs. If he was that big a player, chances were he was also a corporate thug.

  “Yes?” Mavis said. Max was holding up his police ID and she was beginning to look nervous.