Shadow Girl

by Gerry Schmitt

  “And we need to know what they were doing that night,” Max said. “I mean, if they were in surgery, had their hands inside somebody’s guts, then we can probably eliminate them as a suspect.”

  Manchester offered them a wintery smile. “I’m afraid my hands are tied. The hospital rules are quite clear.”

  “You realize,” Max said, “this is a police investigation. Three people have died here at your hospital.” His shoe moved again. Thunk, thunk, thunk.

  Manchester shook her head. “It’s simply not possible.” Now she sounded cranky, veering toward snippy.

  Max looked over at Afton and lifted a shoulder. “Here we go again.”

  “Who do you think I should call first?” Afton asked. “The president of the university, Governor Lindsay, or . . . who’s the director here again?”

  “A guy named Todd Edwards,” Max said.

  They’d both pulled out their phones and were talking casually, as if Manchester didn’t even exist.

  “Or do you want to make this exciting and play a little Russian roulette?” Max asked. “You take the university president, I’ll do the governor, and we’ll see who gets through first.”

  Manchester held up a hand. “Stop. The records are yours. Just take them and leave.”

  21

  HACK was tipped back on a rickety black folding chair, smoking an unfiltered Camel cigarette and sucking down a can of Red Bull when his burner phone buzzed.

  “Huh?” He fished the phone out of his shirt pocket and looked at the screen. Well, well, his contact at the hospital was calling him. Imagine that. He stabbed the On button. “Yeah?”

  “Do you know who this is?” his contact asked.

  “Course I do. It’s Zach, right? We met over at the Triangle Bar a couple of nights ago.”

  “Um . . . what?”

  “Relax, buddy, I’m just messin’ with your head. Sure, I know who this is. Now what the hell do you want?”

  “As you might imagine, the police have been all over this place, pulling people aside, asking questions.”

  “I’m sure they have. What did you think was going to happen, big-ass explosion like that?”

  “Yes, well . . . you didn’t give me any warning about the other thing. The incident last night.” The man’s voice had gone hard and almost petulant. “There are serious consequences now. The police have obtained a list of all the people who were on duty Tuesday night as well as last night. They’re working through it, questioning every nurse or doctor who was on the transplant team, as well as talking to all the techs and support staff who worked in or around the OR and on the VIP floor.”

  “Life sucks and then you die,” Hack said. He snorted, turned his head, and spat a phlegmy glob onto the cement at his feet.

  “The reason I called . . . I’m going to require another payment.”

  “I don’t know,” Hack said. “I’m a cash-and-carry kind of guy. I give you cash, you carry out the job. That’s it. The way I see it, our arrangement is a done deal.”

  “The thing is, I may have to lay low for a while. Or explore other job opportunities.”

  “Can you do that?” Hack tried to sound concerned. “Lay low for a while? Because now that you mention it, that might be best for everyone involved.”

  “I can do that, yeah,” the contact said. “But, like I said, I’m gonna need some more money.”

  “How much more?”

  “Another twenty grand.” There was no hinting, there was no hedging. The man just spit out the number as if he’d been rehearsing his request for the last hour and a half.

  Hack let loose a low whistle. “Big number. This ain’t carte blanche, my friend. Your request for additional funds is gonna require an executive decision. I’ll have to clear it with my boss. I need to—how do you say it?—take a meeting.”

  “When can you do that?”

  “Soon. Now. So hows about you call me back in ten or fifteen minutes? Can you do that?”

  “Of course, yes.”

  Hack punched the Off button on his phone and tucked it back into his shirt pocket. He lit up another cigarette and watched as a freight train lumbered past, not more than fifty yards from the loading dock where he was perched. It was a big sucker with four green-and-yellow locomotives pulling god knew how many grungy-looking, oil-streaked tanker cars. Reminded him of how it used to be on the docks in Duluth. Years back, in the good old taconite mining days, there were lots of trains coming and going at all hours of the day and night. Now activity had dwindled to just a few grain and coal trains.

  Twelve minutes later, Hack’s phone rang. He thumbed it on and said, “Yeah?”

  “It’s me again.”

  No shit. Hack tried to inject a spark of excitement into his voice. “Guess what, buddy? This is your lucky day. I talked to my employer and she approved your extra twenty grand.”

  “She did? That’s great.”

  “But make no mistake about it, this is your final payment. After this you can never come back to us again. Agreed?”

  “Sure, sure, that’s no problem.”

  Hack knew it would definitely be a problem if they gave this asshole what he wanted. He would always be back . . . cajoling, threatening. But Hack let his contact rattle on anyway.

  “So, will you FedEx the money or . . . ?”

  “No, no,” Hack said. “I’m gonna give you an address . . . You got a pencil and paper so you can write this all down?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Okay, I’m gonna give you an address and you’re gonna meet me there tonight at nine o’clock.”

  “Can we make it ten? I have to work.”

  “Sure, that’s okay. So you’ll get your money then—I’ll make sure of it.” Hack gave him the address, enunciating slowly and carefully as he watched the tail end of the train disappear slowly down the tracks.

  “Thank you. I’ll see you tonight.”

  Hack grinned. “I look forward to finishing up our business.” Was he ever.

  22

  THE list of names Afton and Max brought back from the hospital created a nice stir of optimism.

  “These are all the people who were working Tuesday night?” Farmer asked. He was sitting at a communal desk in the middle of Homicide, pecking away at a computer. Another detective, Walter Hostetler, was going over the NTSB report. Looking for any nit or nat they could possibly use.

  “That’s right,” Afton said. “The lady at the university was thrilled to hand it over. Delighted to help us in any way possible.”

  “I’ll bet she was,” Farmer said. Her grabbed the list out of Afton’s hands and scanned it quickly. “We gotta tear this thing apart and interview everybody and his brother-in-law. Everybody and his house cat. We should have been on this like stink on a skunk yesterday.”

  “What’s with the animal metaphors?” Afton asked.

  Farmer barely heard her. “Huh?”

  “Hey, dufus,” Max said. “That guy Sammy who spotted the decal on the red car. Did he come in yet?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Farmer said.

  “Did you get anywhere with that?”

  “Me and Hostetler showed him a whole bunch of possibilities. You know, emblems, gang signs, logos, graffiti tags, the works,” Farmer said.

  “Everything we had in our database,” Hostetler said, jumping into the conversation. “But Sammy didn’t seem to flash on any of them.”

  “You’re going to keep working that angle though, right?” Afton asked. “Maybe access the FBI database or the BCA’s?” The BCA was Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. “They might have something that we don’t.”

  “Sure,” Farmer said. “Whatever.” He stuck a red pen in the corner of his mouth and chewed at it. “What about your guy Barber? Still no sign of him?”

  “Not yet. Anybody here got anything?” Afton asked.

  Farmer shook his head. “Haven’t heard a thing. So I’m thinking . . . the worst?”

  “You can’t ever think that
way,” Afton said. “We have to stay positive.”

  “Excuse me,” Farmer said, “but do you really think you’re cut out for law enforcement? I mean, what’s with this rah-rah cheerleader-positivity business?”

  “She has to stay positive,” Hostetler said. “She usually works with crime victims.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Farmer said. “I forgot that.” He poked a finger at Afton. “You hang around Max so much, I figured you already scored a gold shield.”

  “She’s helping me keep track of my notes and correlate reports,” Max grunted. “Now. Can we please get back to business?”

  “I thought we were,” Farmer said.

  “What baffles me about this whole thing,” Max said, “is motive. Are these two attacks personal or is someone trying to take down the entire company?”

  “Hard to take down an entire corporation,” Afton said. “There have been instances where two or three top executives of a company were killed in a small plane crash and the company still keeps going. In manufacturing or retail, once everything’s set in motion, the entity more or less runs itself.”

  “You been reading Forbes?” Farmer asked. “Getting your MBA in night school?”

  Afton gave him a crooked grin. “You never know.”

  “Maybe that shopping network has been juicing the numbers,” Max said. “Trying to make the profits look better than they really are. And somebody got wise to it.”

  They got to work then, calling the names on the list, setting up interview times. Afton went back to her own cubicle and made a couple of calls. Checking in with the families of victims that she’d worked with previously. One woman, Flossie Tyler, had just lost her son, a fourteen-year-old who had been slowly going deaf. Her son had taught himself American Sign Language and, one night on a street corner, a gang of local thugs misinterpreted his hand motions and thought he was making gang signs. They’d shot him at point-blank range. Heartbreaking.

  Afton talked to Flossie, fighting to hold back tears, then made two more calls. One was to a guy, Chip Anderson, to break a date for Friday night. Chip was an okay guy who she’d been halfheartedly seeing. Problem was, he constantly referred to himself as a foodie and was forever extolling the virtues of Minneapolis as a, quote, foodie town. He’d informed her that San Francisco and Chicago were having semi-foodie moments, too, but Minneapolis was far superior since it wasn’t nearly as snobby as San Francisco and definitely not as blue collar as Chicago. Afton had good friends in San Francisco and had once enjoyed a memorable dinner at Alinea in Chicago, so she was pretty sure good old Chip was full of crap. Besides, he seemed lukewarm about her kids. Yeah, that definitely made for a deal breaker. Her daughters trumped a dinner of charcuterie, sunchoke velouté, and Kobe beef any day.

  Just as Afton was feeling bored and making angry doodles on a yellow pad, she was struck with an idea.

  Hotfooting it into the break room, she deposited four quarters into the coffee machine and waited until a cup of burnt, too-strong coffee poured out. Then she carried it in to Max and set it down next to him.

  Max looked up from his desk and sniffed like a hungry wolf. “Mmn. Crispy jitter juice—my favorite. You must want something.”

  “We should put a tap on Jay Barber’s home phone,” Afton said.

  “What brought this on?”

  “What if Barber isn’t the innocent victim we think he is? What if Barber staged his own kidnapping? What if the little woman is in on it?”

  Max picked up his cup of coffee, took a sip, and grinned at the bitter taste. “Interesting concept. Why would he do that?”

  “Maybe Barber is somehow involved in this mess. Maybe he’s the one who masterminded the helicopter crash to get rid of Odin. Maybe he’s a slimy guy who’s just trying to capitalize on Odin’s death.” Afton stopped and took a breath. “Anyway, think about how it could play out. Barber disappears for a while, then turns up eventually looking all bedraggled and spouting some cock-and-bull story about being held prisoner in some dark dungeon. A story that will deflect the investigation away from himself.”

  “Now you’re starting to think like a criminal, you know that?”

  “Thank you.”

  They batted ideas back and forth for another fifteen minutes. When Darlene, Thacker’s temp, walked through, Afton said, “Is he treating you okay?”

  “He claims he can’t find anything,” Darlene said. “Like I’m supposed to magically know what’s in his files.”

  “He’s just stressed,” Afton said, “because his regular assistant is on maternity leave. Give him a chance.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Afton glanced through Dillon’s notes on Consolidated Sports, but he didn’t think there was anything there.

  Then, just as they all started to run low on energy, a sort of mid-afternoon slump, Dillon came hustling in, the legs of his cheap polyester slacks rubbing together and whistling like a demented tea kettle.

  “Got something,” Dillon said, his voice rising with excitement.

  Max sat up in his chair. “What is it?”

  “Test results on that cigarette filter that Joe Jelenick picked up at the noodle factory.”

  “So it didn’t turn out to be your generic Marlboro?” Afton said.

  “Not at all,” Dillon said, looking pleased. “On a hunch, Jelenick e-mailed some photos of the filter to the San Francisco FBI office. We figured their crime-lab guys might be able to get a handle on it. We got their answer back a few minutes ago.”

  Max lifted an eyebrow. “So, what is it?”

  “The filter’s from a cigarette called Double Happiness, a brand that’s manufactured in China and sold widely across Asia. I’m talking China, South Korea, Thailand, places like that.”

  “Is it sold here?” Afton asked.

  “Here in the Twin Cities?” Dillon said. “No, we don’t believe so. We just checked with the few smoke shops that are still in business and none of those places carry them. But Double Happiness cigarettes are definitely sold on the West Coast in a few specialized smoke shops, especially the ones located in major cities where there’s a high concentration of Asian-Americans. Like LA and San Francisco. Maybe Vancouver.”

  “Still, that butt could have belonged to one of the cooks at the noodle factory,” Max said.

  Dillon shook his head. “I don’t think so. We received word from INS that those guys are fine, all perfectly legal. Plus, they’ve all been here, working in this country, for at least six to eight months. Unless they brought in a containerized freight–load of cigarettes, that butt probably wasn’t theirs.” He paused. “There’s another aspect to this cigarette business.”

  “What’s that?” Afton asked.

  “Turns out Double Happiness cigarettes are expensive. Our West Coast guy tells me they cost something like a hundred and thirty yuan a pack.”

  “How much is that?” Max asked.

  “Approximately twenty dollars in Chinese currency.”

  “So twenty bucks a pack,” Afton said. “That’s an expensive pack of cigarettes. Probably more than the average kitchen worker can afford.”

  “More than most people can afford,” Max said.

  “Apparently Mao used to smoke them,” Dillon said.

  Farmer squinted at him. “Who dat?”

  “Chairman Mao,” Dillon said. “You know, that Cultural Revolution guy? The one Andy Warhol did all the colored portraits of?”

  “Oh, that guy.”

  • • •

  AFTON was running down names and addresses on the shared computer when Thacker burst into the room. “Listen up!” he shouted. “We got a couple of breaks here.” He looked excited. The collar of his jacket was askew and his tie had flown back over one shoulder. As if he’d come rocketing down the hallway.

  Everyone turned to face him.

  “What’s up?” Dillon asked. “Please tell me we got a line on that crackhead who keeps setting Dumpster fires.”

  “Better than that,” Thacker said. “One of
our units located what they believe is one of Jay Barber’s running shoes.”

  “Bingo,” Max said.

  “Where’d they find it?” Afton asked.

  “In a bunch of bushes near Lake Harriet,” Thacker said. “A size eleven blue-and-white Saucony running shoe.”

  “Did they show the shoe to his wife?” Afton asked.

  “They’re running it over to her right now,” Thacker said. “But there’s no question that it’s his. The unit called her right away and she remembered that Barber was wearing those particular shoes this morning.”

  “Hot damn,” Max said. “So somebody took him for sure.”

  “There’s more,” Thacker said. “And this is big. We just got a hit on the suspect description we sent out this morning. Personnel manager from the Hotel Itasca called. She’s pretty sure two of their hotel guests match our description—an Asian man and an older American woman. They’ve been staying there for a couple of days, occupying one of the larger suites.”

  “That has to be them,” Afton said.

  “Which hotel did you say?” Max asked.

  “Hotel Itasca,” Thacker said. “Over on the river near all those new condos. Just down from the Guthrie Theater.”

  “That’s a pretty fancy place,” Afton said.

  “Are the two people still there?” Max asked.

  “The caller didn’t say. This lady was in a blind panic. She was hyperventilating and babbling about how she had to notify her security guy.”

  “Let’s go!” Max yelled. Everybody jumped to their feet in a mad rush, eager to be in on a possible bust.

  Thacker held up a finger. “Wait one.”

  “Wait for what?” Afton asked. “If they’re still there, we’ve got them.”

  “Nobody’s taking a step inside that hotel lobby unless an entry team goes in first.”

  23

  WHAT the hell?” the desk clerk cried out when he saw four SWAT officers charging across the contemporary and very minimalist lobby of the Hotel Itasca. The SWAT guys wore full body armor and tinted face shields, and looked as if they were ready to engage in a gun battle in the streets of Fallujah. “What’s the meaning of this?” he sputtered. “Who are you people?”