Penance

by David Housewright

  “I’m sorry, Miss Monroe. My heart belongs to Debbie. It was the first impression that did it.”

  C. C. giggled some more and followed Deborah outside.

  “Close the door,” Marion told me. I did. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I had a rather disagreeable encounter with an associate of yours last night,” I told her.

  “I know. He called me.”

  “Did you have a pleasant conversation?”

  “We did not.”

  “Pity.”

  Marion did not waste any time. “I could see to it that you lose your license, that you never work as a private investigator again,” she said.

  “Is that what you told Freddie?”

  “I mean it.”

  “I know you do and if you and C. C. had already won the election I’d be plenty worried. But since you haven’t and since I’m in a position to help see that you don’t …” I shrugged.

  Marion pursed her lips and tapped her toe. “How?” she asked.

  “There’s something you should know about Freddie,” I replied. “He’d love to see his name in the newspaper.”

  Marion leaned back; the chair creaked under her bulk and I wondered what advice Deborah would give her.

  “All right, how much?”

  “There you go,” I told her, “making assumptions based on a first impression. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

  “Goddamn it, Taylor! How much?”

  I’ve never had a lot of money, so it’s easy for me to get along without it, easy for me to put my hands behind my head and say, “Marion, I’m for rent, but I’m not for sale.”

  “Ten thousand dollars,” Marion bid.

  I shook my head knowing full well that, like everyone else, I probably did have a price. I just didn’t know how high it was …

  “Fifteen,” Marion said.

  And I didn’t want to find out. “I don’t want your money,” I told her.

  “What do you want?”

  “Information.”

  “What information?” Marion asked, obviously preferring to give me money instead.

  “Where were you and C. C. Friday night between nine and midnight?”

  “Mankato,” she answered without hesitation.

  “Witnesses?”

  “About twenty-five hundred, not counting those who saw us on TV.”

  “Mankato is an hour’s drive,” I said, thinking out loud.

  “More like an hour and a half,” Marion volunteered. “Galen Pivec drove us there and back in the Buick. Why?” she asked, then answered herself. “That’s when Thoreau was shot, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  Marion smiled. I smiled back.

  “Of course, we have no idea where Freddie was, do we?”

  “Mr. Taylor. If I had wanted to kill Dennis Thoreau or have him killed for the videotape, I would have the videotape. I certainly would not have called you or …”

  “Your friend in the police department,” I volunteered.

  “Exactly.”

  “You never spoke with Dennis Thoreau yourself, did you?”

  “What are you suggesting?” Marion asked.

  “Nothing much,” I shrugged. Then I added, “You told me that Joseph Sherman never contacted C. C.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “That’s what you said,” I repeated. “Only I know for a fact that Sherman spoke with C. C. on Thursday.”

  Marion opened her mouth but nothing came out.

  “Didn’t she tell you?”

  Again Marion had nothing to say.

  “You once told me that you were in charge around her,” I said as I rose from the chair. “I’m beginning to doubt it. I’ll be seeing you, Marion.”

  I was halfway to the door when I had another thought. “Why didn’t you have Freddie deliver the money to Thoreau?”

  “Freddie was hired to expose secrets, not keep them,” Marion answered without looking up.

  Made sense.

  TWENTY-TWO

  TO LOOK AT RANDY you would never guess that he cleared over a quarter million dollars a year, drove a Volvo and owned a brick house in Mendota Heights. Instead, you would look at his out-of-date clothes, his sleep-starved face, the nicotine stains between his fingers and the quirky-jerky way his eyes moved and assume he was probably just a seedy little bookie—which, of course, is exactly what he was.

  He was waiting outside my office. “Where have you been?” he wanted to know.

  “What’s new?” I asked him.

  “What’s new is I haven’t got my money is what’s new. Where’s my money? I want my money.”

  “If you don’t mind my saying so,” I told him as I unlocked the door, “you really ought to get a hobby.”

  “Always with the cracks, Taylor. Where’s my money?”

  “It’s not Friday yet,” I reminded him.

  “I know what day it is. Jeezus Christ, don’t you think I know what day it is?”

  “Calm down.”

  “I’ll be calm when I get my money.”

  I never gambled when I was on the force and I’m not a big gambler now; one hundred bucks—a honey bee—is my weekly limit, and only when I have it. Randy likes me because I’m not hard to find when I lose and I don’t camp on his doorstep when I win. And because I once kinda-sorta saved his life.

  We were leaving Donahue’s on a bright summer afternoon nearly three years ago when a middle-aged man, well dressed in a thousand-dollar suit, pushed Randy against the wall and called him a sonuvabitch. He had one hand in his jacket pocket, pretending it was a gun, pointing the pocket at Randy’s head. Randy flattened against the building in absolute terror and slid slowly to the sidewalk, bringing his knees to his chest, never taking his eyes off the pocket.

  “You have a problem?” I asked the assailant calmly.

  He motioned with the pocket. “You too. Up against the wall.”

  “You watch too many James Cagney movies,” I told him.

  “Move or I’ll shoot,” he said.

  I reached under my own jacket and unholstered the Beretta, letting it hang at my side. “You won’t … but I might,” I said. The man took his hand out of the pocket. It was empty. “On the sidewalk, next to him,” I ordered. The man sat next to Randy. Randy tried to get up but I shoved him down again.

  “Maybe you two should talk.”

  They did, but not to each other.

  “He owes me five K,” claimed Randy.

  “He threatened my children,” the man protested.

  “I did not.”

  “He did, too. He had someone call my office and when I said hello all the caller did was recite the names and ages of my two girls and where they went to school and what they were wearing when they left the house.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Randy protested.

  “Of course it was,” I agreed. Randy would never hurt anyone. But threaten? That’s easy and Randy likes what’s easy. I looked down at the gambler. While I holstered the Beretta I told him, “So, now you know what kind of people you’re dealing with. Do you have what you owe?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then pay it and get out. Get yourself in treatment if you have to. Don’t ever let me see you again. Go.”

  The man scrambled to his feet with as much dignity as he could muster and walked quickly away.

  “As for you,” I said to Randy, “you don’t mess with a guy’s family. What’s the matter with you? Families are off-limits.”

  “I wasn’t going to hurt anyone.”

  “No, neither was he.”

  “Why do I hang out with you?” I asked Randy as he paced my office.

  “We’re friends,” he answered casually.

  “No, we’re not.”

  “Sure, we are. And let’s face it, you don’t have many friends; you’re just not that likable.”

  “I have lots of friends,” I protested.

  “No, you don’t. You just know a lot of people.”

&
nbsp; “Go away, Randy,” I told him and he did—after reminding me yet again that he wanted his money.

  I told Randy I would get him his money and I meant it. Only I was embarrassed. I was a detective, for God’s sake, a finder of things. Yet I had found nothing during this investigation, things had found me: John Brown, Dennis Thoreau, Amy Lamb. I had been shot at, pistol-whipped, mugged, threatened, manipulated, lied to and generally snookered. And all the while I’d just stood there with my mouth hanging open. Well, those days are over, pal. It was time I took charge. Randy would just have to wait.

  I sat down at my PC. I could do this one of two ways. I could call up directories myself and drag Dennis Thoreau’s name through them; find out what this guy was about, maybe learn enough to start asking a few intelligent questions for a change. Or I could access an information service and have them do it for me. Both options were expensive and time consuming, only with the latter it wasn’t my time. I typed a list of questions I wanted answered into my disk drive, a standard deep-background investigation, and zapped the questions to a national information service based in Austin, Texas. I informed the service I wanted the answers delivered to my electronic mailbox. Some of them would take a while. DMV information usually takes twenty-four hours. A complete financial history often takes forty-eight. As for the rest, I told the service I wanted what they had when they had it.

  In the meantime …

  Heather Schrotenboer answered her doorbell on the third ring. When she opened the door, I went inside without asking permission. She didn’t seem surprised to see me.

  Finding her address was easy enough. I simply did a song and dance for the University of Minnesota registrar and was directed to an off-campus apartment building near Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis. It was a nifty apartment in an attractive neighborhood—not at all what you would expect from the average graduate student. But then, Heather Schrotenboer was anything but average.

  “Hi,” she said, like I was the boyfriend she’d been expecting for brunch. “Want some eggs?”

  “No,” I told her curtly.

  “Juice?”

  “Listen, kid,” I said, trying to sound casual, trying not to give her the pleasure of an overt threat, “I realize you’re having a real swell time with this, but I just had a visit from Guido the Killer Bookie and if he doesn’t get his seventy-two fifty-five tomorrow, he’s liable to shoot you.”

  “You wouldn’t let him do that, would you?” she asked, doing a near perfect Kathleen Turner impersonation as she sashayed across the room toward me. She lightly fingered the lapels of my jacket and tilted her head up expectantly. I leaned down. When our lips were nearly touching I said, “Yes, I would,” and stepped away.

  “But why?” she asked, playing the dumb blonde. Only she wasn’t dumb. Reckless, maybe; careless, certainly, but most definitely not dumb. I was angry now, a parent angry with a small child who simply will not listen.

  “Why did you call McGaney and tell him I wasn’t with you Saturday night?”

  “McGaney? Oh, the cop. Taylor, I was frustrated and angry. I thought you loved me and then you …”

  “Huh, what? Wait a minute …”

  “You do care for me, don’t you? Maybe just a little?”

  “No.”

  “You say that, but you don’t mean that. I know something happened when we met, something wonderful, I could feel it. I’ve been naughty, I admit it. Only you and I …” A solitary tear slowly trailed down her cheek.

  She was good, I had to give her credit, trying to confuse my loyalties, playing to my middle-aged vanity. There was a time when her stratagem might have been successful. Times change.

  “Heather, you know all those psychology textbooks you’ve been studying? I read them, too.”

  She had no response to that.

  “Tomorrow,” I said. “Seven thousand two hundred and fifty-five dollars. I’ll be here at noon to get it.”

  I left her alone in the middle of the room, watching me. She was one of those few people whom you could actually see think. What she was thinking I had no idea.

  TWENTY-THREE

  IT WAS SURPRISINGLY quiet in the claustrophobic waiting room outside the U.S. Trustee’s hearing room in Federal Bankruptcy Court. Everyone spoke in whispers, as if they were attending a funeral—everyone except a lawyer dressed in a two-thousand-dollar Armani who moved from one group to another, asking questions and collecting money. “Do you have a check for me?” he asked a woman who was unable or unwilling to make eye contact. She handed him a check and he gave her a receipt, writing something on the corner of her file envelope and tearing it off. “How about you? You have any money for me?” he asked the next man, who was sitting ramrod straight.

  “I’ve already paid in full,” the man informed him.

  “Let me shake your hand,” the Armani said and he did. The man grinned; he wasn’t like the others, he wasn’t a deadbeat.

  All the chairs lining the walls had been taken and knots of people stood nervously, filling the remainder of the available space. It took a while before I spotted Cynthia Grey sitting in the corner and holding the hand of a woman who looked like a corpse. I caught her eye and she nodded. I juked and jived through the crowd toward her, brushing the shoulder of the Armani.

  “You looking for Sam Halvorson?” he asked.

  “No, is he lost?” I said in reply and he turned back to a file he was reading.

  “Livestock?” I heard him asking a couple fidgeting in their chairs before him.

  “Three cows, eight hens and a goat,” the husband answered.

  “Well, you’ll be able to keep the animals,” Halvorson told them. “Also, Wards and the bank are willing to let you keep your credit cards if you agree to pay off your debts. I recommend against it. Do you have a check for me?”

  Cynthia patted the hand of the corpse, then stood and crossed the room, meeting me halfway. “Who is this guy?” I nodded toward Halvorson.

  “Samuel A. Halvorson, attorney at law. When it comes to bankruptcy in Minnesota, he’s the best,” Cynthia said.

  “Best or biggest?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  “The court is running late,” Cynthia told me. “We’ll be up in ten minutes and then we can go to lunch. Will you wait?”

  “Forever,” I said.

  “Oh, cut it out,” she told me and went back to the corpse. Cynthia was grinning.

  I moved back to the door and waited. Halvorson was arguing with a client, an older woman who insisted on paying off her VCR. “Why do it? We’re here to eliminate your debts, that’s why we filed for bankruptcy.” When the woman kept insisting, Halvorson offered a solution. “If you don’t want to give it back, you could offer to pay for it at ten cents on the dollar,” he said with a wink. “Believe me, they’ll take it.” The woman agreed.

  Cynthia’s client was named Mary Thomas. When the bailiff called her name she jumped three feet. Cynthia led her into the hearing room. The U.S. Trustee started asking questions even before she reached the debtor’s table.

  “Have you ever filed bankruptcy before?”

  “Oh, no,” Mary answered in a pitiful voice that nearly cracked. “I was raised in a family where you always paid your debts, always. You don’t know how I suffered over this.”

  The judge nodded without looking up. He said something but I couldn’t hear him. Halvorson was standing behind me, counseling a client.

  “You’re going to get a formal notice saying your case has been discharged,” Halvorson advised. “It’ll come in the mail in about sixty days. That’s your diploma. It means you can use a checking account, a savings account. Only don’t go back to your old bank, they’re liable to be nasty. And don’t fret about any telephone calls. Just tell them that you’ve filed and that Sam Halvorson is your lawyer. If you get an unpaid notice in the mail, just write them a note saying the same thing. If you get another, toss it. If you’ve forgotten any creditors, just mail the nam
e to me along with twenty dollars and I’ll take care of it. Okay?”

  “Okay,” the client said.

  “Be sure to tell your friends about me,” Halvorson reminded him. The client said he would.

  Mary Thomas’s hearing took five minutes. She was crying when Cynthia led her past Halvorson and out of the hearing room. Halvorson chose not to notice.

  “I hate bankruptcies,” Cynthia told me as we walked down Marquette.

  “Then why do them?” I asked.

  “People need help,” Cynthia said. “This economy, over a million people will file this year.”

  “That’s discouraging.”

  “It’ll probably get worse,” she said, then added, “I’m not hungry. Is it okay if we just walk?”

  “Sure.”

  She took my hand. Yeah, walking was fine. We strolled down the avenue hand-in-hand, looking in the windows, not speaking, comfortable in our silence. Eventually we reached Orchestra Hall and then crossed over to Peavy Plaza, where we sat on the stone steps and watched tourists tossing pennies into the fountain. There were maybe three dozen people gathered around the fountain, most of them brown-bagging it. Cynthia leaned back against the stone, her eyes closed, her chin pointed up at the noon sky. After a few moments she said, almost sadly, “Did you know I made eighty thousand dollars last year?”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “I’ll probably gross even more this year,” she said. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Then why do it?”

  “It’s an identity thing, it’s being able to say, ‘I’m a successful attorney.’ That can mean a lot. Especially to a woman.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “No insult intended, Taylor, but I doubt it. I really do.”

  She was probably right.

  After a while, she said, “I wonder where Joseph Sherman is.”

  “Someone is hiding him,” I speculated. “If he’s still in the state, most likely someone is hiding him. But he’ll turn up. After a few days he’ll become bored with the hole he crawled into and come up for air; he’ll try to make a life for himself. When he does, the cops will take him. It’s just a matter of time.”