Penance
Page 20
“Can you find him?”
“Probably. Give me enough time. Only I doubt that it’s worth the effort. If he wants your help, if he wants mine, he’ll find us. That’s the only way it’s going to work.”
“Do you think he killed John Brown?”
“He had opportunity. Motive? Hell, I’ve busted guys who killed people because their radios were too loud. The important question is, did Sherman also kill Amy Lamb? My gut tells me no, but my gut has been wrong before. There’s also Dennis Thoreau to consider. I’m conducting a computer search even as we speak to see if there’s something, anything—a name, an address—that links the two men. You can bet the ranch the cops are doing the same thing.”
“I know why the police care. Why do you?” Cynthia asked.
“About Brown and Thoreau? I don’t. But whoever killed them probably killed Amy Lamb and I do care about that.”
“Why?”
“I feel partly responsible.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not particularly.”
“You’re not one of those macho guys who keep all their emotions inside, are you?”
“I show my emotions,” I reminded her. “I showed them just the other night outside Le Chateau. If I recall, you weren’t too happy about it.”
“Don’t remind me,” she said.
We did not speak for a long time after that, not until Cynthia asked, “Are you really a strong, silent, hard-boiled character, or are you just posing for me?”
“Posing?”
“Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum.”
“Robert Mitchum? I don’t think so.”
“Time will tell,” she said.
I reached out my hand and Cynthia took it. We retraced our steps, walking back to the office tower that housed the Federal Bankruptcy Court. This time the silence was awkward; we were both waiting for the other to speak.
Finally, Cynthia said, “Will I see you tonight?”
I thought she’d never ask. “That can be arranged,” I answered.
She nodded. “We are going to get involved, then.”
“We already are involved.”
“One night isn’t involvement,” Cynthia said. “It’s exercise.”
“You’re very cynical, you know that?”
“If a woman doesn’t want to see a man, she has to tell him not to call and usually that’s not enough; she also has to give reasons. It’s easier for a man. You don’t want to see a woman, you just stop seeing her, stop calling, no explanations. After a few weeks the woman realizes she’s been discarded. That happens to a woman often enough, yeah, she becomes cynical.”
“I understand,” I told her and she shook her head—there I went again, saying I understood when I probably didn’t. Only this time, I did. Absolutely.
I let go of her hand when we reached the office building. We stood outside the revolving door and kissed each other and pressed our foreheads together and I asked, “Do you really make eighty thousand dollars a year?”
“See, now that’s the kind of sweet talk a woman likes to hear.”
TWENTY-FOUR
MOST OF THE INFORMATION I wanted on Dennis Thoreau was already in my e-mail when I returned from lunch. There was a time when I hated computers, when I looked upon PIs who used them with utter contempt. Now I don’t know how I managed without one.
A quick skim gave me an outline of Thoreau’s life and times.
NAME: Thoreau, Dennis Reese.
SSN: 473-00-8118 is valid; subject has not used other SSN.
SEX: Male.
PARENTS: Raymond and Alice (Reese) T.
FAMILY: Married Meghan Chakolis; divorced after eight months; no children.
EDUCATION: H.S., Irondale, New Brighton, MN; Attended University of Minnesota; no credits.
CRIMINAL: Dis. Con., Prescott, AZ, fine & time served; DUI, Modesto, CA, fine.
CIVIL LITIGATION: No record.
DRIVER’S LICENSE NO.: Info to come.
DRIVING RECORD: Info to come.
VECHILE REGISTRATION: Info to come.
CURRENT EMPLOYMENT: Salesman, AAA Printing, 91000 Washington Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55402.
PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT: Info to come.
FINANCIAL: Current credit cards—Info to come; Chapter Seven Bankruptcy, Federal Bankruptcy Court, Salina, KS.
REAL PROPERTY: Info to come.
CIVIC/POLITICALACTIVITIES: No record. Still searching.
MILITARY: No record.
GROUPS/CLUBS/ORGANIZATIONS/AWARDS: No record. Still searching.
POLITICAL/RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION: Subject is not registered to vote; raised Methodist.
CURRENT ADDRESS: 24889 Dayton Ave., St. Paul, MN 55105 (rental property, Stephen J. Kirkus, private owner).
PREVIOUS ADDRESSES: 1127 Desnoyer Dr., New Brighton, MN; 25026 27th St. S., Minneapolis, MN; 881 Gondola Blvd., Enid, OK; 98½ President St., Prescott, AZ; 11600 Hempstead, Salina, KS; 170 Eureka Curve, Modesto, CA.
(List of six neighbors with names and phone numbers for each address above available upon request.)
“I’ll be damned,” I said aloud.
I went back to the PC. This time I did the work myself, accessing a national information service that specialized in biographical data. I input my instructions and waited, listening to the clicks and whirls of my machine.
Scanning, please wait …
Scanning, please wait …
Scanning, please wait …
Scan completed.
Press (return) to see your results … ->
Biographical Information scan results for: MEGHAN CHAKOLIS
PRESS TO SEARCH RESULTS
Format Source Type
Academic American Encyclopedia 0 full text directories
American Men & Women of Science 0 full text directories
EduDATA 1 full text directories
Everyman’s Encyclopedia 0 full text directories
Marquis Who’s Who in America 0 full text directories
S&P Register-Biographical 0 full text directories
H Database descriptions
M Main Menu
SOS on-line assistance
System is now searching the EduDATA database, copyrighted 1991
by EduDATA Education Data Service, Chicago, IL
Accessing network…………………………Completed
Accessing Database Host………………Completed
Logging on……………………………………..Completed
Logging on (second step)……………….Completed
Selecting Database………………………….Completed
Submitting Search……………………………Completed
Retrieving the only full text article available on that subject.
^S/^Q: stop/start; ^T: Paging ON; ^C/(esc):
interrupt (^=CTRL/CONTROL key)
00093478 WA42, WA43, WA44 Record
provided by: EduDATA
*Chakolis*,*Meghan* (Chakolis, Meghan Marie)
OCCUPATION(S): public relations practitioner.
BORN: New Brighton, MN.
PARENTS: Thomas and Carolynn (Pivec) C.
SEX: Female.
FAMILY: married Dennis Thoreau, divorced, children—none.
EDUCATION: B.A., U. Minnesota, degree journalism, theater. M.A., U. Minnesota, degree journalism. Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, National Honor Society.
CAREER: Assistant public relations director, St. Catherine Memorial Hospital, MN; Public relations director, Concern HMO, Minneapolis, MN; Director House Information Office, MN House of Rep., St. Paul, MN.
CIVIC/POLITICAL ACTIVITIES: Campaign director Carol Catherine Monroe (elected House of Representatives).
POLITICAL/RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION: Methodist.
ADDRESS: 1237 Glendale St., Brooklyn Center, MN.
“Taylor,” I said aloud, “you are the dumbest human being alive.”
TWENTY-FIVE
“WOULD YOU LIKE some co
ffee, Mr. Taylor?” Dot Ladner asked.
“Thank you.”
“Decaffeinated all right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I can’t drink the other stuff no more. I get nervous.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Dot filled a generous mug, set it in front of me and waited for me to taste it. I did. It wasn’t anything special.
“Delicious,” I said.
“Cookies?”
“No, thank you.”
“It’s no trouble.”
“Thank you, no, ma’am.” I patted my stomach. “Have to stay fit.”
“Oh yes, of course. I’m sorry, what did you want to know?”
“How long has Ms. Chakolis been residing here?”
“Eight years come January.”
“And you’ve been caretaker the entire time.”
“Oh yes. Like I told you before, the building is owned by my nephew so I have plenty of job security.”
“Was she living alone during the incident with Joseph Sherman?”
“Meghan? Yes, except when her husband was visiting.”
“Her husband?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Dennis Thoreau?”
Dot shrugged. “Dennis was his first name, I didn’t know his last name. I always figured it was Chakolis. You know, when I was a girl, you took the husband’s name and you kept it.”
“Yes, ma’am. However, my information suggests that Ms. Chakolis and Dennis Thoreau were divorced in March of 1980.”
“Mine, too.”
“You knew that?”
“I knew they were divorced, I didn’t know when.”
“Yet, Thoreau stayed with her?”
“Personally,” the old woman said, leaning close, “I think he was trying to patch it up with her.” Then she leaned back and added, “Very nice boy, well mannered.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Oh, six years ago. Back, like you said, when that business with Joseph Sherman took place. He left right afterward. I was sorry to see him go, too. I could have used his help.”
“You and Dennis were friends?”
“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, Mr. Taylor.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Dennis was young enough to be my own son.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Although he was as cute as the dickens.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We would talk is all and watch the soaps together. Sometimes he would bring doughnuts. He was very concerned about Erica.”
“Erica?”
“Erica Kane. On ‘All My Children.’ Are you sure you won’t have some cookies?”
“No, thank you. Why did Dennis leave? Did he tell you?”
“Meghan threw him out.”
“Is that what he said?”
Dot took a bite of cookie and answered through the crumbs, “That’s what she said.”
“Did she say why?”
“No, but I think it was pretty sudden. One day they were a happy couple, the next he was packing.”
Meghan Chakolis led me down the tunnel that connected the State Office Building with the capitol. The tunnel was brightly lit with video cameras and emergency call boxes every hundred feet.
“Tell me about Dennis Thoreau,” I told her.
“Why?”
“You were married to him.”
“Is that a question?” Meghan asked.
“No. You were married to him.”
“And divorced. A long time ago.”
“Have you seen him since?”
“Many times.”
“When was the last time?”
“The night he was killed. I went to his place after work, we had sex and I left. Is that what you wanted to know?”
“Flabbergast” is an interesting word. It’s eighteenth-century slang meaning “to make speechless with amazement; astonish.” And boy, was I flabbergasted. I stopped dead in the middle of the tunnel and gawked at her like she was the Eighth Wonder of the World.
“I have nothing to hide,” she told me.
“Apparently not.”
“I didn’t kill him.”
“Can you prove that?”
“No,” she admitted. “Fortunately, I don’t have to.”
She had me there.
“Anything else you want to know?” she asked. The smile told me she was more than willing to cooperate. Why shouldn’t she?
“Tell me about you and Thoreau,” I said.
“Dennis and I were married right after high school graduation,” Meghan volunteered. “It was a foolish thing to do, to get married so young. We went on a glorious honeymoon, rented a cozy bungalow in Minneapolis, bought a lot of stuff we couldn’t afford, began fighting and divorced. Dennis took off—I think he went to Oklahoma that time. I went back to school. He returned and I discovered that I still cared for him. Men like Dennis, you can’t stay angry at them. It’s like carrying on a vendetta with the rain. Besides, he was so much fun. The most fun I’ve ever had in my life. So, he would come and he would go and that’s the way we lived.”
“If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t seem very distraught over his death.”
“I do mind, Mr. Taylor. I mind very much.”
We were standing at the capitol end of the tunnel, where the State Capitol Security Force was headquartered. Through the window I could see a bank of TV monitors and a uniformed officer scanning them. Conan stood next to the officer. But he was watching Meghan and me. I nodded at him and led Meghan past the window.
“Dennis was living in your apartment while you were managing C. C. Monroe’s first run for the House,” I reminded her.
“For a time.”
“You threw him out.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He was cheating on me,” Meghan said.
“With whom?”
“Carol Catherine.”
Lord, she was just full of surprises.
“Yet you’re still her friend.”
Meghan sighed. “Carol Catherine and I always will be friends no matter what happens, no matter what one does to the other. Don’t you have a friend like that?”
I thought of Anne Scalasi. “One or two,” I said.
“Well, then …”
We walked some more.
“We were roommates at the University of Minnesota,” Meghan said. “We shared everything, even boyfriends. It didn’t surprise me that Carol Catherine thought the arrangement also included husbands. I don’t blame her. I blame Dennis. Besides, Dennis and I weren’t married at the time. What is it they say in basketball? No foul…”
“No harm, no foul.”
“‘No harm, no foul,’” she repeated. “Anyway, quitting Carol Catherine would not have been in my best interest.” (There was that phrase again.) “I agreed to manage her campaign for the House of Representatives for the same reason she agreed to run: to make contacts. As luck would have it, we were both very successful. She won the election and I was appointed to this position.”
We were standing in the rotunda beneath the State Capitol’s massive dome, near the center where a huge, eight-pointed star was imbedded in the marble floor. A troop of Cub Scouts leaned against the second-floor railing and looked down, half listening to a tour guide with a red, white and blue tie. Above, huge murals depicting various saints earning their sainthood graced the dome walls. Below, battle flags from the Civil War and miscellaneous Indian campaigns unfurled behind glass. Included among them was the bullet-torn flag of the First Minnesota Infantry Regiment, the regiment that saved the Union’s bacon on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, losing two hundred fifteen out of two hundred sixty-two soldiers in the process. It was displayed next to Frank B. Kellogg’s Nobel Peace Prize, earned for his work as coauthor of a pact renouncing the use of war as an “instrument of national policy.” The pact was signed August 27, 1928, by sixty-two nations. All sixty-two participated in the World War
just eleven years later. Well, at least Frank had tried.
“I’ll miss this place when I leave,” Meghan said.
“Are you leaving?”
“Eventually, I suppose. I guess I’m more like Dennis than I care to admit. I like to move around.”
“You could stay and get an appointment from Carol Catherine if she’s elected governor,” I suggested.
“You mean when, don’t you?” Meghan asked, and then shook her head. “Marion is Carol Catherine’s chief of staff and she doesn’t like me much; she thinks I’m a bad influence on Carol Catherine. When we were in school, we used to party pretty hard.”
All right, I decided, now’s a good time to let her have it, to kick down the wall of indifference she was hiding behind. “Did you know that Dennis and Carol Catherine made a pornographic movie together?”
“Sure.”
You really know how to shake up a client, don’t you, Taylor?
“Carol Catherine told me about it six years ago.”
“You weren’t upset?”
“Of course I was upset. That’s why I showed Dennis the door. But like I said, it was six years ago. It requires too much energy, too much concentration, to stay angry over something that happened six years ago.”
“Have Dennis and Carol Catherine been together since they made the tape?” I asked.
“Absolutely not!” Meghan’s answer was vehement to the point of startling me.
I had to wait a few beats before asking my next question, “Are you aware that Dennis …”
“Attempted to blackmail Carol Catherine? Of course. Carol Catherine told me everything. And in anticipation of your next question, Mr. Taylor, no, I do not believe she had anything to do with his death.”
“What do you believe?”
“I believe the newspaper’s explanation that Dennis was killed over drugs. I could see him getting involved in that; he was foolish enough.”
Meghan Chakolis was starting to annoy me the way Barry Bonds annoyed National League pitchers: She was getting good wood on everything I served up. I decided to throw her an inside curve, see if I could move her off the plate. “Dennis was endangering Carol Catherine’s campaign for the governor’s office. Perhaps Marion Senske had him killed.”