“But they belong to me.”
“They were never displayed, they were never insured, and twenty years from now, will you even be around to argue your case?”
When I was a rookie cop, I once had to knock on a door and tell the woman that answered that her daughter had been killed by a drunk driver. I can still hear her screams of agony and loss. Louise sounded just like her. Her voice was filled with such pain and she collapsed, just as the mother had done. I caught her before she fell and gently lowered her to the floor. She folded her body into a fetal position and wept. I held her in my arms. After a while, she ceased crying and started breathing normally. She remained on the floor, though, and I continued to hold her.
“I’m surprised the BCA hasn’t arrived by now,” I said. “The agents have questions to ask.”
“What questions?”
“About your relationship with David Montgomery.”
“I told you—”
“He fixed your water heater Tuesday.”
“That’s right. I forgot.”
“The man spent six hours working in your house the day you discovered your most valued possessions were stolen and it didn’t occur to you that he might have been involved until this moment? Not even after you learned that he had been killed?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“He was also parked outside of your house Wednesday and Thursday night.”
“Why?”
“You tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“You called him around six thirty Thursday night.”
Her body stiffened in my arms, yet she did not reply.
“What did you talk about?” I asked.
Louise shook her head slowly.
“I don’t know how to explain any of this,” she said.
“Believe me, the BCA will ask you to try.”
“McKenzie, I appreciate that we barely know each other. You’re Perrin’s friend not—not mine. But, McKenzie, tell me, please, what should I do?”
“Don’t worry. We’ll think of something.”
* * *
I was hungry when I left Louise, so I stopped at the Crooked Spoon Café. It had an enclosed rooftop bar called the Crooked Lookout. I must have caught a seam between the early evening and later evening dinner crowd because I managed to find an unoccupied table in the corner with a nice view of the harbor. The TV news crew had vanished along with Mehren and his filmmakers. A waitress appeared and I ordered pan-roasted salmon and an ale from the Castle Danger Brewery just outside of Two Harbors. I liked the ale so much that by the time the waitress returned with my salmon, I was ready for another one.
I was about three bites into the salmon when the chair across from me was pulled out and Jennica sat down.
“Hello, McKenzie.”
“Hey, sweetie.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“Not at all. Do you mind if I keep eating?”
Her response was to prop her elbows on the table, rest her head in her hands, and ask, “Are you married?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“The woman I love more than life itself was in very bad, very abusive marriage and it soured her on the institution, so now we live together in a $450,000 condominium with a view of the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis and probably always will unless she decides to move somewhere else in which case I have no doubt I’ll go with her.”
“That explains it, then.”
“Explains what?”
“Why you didn’t hit on me last night when you had the chance.”
“Here I thought it was because I’m a gentleman.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m also about twenty-five years older than you are.”
“You know where I’m from, right? In Hollywood, men hooking up with women young enough to be their daughters is a common occurrence. When was the last time you went to the movies, anyway? All the male actors are fifty and all the females are twenty.”
“I’m not from Hollywood. Besides, what would your father say?”
“He wouldn’t say anything. He’d just shoot you. ’Course, he’s not from Hollywood, either. He grew up in Kansas City. Thinks the sun rises and sets on the Royals.”
“What baseball team do you root for?”
“Los Angeles Angels.”
“Not the Dodgers?”
“Screw the Dodgers.”
“I knew there was a reason I liked you. I like your father, too. Where is he, by the way?”
“Downstairs waiting for a table. He’s buying dinner for the entire crew. We’re leaving first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Before you get an ending to your movie?”
“We’re not done. There’s plenty more to shoot. Besides, we can always come back.”
“I wish you good luck. Both you and your father.”
She stood.
I stood.
“Take care, Jennica.”
“What?” she said. “I’m not sweetie anymore?”
“You’ll always be a sweetie to me.”
She shook my hand, smiled, and said, “See you around, McKenzie.”
* * *
I lingered over my dinner, which didn’t make my waitress happy. My table was prime real estate and she was losing revenue on it. While I dawdled, I found a Wi-Fi network and checked on my Minnesota Twins. They were slugging it out with the Cleveland Indians for a playoff berth. The Royals, meanwhile, had faded after the All-Star break and were in the process of giving their September call-ups a lot of playing time.
Too bad for Mehren, my inner voice decided.
I left the waitress a tip big enough to make up for my discourtesy and made my way downstairs. Mehren and his crew had been seated at a large table across the dining room. They seemed to be having a good time. Jennica saw me and gave a wave. Mehren witnessed the wave and excused himself. He walked toward me with his hand outstretched so I felt obligated to wait on him.
Mehren shook my hand and said, “Before you leave, may I have a moment?”
“Sure.”
We stepped outside. The Blue Water Cafe was just across the street. In Grand Marais everything was just across the street.
“I know you don’t want to be in my movie,” Mehren said. “However…”
“What?”
“I’ve spoken to Mr. Flonta about you. He said if you have something tangible to contribute to the film, he’d be happy to make it worth your while.”
“Fortunately, I’m independently wealthy so that kind of offer doesn’t mean as much to me as it used to.”
“I know that about you. I also know that you’ll occasionally involve yourself in a criminal investigation to help a friend. All I want to do is film it.”
“Are we friends?”
“You and my daughter seem chummy and she’s one of the producers.”
“Stop it.”
“Seriously, if you do find those paintings, I’d make it worth your while to talk about it on film. If money doesn’t interest you, we’ll think of something else.”
“Did Jennica tell you that she and I had made a deal?”
“She did. She also told me that she and her camera kept you from taking a beating.”
“No. No beating. It was only two against one. Anyway, listen—tell Jennica that I’ll keep my promise even though she broke hers.”
“You will?”
“Sure.”
“Give her an interview, but not me?”
“That’s the deal.”
Mehren thought that was funny. While he laughed, he said, “My daughter. I knew I should have sent her back to school. All right, okay, that’s the deal. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I haven’t found the paintings yet. The way things are going, I probably won’t.”
“I have a great deal of faith in you.”
Geezus, my inner voice said. That’s exactly what Perrin Stewart said. It’s how you go
t into this mess.
“Just between you and me and the light post, though,” Mehren said. “Why do you think Louise changed her mind about contacting the media?”
“Why does anyone contact the media? She wanted attention.”
“I’m in the attention business, McKenzie. It still doesn’t make sense to me.”
“See you around, Hollywood,” I said, just to be obnoxious. “Too bad about your Royals.”
“Kansas City won the World Series a couple of years ago. What has your team done, lately?”
He had me there.
* * *
I decided that Deputy Wurzer was onto something about the stars. You could only see the largest of them in the city because there was so much light pollution. Yet on the North Shore, even the tiniest was bright enough that you felt you could reach out and touch it.
After parking my Mustang, I passed through my room, going from the back door to the front door, into the horseshoe, down the gently sloping hill, and across Highway 61 to the lakeshore, all so I could get a better look at the stars.
That’s when they came at me, like guard dogs with their vocal cords cut, attacking without barking out a warning first. I felt the hard blow to my solar plexus before I even knew they were there. I collapsed onto the gravel and sand. Two men pulled me up by my arms. A third said, “McKenzie.”
My first reaction was embarrassment. How could I have been so careless; how could I have not have known of their approach? I had been paying attention ever since I joined the cops. What the hell was wrong with me now?
My second was fear. The man had used my name, which meant I hadn’t stumbled into a random mugging although, seriously, how many random muggings were there on the North Shore of Lake Superior?
These are not the guys from the Dairy Queen, my inner voice told me, although their goal appeared to be the same. I found that out when the third man moved close enough to me that I could smell the tobacco and beer on his breath.
“You shouldn’t poke your nose into other people’s business,” he said.
I knew what was coming and I tried to move my arms to protect myself, but his two companions held them fast. I tensed my stomach muscles and that helped some as he hit me just above my belt line.
He enjoyed it so much that he drove his fist into my stomach a second time. My knees buckled and I began to retch. I would have fallen if the men holding my arms hadn’t kept me upright.
The third man stepped close again. He grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked upward. My head went with it until my face was close to his face.
“What did I say?” he asked.
“I shouldn’t poke my head into other people’s business.”
“What do you say?”
“All right.”
“Huh?”
“You want me out of it, I’m out of it.”
“You trying to be cute?”
“I’m trying not to get hurt any more. Listen, I’m way too old for this shit.”
They must have thought that was funny because all three of them chuckled.
“You’re not as tough as I was told,” the third man said.
“Who told you I was tough? No one who knows me.”
“Just to be sure…”
The third man hit me again, this time in the face.
I muttered a few obscenities. Apparently, he thought I was swearing at him because he hit me again. I could feel my teeth loosen and my mouth fill with blood.
The other two men released my arms and I crumpled onto the lakeshore. I rolled immediately into a ball to protect my head and my groin from the kicks that I knew were coming. My experience, guys like these always kick you when you’re down.
That’s when she screamed, a woman who was walking on the beach hand in hand with her boyfriend beneath the starlit sky.
She screamed more than once.
Truthfully, I lost count of how many times she screamed while her boyfriend stood there with what I assumed was a perplexed expression on his face.
The three attackers disappeared into the night almost as silently as they had come.
The boyfriend tightened his grip on his girlfriend’s hand and pulled her toward the lights of the Frontier Motel, not bothering at all to see what condition my condition was in. I didn’t blame him. In fact, I would have done the same thing—make sure the person I cared most about was safe before I started caring about someone else.
By then the woman’s screams had attracted the attention of my fellow motel guests. Some came to their windows and looked out. A few more enthusiastic types actually stepped out of their rooms and approached the screaming woman who by now had stopped screaming.
I managed to get to my knees. After a few moments, I was standing. I stumbled across the lakeshore to the highway and across the highway to the gentle slope. That’s where a few guests reached me.
“What happened?” they asked.
“Are you hurt?” they asked.
A woman I recognized as one of the motel’s owners pulled one of my arms around her shoulder and slid her arm around my waist and began helping me to my room.
“I called the sheriff,” she said.
The woman and her boyfriend watched from a distance.
“Are you the one who screamed?” I asked.
She nodded vigorously.
“Thank you.”
* * *
I sat on the corner of the bed while the woman who owned the motel tended my wounds, mostly with ice and antiseptic, as if she had done this sort of thing many times before. She didn’t ask me who or what or why, only where, and once she was satisfied that the attack didn’t occur on Frontier Motel property, she stopped asking questions altogether.
After a few minutes, the door was knocked on and Deputy Wurzer entered my room. I chuckled when I saw his face even though it hurt both my stomach and mouth to do so. He smiled in return.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll take it from here.”
The woman nodded and made for the door.
Wurzer asked, “Are you all right?”
“Fit as a fiddle and ready for love,” I said.
The woman frowned as she stepped outside, but then I sometimes have that effect on people.
“Seriously, McKenzie,” Wurzer said. “Are you all right? I wouldn’t want to be accused of refusing medical attention to a suspect.”
“I’m a suspect?”
“No one outside is sure who started the fight.”
“It wasn’t a fight, Deputy. It was a beatdown.”
“You’re saying someone taught you a lesson? Well, well…”
“Is that what they call felony assault up here in Cook County?”
“Can you identify your assailants?”
Again I flashed on the guys outside the Dairy Queen.
“No,” I said. “It was too dark. There were three of them, though; men about my size. Only one spoke. I doubt I’d recognize his voice if he walked through the door right now and asked who ordered pizza. It could have been you for all I know.”
“Me? I was at the Law Enforcement Center drinking Eileen’s coffee when the call came in.”
“I’d be surprised if you weren’t,” I said. “I notice you’re not writing anything down.”
“Tell me something worth writing down.”
“I lied.”
“What do you mean?”
“The man who hit me. He said I should stop poking my nose in other people’s business. I told him if he wanted me out of it, I’d stay out of it. I lied.”
“Of course you did. What business, exactly?”
“What do you think?”
“You tell me.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
“Do I look like I’m trying to be funny?”
“I’m investigating Montgomery’s murder. What else?”
“Sheriff Bowland told me an hour ago that neither the county coroner nor the BCA are convinced that Montgomery was murdered. He said there’s a good chance
that his death will eventually be ruled a suicide. Which means tuning you up can only work against the killer—if there is a killer. So, yeah, what else? Who have you pissed off besides me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think about it.”
Could this be about the burglaries? my inner voice asked.
“I don’t know,” I repeated.
“The men who came at you obviously knew you were staying at the Frontier. Who knew that?”
That’s a law-dog question. Is Wurzer actually trying to do his job?
“It wasn’t a secret,” I said.
The deputy grabbed my chin and turned my face so he could get a good look at it. I knocked his hand away. He smirked.
“You think you’re so damn smart, doncha?” he said.
“Actually, I have very serious self-esteem issues.”
“I told you not to interfere in police business. You didn’t listen. As far as I’m concerned, you got what you deserve.” Deputy Wurzer stared at me for a few more beats, shook his head, and made for the door. “Some people need more than one lesson. Some people get more than one lesson.”
“Oh, I learned my lesson, Deputy. I learned it well.”
His response was to smirk yet again.
“If you think of something useful, give me a shout,” he said. “I don’t much care what happens to you, McKenzie, but a tourist getting mugged is bad for the town image.”
* * *
I stepped into the bathroom and fiddled with my teeth. None of them were broken. The left side of my face was swollen, though, and while there weren’t any broken bones, I was sure there would be bruising in the morning. I absolutely knew I could expect a black-and-blue stomach, yet that seemed more or less intact, too.
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