Curse of the Jade Lily (26 page)

“One-handed, I doubt I could shoot a heavy-caliber gun accurately,” I said.

“Fuck,” Herzog said, holding the word like the last note of a power ballad. At least he didn’t call me a pussy.

“You drive,” I said.

I handed him the keys to my Jeep Cherokee. I had switched vehicles with Nina again. She had driven off in her Lexus after giving me her keys to my car and house.

“Where we goin’?” Herzog asked.

“Minneapolis Police Department.”

“Say what?”

“Don’t worry, Herzy. You can wait in the car.”

*   *   *

Lieutenant Rask was waiting for me when I limped into his office in room 108 of Minneapolis City Hall. He was so happy to see me that he left me standing there on my sprained ankle, completely ignoring my presence while he read a file on his desk. When he finished, he leaned back in his chair, propped his feet on the desk, locked the fingers of his hands behind his head, and announced, “I’m this close to throwing your ass in jail.”

“What charge?”

“Conspiring to receive stolen property.”

“If you arrest me, you’ll need to arrest everyone else, including Branko Pozderac and Jonathan Hemsted.”

“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.”

“Tell me why you’re really angry, Clay,” I said.

“I told you not to call me that.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m angry because you didn’t contact me when the artnappers set up the exchange like you promised.”

“I didn’t have time.”

“Bullshit. Bullshit, McKenzie. There was plenty of time. You could have made time. Instead, the bastards blow up a fucking motel and we have nothing. Nothing, McKenzie.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t?” Rask stared at me for a few beats. “Why wouldn’t you say that?”

“May I sit down?”

Rask’s eyes went from the empty chair in front of his desk to me, then back to the chair. He waved his hand as if he didn’t care if I stood, sat, or went to Wisconsin. I sat, trying hard to keep my back straight. I was actually happier to take the weight off my throbbing ankle than my aching shoulder, but Rask didn’t care about that.

“How’s your collarbone?” he asked.

“It’s broken, LT.”

“You’re lucky you’re not dead.”

“I don’t feel lucky.”

“Talk to me, McKenzie.”

“Have you ever heard the phrase ‘plausible deniability’?”

“Are you trying to be funny?”

“People keep asking that. No, I’m not trying to be funny. I’m just trying to avoid going to jail while I make your case.”

“Oh? You’re going to make my case, are you? Which case? Tell me. I have so many.”

“Who killed Scott Noehring, that case. Who killed Patrick Tarpley, that case, too.”

Rask shook his head slowly and muttered, “Uh-uh, uh-uh, no way. You don’t keep things from me.”

“I told you last week when you dragged me into this that I was high maintenance.”

“You think I’m fucking Bobby Dunston? I’m not going to play this game with you, McKenzie.”

“I’m sorry. Aren’t you the one who told me to get the Lily back—which I believe is conspiring to receive stolen property? Aren’t you the one who told me to get intel on the artnappers in order to help you in the Noehring investigation?”

“Oh, you’re helping me, is that what you’re doing? You’re withholding information because you’re helping me.”

“Give me a couple of days and then I’ll tell you everything.”

The way he shook his head, I knew Rask wasn’t buying it, so I played my ace.

“Give me a couple of days, LT, and I’ll throw in a sweetener.”

“What sweetener?”

“Pozderac and Hemsted on a silver platter.”

I could see that Rask liked the idea. He rolled the thought over his tongue like a piece of Amedei chocolate but wouldn’t swallow it.

“Pozderac has diplomatic immunity,” he said.

“Maybe not. Neither Pozderac nor Hemsted, for that matter, is here representing his country. They’re both just a couple of punks looking for a payoff.”

“I can’t touch them.”

“You might not be able to, but the FBI … That’s a different matter.”

“Have you spoken to the FBI?”

“Yes, I have.”

“What is their position?”

“They would love to arrange a perp walk with these two clowns.”

Yeah, I know; I was laying it on pretty thick, but Rask seemed to like it.

“I wouldn’t mind seeing that myself,” he said. “All right, what do you need from me?”

“You said you had a photo of the man who registered at the motel.”

Rask glanced around his cluttered desk, found a large white envelope, and removed a color photograph that looked like it had had been printed on white office stock with a laser printer. I gave the photo a long, hard look. It was a man in his midtwenties; dark-skinned, maybe Hispanic, maybe not, although I was sure the boys in Arizona would pick him up just to be sure. There was something familiar about him, only I couldn’t place it.

“Know him?” Rask asked.

“Never saw him before in my life.”

He thrust his face at me. There was a hard warning in his eyes. “Are you sure about that?”

I couldn’t imagine what I had done to make him so suspicious of me.

“I’m sure,” I said.

“If you say so.”

I held up the photo. “Can I keep this?” I asked.

“Frame it if you want.”

While I carefully folded it and slipped it into my inside jacket pocket, I said, “Last time we spoke you were waiting on a ballistics report.”

“Yeah, the gun—the bullets that killed Patrick Tarpley and Lieutenant Noehring were fired from the same piece,” he said. “A .25.”

“Then it wasn’t a professional shooter.”

“No. A pro would never have kept the gun. Anyone who watches
CSI
would know not to keep the gun.”

“If the shooter didn’t dump the weapon after the first killing, odds are he didn’t dump it after the second.”

“From your lips to God’s ear,” Rask said. “The question is, where do we look for it?”

*   *   *

It was a long walk down the marble corridor from room 108 to the Fifth Street entrance of the Minneapolis City Hall, and I was feeling light-headed and a little dizzy by the time I reached it, not unlike the way you do when you get up too fast after lying on a couch for a while. Except the feeling didn’t go away after a few moments. It stayed with me while I pushed open the door and descended the steps to the street. The tracks for the Hiawatha light rail line ran along Fifth, but I didn’t notice them. I walked across the tracks and into Fifth Street, and then two strong arms yanked me forward, pulling me out of the street and pushing me up against an SUV. I felt the jagged ends of my fractured collarbone rubbing together. My blurred vision became a flashing red light.

“What the fuck, McKenzie?” a voice shouted at me.

“Huh?”

“McKenzie?”

My head cleared and the world came into sharp focus.

“McKenzie,” Herzog said again and gave me a shake.

“Don’t do that,” I said. “Shaking a guy with a concussion is not a good thing.”

Not to mention a fractured clavicle,
my inner voice said.

“Fuckin’ A, man. You almos’ got hit by a fuckin’ train.”

It was cold. Herzog’s words condensed into clouds that rose up in the air between us. I tilted my head so I could follow the clouds.

“I did?” I said.

“Didn’ you see it?”

My body began to tremble. I leaned forward, despite the excruciating pain in my shoulder, and rested my right hand against my thigh. My disorientation had been replaced by a feeling of nausea. Herzog stepped back as if he were afraid of getting splattered by vomit. I didn’t throw up, though. Instead, I slowly straightened up and leaned against the SUV. It was mine, by the way, the Jeep Cherokee.

“McKenzie, you look white as a ghost,” Herzog said.

“They’d love me over at Rickie’s, then,” I said. “Goddammit, my shoulder hurts.”

“We should git you home, git you to a hospital or somethin’.”

“Just give me a second.”

I straightened my back as best I could while still leaning against the Cherokee and took long, deep breaths, exhaling slowly.

“McKenzie,” a voice called.

It wasn’t Herzog’s.

My eyes snapped open. Kelly Bressandes was fast approaching. I closed my eyes again.

“Crap,” I said. “See if there are cameras, see if she has sound equipment.”

“McKenzie, it is you,” Bressandes said as soon as she was near. “My God, you look terrible.”

I opened my eyes and smiled. The smile took a lot of effort.

“You, on the other hand, look gorgeous,” I said. She was wearing a black trench coat that was cinched tightly at the waist so the world would know she had curves even if the world couldn’t see them under the coat. Her legs were bare—“the best legs on television,” a cop once told me. “What brings you here on such a cold day?”

“The cops are part of my beat,” she said. “McKenzie, we spoke in the hospital, remember? What happened to you? I know you were in the explosion at the motel. I was told that you went there to retrieve a stolen art object called the Jade Lily.”

“Who told you that?” I asked.

Herzog leaned and whispered in my ear. “We good,” he said.

The reporter’s eyes went from me to Herzog and back again. “I can’t reveal my sources,” she said. “You know that.”

“You the one that’s on TV,” Herzog said. “You look better in person.”

Bressandes smiled brightly. “Well, thank you, sir,” she said.

“I saw that thing you did on them dogs ’at were abused,” Herzog said. “’At was terrible. Not you, not you. I mean about the dogs. Wha’ happened about that?”

“The owner is going to jail. Sentencing should be tomorrow.”

“Jail is where he belong.”

Throughout the exchange, I continued to breathe slowly and deeply. I don’t know if my color returned. I was starting to feel better, though.

“McKenzie,” Bressandes said, “tell me about the Jade Lily.”

“Tell me who your source is.”

“I can’t.”

“That’s okay, I’m pretty sure I already know.”

“McKenzie, I want to interview you on camera.”

“No.”

“Off the record, then.”

“No.”

“I’m going to do the story anyway.”

“And say what?”

“That the Jade Lily was stolen from the City of Lakes Art Museum a week ago Sunday night by Patrick Tarpley, who was murdered by his partners. That the thieves demanded a ransom of one-third of the object’s value. That you were hired to retrieve it. That you went to the motel Saturday to make the exchange. That a bomb was set in the room where the Lily was kept.” Bressandes moved close enough that I could smell her perfume, and she lowered her voice a couple of octaves—she just loved a conspiracy. “I’m going to report that the Lily was removed from the motel room before the bomb went off.”

“You seem well informed.”

“Is that a confirmation?”

“No.”

Her smile suggested that she didn’t believe me.

“Tell you what,” I said. “Give me a couple of days and I will not only confirm your story, I’ll not only give you all the details that you seem to be lacking, I’ll identify all the villains—and, Kelly, there are lots of villains, some of them in very high places.”

She thought about it, the smile never leaving her face.

“You promise to go on camera?” she asked.

“Broken bones and all.”

“Deal.”

To seal it, Bressandes shook my hand and then kissed my cheek.

“I love doing business with you,” she said.

She skipped down the street, crossed at the light, and entered City Hall. Herzog and I watched her go.

“Are you really goin’ on TV?” he asked.

“Hell no.”

I brought my hand to my forehead and then my cheek—I probably looked like I was checking my own temperature. The dizziness was gone, and so was the nausea, but now I had a headache.

“We gonna take you back home, what?” Herzog said.

“We’re going to ah…” I let the words form in my head before I spoke them. “There’s a marina on Lake Minnetonka. A yacht club. We’re going to meet someone.”

“On a boat? You know it’s winter, right? That the lakes are frozen?”

“Herzy, let’s assume from this moment forward that I am sound of mind.”

“’At’s askin’ a lot.”

FOURTEEN

From City Hall we worked our way to I-94 and then to I-394 heading west toward Lake Minnetonka. There was nothing pretty about the drive. Thick gray clouds blocked the sun, which made the air, the three-day-old snow, and just about everything else, for that matter, look gray, too. I tried to sit straight up in my seat. That was uncomfortable enough, but the bouncing caused by cracked pavement and potholes made it worse. Minnesota Public Radio reported that between them, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Hennepin, and Ramsey counties, and the Minnesota Department of Transportation had as many as twenty-two crews working more or less around the clock to patch the holes and cracks caused by the never-ending freeze/thaw cycle of winter. Yet you couldn’t prove it by me that they had made any progress at all, and the winter wasn’t half over!

“Pitchers and catchers don’t even report for another month,” I mumbled.

“Tell me about it,” Herzog said.

Herzy’s a baseball fan,
my inner voice said.
Who would have thunk it?

As we approached Highway 169 my cell phone rang.

“Is ’at Ella?” Herzog asked. “Fuckin’ A, it is Ella.”

I answered the phone without checking the caller ID, without thinking at all. It was a mistake.

“This is Jonathan Hemsted of the U.S. State Department,” the caller said. “We need to talk.”

You really don’t want to talk to him,
my inner voice said.

“I’m in the middle of something right now, Jon,” I said aloud.

“We need to talk immediately.”

Ahh, Christ.

“Where are you?”

“The hotel.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

I turned off my phone.

“Herzy,” I said, “there’s been a change of plans. We need to see a guy. Turn around at the next exit.”

“Is ’at Ella Fitzgerald on your ringtone?”