Jelly's Gold (27 page)

“I really appreciate how quickly you all responded,” I said just to be polite.

“Found dipshit here in your bedroom,” Sigford said. “So fucking busy going through your closet, he didn’t even know we were there until we drew down on him. He must really like those Armani suits of yours.”

Throughout it all, Allen stared straight ahead. If he blinked, I hadn’t noticed.

“You ever see him before?” Sigford asked.

“Can’t say that I have,” I said. “Why? Does he claim he knows me?”

“Doesn’t claim anything. Has no ID on ’im.” Sigford gave Allen an idiot slap to the back of his head. “Says he won’t even tell us his name until he’s made his phone call.”

“Was he carrying?”

Sigford held up a plastic evidence bag. Inside the bag was a silver-plated revolver.

“Man is caught by the police creeping a house while armed with a gun, what do they call that, Sarge?” I said.

“They call that aggravated burglary in the first degree, minimum sentence of forty-eight months, provided this is the first time he’s been caught.”

“A lawyer isn’t going to do this young man any good at all.”

“Never know,” Sigford said. “Might be able to plead to diminished capacity. How ’bout it, friend? Your capacity diminished?”

Allen didn’t answer.

“What do you think he was looking for, McKenzie?” Sigford asked.

“Letters.”

“Letters?”

“I believe this young man is a murderer. I believe he killed a man named Josh Berglund for the letters a couple days ago in St. Paul, and I believe the gun you have in the evidence bag is the murder weapon.”

“Fuck you say,” Sigford said.

Allen spun to face me. “I had nothing—”

“Shhhhh,” I said, holding a finger to my lips. “Wait for your lawyer.”

Allen looked away and ground his teeth some more.

“Talk to me, McKenzie,” Sigford said.

I pulled him aside and laid it out for him, telling him that he should get the gun to Bobby Dunston in St. Paul homicide as soon as possible. I told him he should hold the suspect—I didn’t identify Allen—on the burglary beef and wait until he heard what Bobby and the Ramsey County attorney’s office had to say. I said I would be giving Bobby a call myself.

Sigford said he’d like it better if I went to St. Anthony police headquarters and gave a statement to a stenographer, tape recorder, and video camera. I promised him I would do that as soon as I cleaned myself up. I had left the house after Heavenly called without shaving, brushing my teeth, or even running a comb through my hair.

“McKenzie, you are going to sign the complaint, right?” Sigford said. “You’re not going to make me go through all this work for nothing, right?”

“Would I do that to you?” I said.

“We’ve been called out here before just to have you say sorry, big mistake.”

“Not this time.”

“You’ll come down to the station?”

“In just a little bit, I promise.”

Sigford told me not to keep him waiting too long. Which would have been a good exit line except that both the cops and security guards had reports to file, so while the SAPD was transporting Allen to the cop shop, I was giving a tour of my house, making sure nothing was damaged or destroyed and confirming how Allen gained entry—he had jimmied the back door. Satisfied, they soon departed, taking their vehicles with them. That should have been enough to send my neighbors back to their homes, but just as the last SAPD cop car turned the corner, a new attraction pulled onto Hoyt Avenue and came to a halt in front of my house. A TV news van.

I glanced at my watch.

It’s been a helluva morning,
my inner voice remarked,
and it’s not even nine yet.

Kelly Bressandes fluffed her honey-colored hair, lifting it off her neck and shoulders and then letting it fall again. It was the third time she had done it since she and I settled around my kitchen table, and I was beginning to understand that it was a habit with her, along with the way she sat in the chair and angled her magnificent legs. Looking sexy without looking too sexy—apparently it was part of her journalistic training.

“More coffee?” I asked.

She nodded, and I topped off her mug. “You still haven’t answered my questions,” she said.

“Which questions?”

“All of them. Take your pick.”

“What do the police say?”

“Lieutenant Dunston said he expects to make an arrest in the Berglund killing within twenty-four hours, but he would say that, wouldn’t he?”

No, he wouldn’t,
my inner voice said.
Not Bobby.
I glanced at my watch. “When did he say it?”

“Yesterday, about five thirty for the six o’clock newscast.”
Damn. You ’re running out of time.

“You and Lieutenant Dunston are pretty tight,” Bressandes said.

“What makes you say that?”

“The way he spoke about you when I interviewed him the other day. He said you were an unscrupulous miscreant with morally questionable judgment, except I could tell that he didn’t mean it.”

“Oh, he meant it,” I said.

“Bobby—Lieutenant Dunston is married, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

Bressandes nodded as if I had confirmed a rumor she had heard. “Did you ask him that question?” I asked.

“One night, he was giving me background on a case. You might say I broached the subject.” “And?”

“He closed that door pretty quickly.”

Good for Bobby,
I thought. “I bet you knew that,” Bressandes said. “It’s never come up in conversation,” I said.

Bressandes nodded again. “Lieutenant Dunston is an honorable man,” she said.

“I suppose.”

“Are you an honorable man, McKenzie?”

“Oh, I don’t know. There are some women who could turn anyone into an unscrupulous miscreant with morally questionable judgment. You’re smart enough, pretty enough.”

“McKenzie, are you flirting with me?”

God, no,
my inner voice shouted, and then,
Yes, you were, weren’t you? You just can’t help yourself. It’s a wonder Nina puts up with you.

I said, “Ms. Bressandes, I’ll answer your questions, but only off the record.”

“Oh, c’mon.”

“I’ll tell you what I know. You can fill in the blanks and do with it what you will.”

Bressandes fluffed her hair again.

“It’s a great story,” I said.

“Start with the man who was arrested for breaking into your house,” she said.

“His name is Allen Frans. He works for Timothy Dahlin, although he’ll probably deny it.”

“Timothy Dahlin the wealthy former home mortgage guru, that Timothy Dahlin?”

“That’s the one.”

“What does he have to do with all this?”

“The letters Allen was looking for were written by Dahlin’s mother and mailed to her sister about seventy-five years ago, most of them before Dahlin was even born. Some people, including Dahlin, got it into their heads that these letters would somehow lead them to a cache of gold bullion.”

“The gold Frank Nash was supposed to have stolen and hidden in St. Paul before he was killed,” Bressandes said.

“Exactly.”

“These are the letters that Berglund was killed for?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“This Allen Frans, you say he works for Dahlin.”

“Yes.”

“You say he killed Josh Berglund.”

“Nice try,” I said. “No. I never said that. Never even suggested that.”

“He could have, though, right?”

‘There are a lot of people who could have.”

“Such as?”

“You’re going to have to ask the cops about that.”

“Give me a hint.”

“Bobby Dunston has interviewed at least nine viable suspects in addition to Dahlin and Allen Frans,” I said. “All of them have motive. You should ask Bobby for a list.”

Oh, he’ll love that,
my inner voice said.

“The letters,” Bressandes said. “Why do people think they indicate where Nash hid his gold?”

“Nash had a lot of friends among St. Paul’s high society. Dahlin’s mother was one of them. She and a few others spent time with Nash in a nightclub the evening of the day Nash pulled the robbery, and some people think he might have told her something.”

It was an abbreviated version of the truth, of course; my plan to embarrass Dahlin and implicate him in a murder didn’t include denigrating his mother. A small distinction, I suppose, yet one I would honor nonetheless.

“Where are the letters now?” Bressandes asked.

“You could say they’re in the custody of the St. Paul Police Department.”

Bressandes studied my answer for a moment before asking, “When did they gain custody?”

I glanced at my watch. “About a half hour after you leave,” I said.

“McKenzie, you have the letters. Let me see them.”

I shook my head. “The letters are personal. They don’t even hint at the gold. Why people think they do is beyond me. Just grasping at straws, I guess.”

“If you let me see them—”

“It would be unfair to Dahlin’s family.”

“McKenzie—”

“You could always talk to Dahlin himself,” I said. “He loves publicity. He’s writing a book, you know.”

Bressandes leaned back in her chair. “I’ve been at this long enough to
know when someone is trying to manipulate me, McKenzie,” she said. “You want me to pursue the story. You want me to put Dahlin in the spotlight. Why?”

“You misjudge me, Bressandes.”

“Do I?”

“Hey, you called me, I didn’t call you.”

“You know, McKenzie, I asked around,” she said. “People tell stories about you. They say you’re some kind of freelance troubleshooter. Helped the Feds, the cops; mostly you help friends, though. For free. What’s that about?”

“What can I say? I’m a helluva guy.”

“Sure you are.”

“Bressandes, when the story breaks—and it will—I’ll make sure you get an exclusive.”

She weighed my promise for a moment. “Call me Kelly,” she said. She fluffed her hair.

I sat in the kitchen after Kelly Bressandes left, thinking how tired I was, thinking how nice it would be to go upstairs and take a nap. Only the phone rang; the display told me that Heavenly was calling again.

“Now what?” I said aloud before I picked it up.

“The two men, they came back,” Heavenly said. Her voice had the same breathless quality as the first time she called. “I knew they would come back. They’re outside. They’re trying to get in—”

“Call the police,” I said.

“McKenzie, help me. McKenzie—”

The phone went dead.

I started to punch 911 into my keypad, but something made me stop after the second digit. The first time Heavenly had called me, she was genuinely frightened. This time there was fear in her voice, but somehow
it didn’t sound the same. It sounded like she had practiced what she was going to say before she said it.

I took a chance and hung up the phone without finishing the call. I cleaned up as quickly as I could, grabbed my keys, and headed for the Audi after first making a quick pit stop in my basement.

18

Because of my earlier visit, I knew exactly where Heavenly’s duplex was located. Instead of having to search for it on Fifth Street and maybe tip my hand to anyone who might be watching, I was able to park the Audi, cut through a few yards, and approach it from behind.

I was carrying a 9 mm Beretta in a holster on my right hip; I had retrieved it from the safe recessed into the floor of my basement and concealed it beneath a black sports jacket. It had been a pleasant morning, about sixty-five degrees—average for May—and I didn’t feel warm in the jacket until I was leaning against the white stucco wall on Heavenly’s side of the duplex. I wiped sweat off my hands before I pulled the Beretta and thumbed off the safety.

I remembered what I had told Ivy and Berglund back at Lori’s Coffeehouse.
I’m not going to shoot anyone. Let’s be clear about that, kids. No guns.
Yet there I was.

I began moving slowly along the wall; some of the white rubbed off onto the shoulder of my jacket, although I wouldn’t notice that until
much later. There was a small window that revealed Heavenly’s empty kitchen. I ducked beneath it and slid forward, carrying the Beretta in a two-handed grip, until I reached two windows that faced the dining and living rooms. I looked quickly, then pulled my head back. There were two men, one standing at the front window near the door, watching the street. The second was standing in that space between the two rooms, watching his friend watch the street. Their backs were to the window, so I looked again.

The first man seemed impatient, grunting at nearly every car that passed the duplex without slowing or stopping. He was holding a revolver—I couldn’t identify the make or model. He kept tapping the barrel against his thigh. The window was open, and I could hear him through the screen. “Where the hell is he?” he said. “You called him, right? You did call him?”

He turned when he spoke, and I pulled my head away from the window. I recognized him instantly—Ted. He hadn’t changed much since I tried to frighten him at Rickie’s.

“I called him,” a female voice spoke urgently in reply. “You heard me call him.”

I took a chance and glanced through the screen again. Ted had returned to his vigil at the front window. I moved my gaze to the second man. He turned to his left and looked down. It was Wally. He also had a gun in his hand, probably his .38, I decided. He was looking down at the woman seated next to him.

Heavenly’s arms and legs had been bound to a wooden chair with duct tape. Her hair was artfully disheveled, and she had changed clothes since I saw her last and was now wearing a ruffled white top and a frilly white gauze skirt—the perfect outfit for a damsel in distress.

“It bothers me that McKenzie isn’t here,” Wally said. “Are you sure he’ll come?”

“How many times do I have to tell you?” Heavenly said. “He’ll be here. He can’t help himself. He’s a born hero.”

“Then where is he?”

“Would you relax? He’ll be here. Just remember, no one gets hurt.”

“Whaddaya mean?” Wally said. He pointed at his face. “He broke my nose. He’s going to pay for that.”