Pretty Girl Gone (9 page)

I headed east until I hit Lexington and hung a right. The Ford closed on my rear bumper, then fell back again. At University I hung another right and drove west. The Ford stayed with me. I caught the traffic light at Hamline. The Ford was two cars behind me. My cell rang and I answered it.

“McKenzie?” Bobby said.

“Yeah.”

“The license plate is registered to Schroeder Private Investigations. It’s a one-man shop owned by Schroeder, Gregory R.”

“PI, huh.”

“Schroeder is five-eight, 160 pounds, brown hair, hazel eyes, age fifty-five.”

“Practically a senior citizen.”

“Do you need more? I can get you more?”

“No, that’ll do. Thanks, Bobby.”

“I’ll have the girls call you later, thank you for the sno-cone machine and whatnot.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Of course it is.”

Bobby’s daughters—Victoria and Katie—were my heirs. If Schroeder, Gregory R., should put a bullet in my head, they’d get to keep my treat machines, and my cars and house, and all my money.

I deactivated the cell phone and dropped it on the bucket seat next to me. I glanced in the mirror. My assailant in the skyway had brown hair, I recalled.

Now what? I wondered.

It’s like your dear old Dad used to say,
my inner voice replied.
If you don’t ask questions, you’ll never get answers.

Ask what?

Let’s start with, why is he following you?

Sounds like a plan.

I annoyed the drivers directly behind me by driving below the speed limit. As I had intended, I caught the long stoplight at University and Snelling, probably the busiest intersection in St. Paul. I put the Audi in neutral, set the brake, opened the door, and stepped out into the street. I left my Beretta in the glove compartment. I had put it there earlier that morning because it had been my experience that after threats usually comes violence. Only this didn’t seem to be that kind of play.

The hard wind peppered my face with tiny, sharp snow crystals—it was as if the weather was warning me that this was not a smart idea. Instinctively, I closed my eyes and angled my head away from the wind.

I made my way along the line of cars to the Ford Escort. The driver of the first car I passed rolled down his window and shouted, “Hey, man, what the hell are you doing?” I ignored him.

Even though he must have seen me coming, the man in the Escort seemed surprised when I halted next to his door. I examined him through the windshield—brown hair, hazel eyes, not tall. I rapped on the driver’s-side window. Schroeder rolled it down.

“Hey, Greg,” I said. Schroeder’s eyes grew wide. “There’s a fifties-style cafe just a few blocks up University at Fairview called Andy’s Garage. Near Porky’s. Know it?”

He nodded.

“Meet me there and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

He nodded again.

I returned to the Audi before the light changed. My hands trembled just a tad, but I didn’t know if it was because of the cold or because once again I was playing fast and loose with whatever luck I had left.

I arrived first at Andy’s Garage and found a parking space in the restaurant’s tiny lot. Schroeder appeared moments later and was forced to park up the street. I was already sitting on a stool at the counter when he entered. A pretty young thing with pink and purple hair was pouring coffee when he sat next to me.

“Coffee,” Schroeder said like he was begging for an antidote to West Nile disease.

The waitress poured a generous mug.

“Bless you, child,” Schroeder said.

“Are you two together?” she asked, a perky smile on her face. She seemed genuinely pleased when Schroeder answered, “More or less.”

“Let me know if there’s anything else I can get for you.”

I paid for both coffees, but the waitress let the money rest on the counter when she left.

“So, why are you following me, Greg?” I asked.

“For practice.”

“You need it.”

“Think so?”

“I made you in what, ten minutes?”

“Try a day and ten minutes.”

I didn’t believe him.

“I picked you up at the Groveland Tap yesterday,” he added.

Yes, I did.

“The guy in the Park Avenue—he was very mediocre,” Schroeder said. “I was surprised when he got the drop on you.”

“So was I.”

I raised the coffee mug to my lips with both hands for no other reason than to keep them from shaking and studied Schroeder over the rim. His eyes were more green than hazel and they seemed tired. His hair was in want of a trim, he needed a shave, and judging by the way he poured it into his coffee mug, he had way too much sugar in his diet.

I asked, “Who are you working for?”

“Can’t tell ya.”

“C’mon, Greg. You don’t have privilege. Private investigators have no more rights than the average citizen. Fewer, in fact, if you want to keep your license.”

“That’s true. If a judge orders it, I’ll talk my head off. You wouldn’t happen to have a subpoena in your pocket, would you? No? I didn’t think so.”

“I could get one.”

“Sure you could.”

“Your honor, this man attacked me on the Minneapolis skyway and then stalked me.”

“That wasn’t me.”

“You fit the description.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“Say, ‘If you run I’ll catch you, if you hide I’ll find you.’ ”

“Is that what he said?”

“Another guy.”

“The one in the parking lot of the International Market Square?”

Jesus.

“And over the phone,” I said. “His voice was disguised. It could’ve been you.”

“It wasn’t.”

I believed him.

Schroeder decided his coffee wasn’t sweet enough and added more sugar.

“How did you learn my name?” he asked.

“I’m psychic.”

“Then you should know who I’m working for.”

He had me there.

“I know who
you’re
working for,” he told me.

“Are you psychic, too?”

“No. I’m clever, just like you.”

“We should start a club.”

“I’ll be president because I’m older and wiser.”

“Greg, why would someone want Barrett to be governor, but not U.S. senator?”

“I’ll bite. Why would someone want Barrett to be governor, but not U.S. senator?”

“Because someone wants the job but doesn’t think he could win in a stand-up fight.”

“That’s one explanation.”

“You have others?”

Schroeder nodded his head.

“Such as?”

“You tell me.”

“You’re starting to bore me, Greg.”

“Just lulling you into a sense of complacency.”

“Ah.”

“Want some advice?”

“No.”

“Tell the big boys Barrett’s a helluva guy and get out while the gettin’s good.”

“What did you say?”

Schroeder smiled the way a parent might at a child who’s made a mistake on his homework.

“The guy who attacked you—he wants you to flush Barrett, doesn’t he?”

“One does, I’m not sure about the other.”

“Now you know that there are people just as determined that you don’t.”

“Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive.”

“That sounds like the title of a book,” Schroeder said.

“I don’t suppose you have a scorecard that identifies the players and their positions.”

“Hell. I’m still trying to get your number.”

“Swell.”

“I’ll tell you this, though. You’re way over your head.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

I slid off the stool and put on my bomber jacket. Schroeder watched me while I searched my archives for something clever to say, a good parting line. Schroeder waited patiently.

“Ah, hell,” I said and left the cafe.

I drove my car out of the parking lot before Schroeder could even reach his and went west on University. Schroeder’s Ford entered the traffic lane and sped up behind me. I watched him in my mirror.

“I wasn’t paying attention yesterday,” I told his reflection. “You won’t surprise me again.”

To prove it I slipped Big Bad Voodoo Daddy into my CD player. “How about a little traveling music,” I said and cranked the volume.

I had paid nearly $45,000 for the fully loaded Audi 225 TT Coupe because of the CD player. And the seven speakers strategically located within the car. And the Napa leather interior. And the light silver color. Mostly, however, I bought it because the 1.8-liter 225-horsepower four-cylinder turbocharged engine could propel the Audi from zero to sixty in 6.3 seconds—at least that’s what the manual said. I had done much better on several occasions.

I turned left at the intersection of University and Highway 280, and took my own sweet time reaching the long, sweeping entrance ramp to I-94. Schroeder’s Ford followed, just beating the light. As if on cue, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy began laying down the opening rifts to the hard swinging “Boogie Bumper.” I downshifted and accelerated. By the time I reached the top of the ramp, I was doing seventy.

Back in what he referred to as his “sordid youth,” my father raced stock cars. He and his pal, Mr. Mosley, had put together a team that competed on dirt, clay, and asphalt ovals throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Arlington Raceway, Cedar Lake Speedway, Elko Speedway, Raceway Park in Shakopee, the Minnesota State Fair Speedway, and even Brainerd International Raceway—my father had raced them all. It was at Brainerd that he bested actor and racing aficionado Paul Newman by the length of his front bumper in a qualifying run. He had a photo to commemorate the event, Newman’s arm draped around his shoulder, the Oscar winner laughing at an off-color joke that my father never told me. It had been one of his most prized possessions and now I owned it.

Then Dad got married. His bride was ten years younger than he and openly frowned on his dangerous hobby, and when I was born, she made him swear off racing altogether. “You have a family to think of,” she told him. After my mother died when I was in the sixth grade, I thought he might take it up again, but he didn’t: A promise was a promise. Yet, while he no longer drove competitively, my dad remained a loyal fan of auto racing. He took me to Cedar Lake and Brainerd and,
one glorious Memorial Day, to the Indianapolis 500. When I was fourteen, he taught me how to drive a stick on the dirt roads Up North. I was the best driver in my class at the police academy before I even met my skills instructor, and afterward, I was better still.

Now I was shifting through all six speeds as I raced around and past the midmorning traffic on I-94, crossing from St. Paul into Minneapolis, downshifting, accelerating through the turns. The sound of a few bleating horns followed the Audi, but Dad had taught me the difference between driving fast and driving reckless. By the time I was heading south on I-35W, Schroeder and his Ford were nowhere to be seen. I didn’t care. I continued to weave in and out of traffic at speeds occasionally topping ninety miles an hour, even as I rehearsed my alibi: “Thank goodness you stopped me, officer. I need help. A man I’ve never seen before has been chasing me for miles. He’s driving a white Ford Escort, license number yada yada yada . . .”

I negotiated the congested Highway 62 interchange while Big Bad Voodoo Daddy went to town on “Go Daddy-O.” I kept driving south on 35W, crossed under I-494 and headed into Bloomington. I didn’t slow down until I was on the bridge spanning the Minnesota River and the band started playing “So Long-Farewell-Goodbye.”

I was actually chuckling out loud. The things my father taught me.

The radio was playing “Light My Fire” by the Doors. John Allen Barrett had probably listened to the same song—probably the same station—when he lived in Victoria an eternity ago. I shuddered at the thought of it.

I had lost all of my radio stations long before I reached the outskirts of the city and had already spun the two CDs I had thought to bring with me. Usually I listen to jazz or what the marketing mavens call adult contemporary and modern progressive, but none of that music seemed to penetrate deep into the southwestern corner of Minnesota. Instead, my scanner picked up two Christian stations, a “big” country music station and a “real” country music station—damned if I could tell the difference—an “active rock” station that sounded like it had been programmed by teenage girls living in Des Moines, and a talk station on which a man with a jeer in his voice ridiculed Democrats, liberals, feminists, environmentalists, the news media, the ACLU, Hollywood movies that didn’t have lots of explosions, all minorities that didn’t
speak English, and bad drivers before cycling back to the “classic rock” station. I stayed with the oldies even though the station was now playing “Knock Three Times” by Tony Orlando and Dawn.

Two highway signs told me everything I needed to know about Victoria, Minnesota. The first bragged that it was the Home of the Victoria Seven, Minnesota State High School Boys Basketball Champions. The second announced that it was the first stop in “The Ride Across Minnesota,” the five-day, 326-mile bike ride for charity that began in Pipestone and snaked its way across the width of the state from South Dakota to the Wisconsin border. The second sign was located at the bottom of a hill just inside the city limits. I didn’t see the sign or the Crown Victoria police cruiser parked next to it until I had crested the hill, and by then it was too late. The cruiser’s light bar was flashing at me before I had time to even touch my brakes.

“Good morning, Officer.”

I smiled politely after pulling over and rolling down my window, my hands on top of the steering wheel where the officer could see them.

“May I help you?”

The officer rested her forearm on the roof of the car and bent down to look through the window. She removed her sunglasses dramatically and announced, “Sir, you were exceeding the posted speed limit.” Wisps of frozen breath rose from her mouth and were immediately snatched away by the wind.

I liked her right away. She was five feet, eight inches tall, about 130 pounds, and she stepped out of her cruiser onto the icy shoulder of the highway like she was modeling police wear. The hard wind ruffled the strands of light red hair that escaped her fur-trimmed hat. Her name tag read D. Mallinger.