Unidentified Woman #15 (3 page)

“Look at the bright side,” I said. “If she was in the morgue, instead of Unidentified Woman Number Fifteen, the toe tag would read ‘Jane Doe.’”

“There is that.”

“Someone must know her. Someone must miss her.”

“Besides the three men who tossed her onto the freeway?”

“I can only identify two of them as being men.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah…”

“Are you going to ask the media for help? Run her photo on the nightly news?”

“I haven’t decided yet. McKenzie, why would they push her out of a speeding truck?”

The obvious answer was to kill her, so that’s what I said.

“Why not just shoot her in the back of the head, bury her in the snow? We wouldn’t find her body until spring if ever.”

“They wanted to make it look like an accident.”

“Better ways to do that. Besides, did they think no one would see them?”

“They were pulling away from me at the time, so, yeah, maybe they did think that, the way the snow was falling. The guy just dropped the tailgate too soon. If the pickup hadn’t come up so close to my bumper in the first place, I doubt I would have paid any attention to it.”

“Did they think the highway cameras wouldn’t see them?”

“There are cameras everywhere—on the freeways, at street corners, in shopping malls, in front of stores and apartment buildings, gas stations. How often do you think about them?”

“Not often.”

“Bobby, are you asking these questions because you want me to answer them or are you just thinking out loud the way you do?”

He didn’t say.

“Anyway, when the girl comes to, you can ask her,” I said.

“She regained consciousness before they wheeled her into surgery—the second surgery. She doesn’t remember a thing.”

“People who suffer a head injury often don’t remember details of the accident that caused it. They call it traumatic amnesia.”

“Just because you dated a psychiatrist back in the day doesn’t make you one. Besides, she didn’t just forget the accident, she forgot everything, and I mean everything, including her name.”

“That sounds more serious.”

Bobby gave me one of those looks.

“Or not,” I added. “Listen, whatever it is, it’s probably just temporary. What do the doctors say?”

“They say it’s probably just temporary—if she’s telling the truth.”

“Why wouldn’t she be?”

“All I know is, she didn’t do what I would have done if I came to all busted up in a hospital emergency room, if I couldn’t remember who I was or how I got there. She didn’t panic. She didn’t scream for her mother or a doctor or a policeman or a superhero from the Marvel universe. She didn’t demand assistance or rail at her attackers or promise retribution. Instead, she accepted it all as if it was the natural order of things. As if she believed the world was a place where sooner or later they threw you off the back of a speeding pickup truck.”

“Bobby, why am I here? Why are you telling me all this? You haven’t discussed an open case with me in years, not since I quit the cops.”

“I might need a favor.”

TWO

Nina and I never argued when we were just sleeping together. There was the occasional spirited discussion concerning subjects like music and restaurant food and the use of the shootout to settle regular-season hockey games. For the most part, though, we got along extremely well—to the point where we would watch other couples bickering and shake our heads in bafflement.
What is wrong with these people?
we’d ask ourselves. Then we decided to live together and everything changed. Behavior that was inconsequential before suddenly became monumentally important. We started pointing fingers at each other, declaring this is right, this is wrong, this is good, this is bad, our declarations based solely on personal preference. I quietly told friends that maybe we didn’t belong together after all, only to learn that she had told them the same thing.

Bobby Dunston said to relax, said we were just going through a period of adjustment. We had both lived more or less alone for most of the past two decades, answering to no one, he reminded us, and we were set in our ways. Bobby’s wife, Shelby, on the other hand, decided to intervene—mostly on Nina’s behalf, which was aggravating. I had known her since college and was convinced that if I had been the one to spill a drink on her dress instead of Bobby, it’d be the two of us bickering.

Our disagreements became acute when we started looking for a home. Nina lived in the out-of-the-way northeast St. Paul suburb of Mahtomedi, and we certainly weren’t going to move there. I had a house in much more convenient Falcon Heights, complete with a backyard pond that attracted all kinds of wildlife—ducks, wild turkey, the occasional deer. Yet that didn’t work for Nina, don’t ask me why. It soon became apparent that, given our conflicting demands, there wasn’t a suitable house, town house, condominium, apartment, or loft anywhere in all of the greater St. Paul area.

Finally Nina told me she’d found a place, loaded me into her Lexus, and drove west. I told her this was unacceptable when we crossed the Mississippi River.

“I will not live in Minneapolis,” I announced.

Nina kept driving until she pulled up to an eight-floor glass and brick structure built to resemble a 1930s warehouse nestled between the northeast corner of downtown Minneapolis and the river. There was a convenience store, liquor store, pizza joint, and coffeehouse on the ground floor. Plus, it was within easy walking distance to several jazz clubs, restaurants, Orchestra Hall, a bunch of theaters including the Guthrie, the train, the Nicollet Mall, and the stadiums where the Vikings, Twins, and Timberwolves played ball—facts that Nina happily shared with me.

“Sweetie, we’re just wasting time,” I said.

“It won’t hurt to look,” she said.

She must have arranged our visit ahead of time, because she guided me past the security desk without a word to the guards, over to a bank of elevators, and eventually to a seventh-floor condominium that she unlocked with a card key attached to a plastic tag that bore the name of the building.

“This isn’t going to work,” I told her.

I walked through the doorway. The entire north wall of the condo was made of tinted floor-to-ceiling glass with a dramatic view of the Mississippi River. If that wasn’t enough, there was a sliding glass door built into the wall that led to a balcony. I might have said, “Wow,” but I really don’t remember.

The south wall featured floor-to-ceiling bookcases that turned at the east wall and followed it to a large brick fireplace. To the left of the fireplace was a door that led to a small guest bedroom with its own full bath. Against the west wall and elevated three steps above the living area was the most spectacular and elaborate kitchen I had ever seen, including a gas stove—it’s always better to cook with fire.

Nina led me past the kitchen to a master bedroom that also featured floor-to-ceiling windows. Adjacent to the bedroom was a huge walk-in closet complete with shelves and drawers. The closet led to a bathroom with double sinks and a glass-enclosed shower big enough for two people to play tag in. Beyond that there was a storage area with enough room to park a car.

“Yeah, but sweetie, it’s Minneapolis,” I said.

I followed Nina back to the living area, and she began pointing.

“There’s a half bath and closet for guests on the other side of the kitchen. We can put a desk and computer over there and a dining room set over here and a sofa and chairs for a nice conversation pit near the glass and in the center of the room sofas and chairs facing the fireplace. A big-screen TV goes above the fireplace. Oh, we can put a grill on the balcony. I already measured; there’s plenty of room.”

“Nina…”

“There’s twenty-four-hour security; I know that’s important to you. There’s an underground garage, a full gymnasium on the second floor, a party room, and a garden on the roof.”

“Nina, stop…”

“I know you’ll like this. If we pool the money we’ll realize from selling our houses, we will not only be able to pay for the condo, but what’s left over we can put into an account that will pay our building fees for the next fifteen years.”

“It’s beautiful, Nina. It really is. But, sweetie, I can’t live in Minneapolis.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a St. Paul boy.”

“Then why do you live in Falcon Heights?”

“I told you, it was an accident. I thought I was buying a place in St. Paul. It wasn’t until I made an offer that I discovered the house was on the wrong side of the street, that I was actually moving to the suburbs.”

“Why didn’t you withdraw the offer, then? Besides, that was almost seven years ago. You could have sold it after your father passed. You could have moved back to St. Paul. You didn’t.”

“There’s no sense talking about it. I will not live in Minneapolis.”

Nina smiled like she knew something that I didn’t and crossed the large living area until she was leaning against the bookcase. She folded her arms across her chest and smiled some more. I got the feeling that I had already lost the argument, yet I didn’t know why.

“Yes, the bookcases are beautiful and the view is beautiful, but Nina…”

Nina moved her elbow. I heard a click. The bookcase swung open to reveal a secret room.

“Whoa,” I said.

I moved quickly to her side. Nina stepped back and swung the bookcase open farther. The room behind it was about eight feet by ten and carpeted. I tripped a sensor, and a light went on when I stepped inside.

“You can keep your guns in here,” Nina said. “And the safe with all the cash and fake IDs that no one is supposed to know about. Look.”

Nina pointed to a corner where there were a half-dozen cable outlets.

“The place is wired. You can set up cameras and alarms and whatever else you want. The images can be sent to the security desk downstairs if you prefer, or you can monitor everything from here, use it as a panic room. The sales guy said that once the door is locked from the inside, the room is damn near impregnable. I know you like your gadgets and gizmos, McKenzie. This might be the coolest gadget you’ll ever own.”

“Except that it’s Minneapolis,” I said.

“You’ll get over it.”

To my great embarrassment, I did—and haven’t my St. Paul friends been giving me a hard time about it ever since?

After we bought the condominium, I thought our problems were over. I had made a huge sacrifice moving to Minneapolis and deserved a little slack, right? Things just seemed to get worse, though, because now we were skirmishing over furnishings and deciding which drawer would hold the silverware and whether we should shelve our books by author or subject matter and what towels to buy for which bathrooms because our old ones simply were no longer good enough.

I did something then that I had promised Nina I would do months earlier. I bought her a piano—a baby grand piano with ebony polish, to be precise—and had the delivery guys set it up near the glass door leading to the balcony. I had a moment of panic when the woman I hired to tune it arrived late, yet it was sitting there, ready to be played, when Nina returned home.

“Hi,” she said as she walked through the door.

“Hi,” I replied from the sofa, where I was pretending to watch ESPN.

She stopped. Said, “Oh. My. God.” Dropped her bag and rushed over to the instrument. “You bought this for me?”

“I said I would,” I reminded her.

“You have always kept your promises. You have never broken a promise to me in all the years I’ve known you.”

“Well…”

Nina tossed her coat on the floor, sat on the bench, and began to play. She started with some boogie-woogie.

“It’s tuned,” she said.

“Of course it’s tuned. What kind of guy would give his girl an untuned piano?”

She segued into some Dave Brubeck and Bill Evans, followed by Chopin’s Prelude in E minor before playing the adagio from Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony, one of my favorite pieces of music. While she played I gathered up a huge throw pillow with the logo of the Minnesota Twins—which Nina preferred I get rid of—and laid beneath the piano to listen. A good half hour passed before she stopped playing and crawled beneath the Steinway to be with me. As we embraced, I was reminded of the final line in the Charles Dickens novel
Great Expectations
—“I saw no shadow of another parting from her.”

We haven’t had a serious argument since.

And then they rolled the girl off the back of the pickup truck.

*   *   *

I was lying beneath the piano when our landline rang, a rare occurrence since most people we know call our cell phones. I was propped up against the Twins throw pillow, which no longer seemed to annoy Nina, with a clear view of the HDTV above the fireplace. Fox Sports North was broadcasting a rare Minnesota Twins evening spring training game from Fort Myers, and I was watching it with the sound off. Meanwhile, Nina was having a difficult time teaching herself a Gershwin piano prelude, Number Two, I think, which was a hoot because whenever she made a mistake she would shout things like “fudge nuggets” and “geez willigers.” Should she ever cut loose with an honest-to-God high-octane expletive—that’s like tornado sirens going off. It is wise to pay attention.

“Dang,” she said when the phone rang.

“I got it,” I said.

I crawled out from under the Steinway and crossed to the desk we had located by the bookcases.

“McKenzie,” I said.

“Mr. McKenzie, this is security. We have a woman who would like to come up to your condominium.”

“What’s her name?”

“She doesn’t seem to have one. She says, just a moment…” I heard a muffled sound over the telephone receiver, and then the guard spoke clearly. “She says her name is Fifteen.”

“I’ll be right down.”

I hung up the phone. Nina quit practicing and called from the piano.

“The woman they pushed out of the pickup truck six weeks ago is in the lobby,” I told her.

I moved toward the door. Nina said, “I’m coming with.”

*   *   *

The young woman was surrounded by security guards, yet they didn’t mean her any harm. It was as if they wanted to be near in case she should swoon; she looked so fragile that it seemed it could happen at any moment.