Highway 61 (11 page)

An SUV sped up on my left. Someone stuck what looked to me like a Ruger MP9 submachine gun outside the passenger window. Light glinted off the black metal muzzle. I caught the reflection out of the corner of my eye.

I slammed on my brakes just as 9 mm rounds began tearing into my hood and smashing the windshield all to hell. Shards of safety glass splattered my face as I cranked the steering wheel hard to the right. All of the red warning lights on my dashboard flared at once and I heard a loud whine emanating from the engine. The Audi jumped the curb and hit a U.S. Highway 61 sign. It rode halfway up the metal post before stopping.

The SUV surged forward. The shooter leaned out of the window. I could see white forearms and white hands gripping the MP9, but not a face. He was right-handed and couldn’t turn far enough in his seat to properly target the Audi once he was in front of me. He kept firing until he exhausted the thirty-two-round magazine just the same. Most of the rounds missed, gouging holes out of the bridge’s concrete deck.

I tried to open the driver’s side door and failed. The collision with the signpost must have bent the Audi’s frame and frozen the door in place. I hammered it with my shoulder one, two, three times before it flew open. It was unnecessary. Instead of stopping to finish the job, the SUV accelerated, ran the light at Minnehaha Avenue, hung a hard right at East Seventh Street, and disappeared from sight.

I took a deep breath and leaned back against my seat. The high-pitched whine of the Audi’s engine had been replaced by a solid clanking sound that reminded me of a hammer rapidly striking metal. I closed my eyes. The thugs who had accosted me in Rickie’s parking lot drove a Buick, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have traded up. I opened my eyes. Steam was rising from the engine in a half dozen places. I reached for the ignition key and turned it off.

*   *   *

I sat on the rear bumper of an EMS vehicle while a paramedic worked on my face. The cuts made by the flying safety glass weren’t particularly deep, more like shaving nicks. Yet there were so many of them and the face has so many blood vessels that I resembled a character in a slasher film. The paramedic had to dab a clotting agent on nearly every cut, and by the time he finished the collars of both my shirt and jacket were stained red. I wasn’t complaining, though. Just one look at the Audi—my beautiful fifty-thousand-dollar sports car—and you could see how lucky I was.

The Audi had been killed. It was still hung up on the signpost. One tire had been shredded, along with the front left quarter panel and headlight. A pool consisting of motor oil, radiator coolant, transmission fluid, and windshield wash had formed beneath it. From where I sat in the parking lot of the Seeger Square strip mall, it looked like blood—at least until the fire department doused it with a flame retardant foam that transformed it into a sickly pink color. A yellow, three-inch wide
POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS
tape had been posted. A pair of cops stood outside the tape and cautiously merged Arcade’s two lanes of traffic into one and directed it around the crime scene while a half dozen more stood inside the tape and examined bullet holes. I was surprised by how few gawkers there were. The diners inside the Great Dragon and Taqueria Los Ocampo restaurants couldn’t even be bothered to come to the windows and look out. Then again, it was the East Side.

Two of the cops made their way up to the parking lot. I recognized them both. If I had seen them at Target Field or the Minnesota State Fair, I probably would have waved.

“McKenzie,” Bobby said.

“Commander Dunston,” I said.

“You all right?”

I stretched my aching back.

“Fit as a fiddle and ready for love,” I said.

Bobby nodded toward the woman standing next to him, his partner of the past three years whom he once described as “young, beautiful, smart as hell.”

“You know the sergeant,” he said.

“Hi, Jeannie,” I said.

“That’s Detective Shipman to you,” she said. She was smiling when she said it, though, so I didn’t take her seriously.

“What happened, McKenzie?” Bobby asked.

“Well, Officer, I was minding my own business, driving down the street—”

“Don’t screw with me, McKenzie. I’m not in the mood. Who shot at you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Guess,” Shipman said.

“I can’t.”

“Does this have anything to do with your trip to Thunder Bay?” Bobby asked.

“I don’t know.”

“McKenzie, this isn’t just about you.” He pointed at the elementary school on the hill behind the mall. “Other people could have been hurt, too.”

“I appreciate that.”

“I don’t think you do.”

Bobby turned to the paramedic, who was packing up his equipment.

“Excuse us, please.”

The paramedic nodded and moved to the front of his vehicle and climbed in behind the wheel. Shipman started to drift back to the crime scene.

“Not you.”

Bobby turned back to me.

“McKenzie,” he said, “I’ve known you since kindergarten. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. You’re godfather to my eldest daughter. You’re the executor of my estate. My mother—Mom called Sunday. She said to tell you that if you don’t have any plans, you’re welcome to spend Thanksgiving with the family at her place in Wisconsin.”

“That’s kind of her.”

‘There’s no way that I could bring myself to arrest you.”

“Thanks, Bobby.”

“Sergeant Shipman, arrest McKenzie.”

Shipman stepped forward while reaching into her bag for handcuffs.

“Whoa, wait a minute,” I said.

“Hands on the vehicle, McKenzie,” Shipman said. “You know the drill.”

“What’s the charge?”

“During the thirty-six hours I can hold you without a charge, I bet we’ll think of something,” Bobby said.

Shipman grabbed a handful of my sports jacket and yanked me off the bumper. She was surprisingly strong.

“Turn around,” she said.

“You made your point,” I said.

“Hands against the vehicle, assume the position.”

“Bobby?”

“McKenzie?”

“I don’t know who they are, but I think they’re involved in drugs.”

Shipman stepped back. The expression on her face suggested that she’d just hit a dinger but didn’t want to gloat while she circled the bases.

I had to give them something, so I told the two cops about finding the drugs attached to my Jeep Cherokee in Canada and what happened next—the garage break-in, the assault in the parking lot of Rickie’s. I asked them if they wanted to see the bruises on my back. What I didn’t mention was the job I was doing for Jason Truhler. They were both shaking their heads sadly by the time I finished.

“Why didn’t you call the police?” Bobby asked.

“What?”

“When you found the drugs hidden on your Cherokee, why didn’t you contact the Thunder Bay Police Service? Why didn’t you call your friend the detective constable? Why didn’t you tell Marty Sigford when he responded to the break-in? Why didn’t you call the police when you were jumped at Rickie’s?”

“Why?” I asked.

“Yes, why?”

“It never occurred to me.”

“Of course not,” Shipman said. “Instead of doing something that might help us catch these guys, you decided to do what’s easiest for you. Does that pretty much cover it? You decide what’s good or bad, right or wrong, legal or illegal, and screw the rest of us. McKenzie, you used to be police. Now you’re just another self-serving citizen.”

Bobby and I had known each other for so long that we had developed the ability to communicate without actually speaking. I turned to him and flashed a look that said, “Are you going to let her talk to me like that?”

The look that he gave back said, “You’re damn right I am.”

“You’re just telling us enough now to make us go away,” Shipman added. “Isn’t that right?”

“I told you the truth, Detective Shipman,” I said.

“But not the whole truth.” She gestured with her head at Bobby without taking her eyes off me. “You’ll notice he hasn’t explained what he’s doing on the East Side.”

“Yeah, how ’bout that, McKenzie?” Bobby asked.

“I was sightseeing.”

Bobby dropped his chin to his chest, closed his eyes, and sighed deeply.

“You lying sonuvabitch,” Shipman said.

“Prove it,” I said.

“Which? That you’re a liar or a sonuvabitch?”

“All right, all right, that’s enough,” Bobby said. “I’ll catch up to you later, Sergeant.”

Shipman left, yet not without delivering a parting shot. “You’re lucky I’m not in charge,” she said.

Bobby placed his hand on my shoulder and moved me away from the EMS vehicle. We drifted into the middle of the parking lot. It was easy for us to see the remains of my silver Audi from there.

“You know,” Bobby said, “I never did like that color.”

“I did.”

“What are you doing on the East Side?”

“A favor. For a friend.”

“What favor? What friend?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“You’re withholding evidence, brother.”

“I’m not on the job anymore, Bobby. I’m not licensed. I’m under no obligation to tell you—”

“You say that to me? To me? After all these years? What the fuck, McKenzie?”

Bobby took two long steps away from me and then two steps back.

“You’ve changed,” he said. “When you first started doing these favors for friends, all you wanted to do was help, and there was something noble about it. You helped and never asked for anything in return, and you never crossed the line. You were always the good guy. Always. Are you still a good guy, McKenzie? Are you on the right side of the line? Do you even know where the line is anymore?”

“I think so.”

“I don’t. You once told me that you do favors for friends because you want to make the world a better place. Tell me, how is that working out for you? I ask because it seems to me that the more favors you do, the less happy you are, and I’m wondering if that’s because you’re starting to do—what is it people say—two wrongs don’t make a right? I’m wondering if you’ve done too many wrongs for what you think are the right reasons and it’s starting to mess with you. I’m a cop. I’ve seen bad things. You used to be a cop. You saw them, too. Anyone who is a man would want to change those bad things—make them go away. If you try too hard, you become part of what you behold. Do you know what I mean by bad things?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why the cops have rules—to keep us from trying too hard. Do you have any rules, McKenzie?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to know what they are.”

“I don’t have them written down.”

“Tell me, then.”

“C’mon, Bobby.”

“Do you know why I let you spoil my kids, why I let you buy Victoria and Katie stuff I can’t afford? I want them to have someone in their lives besides their parents that they can depend on absolutely should the bad things ever reach out to touch them. All they have to do is crook a finger and whisper your name and you’ll be there, they know that, I know that. It’s a comfort to me knowing that”—he pointed a finger at me—“as long as you don’t bring the bad things with you when you come.”

“I admit that I sometimes play fast and loose with the rules,” I said.

“You do more than that. Listen, you and I, we live on the fringe between light and dark. All cops do. We cross over into the darkness to do the job—but it’s no place to live. You gotta know that. Do you know?”

“I know.”

“I’m going to give you some advice, whether you want it or not. It’s not my advice. It’s what your father would say if he were here. Remember who you are. Remember where you came from. Remember that a man’s character is judged by how he behaves when there is no one around to see.”

When Bobby spoke the advice, I could actually hear the old man’s voice.

“Words of wisdom,” I said.

“I’ll see you around, McKenzie.”

Bobby started moving toward my battered Audi. I called to him.

“Don’t forget hockey Friday night.”

He waved in reply.

*   *   *

’Course, that wasn’t the end of it. I still had to give a statement and sign some papers. Bobby decided that the Audi was evidence in a crime and had it towed to the police impound lot, which was fine with me. It had to be towed somewhere. I told myself maybe I’d just abandon it there. Bobby gave me a receipt for the car. When I asked for a ride home, he told me to take a cab. Shipman said if I didn’t have the cash, I could take a bus, which reminded me—I had no idea what happened to the bus I had been following, the little girl, or Truhler’s $9,980. If that wasn’t bad enough, I received a call on my cell phone while I was outside the Subway in the Seeger Square mall waiting for the cab.

“McKenzie, this is Detective Constable Wojtowick.”

“Good afternoon,” I said. “Or should I say evening?”

“The sun is setting where I am,” she said.

“Here, too.”

“You’ll never guess, but Dooley Brothers is involved in carpet reclamation.”

“They’re the guys who replaced Daniel Khawaja’s carpet,” I said.

“Yes. They’re part of a group that recycles carpets, that tries to divert carpets from landfills.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means they still had the original carpet from the Chalet Motel.”

“After all this time?”

“After all this time, and in case you’re wondering, yes, we did find the carpet that was taken from room thirty-four. I gave it to forensics, and they identified the stain in about six minutes.”

“Was it wine like Daniel said?”

“No. It was a mixture of corn syrup, water, red food coloring, green food coloring, and milk.”

“What?”

“Theatrical blood. What they use onstage and in the movies instead of the real thing.”

“I’ll be damned. What about your fraud unit?”

“They never heard of a scam quite like it, but they’re going to keep a lookout.”

“I don’t know what to say. It looks like Jason Truhler was telling the truth after all.”

“At least about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I checked with the good folks at the Prince Arthur Hotel. Truhler had made reservations for two on May seventeenth, four days before the reservations were made at the Chalet.”