The Devil May Care (17 page)

“It's a sixty-five-thousand-dollar car.”

“Yes, and one of the most expensive to repair as it is.”

“Fix it.”

“You're the boss.”

I noticed his tone had lightened considerably by the time he said good-bye.

I went to my basement, opened my safe, and retrieved a 9 mm Beretta. It felt like an old friend in my hand, which, I suppose, said something about the way I lived my life. I loaded it and was putting it in my holster when the cell rang again.

“I don't have much time,” Riley said. “Grandpa's guard dog will be back in a second.”

“He's a good man. Stay close to him.”

“You think?”

“I'd feel better if you did. You shouldn't go back to your condo, either. Do you have somewhere else to stay? Friends who can put you up?”

“I don't know. I've always attracted a peculiar breed of fair-weather friends, people who are always up for a party or a road trip or some kind of outing as long as someone else is paying. A couple years ago on the Fourth, we rented a plane and flew in large circles around the Cities watching the fireworks. There were a lot of volunteers for that.”

“Don't you have any real friends? Someone you can trust?”

“Do you?”

“Yes. Several.”

“You're lucky. I can stay with my grandfather, I guess.”

“Okay.”

“McKenzie, will you keep searching for Juan Carlos?”

“Yes.”

“No matter what my grandfather says?”

“No matter what.”

“I'm afraid for him,” Riley said.

She hung up, which was fine with me. Personally, I no longer gave a damn about Navarre. He could live or die or move to Iowa for all I cared. Just as long as he led me to Mrs. R's killer first.

TWELVE

I called Anne Rehmann. She said if I wanted to talk, I could visit her home in Deephaven, not far from her office. She met me at the door dressed in a thick blue robe over flannel pajamas, heavy socks, and fluffy slippers. I didn't know if she was cold or trying to make herself seem less like an attractive woman.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“No, McKenzie, I'm not okay. How 'bout you?”

I didn't answer. Instead, I asked a question. “Will you help me?”

“You or Riley Brodin?”

I was surprised by the question.

“Mrs. R,” I said.

“Come in.”

Anne held the door open and I slipped inside. The house was small, some would say cozy, and tastefully decorated. Unlike my home, it looked as if someone actually lived there and enjoyed the experience.

Anne led me into her living room. There was a sofa against the wall, a blanket and bedroom pillow tossed casually on top of it. Anne sat on the sofa, gathered the blanket around her legs, fluffed the pillow, and leaned against it. A box of tissues was on the coffee table in front of the sofa; a dozen or so used tissues were scattered around it.

“I'm having trouble sleeping,” she said. “I went to see the deputies this morning and afterward tried to take a nap, but…” She waved at a chair on the other side of the coffee table, and I sat. “They had me looking at pictures of criminals. So many pictures. I didn't see him, though, or maybe I did, I don't know. I'm tired, McKenzie. I can't sleep.”

I was taught when I was a cop how to “chaperone” a sexual assault victim. I was taught about the feelings of fear, shame, anger, shock, and guilt they'll experience; taught about their inability to sleep and the nightmares they'll have when they do, the erratic mood swings, the sense of worthlessness that will come later. Yet all of it was in the context of keeping them composed enough to answer questions, to provide information that would help us catch their assailants. Listening to Anne, I knew there wasn't much I could do to console her or help her get past what had happened to Mrs. R, what had happened to her, what might have happened if I hadn't arrived at her office. Even capturing her attacker would do little to ease her pain.

“Tell me about Navarre,” I said.

“It all comes back to Juan Carlos, doesn't it? I know the deputies are searching the lake for him. That's what they said. I gather they've had no luck.”

“None that I've heard of.”

“I met Juan Carlos, it was early April.”

That caught me by surprise—Riley said he arrived in June.

“He came to my office,” Anne said. “He told me he was a Spanish national. He said he was interested in moving to Minnesota and wanted to see what properties were available on the lake. I'm not foolish, McKenzie. I understand the dangers of a woman working alone in real estate. At the conventions, that's something we always talk about. Protect yourself; always protect yourself. So I checked to make sure that he was registered at his hotel. I took his picture. I made a copy of his passport—”

“Wait. He had a passport?”

“Yes.”

“Can I see the copy?”

“It's in my office. You'll excuse me if I don't go there anytime soon.”

“I understand,” I said.

“I took him out on the boat. I have a speedboat that I dock across the street from the office. We toured the lake. He was particularly interested in Crystal Bay. He asked about the big white house with the purple flag on the dock. The Muehlenhaus estate. I didn't think anything of it at the time. Why would I? Then there was Mrs. Rogers's house across the bay. He was interested in that, too. I told him it was for sale. He asked if it was possible to lease the property. I told him I didn't think so, but we could ask Mrs. R to see if she was agreeable.

“We checked out a few more properties. He didn't seem to have any interest in anything outside of Crystal Bay, though. I took him back to the agency. He thanked me for my time and said he'd be in touch. Only I didn't hear from him again. That happens all the time. I didn't think anything of it.

“Then Juan Carlos reappeared in mid-June, and suddenly he and Mrs. R, they were the very best of friends. What's wrong with this picture, I asked myself. Juan Carlos told Reney that I suggested he move into her place to keep an eye on it while it was up for sale. It wasn't true, but Mrs. R was adamant that he do just that.

“I did my due diligence, McKenzie. I did my job. You need to know that. It's important that you know that because … I had Navarre checked out through a credit service. I demanded that he show me the money. His personal banker sent me a letterhead statement confirming that Juan Carlos had the liquid assets not only to lease the property but also to purchase it. Five-point-four million dollars, McKenzie.”

“The letter? Did it come from Lake Minnetonka Community Bank?”

Anne nodded.

“I called him, too,” she said. “The president. Brodin. I spoke to him to make sure the letter was legitimate. It was. Still, I shouldn't have signed off on it. I knew there was something wrong.”

Anne closed her eyes. She was silent, and for a moment I was afraid she might have fallen asleep. I was wondering if I should wake her when her eyes snapped open.

“I did it because I liked the way he did me,” she said.

“What?”

“I slept with him, McKenzie. I slept with Navarre. Many times. Does that shock you?”

“A little.”

“Shocks me, too. I had sex with him that first day on the boat. I don't know what I was thinking. He was so … I fucked him again in my office when we got back. That's why I was so unhappy when I didn't hear from him again. When he showed up two and a half months later … I can't believe how stupid I was, selling out that way. I didn't even like him personally. Just the way he did me … When he returned, we started up where we left off. Then it ended.”

“What ended it?”

“Ms. Riley Muehlenhaus Brodin. Juan Carlos met her at the club. Club Versailles, of which I am not now nor ever will be a member. He met her and completely forgot about me. Gave me up for a girl that looks like a character in Japanese anime.”

I didn't get the allusion. I took it, though, that it wasn't meant to be flattering.

“Then he tied up at my dock on Saturday morning,” Anne said. “He walked into my office like nothing had happened and asked for my help. He claimed a terrorist group called ETA was after him and he needed me.”

“Did you believe him?”

“I wanted to believe him, McKenzie. I wanted to be needed.”

“Why did he leave yesterday morning?”

“We heard that there was a fire at Casa del Lago. He wanted to check it out.”

Maybe that was his boat you saw in Gideon Bay,
my inner voice said.

“He didn't come back?” I asked aloud.

“No, he didn't.”

*   *   *

I found Sarah Neamy behind the reception desk at Club Versailles. She looked as if she had aged three years since I had last seen her.

“The deputies were here,” she told me. She spoke quickly, as if she wanted to get the words out before someone came along to stop her. “They were here all morning, asking questions about Mrs. R and Juan Carlos. The club's lawyer was here, too. I bet that comes as a surprise to you, Club Versailles has lawyers. He followed the detectives around, listening to the interviews. He was there to protect the club's interests, he said. The detectives wanted to see the questionnaire that Juan Carlos filled out. The lawyer wouldn't let them until he read it first. He claimed it was club property.”

Sarah looked to her right and left before she bent down to a shelf behind the desk and retrieved a white envelope printed with the Club Versailles logo.

“I made a copy just before they arrived.”

She gave me the envelope, and I said, “Thank you.” I was desperate to take a look inside right then and there, yet didn't want to be seen doing so in the lobby. I slipped the envelope into my inside pocket, instead.

I asked the same question I had asked Anne Rehmann: “Are you okay?”

“I guess so,” Sarah said. “Didn't get much sleep last night.” She brought both her hands to her cheeks. “Do I look awful?”

“You look wonderful,” I said.

“You're just saying that. Did you get any sleep?”

After I arrived at Nina's the evening before, I spent a half hour explaining myself, and the next two hours in her embrace. Afterward, I slept like a well-fed newborn. I couldn't tell Sarah that, though.

“A little bit of sleep, not much,” I said. “What about your job? Has anyone said anything?”

“Not yet, McKenzie. They'll wait until a mistake is made or someone complains. Club Versailles has lawyers, like I said. They won't risk a wrongful termination claim.”

“It's so unfair.”

“This is the rich and powerful, McKenzie. Fair is not a word they know.”

“Ms. Neamy.”

The voice came to us from the corner of the reception desk. We both turned to face it. A man stood there. He was handsome, in his late sixties, with the clouded-eyed expression of a man who has had made too many decisions he didn't want to make.

“Mr. Curran,” Sarah said. She had expected him to ask a question or bark an order. When he didn't, she gestured toward me.

“Mr. McKenzie, this is Mr. Curran. He's the president of the club. Mr. Curran, McKenzie is a friend—was a friend of Mrs. Rogers. He's also friends with Riley Brodin and the Muehlenhauses.”

I didn't know if she added that last part to protect her or me.

I disliked Curran immediately. He said, “Mr. McKenzie,” in a conciliatory tone and shook my hand and added, “Mrs. Rogers was one of our great favorites.” Yet I went on disliking him.

“Were you friends?” I asked.

“Not friends exactly. We knew each other for a long time. That's not the same thing, though, is it?”

“No, it isn't.”

“I'm told that when we die, we regret the things we didn't do more than those we did. All day long I've been regretting…” Curran caught himself. He smiled at Sarah and said, “Thank you, Ms. Neamy.” To me he said, “Mr. McKenzie, may I have a moment of your time?”

I said, “Sure,” and followed him to an office not far from the reception area. It had a large desk and lots of chairs. The walls were filled with photographs of tennis matches, golf games, swimming meets, and all manner of social events. Curran was not in any of them.

He sat behind the desk and bade me take a chair across from him. He stared as if he wasn't sure how to approach our conversation and finally just blurted what he was thinking—“Did Juan Carlos Navarre have anything to do with Reney's murder?”

Wow,
my inner voice said.

“Why ask me?” I said aloud.

“I'm told that you are … unofficially involved in the investigation.”

“Unofficially then, Navarre had no hand in it that I'm aware of. It's possible, however, that the man who killed Mrs. Rogers was trying to get information about him. Why do you ask?”

Curran ignored my question and asked one of his own. “What kind of information?”

“I don't know.”

The man stared at me some more before he said, “You're not actually a friend of Mr. Muehlenhaus, are you?”

“I've never lent him money, if that's what you mean.”

“But you're working for him.”

“I'm working for Riley Brodin.”

“Ms. Brodin. I regret that I haven't been her friend, either. I was an economist, McKenzie. Very successful. Made a great deal of money. Retired young. I promptly became bored out of my mind and let them elect me president of Club Versailles. I think I've done a good job here—with the numbers, I mean. The people … There are members that I have seen at least once a week for years and yet I've never called them by name, shaken their hands, or had a drink with them. The only time I spoke to Mrs. Rogers was when a member complained about her poker playing on the terrace. You know what I did? I asked her to move her games to the card room. She asked me if I wanted to play. I declined. What an ass.”