Dead Boyfriends (14 page)

 

Rask had given me plenty of time to get to Anoka, but first I needed another toasted bagel with cream cheese and a second cup of coffee, which I consumed while reading the
St. Paul Pioneer Press
sports page. The Twins and the hated White Sox (at least I hate them) were slugging it out yet again for the Central Division title, and I decided that their statistics required careful examination. Once on the road, I stopped at a service station to top off my gas tank, and since I was there, I had my Audi washed. After I reached Anoka, it took a few minutes to locate a parking space in the shade. That's why it was 9:23
A.M.
when I entered 325 East Main Street.

Rask was waiting for me in the lobby. His clothes were rumpled, his face was unshaved, and his eyes looked like they hadn't been shut for a while. That should have told me something, but it didn't. He shook his head and said, “You are such an asshole.”

“Didn't you say nine thirty?”

“You think you're funny?”

For a moment, the man made me nervous—but no more than freeway traffic.

“C'mon,” he barked.

Rask led me through the labyrinth of offices and corridors that was the Anoka County Sheriff's Department like a man who actually worked there until we reached a large corner office. A sign next to the door frame read
LT. JOHN WEINER, CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DIVISION
. The door was open, but Rask knocked just the same before entering.

Lieutenant Weiner was sitting behind a polished desk; silver-framed reading glasses were perched on the tip of his nose. He was wearing a white shirt with a black tie, black epaulets, black flaps over his shirt pockets, an American flag over his right breast, a silver five-pointed star over his left breast, and a large blue patch on his left shoulder that screamed
ANOKA COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT
in case anyone was
confused. The creases in his shirt and pants were sharp enough to cut butter.

He glanced up from the file folder he was reading. “McKenzie, you're late.”

“I've been called worse,” I told him.

He stared at me with an expression that was harder than calculus. Apparently, he didn't think I was funny, but then why should he be different from everyone else?

Rask sat on a comfortable-looking chair next to Weiner's desk without being asked, leaving me standing alone in the center of the room.

“It's your case,” Weiner told him.

“So, McKenzie,” Rask said. “Where were you last night?”

“Breaking up with my girlfriend.”

“Nina? Really?”

“Yeah.”

“That's too bad.”

“Just didn't work out,” I said. “It was time to move on anyway.”

I winced at the words even as I spoke them. Weiner yawned.

“About what time was that?” Rask asked.

“Are you asking me if I have an alibi?”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

Weiner dealt a black-and-white glossy from the folder and slid it across the desk. I took three steps forward, glanced down at it, and turned away. It was a photograph of Mollie Pratt's broken body, naked except for the cast on her ankle.

“Between 9:00
P.M.
and midnight,” Weiner said. “That's a rough estimate.”

“You gotta be kidding me.”

He took another item from the folder, a plastic sandwich bag containing my business card, and set it on the photograph.

“Jesus Christ,” I said.

“Talk to us,” Weiner said. “With the minimum of hysterics.”

“I don't have an alibi for between nine and midnight. I was home. Alone. Watching the ball game.”

“Are you willing to take a polygraph?” Weiner asked.

“Like Merodie Davies did?” The lieutenant seemed to flinch at the sound of the woman's name. “Polygraphs are a joke.”

“I'll take that as a no.”

“Take it any way you want.” I stepped toward Rask and glared down at him. “What the hell is going on? Why did you bring me here?”

Rask spoke smoothly and carefully. He always did. “Mollie Pratt was beaten, raped, and murdered last night between 9:00
P.M.
and midnight, when her body was discovered in an empty lot on Chicago Avenue off Lake Street in Minneapolis. That's why it's my case. Evidence suggests that she was killed somewhere else and her body dumped along with her belongings.”

Weiner slipped another photograph from his deck and set it on the desktop, but I deliberately ignored it.

“We began the investigation here with the assistance of the Anoka CID”—Rask gestured toward Weiner—“by searching Mollie's home. That's when we came across your card. Imagine my surprise.”

“You assumed from that that I'm involved.”

“I don't assume anything, you know that, McKenzie.”

“Would you be willing to give us a blood sample?” Weiner asked.

“Why?”

Weiner dealt still another photograph. Mollie's face had been badly beaten, and there were bruises around her throat.

“The killer left his DNA all over the victim,” he said.

“Yes, I'll give you a blood sample.”

“That won't be necessary,” Rask said.

I was looking into Weiner's eyes when I said, “I'll do it anyway.”

Weiner yawned again.

“Talk to me, Mac,” Rask said. “Tell me what you know.”

I started with Merodie Davies, explaining that I was helping her and G. K. Bonalay. I showed them the copy of the letter G. K. had given me. Both lieutenants read it without comment. I explained that Mollie was Merodie's next-door neighbor, that I had spoken to her, and that I had left my card on the off chance that she might have more to tell me. “She was drinking beer when I left her,” I said.

“Beer?” asked Weiner.

“Grain Belt Premium.”

“She must have been warming up, then, because a preliminary drug screen says she had ingested methamphetamine.”

“That doesn't make sense.”

“Why doesn't it make sense?” Rask asked.

“She wasn't sophisticated enough to do meth,” I said.

“Any moron can buy meth,” Weiner said.

“If the moron knows what to buy, where to buy. Mollie would have had to have a connection, and she didn't. Unless . . .”

“Unless what?” said Weiner.

“Unless she was lying,” Rask said. “Could she have been lying, McKenzie?”

“Why would she?”

“I don't know. Why would she?”

I remembered Mollie peeking at me from the other side of her living room drapes.

“Richard,” I said. “She might have been protecting Merodie's ex-boyfriend Richard.” I told him how Mollie had reacted when I agreed with her ex-husband that Richard might have been dealing drugs out of Merodie's house. “Maybe she was Richard's best customer and didn't want me to know.”

“Richard who?” Rask asked.

“I don't know his last name, but the Anoka city cops do. They were
called to Merodie's address enough times when he was with her. They must have his name in their incident reports.”

“Thank you for your time, Mr. McKenzie,” Weiner said. “We'll be in touch.”

“Excuse me?”

I glanced at Rask. He seemed as surprised by Weiner's behavior as I was, but he said nothing—he was in Weiner's house.

“That's it?” I asked.

Weiner came from behind his desk and took my elbow in his hand. He led me to the door. “We can forgo the blood test for now.” He literally shoved me into the corridor.

“Hey.”

“Good morning, Mr. McKenzie.”

 

The sun had shifted while I was in Lieutenant Weiner's office, and instead of shade, now my Audi was bathed in sunlight. I left it where I had parked it and walked along Main Street toward the Rum River. I was still upset about both Mollie Pratt's murder and Weiner's behavior, and I wanted to think it over. I passed the Avant Garden because I thought it was a damn silly name for a coffeehouse and instead crossed the street and strolled a couple more blocks to Body of Art. It was a tanning salon and tattoo parlor as well as a coffeehouse, which appealed to me for reasons I didn't want to explore. I bought a frozen concoction topped with whipped cream. I ate it with a plastic spoon at a small table in front of the window. I looked across the street at the Anoka City Hall and the dam built across the Rum River just beyond. Outside the city hall, an electronic sign flashed the time, date, and place of various community events,
BRUNCH WITH COUNTY ATTORNEY DAVID TUSEMAN
10:30
A.M. TODAY GREENHAVEN GOLF COURSE
read one of the messages.

I glanced at my watch. If I hurried, I figured I just might make it before they ran out of hash browns.

 

 

The banquet hall of the Greenhaven Golf Course had been set for four hundred people, yet only about three hundred sat around the large round tables covered with white linen. A long, straight table had been set near the far wall between two large windows. Tuseman, wearing khakis and a blue shirt with the creases ironed in, stood at a podium mounted at the center of the table. His red, white, and blue campaign sign—
DAVID TUSEMAN STATE SENATE FOR A BRIGHTER TOMORROW
—was taped to the podium.

A microphone had been placed on a stand in the center of the room for supporters who wanted to ask the candidate a question. A half dozen lined up behind the microphone. I was hoping someone would ask how Tuseman had the nerve to charge fifty bucks for a plate of cold scrambled eggs, three strips of bacon, soggy hash browns, and a blueberry muffin the size of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, but no one did. (There was also a plate laden with fresh fruit, but I ignored it.)

Tuseman had a microphone, although he didn't need it. He spoke as though someone had taught him how, with a deep, hard baritone that gave polished nuance to every word and carried easily across the room. Sometimes he actually answered the question. More often, he recited a short, biting position on an issue that had only a nodding acquaintance with the subject the supporter had asked about.

I didn't know what Tuseman was for. However, in the course of about fifteen minutes, I learned that there were a lot of things that Tuseman was against. He was against taxes. He was against more funding for the public school system without accountability. He was against both abortion and sex education that didn't stress abstinence. He was against increasing the minimum wage. Mostly, however, he was against crime. When asked why he should be elected to the State Senate, Tuseman bragged about Anoka County's low crime figures, his high conviction rate, and the fact that people convicted of crimes in Anoka served
longer prison sentences than the state average. The supporters liked hearing that. Truth be told, so did I. But then some smart-ass asked, “Are you prosecuting Merodie Davies to help your reelection chances?”

Tuseman's smile gave away nothing except how careful he was with his teeth. “I take exception to your insinuation, sir.”

“I don't mind,” I told him.

An anxious murmur spread across the room. The man sitting immediately to Tuseman's right motioned for a server. He whispered something into the young man's ear, and the server departed, moving swiftly toward an exit. I figured I had about two minutes, tops.

“I am not prosecuting Merodie Davies for personal benefit of any kind,” Tuseman said.

“I'm only telling you what I heard.”

“From who?”

“People. You know, around the courthouse.”

“They're wrong,” Tuseman replied. His raised his hand as if he wanted to brush something off his forehead, thought better of it, and let his hand fall to his side.

“That's what they're saying,” I told him.

“Tell you what. Next time someone says that, remind him that this is not a high-profile case. Court TV is not going to cover Merodie Davies's murder trial.”

“The
Anoka County Union
and the
Coon Rapids Herald
will. So will the
Minneapolis Star Tribune
if it's juicy enough.”

“What makes you think so?”

“How many murders have been committed in Anoka County in the past decade? A dozen?”

“Probably less.”

“The Merodie Davies murder case—it's the only one you've got.”

“Crime is the cancer of our society,” Tuseman declared. “Like cancer, it must be eradicated completely if we are to survive. We cannot live with even a little bit of cancer.”

That brought a lot of applause.

“I'm not above trying to get some good publicity to further my career. I understand how politics works. But I will be damned if I'll make a prosecutorial decision based on whether or not it'll get votes.”

More applause.

“Merodie Davies is guilty of murder, and I'm going to see that she spends the rest of her life in prison. Why? Because she's guilty. Not because it makes me a more desirable candidate. If she weren't guilty, I would release her, and I wouldn't care how it looked to the voters.”