Jelly's Gold (11 page)

“You better not leave him alone too long,” I said.

Fontana shook his head more out of amusement than distress. “That Al, he likes the ladies.”

Don’t we all,
I thought but didn’t say.

It was a three-story apartment building, and Fontana and I took the wide, carpeted stairs up. We stopped at the second-floor landing. Fontana nudged me forward, but I wouldn’t move. Berglund’s body was slumped against the wall twenty feet down the corridor, and the sight of it froze me in place. The way his body was twisted, I could easily see the bullet hole just below his right eye. The scene activated my gag reflex. I’ve never been one to flinch at the sight of blood, but death—I spun away from it and stared at the steps leading down to the ground floor, yet made no effort to use them. Instead, I just stood there, filling my lungs with air and slowly exhaling until my stomach settled. Fontana watched me suspiciously. I could see the unspoken question on his face: “You used to be a cop?”

“I don’t spend much time looking at dead bodies these days,” I said. “I’ve lost the knack.”

He nodded his understanding, yet in my mind’s eye I could see him skipping down the stairs to Manning, telling him, “The millionaire ex-cop you like so much—what a wuss.”

I took a deep breath, turned again, and moved down the corridor, trying to walk as if there were no place I’d rather be. Fontana kept pace. Two men were examining the body as we approached. I recognized Lieutenant Robert Michael Dunston; the other was an ME I knew only as Danko.

“No drag marks,” Danko said. “He died where he fell.”

“Yeah,” Bobby said. He looked up at the small splatter of blood and gray matter on the wall directly above the slumping body.

The medical examiner said, “Look here.” He used the eraser end of a
number two pencil to point at black stains on the dead man’s face. “There’s tattooing around the wound, but no abrasion collar. The shooter was probably six to twelve inches away when he fired.”

“For someone to get that close—think the vic knew his killer?”

“That’s where I’d start.”

Professional detachment, I thought. To Bobby and Danko, Berglund was a puzzle to be solved. They didn’t care if he was a nice guy who lectored at church, served meals to the homeless at the Dorothy Day Center, or drove his ailing mother and her friends to the bingo parlor—they didn’t want to know anything about the victim that wouldn’t help them find out who shot him. I used to be that way, too. Except, like I said, somewhere along the line I lost the knack. Looking down on Berglund now, I could think only that I should have treated him better than I had, with more respect; that it was jealousy that made me dislike him, and how did a guy who looked like him manage to seduce both Ivy Flynn and Heavenly Petryk, anyway?

Bobby stood. He stretched, arching his back and pressing his hands against his spine as if it took an enormous effort to straighten up.

“You don’t get enough exercise,” I told him.

“Three women in my house and none of them can open a jar—I get too much exercise,” he said.

“How are Shelby and the girls?”

“Same as when you saw them Saturday.”

Bobby nodded with his chin. That was enough for Fontana to pat my shoulder in good-bye and return to his duties.

Bobby pointed at the body. “Anyone you recognize?”

“Josh Berglund. He was a graduate student at the University of Minnesota,” I said. “American lit.”

“Why is it you know so many of the victims I find at murder scenes, McKenzie?”

Good question. I didn’t answer it.

“Where’s Ivy Flynn?” I asked.

“Talk to me.”

“Of course, but Bobby, listen—I’ll tell you everything I know, only I want to see Ivy first. She called me—”

“I was wondering what you were doing here.”

“She asked for my help.”

“What help can you give her?”

“I don’t know. I only know if Ivy hadn’t called me, I wouldn’t be here now and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“You won’t mind if I listen in while you chat with your friend, will you, McKenzie?”

“Would it matter if I said I did?”

“Seeing as how you’re not her attorney, no.”

“Where is she?”

Bobby pointed at the apartment door with his thumb. It was open. I moved past him and stepped across the threshold, Bobby following close behind. When I stopped abruptly, he bumped into me. I turned and looked out of the apartment, noting the bloodstains on the wall directly opposite from the door.

“Whoever shot him was standing inside the apartment,” I said.

Bobby folded his arms across his chest. His exasperation was obvious.

“Whose apartment is this, anyway?” I asked.

“The lease is under Flynn’s name, but she claims Berglund was living with her,” Bobby said.

While he spoke, I examined the lock and door frame without touching either.

“No forced entry,” I said.

“Wow,” Bobby said. “You should be a cop. Oh, wait…”

I stepped deeper into the apartment. Jean Shipman was hovering above Ivy and writing in a small notebook. She was wearing surgical gloves. There were several other investigators rummaging through the apartment—they were all wearing gloves, too. Ivy was sitting in a stuffed chair but turned sideways so she was facing the window instead of the
door. It took a moment before she saw me. She called my name, came out of the chair, and hugged my neck.

“Terrible, terrible, it’s so terrible,” she said. “I thought it would be fun, but it’s not. Oh God, how terrible.” Her voice was hoarse from weeping. I held her tight for a few moments, then gently eased her away so I could look into her face. Her eyes were swollen, and her cheeks were stained with tears.

“What should I do?” she asked. “Should I call a lawyer? Please, tell me what to do.”

I drew her close again and whispered in her ear—I hoped Bobby didn’t hear me. “If you’re innocent, tell them everything. If you’re guilty, don’t even tell them your name. I’ll call a lawyer.”

She nudged me back, this time so she could look into my face. “What about the gold?”

“Gold?” Shipman said.

“Don’t even think about that,” I told Ivy.

“What gold?” Shipman said.

“The gold that Jelly Nash stole seventy-five years ago,” Ivy said. “That’s why Josh was killed. I know it.” She brushed her eyes with the back of her hand. The rawness of her skin made me think she had been doing that a lot since Berglund was shot.

“I’ll tell them everything,” she told me.

“Good for you,” I said.

“Gold from seventy-five years ago,” Shipman said. “McKenzie, is that why you searched our files this morning? For gold?”

“You gave McKenzie access to our files?” Bobby said.

“Only from 1930 through 1933,” Shipman said.

“I don’t care if it’s 1733, you don’t show McKenzie our files. You don’t even show him the way to the restroom. In fact, you know what? We’re instituting a new policy. Starting today, McKenzie is no longer allowed in the building unless he’s wearing handcuffs.”

“That’s harsh,” I said.

“It’s because of the files,” Ivy said. “What McKenzie found out—it confirms that Frank Nash brought the gold he stole back to St. Paul, that it’s still here. That’s why Josh was killed, I’m trying to tell you.”

We were all watching her now.

“Ms. Flynn,” Bobby took her elbow and directed her back to the stuffed chair. “Please sit.” She sat, and he squatted next to her and looked up into her face. “Now I need you to tell me everything, starting with what happened here tonight.”

“It’ll take a while.”

“No one is going anywhere,” Bobby said. He was looking directly at me when he said it.

Ivy gestured toward Shipman. “I already told her about the shooting.”

“I know,” said Bobby. “Let’s talk some more.”

There wasn’t much to it. Ivy and Berglund had dinner in the apartment and then decided to go to the movies. They went to see Johnny Depp at the AMC-14 movie theater in the Rosedale Shopping Mall. “Wait a minute,” Ivy said. She dove into her purse and started pulling out items—her wallet, her checkbook, and a set of keys on a USA key chain. Finally she retrieved two ticket stubs stamped with the name of the theater, the film, and the time of the showing. They corroborated her story. Afterward, she said, she and Berglund returned to the apartment. They parked their car in the lot next to the building. They walked down the hallway to their door. She didn’t remember what they were talking about or even if they were talking. Berglund had his keys in his hand and was about to unlock the door. Suddenly the door flew open. A man, dressed in black, was inside the apartment. He was holding a pistol. He pointed it in Berglund’s face. Berglund stepped backward. He didn’t say a word. Neither did the man. The man squeezed the trigger. The force of the bullet slammed Berglund’s head against the wall and he slumped down. Ivy was petrified, too frightened even to scream. The intruder stepped around her and walked down the corridor toward the exit. “He walked so slowly, and he used the wall for support, like he was sick or something,” Ivy said.

I know the feeling,
my inner voice said.

“I called 911,” Ivy said. Then she called me.

“Can you describe the man?” Shipman said.

“He was”—Ivy pointed at me—“about McKenzie’s size.” I wish she hadn’t said that. “A couple of inches shorter, maybe, and very thin.” I felt better. “Other than that—he was wearing a mask. A ski mask, I guess it was.”

“You couldn’t see his face at all?” Shipman said.

“No,” Ivy said.

“He had eye holes?”

“Eye holes?”

“In the mask.”

“Yes.”

“You saw his eyes.”

“Not really. I mean, I don’t remember what color they were.”

“The rim of his eyes. Was he white, black—”

“White. I think.”

“You’re sure it was a man?”

“Yes?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because—that’s just the impression I had. I guess I don’t know for sure.”

Shipman took that moment to report to Bobby.

“We canvassed the apartment building,” she said. “No one heard any shots, which isn’t surprising. A single shot, a smaller caliber gun, people hear an odd noise, they listen, they don’t hear it again, they forget about it. No one saw anyone matching the unsub’s description enter or leave the apartment building at any time. The foyer doesn’t have a security camera. We searched the apartment, the apartment building, and the grounds but couldn’t find a weapon. We’re still looking. Since the unsub escaped immediately after firing, we believe he used a wheel gun—we couldn’t find a spent cartridge, and he didn’t have time to pick it up.”

Bobby nodded. “Ms. Flynn, did you get a chance to walk through the apartment?” he said.

Ivy nodded. “We walked through”—she pointed at Shipman—“but we didn’t see anything. I mean, there’s nothing missing that I know of. Josh and I didn’t have much that was valuable except for the computer and TV and stuff, but that all seems to be here. Only …”

“Only?”

“Only Josh’s notes, his research, in his office—it’s a two-bedroom apartment, and we use one of the bedrooms as an office—”

“What about his notes?”

“They’re all—Josh was very neat and very organized, but now his notes are scattered all over the room, on the floor. I have no idea what is missing, if anything is missing. The killer must have searched through the notes, don’t you see? That’s what he was doing when we returned to the apartment. He must have heard us. He must have panicked. Don’t you think that’s what happened?”

“The fact that he walked away slowly suggests that he didn’t panic,” I said.

The way Bobby’s head snapped around to glare at me, you’d think I’d just revealed the Colonel’s secret recipe of eleven herbs and spices to the Iranians.

“These notes,” Bobby said. He turned back to Ivy. “Are they valuable?”

“They tell about the gold.”

“What gold?”

“Jelly Nash’s gold,” Ivy said. “Tell them, McKenzie.”

Bobby rose from his squatting position and stretched his back again. The expressions on his and Shipman’s faces were skeptical at best.

“Well?” Bobby said.

“This should be good,” Shipman added.

I told them everything from the moment I received Berglund’s first letter to Ivy’s phone call just an hour earlier.

“You’re kidding me,” Bobby said.

“I wish I were,” I told him.

“You gotta be kidding me. The man was killed for buried treasure?”

“It could be buried.”

“Buried fucking treasure?”

Bobby had been a cop a long time. We broke in together just out of college, and while I retired a few years back, he went on to command the St. Paul Police Department’s Homicide Unit. He knew, as I did, that people slaughter each other for the most preposterous reasons—a man who works the night shift kills his neighbor for mowing his lawn at 9:00
A.M.
, a boy home from college kills his mother for giving away his Japanese anime while he was gone, a woman kills her mother-in-law for sneaking salt into her pot roast when she wasn’t looking. Yet this was new, even for him.

I spent a lot of time talking about Ted and Wally and gave Bobby the license plate numbers of both the Trailblazer and the Aveo. “I can’t actually swear Ted and Wally were in the Aveo,” I said. “I never got close enough to see.” I failed to mention that Wally had a broken nose but did say that he carried a snub-nosed .38.

“A revolver,” Bobby said.

“Yeah. My understanding—and I can’t really prove this—is that Ted and Wally are working with a young woman with the unlikely name of Heavenly Elizabeth Petryk.”

“Heavenly?” Ivy said. “You think Heavenly is involved?”

“Do you know this woman?” Shipman asked.

“She and Josh used to date, but it was over long before he and I started seeing each other.”

“Did you meet her?”

“Not meet exactly. Sometimes I answered the phone when I was at Josh’s apartment and it would be her demanding to speak to him. Once Heavenly came over while I was there, and she and Josh had an argument—they shouted at each other. I was in a different room and
can’t say what it was about. Josh said she was a real head case, that she was stalking him. Once we came out of his apartment in the morning and found a note that she had left for him under his windshield. I didn’t get a chance to read the note—Josh tore it up—but I know it upset him.”