Pretty Girl Gone (29 page)

“You became desperately bored,” I said.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

I thought of Teachwell and the enormous amount of money that capturing him had brought me—the reason I had quit the cops.

“Yeah, I know,” I said.

“Except that you found something constructive to do with your time. I didn’t. Instead, I found Troy.” Lindsey shook her head sadly. “Sometimes we see things in people that just aren’t there. Women do it more then men. Or maybe we’re just more likely to admit it and be disappointed by it when we see that we’re wrong.”

“How did Donovan know about Elizabeth Rogers?”

“I told him. Jack has this recurring nightmare. It doesn’t happen often. Couple of times a year at most. He has never told me what happens in the dream, but eventually I discovered what caused it—the murder of Elizabeth Rogers. I told Troy about it. I don’t know why.”

“Troy did some sleuthing, but not enough,” I said. “He settled for the rumors.”

“The rumors were all that Troy wanted. That’s what he believed. It’s what I believed. You must think me a fool.”

“No. Foolish, maybe. There’s a difference.”

“What am I going to do?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to protect Jack. That’s all I want.”

“Okay.”

“What does okay mean?”

“Now that we know Jack is innocent, the Chief and I are going to try to learn who actually did kill Elizabeth Rogers. Possibly we can remove the threat from Jack once and for all. As for Donovan—I’ll take care of Donovan.”

I told myself I was doing it for the governor, not for her. I still liked the governor.

“How?” Lindsey asked.

“Does it matter?”

“You’re not going to . . . kill him?”

“Did you ask that when Muehlenhaus said he’d take care of me?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“Said, ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’ ”

“Sound advice.”

As if on cue, there was a knock on the door.

“That’s probably my driver,” Lindsey said.

I yanked open the door and found Danny Mallinger on the other side. She was still wearing her police uniform.

“McKenzie, I have something you should know,” she said. She saw Lindsey standing behind me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had company.”

“Excuse me,” Lindsey said. “I was just leaving.”

I helped Lindsey on with her coat while Mallinger stood in the doorway watching.

“Are we still friends, McKenzie?” Lindsey asked.

I was still having a difficult time getting past Norman and Muehlenhaus.

“I liked your sister and then I stopped liking her,” I said. “I liked you, too.”

“But not anymore.”

I didn’t say no, yet the word hung there between us just the same.

“Let’s just say that you used up your allotment of favors and let it go at that,” I told her.

I led her to the door.

“It would seem that I’m the one who owes favors,” she said.

“One day I may call to collect.”

Lindsey kissed my cheek.

“Good-bye and thank you,” she said, and slipped past Mallinger into the corridor. Mallinger let the door close behind her.

“Was that the first lady?” she asked.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Mallinger moved deeper into the room.

“I like your sweater,” she said.

“I wish I could say the same about your outfit. I thought we were having dinner.”

“I thought you might like to take a little trip with me first.”

“Where to?”

“You remember Andy, my rookie officer? I just met with him. Damned if he didn’t get a hit after all. PDQ identified the color of the paint chips on your car as ‘true blue.’ They came from a 1999 Ford F-350 Superduty XLT pickup truck, and yes, it’s available with a plow package. I just got off the phone with DMV. It seems there is, in fact, only one true blue 1999 Ford F-350 Superduty XLT pickup truck with a plow package in the county.”

“Who owns it?”

“Eugene Hugoson.”

The stars glistened in the night sky. They seemed to be considerably larger, brighter, and more numerous than they were in the Cities, where light pollution usually renders them as vivid as a flashlight with an exhausted battery. The moon, too. None of the songs I knew could do it justice. Mallinger was also gazing up at them. We were standing together next to the police cruiser she had parked in the space between the house and two outbuildings on Hugoson’s farm.

“I wish I knew astronomy,” Mallinger said. “If I knew astronomy I could be your guide. Instead, we’re both lost in the night sky. Lost in the stars.”

“Danny, you’re a poet,” I said.

“Nah. A guy used that line on me once and I’ve always wanted to give it a try myself.”

“Was it successful?”

“You tell me?”

“We should have backup.”

“I told you. All my guys are at the high school covering the basketball game. Against Albert Lea. There’s going to be five thousand people there. Besides, we’re not going to arrest anyone. This is just—what did you call it before—a ‘knock and talk’?”

Mallinger walked purposefully to the door. A light flashed on before she reached it. The heavy inside door opened. Hugoson stood behind the glass of the flimsier storm door. He made no effort to open it.

“Do you have a warrant?” he wanted to know.

“A warrant?” Mallinger said. “Gene, why do we need a warrant? We just came to chat with you is all.”

“Chat about what?” Hugoson was talking to Mallinger while staring at me.

“Truth is, we wanted to take a gander at your Ford,” Mallinger said.

“Why?”

“Just a quick look.”

“Why?”

“Well now, Gene. We have reason to believe that it might have been involved in a traffic accident.”

“Yeah? Who did I hit?”

Mallinger gestured toward where I was standing, my hands thrust deep into my coat pockets.

“No way,” Hugoson said.

“We’ll take a quick look. If we’re wrong, if there’s no damage, we’ll apologize for disturbing your peace and be on our way.”

“Yeah, I’d like to see that—a cop apologizing to me.”

“Could be it’s your lucky day.”

Hugoson responded with an obscenity you don’t hear on network television and slammed the door.

“Let’s get a search warrant,” I suggested. “Tomorrow we’ll take this guy apart.”

“Just wait,” Mallinger said.

A moment later, Hugoson flew through the door wearing a bulky
winter coat and thick boots. Mallinger arched her eyebrows at me. Her message was clear: I told you so.

“I knew you were coming,” Hugoson said. “Sooner or later I figured. Chief, there’s damage to my truck. You can see that for yourself, but you gotta know—Listen, Chief”—he jabbed a thumb in my direction—“I never touched this guy. I never went near this guy.”

We followed Hugoson into his pole barn. He flicked a switch and a series of fluorescent lights blinked to life.

“I admit there’s damage.” He gestured at the pickup and stopped talking.

The truck shimmered beneath the lights. The plow blade was still attached. We eased to the right side of it with Hugoson trailing behind. Mallinger squatted next to the plow blade and front bumper. With a flashlight for help, she examined the blade, front grill, bumper, and side panel. After a few moments she flicked the light along the length of the vehicle. There were plenty of dings, dents, and rumpled metal.

“Look,” she said.

I leaned over her shoulder. There were also plenty of dots and dashes of silver paint on the blade and truck body.

“I’ll bet you a thousand dollars PDQ identifies it as Audi light silver metallic,” I said.

“I know this looks bad,” Hugoson claimed. “But we gotta be able to work this out. I’ll pay to have your car fixed,” he told me.

Mallinger pulled a plastic bag and a pair of tweezers that she had borrowed from Officer Andy out of her coat pocket. She dug chips of silver paint out of the plow blade and side panel and dropped them in the bag.

“This isn’t right,” Hugoson wailed. “I didn’t go after this guy, Chief. You gotta believe me.”

“You were correct before, Gene. This does look bad.”

Hugoson glared at me like I was the source of all his problems in life. “What are you trying to do to me?” he wanted to know.

“Guess,” I told him.

“You’re trying to fuck me over cuz of what happened to Beth.”

“If you want to tell that story in court, you go right ahead,” I said.

“Goddammit, I can’t go back to prison. I just can’t.”

Mallinger finished collecting samples and straightened up.

“I’m going back to the Law Enforcement Center,” she said. “Do everyone a favor and turn yourself in early tomorrow morning. Otherwise, I’m coming back here with sheriff deputies and that kid from the
Herald.
”

“You can’t do this to me.”

“The county attorney will begin with a charge of leaving the scene of an accident,” I said. “I think he can make a pretty good case for felony assault, maybe even attempted murder.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“It was your truck.”

“I know, I know . . . Oh, shit. All right, all right, I know how things work. You gotta give me a deal.”

“A deal? Why?”

“I’ll tell you everything if you promise not to fuck up my parole. You can’t send me back to prison.”

“What are you talking about?” Mallinger said.

“Do we have a deal? I ain’t talkin’ unless we have a deal.”

“I can’t make a deal,” Mallinger said.

“I can,” I told him.

Mallinger scowled at me.

“I can only speak for the car,” I told Hugoson. “Tell us something good and I won’t file a complaint. I’ll forget about the car.”

“That’s not enough.”

“How much more do you need?” Mallinger asked.

Hugoson started walking in small, tight circles at the front of the garage, his hands squeezing each side of his head.

“I knew this would happen, I just fucking knew this would happen,” he chanted.

Finally, he stopped. He moved to Mallinger’s and raised his hand like he wanted to set it on her shoulder, but didn’t dare. Instead, he stared deeply into her eyes.

“You’re a good cop,” he said. “You got my respect. You do your job, but you cut people slack when there’s slack to cut. You don’t go around tryin’ to break people’s balls. If you promise to vouch for me with the county attorney, I’ll tell ya.”

“Tell me what?”

“Everything.”

“For everything I’ll cut you all the slack there is,” Mallinger said.

“It was Coach.”

“Coach Testen?”

“He came to me—”

“Coach Testen?” Mallinger repeated.

“He borrowed my truck. He said he wanted to move some stuff out of Josie’s place. Later, when he brought it back, it was like this. I asked him about it. You gotta know I asked him about it. Look what he did to my truck. I asked him and Coach says, he says, ‘Looks like we don’t need to worry about McKenzie anymore.’ ”

Mallinger grabbed my wrist and squeezed hard to keep me from speaking.

“When did this happen?” she said.

“Yesterday morning,” Hugoson said. “He took the truck at about seven. He brought it back just before noon.”

“He said, ‘We don’t need to worry about McKenzie, anymore.’ Exactly those words.”

“Yes.”

“What else did he say?”

“He said to keep my mouth shut or he’d fuck me over, too.”

“Coach said that?”

“Not those exact words, but that’s what he meant.”

“You didn’t do anything about it?”

“No.”

“What about Josie?”

“I didn’t hear about Josie until—until later that night.”

“What did you think when you heard about Josie?”

“I thought Coach must’ve fucked him, too.”

“Still you did nothing?”

Mallinger scowled again when I asked, “What does he have on you, Gene?”

Hugoson began massaging his temples.

“A while ago, he and Josie—they asked me if I had—They said they didn’t want to go through a dealer. They asked . . . shit. I gave them some anhydrous ammonia.”

Shit is right.

“What is anhydrous ammonia?” Mallinger asked.

“It’s a chemical fertilizer,” Hugoson said. “Farmers use it in the spring and fall to add nitrogen to the soil.”

“It’s also a chief ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamine,” I added. “Did you know Coach Testen and Josie were cooking meth?”

“No, but . . .”

“But what?” asked Mallinger.

“I knew they weren’t growing soybeans.”

“Why didn’t you come forward?” Mallinger asked. “If you knew they were cooking meth, why didn’t you say so? When Josie was killed . . .”

“I couldn’t. Don’t you see? I gave Coach the fertilizer. Later, when he brought the truck back, he told me if I said anything, he’d take me down with him, claim I was in on it. What could I do? Tell me, what could I do? Even if I beat the meth rap, I’m not supposed to go anywhere near the bad thing. They would have violated my parole sure as shit. I can’t go back to prison.”

“Why did you give him the fertilizer in the first place?”

“He was my coach.”

It was one of the few things Hugoson said that I understood. I’ve had coaches I would have walked through fire for.

“Josie and the Coach dealing meth,” Mallinger said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“It makes perfect sense,” I told her.

“How does it make perfect sense?”

“People deal drugs for only one reason. Money. Josie needed a lot of cash for his pull-tab enterprises, and Coach—I saw his house, his car, his clothes. I didn’t think of it at the time, but he does awfully well for a retired high school basketball coach.”

“Not much money in coachin’ high school ball,” Hugoson said. “Coach had his pension—thirty years in the school system. He figured the town owed him more. He figured it shoulda done better by him. He had, whatchamacallit, illusions of grandeur.”

“Delusions,” I said.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

Hugoson stood a few feet off. He was looking down at the toes of his heavy boots, probably wondering what was going to happen next. Mallinger gave him a hint when she went to the back of the pickup and examined the bed.