The Devil May Care (16 page)

That's when I saw him.

Anne Rehmann's attacker.

Mrs. Irene Rogers's killer.

He was standing on the sidewalk directly in front of Riley Brodin's building and staring upward as if he were trying to figure out which windows were hers.

He was wearing the same black leather jacket. The same white T-shirt and jeans. His hair didn't look as if it had grown at all.

Probably I should have called the police. Probably I should have parked somewhere out of sight and watched him until they arrived. The memory of Mrs. R's naked and abused body was too vivid, though. It drowned all reason.

I accelerated hard and maneuvered the Audi past a fire hydrant and onto the sidewalk. I drove straight toward him.

He saw me at the last possible moment and dove between two parked cars.

I foolishly—and I mean foolishly—cranked the wheel to the left and tried to follow him. There was no way the Audi could fit through the space. I smashed the back bumper of one car and sheared off the front end of the other. The alarm systems of both vehicles pierced the air. The Audi came to an abrupt halt. The engine stalled. Why the air bags didn't deploy I couldn't say.

I opened the car door and slipped out. The SIG was in my hands.

The killer was in the middle of the street. He had a gun in his hands, too. He held it like he knew exactly what it was for.

He fired at me.

I ducked. Bullets peppered the Audi like hail. Most of them were stopped by the engine block. A couple pierced the body as if it were made of tissue paper and flattened against the sidewalk and the brick building behind me.

I counted one-two-three and came up shooting.

I missed.

The killer sprinted across the street and hid behind a parked SUV.

The SUV offered no more protection than my Audi, yet I couldn't see my target, so I waited.

When his head came up, I shot at him again.

He took off running.

I tried to follow. The cars smashed together like that blocked my path. I had to dodge around them. By the time I did, the killer was out of sight.

I stood in a Weaver stance in the middle of the street and waited for movement. I heard a car start down the block. It drove off quickly in the opposite direction, too far away to read the license plate. I set my sights on the rear window. The shoot/don't shoot scenarios I studied while practicing with FATS, the police academy's firearms training system, kicked in and I removed my finger from the trigger and lowered the gun.

When the vehicle disappeared from view, I returned to the cars. The alarm of one died away, followed almost immediately by the other.

You are in so much trouble,
my inner voice told me.

Movement to my right caused me to bring the SIG back up.

Riley Brodin emerged through the front door of her building. She halted at the top step and looked down at me. I put the SIG back in its holster.

“What the hell happened?” she wanted to know.

“Believe it or not, I think I just saved your life.”

“I never thought of you as a braggart, McKenzie.”

She raised her eyebrows up and down when she said it. Clearly the young woman was underestimating the situation.

I took my cell phone from my pocket.

“What are you doing?” Riley asked.

“Calling the police.”

“Should we do that?”

“They'll resent it if we don't.”

'Course, they're going to be pretty damn miffed anyway, I told myself.

“I don't want to get involved,” Riley said.

“Sorry, sweetie,” I told her.

“Dammit, McKenzie.”

Riley fished her own cell out of her handbag. She dialed as I dialed. The 9-1-1 operator asked, “What is your emergency?” at the same time that Riley said, “Grandfather?”

*   *   *

The first thing I did when the Minneapolis cops arrived was surrender the SIG Sauer. The second thing was to inform them that I would answer no questions until Lieutenant Pelzer of the Hennepin County Sheriff's Department arrived. That caught the officers by surprise. Often they hear suspects screaming for their lawyers. But another cop? Still, they weren't so impressed that they neglected to slap the handcuffs on me.

They didn't cuff Riley, although they threatened to. Riley claimed she was late for an appointment, that she had nothing to do with the crashed cars and gunfight, that she had nothing to say anyway, and if they didn't like it they could take up the matter with her attorney. The cops weren't impressed with her, either.

I motioned for her to sit on the building steps next to me. When she did I told her to stop being so belligerent.

“It won't do you any good,” I said. “Just go with the flow and everything will work out.”

“I should never have contacted you, McKenzie.”

“Too late now.”

*   *   *

More officers arrived, and a lot of things started happening all at once. Techs and investigators, impressed by the bullet holes in my car, the sidewalk, and the wall of Riley's building, started shooting photographs, making measurements, collecting bullet fragments, and taking notes. A sergeant from the Violent Crimes Investigations Division was asking questions. I explained to him that this was all connected to yesterday's killing on Lake Minnetonka.

“The old woman at Club Versailles?” he asked.

I bristled at the word “old” yet let it slide. I informed him that when Lieutenant Pelzer arrived, the Hennepin County Sheriff's Department would probably claim jurisdiction, in which case he wouldn't have to deal with this mess. That didn't seem to cheer him up at all.

Meanwhile, another officer was making diagrams of the Audi and the cars I had piled into for a traffic report. Yet another wanted to see my driver's license. I asked Riley for help. She reached under my jacket, removed the wallet from my inside pocket, and gave it to the cop—either he didn't see my expired police ID or it didn't impress him at all. Next, the cop wanted to see my proof of insurance. I told him it was in the glove compartment of the Audi. The cop looked at Riley as if he expected her to retrieve it for him.

“I'm not your bitch,” she told him.

“You got some mouth on you, honey,” the cop said.

“I have a bad attitude, too. Want to do something about it?”

The cop shook his head as if he had heard it all before and moved to the Audi.

“You do have a bad attitude,” I said.

“I called my grandfather. He's not happy.”

“What else is new?”

“This is crazy, McKenzie. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that the man who murdered Reney and who attacked Anne Rehmann was standing outside your front door. If I had arrived just three minutes later, he would have taken you.”

Riley shuddered at the thought of it. She took my arm, closed her eyes, and rested her head against my shoulder. I didn't know if she was feeling sorry for herself or Mrs. R until she said, “Reney was so kind to me.”

“Me, too,” I said.

“Mrs. Rogers was your friend?”

“Yes.”

“Even though you only spoke to her twice?”

“I was her friend three minutes after I met her. It works that way, sometimes.”

“It's never worked that way for me.”

“Don't be so sure.”

Riley tightened her grip on my arm.

There had been moments in our brief relationship when I was tempted to give Riley the spanking she so richly deserved. Other times—I would have hugged her if not for the handcuffs.

The sergeant seemed less charitable. He stood by listening to every word I spoke. I nearly shouted at him, “Yes, this is what's considered a
spontaneous utterance
and it can be used against me in a court of law whether you read me my Miranda rights or not, which you haven't by the way, you nitwit.” I didn't, though.

By then the owners of the two vehicles had appeared. I had more trouble dealing with them than I did with the cops. How was it possible, they wondered loudly and angrily, that I had managed to crash into two parked cars, and what in the hell was I doing driving on the sidewalk in the first place? That, of course, was exactly what the cops wanted to know.

I knew I was going to get a ticket for either careless or reckless driving and wouldn't that make my insurance company happy? I was already paying an ungodly amount for coverage since they had me ranked as high-risk. The cops asked me to submit to a PBT, and I agreed. The preliminary Breathalyzer test came up negative, though, eliminating the possibility of a DWI charge—so I had that going for me. I had no doubt, though, that the cops were thinking I should be cited for DWHUA—driving with head up ass.

Lieutenant Pelzer finally arrived, trailed by a small army of deputies, and both he and the sergeant listened intently while I explained myself. It took a lot longer than I thought it would, what with the questions they both insisted on asking. They then asked the same questions of Riley, who was her usual ultradefensive self.

Eventually Pelzer took official charge of the investigation, and the Minneapolis cops handed over the evidence they had collected to the deputies, who promptly double-checked it all. The cop who had caught the call in the first place reluctantly removed the handcuffs. He kept my gun, though; or rather the deputy he had given it to kept it. The owners of the two damaged cars were on their cells making travel arrangements and discussing lawsuits. No one seemed happy except for the tow truck operators who carted off the vehicles—oh, and my auto mechanic. 'Course, he was always delighted to hear from me, considering how much business I've thrown his way over the years.

It was when the tow truck operators were doing their thing that Greg Schroeder appeared, accompanied by a young man who was wearing a suit that looked like it had been given to him as a graduation gift. The young man announced that he was an attorney acting on behalf of Mr. Walter Muehlenhaus.

“Who?” Lieutenant Pelzer asked.

I didn't know if he was putting the lawyer on or not.

“I demand that my client, Ms. Riley Brodin, be released immediately,” the lawyer said.

“Your client is not in custody,” Pelzer told him.

“Then why is she being detained?”

“Give it a rest, Daniel,” Riley told him.

“Ms. Brodin, you are not to answer any questions without an attorney present. Those are your grandfather's instructions as well as my own.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Riley started down the steps. Schroeder winked at me before following her. I was glad to see him. It meant that Muehlenhaus was taking Riley's safety seriously.

Daniel clearly wanted to go with them, yet was compelled to deliver a message first.

“You're McKenzie?” he wanted to know.

“I am.”

“Mr. Muehlenhaus demands that you no longer involve yourself with any member of his family.”

“Okay.”

“What?”

“Tell Mr. Muehlenhaus that I will follow his instructions—as usual.”

He didn't seem to like my answer, so he added, “Do you understand the implications of what I am telling you?”

“Yes, I do.”

Daniel stared for a moment as if he were unsure what to make of me. He spun to look at Riley and Schroeder, who were now a half block away and walking briskly.

“Ms. Brodin,” he called and raced after them.

By then the first two cars had been towed away and a wrecker was latching on to my Audi. I noticed that three kinds of fluid had pooled beneath it. Not a good sign.

“What a shitty morning this has been,” I said.

“All of these expensive apartment buildings have security cameras,” Pelzer told me. “Most of them look out onto the street. I'm going to check the footage. It had better support your story.”

“It will.”

“Then we should be okay.”

“Have you searched Lake Minnetonka yet?”

“Up and down, over and around. We can't even find the damn boat, much less Navarre. We'll keep looking, though.”

“How the hell do you hide a thirty-eight-foot cabin cruiser?”

“If I knew … We had Ms. Rehmann going through our mug books—well, our computerized imaging system. She sat through it yesterday and again this morning but didn't recognize the suspect. You might have better luck. After all, you're a trained observer.”

“Who says?”

“I could arrest you right now and make it stick, shooting up the goddamn street. It wouldn't be any trouble at all. You realize that, right?”

“I do.”

“Keep it in mind.”

That's two favors you owe him,
my inner voice reminded me as I watched him walk away.

*   *   *

No one offered to give me a ride home, and I didn't have the nerve to ask for one. Instead, I made my way the few blocks to Washington Avenue. J.D. Hoyt's was on the corner. They served the best grilled pork chops in the Cities. I had one for lunch—where had the morning gone?—while I waited for a cab. I took the cab to my house. It was locked up tight, yet I carefully searched it anyway. What was it that Jim Butcher wrote? “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face.”

My cell phone played “Summertime,” and I jumped at the sound of it. It was my mechanic. He was first-generation Hmong, yet he spoke better English than I did—which wasn't that great an accomplishment. After all, for the most part I was educated in public schools. His voice was so serious it made my stomach feel queasy.

“Hang on to yourself, McKenzie,” he said. I did while he carefully itemized the damage to my Audi. “I don't think your insurance is going to cover this,” he added.

“It hadn't in the past,” I reminded him.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Fix it.”

“Are you sure? We're talking four grand just to replace the catalytic converter.”