The Devil May Care (23 page)

“Eventually the police came around,” Castlerock added. “They told me David and Collin had driven to Collin's home in Illinois, but apparently disappeared on their way back here. It was very worrisome to me even though I was told there were no indications of foul play and the police were treating it as a simple missing persons case. Since then I've discovered that twenty-five thousand men go missing every year in this country, and one out of five is Latino, like David. However, only a tiny fraction is the result of kidnapping or murder. The vast majority go missing because they want to go missing.”

“Do you believe that Maurell and his very good friend Collin Baird went away together?” I asked.

“It was easier to believe that than the alternative. It turns out I was right, too.” Castlerock gestured more or less at the pocket where I kept my cell. “The photograph that you showed me. It was taken recently, wasn't it?”

“Sometime in July.”

“David is back.”

“So it would seem.”

“What about Collin?”

“I don't know.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did David come back after all this time?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, Professor.”

*   *   *

Professor Castlerock left the coffeehouse first; I stayed to settle the bill. Before she left, she asked if I should find David, to have him call her. I said I would. I was lying. I liked her. I liked Muffie Gabler, Abril and Delfina Nunez, Anne Rehmann, and Riley Brodin, too. The more I learned about Jax Abana–David Maurell–Juan Carlos Navarre, the less I wanted him around the people I liked.

I stepped outside and immediately began searching for the red Sentra. I had picked it up outside the Nunez residence in West St. Paul and let it follow me first to the coffeehouse in Mendota Heights and then to Macalester College. It was now parked in the customer lot of the Stoltz Dry Cleaners and Shirt Launderers across Grand Avenue from Dunn Bros. I waited for the traffic to clear and crossed the thoroughfare. I walked up to the driver's-side window and peered inside. The window had been rolled down. The driver gripped the steering wheel with both hands and stared straight ahead. Arnaldo Nunez was sitting in the passenger seat and looking uncomfortable in his heavy cast. He leaned forward to look at me.

“Fuck,” he said.

“Hello to you, too,” I said.

“How long you know we be here?”

“Since I took a right off the street where Mrs. Nunez lives.”

Arnaldo stared at the driver, who continued to stare straight ahead.

“Don't feel too bad,” I said. “A one-car tail is damn near impossible to pull off if you don't know what you're doing. If you want, I could give you lessons.”

“Fuck,” Arnaldo said.

“Why exactly are you following me, anyway?”

“Cesar says you're after Jax. He says you're gonna give him up once you find him. We're supposed to watch you, make sure you keep your promise.”

“Fair enough. So, Arnaldo, have you learned anything interesting so far?”

“Only that you really like your coffee, man. And you meet lots of good-looking women.”

“You're going to love the next place we go. Can't promise any babes, though. Try to keep up.”

*   *   *

I hung a right onto Snelling Avenue and went north until I caught the I-94 entrance ramp. From there I headed east until I found I-35E and went north again. I signaled my turn well in advance so that the red Sentra was on my bumper when I exited onto Pennsylvania Avenue, hung a right onto Phalen Boulevard, hung another on Mississippi Street, and went east again on Grove Street. I turned left into the large parking lot. The Sentra kept going straight. I don't know if it was all the cop cars that spooked them or the sign on the red brick wall—
ST. PAUL POLICE DEPARTMENT.
The idea that Arnaldo and his driver would keep heading east until they reached the Wisconsin border made me chuckle.

*   *   *

Sergeant Billy Turner was one of the few friends I still had in the St. Paul Police Department; one of the few cops who didn't think I sold my badge when I resigned to collect the reward on the embezzler. He was an African American living in Minnesota who played hockey, which made him a true minority in my book. I met him in his office on the first floor of the Griffin Building. The Missing Persons Unit shared space with the Juvenile Unit because—Professor Castlerock's math notwithstanding—approximately seven hundred thousand persons go missing each year and all but fifty thousand are kids. Well over half are runaways who eventually return home, and another two hundred thousand are family abductions related to domestic and custody disputes, leaving approximately sixty thousand boys and girls seventeen years or younger that the police consider “endangered.” Billy was a busy man.

“I can give you ten minutes, McKenzie,” he said. “You're lucky to get that, because it's Saturday and I want to go home. Me and the missus are going to my sister-in-law's for dinner.”

“Your sister-in-law a good cook, is she?”

The question slowed him down.

“Okay, make it fifteen minutes,” he said. “What do you need?”

“What do you remember about a missing persons involving two young adult males named David Maurell and Collin Baird?”

“Help me out.”

“Macalester College about eight years ago?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. College kids coming back from some bumfuck town in Indiana. They never made it. Hang on a sec.”

Billy sat in a swivel chair, spun until he faced his computer, and typed in a few commands.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said. “Baird is from Galena, Illinois, not Indiana. My mistake. This wasn't our case, McKenzie. Jo Daviess County in Illinois had jurisdiction since the kids were last seen in Galena. What I have, kid never called his family and his family couldn't get a hold of him. Family became worried and checked with the school. Macalester had no record of the kid returning to campus after spring break. Jo Daviess asked for an assist. We made inquiries. All we discovered was that this Maurell kid didn't seem to exist. He wasn't enrolled at the school. Didn't have a permanent address. No driver's license. No Social Security number. Spoke to a woman who knew him, what's her name, ahhhh … Professor Patricia Castlerock. All she had was a cell phone number. Forwarded what little intel we generated to Jo Daviess. They sent out bulletins—you know the drill. If anything came of it, they didn't bother to tell us.” Billy spun in his chair to face me. “This is getting to be a long time ago, McKenzie. What's your interest?”

“Maurell has apparently resurfaced using a different name.”

“Should I care?”

“I don't think so. Hennepin County might, though.”

“Now the important question—is this going to get me in trouble with Bobby D upstairs? You know the bosses don't like us doing favors for civvies like you.”

I was pleased to hear how he referred to Bobby. If Billy had called him by the proper title, Commander Robert Dunston of the Major Crimes Division, it would have been a sign of disrespect or at least disagreement.

“Bobby should be cool with this one,” I said. “Although, if you'd rather keep it to yourself…”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you have the name of someone I could reach out to in Galena?”

“Hang on.”

Billy swiveled back in front of the computer screen, found a name and phone number, scribbled them down on a sheet of paper, and gave it to me.

“Time's up, my man,” he said.

*   *   *

I called the Galena Police Department from the parking lot and asked for Officer Lori Hasselback.
Chief
Hasselback took the call and said she remembered the Baird case vividly. She was intrigued by what I had to tell her and agreed to meet me. She said she would review her notes before I arrived. I asked if Baird's family would also consent to an interview.

“You can ask,” she said.

*   *   *

My next call was to Nina Truhler.

“Hey,” she said.

“Road trip,” I said.

“When?”

“Right now. I'll pick you up at your place.”

“Fun. Where are we going this time?”

“Galena, Illinois.”

“Never heard of it.”

“River town. Lots of antique stores. General Grant used to live there. You'll like it.”

“I will?”

“We'll spend the night in Winona and arrive early tomorrow afternoon.”

“No, no, no, wait a sec, McKenzie. I've gone on these impromptu road trips with you before, and they've always been a great time. In the past, though, it was let's go catch the Cash Box Kings at Buddy Guy's place in Chicago and since we're there, we might as well take the Red Line to Cellular Field to see the White Sox. Or the time you said we just had to fly down to Kansas City and decide once and for all who served the best barbecue in town…”

“It's Oklahoma Joe's.”

“No, it's Arthur Bryant's. Anyway, we ended up at Kauffman Stadium watching the Royals play Detroit. San Francisco…”

“San Francisco was your idea.”

“Yes, but it was your idea to get tickets to watch the Giants at AT&T Park. My point being, there is no professional baseball in Galena, Illinois. Is there?”

“No.”

“Then why are we going?”

“It's kind of a long story.”

“Involving Riley Brodin?”

“Yes.”

“You can tell me on the way.”

FIFTEEN

Nina must have been watching for me, because she came out the front door of her house just as I pulled into her driveway. She was carrying one bag and pulling another, both of which were bigger than my single suitcase. When I exited the Jeep Cherokee she asked, “Where's the Audi?”

“It's in the shop.”

“What's wrong with it?”

“Catalytic converter,” I said.

“We're not driving all that way in this thing, are we?”

It sounded like a question, yet it really wasn't. I was about to protest—what's wrong with my SUV?—only she said, “We'll take my car,” and tossed me the keys before I could. “You drive.”

Truth be told, I liked driving her Lexus even though it was an automatic, so I said nothing while she punched a code into the keypad next to the garage door. The door opened, we swapped vehicles, and a short time later we were on Wisconsin Highway 35, also known as the Great River Road, heading south. The plan was to drive the east side of the Mississippi down to Galena and then take Highway 61 on the west side back home.

I suppose it was possible to fly, but if you didn't have to, why would you? Flying used to be fun, at least for me. Now it was one long exercise in personal humiliation and tedium, starting with the officious and mostly ceremonial TSA and including flight attendants that oh-so-prettily forbade you from using your cell phone yet were happy to rent you one of theirs.

The thing about Nina's Lexus, though, was that it was old—built without a voice-activated navigation system, Bluetooth mobile phone, backup camera, remote ignition starter, seat warmers, or even an MP3 port. At least she didn't pay extra for those options. I complained. Nina said that some people buy cars simply to get from Point A to Point B in relative comfort.

“We don't need gadgets that rival the starship
Enterprise,
” she said.

I complained some more.

“If my rich boyfriend decides to buy me a new car, I'll get all the thingamajigs he wants,” she said.

“Actually, I'm not as rich as I thought I was. I've been telling people I'm worth five million dollars, but it's closer to four million.”

“Poor baby.”

“I'm just saying.”

The truth was, I didn't care all that much. I had everything that money could buy, or rather I had everything I wanted that money could buy, which, I suppose, isn't the same thing. My needs were small and easily fulfilled by the $140,000 or so in income that my admittedly medium- to low-risk investments realized each year. The folks who lived on Lake Minnetonka, on the other hand, to them money was a magic lamp. They rubbed it to make their wishes come true.

The Lexus had a six-CD player, and Nina fed it from a cache that she kept in a shoebox on the floor. The first CD belonged to an artist I had not heard before, Sophia Shorai, channeling Oscar Brown Jr. with a startling clear and vibrant voice—“
Sample and savor all of life's flavor.”
She was backed only by Tommy Barbarella's solo piano.

“Why don't you play the piano anymore?” I asked.

Nina's eyes seemed fixed on something in the sideview mirror.

“I never seem to have the time,” she said. “Switch lanes, will you?”

I signaled and moved from the left lane to the right.

“I remember when you played the blues at the governor's charity thing a couple of years ago,” I said. “That was beautiful.”

“It was only fair. Truth is, I'm not very good. Switch lanes again.”

I did.

“I thought you were sensational,” I said.

“You're prejudiced. You do know that we're being followed, right? A black car behind the pickup?”

“Cadillac DTS.”

“What's the DTS stand for?”

“Deluxe Touring Sedan. I was hoping you wouldn't notice. Nina, we need to talk.”

She revolved in her seat so she could get a good look at me.

“The Caddy must have picked me up at my place when I went home to pack, only I missed it,” I said. “Which means he followed me to your house. They know where you live.”

“Who're they?”

I explained about the Nine-Thirty-Seven Mexican Mafia.

“So?” Nina said.

“Not only that—I wasn't going to tell you this, but the man who raped and murdered Irene Rogers probably broke into my house Thursday night. He had waited for me, but I didn't show. I was at your place. If we had been living together, though…”