Tin City (9 page)
“Was it you and Frank who shot my friend?”
I was like a dog when the leash breaks. I pounded my fist into his solar plexus. Once. Twice. Three times. Four times.
His body convulsed. He retched and gagged, and I pushed him away just as the vomit spewed from his mouth. He crumbled to the asphalt and rolled into a ball. I aimed the toe of my shoe at his stomach but paused while Danny threw up on himself.
“Hey, Danny.” I was surprised by how relaxed my voice sounded. “Where’s Frank, Danny?”
He coughed and sputtered, and I thought he might answer me. But a Chevy Blazer drove up fast and skidded to a stop next to his writhing body. There was a man behind the steering wheel. I couldn’t tell how tall or wide he was, but he had brown hair, and his black eyes—I’ve skated on ice that was warmer.
And I remembered.
Danny had said, “We’re.” Plural. How could I have missed that?
Danny had said, “We’re.” Plural. How could I have missed that?
And something else.
The guys who shot at Nina and me were driving a Chevy Blazer.
The guys who shot at Nina and me were driving a Chevy Blazer.
“Sonuvabitch,” I yelled.
The driver reached across his body with his right hand. There was a gun in his hand. He pointed it out the window. I was already moving. I dove backward and rolled and crawled behind the Cherokee. I heard a single shot. Crouching low, I ran along the rim of the parking lot, keeping the other vehicles between me and the driver. I had a permit—it had been issued by a friend of mine, the Itasca County sheriff—but I wasn’t carrying. Don’t ask me why. Fortunately, the driver wasn’t chasing me. I paused long enough to peer cautiously around a bumper. The driver was helping Danny into the SUV. He was as Janel had described him. Big. Solid. He saw me watching and pointed his gun in my direction. Only he didn’t fire. Instead, he scrambled into the SUV and accelerated toward the exit from the parking lot. I caught only part of his license plate as he turned onto Highway 212. A moment later, he was gone.
They’re after me,
I told myself
. They missed the other night, the night they got Mr. Mosley and the Tillmans, but they’re still coming.
I told myself
. They missed the other night, the night they got Mr. Mosley and the Tillmans, but they’re still coming.
“Who are these guys?” I said aloud.
I came out of hiding and walked back to my Jeep Cherokee. My
door was still open. Danny’s Browning was lying on the asphalt beneath it. I left both as they were.
door was still open. Danny’s Browning was lying on the asphalt beneath it. I left both as they were.
I heard a noise that sounded like laughter but wasn’t. I spun around. Two women dressed in business suits were standing on the other side of the parking lot. One had covered her mouth with her hand. The other had turned sideways as if she were preparing to run. Both were staring at me.
I used my own cell phone to call 911.
Lieutenant Brian Dyke seemed slight for a law enforcement officer, and I had no doubt he had barely met the minimum height and weight requirements. Yet he moved and spoke like he was twenty feet tall. A giant among men.
“The witnesses”—he jerked his head toward where the two businesswomen had been standing—“confirm your account of the incident.”
“Swell.”
Danny’s gun was still lying on the asphalt beneath my car door. Dyke looked at it as if he were seeing it for the first time, even though I had shown it to him an hour earlier. He shut the door and picked up the gun by the butt.
“I guess you don’t worry about things like fingerprints in the Carver County Sheriff’s Department,” I told him.
“You think you’re funny?”
“Odd. That’s exactly what Danny asked me.”
“Danny, who you claim pulled the gun on you.”
“Danny, who can no longer be identified by his fingerprints.”
Dyke sniffed at me like there were forces at work in the Criminal Investigation Division that I was just too dim to grasp and stuck the gun in his belt. Behind him a young deputy was chatting with a
teenaged girl wearing a revealing halter and jean shorts hanging low on her hips. The girl kept her ten-speed bike between them. All the other deputies had departed shortly after Lieutenant Dyke arrived. I began to think Sergeant Brehmer was right.
teenaged girl wearing a revealing halter and jean shorts hanging low on her hips. The girl kept her ten-speed bike between them. All the other deputies had departed shortly after Lieutenant Dyke arrived. I began to think Sergeant Brehmer was right.
“I’m this close to running you in.” Dyke held his thumb and index finger about a half inch apart.
“What charge?”
“Obstructing justice. What do you think you’re doing, conducting your own personal investigation?”
“You don’t seem to be doing it.”
“I don’t care for your attitude.”
“Maybe I’ll lose sleep over that. Whaddaya think the chances are?”
“All I can say is you had better stop sticking your nose into business that doesn’t concern you.”
“Doesn’t concern me? My friend was killed. Another was raped.”
“No complaint was filed on that.”
“I was shot at, and you’re doing jack about it.”
“Yeah, get all indignant on me. Go ’head, see where that’ll get you.”
“Let me guess. Bullies stole your lunch money when you were a kid, and now you’re using your badge to prove how tough you are.”
“You want to see how tough I am?”
“Did you at least run the license plate?”
“It was a partial.”
“First three letters—
F
as in Francis,
A
as in Albert, S as in Sinatra. How many Chevy Blazers can there be in Minnesota with those initials?”
F
as in Francis,
A
as in Albert, S as in Sinatra. How many Chevy Blazers can there be in Minnesota with those initials?”
Lieutenant Dyke didn’t say.
“There’s a security camera in the foyer of the motel. It might have caught something. Did you secure the videotape? Janel in the bar saw two men who were friends of Crosetti. Do her descriptions match the ones I gave you? Did you canvass for witnesses? The one called Danny
was hurt. Are you contacting local hospital ERs and outpatient clinics to see if his partner brought him in?”
was hurt. Are you contacting local hospital ERs and outpatient clinics to see if his partner brought him in?”
It was like conversing with an empty parking lot for all the attention Dyke paid me. He said, “You’re too smart for your own good, you know that, McKenzie?”
“Do your job, for God’s sake.”
“That’s enough. No more from you. You’re done. No more investigation. You don’t go anywhere. You don’t talk to anyone. Not in my county. Better yet, get out of my county. Hear?”
I didn’t say if I did or didn’t. He moved close. His nose was inches from mine.
“Hear?”
“I hear.”
Dyke backed off and smiled triumphantly. “I don’t want to arrest you, McKenzie.”
I didn’t believe him.
I drove. An amazing thing. I accelerated, I braked, I turned corners, I even signaled my lane changes. It was amazing because I was so upset my hands trembled on the steering wheel.
It was very hot and very cold inside the Cherokee, and nothing seemed to make sense. Mr. Mosley. Frank Crosetti. Lieutenant Dyke. Especially me. What I had done to Danny. I had never hurt anyone like that before, yet I managed it without even a hint of pity or remorse. I had killed several men—once on the job, a few afterward. They were righteous shoots, meaning the grand jury refused to indict me. And each time I told myself,
Here’s this guy trying to kill you, trying to kill someone else, don’t go shedding any tears over him. Just be glad you’re alive and move
on. Only it never worked that way. I always felt
nauseous afterward, sometimes for days. I always felt ashamed. Only not with Danny.
Here’s this guy trying to kill you, trying to kill someone else, don’t go shedding any tears over him. Just be glad you’re alive and move
on. Only it never worked that way. I always felt
nauseous afterward, sometimes for days. I always felt ashamed. Only not with Danny.
As I drove, snippets of song lyrics inexplicably entered my head and departed with startling speed.
There’s nothing you can know that can’t be known, why do the birds go on singing, you can help yourself but don’t take too much, I went out for a ride and never went back, the things that you’re liable to hear in the Bible it ain’t necessarily so, and the colored girls go doo
,
doo doo, doo doo, doo doo doo
… Maybe my subconscious wanted to tell me something, only it was like trying to find a coherent message in a bowl of alphabet soup.
There’s nothing you can know that can’t be known, why do the birds go on singing, you can help yourself but don’t take too much, I went out for a ride and never went back, the things that you’re liable to hear in the Bible it ain’t necessarily so, and the colored girls go doo
,
doo doo, doo doo, doo doo doo
… Maybe my subconscious wanted to tell me something, only it was like trying to find a coherent message in a bowl of alphabet soup.
Eventually I found myself outside the King of Kings Baptist Church of Golden Valley without having made a decision to drive there. I stopped the Cherokee in the middle of the street and lowered the window. Another song lyric reached out to me. How sweet the sound that saved
a wretch
like me.
a wretch
like me.
I wasn’t any good at funerals and hadn’t been since my mother died when I was twelve. The fight-or-flee instinct kicked in, but I suppressed it. The lot was full, and I ended up parking on a side street a block away from the church. I entered through the rear door. Faces turned toward me, most of them African American. Some wore expressions of curiosity, others admonishment. You’re late. How
could you be late?
I didn’t tell them that I didn’t want to be there at all, that I had tried to make myself too busy to be there and failed, as I had in so many other things. I didn’t tell them that I was afraid to say good-bye to Mr. Mosley.
could you be late?
I didn’t tell them that I didn’t want to be there at all, that I had tried to make myself too busy to be there and failed, as I had in so many other things. I didn’t tell them that I was afraid to say good-bye to Mr. Mosley.
I was impressed by the number of people who had come to memorialize him, especially by the number of Asians, Hispanics, and Caucasians. Among the white mourners were Shelby and Bobby Dunston. I would have liked to sit in the back with them, but Reverend Winfield saw me enter and waved me toward the front. He found a seat close enough that he could stop me if I attempted to escape. Maybe I would have run off, too, if only I had someplace to go.
Most of the men and women who rose to eulogize Mr. Mosley were strangers to me, although I knew of some of the events they spoke of. Cornelius Jackson was there, and he told how Mr. Mosley had saved his life at the Minnesota State Public School for Dependent and Neglected Children. Another man rose to say how Mr. Mosley had saved his life during the Korean War. Lorenzo Hernandez testified that Mr. Mosley had saved his life, too, by giving him a job tending honeybees, a job that helped him escape the suffocating poverty of Guatemala, that allowed him to remain in the United States.
The speeches were all sweetened with choruses of amens and alleluias and easy laughter, for many of the stories were both funny and joyous, and there was raucous music that made a white boy from Minnesota think of Memphis and New Orleans. Although I had promised myself that I was done weeping, tears rolled down both cheeks.
Reverend Winfield gestured at me several times during the service, urging me to stand. I refused. He persisted, gesturing again, mouthing words that I refused to acknowledge. Finally he called my name loud enough for everyone to hear and pointed at me and said I wished to speak. There was nothing I could do but stand and turn and face the congregation, which suddenly seemed to be much quieter than it had been. This was not something I had planned to do—speak of my relationship with Mr. Mosley, a man whom I had known my entire life. Where would I begin? I was surprised when the words came out.
“I had two fathers …”
Someone in the back shouted, “Alleluia!”
Afterward, I shook the hands of a great many people that I didn’t know. Many others hugged me. Two old women even kissed my cheek. They were the only ones who used Mr. Mosley’s first name, and I wondered if after all these years there were a few things that he hadn’t told me.
I noticed Lorenzo Hernandez waiting. When the crowd thinned he came up and said, “Ju look for killer of Mr. Mosley, Reverend say,” in a thick accent.
“Sí,”
I said.
I said.
“Ju find ’im, ju tell me.”
I didn’t reply.
“Por favor,” he
added.
added.
“We’ll see.”
“Mr. Mosley, ‘e good to me. I make ’im proud.”
“Sí,”
I said.
I said.
A moment later, Reverend Winfield was hugging me. He hugged me several times.
“It went very well,” he told me.
“It was almost enough to restore your faith in the Almighty.”
He raised an eyebrow when I said that. Maybe he knew that during the service I had managed to say a prayer for Mr. Mosley. And Susan Tillman. And, God help me, for Danny. Maybe he could see it in my face. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Almost,” I added.
“You’ll be back,” he said.
Shelby and Bobby had waited for me. Shelby hugged me, too. Bobby looked as if he might also give me a squeeze.
“Don’t even think about it,” I told him.
They insisted I spend the night on their sofa. I didn’t think that was necessary, and I gave them an argument. But the thing is, while I’ve debated successfully with each of them separately, I’ve never been able to stand up to both at the same time.
“McKenzie. Wake up.”
Shelby was leaning over the sofa, shaking my arm. She was wearing
a pink off-the-shoulder sleep shirt, and for a brief moment I thought one of my most fervent fantasies was about to come true.
a pink off-the-shoulder sleep shirt, and for a brief moment I thought one of my most fervent fantasies was about to come true.
“It’s Bobby.”
“Bobby?”
“Get up.”
I followed Shelby into the kitchen. The clock on her wall read 6:15. She handed me the receiver of her wall phone.
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