Highway 61 (23 page)

Yet there was so much more to her than that. She was ungodly smart. She loved music. She was tough and resourceful. Caring and brave. She was funny—at least she laughed at my jokes, which, I realized, might not be the same thing. Even her flaws were endearing, like how even a simple cold would render her grouchy and miserable. It was beyond my comprehension how Jason Truhler could have abused her and cheated on her. I would have gladly shot him dead if she asked me to.

Nina saw me approach the small group out of the corner of her eye. Either that or she had somehow sensed my presence, because she reached out for me, wrapped her arm around mine, and pulled me close without once lifting her eyes from the face of the woman who was speaking to her. In that moment I knew, absolutely
knew,
what love felt like.

Barrett glanced at his wristwatch.

“You’re going to be late for dinner,” I told him.

“McKenzie, it is obvious that you do not know the value of a grand entrance,” he said.

Lindsey rolled her eyes the way she had when we were kids and her sister Linda said something particularly dumb. Lin-
duh
we had called her, as compared to Lind-
zee.

More small talk was exchanged. Finally the remaining guests floated toward their vehicles. We drifted along with them even though we hadn’t been invited to the charity dinner. The governor’s security guard held open the door to the state-owned Escalade. Lindsey climbed aboard. The governor paused at the door.

“McKenzie, if you’re involved with Mr. Muehlenhaus, I have some advice for you,” he said. “Be careful.”

“Are you saying he can’t be trusted?”

“He has a way of making you feel like you’re on his side. The problem is you can never be entirely sure which side he’s on.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

A few moments later he drove off.

Since Nina and I were all dressed up with nowhere to go, I suggested we eat a real dinner and listed a number of the Cities’ more expensive restaurants, only Nina said she wasn’t hungry. I recommended a couple of clubs, including rivals like the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis and the Artists’ Quarter in St. Paul. Nina said she had a better idea. I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice to say that it involved bending if not actually breaking various rules and regulations governing the operation of motor vehicles in the state of Minnesota while I drove her home. It was because I was driving so aggressively that I didn’t notice the vehicle dawdling behind us until we were working through the crowded Uptown area of Minneapolis. I took a couple of casual turns to make sure.

“What is it?” Nina asked.

“We’re being followed,” I told her.

She turned in her seat to look, then quickly turned back.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done that. Now they know we know that they’re back there.”

She was so sorry that she did it again.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I was about to educate them anyway.”

“In this?”

Nina had a point. The Cherokee didn’t have anything near the get-up-and-go that my Audi had. God, I already missed her.

“Okay,” I said. “Change in plan.”

“So, we have a plan, then?”

“Watch and learn.”

I allowed the tail to follow us north on Hennepin Avenue to the intersection of Interstate 94 and then drove east. The bright traffic lights allowed me to identify it as a high-performance German sedan. I stayed in the right-hand lane, watching the vehicle behind us intently through the rearview and side mirrors. The sedan did not attempt to speed up on us. Nor did it fall back.

“Who is it, do you think?” Nina asked.

“Someone who knew we would be at the party.”

“Mr. Muehlenhaus?”

“More likely it’s Roberta or one of her employees.”

“Who’s Roberta?” Nina asked.

I gave her a quick summary without lingering over Jason Truhler’s involvement. By then we were crossing the bridge leading from Minneapolis into St. Paul.

“They probably don’t want to hurt us,” Nina said. “They probably just want us to lead them to Vicki Walsh.”

“One can only hope.”

Nina didn’t speak again until we were passing the Cretin-Vandalia off-ramp.

“Do you have a gun?” she asked.

“No.”

“No?”

“I took you to a party with the governor. Of course I didn’t bring a gun. Did you bring a gun?”

Nina ran her hands from her thighs to her waist to just beneath her breasts.

“Sorry,” she said.

The sedan began to accelerate as we passed the Snelling Avenue exit. The driver was pushing it up to seventy as we approached Lexington Parkway, but then so was I. Seventy-five. Eighty. I used my turn signal to tell him I was exiting at Dale. He followed me up the ramp. I stayed in the left-hand lane and signaled my turn. To my relief he fell back, allowing a car to ease between us. The traffic light at Dale was red, and we all slowed to a stop.

“Take off your seat belt,” I said.

“What?” Nina asked.

“Take off your seat belt.”

I pressed the button that released the latch, and I let my own seat belt recede into the roller above and behind the driver’s door. Nina followed my lead.

Ruben Barany wasn’t on duty. Instead, a shabbily dressed woman moved down the line of cars, peering inside the driver’s windows. I presumed she was a uniform working for the St. Paul Police Department. She was carrying the exact same sign that Ruben had carried—
WILL WORK FOR FOOD
.

“Homeless Harriet,” I said.

“Huh?”

I deliberately avoided eye contact when the woman approached the Jeep Cherokee, in case we knew each other, and I made no effort to reach in my pocket for a contribution as I had with Ruben. I didn’t want an act of generosity on my part to persuade her to let me off. Harriet looked through my window. I was sure we made a tempting target, two obviously well-off swells dressed to the nines ignoring someone in need—I would have busted me, too.

The cars surged forward when the light changed, and I made my turn. I got half a block before I saw the light bar of a Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department cruiser flashing in my mirror. I pulled to a stop along Dale Street and turned off my Cherokee. The German sedan that had been following us was forced to pass, continuing on toward University Avenue. It paused as if it were looking for a place to park, but drove on when a second RCSD cruiser pulled over the car that was directly behind it.

I unrolled the window of my Cherokee when the deputy approached.

“Can I help you, Officer?” I asked.

“Sir, you are in violation of Minnesota Statute one-six-nine-point-six-eight-six, driving without a properly fastened seat belt. May I see your driver’s license and proof of insurance, please?”

I gave him both, and he proceeded to write out a ticket. He then asked for Nina’s ID and wrote out a ticket for her as well. For reasons that baffled me, Nina started to laugh quietly. She laughed even louder when the deputy gave us a lecture about the dangers of driving without a seat belt. I wondered exactly how much champagne she’d had.

“Miss,” the deputy said, “I’d hate to see your pretty face and that, that dress you’re wearing splattered across the windshield.”

That stopped her while she looked down at herself.

“What’s wrong with my dress?” Nina asked.

“Well, nothing,” said the deputy, and Nina started laughing again. I have no idea why he didn’t drag us out of the car and start administering portable Breathalyzer tests.

After the deputy told us to have a good evening, I drove around the neighborhood to make sure that the tail was gone. I then got back on the freeway.

“What now?” Nina asked.

“I can either take you home or back to the club.”

“I thought we had other plans.”

“Our friends in the sedan reminded me that there is something important I need to do.”

Nina sighed dramatically.

“You are going to pay my fine, aren’t you?” she asked.

I told her I would, and she laughed some more.

“Honest to God, McKenzie, you always know how to show a girl a good time.”

*   *   *

I wasn’t dressed for the weather and found myself shivering slightly in the Jeep Cherokee while I waited in the parking lot outside Caitlin Brooks’s apartment. She hadn’t answered the lobby phone when I first arrived, and there were no lights shining in what I believed to be her apartment windows. So I waited, shivering in the dark. My driver’s side window was down because I didn’t want to fog up my windows. I could have rolled it up and turned on the engine, but I didn’t want to risk giving myself away. I didn’t know when she would return or who she would be with. I didn’t think Caitlin was the type to bring her work home with her, yet you never know.

While I was waiting, I called Denny Marcus. He didn’t answer his cell, so I left a voice mail. I told him it was essential that he contact Vicki and have her call me. “Tell her that Roberta knows everything,” I said, adding that I could help. I threw in a few “pleases” for good measure.

Finally a limousine drove up, stopping at the curb. The driver did not get out, round the vehicle, and open the door as was customary. Instead, Caitlin opened the door herself and stepped out.

“Good night, Barry,” she said.

Although it worked to my advantage, Barry didn’t bother to wait until Caitlin was safely inside the building before he drove off.

Chivalry is dead
, my inner voice said.

I waited until Caitlin was entering the lobby of the building before I approached her. Her clothes resembled a schoolgirl’s uniform except her stockings were so high, her skirt so short, and her sheer white blouse so revealing that it probably would have earned her a week’s detention in any private school in America.

“Caitlin with a
C,
” I said.

My voice visibly startled her, and her hand immediately dove into the bag she carried by a thin strap over her shoulder. Maybe she was grabbing for pepper spray, maybe a gun, but when she recognized me her hand came out empty.

“McKenzie,” she said. “You look nice.”

“So do you,” I said.

“This old thing?”

“The schoolgirl look is kind of a cliché, isn’t it?”

“You’d be surprised. Why are you here, McKenzie?”

“I need you to do something for me.”

Caitlin raised an eyebrow. “What?” she asked.

“I need you to contact Vicki Walsh.”

“McKenzie, I don’t know where Vicki is.”

“Yes, you do. Tell her to call me. Tell her her life is in danger. Tell her I can help—if she calls me.”

“McKenzie…”

“Caitlin. I know what Vicki is doing. So do you. Maybe you’re in on it, maybe you’re not, but you know. You and Vicki have been seen together recently, long after she was supposed to have disappeared, long after you said you lost track of her. Roberta doesn’t know that you’re in touch with Vicki, does she? Neither do the Joes.”

Caitlin flinched at the mention of their names. Part of me was pleased that she understood the threat, the other part—suddenly I felt so low I’d have needed a stepladder to scratch an ant’s belly.

“There’s no reason for any of them to know about you and Vicki,” I said. “Do you understand?”

“You’re not nearly as nice as I thought you were,” Caitlin said.

“Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“I swear, Caitlin, I mean Vicki no harm. Or you, either. Truth is, I might be the only one who can help her.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

FOURTEEN

The phone jolted me awake. I jumped out of bed and raced to the prepaid cell on my bureau, stubbing my big toe in the process. It wasn’t until I was hopping on one foot and cursing loudly that I realized that my land line was ringing—Vicki Walsh didn’t have that number. I managed to get to the phone before it rolled over to my voice mail.

“Hello,” I said.

“And a good morning to you, too,” Bobby Dunston said; I recognized his voice instantly.

“What time is it?”

“Ten o’clock. Did I wake you? Poor baby. I know how much you need your beauty sleep.”

“What’s going on, Bobby?”

“You tell me. You make a big deal about me missing hockey last week and then you blow us off without so much as a phone call.”

“Sorry ’bout that. I was out with Nina.”

“That’s what we were speculating, that she dragged you off somewhere. You are so whipped, McKenzie.”

There are insults, and then there are insults. When Jason Truhler said that to me, I was prepared to clean his clock. That’s because he meant it in the most derogatory way possible, as if somehow it was unmanly to arrange your schedule to accommodate a woman. With Bobby it was like the line in the old Owen Wister novel
The Virginian
—“When you call me that,
smile
.” I could feel his grin all the way across the telephone wire. He understood as well as anyone that making personal sacrifices is exactly what a man does for the people he cares about.

“No doubt about it,” I said. “If you saw the dress Nina was wearing, you’d be whipped, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Strapless.”

“My, my, my, my, my. Where’d you guys go?”

“We had cocktails with the governor.”

“Oh la-dee-dah.”

“If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’.”

“Was Lindsey there?”

When I said earlier that Lindsey was from the neighborhood, I meant Merriam Park in St. Paul, where both Bobby and I grew up, where everybody knew everyone.

“She was,” I said, “but you know what, Bobby? She never mentioned your name.”

“I liked her sister better, anyway.”

“Listen, I’m glad you called. There’s something I wanted to ask you about.”

“What?”

“Let’s say, hypothetically—”

“Hypothetically? It’s going to be one of those conversations, huh?”

“Let’s say there was a prostitution ring operating in the Twin Cities that was using the Internet to arrange trysts.”

“Trysts? Is that what they call it now?”

“Let’s say the Web site is called, oh, I don’t know, My Very First Time dot com.”

“Let’s.”

“Who would have jurisdiction?”