Authors: Christopher Valen
“I’m still not convinced she was an accomplice.”
“If it ever goes to trial, I hope her attorney’s got a better defense than you’re offering,” Gamboni said with a curt laugh.
“Come on, Rita. Work with me on this. Tony Novak’s got hair samples he found under Mendoza’s nails. He also found traces of incense. I’m betting the hair samples are Scanlon’s.”
She considered the idea for a few seconds and then gave a slow shake of her head. “Jesus, John. You’ve got to be careful where you’re going with this. You start screwing with the wrong people and Ashford will pull your shield.”
She poured herself another shot of aguardiente and sipped it.
“I don’t think Scanlon is in it alone, Rita.”
Her eyes never left his as she held the glass against her chin. Her face was smooth and soft in the firelight, and there was a pink stain around the edge of the glass where it had touched her lips.
Santana said, “I think Kehoe killed Pérez.”
She swallowed the rest of her aguardiente and coughed.
“You okay?” he asked, leaning forward.
She waved him away. Took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “For God’s sake, John! You’re not serious!”
“Give me some time and I can prove it.”
“Time? You don’t have any more time. If Ashford finds out you’re trying to pin this on Kehoe and the archbishop, you can kiss your career good-bye.”
“Ashford has got to trust me on this, Rita.”
“Trust! You can’t expect him to trust you regardless of what you do.”
“Is that Ashford talking or you, Rita?”
“You think I don’t trust you?”
“No. I just don’t know how far you’re willing to go to nail the guy who killed Pérez and Mendoza. Especially if it involves a cop.”
Her nostrils flared and she set the glass down hard on the coffee table. “I’ve covered your ass this whole damn case. Risked my career by not telling Ashford about Mendoza’s visa scam. What more do you want?”
“Two days. Just give me two more days to see what I can come up with.”
She got up and stood with her back to the fire, arms crossed. “I don’t like it,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re willing to risk everything on a hunch.”
And you’re not.”
“Damn right. I worked hard to get where I am.” She spread her hands. “Do you think it’s easy for a woman to be in a position of authority in an occupation that’s nearly always defined by the size of your balls?”
“You’re still part of the club.”
“It’s different.”
“How?”
“This job is who you are. Detective John Santana,” she said sarcastically.
“And who are you, Rita?”
She looked at him without responding. There was something in her eyes that he remembered from when they were lovers, and then it was gone.
Finally she said, “I’m your boss. And I’m telling you, I want you to drop this investigation. Now. Before you bring us both down.”
She strode toward the back door and he followed.
“And if I don’t stop, Rita. What then?”
She yanked on her boots as if they were three sizes too small, grabbed her parka out of the closet and put it on. “You’re dangerous, John. Dangerous to yourself and to others.”
“That’s not all of it,” he said.
“No, you’re right.”
She zipped up her coat and put her hat crookedly on her head. Her eyes shifted in the direction of the fire, as if seeking an answer. Then she blew out a breath, releasing the anger that had flamed inside her.
He could almost feel her mood shift.
She took his right hand in both of hers and with an index finger she gently touched the long, jagged scar on the back of his hand.
“You live out here alone, John, with all this security, waiting for someone to kill you.”
“They haven’t succeeded yet.”
Raising her face to his, she said, “They will. Someday, they will.”
She let go of his hand and turned away from him. Unlocked the latch on the door and opened it.
He put a hand on her forearm. “And?” he said.
Her eyes regarded him silently. They glistened in the dim light.
“And,” she said, “you won’t even tell me why.”
She walked out and closed the door behind her.
Chapter 26
DAY 9
S
ETON
A
CADEMY WAS LESS EXPENSIVE
than some of the other Catholic high schools in town, but it had the best reputation, primarily because it produced more professional athletes than any other school, public or private, in the Twin Cities. The tuition at the 9–12 all-boys school was out of reach for most young athletes unless a coach wanted you. Then tuition was usually free.
Santana leaned on a counter in the main office and introduced himself to the headmaster’s secretary, a heavy-set, fifty-something woman who had probably settled for her second choice after considering a nunnery. The nameplate on her neatly arranged desk said: Ms. Daggett. She wore no make-up and a plain white blouse with a cameo brooch over the top button. Her short dark hair was going gray and her pale skin had loosened and begun the slow, inexorable slide down the side of her face. Direct and to the point, she was a no-nonsense type, good with the computer and helpful — once Santana showed her his badge.
He told her he was looking for a former student’s graduation date. The name was James Kehoe.
Her stubby fingers raced over the keys and in a moment she said, “James Kehoe graduated from Seton in June of 1989.”
“Do you have a yearbook from that time?”
She got up and went over to a long shelf behind her desk, swaying like a penguin as she walked. She ran an index finger along the spines of the books, pulled one out, and brought it over to him and set it on the counter. 1989 SPARTANS was stenciled in large red letters on the white cover.
Santana opened the cover and began turning the pages that listed the Seton Academy faculty along with their pictures.
“Would you also have a copy of James Kehoe’s transcript?”
“I’m sure we do,” she said, sitting down at her computer. A few minutes later a printer spit out a copy. She brought it over to Santana and set it on the counter.
It took him another minute to find what he was looking for.
S
antana took Interstate 94 to 694, which led north and east of the city, to White Bear Lake. The morning was cold and partly sunny, and he flipped the rearview to night vision to cut the sun’s glare that glinted like a knife in the mirror.
The White Bear Lake business district, only a few blocks long and wide, with its numerous restaurants and shops, maintained a small town image, especially in summer when the lake became dotted with weekend boaters. In an earlier time, when an amusement park stood on the western shore of the lake, White Bear had been the resort home for the wealthy of St. Paul and the Midwest. Guests such as Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, and Mark Twain had vacationed there.
James Kehoe’s former wife, Janet, had remarried and lived in a house just up the road from the White Bear Lake Yacht Club in the wealthier community of Dellwood. It was a large colonial set well back from the road, with a long winding driveway lined with bare hedges. Santana parked the Crown Vic in the circular drive. He walked up the steps between the gleaming white pillars and rang the chimes.
Janet Mitchell, as she was now known, ushered Santana in and led him across the parquet floor and into a spacious living room furnished in French provincial. A tall, attractive woman with dark brown hair and chocolate brown eyes, she was conservatively dressed in gray wool pleated slacks and a red blouse.
Santana sat down on an uncomfortable love seat opposite a pair of French doors that opened onto a patio overlooking the lake and took out his notebook and pen.
Photographs of Janet Mitchell and her new husband, a distinguished older man with silver hair, were strategically placed around the room along with pictures of a younger man with his wife and two small children. The younger man was probably in his mid-to-late twenties and looked very much like his father might have looked thirty years ago.
“Can I get you some coffee, Detective Santana?”
“Thanks, but I’m fine.”
On the coffee table was a morning edition of the
Pioneer Press
. The headline read: ST. PAUL PRIEST COMMITS SUICIDE.
As I said on the phone, Mrs. Mitchell, I don’t want to take up much of your time. I just wanted to ask you a few questions about your former husband.”
“Are you with Internal Affairs?”
“No.”
She nodded hesitantly, as if she didn’t quite believe it, and sat down on the couch opposite him. “Is Jim in some kind of trouble?”
Santana was unaccustomed to hearing Kehoe addressed as Jim. The name had an uncomfortable sound to it, like fingernails scraped across a chalkboard. “Not at this point.”
She lit a cigarette with a silver table lighter and looked at him a moment, thoughtfully, smoke misting around her face.
On the third finger of her left hand, she wore a gold band with a large pear-shaped diamond Santana guessed was at least a carat and a half.
“That’s not a very definitive statement of innocence, Detective.” She gave him a little smile and sucked hard on her cigarette, blowing the smoke through her nostrils.
Santana had contemplated how he should approach Janet Mitchell, how much he should tell her. He didn’t want Kehoe to find out his former wife was being questioned regarding his possible involvement in the Pérez-Mendoza murders. He was unsure if she was on good terms with her ex-husband or if she even spoke to him. Their past and current relationship would dictate the conversation’s direction and its eventual destination.
“What does your current husband do?”
“Roger’s in real estate. Commercial property mostly. That’s how we met. I got my real estate license after Jim and I divorced.”
“How long were you two married?”
“Four years.”
“Still on speaking terms?”
“I’ve only talked to my ex-husband a few times since the divorce.”
“Was the divorce amicable?”
“That’s not a term I’d use. Jim took it harder than I did. I guess that’s to be expected since I was the one who wanted out of the marriage.”
“Why did you want out?”
She gave him a thin smile and took another hit of nicotine. “You’re rather direct, Detective.”
“Sometimes I have to be.”
She crushed out her cigarette in a glass ashtray on the coffee table, stood up and walked across the room to the patio window. Standing framed against it, she stared out at the thin sheet of gray that shaded the sun and seemed to merge with the lake on the far horizon.
“I came from a large Irish Catholic family. My father worked at the Ford plant most of his life. All my relatives drank, so I never realized my father was an alcoholic and an abuser until I was in my teens. He was very strict when it came to dating. In retrospect, I believe I rebelled once I got out of high school. I was quite wild. I was twenty when I met Jim. He was older, a police officer, very controlling. They say women always marry their fathers. I didn’t think about it at the time. Jim was exciting. It wasn’t until later that I realized how much the shift work and the hours bothered me. I really didn’t like being alone. He didn’t want me to work. But living on a policeman’s salary doesn’t get you very far.”
“Is that why you divorced him?”
She crossed her arms, turned and looked at him.
Santana could hear the distant roar of a snowmobile as it skimmed across the frozen surface. See it weaving between the icehouses out on the lake.
“There were other problems,” she said finally in a voice that was flat.
He could tell she wanted to avoid talking about the past. Most people he came across felt the same.
“Can you be more specific, Mrs. Mitchell?”
Her cheeks turned red. “I don’t see what our marital problems have to do with anything you could possibly be investigating, Detective Santana.” Her tone was more anxious than angry.
She stared at him without speaking for a long while. Then she came back to the couch, sat down and lit another cigarette. Inhaling deeply, she raised her chin and blew the smoke upward, but her eyes never left his.
It was apparent to Santana that a little education and a lot of money had managed to smooth out some, but not all, of Janet Mitchell’s rough edges.
“Tell me, did Kehoe … Jim ever mention to you that he knew Richard Scanlon?”
She thought for a moment before responding. “Not that I recall. But the name does sound familiar.”
“Richard Scanlon was recently appointed Archbishop of the Twin Cities.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, nodding.
“According to your former husband’s transcript, Scanlon was one of his teachers at Seton Academy years ago.”
“Really?”
“How about Thomas Hidalgo?”
Her gaze drifted down to the newspaper on the coffee table and then back to Santana. “No. But I recognize the name. His death was reported in the paper this morning.”
“Did your ex-husband own property up north near a lake?”
“We never owned any property when we were married. But when we were dating he used to go up north once in a while. Someone he knew owned a cabin on Lake Superior.”
“Do you remember where exactly?”
“I believe it was near Two Harbors.”
“Did your ex-husband have any hobbies?”
She blushed slightly and bit her lower lip. “He liked to take pictures.”
“Pictures of what?”
She took a long drag on her cigarette and let the smoke out slowly. “Things he shouldn’t.”
The chill in her voice and the hardness of her stare told Santana that going down this road would only lead to a dead end. He changed direction.
“Did you ever collect alimony?”
“For a couple of years. Neither of us had much at the time. Jim always thought he could get me back if he got a promotion or made more money. But I just wanted out of the marriage. I suppose I could have asked for more, but I wasn’t terribly vindictive.”
“Should you have been?”
She removed a grain of tobacco from the tip of her tongue with her index finger and thumb and gave Santana a long look. “What exactly is it that you want to know, Detective Santana?”