Highway 61, page 11
“C’mon, McKenzie. She was a tramp.”
“She was eighteen years old.”
“Yeah? So? McKenzie, Vicki wasn’t some innocent kid that I seduced. You know how we hooked up? We hooked up on the Internet. I found her on a Web site for prostitutes that a friend told me about. I didn’t even believe it was her when I first saw the picture. At the fencing tournaments, she always had her hair in a ponytail and she wore one of those white tunics, jackets, whatever they call it, no makeup. In the picture on the Web site, her blouse was open so you could see her tits, and her hair was down and her lips were red and—”
“What Web site? What are you talking about?”
“C’mere. Let me show you.”
Truhler led me from his living room into a home office. He had an L-shaped desk; an eMachine had been positioned on the base of the L. The power was on. Truhler called up a search engine and typed in an address. The page that popped up on the monitor displayed a shot of an attractive young woman; I would have placed her age at about sixteen. She had dark eyes and black hair that fell to her bare shoulders. There was something extraordinarily touching about her. Beneath her photo was an empty field labeled MEMBERS and another that read PASSWORD. That was it—no explanation of the site and no directions on how to become a member.
Truhler typed in his name—ColdWeatherFriend—and a password that appeared as bullet points. A moment later a new page filled the screen. This one had the title My Very First Time. Beneath it were photographs of twenty women displayed in a grid, four down, five across. Each of the women was identified by a first name only; all of them seemed impossibly young. They were posed provocatively, with shirts unbuttoned and skirts hiked to there, yet despite that they exhibited a kind of innocence that I found intriguing—a trick of the photographer’s light, I decided. That opinion changed abruptly when Truhler moved the cursor to the woman called Tasha and clicked his mouse.
In attempting to define pornography, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said, “I know it when I see it.” Tasha’s page left no doubt. There were a half dozen photographs of her, each of them more raw than the one before. A prop was placed in each photo to emphasize the woman’s youth—a doll, a teddy bear, a plaid private school skirt, a canopied bed trimmed in pink. Yet any semblance of innocence was gone baby gone.
According to the copy beneath the photos, Tasha had earned a four-out-of-five-star rating from her clients. There was a navigation key that allowed viewers to read the woman’s vital statistics, another that displayed comments posted by her clients, and still another that allowed clients to post a comment. Beneath that, there was a navigation key that read: ARRANGE TO MEET TASHA.
“Show me Vicki’s page,” I said.
Truhler leaned away from the computer screen.
“It’s gone,” he said. “They took it down a few weeks ago.”
“Not after Thunder Bay?”
“No, but I checked a couple of times since I got back, and there didn’t seem to be any activity. No new guys were posting comments after being with her.”
“Tell me how this works.”
“The Web site? Well, you just can’t sign up, that’s the first thing. You have to be recommended by a friend who’ll vouch for you. Then the company checks you out to make sure you’re not a cop, not a degenerate, and that you have money to pay before they give you a confidential membership name and a password.”
“Apparently their definition of degenerate is different from mine.”
“Are you going to judge me now?”
“They’re kids, Truhler.”
“They’re not kids. They look like kids, but they’re not. They’re all older than eighteen. They’re all adults.”
“To a twelve-year-old eighteen might be an adult. Not to guys our age.”
“The law says—”
I held up a hand to stop him.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I said. “I really don’t. Just tell me who does the checking for this company, who’s in charge.”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“It’s run by a woman. Her name is Roberta. She’s about fifty years old. That’s all I know. The company is very security conscious. Names aren’t exchanged.”
“You’re saying they know who you are, but you don’t know who they are.”
“It’s not important for me to know.”
“Truhler, did it ever occur to you that these are the people who are blackmailing you?”
He shook his head as if the idea were just too outrageous to contemplate.
“They wouldn’t jeopardize their business. They wouldn’t kill their own employees,” he said.
“First of all, their business is making money from shnooks like you. Second, Vicki Walsh isn’t dead.”
“What?” Truhler stood and stepped away from the desk. “What?”
“The stain on the carpet where she was supposedly killed was caused by theatrical blood—the stuff they use in slasher films.”
“What? What?”
“You’ve been played, pal.”
Truhler sat down again.
“I don’t believe it,” he said.
“Are you sure you can’t identify your friends at—what is this Web site called, My Very First Time?”
He shook his head.
“Well, then you’re screwed.”
“Not if we can find Vicki. If we can find Vicki—”
“We?”
“McKenzie, you’ve got to help me.”
“You keep telling me that.”
“Please.”
I didn’t want to help Truhler, a man who abused children; the only people who should be involved with eighteen-year-old girls are eighteen-year-old boys. Erica—I figured it would crush her to learn about her father, only he was a jerk and she was going to find out sooner or later. Probably she knew already; she’s the one who put me onto Vicki Walsh. Vicki; she looked so young, so sweet. A prostitute. A year older than Erica, she had to be nineteen by now, maybe twenty. She had to know what she was doing. My Very First Time, exploiting young women, pimping them to old men. Someone should do something about that. I could pick up a phone, give Bobby a call. An online prostitution ring, surely that constituted a major crime, right? And what about the guys who shot up my car, who nearly shot me? They didn’t need to do that. That was unnecessary. Someone should do something about that, too.
Does it have to be me?
A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.
“No, not this time,” I said. “I’ve done my bit for God and country.”
“McKenzie, please.”
I left the office and headed for the door. Truhler followed, begging me to reconsider with each step.
“What am I going to do?” he asked.
“My advice, call the cops, call a lawyer. I know people. If you want a few names and phone numbers, I’ll give them to you.”
I opened the front door. Truhler grabbed my forearm. I shook it free.
“Rickie will be disappointed,” Truhler said.
“Maybe so, but Erica will understand.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Jason,” the girl called from the darkened corridor. “How long are you going to beeeeeeee?”
“Erica is more mature than most of the women you know,” I said.
I turned and crossed the threshold into the cool night air. The girl’s giggling followed me out the door.
* * *
It was eleven thirty by the time I reached my home in Falcon Heights. By midnight I was sitting in my favorite comfy chair and watching SportsCenter on ESPN, a bottle of Summit Ale at my elbow. At twelve forty-five my phone rang.
“McKenzie, it’s Erica.”
I felt a thrill of fear at the sound of her voice. The last time Erica called me in the middle of the night was never.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Don’t let it be Nina, don’t let it be Nina, don’t let it be Nina, my inner voice chanted.
“It’s my father,” she said.
NINE
Fairview Southdale Hospital in Edina was a half hour drive from Truhler’s town house yet it was the nearest health-care facility with an emergency room, so that’s where the paramedics took him. Nina and Erica were in the waiting room when I arrived. Nina looked angry, Erica looked frightened, and the young woman I had met earlier, she of the pearl necklace and high heels, looked like this was the best roller coaster ride she had ever been on. She giggled and waved when I entered the room.
“I know you,” she said.
She started to stand. I pointed at the chair, and she settled back down again.
“I’ll be right there,” I said.
She smiled. I thought she might giggle some more. She covered her mouth with her hand, though, and made no sound.
Nina and Erica were sitting on the other side of the waiting room from the girl and watching intently. Nina crossed the room to meet me. I thought she might need a hug, so I opened my arms to her. Instead, she grabbed the lapel of my jacket and pulled me close. She spoke in an urgent whisper.
“Did you do this?”
“Did I do what?”
“Put Jason in the hospital?”
Another man might have been angry at the question; another might have been hurt. I was neither. Given our history together, and her certain knowledge of the sort of things that happen when I involve myself in other people’s problems, I heard Nina’s inquiry not as an accusation but merely a request for information.
“No,” I said. “I did not. Of course I didn’t.” I spoke loudly enough for Erica to hear my answer. Afterward I dropped my voice so only Nina could hear. “Although the thought had crossed my mind.”
Nina gestured toward the young woman who was watching us from a chair on the other side of the room.
“Who’s your friend?” she asked. Her voice wasn’t nearly as low as mine had been.
“We weren’t formally introduced,” I said. “I met her briefly at Jason’s earlier.”
“Another one of Jason’s sluts. Why am I not surprised?”
“How long has she been here?”
“I don’t know. She was sitting there when I arrived. The police were talking to her earlier, so I thought she might have something to do with Jason, but when I went to say hello she blew me off.”
We made our way to the line of chairs positioned against the far wall where Erica was sitting.
“How are you doing, sweetie?” I asked her.
“What happened,” Erica said.
“I don’t know. I was going to ask you the same question.”
“We got a call from the hospital,” Nina said. “They said that Jason had been hurt. Apparently he listed me as his emergency contact.”
“Was he badly hurt?” I asked.
“We don’t know,” Nina said.
“The woman at the desk said that a doctor would tell us in a few minutes,” Erica said. “That was half an hour ago. She’s been ignoring us ever since.”
I glanced at the young woman. She was still wearing the pearls under a white shirt, but she had changed shoes. She looked like she wanted to come over and talk.
“Let me see what I can find out,” I said.
I crossed the floor to where she was sitting.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hi.”
“We haven’t been formally introduced.”
I offered my hand, and she shook it without rising from her chair.
“I’m Caitlin,” she told me. “Caitlin with a C. My friends call me Cait. That’s also with a C. You’re McKenzie.”
“How long have you been here?”
“A couple of hours. I came in the ambulance with Jason. The lady you were talking to, is she the other woman?”
“I think you’re the other woman.”
“I’m not,” Caitlin said. “Jason said there wasn’t anyone else. If he was lying, that’s not my fault, is it?”
“How old are you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Just curious.”
“I turn twenty next January.”
“Are you in school?”
She snickered as though she had never heard a sillier question.
“Jason isn’t seeing anyone else that I know of,” I said. “The woman”—I couldn’t bring myself to use Nina’s name—“is his ex-wife.”
Caitlin thought about it for a moment.
“That’s nice,” she said, “that they can still be friends.”
“Yeah, it’s wonderful. Can you tell me what happened?”
“You mean after you left?”
“Yes.”
She looked up at me and smiled. “I told the police—did I tell you that the cops questioned me?”
“What did you tell them?”
“After you left, Jason came back to the bedroom and said he wanted to do it again, and I said, ‘Where’s your friend?’ because I was hoping you’d be joining us. I thought that would be fun, only Jason, he didn’t like the idea at all, the three of us, and then someone was knocking on the door, and Jason was like, ‘I wonder what that asshole McKenzie wants now.’” The girl put her hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“So Jason goes to the door, and I kinda follow him because I was hoping it was you, and Jason opened the door, only it wasn’t you.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know. Two guys. I never heard any names.”
“What did they look like?”
“They were icky. One was short and had long blond hair that looked like it needed a shampoo and a trim, and the other guy was tall and he had long brown hair that he had in a ponytail. They both had straggly beards, and they were both wearing leather biker jackets.”
“What did they want?”
“I don’t know. When I saw it wasn’t you I went back to the bedroom.”
“What happened next?”
“There was some shouting, and I heard Jason yelling, ‘Don’t kill me,’ and I’m like whoa! I crept back down the corridor, and I saw Jason lying on the floor and the two biker dudes standing over him. One of them was holding a pipe, it looked like a pipe, and he was holding it—there was a handle, like one of those grips that they put on the handlebars of a bicycle. And his partner pointed me out and said, ‘Whaddaya think?’ I knew what he was thinking right away, so I ran back down the corridor to the bathroom to lock myself in, except I stopped in the bedroom for my cell phone first and I called the cops, only the two guys, they never did anything to me, they just left.”
“Then what?”
“I stayed on the phone like the woman said, the woman at nine-one-one. She was really nice. I stayed on the phone until the police came, and then I answered their questions and got dressed and came on the ambulance here to the emergency room with Jason. I didn’t think it would be right to just leave him, you know? So I came here and talked to the cops some more, and now I guess I’m just waiting to see if he’s okay. You know, Jason said he was involved with dangerous people, but I thought he was just trying to impress me. Did I tell you that before?”
“Yes.”
“I thought I did.”
I took her hand and gave it a pat.
“It was good of you to stay with Jason,” I said. “It was a classy move.”
“You really think?”
“I do.”
She giggled as I patted her hand again.
* * *
I recrossed the waiting room and sat next to Erica. Nina was in the chair on the opposite side of her daughter.
“What did she have to say?” Nina asked.
“Her name is Caitlin,” I said. “With a C.”
“And?”
“Someone attacked Jason in his home; she doesn’t know why. She called the police and got Jason to the hospital.”
“How virtuous of her.”
“I thought so.”
If our conversation had any effect on Erica, she kept it to herself.
We sat, without speaking, for another half hour. Finally a doctor wearing blue scrubs beneath a white lab coat stepped into the room, a chart in his hand. He read from the chart as if he were calling passengers to a waiting bus.
“Truhler?” he asked.
“Yes,” Nina said.
The doctor couldn’t be bothered to move to where we were sitting, or to even meet us halfway. Instead, he waited for us to join him. He spoke to Nina.
“You’re Mrs. Truhler?”
Nina didn’t bother to correct his misassumption.
“Yes,” she said.
“Your husband suffered a concussion,” the doctor said. “However, a CAT scan indicated no swelling of the brain or bleeding. There is no apparent memory loss or confusion. His vision, hearing, balance, coordination, and reflexes seem normal. We will keep him twenty-four hours for observation.”
“Is he going to be all right?” Erica asked.
“I believe that is what I just said.”
The doctor turned to walk away.
“Wait a minute,” I said.
He stopped, but he wasn’t happy about it.
“Your shitty bedside manner aside,” I said, “can we see him?”
The doctor shrugged away the question. “Talk to the nurse,” he said.
As he walked down the hospital corridor, a man dressed in a black sports coat brushed past him. The jacket bulged beneath his left armpit where he carried his gun.
“I’ll be dammed,” he said. “Rushmore McKenzie.”
I stared into his face, trying to place him.
“John Brehmer,” he said. He offered his hand. “When we met a few years ago, I was a deputy with the Carver County Sheriff’s Department.”
“That’s right.” I shook his hand. “Deputy Sergeant Brehmer. I remember. You helped me out. I never did thank you. Sorry about that.”
“That’s okay. I wasn’t looking for thanks.”
“You’re with Eden Prairie now?”
“The criminal investigations unit. I made the move a couple years ago so I could work plainclothes. So tell me, what’s your connection to all this?”
“Just a friend of the family.”
“Yeah? What do you know about what happened tonight?”
