First, Kill the Lawyers, page 14
Manske had a hard time getting past Ogilvy.
“Damnedest thing I ever saw,” he said. “Rabbit for a pet.”
“They’re nowhere near as needy as a dog and more affectionate than a cat,” I said.
“Do they poop around the house?”
“They use litter boxes like a cat, but you need to train them not to chew on your computer cords. Ogilvy chewed on mine until he took hold of an electrical cord by mistake. That cured him.”
We were standing around my kitchen counter, none of us actually drinking the coffee I had poured.
“There was a hit-and-run on Snelling near Hamline University a couple days ago,” Weiss said.
“I know.”
“I know you know. You were there to see it.”
“Who told you that?”
“The video camera at the coffeehouse across the street from where you were parked for an hour before it happened. You jumped out of your car like any concerned citizen might, thought better of it, and went back. You seemed upset, pounding on your steering wheel the way you did before you drove away.”
“You know I’m a private investigator.”
“Yeah, I know. I also know you used to be one of us, that you worked homicide with Assistant Chief Scalasi back in the day.” Weiss raised his cup, wet his lips with coffee, and returned it to the counter. “You gonna answer my questions?”
“I was retained by an attorney named Douglas Jernigan.”
“We know Jernigan,” Manske said.
“He sent me to speak to James Cowgill.”
“Our victim.”
“I can tell you that much. My problem is that I can’t tell you why I was sent to speak to Cowgill.”
“No,” Weiss said. “Your problem is that if you don’t give me something I can use I might be tempted to spread it around the Griffin Building. We both know how much private investigators depend on the police.”
“Almost as much as the police rely on private investigators.”
“If everybody is nice to everybody else, especially if you’re nice to us, we all get along. That’s the way it works. If you’re a dick, though, and the word gets out, hell, man, you might as well set up practice in Iowa for all the help you’re going to get from here on in.”
Yeah, the eternal dance, I told myself. Except Weiss was leading, and if I stepped on his toes … I gave it some thought before I answered. “Just out of curiosity, gentlemen, did anyone take a look at Cowgill’s bank accounts?”
The two detectives glanced at each other.
“Odd you should ask,” Manske said. “Chief Scalasi passed the word that she had received an anonymous tip telling us to do just that.”
“Is that right?”
“It’s just a coincidence that you and Scalasi are pals.”
“I wouldn’t say pals exactly.”
“Turns out our boy was depositing $9,990 in his savings account the first of every month since March first,” Manske said.
“Just below the cash amount banks are required to report to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.”
“Look at you, knowing how the system works.”
“Where does a college student get that kind of dough?” I asked. “He didn’t have a job as far as I knew.”
“Can you think of any possibilities?”
“Yes, but I have a vivid imagination and a generally low opinion of my fellow man.”
“Indulge us.”
“Blackmail. ’Course, I’m just guessing.”
“Who would Cowgill have been blackmailing?”
“I couldn’t say.”
Weiss didn’t like the answer, yet he knew he wouldn’t get a better one. It was Manske who asked, “What would he have used for leverage?”
“What do most blackmailers use?” I said. “Pictures. Possibly taken with a digital camera. Possibly located on his computer. I’d bet at least one or two pics were sent by email to his victim from his computer and then deleted. I’m just speculating, you understand.”
“What would the pics have been of, I wonder?” Weiss said.
“Off the top of my head? I’d say it was a criminal act of some sort.”
* * *
When they left, Manske said he was going to look into the possibility of getting a rabbit for his kids. Weiss didn’t say much of anything. I rinsed out the coffee cups and placed them inside my dishwasher. Ogilvy came bounding into the kitchen and stared at me with those big eyes of his.
“Life is full of compromises,” I told him. “You do the best you can and hope it’s good enough.”
He didn’t seem to believe me, but then again, he wasn’t confronted with many moral dilemmas day to day.
* * *
Freddie was sitting behind his desk when I walked into the office. He made a production out of looking at his watch.
“Nice of you to drop by,” he said. “I was startin’ t’ think you were takin’ the weekend off.”
“I was detained by detectives from the St. Paul Police Department.”
“Wha’d they have to say?”
“They admire us for our professionalism. Steven, good morning.”
Steve Vandertop was sitting in one of our chairs facing the window. There was nothing feminine about his attire; his blond hair was tied back in a ponytail and tucked under his back collar. The bag hanging from his shoulder when he stood up made him look like he was heading to a gym to play basketball. We clasped hands and hugged with our fists between us the way men do so witnesses won’t think there’s anything gay about it.
“We could use some good news,” I said.
“He wouldn’t tell me without you being here until I threatened his life,” Freddie said.
“I like surprises,” Steve said.
“Surprise me.”
“I tracked our computer hacker all the way to Uzbekistan. Then I lost him.”
“Surprise,” Freddie said.
I settled in behind my desk, put my feet up, and stared at the bulletin board.
“Well, dammit,” I said.
“So I turned my attention to the emails,” Steve said.
“What emails?”
“The emails that were sent to the lawyers. Those were easy to trace.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Freddie said.
Steve spread his hands, and for a moment he was Sara again.
“Ta-da,” he said.
“Who?” I asked.
“I don’t have a who, but I have an IP number. I have a location.”
Freddie and I both stood up.
Steve sat down.
“You know, guys, we never did discuss compensation,” he said.
“I thought we were paying you your hourly rate,” I said.
“You thought?”
“Fuck,” Freddie said. “This is the kinda thing I’d expect from Sara.”
“Steve,” I said, “if your intel pans out, we’ll give you a third of Freddie’s and my take. If it doesn’t, we’ll cover your hours and that’s it.”
“Fair enough.”
“Fuck it is,” Freddie said. “But okay.”
* * *
It rarely occurred to me how much bullshit Freddie must endure every day that I don’t. Sitting at a table inside the coffeehouse while pretending to play with my smartphone, I had plenty of time on my hands to speculate.
The coffeehouse was actually a café-slash-bookstore called the Library, and when I entered, no one paid me any mind, including the young barista who needed to finish a text before taking my order—café mocha and yes I’ll have whipped cream with that. The name she wrote on my cardboard cup was spelled T-A-I-L-O-R.
Most heads turned when Freddie entered. Some of them leaned toward other heads and whispered in a way that would have made even the most confident person suspicious. I suppose location had something to do with it. In the Twin Cities, the seriously wealthy generally resided in one of three areas: North Oaks, Sunfish Lake, and one of the affluent, lily-white zip codes surrounding Lake Minnetonka. The Library was located about a quarter mile from the western shore of the lake in the City of Mound, birthplace of the Andrews Sisters, Kevin Sorbo, and Tonka Trucks, if those things matter to you. Freddie simply did not blend in.
The concerned looks and anxious conversations ceased, though, when Steve Vandertop entered shortly after Freddie. They shook hands and smiled and sat together after getting their orders filled. The customers were apparently relieved that Freddie had a white friend who could vouch for him. Suddenly he seemed less of a threat.
The Library was doing brisk business. Besides the coffeehouse patrons, there seemed to be a nice crowd meandering among the stacks beyond the arch where the café ended and the bookstore began. A bank of three computers was mounted on a counter against the coffeehouse wall near the arch with bar stools arranged in front of them. A sign told customers to help themselves but to please limit their activities to only thirty minutes so others might also use the computers. Another sign said that access to inappropriate sites had been blocked without mentioning what those sites might be. What interested me most, though, was the small print reading Browser history and passwords are deleted immediately after use to ensure the privacy of our customers.
I wondered what Steve could do to bypass that little security feature. Probably a lot, I decided, being such a clever $150-an-hour fellow. He and Freddie seemed to be having a grand old time at their table. Eventually they both stood and made their way to the computer bank. Steve sat on one of the stools. Freddie leaned in, effectively blocking everyone’s view of Steve’s activities. I sipped my coffee and waited.
If Freddie’s presence caused a stir, it was nothing compared to the collective sigh when she entered—a young woman, maybe eighteen, maybe not, her hair stringy and unwashed to match her clothes and the backpack she carried. She had piercings in her eyebrow, nose, lip, and ears and several tattoos on her bare arms. She looked as if she lived beneath a bridge, yet when she approached the counter, the barista smiled and said, “Hayley, hi.”
Hayley ordered the less expensive daily brew and doctored it with the free honey and cream set up next to the napkins and stir sticks. She paid for it with an American Express card, and I remembered what Clinton Siegle told me about the woman with the ink and piercings who had approached him at the Twin Cities Jazz Festival. She was young and looked like she was trying hard not to be pretty, you know?
After modifying the coffee to her liking, Hayley pivoted toward the computer bank and stared at Steve and Freddie a long moment before dropping her backpack on a table and taking a seat with a clear view of their backs. She was waiting for them to leave, I told myself.
I shifted noisily in my chair, but it wasn’t enough to attract their attention. I had convinced myself that Hayley was the person we had come to see, and I wanted Freddie and Steve to abandon the computers so we could discover what she was up to. Except I was afraid that she would notice any gesture I made that they might also notice, and I didn’t want to give up my anonymity. It took a minute before it dawned on me—you have a cell phone in your hand, dummy.
I began preparing a text, typing one letter at a time with my index finger.
I don’t know what it was that caused my eyes to snap upward from the screen. When they did I saw a man standing in front of Hayley. He was at least a decade older than she was and good-looking with the aging frat-boy, I-own-a-boat-on-Lake-Minnetonka panache that some guys have. His dark eyes were filled with intense emotion. He leaned on her table and brought his head down close to hers. Hayley’s eyes flicked across the room as if she were seeking assistance from someone, anyone. He spoke. I couldn’t hear his words or the sound of his voice, but his expression was harsh, his eyes menacing. Give the girl credit, though. Once he started talking she never looked away.
The frat boy straightened up.
Hayley didn’t move.
He gripped the sides of her table again, leaned in, and gave another speech.
The frat boy straightened up again.
This time, Hayley pulled her backpack off the table and flung it over her shoulders as she stood. She glanced toward the barista as if she wanted to say something, but the girl was busy with her phone. The man gestured toward the door. He waited until Hayley started walking and fell in behind her. I didn’t think it was a matter of courtesy. It struck me that the frat boy was attempting to block any escape attempt.
I dropped the phone into the pocket of my sports coat and followed them out the door.
They were off the street by the time I got outside. I circled the bookstore to the asphalt parking lot. I paused when I saw a van parked between two rows of cars, its engine running. It was one of those white panel jobs, no windows. Nothing was painted on the sides to indicate that it belonged to a business. The side door was opened. A second man about the same age as the frat boy and dressed just like him stood by the door. He was gesturing for Hayley to enter. She didn’t want to. The frat boy was behind her. He pressed her forward. She leaned back. He grabbed her shoulders. She spun away. He grabbed her arm. She tried to free herself from his grip and failed.
“Leave me alone,” she said.
“Give it back and I will,” he said.
“It’s mine.”
“It could set me up for life.”
“That’s not what I want.”
“I don’t care what you want.”
“That’s why I took it.”
“We’ll talk in the van.”
Hayley tried to kick him in the groin, but she was standing too close to him and only grazed his leg.
“Get in,” the second man said.
“No.”
The frat boy yanked Hayley toward him and slapped her hard across the face. Her response was to try to hit him back. He ducked the blow, though, and wrapped his arms around her. He attempted to lift and carry her to the open door of the van. It was hard because of the backpack and because she was kicking and screaming.
The second man grabbed for her legs.
By then I was running hard.
The second man didn’t see me until I leapt up and slammed into him full bore.
He went flying about six feet into the side of the van and splashed against the asphalt.
I lost my balance yet managed to stay on my feet.
The frat boy was surprised enough that Hayley was able to squirm out of his grasp.
As soon as her head cleared out of the way, I slammed the heel of my right hand against his nose.
There was a satisfying crack and he fell backward. Both hands went to his nose. Blood seeped between his fingers. I was thinking about punching him again when he went to his knees.
I glared down at him and thought, is that it? One punch and you’re done? My excitement was intense, bordering on pure joy. I often felt it during moments of action, and I didn’t want it to end. It was both stupid and careless of me, of course, thinking that way, because while I was feeling heroic, the second man scrambled to his feet and pulled an automatic that he pointed at my head. I might not have noticed at all except the girl screamed.
I shifted my head out of the line of fire. At the same time, I grabbed the second man’s wrist and pushed the gun up and away. It went off. I drove my knee just as hard as I could into his groin and punched him just as hard as I could in the throat. He dropped the gun and fell to his knees. I kicked the gun beneath the van.
By now the frat boy was up. He threw a punch at my head. I blocked it with my wrist. I brought my other hand up and hit him below the eye with the back of my fist. I followed up with a punch to his solar plexus. Frat boy went down again.
Hayley began running across the lot, dodging between the parked cars.
A second mistake: I followed her.
“Miss,” I called. “Stop. Miss? Hayley?”
The frat boy began shouting, “Go, go, go.”
I turned in time to see him rise to his feet, take two steps, and dive into the open van.
At the same time, frat boy’s partner also scrambled to his feet and dashed around the van to the driver’s side. He climbed inside and gunned the engine. Until that moment, I didn’t know you could make a van’s tires squeal.
The frat boy, blood pouring from his nose, rolled the door shut as the van peeled out of the parking lot.
Somewhere behind me, I heard a car engine followed by the roar of hard acceleration. I turned my head just in time to see a BMW 640i coupe flying out of the parking lot. Hayley was behind the wheel.
Freddie and Steve rounded the corner. She nearly hit them.
I moved to the center of the parking lot and picked up the automatic that I had kicked beneath the van. It was a Colt .38. I unloaded it and dropped it into my pocket.
Steve and Freddie approached me, but no one else did. There was no throng of curious onlookers; no one had alerted the cops or the media. Apparently I was the only one who knew that a kidnapping attempt had just taken place.
“What the hell?” Freddie said.
“Tell me you saw the Beamer.”
“I did.”
“Tell me you got the license plate.”
“I didn’t.”
I explained what happened. Freddie said, “Tell me you got the license plate of the van.”
“I was preoccupied.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
“For what it’s worth, the emails were absolutely sent from here,” Steve said.
I thought about it for a few beats. “The barista,” I said. “She seemed to know the girl, called her by name. Let’s talk to her.”
“No,” Steve said. “You don’t need to run the license plates or talk to the barista.”
“We don’t?”
“I know who the girl is.”
He didn’t say anything more.
“Steve?” I said.
“About our arrangement.”
“We said you’d get a third,” Freddie said. “What? We gotta put it in writing?”
“Her name is Hayley O’Brien,” Steve said. “I met her at a party my family threw around Christmas.”
“Go on.”
“She’s Robert Paul Guernsey’s stepdaughter.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
