Man in the Water, page 24
While at the hospital, I had the opportunity to speak with Brad Heggstad. He did indeed have a broken wrist that had been encased in plaster and while he didn’t have a concussion, either, his head wound also required sutures. How the doctor managed that without shaving the hair around his wound remained a mystery to me.
I asked Heggstad what had happened to him. He told me that he never saw the man who hit him, although he was sure it would be on the video he directed his employees to turn over to the county deputies.
“I had turned on my cameras,” he told me.
So, there’s that.
I told him that I was sorry he was hurt. He told me that he was sorry that I was hurt. He then asked if I knew exactly what happened at the marina. The deputies had been somewhat vague when he asked them and the ACA was even less forthcoming when he filmed Heggstad’s statement. Apparently, he didn’t want to contaminate Heggstad’s recollection of the evening’s events. I explained.
“This is so bad,” he said. “So very, very bad. Bad for the marina. Our reputation. If people don’t feel safe … And Rick. Why would anyone do that to Rick?”
For money, my inner voice answered, only I didn’t say so out loud.
“McKenzie, did this all happen because of you?” Heggstad asked. “I don’t mean just you, I’m not blaming just you, but E. J. Woods; because of what happened to him; because of the lawsuit?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
God, I hated those three words.
Eventually, Stoll drove me back to the marina so I could retrieve my Mustang. I asked her how much time was left in her shift.
“That ended hours ago,” she told me.
“You’re a good cop, Eden.”
“Trying to be,” she said.
After Stoll dropped me off, I lingered at the now locked gate to the marina. The media had departed and so too, apparently, had the BCA and Washington County deputies. All seemed quiet. I looked toward the Deese and Dose. From my perch it seemed empty; there were no lights. Of course, it was now nearing midnight.
Besides, it’s not like Dave and Barbara actually live on their boat, my inner voice told me.
I gazed at the Miss Behavin’. LeMay’s boat appeared empty, too.
Maybe he went back to New Hope. Unless he’s shacking up with a twenty-year-old who views murder as an aphrodisiac.
I stood there for a few more minutes before walking to my car. Heggstad’s question followed me there—“McKenzie, did this all happen because of you?”
My key fob unlocked the door; I opened it, and slid inside.
“You wanted to create pressure, didn’t you?” I said aloud. “How’s that working out so far?”
SIXTEEN
I was up before seven A.M., partly because, unlike Nina, I was an early riser. Mostly, though, it was because my face ached and resting on either side of it on a pillow just made it worse. After dosing myself with coffee and ibuprofen, I spent the early morning learning what the news media had to say. All four local TV stations reported the killing at the Heggstad Marina in as much detail as they could manage in thirty seconds. The newspapers—the Stillwater Gazette had the story on the front page; the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Minneapolis Star Tribune buried it inside—provided more information. Yet it all came down to the same thing: Stillwater native Richard Bennett was shot to death on his boat at the Heggstad Marina located on the St. Croix River, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office was investigating, and no suspects had been identified. The only thing that made me happy about the coverage was that none of the media outlets mentioned my name, most likely because the sheriff’s office hadn’t released it.
That’s why I was so surprised when I received the phone call.
“Stop it,” Bizzy Woods told me. “McKenzie, you need to stop it.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, although I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.
“I heard what happened at the Heggstad Marina last night. I know Richard Bennett was killed. I know that you were involved.”
How does she know you were involved? my inner voice wanted to know.
“Who told you that?” I asked.
“I know people, all right?”
What people?
“McKenzie, you can’t believe that this has anything to do with me and E. J., yet I know that you do.”
“How do you know?”
“From what you told my lawyer,” Bizzy said. “You told Garrett Toomey that Mike Boland and Richard Bennett were friends and for some unknown reason you think they were involved in what happened to E. J.”
“Actually, I never said that.”
“Stop it, McKenzie, please God.”
“Bizzy, you should be happy.”
“Why should I be happy?”
“Doesn’t what happened to Bennett strengthen your case against the marina? It helps prove that the place is unsafe.”
Bizzy paused for what seemed like a long time.
“Fuck you, McKenzie,” she said.
Like stepmother, like stepdaughter.
* * *
The bandages came off the next day. It was not a pretty sight. I looked a little like Frankenstein’s monster. There was still redness around the eight stitches on my right cheek and a layer of crust had formed that needed to be carefully cleaned. A deep bruise covered most of my forehead above my left eye. It was black and blue and red and surrounded a soft scab and yes, it still hurt. I wanted to scratch the stitches and massage the bruise yet experience had taught me that neither was a good idea, so I resisted.
Nina surveyed my face as if it were a map, lightly brushing my cheek with her fingertips.
“You were so pretty when we first met,” she said.
I’m sure she meant that in a manly way.
“When was that?” Nina asked. “Eight years ago, nine, when you followed that suspect into Rickie’s? Now look at you. All beat up. Scars from guns and bombs and what else? Two weeks after we met you were in the ICU. They had to drill holes into your head to relieve an epidural hematoma from where that guy clubbed you. Remember?”
“Vividly.”
“I should have known then what I was in for.”
“Would you be happier if I was an accountant?”
Nina wrapped me in her arms and kissed my undamaged cheek.
“There are times when I could use a good accountant,” she said. “McKenzie, we’re not getting any younger.”
“I’m not, but you…”
“Seriously.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I’ve been wondering the same thing.”
“Wondering what?”
“If it was time I started thinking about moving up to the senior league, the no-checking league. The thing is, Nina—I can still skate; I can still play hockey with the kids.”
“Do you need to?”
“No, not really. I have nothing to prove. It’s just that occasionally I’ll get a call from someone looking for a guy to sub in.”
“Like a whining female who asks, ‘Can you do me a favor?’”
“Yeah.”
“And then you’re off.”
“Depends on the female.”
“I bet.”
“It’s always been hard for me to say no when someone asks for help. I blame my old man.”
“So do I and I never even met him.”
Nina broke the embrace and set the flat of her hand against my chest.
“I think I know him, though,” she said. “Listen, I won’t be the one to tell you to stop, only if I roll my eyes and sigh heavily when you answer the phone, promise me you won’t be angry.”
“Not even a little bit.”
“Oh?”
“I mean I promise I won’t be angry even a little bit.”
Nina closed her eyes, shook her head, and grinned all at the same time, leaving me with the impression that she didn’t believe a word I said.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“About what?”
“About Mr. Woods.”
“Are you still having nightmares?”
“They’re not nightmares, McKenzie. I don’t wake up in a sweat or anything. They’re just—there.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Nina, I don’t know what more I can do. I had a long talk with Bizzy and while my suspicious nature forbids me from believing everything she told me, I have no reason beyond my suspicious nature to doubt her. As for Mike Boland—between what Bizzy and his therapist and his mother and the veterans at Potzmann-Schultz had to say, his story seems plausible, too; why he was on that damn bluff in Red Wing. If it wasn’t for what happened in Stillwater Tuesday night …
“Besides,” I said. “It’s become a literal murder investigation and if I continue to poke around, I have no doubt the Washington County Sheriff’s Office will take offense. I’m starting to think that Sergeant Holmes is more Sherlock than No Shit, anyway. Even if he isn’t, the BCA is involved and they are very much Sherlock, so it looks like I’m out of it.”
“In that case, I mean if you have nothing better to do…”
I would have kissed her then; I think Nina wanted me to kiss her then. Except my cell phone rang. I would have let it ring only Louis Armstrong’s trumpet was pretty insistent. I picked it up off of my desk. Nina rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically; I doubt Cate Blanchett could have done it better.
“This is McKenzie,” I said.
“McKenzie, Sergeant Stephen Holmes.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” I said.
“I need you to come down to the law enforcement center.”
“Why?”
“Trust me; you’ll want to be at this meeting.”
“When?”
“How soon can you get here?”
“Thirty minutes.”
“Do you know where we are?”
“I can find it.”
“See you soon.”
“Sure.”
I turned off the phone.
“You’re not out of it then,” Nina said.
“Apparently not.”
“Too bad. I was about to make a suggestion…”
“Please do.”
“You told the man that you’ll see him in thirty minutes. What I had in mind would take at least an hour.”
I quickly called Holmes back.
* * *
The Washington County Law Enforcement Center looked as if it had been built yesterday, although it had actually been completed thirteen years ago. I had never been in a cop shop quite like it. The lobby had a marble floor. The high ceilings reminded me of a church. Plus, it appeared that the architects had never seen a window they didn’t like.
In addition to the sheriff’s office, the LEC also housed the county attorney’s office as well as a 228-bed jail, which I thought was awfully convenient. After I identified myself at the desk, it took me and an escort a few minutes to find the correct conference room. Like the rest of the LEC, it was plush with a thick carpet and deep red wooden table surrounded by faux leather swivel chairs. The far wall was floor-to-ceiling glass with a spectacular view of the sprawling Washington County Government Center.
Sergeant Holmes stood when I entered the room. He didn’t offer his hand, so I didn’t offer mine.
“Good afternoon,” I said. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Only Holmes wasn’t alone. He gestured at the woman sitting at the head of the conference room table, several files and a laptop scattered in front of her.
“You know Captain Follmer,” he said.
“I do,” I said.
Follmer nodded at me.
I nodded back.
What’s going on?
“Sit,” Holmes said.
I sat.
“McKenzie, you look like crap,” Follmer said.
“You should see the other guy.”
“About that,” Holmes said.
The sergeant had an open laptop in front of him, too. He tapped a couple of keys and spun it around so I could view the screen. It displayed a video of a Black man dressed in dark clothes entering the marina through the front gate and navigating the maze of docks and slips directly to where the Maverick was parked. The scene had been filmed at a distance, though. I recognized the boat, yet the man was little more than a stick figure.
“He seems to know where he’s going,” I said.
“You mean like he’s been there before?” Follmer asked.
“Yes, exactly.”
Holmes tapped a couple more keys and the video moved ahead by twelve minutes. I watched myself entering the marina and negotiating the docks as if I also knew where I was heading. I recognized myself as I approached the Maverick, although I doubt that anyone else would have. Except Nina. Because of the position of the camera, though, I didn’t see myself climbing aboard the boat or what happened next. Less than a minute later, the Black man was filmed scurrying over the docks toward the exit.
“Is this all you have?” I asked.
Holmes tapped more buttons and the camera angle shifted. I was able to see the back of the Black man as he came up behind Brad Heggstad while he was attempting to close and lock the gate. The Black man hit Heggstad on the head with the butt of his handgun, pushed past him, and dashed across the parking lot into the night. At no time did I see his face.
Holmes slid a photograph in front of me. It was too blurry to recognize the subject. You might have guessed it was a Black man wearing a black jacket, yet it could have been Michael Jordan. It could have been Michael B. Jordan. Hell, it could have been the actress Claudia Jordan, for that matter.
“Heggstad Marina’s cameras aren’t worth a damn,” Holmes said. “There are eighty million cameras in this country recording our every move, people marching in the streets complaining about the invasion of privacy, yet when we need them the most, when they might actually be of some use, this is what we get. The video taken by the kid with her cell phone—the suspect was too far away to ID in that one, too. Blow up the image and you get what we already have.”
“On the other hand,” Follmer said.
She slid another photograph across the conference room table at me. This one was clean and sharp—a Black man, well dressed, in his early sixties I would guess. I glanced from that pic to the other and back again.
“Is this the same guy?” I asked.
“We think so,” Follmer said.
“Who is he?”
“We have no idea.”
“I’m sorry, guys,” I said. “If you asked me here to give you a better ID than I did at the scene, a positive ID, you’re wasting your time. I was too preoccupied to get a good look at the man’s face. I can identify his gun, though.”
“Funny,” Follmer said. “You don’t know him, yet he knows you.”
That hit me. That hit me so hard I nearly lost my breath. I tried not to show it, though. Apparently, I didn’t do a very good job.
“Something wrong, McKenzie?” Holmes asked. “You seem unhappy.”
No shit, Sherlock—the way he slides back and forth between good cop and asshole, now we know how he got his nickname.
“I’m trying hard not to laugh,” I said.
“I don’t blame you,” Follmer said.
“How does the suspect know my name? It wasn’t in the newspapers or on TV.”
“McKenzie, the reason we asked you here was to give you a heads-up,” Holmes said.
Wait. Now he’s the good cop again?
“We’ve been tracing Richard Bennett’s movements,” Holmes added. “Monday night, the night before he was killed, he was docked at Sunset Marina in Red Wing. Debra, you tell him.”
“Stephen reached out to me early this morning,” Follmer said. “I went over to the marina to ask if Bennett had been there. The two men behind the counter told me that they hadn’t realized how popular he was. When I asked why they said that, they told me a story.”
Captain Follmer recalled the story:
* * *
Red Wing has a population of about 16,500, yet less than two percent of its residents are Black. What’s more, as far as the employees of the Sunset Marina knew, none of them owned luxury boats. That’s why they were surprised late Tuesday morning to see a Black man approaching the high counter that they were standing behind.
“Hey,” the first man said. “What can we do for ya?”
“Lookin’ for a dude named Rick Bennett. Friend of mine.”
The first man looked at the second man and waved his finger at him.
“Had no idea Rick was so popular,” he said.
“Right?” the second man said.
“Whaddya mean?” the Black man asked.
“That woman sheriff deputy came looking for your friend, was it last week?” the second man said.
The first man waved his finger some more.
“Don’t forget McKenzie,” he said.
Shit, my inner voice said.
“Are you E. J.?” the second man asked.
“What?” the Black man said.
“E. J. Woods. McKenzie said you were pals with Rick.”
“I am. Earl John is my real name. I’m just surprised that you know it is all.”
“McKenzie told us.”
“I don’t know McKenzie. You say he’s friends with Rick?”
“Yeah, both him and Mike Boland,” the first man said.
“McKenzie knew Mike, too?”
Shit, shit, shit …
“Really sad what happened to Mike,” the second man said.
“It was awful,” the Black man said.
“Rick was really upset about it, Mike dying like that. He kept asking, ‘What happened, what happened?’ like we would know. We told him that McKenzie was looking into it.”
“Was he?” the Black man asked.
“Yeah. Him and the lady sheriff’s deputy. We saw both of them the day of the funeral, what we’re trying to tell you. Rick was upset that he missed the funeral, too.”
“Well, here.” The first man rummaged through a drawer on the back of the high counter, found a card, and gave it to the Black man.
“His name and number,” he said.
The Black man read the card.
“Oh, now I remember,” he said. “Rushmore McKenzie.”
Are you kidding me?!
“Only you’re not having any better luck than he did,” the second man said.
I asked Heggstad what had happened to him. He told me that he never saw the man who hit him, although he was sure it would be on the video he directed his employees to turn over to the county deputies.
“I had turned on my cameras,” he told me.
So, there’s that.
I told him that I was sorry he was hurt. He told me that he was sorry that I was hurt. He then asked if I knew exactly what happened at the marina. The deputies had been somewhat vague when he asked them and the ACA was even less forthcoming when he filmed Heggstad’s statement. Apparently, he didn’t want to contaminate Heggstad’s recollection of the evening’s events. I explained.
“This is so bad,” he said. “So very, very bad. Bad for the marina. Our reputation. If people don’t feel safe … And Rick. Why would anyone do that to Rick?”
For money, my inner voice answered, only I didn’t say so out loud.
“McKenzie, did this all happen because of you?” Heggstad asked. “I don’t mean just you, I’m not blaming just you, but E. J. Woods; because of what happened to him; because of the lawsuit?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
God, I hated those three words.
Eventually, Stoll drove me back to the marina so I could retrieve my Mustang. I asked her how much time was left in her shift.
“That ended hours ago,” she told me.
“You’re a good cop, Eden.”
“Trying to be,” she said.
After Stoll dropped me off, I lingered at the now locked gate to the marina. The media had departed and so too, apparently, had the BCA and Washington County deputies. All seemed quiet. I looked toward the Deese and Dose. From my perch it seemed empty; there were no lights. Of course, it was now nearing midnight.
Besides, it’s not like Dave and Barbara actually live on their boat, my inner voice told me.
I gazed at the Miss Behavin’. LeMay’s boat appeared empty, too.
Maybe he went back to New Hope. Unless he’s shacking up with a twenty-year-old who views murder as an aphrodisiac.
I stood there for a few more minutes before walking to my car. Heggstad’s question followed me there—“McKenzie, did this all happen because of you?”
My key fob unlocked the door; I opened it, and slid inside.
“You wanted to create pressure, didn’t you?” I said aloud. “How’s that working out so far?”
SIXTEEN
I was up before seven A.M., partly because, unlike Nina, I was an early riser. Mostly, though, it was because my face ached and resting on either side of it on a pillow just made it worse. After dosing myself with coffee and ibuprofen, I spent the early morning learning what the news media had to say. All four local TV stations reported the killing at the Heggstad Marina in as much detail as they could manage in thirty seconds. The newspapers—the Stillwater Gazette had the story on the front page; the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Minneapolis Star Tribune buried it inside—provided more information. Yet it all came down to the same thing: Stillwater native Richard Bennett was shot to death on his boat at the Heggstad Marina located on the St. Croix River, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office was investigating, and no suspects had been identified. The only thing that made me happy about the coverage was that none of the media outlets mentioned my name, most likely because the sheriff’s office hadn’t released it.
That’s why I was so surprised when I received the phone call.
“Stop it,” Bizzy Woods told me. “McKenzie, you need to stop it.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, although I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.
“I heard what happened at the Heggstad Marina last night. I know Richard Bennett was killed. I know that you were involved.”
How does she know you were involved? my inner voice wanted to know.
“Who told you that?” I asked.
“I know people, all right?”
What people?
“McKenzie, you can’t believe that this has anything to do with me and E. J., yet I know that you do.”
“How do you know?”
“From what you told my lawyer,” Bizzy said. “You told Garrett Toomey that Mike Boland and Richard Bennett were friends and for some unknown reason you think they were involved in what happened to E. J.”
“Actually, I never said that.”
“Stop it, McKenzie, please God.”
“Bizzy, you should be happy.”
“Why should I be happy?”
“Doesn’t what happened to Bennett strengthen your case against the marina? It helps prove that the place is unsafe.”
Bizzy paused for what seemed like a long time.
“Fuck you, McKenzie,” she said.
Like stepmother, like stepdaughter.
* * *
The bandages came off the next day. It was not a pretty sight. I looked a little like Frankenstein’s monster. There was still redness around the eight stitches on my right cheek and a layer of crust had formed that needed to be carefully cleaned. A deep bruise covered most of my forehead above my left eye. It was black and blue and red and surrounded a soft scab and yes, it still hurt. I wanted to scratch the stitches and massage the bruise yet experience had taught me that neither was a good idea, so I resisted.
Nina surveyed my face as if it were a map, lightly brushing my cheek with her fingertips.
“You were so pretty when we first met,” she said.
I’m sure she meant that in a manly way.
“When was that?” Nina asked. “Eight years ago, nine, when you followed that suspect into Rickie’s? Now look at you. All beat up. Scars from guns and bombs and what else? Two weeks after we met you were in the ICU. They had to drill holes into your head to relieve an epidural hematoma from where that guy clubbed you. Remember?”
“Vividly.”
“I should have known then what I was in for.”
“Would you be happier if I was an accountant?”
Nina wrapped me in her arms and kissed my undamaged cheek.
“There are times when I could use a good accountant,” she said. “McKenzie, we’re not getting any younger.”
“I’m not, but you…”
“Seriously.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I’ve been wondering the same thing.”
“Wondering what?”
“If it was time I started thinking about moving up to the senior league, the no-checking league. The thing is, Nina—I can still skate; I can still play hockey with the kids.”
“Do you need to?”
“No, not really. I have nothing to prove. It’s just that occasionally I’ll get a call from someone looking for a guy to sub in.”
“Like a whining female who asks, ‘Can you do me a favor?’”
“Yeah.”
“And then you’re off.”
“Depends on the female.”
“I bet.”
“It’s always been hard for me to say no when someone asks for help. I blame my old man.”
“So do I and I never even met him.”
Nina broke the embrace and set the flat of her hand against my chest.
“I think I know him, though,” she said. “Listen, I won’t be the one to tell you to stop, only if I roll my eyes and sigh heavily when you answer the phone, promise me you won’t be angry.”
“Not even a little bit.”
“Oh?”
“I mean I promise I won’t be angry even a little bit.”
Nina closed her eyes, shook her head, and grinned all at the same time, leaving me with the impression that she didn’t believe a word I said.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“About what?”
“About Mr. Woods.”
“Are you still having nightmares?”
“They’re not nightmares, McKenzie. I don’t wake up in a sweat or anything. They’re just—there.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Nina, I don’t know what more I can do. I had a long talk with Bizzy and while my suspicious nature forbids me from believing everything she told me, I have no reason beyond my suspicious nature to doubt her. As for Mike Boland—between what Bizzy and his therapist and his mother and the veterans at Potzmann-Schultz had to say, his story seems plausible, too; why he was on that damn bluff in Red Wing. If it wasn’t for what happened in Stillwater Tuesday night …
“Besides,” I said. “It’s become a literal murder investigation and if I continue to poke around, I have no doubt the Washington County Sheriff’s Office will take offense. I’m starting to think that Sergeant Holmes is more Sherlock than No Shit, anyway. Even if he isn’t, the BCA is involved and they are very much Sherlock, so it looks like I’m out of it.”
“In that case, I mean if you have nothing better to do…”
I would have kissed her then; I think Nina wanted me to kiss her then. Except my cell phone rang. I would have let it ring only Louis Armstrong’s trumpet was pretty insistent. I picked it up off of my desk. Nina rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically; I doubt Cate Blanchett could have done it better.
“This is McKenzie,” I said.
“McKenzie, Sergeant Stephen Holmes.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” I said.
“I need you to come down to the law enforcement center.”
“Why?”
“Trust me; you’ll want to be at this meeting.”
“When?”
“How soon can you get here?”
“Thirty minutes.”
“Do you know where we are?”
“I can find it.”
“See you soon.”
“Sure.”
I turned off the phone.
“You’re not out of it then,” Nina said.
“Apparently not.”
“Too bad. I was about to make a suggestion…”
“Please do.”
“You told the man that you’ll see him in thirty minutes. What I had in mind would take at least an hour.”
I quickly called Holmes back.
* * *
The Washington County Law Enforcement Center looked as if it had been built yesterday, although it had actually been completed thirteen years ago. I had never been in a cop shop quite like it. The lobby had a marble floor. The high ceilings reminded me of a church. Plus, it appeared that the architects had never seen a window they didn’t like.
In addition to the sheriff’s office, the LEC also housed the county attorney’s office as well as a 228-bed jail, which I thought was awfully convenient. After I identified myself at the desk, it took me and an escort a few minutes to find the correct conference room. Like the rest of the LEC, it was plush with a thick carpet and deep red wooden table surrounded by faux leather swivel chairs. The far wall was floor-to-ceiling glass with a spectacular view of the sprawling Washington County Government Center.
Sergeant Holmes stood when I entered the room. He didn’t offer his hand, so I didn’t offer mine.
“Good afternoon,” I said. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Only Holmes wasn’t alone. He gestured at the woman sitting at the head of the conference room table, several files and a laptop scattered in front of her.
“You know Captain Follmer,” he said.
“I do,” I said.
Follmer nodded at me.
I nodded back.
What’s going on?
“Sit,” Holmes said.
I sat.
“McKenzie, you look like crap,” Follmer said.
“You should see the other guy.”
“About that,” Holmes said.
The sergeant had an open laptop in front of him, too. He tapped a couple of keys and spun it around so I could view the screen. It displayed a video of a Black man dressed in dark clothes entering the marina through the front gate and navigating the maze of docks and slips directly to where the Maverick was parked. The scene had been filmed at a distance, though. I recognized the boat, yet the man was little more than a stick figure.
“He seems to know where he’s going,” I said.
“You mean like he’s been there before?” Follmer asked.
“Yes, exactly.”
Holmes tapped a couple more keys and the video moved ahead by twelve minutes. I watched myself entering the marina and negotiating the docks as if I also knew where I was heading. I recognized myself as I approached the Maverick, although I doubt that anyone else would have. Except Nina. Because of the position of the camera, though, I didn’t see myself climbing aboard the boat or what happened next. Less than a minute later, the Black man was filmed scurrying over the docks toward the exit.
“Is this all you have?” I asked.
Holmes tapped more buttons and the camera angle shifted. I was able to see the back of the Black man as he came up behind Brad Heggstad while he was attempting to close and lock the gate. The Black man hit Heggstad on the head with the butt of his handgun, pushed past him, and dashed across the parking lot into the night. At no time did I see his face.
Holmes slid a photograph in front of me. It was too blurry to recognize the subject. You might have guessed it was a Black man wearing a black jacket, yet it could have been Michael Jordan. It could have been Michael B. Jordan. Hell, it could have been the actress Claudia Jordan, for that matter.
“Heggstad Marina’s cameras aren’t worth a damn,” Holmes said. “There are eighty million cameras in this country recording our every move, people marching in the streets complaining about the invasion of privacy, yet when we need them the most, when they might actually be of some use, this is what we get. The video taken by the kid with her cell phone—the suspect was too far away to ID in that one, too. Blow up the image and you get what we already have.”
“On the other hand,” Follmer said.
She slid another photograph across the conference room table at me. This one was clean and sharp—a Black man, well dressed, in his early sixties I would guess. I glanced from that pic to the other and back again.
“Is this the same guy?” I asked.
“We think so,” Follmer said.
“Who is he?”
“We have no idea.”
“I’m sorry, guys,” I said. “If you asked me here to give you a better ID than I did at the scene, a positive ID, you’re wasting your time. I was too preoccupied to get a good look at the man’s face. I can identify his gun, though.”
“Funny,” Follmer said. “You don’t know him, yet he knows you.”
That hit me. That hit me so hard I nearly lost my breath. I tried not to show it, though. Apparently, I didn’t do a very good job.
“Something wrong, McKenzie?” Holmes asked. “You seem unhappy.”
No shit, Sherlock—the way he slides back and forth between good cop and asshole, now we know how he got his nickname.
“I’m trying hard not to laugh,” I said.
“I don’t blame you,” Follmer said.
“How does the suspect know my name? It wasn’t in the newspapers or on TV.”
“McKenzie, the reason we asked you here was to give you a heads-up,” Holmes said.
Wait. Now he’s the good cop again?
“We’ve been tracing Richard Bennett’s movements,” Holmes added. “Monday night, the night before he was killed, he was docked at Sunset Marina in Red Wing. Debra, you tell him.”
“Stephen reached out to me early this morning,” Follmer said. “I went over to the marina to ask if Bennett had been there. The two men behind the counter told me that they hadn’t realized how popular he was. When I asked why they said that, they told me a story.”
Captain Follmer recalled the story:
* * *
Red Wing has a population of about 16,500, yet less than two percent of its residents are Black. What’s more, as far as the employees of the Sunset Marina knew, none of them owned luxury boats. That’s why they were surprised late Tuesday morning to see a Black man approaching the high counter that they were standing behind.
“Hey,” the first man said. “What can we do for ya?”
“Lookin’ for a dude named Rick Bennett. Friend of mine.”
The first man looked at the second man and waved his finger at him.
“Had no idea Rick was so popular,” he said.
“Right?” the second man said.
“Whaddya mean?” the Black man asked.
“That woman sheriff deputy came looking for your friend, was it last week?” the second man said.
The first man waved his finger some more.
“Don’t forget McKenzie,” he said.
Shit, my inner voice said.
“Are you E. J.?” the second man asked.
“What?” the Black man said.
“E. J. Woods. McKenzie said you were pals with Rick.”
“I am. Earl John is my real name. I’m just surprised that you know it is all.”
“McKenzie told us.”
“I don’t know McKenzie. You say he’s friends with Rick?”
“Yeah, both him and Mike Boland,” the first man said.
“McKenzie knew Mike, too?”
Shit, shit, shit …
“Really sad what happened to Mike,” the second man said.
“It was awful,” the Black man said.
“Rick was really upset about it, Mike dying like that. He kept asking, ‘What happened, what happened?’ like we would know. We told him that McKenzie was looking into it.”
“Was he?” the Black man asked.
“Yeah. Him and the lady sheriff’s deputy. We saw both of them the day of the funeral, what we’re trying to tell you. Rick was upset that he missed the funeral, too.”
“Well, here.” The first man rummaged through a drawer on the back of the high counter, found a card, and gave it to the Black man.
“His name and number,” he said.
The Black man read the card.
“Oh, now I remember,” he said. “Rushmore McKenzie.”
Are you kidding me?!
“Only you’re not having any better luck than he did,” the second man said.
