First, Kill the Lawyers, page 26
“Don’t move,” he said. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
I did. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and made a call. I don’t know who he spoke to, but the conversation lasted less than ten seconds. He returned to the window.
“Drive directly to the house,” he told me. “Do not stop. Do not leave the road. Do not step out of your vehicle until you’re told.”
The guard waved at his two companions. They opened the gate. I drove through it. It was shut tight behind me. The private road ran straight as a ruler through the forest that surrounded Axis Mundi. I followed it to the driveway, passing at least two armed guards as I went.
There were several other cars in the driveway, including one with the emblem of the City of Orono Police Department and another with the blue, yellow, and red stripe of the Hennepin County Sherriff’s Department. I parked the Camry. Several more guards approached. Hayley didn’t wait for permission, though. She released her seat belt, hopped out of the car, and started running toward the huge house, not even bothering to close the door behind her. The guards seemed peeved yet kept their weapons pointed down just the same.
Hayley’s mother must have been watching for us. Maura came out of the house and started sprinting toward her daughter. They met in a splendid collision, and I thought, whatever their problems, mother and daughter should be fine. Melissa and Kurtis Guernsey followed close behind. Additional hugs were exchanged and I thought some more. From a distance it looked like a loving family greeting a favorite child home from a faraway land.
“Looks can be deceiving,” I said aloud.
A guard had approached the Camry and was standing close to my window.
“Huh?” he said.
“Just thinking out loud. What the hell’s going on, anyway?”
“There’s been a threat against Mr. Guernsey’s life.”
“By whom?”
“Man named Fisk.”
For a moment I didn’t know what to do. My first thought was that I should get Hayley out of there. Take her back to Alex’s house where she would be safe. But was it really necessary to do that? Besides, the job was finished. We kept the hacked computer files from reaching NIMN, which is what the lawyers had hired Freddie and me to do. I told the hacker that the mayor of Minneapolis was willing to be her pal, for which we were paid five thousand dollars with the promise of five thousand more. Plus, we had delivered Hayley to her mother, fulfilling the contract we made with her. It was time to go home. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to start the Camry and drive away. The guard helped me out.
“Are you Taylor?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Cops are running a command post out of the garage. They want to talk to you.”
He opened my car door as a way to stifle any argument. I slipped out of the car and followed him to the huge garage off the driveway, telling myself that there was probably a practical reason they had gathered there instead of inside the house besides the danger of bruising the carpets. A Hennepin County sheriff’s deputy with sergeant’s stripes was looking over a map. Orono Police Officer Arthur Cerise was standing at his shoulder. That was the extent of any official presence. One deputy and one cop. Everyone else was wearing the insignia of the private security firm.
The deputy watched as I approached. When I was near enough that he could speak to me without raising his voice, he said, “Taylor?”
“Yes.”
“Private investigator from Minneapolis?”
“That’s right.”
“As you can see, we have a situation. A disgruntled employee named Fisk has threatened to kill his employer, Robert Paul Guernsey. We’re trying to prevent that from happening.”
“Just the two of you and an army of hired guns?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“A man of Guernsey’s resources, I’d expect a greater official presence.”
“Mr. Guernsey insists that we maintain a low profile for publicity’s sake. He said you were present when Fisk made terroristic threats against him and his family.”
“No.”
“Are you calling Mr. Guernsey a liar?” Cerise asked.
“I’m saying I wasn’t present when Fisk made terroristic threats against him or his family.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What I saw, Fisk was upset. He didn’t like being fired. There were no threats, though, not by him or Guernsey. Guernsey said he’d take care of Fisk financially, and Fisk left.”
“That’s not the way we heard it,” the deputy said.
“That’s the way I heard it, what I’ll tell the Hennepin County attorney should I be asked to make a statement. I might even be persuaded to tell him everything else I heard, too, if it comes to that.”
Cerise was clearly angered by my stance. The deputy seemed confused.
“Is there a warrant for Fisk’s arrest?” I asked him.
“I … I don’t know.”
“This isn’t the way things are supposed to work, is it? It goes against all protocols and procedures.”
“The bosses want it kept quiet,” he said.
“Are you supposed to cooperate with Guernsey, or is he supposed to cooperate with you?”
“I was told—”
“Yes?”
The deputy didn’t finish his thought.
“The security guards are well armed,” I said.
“We put no faith in slingshots.” Officer Cerise grinned broadly because he thought he’d said something clever.
“What are their orders?”
“To protect—”
“They were told to shoot on sight, weren’t they? Shoot to kill.”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“Is it possible, do you think, that Guernsey doesn’t want the county attorney to hear Fisk’s side of the story?”
The deputy gave it a moment’s thought before he answered. “If he’s innocent, Fisk won’t come anywhere near the place.”
He had me there, except Fisk wasn’t innocent, was he? What’s more, from what I was told, Guernsey rarely strayed from Axis Mundi. If Fisk really did want to kill the old man, he’d have to come here.
* * *
None of us could think of any reason for me to keep hanging around. I left the garage and headed for my Camry. My job was done. The problems of the Guernsey family no longer meant anything to me. I was just a bystander now. The Guernseys were still engaged in their love fest, although the old man was nowhere to be seen. Maura waved at me, and I waved back. She beckoned for me to join them. I didn’t want to, yet I did anyway.
“Thank you, Taylor,” she told me. “Thank you for bringing my daughter home.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I can’t believe the change in her. Is that your doing?”
“No.”
“She looks so pretty,” Kurtis said.
“She was pretty before. You just didn’t notice.”
Hayley smiled at me yet said nothing. Her face was flushed, and her eyes were bright. She seemed happy, the only time I’d seen her happy since we met. Well, except for when she was playing tongue hockey with Alex. I was still unsure what to think about that.
“I couldn’t help but notice all the security,” I said.
Melissa took my arm, led me two feet away, and spoke softly. “We don’t wish to frighten Hayley,” she said.
“I’m standing right here,” Hayley said.
Melissa looked at her as if she was surprised.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “My father, your stepfather—”
“Where is he?”
“In the maze,” Kurtis said. “He went there just a few minutes ago.”
“Is he hiding from me?”
“Hayley,” Maura said. She draped her arm over her daughter’s shoulders, and for a moment she was Claire Wedemeyer shielding Amanda. “He loves you.”
“We’ll find out in a little bit.”
“What do you mean?”
Hayley looked me in the eye and smiled, and I knew that she was going to go all in. She was going to tell the old man everything she had done and why and see what became of it. I wanted to watch. Besides, I told myself, the girl might need a ride back to the Cities.
“You say he’s in the maze,” I said.
“Taylor, terrible things happened after you left yesterday,” Kurtis said. “Father contacted the Orono Police Department and spoke to an acquaintance of Maura’s. He said that Fisk had become irrational and violent. He said that Fisk had threatened the family. Fisk heard this. He hadn’t left the house, yet. They argued. Fisk told Father that all he had to do was write a check and this—he didn’t say what ‘this’ was, but he said that it would have gone away. Father said he doesn’t pay losers. Fisk left, but he said that he would be back. Father said if he was smart, he’d start running. You know what kind of man my father is, what kind of man Fisk is. We’re all very upset.”
“Did you tell this to the police?”
Kurtis answered sheepishly. “Some of it, but not all. Father was … he was standing there. Later—what happened—this morning the security system crashed. For ninety minutes, all of our cameras and alarms were off-line. Father called the security company, of course, and their people searched the house and grounds thoroughly and found nothing. No one. Still, we’re all on edge.”
“I bet Fisk knows everything there is to know about your security system,” I said.
“That’s why we have so many armed guards now. We’re sorry, Hayley, to bother you with all of this.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m probably to blame, anyway.”
“How could you be?”
“I want to talk to Stepfather. Taylor, will you come with me?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
“I’m coming, too,” Maura said.
* * *
Inside the maze, the silence was almost absolute. Shadows lay softly from one hedgerow to the next. We moved casually while in my head I chanted right-left, right-left, right-left and then left-right, left-right, left-right. Hayley led the way, with Maura close behind her, and me behind Maura. I heard Maura say, “I never come in here by myself. I’m always afraid I’ll never get out again.”
“That’s why people take wrong turns,” Hayley said. “They become afraid.”
We didn’t hear them until we reached the opening. Hayley halted. Maura and I were jammed together behind her. I watched the scene unfold over her head.
“I said you’d be well compensated,” old man Guernsey said.
“You put the cops on me,” Fisk replied.
“I was protecting myself.”
“Like you were protecting yourself when you had me kill Cowgill and all the others?”
“You know who I am. You know how I do things.”
They were standing near the fountain. Fisk was pointing a handgun at Guernsey. The old man was standing off to the side with his back to us. He looked like he didn’t care about the gun.
In that moment I knew what had happened. Fisk cut the camera feeds just long enough to hide himself in the maze, knowing that none of the security guards would have dared to patrol it, knowing that it was where the old man enjoyed hiding from the world for which he had such contempt. A single gunshot from a small-caliber weapon might go unnoticed, and then Fisk would hide inside the maze, which he probably knew very well after all those years working at Axis Mundi, until escape was possible.
Except now we were there.
Neither Fisk nor Guernsey saw us.
“Yes, I know how you do things,” Fisk said.
He brought his gun up.
“You’ve always been a loser,” Guernsey said.
Hayley dashed forward. I reached for her, but Maura was in the way.
“You’ve lived too long, old man,” Fisk said.
He took aim.
Hayley shouted, “No,” and leapt in front of her stepfather.
Fisk squeezed the trigger.
The bullet caught Hayley in the center of her chest.
She fell backward against the old man. Blood quickly spread, creating a giant stain on her pink pullover.
Guernsey grabbed Hayley’s shoulders to keep her upright. He released her, though, when he saw the blood, as if he were afraid he’d catch her disease.
Hayley wavered yet did not fall.
The old man stood by her side. He whispered, “Hayley? Honey?”
She clutched the wound, a surprised expression on her face.
I watched helplessly as the life drained from her eyes.
“Mama?” she said.
Hayley pitched forward and fell, sightless, onto the grass.
Her mother screamed and kept screaming until her voice could no longer express her grief.
Fisk turned and dashed into the maze. I shoved Maura out of the way and went after him.
I paused at the opening and pulled my Beretta. I could only stand by uselessly while Hayley was killed, surprised that she had leapt in front of Fisk’s gun, unable to prevent it. It had happened so fast, I told myself. My helplessness festered a rage deep inside me that I could barely contain. I wanted to scream the way Maura had screamed.
At moments like this, your senses become heightened. Sight, sound, touch—it all becomes magnified. The muscles tense, the heart beats faster, breathing and perspiration increase, eyes dilate, and the stomach clenches. The world becomes much smaller, consisting solely of what’s directly in front of you. It’s called perceptual narrowing. At the same time, problem-solving capabilities are reduced, along with your ability to concentrate. For example, it became obvious I wasn’t thinking clearly when I rounded the first turn of the maze too quickly and the bullet clipped the hedge an inch from my right ear, raining splinters and leaves on my head as I ducked down.
The condition is labeled “body alarm reaction” by some psychologists. It’s an automatic and instantaneous response that increases the body’s ability to cope with an emergency. I learned all about it at the police academy. It lasts until the cause of the alarm is removed or the body becomes exhausted. Or until your training and experience kick in.
Soon everything became clear to me. My anger became a weapon instead of a detriment.
I continued to follow Fisk through the maze, advancing slowly, deliberately. I could hear him moving just steps in front of me, yet he remained out of sight.
I took more turns right and left before it occurred to me that we had taken one of the dead-end exits. All we were doing was making ourselves lost. I could imagine old man Guernsey laughing at us.
I crouched low to the ground in case Fisk decided to start spraying bullets through the hedge and spoke loudly.
“Hey, Fisk,” I said. “Fisk.”
There was no answer.
“C’mon, man. Talk to me.”
“Taylor?”
“There’s no way out, Fisk. I’m not trying to be theatrical. There really isn’t any way out of the maze except the way you came in.”
“I know. I panicked and took the wrong exit. Bad judgment.”
“Drop your gun and come out. Things will go badly for you, we both know that, but at least you’ll be able to take Guernsey down with you. Let the world know who he is and what he did.”
“Is Hayley all right?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t lie to me, Taylor. I shot her in the heart. I was trying to shoot the old man and she came out of nowhere. Do you believe she did that? After the way he treated everybody?”
“Drop your gun and come out.”
“I loved that girl. She was so damned fierce. Stood up to the old man, stood up to them all every day of her life. It was fun to watch.”
“Fisk.”
“Why would she sacrifice herself like that, Taylor? After everything that happened. Can you tell me why?”
“I don’t know, Fisk. Maybe in that split second Hayley decided the old man was family after all.”
“Oh, hell.”
Fisk appeared in the narrow path fifteen steps in front of me.
He shot high and missed, but he meant to.
I fired low and didn’t miss, but that’s the way he wanted it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
By the time I left Axis Mundi, the shooting was already big news on TV and the radio. Apparently old man Guernsey had shrugged off his grief long enough to control the story. My name wasn’t mentioned, which was fine with me. Instead, it was reported that a disgruntled employee murdered Hayley O’Brien, the stepdaughter of prominent Minnesota financier Robert Paul Guernsey Sr., at his Lake Minnetonka estate, before the assailant was shot dead by private security guards. Fisk, according to authorities, had been fired the day before over allegations of substance abuse. The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department was investigating the incident.
There was a lot more, but I lost interest by the time I drove to Edina. I found a parking space near the Galleria. A few minutes later, Brooke St. Vincent opened her apartment door to me.
“Taylor,” she said. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and held me tight. “Were you there? Did you see it?”
“Yes.”
“I was in my office when I heard. I tried to call Axis Mundi, but I couldn’t get through. What a terrible thing. I don’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t work, so I came home.”
Eventually she released me and made her way to her sofa. She was dressed in pajamas, an opened robe, and fluffy slippers. Her eyes were puffy from crying. There was a box of tissues on the coffee table. Brooke took one and blew her nose. She sat on the sofa and wrapped herself in a quilt.
“I feel so cold,” she said.
“You’re being unnecessarily dramatic, aren’t you, grieving for your friend with no one to see? Or were you expecting visitors?”
“What do you mean?”
I pointed at the photographs on the wall above the sofa, the ones with Brooke holding all those rifles.
“Tell me about it,” I said.
Brooke’s eyes went from the photos to me. “How long have you known?” she asked.
“The pieces started falling together when I met Fisk at Axis Mundi. He said he never would have hurt Hayley, and I believed him.”
