THIRTY

AFTER I SHOOED Anne out of my yard, I called Paul Aasen. He picked up, answering smoothly, “Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, this is Paul Aasen. May I help you?” He hung up when I identified myself. I called back.

“You have sixty seconds,” he barked after I begged him to listen to my story.

“Answer this question first: Heather’s gun, was it a nine-millimeter?”

“Yes, it was. She claims her father gave it to her several years ago, that she never used it before, that as far as she knows it has never even been fired. You have fifty seconds.”

“All right, consider this: Heather shoots Randy in her apartment, claiming self-defense. Physical evidence at the scene, the presence of a weapon, for example, seems to corroborate her story …”

“You have forty seconds.”

“Plus, there’s testimony confirming her claim that Randy was, in fact, threatening her over a considerable sum of money.”

“Thirty seconds.”

“Now, perhaps she can explain why she made no effort to return the money. Perhaps she can explain why she did not call the police when she knew he was coming; why she waited for him in her apartment; why she shot him six times.”

“Twenty seconds.”

“However, can she explain why she tried to kill me and another woman two nights before?”

“What are you talking about?”

“How much time do I have left?”

“Forget that. Repeat what you just said.”

“Late Wednesday night someone shot at me and a lawyer named Cynthia Grey in my home. At first I thought the shooting was connected to something else I’m involved in. Now I know better.”

“Can you identify Miss Schrotenboer as the assailant?”

“No.”

“Can the lawyer … Miss Grey?”

“No.”

“Quit pulling my chain, Taylor …”

“I have something better than an eyewitness. Something unshakable.”

“What?”

“I have a bullet fired from her gun.”

That stopped him. After a few moments of thought Aasen asked, “Where is the bullet?”

“Sergeant Mankamyer of the St. Paul Police Department has it.”

“He is their forensic firearms specialist?” Aasen asked.

“Hmm. Did the St. Paul PD recover the bullet?”

“No, I pulled the bullet out of the wall myself and brought it to them.”

Aasen said, “The constructive-possession rules …”

“They don’t apply,” I insisted, cutting him off. “Maybe you can’t prove that the bullet came out of my wall. But you certainly can prove that the bullet came from her gun. Put her in front of a grand jury and ask her how that’s possible if her gun was never fired before, if it never left her possession. I’m curious to hear her answer.”

“So am I.”

“Something else. Heather once told me she wondered what it was like to kill a man. Question her friends, her classmates. I bet you’ll find she made the same kind of statement to others.”

“I don’t know if that is enough to convict her for killing Mr. Sullivan.”

“Probably not. But it’s enough to arrest her and once she’s in custody, you know how it works, we might find out that she’s not as smart as she seems.”

“I will arrange to secure the bullet from St. Paul and have our own forensic experts compare it to the bullets removed from Mr. Sullivan’s body. If there is a positive match we will proceed from there.”

“Sounds reasonable to me.”

“Thank you, Mr. Taylor.”

“Thank you, Mr. Aasen.”

Freddie slept in a king-size bed with a Victorian canopy and silk sheets; both were the color lingerie manufacturers call peach though it doesn’t resemble the fruit at all. Still, the color contrasted well with Freddie’s complexion. I sat at the foot of his bed and watched him sleep, playing with the Colt Commander he had left on the small marble-topped table next to the bed. Freddie owned a condominium in Uptown Minneapolis, not too far from Lake Calhoun; you could see the lake from Freddie’s balcony. The condo was on the eighth floor of what was advertised as a “security building,” but Freddie and I both knew better and I found myself wondering why a man in his line of work wasn’t more careful. On the other hand, my house wasn’t exactly Fort Knox, either.

“Hey, Freddie,” I said, tapping his foot with the barrel of the gun, amazed that anyone could sleep this late into the day. He did not respond so I tapped harder. “Hey pal, the sun is shining, the birds are singing …”

“Go ‘way, Taylor,” he mumbled and rolled over. That got me laughing and my laughter must have shot a load of adrenaline through him because he popped up, wide awake, looked me in the eye and said, “Oh, shit.”

“Man, it’s late afternoon. What are you doing in bed?”

“I was partyin’ last night.”

“Hanging out with your journalist friend?”

“What you want?”

I waved the Colt in his general direction.

“This ain’t your style, man,” he grumbled.

“You asking or telling?”

Freddie pulled the sheet tight around his throat like it was bulletproof and repeated, “This ain’t your style, man.”

“You never know,” I told him. “A man with a large bump on his head is liable to do anything.”

“I’m really sorry about that, Taylor.”

“Sure you are.”

“What you gonna do?”

“Depends, Freddie. Depends. I have a few questions to ask. You going to answer them?”

“Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.”

I smashed the toes of his right foot with the barrel of the Colt.

“Motherfucker!”

“Tell me about Dennis Thoreau.”

“Who the fuck is Dennis Thoreau?” he squealed, rubbing his foot.

“He’s an asshole, just like you.”

“Man, I don’t know no Dennis Thoreau.”

“I didn’t think so,” I said. I didn’t even bother asking him about Brown, Sherman or Amy Lamb. Freddie was a goon, a leg-breaker, a head-basher, maybe a killer, too. He killed the three Filipino thieves. But he could have killed me and he didn’t, which meant he probably hadn’t killed anyone. At least not recently. Something else. Freddie would not have kept the gun after doing Brown. Keep evidence? Of murder? Freddie was just not that careless.

Of course, I could be wrong.

“Pick up the phone,” I told him.

Freddie hesitated.

“Do it,” I said softly.

When he uncradled the receiver I asked him if he knew Marion Senske’s private number. When he nodded, I told him to dial it.

“Man, I don’t work for that bitch no more.”

Freddie’s statement infuriated me, although I couldn’t tell you why. I thumbed back the hammer on the Colt and screamed, “Call her or I’ll blow your fucking head off!”

Freddie proceeded to set the Olympic record for the seven-digit dial. The phone rang five times before Marion answered it. “Yeah, this is Freddie … No, man … Listen … I know that … Would you fuckin’ listen?” Freddie yelled. “Taylor’s here … Yeah, Taylor. He’s got a gun. He wants to talk to you.” I shook my head no. “He doesn’t want to talk to you … How the fuck should I know? … Yeah …Yeah, a gun …”

“Tell her the police found Joseph Sherman this morning,” I said.

“Who’s Joseph Sherman?”

“Tell her.”

“The cops found Joseph Sherman this morning,” Freddie repeated.

“Tell her he’s dead.”

“He’s dead … No shit?”

“Is that what she said?”

“No, that was me,” Freddie admitted.

“What did she say?”

“Nothin’, man.”

“Tell her it looks real good that the cops will pin Amy Lamb and Brown on Sherman and close the case.”

“Taylor figures the cops will … She heard you,” Freddie told me.

“Tell her that leaves Thoreau.”

“That leaves Thoreau.”

“Tell her I’m willing to make a deal.”

“He says he’s willing to make a deal … She wants to know for what.”

“She knows for what.”

“You know for what … How much?”

“I’m a reasonable man. Make me an offer.”

“He’s a reasonable man … Ten thousand?”

I shook my head no.

“He don’t like that,” Freddie said into the phone. “Fifteen?”

I shook my head.

“He wants more … Twenty is as high as she’ll go.”

“She’ll go higher,” I said.

“You’ll go higher … Twenty-five,” Freddie told me.

I shrugged.

“Yeah, he’ll go for that … Where? When?”

“Thirty minutes. C. C.’s office in the State Capitol.”

“He says thirty minutes … She says that’s unacceptable; she and Monroe are leaving for a fund-raiser in thirty minutes.”

“Hang up the phone, Freddie.”

Freddie hung up the phone.

“Now what?” he asked.

I gave him a telephone number and told him to dial it. He did. While it was ringing I had him pass me the receiver.

“They’re selling you out, honey,” I told the woman who answered.

“What are you talking about?” Meghan Chakolis asked.

“Looks like the governor’s office is worth more to them than you thought.”

“I don’t understand.”

“C. C.’s office in forty-five minutes,” I said and flipped the receiver back to Freddie, gesturing for him to hang it up.

“Aren’t we having fun now,” Freddie said.

I briefly contemplated the incredible damage I could inflict on his body. I could fix it so Freddie never walked again, never bent his elbow to raise a glass, to feed himself. Ahh, hell. Now we both knew how vulnerable we were.

“I don’t figure we’re even Freddie,” I told him. “I figure you still owe me big time. But I’m satisfied and I’m willing to let it go at this—busting your pad, letting you know I can take you out anytime I want. You don’t agree, you know where to find me.” Freddie watched me suspiciously, until the realization of what I said hit him. He smiled. Then he laughed.

“You got ’em,” Freddie told me. “You got ’em, that ain’t no lie. They may be white, but you got stones like a brother.”

“I have a few things to do, Freddie. I don’t want to see you around when I do them. Understand?”

He didn’t say if he did or didn’t. He just kept laughing.