I was sitting behind my desk with my feet up and staring at the bulletin board. Freddie had put up a dozen more index cards and joined them to the appropriate cases with red yarn: O’NEILL to SIEGLE to CLASS ACTION, APRIL HERRON to BRIBE, and her friends ANDROMEDA WOHLWORTH to MURDER and LISA KING to RAPE. Also linked to RAPE was a card labeled KENDRICK. A second card tagged COWGILL was attached to RAPE, and another card marked HIT-RUN/MURDER? was attached to that. The stretch of yarn meant to join HACKER to NIMN was still left undone.
“It’s starting to get complicated,” I said.
“You think? You’re gonna love this, then.”
Freddie put up another, much larger card labeled GUERNSEY FINANCIAL INC. Under GUERNSEY, he had written RPG HOLDING CO. Under that he wrote MINNESOTA RIVER STATE BANK, RYAN-REED INC., and STANDOUT WORLDWIDE INVESTMENTS. Under that he wrote the names ROBERT PAUL, ROBERT JR., KURTIS and MELISSA GUERNSEY. He then proceeded to run yarn from that card to DIVORCE, BRIBE, CLASS ACTION, and MURDER.
“I hit the computer last night like you said,” Freddie said. “What I discovered, Ryan-Reed, according to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, was purchased two years ago by an investment group called Pretty Good Pie Investments.”
“Pretty Good Pie?”
“I have no idea where the name came from,” Freddie said. “All I know, the Kansas City Business Journal wrote that Pretty Good Pie is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MNPride Inc. Inc. magazine had a piece that claimed MNPride was owned by RPG Holding Company. Wikipedia claims that, wait a sec…”
Freddie retreated to his desk and found a sheet of paper. He brought it to me.
“Read it for yourself.”
I obliged.
RPG Holding Company (“RPG” or Robert Paul Guernsey) is a Minnesota-based company owned by Guernsey Financial Inc. and headquartered in Golden Valley, Minnesota. RPG is the largest family-owned financial and bank holding company in Minnesota, with assets over $1.4 billion. It operates 11 businesses including Minnesota River State Bank, Ryan-Reed Inc., Standout Investments Worldwide LLC, Oak Tree Stores, and Minneapolis-Butler. RPG is 86% owned by Robert Paul Guernsey Sr., Robert Guernsey Jr., Kurtis Guernsey, and Melissa Guernsey.
“Good job, Freddie,” I said.
“Now we know the Guernseys are involved in four out of the five cases. Not sure it amounts to anything, though.”
He returned to his desk and sat in his chair. There was a coffee mug in front of him. Several times he brought it to his lips but did not drink. Eventually he set the mug on his desk.
“What I can’t figure out is what’s taking so long,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“NIMN. The hacker said he was going to send the intel he swiped to NIMN. Shoulda taken ’im all of ten seconds. Only it’s been six days since the lawyers received the emails and nothin’. What’s the holdup?”
“According to the website, NIMN makes sure to authenticate—”
“Six days? How much time does it take to authenticate a selfie of some shithead raping a girl?”
“Most news organizations refuse to identify victims of sexual assault.”
“NIMN isn’t a newspaper. Besides, publish the pics and the punk goes to prison. Keep ’em quiet and he gets away with it. Which outcome do you think the victim would choose?”
I placed my index finger against my cheek.
“Hmm,” I said.
“Hmm, hmm, what the fuck does hmm mean?”
“Maybe NIMN is letting the victim make that decision.”
“Big of ’em if that was true.”
“Maybe we should ask.”
“In the meantime, what about the other shit?” Freddie asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m starting to think the hacker never sent the intel to NIMN, that he’s sitting on it.”
“That could be true, too, especially if it’s extortion like you first thought. But man, you’re right. It’s been six days. What’s he waiting on?”
“If it’s a hacker for hire, maybe he’s waiting to get paid,” Freddie said.
“Unless he’s already been paid.”
“That requires explanation.”
“Someone hires the hacker to get the goods on the Guernsey family’s business dealings. The Guernseys hear about it and make him a better offer.”
“Why the Guernsey family? Why not the lawyers?”
“If it were the lawyers, they wouldn’t need us. As far as we know, the Guernseys have the most to lose and the most to pay.”
“The Guernseys gain with DIVORCE, lose with CLASS ACTION, split with BRIBE, there’s nothing connecting them to MURDER except a distant acquaintance, and nothing connecting them to RAPE at all. If Puchner and the others are telling the truth, they don’t know about any of this yet.”
“As far as we know.”
Freddie began to chant “Thin, thin, thin, thin, thin,” until he grew tired of the word.
“I’m open to suggestions,” I told him.
He didn’t have any. Instead, he stared out the window and I stared at the bulletin board.
“Steve said we’re not being bugged,” Freddie said. “Came in yesterday and swept the place, did I tell you? So there’s that. Also, the software, whatever he put on our computers to catch the hacker if he tried to hack us—nothing.”
“Any progress on locating the hacker?”
“He said if it was easy everyone would do it. I’m starting to worry about him, her. When it’s Sara, she’s all sunshine and lollipops. But Steve, he’s all intense and, what’s the word? Brusque?”
“They’re probably having an identity crisis. I know I am.”
“Oh yeah?”
“You met my father. He never wanted me to be a police officer, much less a private investigator. He wanted me to go into business like him, like my brother. I’m starting to wonder why I didn’t.”
“You know my mother. She wanted me to be an actor. Named me Sidney Poitier Fredericks like somehow that was goin’ to get me a part in Raisin in the Sun or the lead in a remake of Lilies of the Field. ’Course, she coulda been onto somethin’. I’m prettier than he is.”
“Yet here we are. What a great disappointment we must be to both of them.”
“Speak for yourself, man. Ever since I made her a grandma, I’ve been the old woman’s favorite child.”
“All it would take is a couple of anonymous phone calls to the cops. I know I’d feel better. How ’bout you?”
“If it was just us, yeah, but it ain’t just us. Is it?”
“No.”
“It ain’t sayin’ much, Taylor, if I’m the responsible one in this here organization.”
I laughed because I remembered when it was the other way ’round. But then Freddie married Echo, a Chinese woman with long, gleaming black hair, classical Asian features, and an aura of wicked sensuality that I had never, ever commented on for fear that Freddie would shoot me, and he would have; the man was very protective of his wife, and his son, too, for that matter. Now he was the one who took the time to reason it all out and I was the loose cannon.
“Okay, are we done hating our jobs?” I asked.
“Speak for yourself, partner.”
“How ’bout this? You take the girls. Learn what’s there, if anything. I’ll concentrate on Todd Kendrick and James Cowgill, see where that takes me.”
“What about the Guernseys?”
“That’s one of the things we’re trying to find out, isn’t it? If this is really all about them?”
The Kingfield neighborhood in Minneapolis wasn’t named after Martin Luther King Jr., despite the fact that there was a park that bore his name on its eastern border. It was actually named after Colonel William S. King, an ex-congressman who lived in the area and was active in the antislavery movement before the Civil War. Dana Kendrick lived on Wentworth Avenue, not far from the park. If you’re known by the company you keep, that meant she was middle-class comfortable but had nowhere near the income level of the Guernsey family.
I knocked on her front door.
A lot of PIs like to flash gold coplike badges with the words DETECTIVE, PRIVATE DETECTIVE, or PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR embossed on them because they think it makes them seem more impressive. Freddie and I use simple ID cards that meet the demands of the Private Detective Board—name, name of our company, address, our photographs and physical description, date issued and date expired. But the IDs also have the word PRIVATE printed across the top and INVESTIGATOR across the bottom, both in block letters reversed out of black, along with the seal of the State of Minnesota in glorious color. Very cool, if I do say so myself, although Dana didn’t seem to think so.
I flashed the ID at her when she opened the door. I carry it in a thin wallet so I can flick it open the way they do in 1950s cop movies. She glanced at it, at me, back at the ID. She had a small tight mouth that looked as if it had forgotten how to smile, if it ever knew. She asked “What do you want?”
“Mrs. Kendrick—”
“Ms.”
“Ms. Kendrick, my name’s Taylor,” I said. “I’m working with Douglas Jernigan.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. What do you want?”
“We’re both trying to help your son.”
“This is all supposed to be over and done with. What that woman said about Todd, there was no evidence that he ever did those things. The prosecutor said so.”
“I know.”
“Todd didn’t do anything wrong. How many times do we have to say it?”
Dana couldn’t have been more than forty, hardly old enough to have a son in his third year of college, with a delicate loveliness to her face and bright color to her eyes. The beauty had been overlaid with a hard veneer, though, a coat of shellac worn thin and marred by years of abuse. I doubted that anyone had ever called her a girl, even when she was a girl.
“If I could have a moment of your time,” I said.
She sighed dramatically. It happened often when I was a cop and only to a lesser extent as a PI, how people became suspicious in my presence, how my questions sometimes triggered a fight-or-flight reflex. It meant I needed to find a way around the defensive posturing if I was going to get anywhere. I was wondering how to play Dana when she opened the door wide and told me to step inside. I did. She closed the door as if she were afraid it wouldn’t shut unless she put some muscle into it.
She led me deeper into the house until we were standing in a living room. It was comfortable but not lavish, with traditional furniture purchased to accentuate the fireplace, hardwood floors, and arched entryways. There were photographs on the mantel and tables, all of the same subject—Todd Kendrick, I assumed—marking his passage from infancy to college age. He was good-looking, but the wicked often are. Along with the photographs, there were several original paintings mounted on the walls, all of them unframed, the kind you buy directly from the painter. I squinted to read the signature of the one nearest me.
“That’s mine,” Dana said.
“Very nice.”
“The others were painted by friends and acquaintances.”
“You’re an artist.”
“Starving artist. I sell at the festivals and craft shows.”
“Hardly starving,” I said.
Dana glanced at her surroundings as if she were suddenly embarrassed. I couldn’t imagine why.
“Since you’re here,” she said, “you can explain it to me. Mr. Jernigan called the other day, but he didn’t make any sense. He said someone stole some photographs off of his computer. He said the photos were of my son and that woman. There are no photos, though. There couldn’t be. My son didn’t do anything.”
“Where is your son?”
“At college.”
“Where?”
“In Texas. Todd had to go all the way to Texas to go to school because of what that woman said. He couldn’t stay at home anymore. The school sent him a letter. It said they were refusing him continued admission because he had violated the school’s code of conduct. Todd didn’t even know the school had a code of conduct, and even if it did, he didn’t do anything wrong, so why can’t he go back there? It’s just what that woman said.”
“Ma’am—”
“Todd is in Texas and I’m all alone. It was just the two of us all these years. He didn’t know his father. I barely knew him. Now he’s gone and I’m alone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry. You don’t care. Why would you? Just ask your questions and go.”
“Did you know James Cowgill?” I asked.
“Jim? He’s a friend of Todd’s. Was a friend. From school. They hung around together. At least … They stopped speaking when the woman said those things. Most of his friends stopped talking to him after she said those things, another reason why he went to Texas.”
“We believe that your son took selfies of himself and Rachel Rozanski on a camera owned by Cowgill.”
“No. It’s just what the woman said.”
“We believe he returned the camera to Cowgill and that Cowgill then used the selfies to blackmail him.”
“It’s not true. It can’t be true. If it were true, why didn’t it come out during the investigation?”
“We don’t know.”
“You say blackmail. For what? Todd doesn’t have any money.”
“Did you pay Cowgill?”
For a moment she resembled the terrified bank tellers in all those black-and-white heist movies. Her voice became small.
“What are you saying?” it asked.
Tears began flowing from Dana’s eyes, slowly at first, gently, and then with greater persistence. As I watched them stain her cheeks, watched as she tried to brush them away with her knuckles, it occurred to me that she had believed every word her son told her, that Dana hadn’t known about the photos until Jernigan called, and now she didn’t know how to react to the news. Photos meant her son was guilty. Photos meant he was a rapist.
The tears also told me that whoever Cowgill found to pay for the photos, it wasn’t her.
“Why are you here?” Dana said. “Why can’t you just leave us alone?”
“Believe it or not, I’m on your side.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Ms. Kendrick, Cowgill was killed yesterday. The police think it was an accident.”
“Killed?”
“Jernigan and I aren’t so sure.”
“Killed?” she repeated. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Jim wasn’t a bad boy.” Her head came up. The tears had stopped. “I don’t think.”
“We’re afraid if the police investigate, one thing might lead to another.”
I paused for a few beats while she considered my meaning. The way she stared at me, I guessed she had come to a conclusion. To be sure, I asked, “Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Can you think of anyone who might have bought Cowgill’s photographs?”
“I think you should leave.”
“Ms. Kendrick—”
“Now.”
I knew arguing wouldn’t do any good, so I apologized for causing her such grief and excused myself. Dana saw me to the door and stood watch as I crossed the street to my car. She didn’t close the door until I was halfway down the street.
Kingfield was an old-fashioned neighborhood, one that still had alleys. I drove slowly down Dana’s alley until I reached her garage. The garage was old, pre-fifties or at least built before people knew better than to put windows in them. I got out of my car, went to the window, and cupped my hands against the glass. There was more than enough light to make out the red four-door Honda Civic, about three years old, parked inside.
I didn’t press my finger against my cheek, but I hummed the word anyway—“Hmm.”
It wasn’t her car that ran down Cowgill. I didn’t think it would be. A three-year-old Honda, though, a house in Kingfield, a son attending college out of state, no husband, her income apparently generated from selling paintings at art festivals? It all made me wonder—where did Dana get the money to pay for all this, much less the hourly rate of an attorney of Jernigan’s stature?
“What do you mean where did she get the money?” Jernigan asked.
“How did she pay you?”
“By check.”
“Personal check?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“You don’t know?”
“Jesus, Taylor. The firm sent her an invoice. She sent us a check. Do you want me to ask Accounting?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
“This better be important.”
Jernigan put me on hold. The hold music was a poor instrumental version of “I Will Always Love You.” I used to like that song. Now I hate it. There are a lot of things that I’ve grown to hate that hadn’t bothered me before. I was forced to listen to it two and a half times before Jernigan rescued me.
“Personal checks written on her account at Minnesota River State Bank,” he said. “Why is this a thing?”
“I’ve been to Dana Kendrick’s house. I’ve seen her car. She shouldn’t be able to afford them. She shouldn’t be able to afford you, Doug.”
“What do you mean you’ve been to her house?”
“She sure as hell can’t afford to pay blackmail.”
He paused long enough for my point to sink in.
“Someone did,” he said.
Jernigan and I argued after that about how far down this road I could go before I violated attorney-client confidentiality. It was decided not very far at all. He emphasized the fact that I was not to contact the St. Paul Police Department under any circumstances. He kept repeating it until I finally said, “You can trust me, Doug,” meaning I will not involve you in any of this.
“I know I can,” he replied, meaning You had better not.
Anne Scalasi gave me a little wave when she walked into the restaurant. She was dressed in a crisp white shirt and blue tie, blue skirt, and blue jacket, a gold badge glimmering off her left breast and a single gold star pinned to each shoulder as befitting an assistant chief of the St. Paul Police Department in command of Family and Sexual Violence, Property Crimes, Homicide and Robbery, Youth Services, Special Investigations, Gangs, Narcotics and Vice, and the Safe Streets Task Force. Everyone watched as she made her way to the table, but she was used to that, and not just because of the uniform.
I stood when she arrived, and we hugged each other. Feeling her body pressed against mine gave me a thrill of memory that I quickly beat down. We’re friends, I told myself. Friends.
Anne sat. A waitress was by her side before she settled in.
“Coffee. Black,” Anne said. The waitress looked my way. “I’m coming from a luncheon,” Anne added. “Chicken. Everyone serves chicken. Anyway, I’m not hungry, but you go ’head and eat.”
I pointed at the near-empty glass of bourbon in front of me and said, “Again.”
The waitress departed.
“Drinking your lunch, are you?” Anne asked.
“I’ll grab something on the way back to the office.”
“How are you, Taylor? I haven’t seen much of you since you decided to give me the cold shoulder.”
“Is that what I did?”
“Wasn’t it?”
“How’s His Lordship these days?”
Anne frowned at the reference.
“Ashley Leighton Redman, the famed architect who was born in Des Moines but behaves like he’s the Prince of Wales? Beijing, I think, building something for the Chinese. I haven’t seen or spoken to him for nearly two weeks.”
“Why are you still married?”
“I don’t want to put the kids through another divorce.”
“You’d think they’d be used to it by now.”
“Funny.”
The waitress returned with Anne’s coffee and a fresh Maker’s Mark on the rocks for me.
“We never had a chance, did we?” Anne asked.
“No. We were just pretending.”
We had kept our distance for nearly twenty years. Anne was single when we first met, a schoolteacher engaged to a patrolman who rolled with the Midway Team, and I was newly married to Laura. Fourteen years passed. By then Anne was not only married, she had three kids. She was also enjoying a meteoric career. After being trained at Quantico and doing a stint with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, she was made a lieutenant and put in command of the St. Paul homicide unit. I was her ace investigator, or so I thought of myself at the time. After Laura was killed, though, I was no longer sure why I was doing the job. Alcohol became an issue as well. I worked and I drank. That was my day. Every day.
To save myself, I resigned and went private. A short time later, Anne had divorced her husband, who had grown increasingly resentful of her with each passing promotion. Unfortunately, by then I was in a committed relationship with the attorney who would later crush my heart. When that relationship finally ended, Anne was married to His Lordship. Everyone knew the marriage was doomed to failure except Anne, of course. But she always was an optimist.
“I wasn’t pretending,” Anne said.
“A lot of people are lobbying to make you the first female police chief in the history of St. Paul. A lot of people are lobbying against it. What would have happened if you were caught sleeping with your ex-partner?”
“Nothing good, but don’t tell me that’s why you quit me.”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t divorced because of the kids. They don’t even live at home anymore.”
“The youngest one does.”
“Annie, I quit because I love you and always will. You’re the best friend I’ll ever have, and you deserve a helluva lot better than a guy who would sleep with another man’s wife.”
“If I wasn’t married?”
“I expect you to call me the very minute your divorce is final. If you divorce.”
“If? One day I expect to get a text from Singapore or some goddamn place telling me that His Lordship has found someone else. It would make my life so much simpler. Taylor, I have enemies on the city council. Men can carry on with impunity, but women? I’ve been fighting the double standard my entire life. I’m so tired of it. That’s why I care about you so much, one of the reasons, anyway. You always treated me as an equal.”
“Oh, honey. You’re not my equal. You’re my better.”
Anne smiled at that.
“The best investigator I’ve ever known.”
She smiled some more.
“All right, Taylor,” she said. “I’m primed. Why did you call me?”
“There was a hit-and-run yesterday.”
“In Hamline-Midway. I get eBriefs every morning.”
“You should tell the detective in charge of the investigation to check the young man’s bank accounts to see if he had come into any money starting around seven months ago.” The time of the sexual assault, I thought, but didn’t say.
“What reason would I have for telling him that?”
“Nostalgia.”
“Excuse me?”
“Pat his shoulder and tell him that back in the day when you ran an investigation, you never left a single stone unturned.”
“Uh-huh. Just how would he justify a search warrant?”
“He won’t need to justify it. Murder victims have no presumption of privacy.”
The mention of murder caused Anne’s eyes to brighten, but then it always did. She had been trained at the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime to investigate mass murders and serial rape killings. She had been very good at it.
Anne took a long sip of coffee while I studied her. It was always a joy to watch her work out a problem; you could actually see her think.
“What would he find, I wonder?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but I would sure like to.”