The Shallows--A Nils Shapiro Novel Page 18

  She thought for a moment then used her feet and hands to propel herself alongside the reception desk toward the entrance side. When she ran out of desk she stood but her head didn’t gain much height. She towered at four feet ten inches—her chair had created a pneumatic illusion of height.

  Her solemn expression amped up to grave. She waddled closer, looked up at me the way a child looks up at the minimum-height-required mark to ride the roller coaster, and said, “These are good people at this firm. They love their families and their community and their country. They get involved because they care. They—or should I say we—are not the problem. We are trying to make the world a better place. It’s important you understand that.”

  My plastic bottle of water had started to sweat. I could feel the Halferin Silver label softening in my hand and said, “You’re trying to make the world a better place for whom?”

  Sheryl Glass thought about that for a good ten seconds, adjusted the plastic film over her eyes, then said, “For the good people. That’s whom.” She nodded and smiled then returned to her chair. I opened the door to the elevator lobby and the receptionist said, “Expect a call from Dana. And answer it. Do not make me look foolish!”

  I rode the elevator down to the lobby. The door opened, and I stepped into a man-made canyon of granite and glass. Detective Irving of the Greater Lake Minnetonka Police Department leaned against a polished pillar, waiting for me.

  His orange hair had been cut, and his newly exposed skin beamed white, as if he needed any more beaconlike features. He wore a suit. Not a sport coat and pants but a suit. And a tie. He looked ridiculous. He peeled himself off the pillar as if some grown-up had told him no loitering. If he’d had a toothpick in his mouth, he would have been in 1940. He approached and said, “Nils.”

  “Detective. Little out of your neighborhood, aren’t you?”

  “I thought we could talk if you have a minute.”

  “There’s got to be ten thousand elevators in this town. What are the odds you’d be standing outside the one I stepped out of?”

  He smiled. “I made some calls.”

  I smiled. “You sure some calls weren’t made to you?”

  “No,” he said. “I made the calls. Took a few, but I found you.”

  “Why didn’t you come up to Halferin Silver?”

  “Can we go somewhere and talk? Get a cup of coffee or something?”

  “No, Detective. We can’t. Because I’m getting tired of everyone wanting my attention. That’s not how this job is supposed to work. That’s not how my life works. I chase people down. Ferret things out. It takes days, weeks, even months just to get a grain of sand. But the last few days, everything and everyone are coming at me. Nonstop. Dead bodies and government agencies. I just got baited by a lawyer, ambushed by Karin fucking Tressler, and accosted by a receptionist who wants me to go out with her goddamn cousin. I step into an elevator and finally get some peace and solitude. A twenty-floor descent of bliss. I step out ready for a tranquil walk home, but guess who’s waiting for me? You, you son of a bitch. So no. No to coffee. No to conversation. No to everything and anything. I’m leaving. Alone.”

  Irving’s face turned pink under his orange hair. Bashful, ashamed, impish. He looked like a caricature on a kid’s cheap Valentine’s Day card. I walked away. Two steps later I heard, “Nils, please. This is important.”

  He broke into a jog. I considered taking the skyway but opted for the August swelter. He’d almost caught up when I stepped into a quadrant of revolving door. The door spat me out onto Ninth Street. Irving followed in the quadrant behind me.

  “Nils! You have to let go of Christmas Lake.”

  “Fuck off, Detective.” I picked up my pace. Ninety-nine degrees radiated off the concrete. I wore a T-shirt, but Irving was all dressed up. Advantage me.

  “I was given an order to tell you in person.” He was right beside me, matching my stride. I’d always liked Irving. Now I liked him more.

  “By whom?”

  “What?”

  “Who gave you the order?”

  The walk countdown on the Hennepin Avenue traffic light flashed 3 … 2 … I accelerated into a jog to make the light. Irving kept pace.

  “The chief of police,” said Irving.

  I ramped back up onto the sidewalk and said, “I thought your chief ran off with a woman.”

  “He did. That chief did. But the committee just appointed Detective Norton as the new chief. Interim, anyway, until they find a new one or decide to make him permanent.”

  “Oh, I get it. He’s trying to start with three closed cases so his board is clean. Tell him you gave me the message and I said fine.”

  We passed three young men, corner boys if I wasn’t mistaken. They made a not-so-subtle exchange right in the open. In the middle of downtown, like I was watching The Wire.

  Detective Irving didn’t seem to notice. He said, “So that’s it, you’re done?”

  “Hell no I’m not done.” I stopped for the light on First Avenue. “But tell him I said I’m done so he thinks you did your job and gets off your ass. You’ll be happy. I’ll be happy. We’ll go our merry ways.”

  The light turned green and I resumed my pace. Irving kept stride. “But he’ll find out.”

  “I know. But maybe he’ll get one good night of sleep. And then it’s all on me because I double-crossed you. My word is shit. Lesson learned.”

  I looked over at Irving for the first time since we revolved out of the building. His face was grapefruit pink and shiny with sweat. His collar was soaked, as was the knot of his necktie. The front of his shirt was splotched with darker patches of blue. His eyes begged for mercy, maybe from the physical discomfort but more likely from the trouble I was making for him. He looked like a kid who’d been sent to the store to buy milk with the last of his family’s money but had lost it along the way. I thought of stepping into some air-conditioning but couldn’t risk Irving taking a moment to think straight.

  I said, “What’s going on, Irving?”

  “I told you. I need you to—”

  Irving broke eye contact. Frustration flowed out of his pores along with the sweat. He started to say something then stopped and peeled off his suit coat. Then he struggled with the sweat-soaked knot to loosen his tie. He had to pinch his jacket in his chicken wing and use both hands. With effort, he slid the knot to the dry part of the tie and pulled it off.

  “Holy shit, Irving. You’re a wet hot mess. What’s the problem? What are you afraid of?”

  Irving shut his eyes. The sweat had condensed into drops and ran down his jaw. He took a breath and said, “There’s a tool.”

  “Yeah there’s a tool. He’s your new chief of police.”

  “No. The plexiglass window outside Kjellgren’s cell. It was held in place by screws. But not normal screws. They have a special-shaped indent. Not a slot or a square or a star. This other shape that’s hard to explain.” He wiped his forehead with his crumpled-up suit coat. The sweat trickled into his eyes. It must have stung. He blinked hard. “When Kjellgren escaped, Detective—Chief Norton … Well, I guess he was Detective then … Norton said Kjellgren must have somehow used his string saw to cut his way out of the plexiglass, too. But if he did that, the bolted parts would still be in. Even if he somehow cut through the bolts, the body of the bolts would still be screwed into the exterior wall. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  Detective Irving hated telling me what he just told me. He looked nauseous.

  I said, “Yeah. You’re saying someone unscrewed the screws from the outside then removed the plexiglass from the window.”

  He nodded. “There’s a special tool to take out the screws. We keep it in a toolbox in the maintenance room. Sometimes things get slow. Especially in winter when the lake is quiet. So I nose around the station. That’s how I knew what we had in the tool kit. After Kjellgren escaped, I looked for the special tool. But it was gone. Someone had taken it.”

  “Do you know who?”

/>   He shook his head. “It drove me crazy that night. Kjellgren didn’t escape. Someone broke him out.”

  “I know someone broke him out. That’s why the metal shavings were on the inside. If he’d used the saw, they would have been on the outside.”

  “Whoa,” said Irving. “You’re right. Why didn’t you say anything?” I answered his question with a blank stare. He said, “Doesn’t matter now, I guess. Anyway, whoever broke him out must have used our special tool. But that’s impossible. So I went back the next day to look again, thinking maybe I’d missed it. I opened the toolbox and there it was, right in the top tray next to the Allen wrenches.”

  “So you did miss it.”

  “No. I didn’t. I looked there. I removed everything from the tray. It wasn’t there. Someone put it back after I’d checked for it. And whoever did it had the sense to wipe it clean, because I dusted it for prints and found nothing. Absolutely zero. Which doesn’t make sense. Someone had touched it at some time. It’s a tool. But it was spotless.”

  “Did your runaway chief take it?”

  “I didn’t say that!” said Irving. “I’m not accusing anybody. I’m just saying some person took it then put it back.”

  I started walking First Avenue toward the North Loop, but at a more humane pace. Irving stayed at my side. I said, “Did you tell Norton?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said he disagreed with my conclusion. That I must have not seen the tool the first time I looked for it, and Arndt Kjellgren cut his way out of the plexi then figured out a way to remove the screws.”

  We walked a bit more then I said, “If you cut your way through two steel bars and then a plexiglass window, would you then take the time to remove a bunch of screws that didn’t make a damn difference?”

  “Of course not,” said Irving.

  “Neither would I.”

  31

  I left Detective Irving at the corner of First Avenue and Second Street near The Red Cow. The sweat-soaked Irving backtracked into downtown, and I took a left into the North Loop, where my coat factory remained one of the few buildings yet to be renovated. I showered in a lukewarm spray and didn’t towel off, hoping the water would evaporate and pull some heat from my body. I called Ellegaard, told him Ian Halferin entrapped me into meeting with Karin Tressler, about my conversation with the rolly chair receptionist, and my walk/talk with Detective Irving featuring the tool that disappeared then reappeared. But Ellegaard seemed preoccupied.

  He said, “Sorry. Emma just told us she’s taking all her classes at the University of Minnesota this fall.”

  I played dumb. “My buddy Ernesto Cuellar is taking some classes at the U. It’s good, right?”

  “It’s not good. Emma forged our signatures on the application.”

  “Did she ask you and Molly about it earlier?”

  “She did,” said Ellegaard. “We said no. I didn’t want her going to college at sixteen years old. Didn’t see any reason to rush that part of her life.”

  “Does Molly feel the same way?”

  There was a long pause. My wet body was still wet. Maybe the air held too much moisture to take any more. Maybe I was sweating again. Ellegaard said, “Molly and I disagreed about it when Emma asked. But Molly’s pretty upset because Emma went ahead anyway and lied and forged our signatures. Listen, I’ll make some calls about the new Chief Norton of the Greater Lake Minnetonka Police Department, see if he has a history of questionable ethics.”

  “Smooth topic switch.”

  Ellegaard said, “I got to go. I’ll talk to you later, Shap.”

  The call ended as my phone dinged with a text from Micaela. She’d sent a movie taken on her phone. It was of a screen in a doctor’s office that showed the heartbeat of our baby. I’d seen them before with our first in-utero child, the one who didn’t make it out alive. It didn’t look much different than those, though the technology has improved. Better resolution and all that. And one other difference: I knew about the doctor appointment with the first pregnancy. I was there. I didn’t see it via text.

  Micaela had been upfront and direct. She would be the baby’s mother. I would be the baby’s father. She did not want a partner. We would not be parenting together. I didn’t respond to her text. That’s a non-partner’s prerogative.

  I called Annika and updated her on the day’s events. She said she’d just got off the phone with Celeste Sorensen. “She asked me if I wanted to go to the range,” said Annika.

  “The driving range?”

  “No. The gun range. I forgot to tell you about this earlier. After you and Gabriella left last night, Celeste asked me if private detectives carry guns. I said some do some don’t, but I did, not so much for the job, but for general protection in case I ever ran into another man like my ex. She gets this weird little smile on her face, looks around to see if anyone is watching, then opens her purse and tips it toward me. A pistol is in there. This tiny gun.”

  “Probably a .38 special.”

  “No. Much smaller than that. I looked it up. It’s called a Derringer.”

  “Two barrels? One over the other?”

  “That’s it. It’s puny. You saw how drunk she was. I was freaking out. Then she asks if I want to see something cool. I asked her if the gun was loaded, and she said yes. It couldn’t do any good if it wasn’t loaded. I told her to shut her purse—she could lose her permit if anyone saw the gun. Or worse, someone could get hurt. But she got this impish look on her face, reached into her purse, and next thing I know a laser beam is shooting out of it.”

  “What an idiot.”

  “I stood up from the table and said I’d leave if she didn’t stop it. She called me a party pooper and closed her purse, but not before she splayed the laser around the room like a high school kid at fucking assembly. It was crazy.”

  “So are you going?”

  “To what?”

  “The target range with Celeste?”

  “I don’t know. I said I’d call her back. What do you think?”

  “I think you should go.”

  “Shit. I knew you’d say that.”

  “Hey, Annika.”

  “What?”

  “Do you realize you never swore until you became a full-time investigator?”

  “Fuck. I’d better watch it around the kids.”

  She hung up.

  I texted Gabriella and asked if Celeste Sorensen had a permit to carry. She said she was in a meeting but would check and get back to me.

  I was still on the Halferin Silver payroll, so I headed back to Northeast Minneapolis. Arndt Kjellgren said I have records. I know. I have records. I’d searched dozens of record albums inside and out and found nothing. I didn’t have time to search all two thousand then, but I had time now. I pulled into the rear parking lot. It was empty. Strange for midafternoon on a workday. Yellow police tape blocked off the loading docks and service door. A Minneapolis Police cadet sat on a folding chair. I knew she was a cadet because I once wore the same uniform. I drove within a few feet of her and rolled down my window.

  “Hello.”

  The cadet was a young African-American woman wearing red horn-rimmed glasses. “Sorry,” she said. “Building’s sealed off.”

  “What happened?”

  “There was a gas problem. Something toxic. Sent a few people to the hospital. No one’s allowed in.”

  “You mean a gas leak?”

  “Not a gas company gas leak. A leak from a tank. That’s all I know.”

  I looked at the cadet. She knew more than that. I said, “Was the leak from a welding tank?”

  The cadet shrugged.

  My phone rang. I looked at the Volvo’s screen. Gabriella. “What’s your name?”

  “Denise Franklin.”

  I pressed the call-answer button on the Volvo’s steering wheel and said, “Would you quit hassling me, Chief Inspector Núñez. I told you I don’t like Latin women. Too spicy for my white-boy Minnesota blo
od.”

  The cadet sat up in her chair. Her head tilted and her eyes narrowed to say Are you bullshitting me?

  I cranked the volume as Gabriella said, “Shut up, Shap. I said I’d call you back and I am. Celeste Sorensen does have a permit to carry.”

  “Thank you. And hey, do you know anything about a gas leak in Arndt Kjellgren’s studio at Hennepin and Stinson?”

  “I just got a report on that. One of the welding tanks inside Kjellgren’s studio was filled with chlorine gas. The valve had a slow leak. The levels inside Kjellgren’s studio were lethal. But we didn’t know it until other people in the building started getting sick.”

  “Huh.”

  “Hey, I got to go. Call me later.”

  “Will do. And Gabriella, you got a hell of a cadet in your ranks.”

  “I do?”

  “Denise Franklin. She’s on post outside Kjellgren’s building. Wouldn’t tell me a goddamn thing.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.”

  We hung up. Denise Franklin had a big smile on her face. I rolled up my window and drove away. I had just crossed back over the river and taken a right on First Street when I saw him. He walked out of Askov Finlayson, a men’s clothing boutique that sold clothes I’d actually wear. The man wore shorts and a tank and every square inch of his left leg was covered in tattoos. But his right leg didn’t match—it was covered in a shiny swirl of scars.

  I might not have noticed if I hadn’t just been to Kjellgren’s studio, because the man was insignificant. At least to me. But his leg was not. His leg told me everything.

  I looked for a place to pull over, but finding a parking spot in the North Loop is like finding a leprechaun—you can’t. So, I continued a few more blocks and pulled into the coat factory’s loading dock.

  I didn’t know who to call first. I tried Ellegaard. He didn’t answer. I tried Gabriella. No answer. I tried Annika.

  “Hey, Nils. What’s up?”

  “I know who killed Todd Rabinowitz.”

  32

  Two security cameras sat atop the gateposts, which were not so much posts but square columns faced with limestone. I stopped outside the iron gate and reached for a call box, but the gate moved before I could push the button. I drove in and onto a driveway of stone pavers. The grounds looked time-consuming. Chemically induced green grass, beds of flowers, sculpted hedges, pools, and fountains. Someone, apparently, had tamed the great outdoors. A flagpole rose from a circle of white rocks. A United States flag no smaller than Kansas hung limp in the August doldrums.