Curse of the Jade Lily (32 page)

I knelt in front of Jenny and took her hand in mine.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” I asked.

“McKenzie, they were here,” Jenny said. “They came, just like you said they would.”

“What happened?”

One of the security guards stepped forward.

“Our security system frightened off an intruder,” he said. His expression suggested that he was quite pleased with himself. “There is evidence that a car was parked near the top of the hill. The intruder got out of the car and made his way toward the house through the snow, approaching from the far side.” He made a gesture with his hand toward his right. “At about sixty yards from the structure the footprints stopped and the intruder retreated the way he came. He must have been scared off by the lights and the siren from our security system.”

I glanced up at the cop. He gave me a slight shrug of his shoulders. “Sounds right,” he said.

I turned all of my attention back toward Jenny. “I’m sorry,” I said.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me close. “You saved me,” she said.

I didn’t have the guts to tell her that I was the one who put her in danger.

“Where’s your husband?” I asked.

“I called him after I spoke to you, after I pulled the alarm. He was meeting with a business associate and said he would come home as soon as he could.”

“Where is he?”

“Orono.”

“Orono? Orono is a lousy five miles away. He could have walked here by now.”

“I know.”

She spoke the words as if they were all she needed to describe the status of her marriage.

I did a quick three-sixty of the house from where I knelt in front of the sofa. Herzog was standing near the door. The guards were still milling about, talking softly to each other. The cop was impatiently tapping his notebook with his pen. Someone had the presence of mind to build a fire in the fireplace—I knew the place had four of them. When I looked back, I found Jenny staring into the flames.

“Maybe it’s time to move back to Merriam Park,” I said.

Jenny turned her head so that her cheek was resting against her knees. There was a sad sort of smile on her lips as if she knew the answer to a complicated question but wished she didn’t.

“I’m not the one who’s going to move,” she said.

*   *   *

The cop had other places to be, but the security guards promised to leave a man at Jenny’s house until her husband returned. Herzog and I climbed back into the Jeep Cherokee and worked our way to the county road that wound around Cook’s Bay.

“Now what?” he said.

“Time to be proactive.”

“Wha’s ’at mean?”

“Take me to Burnsville.”

“’Bout fuckin’ time.”

*   *   *

We drove past Von Tarpley’s house twice. The Toyota RAV4 was parked in front both times. Lights burned in most of the rooms—apparently Von paid as much attention to the energy conservation flyers the power company sent out each month as I did. The third time we drove past we could see Dennis through the living room window. His head was bowed as if he was speaking to someone sitting below him.

Herzog pulled over and stopped the Jeep Cherokee at the end of the street.

“How you wanna work this?” he asked.

“When I was a kid, a friend of mine threw a party, a kegger, at his place in White Bear Lake,” I said. “It was a fairly quiet affair, yet someone called the cops. The cops drove up, and we all moved to the front of the house to see what was going on. That’s when whoever called the cops stole the keg off the back porch.”

“Nice.”

“I’ll give you five minutes to work your way into position. When I go to the front of the house, you go to the back door. I’ll knock loudly. Give me a minute and then you go in.”

“’Kay. Now you git your piece outta your pocket. Put it in your belt; put it where you can git at it fast.”

“I thought you didn’t like my Walther PPK.”

“Better’n nothin’.”

Herzog opened the driver’s door while I opened the other side. I moved around the Cherokee and slid into the driver’s seat.

“Where’s your gun?” Herzog asked. I held it up for him to see. “You’ll be able to drive?”

“I’ll manage,” I said.

“’Kay. One more thing. McKenzie?”

“What?”

“I was never in White Bear Lake.”

“Five minutes,” I said.

*   *   *

I watched Herzog disappear behind a house. The skies had cleared, letting the moon and stars work their magic. I would have preferred overcast. In the winter it never gets entirely dark. The snow and ice always find a light source to magnify and reflect—like the moon and the stars—so it often seems like twilight no matter what the hour, and I was afraid that Herzog would be terribly exposed.

Five minutes later, I put the Cherokee into gear and headed down the street. There was no traffic, so I had an easy time of it. I pulled in behind the Toyota and sat for a minute. I wasn’t looking to give Herzog more time so much as I wanted the inhabitants of the Tarpleys’ house to get a good look at me; I even revved the engine a bit before shutting it down.

I slipped out of the vehicle and headed for the front door, carefully picking my way along the narrow, snow-covered sidewalk. The Walther PPK was wedged under my elbow where the shoulder immobilizer had more or less pinned it to my body; my jacket was draped over it. I ignored the doorbell. Instead, I opened the glass storm door and pounded hard on the wooden door beneath it. I waited five seconds, then pounded some more. The door was yanked open. I started counting down seconds inside my head.

59 - 58 - 57 …

“What are you doing here, McKenzie?” Von Tarpley asked.

“I want my money,” I said.

I brushed Von aside and stepped past her into the living room. I looked for Dennis and did not find him. He could have been squatting behind the stacked boxes, I decided. He could have been upstairs. He could have been hiding in the kitchen or the darkened room beyond the arch to my left. I turned toward Von. She had moved away from the door without closing it. That should have told me something, but it didn’t.

55 - 54 - 53 …

“Where’s my money?” I asked.

“I told you, I don’t have it,” Von said. “I know nothing about it.”

She moved deeper into the room. I turned with her until my back was to the front door.

“Then why did you try to pay Jenny Thomas a visit earlier this evening?” I said.

48 - 47 - 46 …

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Have it your own way,” I said. “I’ll just take the reward, then.”

“What reward?”

“The police have a photograph of your boyfriend Dennis paying for the rooms at the motel you guys blew up. They also have photos of his SUV at the motel and the museum the night the Jade Lily was stolen. They haven’t been able to identify him yet. I bet they’ll pay me a few bucks to help.”

I heard a noise beyond the arch that sounded like someone shifting his weight on loose floorboards.

35 - 34 - 33 …

“Oh, no,” Von said.

“Once they have him in custody—the question is, did he shoot the cop in the back or was that you? What do you think he’ll say? Think he’ll take the blame?”

Von glanced at the open front door. I imagined her trying to make a run for it.

30 - 29 - 28 …

“You know what you should be doing, Von? I mean besides coming up with my money? You should be thinking about what kind of deal you can make with the cops.”

Von hesitated for a moment.

“Dennis shot him,” she said.

I turned my attention toward the darkened room, turned my body to face it.

“Why?” I asked.

“Noehring was going for the ransom money. He was going to kill you to take it. Dennis shot him to protect you.”

20 - 19 - 18 …

“That works for me, but the cops—they’re going to want to know how Dennis knew who Noehring was; how he recognized him in the dark.” I thought I heard the floorboards squeak again. “You might be able to make it work, though. You’re a smart girl. ’Course, you’re still going to have to explain how your husband was murdered in the exact same spot where you two took your wedding vows.”

Von glanced down at her wedding photograph, still in the pile on the box with her other framed photos.

“What were you thinking?” I asked.

“I was thinking that he lied to me.” Her voice was surprisingly gentle.

10 - 9 - 8 …

“Men lie to women all the time,” I said, “and vice versa. You don’t shoot them for it.”

7 - 6 - 5 …

“You do if you can get a million dollars out of it.”

4 - 3 …

“So, it was a crime of passion, then?”

2 - 1 …

“I guess.”

Zero.

That’s when he came through the door. Only it wasn’t Herzog, and it wasn’t the back door. It was Dennis, and he came through the front door with a gun in his hand. He pushed his gun hand toward me as if throwing a punch and fired. The gun sounded like a surface-to-air missile in the small living room. The shot went wide, but not by much. I dove behind a stack of packing crates, landing on the shoulder that wasn’t broken, which, trust me, didn’t make the shoulder that was broken feel any better. I heard the Walther slip out from under my elbow and clatter to the floor, yet I didn’t realize what it meant until I reached for the gun only to find that it wasn’t there.

I heard Von shouting, although I didn’t see her because of the boxes.

“No, no, no,” she said. “Not in my house. Are you crazy?”

“Get out of the way,” Dennis said.

I found the Walther. It was just out of my reach. I rolled toward it. The two ends of my fractured collarbone rubbed together. I cried out in pain as I snatched the gun off the floor. Dennis was moving around the boxes. An experienced shooter would have fired through the boxes—they were made of paper, after all. I wouldn’t have had a chance. Dennis wasn’t experienced. He had to see his target. He came around the stack. I rolled onto my back, extended my arm, and threw a shot at him. I missed. Dennis fell backward. I heard him bounce against furniture. The photographs Von had stacked on top of the boxes fell; the glass in the frames shattered on the floor. I rolled to my knees. My head—hell, my entire body was throbbing, and lights flashed in front of my eyes like a Fourth of July fireworks display. I tried to ignore them as best I could. I glanced around the boxes. Dennis was on his feet again. Von was standing between him and me, her hands out as if she were trying to hold him back.

“Stop it,” she said.

Dennis shoved her out of the line of fire.

He saw me kneeling behind the boxes.

I sighted on the center of his chest.

He brought his gun up.

At the last possible moment, I shifted my aim slightly over and up.

I shot him low in the shoulder.

Dennis flew backward against the wall and slowly slid to the floor as if he were tired and wanted to sit down.

A streak of blood pouring from his back followed him all the way to the floor.

Von screamed, rushed to his side, and cradled his head against her breast. She began weeping, calling his name, and generally making a racket.

“Is he dead?” Herzog asked.

I watched him emerge from the kitchen, his gun in one hand, his other hand pressed against the side of his skull. Blood seeped between his fingers and trickled down his wrist. I knew instantly what had happened. Dennis saw me parking in front of the house. Instead of hiding in one of the rooms as expected, he went through the back door with the idea of rounding the house and ambushing me from behind, which is exactly what he had done. Along the way he met Herzog, whom he must have taken by surprise. I could picture him wiping Herzog across his skull with his gun, knocking him unconscious, giving him a concussion.

“You’re late,” I said. “I should dock your salary.”

“Don’t tell Chopper,” Herzog said.

I slowly rose to my feet and approached Von and Dennis on unsteady legs. My head was spinning, and it took a lot of effort to keep from vomiting. The gun had slipped from Dennis’s grasp. It was a six-shot Iver Johnson pocket pistol—a .25 caliber. I put my foot on it and slid it backward across the floor until it hit a stack of boxes.

“You—you shot me,” Dennis said.

His face was pale and his breathing erratic.

“Sorry ’bout that,” I said.

I leaned forward, using the wall for support, and gave his wound a quick examination. The bullet had gone through the fleshy part of his shoulder just above his armpit. I didn’t think it had hit bone, yet that didn’t mean he was going to play quarterback for the Vikings anytime soon, although he couldn’t have been any worse than who was playing.

“I think you’ll live,” I said.

Von looked up at me, a dark, sorrowful expression clouding her lovely face.

“It was a good plan,” I told her. “Such a good plan. The plan would have worked. But you got greedy. Wanted it all. It’s an old story. As old as time. As old as rhyme.”

I realized then that I was feeling light-headed and wasn’t exactly sure of what I was saying. I put my gun in my jacket pocket and moved toward Herzog. He was slumped against the wall, still cradling his head.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

He looked at me as if I had asked for the Colonel’s secret recipe of eleven herbs and spices.

“As much as you hate ’em, Herzy,” I said, “I’m calling the police.”

“Uh-huh,” he said.

I reached into the pocket of my jeans for my cell phone.

I didn’t see her until she spoke.

“You’re not getting away with this,” she said.

When I turned my back, Von had quickly crawled across the floor and retrieved the Iver Johnson. She was standing now, one eye closed, the other sighting down the barrel of the gun. The gun was pointed at me.

“C’mon,” I said.

“If you had just done what you were told, none of this would have happened,” she said. “You ruined everything.”

She stepped toward me, the Iver Johnson leading the way. I glanced at Herzog, but he didn’t seem to notice what was happening.