Dead Boyfriends (34 page)

“Never mind,” I said.

 

My sticky eyes jerked open and landed on the digital display of my bedside clock radio. It was 5:05 and the sun was shining brightly. For a moment I pondered how that could be, but there was a heavy pounding on my front door—that's what had awakened me—and I gave it up. I was a third of the way down the stairs when I realized that I was wearing only blue boxers. I went back upstairs, took a robe from my closet, and wrapped it around me. The pounding continued.

“I'm coming,” I shouted.

A moment later I pulled open the door.

Genevieve Bonalay smiled at me.

“Good evening,” she said.

Evening?

“I figured I was pounding loud enough to wake the dead,” she added. “Apparently I succeeded.”

“I didn't get home until late this morning,” I said.

“You clean up good, though,” she told me. “Nice outfit.”

“Come in,” I said. I pulled the robe tighter around me and stepped back so G. K. could enter. She was carrying a bottle of Krug champagne. It had been opened. She waved it at the empty living room.

“Love what you've done with the place,” she said.

Oh yeah, she's been drinking,
my inner voice warned me.

I led her to the kitchen.

“Would you like some coffee?” I asked.

“No, this is fine.” She held up the Krug. “Care to join me? The least I can do is buy you a drink since you're not getting paid for this fiasco.”

“Satisfaction is my reward.”

I took two crystal champagne glasses from the cupboard. G. K. quickly filled them both. She held up her glass by the long, narrow stem.

“What should we drink to? I know. To justice.”

“To justice,” I said, and drained half the champagne.

G. K. drank all of hers and refilled the glass.

“I thought you didn't believe in justice,” I said.

“Oh, I do today. That's why I'm celebrating. Today I've seen justice firsthand. Poetic, ironic—McKenzie, will you go to bed with me? Will you go to bed with me right now? I could use some TLC.”

“I don't think so.”

“That's right. You don't go to bed with women who have been drinking. No problem. I know plenty of men who don't have your scruples, who don't have any scruples at all.” She curled her nose and furrowed her brow. “Come to think of it, most of them are lawyers. Oh, well.”

She drank more Krug.

“Talk to me, Gen.”

“I like that you call me Gen. I wish you would call me Gen more often.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I don't understand the things people do anymore. I really don't. Once I thought I did. No more. I can't, what's the word? Empathize? I can't empathize with them. I can't put myself in their place. People have become such strangers to me.”

“You'll find as you go along that they get stranger,” I predicted.

“Will they? God.”

Gen was starting to take another long drink. I seized her hand, gently removed the glass, and set it on the counter. G. K. made a small sniffling noise and bowed her head. She brushed away tears with the back of her knuckle.

“There's no crying in baseball,” I said.

“I'm not usually this emotional. I can't remember the last time I cried before today. But today . . .”

“Something happened to Merodie, didn't it?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“What happened to Merodie? She should be out by now.”

G. K.'s head came up abruptly. “Out and then back in again,” she said.

“Tell me.”

“It was a fluke. Merodie was being processed out. I was with her. They were taking her—us—down in the elevator. Richard Nye was being processed in. He was waiting for the elevator to take him up to booking. The elevator doors opened. Merodie saw Nye standing there and she jumped him. Bam. Just like that. Nye's hands were cuffed, but Merodie's weren't, and she knocked him down and started beating him and scratching him and trying to strangle him until the deputies dragged her off. All the time, Merodie was screaming that Nye had killed Eli Jefferson and she was going to make him pay for it.”

“That's why she refused to roll on him,” I said. “Merodie really did believe that Nye had killed Jefferson. She wanted him out of jail so she could get her revenge. See what I mean about people doing strange things.”

“Hell hath no fury . . .” G. K. began to quote, but changed her mind and took a swallow of champagne.

“Did she hurt Nye badly?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“How badly?”

“She scratched out one of his eyes.”

Things went very, very badly very, very quickly for David Tuseman. After word of what Merodie had done leaked out, he was thoroughly chastised in the media for not being able to protect his prisoners. Next, a district court judge rejected his claim on Richard Scott Nye and ordered that he be transferred to the custody of the Hennepin County attorney. It was more or less a technicality anyway, since Nye was in Mercy Hospital at the time having a glass eye inserted into his socket. The prosecutor immediately charged him with second degree murder and first degree criminal sexual conduct, which pretty much removed any remaining incentive Nye might have had to testify in Tuseman's meth trials. As a result, Tuseman was forced to drop the charges against half the suspects, and of the nine he actually brought to trial, five were acquitted. The TV and newspapers—along with his political opponents—crucified him for his incompetence. True, he wasn't entirely to blame, but hey, he who lives by the mass media dies by the mass media. Eventually, he was forced to resign as county attorney, and Rollie Briggs took over.

As for the State Senate, Tuseman was defeated in the primary by a three-to-one margin. The next day, Mr. Muehlenhaus sent me a case of Aberlour ten-year-old single malt, sherry-cask scotch. I would have sent it back except, well, it was Aberlour ten-year-old single malt, sherry-cask scotch.

Meanwhile, Richard Scott Nye was sentenced to 366 months in Stillwater State Prison. He might have been hammered for 488 months, but he cut a deal: In exchange for guilty pleas, he was ordered to serve his sentences for murder and rape concurrently. He was never tried for beating Debbie Miller or attempting to shoot me. Such is life.

I went to see the therapist Jillian DeMarais had set me up with. He was a nice enough guy, but after three sessions I didn't think we were making much progress, so I stopped going. Besides, the dreams went away after a couple of weeks, just as I had predicted they would.

Silk St. Ana finished eighth in the ten-meter platform diving competition at the Summer Olympic Games, but you'd think she won the gold by the way the TV cameras followed her around and network announcers gushed over her bright future and stunning good looks. Twice during the competition she waved at the cameras and mouthed, “Hi, Mom.”

Merodie Davies probably didn't notice. At the time, she was doing thirty-four months and a day for second degree assault at the Minnesota Correctional Facility for Women in Shakopee. Cilia did notice, though, sitting in the stands, yet also following the action on a miniature TV. Cameras caught her watching Silk wave her greeting. She cried both times.

As for me, I was left with a couple of questions. Did Priscilla St. Ana kill her father, her brother, and Brian Becker? Did I help let a stone killer go free? Not knowing the answers bothered me for a long, long time.