Jelly's Gold (15 page)

Which is why I was so impatient when I answered my telephone, why I snapped “Hello” as if the caller had insulted me.

“Umm, Mr. McKenzie?”

It was a woman’s voice, sounding tentative and unsure, and I figured that was my fault, so to make up for it I said, “Yes, it is. How may I help you?” as cheerfully as I could.

“I don’t know that you can. I was asked to call you. I’m not sure why.”

No, not a woman’s voice—a girl’s. It had a kind of raspy quality as if she had just finished crying.

“Who asked you to call me?” I said.

“Josh Berglund.”

“What?”

“Josh Berglund. He … yesterday he told me … we spoke … Josh said …”

She paused for a moment to gather her thoughts. When the moment stretched into half a minute I said, “Miss?”

“I’m sorry—it’s just… it hasn’t been a good day for me. I just learned that Josh was … a little while ago I learned that he … that he was killed, and I still … I can’t believe it happened. They say—the reporter on the news—the TV was on at the Life Center and I glanced at it …”

She paused again. This time I filled the silence by asking questions, trying to draw her out.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Genevieve Antonello.”

“That’s a pretty name. Are you Italian?”

“Half Italian, half Irish.”

“You said Life Center before, what’s that?”

“The Community Life Center in Benson Great Hall. It’s a kind of student center.”

“You’re a student?”

“Yes. At Bethel University.”

“What are you taking?”

“I’m thinking about economics, but I’m still a freshman, so I have time before I declare a major.”

Now for the tough questions,
my inner voice said.

“How did you know Berglund?” I asked.

“I met him at the nursing home,” Genevieve said. “I volunteer at the nursing home, and he came to interview Uncle Mike and we—he and I—we became … He was very kind to Mike. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

The catch in her voice almost brought me to tears.

“You said he told you to call me,” I reminded her.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Why?”

“I’m not… I don’t know.”

“What did he say?”

“He called me. Called me on my cell. He said he was in a hurry. He said things were happening quickly, but he didn’t say what things. I asked, but he didn’t say. Now I see—I saw on TV that he was killed. I don’t know what to do.”

“Genevieve, he gave you my name, right?”

“Yes. He gave me your name and phone number. He said if anything should happen to him—he didn’t say what could happen, but he said if anything happened I should call you.”

“Why?” I asked again. I was becoming more and more annoyed that Genevieve wouldn’t just spit it out, yet at the same time I was trying to sound sympathetic to keep her talking. “What did he want you to tell me?”

“He wanted me to tell you not to let—he said ‘bastards …’ ” She spoke the word as if she were afraid of it. “He said not to let the bastards get it.”

“What bastards? Who was he referring to?”

“He didn’t say.”

“What did he not want the bastards to get?”

“He didn’t say. Mr. McKenzie, I asked, but he laughed like it was a joke. Like it was a riddle.”

“Genevieve, may I see you?”

“Now? No. No. Not—no. Not tonight. Not—not in person. I can’t see anyone. I can’t—”

“Tomorrow, then? Can I see you tomorrow?”

“I suppose. Yes. I don’t have classes until … I don’t know if I’m going to go to class.”

I asked for her phone number, and Genevieve managed to get it out. I asked where she would like to meet; I said the earlier the better. She told
me that freshmen aren’t allowed to keep cars on campus and she didn’t want to leave the school grounds anyway. I certainly couldn’t blame her for that. After all, she was meeting a stranger who might or might not have been involved in the killing of someone she obviously cared for. She suggested I meet her at 10:00
A.M.
outside Benson Great Hall. It was just inside the gate on the left. She said that I couldn’t miss it. I told her she was welcome to bring friends. She thanked me and said she was sure she would be okay.

I tried to ask her a few more questions, but the few minutes she had invested in our conversation seemed to have exhausted her.

“I’m sorry, Mr. McKenzie,” she said. “I can’t talk anymore.”

A moment later, I was staring at a dead phone.

There are plenty of paintings in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, as well as other museums all over the world, that people glance at and say, “That’s pretty,” before moving on to the next one. The paintings mean nothing to them; they’re just things hanging on the wall that are pleasant to look at but after a couple of viewings, who cares? True works of art, on the other hand, have much more going for them than just prettiness. They have depth, character; they speak to the beholder on an emotional level, on an intellectual level, on levels that we aren’t even aware of. That’s why we never grow tired of them, why we observe them over and over again as if for the first time. Great art has value that goes well beyond mere surface beauty.

Nina is like that.

I’ve known her for several years now; probably know everything about her. I’ve seen her in a five-thousand-dollar red velvet gown and in torn jeans and a ratty T-shirt. I’ve seen her angry, happy, distraught, silly, ingenious, selfish, charitable, indefatigable, exhausted, frightened, and courageous beyond words. I’ve seen Nina at her best and at her worst. Yet there are moments when I see her at an unusual angle or in a different
light or just unexpectedly out of the corner of my eye and it catches my breath. Like when she was in her kitchen, happily dodging a ferociously busy Chef Monica until Monica stopped and announced, “One of us has got to go.”

“That’ll be me,” Nina said. She grabbed my arm and led me from the kitchen. “I love watching Monica work,” she said. “It’s kinda like watching
Iron Chef
on the Food Network, except I actually get to sample the dishes.”

I hugged her and kissed her cheek.

“McKenzie, where did that come from?”

“I enjoy your company,” I said.

“Oh, my,” she said and fanned her face with great exaggeration.

“You said something about food.”

“Don’t worry, McKenzie. I’ll feed you.”

She did, too, in her office, serving a salad of white and green asparagus with Parmesan-lemon sabayon, pancetta, and butter-poached pheasant egg, followed by grilled beef tenderloin with braised short rib, parsnip purée, and red wine—Monica’s special du jour. We were nearly finished with the meal when Monica stopped in to check on us. She picked up a twelve-inch-high trophy that Erica had won at the state high school fencing championships and given to her mother, held it like a club as she fixed her unblinking eye on me, and said, “What do you think?”

That was my cue to say something obnoxious like
It needs salt
or
Could I get some ketchup?
or
The meat still has the marks where the jockey whipped it.
She in turn would then threaten my life, and I would suggest she find a new line of work, auto mechanic perhaps—both of us counting on Nina to intervene. Only I couldn’t do it. The food was exquisite and made me embarrassed for every meal I had ever cooked for my friends. I told her so.

“But,” she said. It was obvious that she was waiting for a flash of sarcasm.

“But nothing,” I said. “It’s magnificent.”

Monica turned her gaze on Nina. “Did you tell him not to make fun of my food anymore?”

“Nope,” Nina said.

Monica turned on me again. “You really annoy me sometimes,” she said. She returned the trophy to Nina’s desk and left the office.

A moment later she returned. “McKenzie, tomorrow the special is seared sea scallops with brandade, heirloom tomato, and niçoise vinaigrette, and I expect to hear some smart-aleck remark. I mean it.” Then she was gone.

“That is the most temperamental woman I have ever known,” I said. “More temper than mental, I think.”

“She’s an artist,” Nina said, as if that explained it all.

Shortly after, Nina and I were sitting at a small table in the back of her main lounge, holding hands and listening to Prudence Johnson and Rio Nido playing jazz classics like “Hannah in Savannah,” “The Trouble with Me is You,” “Night in Tunisia,” “You Don’t Know What Love Is,” and “60 Minute Man.” It would have been a perfect evening if not for the young, sandy-haired man who was pretending not to watch us.

My sigh must have told Nina something. “What is it?” she asked.

“Don’t look, but there’s a young man sitting at the bar, blond hair, khaki slacks, blue shirt.”

Of course Nina looked. “What about him?” she said.

“If he’s smart, he’s paying cash as he goes so he doesn’t have to worry about the bill when he follows me out of here.”

“He’s following you?”

“Just in case, why don’t you ask one of your waitstaff if he’s running a tab on his credit card.”

“Screw that,” she said.

Nina rose from the table and walked to the bar and motioned for her head bartender. They chatted for a few moments, the bartender checked some receipts in his cash register, and they chatted some more. A minute later Nina was back at the table.

“You’re right,” she said. “He’s paying his bar tab as he goes—but he also had dinner, short rib tacos, and charged it to his credit card. His name is Allen J. Frans. Do you know him?”

“Not yet, but I will soon make his acquaintance.”

Nina raised an eyebrow.

“It can wait until tomorrow,” I said.

10

There was no sign of the Corolla when I left my house the next morning. At first, I thought that Allen was on to me, that he knew I had spotted him and had switched to another car. Or worse, he put together a full surveillance team to tail me. So I took my own sweet time reaching my destination, driving nearly twenty miles out of my way before I was satisfied that I wasn’t being followed.

Truth was, I was kind of miffed at Allen. Where the hell was he, anyway? I hoped he didn’t oversleep.

I took a few wrong turns, but eventually I found Genevieve Antonello exactly where she said she’d be, sitting on a curb outside Benson Great Hall, where the academic and student centers were located, looking lost. She was wearing a loose-fitting white cardigan over a blue dress shirt that was buttoned all the way to the top. The shirt was tucked into a khaki skirt that fell below her knees. Around her neck she wore a simple
silver crucifix on a silver chain. For some reason she reminded me of sweet, crisp apples straight from the orchard.

She rose to meet me. “Mr. McKenzie?” she said. “I’m Genevieve.”

Her handshake was tentative, as if she didn’t spend a lot of time touching people. “I hope you didn’t have any trouble finding us,” she said.

“I’m afraid I took a right instead of a left inside the gate.”

Genevieve smiled a pretty smile. “You’ve already seen most of our campus, then,” she said.

“Pretty much.”

Bethel University was a distinctly evangelical Christian liberal arts university of fifty-six hundred students from all over the world that could trace its roots back to an 1871 Swedish Baptist seminary. There were over thirty buildings not counting athletic facilities, most of them rose-colored brick and new, scattered throughout a sprawling campus that was isolated from the rest of the city by walls of trees and various bodies of water. The campus itself resembled an upscale North Woods resort; there were nature trails and pedestrian bridges.

“Where would you like to talk?” Genevieve said.

“You decide.”

She motioned with her head toward a narrow sidewalk that rambled northwest of Benson Great Hall between a stand of trees and a lake. “We could go for a walk?”

“Sure.”

Genevieve moved at a nice pace, faster than an amble but not so fast that anyone grew short of breath—unlike Nina, who didn’t walk so much as she marched. I fell in alongside her. The trees lining the path were budding, and the grass, reeds, and shrubs that grew along the lake were turning from a dingy April brown to a luscious green. Occasionally we would be passed by her fellow students. I noticed that they were all attired as modestly as Genevieve—nothing tight, nothing revealing, an amazing thing for college students—and I wondered if Bethel had a dress code or if all evangelical Christians dressed that way.

Genevieve didn’t speak until the academic and student centers were far behind us.

“Josh and I would walk all the time,” she said. “Along Valentine Lake. Along the nature trails. Sometimes we would leave the trails and just stroll through the woods, follow the creek, holding hands.”

“Sounds romantic.”

Genevieve slowed to a stop. She ran both hands over the top of her head and down the back, stopping at her neck. Her hair was auburn with a touch of gold or golden with streaks of brown—you decide. Looking at it reminded me that light hair often darkens as people grow older, and I wondered if that was what was happening now, Genevieve’s genes battling to decide if she was an impulsive blonde or a sensible brunette.

“I didn’t think of it that way, romantic,” she said. “Not at first. Not until … We were walking around the lake. We were holding hands. We stopped and kissed, and then he—and I—and we … I had never done …”

She looked at me then. Her eyes began to well up as if she were remembering a particularly emotional moment. Well, it would have been, wouldn’t it, for a sweet eighteen-year-old girl who buttoned her shirts to her throat and wore crucifixes around her neck—of course it was an emotional event.

I was surprised by how outraged it made me feel.
That lousy sonuvabitch,
my inner voice shouted.
Fucking Berglund. I bet he was proud of himself, too, a man seducing a child. I
was so angry that if Berglund had still been alive there was a good chance I might have killed him myself.

Genevieve lowered her head and turned it away. I attempted to rest a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but she stepped beyond my reach. She pulled at the hem of her white cardigan and continued walking. “He’s gone,” she said. “He’s gone.” I had to step lively to catch up. “Who killed him?” she asked. “Why?”