A Hard Ticket Home (Mac McKenzie #1)

A Hard Ticket Home (Mac McKenzie #1) Page 44

“Not Bradley Young?”

“Young was right-handed. The killer was a southpaw. Also, the ME vacuumed the bodies of both victims and found head and pubic hairs. He put ’em through a full SEM analysis. Thickness and length suggest a male, but not Bradley. Something else. There was no trace of semen inside or outside the body of either victim, but we did recover the remains of a cigarette at both scenes, what he used to burn them with. Saliva on the filters indicate a group A secretor. Bradley Young was not group A. Nor were the victims. But I checked with David Bruder’s doctor. Guess what?”

“He’s group A.”

“Move the man to the front row. When Bruder is found, the ME said he’ll go for a genetic fingerprint. He said that like it’s the most fun a forensic pathologist can have.”

“Huh.”

“Is that all you have to say? Huh?”

“Can you connect him to Katherine?”

“Yep. Turns out they were both members of the same club, the Northern Lights Entrepreneur’s Club.”

“Interesting.”

“Oh, it gets better. We’ve interviewed Bruder’s secretary, his employees, his friends, we checked his appointment calendar and his credit card receipts. It looks like our boy’s been having an extramarital affair for at least the past six weeks.”

“With who?”

“We don’t know, but Jeannie …”

“Your young, beautiful, and smart as hell partner that you haven’t introduced me to yet.”

“Is flashing Katherine’s photograph in the restaurants and hotels listed in Bruder’s credit card records to see if we can find a witness who saw the two of them together.”

“Fingerprints?”

“Everything has to be perfect with you, McKenzie. Yeah, we lifted latents in Katherine’s bedroom that match latents lifted in Jamie’s. We don’t know yet if they’re Bruder’s. That’s something else we’ll find out when we take him. The point is, there’s plenty of probable cause to arrest Bruder, but I don’t see where Young and the Family Boyz enter into it.”

“Maybe they’re hiding him.”

“Maybe they are. But why try to kill you?”

“Because I found Jamie.”

“You keep saying that.”

“It’s all I have.”

Bobby finished his chili dog.

I finished mine.

“Did you get a line on Bruder’s business associate?” I asked. “The one who was stopping for drinks the day Jamie was killed?”

“Napoleon Cook. He owns Bloomington Alarms out on the strip. He’s also a member of the Entrepreneur’s Club. He said he spent a half hour, maybe forty-five minutes at Bruder’s house, just enough time for a drink and to discuss The Entrepreneur’s Club Ball. He said everyone was healthy and happy when he left and we have no reason to doubt him.”

“The Entrepreneur’s Club Ball?”

“Each year the club throws a formal ball over at the Minnesota Club, invites a slew of young entrepreneurs like themselves. Getting an invitation is supposed to be quite an achievement. I’m surprised a rich fella like yourself hasn’t been invited.”

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

“Wonder what?”

“When Chief Casey described the Family Boyz to me, he called the gang a ‘covert entrepreneurial organization.’”

“McKenzie, a lot of these rich guys own property they’ve never even seen. They hire agents to take care of it for them. Bruder probably doesn’t even know who his tenants are.”

“He’s landlord to the Boyz. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“Ahh, hell.”

Bobby slapped his napkin and chili dog wrapper into my hand and marched briskly from the park more or less in the direction of the police building a half mile away. He didn’t look back.

Napoleon Cook danced in front of his audience like one of those crazed infomercial hosts you see on TV, except his stage was a large meeting room in the Creekside Community Center on Penn Avenue and West 98th Street about a mile north of the City of Bloomington government offices. I had been directed there by a sign attached to the door of his business: BECAUSE OF INCREASED DEMAND, BLOOMINGTON ALARMS FREE SECURITY SEMINAR HAS BEEN RELOCATED …