Curse of the Jade Lily (Mac McKenzie #9)

Curse of the Jade Lily (Mac McKenzie #9) Page 96

“Two minutes.”

I walked back to the door. Herzog opened it for me. We stepped outside, closing the door behind us. The clean, clear winter air had made the full moon seem almost near enough to touch. The moonlight reflected off the weapons held by members of the Minneapolis Police Department’s Special Weapons and Tactics team that had fanned out on both sides of the door. Lieutenant Rask was standing with them, wearing an MPD windbreaker over his winter coat.

“He’s all yours,” I said.

Rask spoke into a handheld radio, and the cops rushed inside the bar. Herzog and I crossed the street and jumped into the Jeep Cherokee. We drove off before anyone came out of the bar. I never did learn the name of the place.

SEVENTEEN

The air was awfully warm and stale by the time I limped into the windowless conference room on the second floor of the City of Lakes Art Museum the next morning, heated no doubt by the thirteen bodies I found there. Perrin Stewart was sitting at the head of the long table as she had been the first time we met. Randolph Fiegen, Derek Anderson, and the other four members of the executive board of trustees had arranged themselves on the far side. Mr. Donatucci, Branko Pozderac, and Jonathan Hemsted were on Perrin’s right; India Cooper, Jeremy Gillard, and Heavenly Petryk were on her left. Only Heavenly was smiling, but then she had an idea of what was coming.

“Good morning,” I said. “Thank you all for being here.”

I stepped around the table to the side Heavenly was on. A large aluminum, foam-filled carrying case had been pushed up against the wall behind her chair.

“You should sit down before you fall down,” Anderson said.

He had a point. My sprained ankle had not improved much; nor had my broken collarbone, which was held in place by the shoulder immobilizer again. What’s more, I had cut myself shaving—you try it with one hand—and the addition of a bandage to the bruises, cuts, and scrapes made my face look like the “before” photo in an ad for plastic surgery. Still, I was in no mood to listen to his BS.

“Shut up, Derek,” I said.

“You don’t talk to me that way.”

I found Fiegen. His expression was fretful, and when he wasn’t fingering the folder in front of him, he was pressing and patting his red-orange hair. I gestured at him with my chin.

“Shut up, Derek,” he said.

Derek glared at him with an expression of amazement, like a man who had just learned that his most trusted comrade-in-arms had switched sides. I was less impressed. Fiegen and I had spent a great deal of time talking on the phone. If he was indeed going to keep his end of the bargain as promised, this was going to be a lot of fun. In fact, I said as much out loud.

“This is going to be fun,” I said. “Like those old Thin Man movies on TCM with William Powell and Myrna Loy.”

“Which one are you?” Heavenly asked.

“Who is this woman?” one of the trustees asked. “What is her position here?”

“I’ll get to that,” I said.

I maneuvered around the room until I was standing beneath the painting of primary colors splashed on the canvas that Donatucci had found so fascinating earlier.

“First of all, Von Tarpley and her accomplice have been arrested for the murder of Patrick Tarpley and Lieutenant Scott Noehring of the Minneapolis Police Department.”

I glanced at India while I spoke. She was dressed as if she had been called from her bed by some dire emergency and hadn’t had time to put herself together yet. Her face was pale despite her dark complexion. She was sitting with her hands folded in front of her, her eyes fixed on her hands.

“The one million two hundred seventy thousand dollars designated by the Midwest Farmers Insurance Group to ransom the Jade Lily has been recovered. Mr. Donatucci?”

“The money is being held by the Minneapolis Police Department as evidence,” Donatucci said. “Following legal proceedings, it will be returned to us.”

“What about the Lily?” Anderson asked. “Your job was to recover the Jade Lily, remember? Not solve some damn crime.”

“You know what, screw it,” I said. “Let’s deal with you first.”

I circled the table until I could look Anderson in the eye.

“Everybody, Derek here is your leak,” I said. “He’s the one who has been feeding information to Kelly Bressandes and other members of the media despite the board’s desire to maintain a low profile—”

Anderson rose to his feet. “That’s a lie,” he said.

“Bressandes is downstairs with a camera crew. We could ask her. No? Where was I? He also had an affair with Von Tarpley and no doubt fed her important information while she was involved with her husband in planning the theft—”

“No, no, no,” Anderson chanted.