“Dammit.”
I hopped out of the passenger seat and jogged around the Audi to the driver’s side without thinking about the pain that squeezed my head and body. I slipped behind the wheel and started up the engine. The address G. K. had scrawled below the phone number placed her residence on Xerxes Avenue North in the Cleveland neighborhood. That was on the far west side of Minneapolis. I estimated it would take me at least twenty minutes to reach it, assuming I obeyed the prevailing traffic laws, which, of course, I didn’t.
Twice more I called G. K., and twice the phone was answered by voice mail. By the time I came to a skidding halt at her address on Xerxes sixteen minutes later, I was anticipating the worst. The two Minneapolis police cruisers parked out front of G. K.’s house confirmed my suspicions.
I left the Audi in a hurry and sprinted up the concrete walk toward the front door—or at least I ran as fast as I could, considering my legs seemed to belong to someone else. I passed a large clay planter that was broken into several pieces and the remains of what I thought were impatiens. A man watched me from his perch on a stepladder, the ladder leaning against the front wall of G. K.’s two-story brick house. He was using a battery-operated screwdriver to secure a sheet of plywood over what should have been a bay window. He kept watching while I rapped hard on the door. He could easily see all of me under the porch light. The only feature of his that I could make out was his bald head reflecting the street lamp.
“It’s not locked,” he said. I rapped on the door anyway. It was opened by a uniformed Minneapolis police officer.
“Genevieve Bonalay,” I said.
“Here.”
G. K. called to me from a living room sofa. She was wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans. Her hair was damp and fell to her shoulders. She was sitting with her bare feet tucked beneath her. Another police officer sat next to her, his notebook out.
I moved around the cop at the door. “Are you all right?”
“God, McKenzie, what happened to you?”
“Are you all right?” I asked again.
“Yes, fine, but you . . .”
The cop spoke up. “Is he a friend of yours?”
“Yes,” G. K. said.
I heard the screwdriver and turned toward the window. The sheet of plywood was covering a large hole. Someone had smashed G. K.’s window from the outside. I was willing to take bets on who.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” I asked G. K.
She left the sofa and moved toward me on her bare feet, and I said something about broken glass. She assured me all the glass had been cleaned up and nudged me toward a stuffed chair.
“Sit,” she told me, and I did. “Tell me what happened.”
“I met a man. We had a conversation. It was a trifle one-sided.”
The cop spoke again. “Can you describe your assailant?”
I said I could and then proved it. He took notes while I spoke. When I finished, he said, “It’s the same man.”
“Yes,” said G. K.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“You tell us,” said the cop.
I looked to G. K. for an indication of how to answer. Technically, I was working for her and her client. She said, “It’s about Merodie Davis.”
“Yes,” I said. If she was going to tell the truth, so was I. “A large man attacked me from behind.” I made sure I got that last part out in case the cop thought I was a wuss. “I was already down before I could see his face. He told me to lay off the Merodie Davies case or he would come back.”
“Exactly what he told me,” G. K. said.
“He said that he had already told the lawyer, meaning Ms. Bonalay. That’s why I’m here. I called first, but your voice mail picked up.”
G. K. glanced at her phone. “I’ve been letting it ring,” she said.
“Would you like to file a complaint?” the cop asked.
“Sure, only who would I file it against?”
“Ms. Bonalay?”
We all turned toward the door. The man with the screwdriver was standing there. He appeared in his mid-to late sixties with a balding head and a strong weathered face.
“I got the plywood up. That’ll keep the weather out and the air-conditioning in for a spell. Tomorrow we can call someone about fixing the window.”
G. K. came off the sofa. She moved to the old man and hugged him close. “Thank you for everything,” she said. “I’m so lucky to have you as a neighbor.”
The interest she showed the old man made his heart pump too much blood to his face, and he turned away.
“It was nothing,” he said. “Glad to help. I best be getting home now—tell Mary everything’s all right.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said the cop. “Do you remember anything more about the man you saw?”
“No, sir,” said the old man. “Only what I told you.”
“His car?”
“Just what I said. It was a black car. Something small. I tried to get the license plate, but my eyes, they ain’t what they once was.”