The Last Kind Word (Mac McKenzie #10)

The Last Kind Word (Mac McKenzie #10) Page 37

“Well, we all have to make a living,” I said—or rather Dyson said. McKenzie had been a cop for eleven and a half years. He wanted to beat the hell out of the two sonuvabitches and then make sure they never carried a badge again.

We remained in the car eating ice cream. At least I ate ice cream; Josie seemed to have lost her taste for it. James and Williams finished theirs before we finished ours and drove off down Sheridan Street, the name the locals gave to Minnesota Highway 1 as it passed through Ely. It was the main drag. Hell, it was the only drag.

“This isn’t going to work,” I said. “Everything is on the same damn road, all the major businesses. If we stop and start along with the armored truck, I don’t care how many car lengths we stay behind, how many times we pass it and then wait down the road for it to pass us, we’re bound to be spotted. Especially if we’re going to repeat it over a three-, four-day period while looking for the best place to hit ’em. We could run a three-car rotation in Ely, a city like Ely, only what about the long stretch of single-lane highway between Ely and Tower or Virginia? It would look like a frickin’ parade.”

Josie stared at me. I wasn’t sure she knew what I was talking about.

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll go to Plan B.”

“There’s a Plan B?” she asked.

“There’s always a Plan B. I just don’t know what it is yet. Call your cousin. Let me talk to him.”

A moment later, Jimmy was on Josie’s cell phone.

“Jimmy,” I said. “I want you to look up the address for Mesabi Security.”

He did. “Their main office is in Duluth, plus they have a terminal in Krueger,” he said.

“A terminal?”

“That’s what it says on its Web site.”

“Hang on.” I lowered the cell and looked at Josie. “Does Mesabi Security have an office in Krueger?”

“Not an office. Just a parking lot.”

“Parking lot?”

“They keep some of their trucks there.”

I stared at her for at least a half-dozen beats, marveling that this woman had made a considered decision to engage in a life of crime. She ate a spoonful of her melting ice cream to be doing something instead of staring back.

“You didn’t think that might be pertinent information, JoEllen?” I asked.

She twirled a lock of auburn hair around her finger and dragged it across her mouth. “Please, mister. Don’t scold me. I’m just a little girl from the Iron Range.”

“Sure you are.”

I studied the Mesabi Security Company’s truck terminal from the parking lot of a roadhouse located on the other side of a county road about three miles east of Krueger. There wasn’t much to it—a small shack and parking lot about the size of a gas station that had been carved out of the forest and surrounded by a high chain-link fence with razor wire strung along the top. There were eight vehicles—three cars, three SUVs, and two pickup trucks—parked inside the enclosure. A short driveway led from the county blacktop to the gate. The gate was open. A large padlock was attached to a thick chain hanging on the fence post. The padlock was open. There was no one in the yard. If there was someone in the office—and I assumed there was—I couldn’t see him.

Josie kept twisting in her seat to look at the entrance to the roadhouse. It was called Buckman’s, and it looked like it had been there since the last time the University of Minnesota went to the Rose Bowl—1962.

“Should we go inside?” she asked.

“Why? Are you thirsty?”

“Won’t people be suspicious if we just sit here?”

“A man and a woman spending time together in a car outside of a bar—no one’s ever seen that before.”

“They know me here.” That caught my attention. “They’ll think I’m spending time with you.”

“Perish the thought.”

“You know what I mean.”

I gestured casually at the shack across the county blacktop. “Do you know who works here?”

“No. Why would I?”

“It’s a small town.”

“Not that small.”

“Sweetie, my high school graduating class was bigger than this.”

“That doesn’t mean we know everybody, and don’t call me sweetie. Besides, the man who works there, he might not even be from Krueger. People don’t necessarily live near their work up here. Distance doesn’t mean the same to us that it does to people in the Cities.”

“Distance, though, that’s why this place exists. I’m guessing Mesabi Security has a lot of clients up here. Instead of commuting all the way from Duluth, especially when the weather’s iffy, they roll some of their armored trucks out of this terminal. Judging by the number of cars in the lot, I’m guessing three.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Time will tell. Do you have a map?”

“Glove compartment.”

I opened it, found a three-year-old Explore Minnesota Official State Highway Map, and handed it to Josie.

“Tell me your cell phone has a camera.”

She did. I asked her to show me how it worked. Afterward I told her to drive the car to the shack, get out, and ask the attendant for directions.

“Directions where?”

“Josie, I don’t care. I just want you to distract him for a few minutes.”