Dead Boyfriends (Mac McKenzie #4)

“Carbon monoxide poisoning?” I said aloud, much to the dismay of the other library patrons.

“Shhhh,” a woman hissed.

Coincidences do happen, as my pal Bobby Dunston likes to tell me. Still, what were the odds that St. Ana and what’s-his-name Becker both died of carbon monoxide poisoning? I needed more information and decided that Vonnie Lou Lowman would be a good source. A quick glance at my watch told me that no way would she be back from work yet. I decided to pay a visit to the Ski Shack, but first I slid a quarter into the printer. A moment later I had an 8? × 11 copy of the newspaper story. I folded it and slipped it into my pocket.

After returning the microfiche, I was out the door, my car keys in hand, and heading across the street toward the nearly full parking lot where my Audi was parked. Along the way I was forced to dodge a knot of young children disembarking from an enormous green van, some of them holding hands. One of the children announced with a mixture of awe and glee, “This is bigger than our school library.”

In that moment the dream returned.

There was no sound track, only images moving in ultra slow motion, moving the way they did on NFL replays so the announcer could point out the exact moment when the play went terribly, terribly wrong.

The glass door of the convenience store swings open. Benjamin Simbi backs out slowly, his attention drawn to something in the store. I shout at him. He turns to face me. He is carrying a Smith & Wesson .38 in his right hand and a bag of loot in the left. I calmly tell him to drop the gun. He raises his hands slowly—slowly—slowly—slowly. They are level with his chest when I squeeze the trigger of the shotgun. The blast catches him in the chest and throws him against the glass door of the convenience store.

Then the dream repeated itself, starting with Simbi raising his hands slowly—slowly—slowly, raising his gun to shoot me except I shoot him first.

I had kept walking, stopped, tried again, finally slumped against an SUV—a blind man groping for support. I bowed my head, held it with both hands, closed my eyes, and waited for the memory to pass the way you would a bout of dizziness after getting up too quickly. This had never happened before. Dreaming in broad daylight. It was the first time the memory had crept up like that, and it startled me. I couldn’t imagine what triggered it, either. Certainly not the children laughing; that made no sense. If searching Merodie’s house, breathing the stench of death, or fighting with Officer Baumbach hadn’t initiated a flashback, how could a child’s laugh? What did that have to do with it?

Maybe you really should think about therapy again, I told myself silently.

“I could use a drink,” I said out loud.

I was a half dozen steps away from my Audi when I realized that I no longer held my keys in my hand. I checked my pockets. I checked the ground around me. I retraced my steps.

The sudden change from the air-conditioned coolness of the library to the hot, humid air outside had brought a shock to my skin. It was at least ninety-five now and still six degrees below what the newspaper had predicted. In those conditions, the slightest physical exertion produced a great deal of perspiration, and just walking through the library’s parking lot, my eyes examining everything that was even remotely shiny, was enough to cause rivulets of sweat to trickle from my armpits down my sides.

I found the iron grate of a storm drain built against the curb approximately where I had crossed the street after leaving the library. I didn’t even have to look. I knew that my car keys, house keys, firebox key, boat key, everything had gone down the drain.

I stood there, muttering short, Anglo-Saxon words that attracted the attention of a young, anorexic-looking woman who was crossing the street. She smiled knowingly.

“Dropped your keys into the storm sewer?”

I nodded helplessly.

“Happens all the time,” she said, and motioned for me to follow her.

I didn’t believe her, but I trailed the woman into the library just the same. She led me to the information desk, leaned over the top, and plucked a telephone from a shelf. She punched in a number without looking it up, calling the Minneapolis Department of Public Works. The woman did all the talking. After she hung up the phone, she told me, “It’ll be a little bit before they can get a guy out here.”

“Thanks.”

“Happens all the time,” she said.

I told her I wanted to reward her for her kindness, but she brushed me off. Instead I stuffed a twenty into a box that sought donations for the Friends of the Public Library and returned to the parking lot.

I waited for fifteen minutes. It seemed longer. Finally, a panel truck with CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS painted on the side arrived. I walked quickly to the driver’s door. A woman with enormous brown eyes peered out at me.

“I lost my keys,” I announced.