The Taking of Libbie, SD (Mac McKenzie #7)

Tracie gave me a look as if she expected me to wrestle Randisi to the ground and pummel him about the head and shoulders. Instead, I stepped back to give them plenty of room to enter the house. She gave me an NHL-quality elbow as they passed.

Once inside, Randisi led Tracie to a chair in a living room that looked as though its furnishings had been lifted intact from a department store showroom. After proceeding down the list, offering her everything from water to Scotch, which Tracie politely declined, he stepped back against the wall so he could get a good look at her sitting in his chair in his living room.

The man definitely needs to get out more, my inner voice told me.

After a few silent moments, Randisi said, “I’m sorry. We weren’t properly introduced.” He crossed the distance to the chair and again offered Tracie his hand. “I’m Mike Randisi.”

Again, Tracie shook Randisi’s hand reluctantly. She didn’t remind him that he had introduced himself just moments before, and I didn’t, either.

“Tracie Blake,” she said.

For a recluse, Randisi seemed awfully sociable.

“I’m Rushmore McKenzie,” I said.

I was standing near the entrance to the living room. Randisi looked at me as if he had forgotten I was there.

“What can I do for you?” he said.

“Tell me about the threats,” I said.

“Why? Are you going to do something about them?”

“I might.”

From his expression, I don’t think he believed me.

“It doesn’t matter,” Randisi said. “I haven’t gotten any for about a week now.”

Since the Imposter skipped town, my inner voice said.

“What were they about?” I said aloud.

“Ahh, people saying they were going to teach me a lesson; that they were going to run me off, burn me out, beat me up, bury me in a shallow grave. It was all talk. I got phone calls, I got letters, yet no one ever came near me and, as far as I know, no one ever set foot on my land.”

“Did you never consider selling your property?” Tracie said.

There was a note of admiration in her voice. Randisi smiled broadly when he heard it.

“Oh, hell,” he said. “I might’ve considered it if someone had actually made me an offer.”

“Wait,” I said. “No one offered to buy your land?”

“No.” Randisi shook his head vigorously in case I misunderstood him. “I didn’t know anyone wanted my land. Hadn’t even heard about that shopping mall that folks wanted to build out here until I started getting the threats.”

“No one calling himself Rushmore McKenzie—”

“I thought you were Rushmore McKenzie.”

“Came to see you?”

“No. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

I quickly explained.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Randisi said.

I agreed with him.

“I wonder,” Randisi said.

“What?”

“There was this fella—I remember a fella who looked a little like you. He drove up to the place a while back, got out of his car, walked around the car once, got back in, and drove off. I have no idea what that was about. I figured he was lost. Or nuts. Think it was him? Think he was looking the place over so he could claim he was here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Mr. Randisi,” Tracie said, “why didn’t you say something when you started getting the threats? Why didn’t you call the police? Why didn’t you come into town?”

“I don’t do too good in town,” he said. “I have a touch of the agoraphobia. I’m pretty good out here, in my own house, on my own land. In town, in stores and restaurants and church, places that aren’t, you know, wide open, that aren’t easy to escape from, sometimes I get panic attacks. I know it’s silly, and I’ve talked to people about it. I’ve tried exposure therapy and cognitive therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy, only nothing seems to work all that well. Now they have me on sertraline, but that doesn’t do much for me, either. I can’t even make myself go into town to get my prescription filled, so there you are.”

Randisi was visibly disappointed to see us go. He suggested that he might give Tracie a call sometime to learn how this business with the mall went, and Tracie said she thought that was a fine idea.

“In a couple of days,” Randisi said.

“A couple of days,” Tracie said.

“Or maybe later today.”

“Later today would be fine.”

In the car, she said, “I like him.”

“He’s not the person people thought he was,” I said.

“He’s not the person I thought he was,” Tracie said, which was more to the point. “If he doesn’t call me, maybe I’ll call him. If you don’t mind.”

“Why should I mind?”

She didn’t answer, just looked out the window until we reached the end of Randisi’s long driveway and hung a right on the highway.

“Now what?” Tracie said. “Do you want to meet the other city council members?”

“Who was the first person the Imposter spoke to about the mall?”