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

The lights of the movie theater glittered in the windows of the buildings around it. A couple of cars parked across the street from the theater. Teenagers, an older couple, and a family of four hurried inside. A small girl walked past my car between her mother and father, holding hands with each of them, pulling them forward. They, too, disappeared inside the theater. A few minutes later, a teenager came out of the theater and changed the movie poster in the display case out front. He went back inside and then returned with a long pole that he used to switch letters on the marquee, taking one down, putting one up.

Traffic grew heavier. Most of the cars came into town and parked, and most of the drivers and passengers in them went into Café Rossini and another tavern down the street called Thorn’s Tap. Other cars came, went, and came back again. I saw a Chevy Malibu four times and a Ford Taurus twice. Two teenaged boys wearing leather jackets and T-shirts walked quickly past my Audi. A pickup screeched to a stop next to them. The boys climbed into the bed of the pickup. The tires screeched again as the vehicle pulled away; farm boys doing what farm boys—and city boys—all across the country do on a Friday night, cruising. A group of girls queued up in front of the theater but didn’t go in; another gathered in front of a clothing store that was closed. The vehicles always slowed when they drove past the girls. Two kids riding bicycles peeled out of the alley between the American Family Insurance and the H&R Block offices. They also slowed when they wheeled past the girls, but the girls chased them off.

My cell phone rang. A familiar voice reminded me how far I was from home.

“Hi, McKenzie,” Nina said.

“Hey. What’s going on?”

“I was just about to ask you the same question.”

“I’m just sitting in my car catching the action in downtown Libbie.”

“It sounds like you’re listening to the ball game.”

“That, too.”

Another car passed, driving slowly. It found a space farther down the block and parked. A lone female got out. Even from that distance, I was impressed by the shortness of her skirt and the tightness of her sleeveless shirt.

“How are things in Libbie?” Nina said.

“Do you mean here in sunny Sin City?”

“It can’t be as bad as all that.”

“The place is crawling with rascals and scoundrels.”

The young woman moved slowly down the sidewalk on the far side of the street. She stopped outside the entrance to Café Rossini and looked into the window. A moment later, she turned and continued up the sidewalk. The pickup returned, and the two teenagers in the back called to her. She lifted her face, and for a moment I could see it clearly. Saranne Miller. She didn’t reply to the teenagers, and the pickup drove out of town.

“What are you going to do about it?” Nina said.

“Nothing,” I told her. “You know me. I’m a passive, go-with-the-flow, no-need-to-rock-the-boat kinda guy.”

“McKenzie, you’re passive the way Chief Little Crow was passive, and he and his Sioux warriors burned down half the state of Minnesota.”

“With good cause, I might add.”

“Nonetheless.”

Saranne continued along the sidewalk, moving as if she were window shopping, her thighs and legs and arms hard white in the moonlight. Two men stepped out of the Café Rossini. They paused in the doorway and watched her. Their heads tilted toward each other as if they were afraid of being overheard when they spoke, and then they began moving in the same direction.

“It’s not my town,” I said.

“How long are you going to stay there?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Are you any closer to finding the Imposter?”

“I might have a lead, but I don’t know if it’ll go anywhere. I have Greg Schroeder working on it.”

“Oh,” Nina said. She was a little afraid of Schroeder. Then again, so was I.

Saranne paused. She glanced at the men. The men kept moving toward her. Farther down the street, a man stepped out of Thorn’s Tap, went to his car, started it up, and drove off. A car parked a few spaces behind him pulled away from the curve and followed. I couldn’t see the driver, but I did notice the emblem of the Libbie City Police Department painted on the door. So did the two men. They turned abruptly and moved in the opposite direction. That lasted until the cop car’s taillights became tiny red dots in the distance. Then they turned back. Saranne had disappeared into the mouth of the alley. The two men followed her.

“Honey,” I said, “something just came up. I gotta go.”

“Will you call me later?”

“Sure.”

Nina might have said more, but I deactivated my phone and didn’t hear.

Outside of the Audi, with the radio off, I heard church music, a choir practicing, singing sweet and clear, although I couldn’t see a church. It took me back to St. Mark’s Church in St. Paul, my face washed, my hair combed, Mom on one side, Dad on the other, sun pouring through stained glass, the choir sitting in pews to the right of the altar, the organ in the loft in back of the church. The image disappeared as soon as I thought about the guns I had hidden beneath the false floor of my trunk. I hurried to the alley without them. It was Libbie, South Dakota, I reminded myself, not North Minneapolis.

The alley was narrow and well lit at the front and back, but it was dark in the middle, and that’s where the voices came from.

“Stop it,” Saranne said. “Stop it, please.”

“Whaddaya mean stop?” a male voice replied.

“No, no, please.”

“Whaddaya mean, no?”