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

Sonuvabitch.

I was surprised to see the white van in my rearview mirror. Even more surprised to see that it was gaining on me. I had pushed the Audi up to ninety miles an hour, cruising the long, flat highway, my windows down, trying to blow the heat and all bad thoughts out of the car. I recognized the van almost immediately. It belonged to Quik-Time Foods. I slowed to seventy. The van soon reached my back bumper. I could see Dawn Neske behind the steering wheel. She leaned on her horn, and I pulled to the shoulder of the highway and stopped. Dawn halted behind me. She sat in the van, probably waiting for me to join her. When I didn’t, she came to me. I made sure both of her hands were empty as she approached. I left the Audi in gear, my left foot depressing the clutch, just the same.

“Nice car, McKenzie,” Dawn said. She placed both of her hands on the driver’s side door, which was fine with me—it made it easier to keep track of them.

“Thanks,” I said.

“How much does a car like this go for?”

“About fifty grand.”

“Must be tough.”

“It can be.”

She grinned at that.

“That was something else, huh?” Dawn said. “Two dead bodies. Wow. You don’t see that every day.”

“You don’t seem too upset about Tracie Blake.”

“It’s not like we were friends or anything.”

“How well did you know Mike Randisi?”

“I didn’t. He was just a customer.”

“You knew he had agoraphobia.”

“That’s why he used the service, because he didn’t like to leave his place.”

“He never invited you in for a cup of coffee? You never spent time with him?”

“The company doesn’t like employees fraternizing with customers. Get in and out, that’s what the company says.”

“Of course you always do what the company says.”

“Of course. Geezus, McKenzie. You sound like the cops.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, but forget that. The reason I chased after you—you were really driving fast. The van started to shake and shimmy, scared the hell outta me.”

“Why did you chase me?”

“I was wondering about Nick Hendel. You know, the Imposter. Have you found him yet?”

“Not yet.”

Dawn seemed genuinely disappointed.

“Do you have any leads at all?” she said.

“I think he might be from Chicago.”

“Nothing else?”

“Dawn, don’t worry. I’m working on it.”

I waited until Dawn’s van was just a white speck on the highway before I activated my cell phone. I was surprised I still had coverage. The bars had been pretty low in Libbie, and out here they were nearly nonexistent. As it was, it took about five minutes before I finally negotiated my way past Greg Schroeder’s secretaries.

“What the hell, Greg,” I said. “Do you get paid by the hour?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” he said.

“I mean, how many Nicholas Hendels can there be?”

“From coast to coast, about a thousand.”

“Really? How many in Chicago?”

“Seventeen. If you include all of Chicagoland, it’s sixty-eight.”

“Swell.”

“The Imposter is your age, right?”

“Thereabouts.”

“We’re trimming the list according to age and race. I should have something for you soon.”

“When you do, send a fax to the Pioneer Hotel.”

“Okay.”

“Sooner would be better than later.”

“McKenzie, don’t worry. I’m working on it.”

This time when Sharren Nuffer came around the desk to hug me, I hugged her back. Her eyes were red and swollen from tears, and as I embraced her she began crying again. I led her to a chair in the lobby, the same one she used when we had shared a drink just last Monday. I asked her if she wanted a drink now, and she said she did, which gave me a chance to escape her grief. Truth be told, I felt a little like weeping myself, but it wasn’t something I did or wanted to do.

I cut through the dining room to the bar in back. Evan was on duty. His only patrons were four older men sitting together at a table and playing hearts, wearing work shirts and baseball-style caps that promoted everything from farm implements to the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

“McKenzie,” he said. A good bartender always remembers the names of his customers.

I stood between two stools, setting both hands on the bar top. For a moment, I forgot why I was there.

“I take it you heard,” Evan said. He ran his fingers through his blond hair just like he did the last time I saw him. I could see how that might get annoying after a while.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Helluva thing,”

“Helluva thing,” I repeated.

“There hasn’t been a murder in Libbie, or the whole county for that matter, since, I don’t know, forever.”

For reasons I didn’t fully understand, I flashed on a verse of poetry from a long-forgotten college English class, William Dunbar’s “Lament for the Makers”:

The state of man does change and vary,

Now sound, now sick, now blithe, now sary,

Now dansand mirry,

Now like to die—