Norman shook his head.
“Not that we’ve found. Everything on this side of the street is abandoned, awaiting demolition. In fact, the wrecking ball hits this building after the Fourth of July holiday. And of course, some of the normal clientele of this neighborhood are a bit averse to talking to us police.”
“Drug trade?” Mac asked.
Norman nodded.
“So you’ve checked all these houses behind us?”
“Yes. But as you can see, they’re empty. If anyone was hanging inside them, they skedaddled before we got here.”
“Looks like a second set of tire tracks,” Lich said, pointing to the left of the van.
“Agreed,” Mac said. “Truck or van of some kind, based on the width of the tracks. We’ll get molds of the tire tracks, see what that tells us.”
“Let’s get one of the pros on it then,” Norman said as he waved over one of the crime scene techs.
“Probably a van,” Mac said, “if it’s our assholes.”
“We’ve got some footprints as well,” Lich noted, bending over carefully and pointing with his pen.
“Two that I see,” Norman added. “Similar size, big feet — I bet size twelve or thirteen.”
“That makes some sense,” Mac answered, now standing and looking around. “Witnesses have given us the general description of a big man.”
“Great,” Lich said, unimpressed. “We have van tracks leaving the scene. Two sets of footprints for bigger dudes. Only if we’re extremely lucky do we get any forensics off the van. And, we appear to have no witnesses who saw anything at all. We’ve got nothing.”
Mac simply nodded as his cell phone went off.
“It’s Peters,” he said to Lich as he looked at the display and then answered. “Hey Cap… Huh?… You want us to do what?”
9
Mac exited from Interstate 94 at West Broadway, just north of downtown Minneapolis. The north side of Minneapolis west of the interstate was a rougher part of town. In the 1950s and 1960s, it had been a proud and prosperous working-class area. However, since that time, the area had slowly deteriorated. Pockets of poverty and drug-dealing slowly eroded the once-bustling businesses and homes. Now, what businesses still remained did so with metal bars over the window and bulletproof glass around the cash registers. It wasn’t uncommon to find bullet marks, drug paraphernalia, and graffiti around the exteriors. Gangs patrolled neighborhoods, drugs were dealt in the open, and the sound of gunfire was not uncommon, particularly at night. Much like the case of Lake Street, the city was trying to help the area. Unlike Lake Street, solutions for the north side had proven far more elusive.
One person who was prospering on the north side was the man Mac and Lich were on their way to see — Fat Charlie Boone. Boone was the north side’s most prominent and notorious businessman. Six months ago, Boone’s sister’s son was killed in a hit-and-run accident. The driver was a wealthy, white businessman, and Boone’s nephew was a young black man with some legal trouble in his history. Lyman Hisle represented the driver and, as he so often did, got him off on a legal technicality, largely due to the bungling of the cops working the accident scene and the county prosecutor working the case. The chief was front-and-center, accepting the blame, explaining how the accident scene was mishandled and the breathalyzer test was improperly administered. Boone loudly claimed that if the victim hadn’t been black, the outcome would have been different. It was a rare public display from someone who built a fortune operating in the dark shadows of Minneapolis’ north side.
“You buy this Boone business?” Lich asked.
Mac was doubtful.
“Seems kind of obvious don’t you think?” He thought a little more. “I mean I know about those rumors for the last few months, Boone wants payback on the department, the county attorney’s office, Hisle, all that. I’ve heard that noise, but it just all seems a little too convenient.”
“Yeah, but,” Lich answered, “he’s wealthy, he’s got resources, and he’s smart.”
A mile west along West Broadway, Mac turned into an aging Super America gas station. At the station were two plainclothes Minneapolis homicide cops, one bald and the other with a head full of gray Einstein-like hair and a cigarette hanging from his mouth. They were both leaning against an unmarked car and, despite the heat, sipping tall coffees. Pulling up alongside, Lich laughed as he powered down the window.
“Aren’t you two fossils lookin’ at daisies from the wrong side yet?”
“ Diiiick Liiiiick,” the bald one called out.
“If it ain’t the Beeeaaaver Lick,” Einstein replied boisterously, loud enough for everyone in a three block radius to hear. Lich was known, loved, and ridiculed all over. Dick exchanged handshakes and profanities with them and then introduced Mac.
“Mac, these two relics are Bud Subject,” Lich pointed to the bald one, “and Ed Gerdtz,” the grey-haired one.
“Mac, I knew your old man. Hell of a cop, one hell of a cop,” Gerdtz replied in a deep, raspy voice, damaged from all the years of pounding coffin nails. They all shook hands, and Gerdtz never stopped laughing, talking, or smoking. You’d have thought they nominated a new pope with all the white smoke that came out Gerdtz’s head. It took five minutes to get back on task and into a car to drive to Boone’s.
Subject was behind the wheel while Gerdtz turned to them, blowing smoke through his mouth and nose as he spoke.
“Fat Charlie’s office, if you want to call it that, is over on the corner of Lowry and Penn. He’s got a hardware store and law office over there.”
“Law office?” Mac asked.
“Yeah,” Gerdtz answered, “One of Charlie’s sons — he has eight of them you know — runs his practice out of the basement over there. Get this though, his kid graduated from Stanford Law School.”
“Stanford?” Mac asked in disbelief.
“Hell yes! Did quite well, bright kid. Now he helps the old man run his businesses,” Gerdtz answered.
“Stanford law degree and he runs the old man’s drug business? I don’t get it.”
“It’s a lot more than a drug business these days,” Gerdtz replied, smiling. “Fatso’s gone upscale. He has that hardware store, law firm, a funeral home, three restaurants, four laundry mats, and now he’s branching into real estate.
“Real estate? A slumlord?” Lich inquired.
“No, downtown real estate, the high-end shit,” Gerdtz answered ruefully, shaking his head. “We’ve heard he’s got money in the condo developments that have been exploding down by the river and might even be getting into some of the development going up around the new Twins ballpark. Charlie’s moving up in the world.”
“So, let me guess,” Mac said. “He hasn’t touched drugs, a gun, or the dirty side of things for years. Now he’s just the bank.”
“That about sums it up,” Subject answered, slowing for a stop light. “Charlie’s gone legit, and there are way too many layers between him and the street.” The veteran cop sighed as he pulled up in front of the Lowry-Penn Hardware Store, a fairly nondescript building with a red brick exterior and large storefront windows displaying a power-washer, lawn mower, power generator, and table saw. Peering inside the windows, one could see rows and rows of shelves deep into the interior.
“Seems like a big hardware store for this area,” Lich said.
“Half the building used to be a law office,” Gerdtz answered. “I grew up around here, and an attorney named Riley ran a street practice in the left half of the building. He retired in the early ‘80s, and sold the building. It turned over a few times before Charlie bought the whole kit and caboodle, in ’90 or ’91 I think.”
“So you guys know him,” Mac said. “Taking the girls sound like his style?”
Gerdtz turned serious.
“I’ve got my thoughts on that, Mac, and so does Bud. We were talking about it a lot before you and Dick Lick got to the SA. But I want you to form you own opinion first.”