Even the black squirrels in Loring Park are overly aggressive. They’re insanely obese because people give them food despite the signs requesting that park visitors please refrain from feeding the animals, and if you don’t have a snack to share when they saunter by, they can become downright hostile.
I did as I was told, circling the lake, my feet crunching on the ice beneath them. I passed the horseshoe pitch, crossed the concrete and metal bridge, and skirted the tennis courts, the fountain, and the park’s sleeping garden. Somewhere along the way I started to shiver. I had worn my Sorels, a thick leather coat, leather gloves, and a knit hat with the emblem of the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon, which I pulled down over my ears. I was still cold. Yet, despite the weather, there were a surprising number of people in the park. Individuals cutting through on their way to or from work. Couples strolling while holding hands. Men and women engaged in a brisk walk. Still others jogging, which always amazed me, people jogging in the cold, although—I patted my stomach—it wouldn’t kill me to go for a long run.
Finally I reached the Loring Park Community Arts Center. It was a long snowball’s throw from the Willow and Fifteenth Street entrance; I had circled nearly the entire park. I had no doubt the thieves had seen me clearly, although I had not seen them. The arts center was closed. It was only open from 1:00 to 5:00 P.M. in the winter, although its rooms were available to rent anytime. There was a metal bench near the building, where I had been ordered to sit and wait. Fortunately, the bench was empty. I don’t know what I would have done if it had been occupied. You do not confront people in Loring Park, and if you witness a confrontation between others, you do not intervene.
I sat with the dolly and the gym bags positioned between my legs. My hand rested on the handle at the top. I did not remove my hand once, not even to flex my frigid fingers. People passed me. I nodded at those who nodded at me first. Most ignored my existence; no one spoke. My head was on a swivel, turning this way and that as I observed the people in the park. Most appeared merely as shapes in the darkness, becoming discernible only when they passed under a light. No one approached me. An hour passed, by my watch. My toes were becoming numb no matter how much I squished them together inside my boots. I was beginning to think that this was a trial run—the thieves putting me out there and watching to see if I followed directions, to learn if I was working with the cops to set a trap. That’s when I saw him.
A man dressed in black had been sitting on a bench about a hundred yards from me. I had noticed him before when he left the bench, walked a quarter way around the lake, and then came back. I thought nothing of it at the time. Now he was doing it again. I watched him intently. Distance and night hid his face from me, yet there was something about the cut of his clothes and the way he moved … My hand tightened on the handle.
He returned to the bench, sitting so that he was facing the arts center. I realized then that he was watching me watching him. I forced myself to look away, to keep scanning the park, to study the people who approached on the trail and then moved away. Yet my eyes kept coming back to him. Another half hour passed.
“C’mon, pal,” I said aloud. “It’s cold out here.”
He couldn’t possibly have heard, yet he rose just the same and started walking toward me. I forced myself to look away, examining all the approaches to the park bench to make sure he didn’t have accomplices closing in at the same time. He seemed to be alone. I looked back. He was eighty yards away and still just a dark form moving. I kept scanning the area. Sixty yards and he crossed a shaft of light that fought its way into the park from the streetlamp on Willow. I saw his face clearly, if only for a moment.
“Sonuvabitch,” I said. “What is he doing here?”
I stood up.
Lieutenant Scott Noehring of the Minneapolis Police Department’s Forgery Fraud Unit was now fifty yards away and walking purposely toward me. His hands were in his pockets.
“Sonuvabitch,” I said again.
Awareness of my vulnerability hit me like a sledgehammer. Noehring told me his plan was to kill the artnappers and steal the ransom, leaving me alive with the Lily. Dammit, what was stopping him from killing me and stealing the money, blaming it on the thieves, screw the Jade Lily?
I did a quick three-sixty. No one was approaching my position, yet there were still plenty of people in the park. At least one person was walking close behind Noehring.
Start screaming, my inner voice told me. Scream Noehring’s name, his rank, his position with the cops.