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A Hard Ticket Home: A Mystery
A Hard Ticket Home: A Mystery
A Hard Ticket Home: A Mystery
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A Hard Ticket Home: A Mystery

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Ex-St. Paul cop Rushmore McKenzie has more time, and more money, than he knows what to do with. In fact, when he's willing to admit it to himself (and he usually isn't), Mac is downright bored. Until he decides to do a favor for a friend facing a family tragedy: Nine-year-old Stacy Carlson has been diagnosed with leukemia, and the only one with the matching bone marrow that can save her is her older sister, Jamie. Trouble is, Jamie ran away from home years ago.

Mac begins combing the backstreets of the Twin Cities, tracking down Jamie's last known associates. He starts with the expected pimps and drug dealers, but the path leads surprisingly to some of the Cities' most respected businessmen, as well as a few characters far more unsavory than the street hustlers he anticipated. As bullets fly and bodies drop, Mac persists, only to find that what he's looking for, and why, are not exactly what he'd imagined.

David Housewright's uncanny ability to turn the Twin Cities into an exotic, brooding backdrop for noir fiction, and his winning, witty hero Rushmore McKenzie, serve as a wicked one-two punch in A Hard Ticket Home, a series debut that reinforces Housewright's well-earned reputation as one of crime fiction's rising stars.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMay 4, 2004
ISBN9781429996778
A Hard Ticket Home: A Mystery
Author

David Housewright

A former reporter and adman, David Housewright (b. 1955) has, in the last fifteen years, become one of America’s most successful mystery authors. Born in Minnesota, he pursued journalism from a young age, hand-mimeographing a neighborhood newsletter and editing his high school paper, from which he was fired for printing an editorial condemning the Vietnam War. After high school he went to work, first for the Minneapolis Tribune and later for a small newspaper in southern Minnesota. It was there that Housewright met Holland Laak, the county sheriff who inspired his first detective: Holland Taylor. Taylor’s debut, Penance (1995), was a success, winning Housewright an Edgar Award for best first novel. As he gradually began writing fiction fulltime, Housewright produced two more Taylor novels before publishing A Hard Ticket Home (2004), which introduced Rushmore McKenzie, an unlicensed Twin Cities private eye. In 2011, Housewright published the eighth McKenzie novel, Highway 61, and he has plans for more. He continues to live and work in Minnesota.

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Rating: 3.9210526710526317 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After almost a dozen years on the St. Paul Police force, Rushmore McKenzie knows he has no chance of promotion ever since he made a righteous killing using a gun that was not standard police issue. When he finds an embezzler and the money he stole, he quits the force. This makes him eligible to take the insurance company reward for the return of the money. He is now a wealthy unlicensed private eye taking cases that interest him.
    Richard and Molly Carlson ask him to find their daughter Jamie who left years ago and never returned. Their younger daughter Stacy is dying of leukemia and her only hope is a bone marrow transplant. After a thorough search he locates Jamie who tells him she will get in touch with him after she tells her husband about the family he never knew she had. When he doesn't hear from her, he goes to her home only to find her murdered. Her husband and son are missing, but Jamie's parents want him to locate their grandson who might be a match for Stacy. The investigation turns deadlier when eight men connected to the case are murdered, some by McKenzie's hand.

    McKenzie is smart, determined and ready to give his all to right wrongs and pursue justice. There's always room for one more true blue American hero!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Excellent mystery series set in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Reminds me of Travis McGee and Myron Bolitar, with a hint of Nebraska (great series by William J. Reynolds).
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A good, solid entry. A couple of glaring plot holes exist (there were more than one solution to the problem) exist and the twist was predictable, but well-paced and excellent metaphor exist.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I like Rushmore McKenzie and his cast of friends. This is the first book in the McKenzie series and my attempt to get back in order after having read The Taking of Libbie South Dakota because of the title.

    This book introduces McKenzie and builds the background I was missing in Libbie. Still, there was a bit more violence and death in this book than I usually want to deal with. However, it was not too over the top and I was able to enjoy the story and the mystery. I didn't have a clue what was going on -- this one twists and turns like a rattlesnake!

    I'll be reading more in the series, I like spending time with the wise-cracking McKenzie and the mysteries are very well done.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Faced with the possibility of having to turn in an embezzler and come away with nothing or leave the police department and collect a huge finders fee from the insurance company, St. Paul detective Rushmore MacKenzie chooses the latter. Now he works similar to Lawrence Block’s Scudder: he has no license but does things to help people. In this story he’s been hired to find the sister of a girl who needs a transplant. Jamie Carlson had left home at 18 (never satisfactorily explained) never to return, after graduating high school, and now they need to see if she’s a match for her younger sister, Stacy who needs a bone marrow transplant. MacKenzie finds the sister quickly enough. She’s married, with a child, TC, to a used car salesman in St. Paul who is involved with a rather shadowy group of elite businessmen who all made their money selling at a discount. He tells her of the need to be tested for the transplant, and she agrees to go home but is viciously murdered before she can. Mac’s oldest friend is a homicide detective on the St. Paul police force and he’s working on a case that’s soon linked to Jamie’s death, not to mention the involvement of the ATF and FBI.As with any first book in a series, there are some loose ends and the occasional requirement to suspend credulity (what Mac does with a concussion at the end of the book defies belief despite its explanation). Nevertheless, a good read.I discovered Housewright after reading Penance, one of the Holland Taylor series. This new series, featuring Rushmore MacKenzie shows promise, and I’ve already started onTin City, second in the series.

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A Hard Ticket Home - David Housewright

Just So You Know …

It took a few moments before I could force myself to leave the car. It was small, ugly, and old and I hated it—a tan 1987 Dodge Colt with strips of rust running along the rocker panels and back wheel wells. But it was gloriously warm.

I had parked on the shoulder of the deserted county road, edging as close to the ditch as I dared. On the opposite side of the ditch loomed oak, pine, spruce, ash, and birch trees, bending and swaying in the hard wind. About 150 feet behind me was the turnoff that led to the lake property. I had studied the road carefully before driving past. In the summer, it would be dirt. Now it was ice and hard-packed snow, just wide enough for a single vehicle driven slowly. I found the impression of one set of tire tracks going in. None came out.

I was reluctant to use the road. What if Thomas Teachwell was watching it, what if he saw me coming? I wasn’t overly concerned that he might shoot me. According to my information it was unlikely that Teachwell even had a gun, much less knew how to use it—although a man on the run is capable of anything. Nor was I anxious that he might escape. What did I care? But if Teachwell escaped with the money … That, after all, was why I had chased him 278 miles north from the Twin Cities on the coldest day in the past two decades. For the money.

I searched my memory for a few motivational phrases. The job gets easier once you start, was something my mother often told me. When the going gets tough, the tough get going, was a favorite of my high school hockey coach. If it was easy, everyone would do it. That was something my skills instructor at the police academy liked to say. None of the clichés inspired me enough to lift the door handle. Finally, I recited out loud the words my father used whenever I complained about picking up other people’s trash along the highway when I was slaving away my summers for the county: Hey, kid. You got a problem with workin’ for a living?

I opened the door and stepped out. The frigid air hit me so hard I nearly fell back against the car. A violent gust gathered grains of ice from the road and swirled them around my face. The knit ski mask I wore afforded some protection, yet instinctively I closed my eyes and angled my head away from the wind.

Do you believe this! I exclaimed to the empty highway. Often in the past I’ve heard people speak of icy winds cutting like a knife. They’re wrong. It isn’t a knife, it’s a club. It doesn’t cut, it bludgeons.

I slammed shut the car door and immediately patted the pockets of my bright red snowmobile suit, feeling the weight in both of them. My gun and badge were in the right. My cell phone was in the left. Satisfied, I spun into the wind and trudged, head down, toward the turnoff. I thought about locking the door, but any notion of car thieves lurking nearby was blown away with the next polar blast. Given the current temperature, I doubted the car would start again, anyway.

After a few steps I became keenly aware of my isolation. In front of me the county road stretched like a ribbon of gray and white until it bent behind a stand of trees and was gone. Behind me the gray-white road didn’t turn, but merely receded into a distant horizon of blowing snow. My ancient Colt was the only evidence that I was living in the twenty-first century. I longed to see another vehicle—snowplow, truck, car, SUV, even one of those damn minivans. None appeared. I began to question the wisdom of the entire enterprise.

I’m going to die out here, I told myself. "They’re going to find me frozen to a tree like that guy in that Redford movie, Jeremiah Johnson."

Still, I moved on. Snow and ice crunched loudly beneath my heavy Sorrels. Mostly it sounded like I was trodding on potato chips, but every few steps I heard a loud, alarming crack that shrieked like the rending of lake ice and made me flinch. About halfway to the turnoff, I left the county highway and moved toward the woods. With my second step into the ditch I descended unexpectedly into waist-deep snow. There was a moment of panic—somehow I had the idea I was sinking into a kind of Nordic quicksand—but it promptly subsided. With hard effort, I plowed my way across the ditch to the steep embankment on the far side. Grabbing hold of the low-hanging branch of a spruce tree, I pulled myself up.

The snow wasn’t as deep in the woods, only about a foot. It was hard going, but not as hard as it had been. Still, after fifty yards I was breathing rapidly and I began to feel warm inside my snowsuit. After a few more yards I was perspiring freely. I paused for a moment to rest.

Can sweating in subzero temperatures bring on hypothermia? I asked myself. Not having a clear answer troubled me. Damn, Mac. You should have been better prepared.

I continued walking. My plan was simple if not contradictory: Follow the road to the lake cabin, but stay off it. Keep your distance, but don’t let it out of your sight. Make sure Teachwell doesn’t see you coming, but don’t get lost, either.

The woods were dark and deep, as the Robert Frost poem suggested. There was no sun, or even the hint of sun, and a subtle gloom fell around me. Yet it wasn’t the lack of light that made the woods seem so terribly strange and weird. It was the lack of sound. The wind that had blown so ferociously across the county road was less noticeable here. The trees still swayed and twisted above me, but on the forest floor all was still. And silent. Even my feet trudging through the snow made little noise. The only sound I could hear through the blue ski mask was the muffled timbre of my own breath. I found it very disconcerting. For the first time I understood why some people believe that going deaf is worse than going blind.

After a while, I began to lose sense of both time and distance. I was sure I had hiked a long way, but was unable to determine with any accuracy how far—the trail behind me seemed to disappear into the trees after only a few dozen yards. And while I was positive that the lake cabin was just up ahead, I had nothing on which to base that assertion except my own natural confidence.

I stopped, pulled off one of the large, fur-lined brown leather mittens they used to call choppers when I was a kid, and read my watch. How long had I been walking? One hour? Two? Twenty minutes? I should have checked the time before I left the county highway.

There was little else to do—I had limited my options, which, of course, is never a wise thing to do—so I continued hiking forward, although I had to admit my enthusiasm was waning. Ice formed around the mouth hole in the ski mask, and my eyebrows, left exposed by the eye holes, were frosted. I knew cold. I had grown up in Minnesota, after all. Only I couldn’t remember ever being colder. Certainly it was too cold to travel by foot.

That’s when I realized I had lost sight of the road.

Okay, this is a mistake, I admitted to myself. They really are going to find me frozen to a tree.

I held on through a level stretch of woods. The pump jockey at the service station in Ponemah said the cabin was less than a mile from the county road, yet that estimate had proved to be woefully inaccurate. I didn’t know how far I had walked, but it was a helluva lot farther than a mile.

Then I was out of the woods. The clearing had appeared so abruptly that I was several yards deep into it before I turned and quickly retreated back along my trail until I was safely concealed by the trees.

I squatted behind a stand of spruce and examined the clearing. An SUV was parked about thirty yards from the mouth of the road. The license plate was obscured by snow but I knew a 2001 Toyota 4Runner when I saw one. Teachwell’s. Beyond it was a small, redwood-stained cabin, one of those prefabricated jobs built atop gray cinder blocks. A curl of white smoke drifted up from a metal pipe on the roof and was caught by the wind.

I don’t believe it, I said in a low whisper. Half the cops in Minnesota were searching for Thomas Teachwell—Minneapolis Police Department, Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department, State Highway Patrol, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, even the FBI. Yet I was the one who found him. ’Course, it was plain dumb luck that I knew where to look. I had been in a bar on West 7th Street in St. Paul drinking beers with Bobby Dunston—make that Detective Sergeant Bobby Dunston, thank you very much—when this guy on the other side of the bar—a DWI just waiting to happen—pointed at the TV suspended in the corner and said, I know where he is. One of the local stations was reporting that the search continued for Thomas Teachwell, CFO for a national restaurant chain based in Minneapolis. I had seen the teletype the feds had issued on him. He was being sought for embezzling an undisclosed amount of the company’s assets. They used the term undisclosed for the same reason they use it when miscreants take down a bank. They didn’t want to encourage copycats. Yet you know they had the amount down to the penny. I figured it was at least half a million—why else would the FBI be involved?

I’m tellin’ yah, the DWI repeated. I know where he is.

Yeah? asked the bartender.

Sure. I know this guy who knows this guy who was paired up with Teachwell on a golf course couple years ago when Teachwell was getting a divorce and the guy said that Teachwell told him that the only thing he regretted about his divorce was that he couldn’t visit his brother-in-law’s cabin in northern Minnesota anymore. The guy said that Teachwell said that he enjoyed it up there because it was so isolated, because you could go for weeks at a time without seeing another human being.

Hey, Bobby, I said. Hear that? Isn’t that what you plainclothes guys call a clue?

Leave me alone, McKenzie.

Seriously, Bobby. You should go to northern Minnesota and catch this guy. Think how happy you’ll make the feds. They might even give you a new tie to wear.

One, there’s no way this guy’s holed up in his ex-brother-in-law’s cabin. He’s probably skipped the country by now. Two, it’s not my case and not my jurisdiction. Three, screw the FBI. And four, I believe this constant reference to my attire is merely a manifestation of your resentment over the inescapable fact that I have been elevated to the dizzying heights of detective while you continue to languish in the lowly ranks of patrolman.

I chose to ignore the last remark, mostly because it was true.

It’s your own fault, you know, Bobby added. You should never have used a shotgun on that guy.

I chose to ignore that remark, too.

I’m just saying, you’re missing a golden opportunity, I said.

Think so? Then you go. Catch Teachwell, maybe they’ll promote you to sergeant. They might even give you a nice suit and tie to wear.

I put two fingers in my mouth, pretending I was going to force myself to vomit. Still, the idea of showing up Bobby was just too delicious to ignore. The next day I did a little research. I discovered that Teachwell had married and divorced a woman named Yvonne Martinson. Yvonne had a brother named Anthony Martinson, a middle manager for 3M. I conducted a property search on the PC and discovered that Anthony had a cabin on Lower Red Lake in the Red Lake Indian Reservation, a dozen miles west of Ponemah and about an hour’s drive from the Canadian border. I had some ATO coming, so I took a day. The sarge asked me what I was going to do and I told him lay on the beach. Since the wind chill was minus 67 degrees at the time, he thought that was pretty funny.

I watched the cabin for what seemed like a long time. Nothing moved except for the white smoke drawing out of the chimney and disappearing in the stiff wind. I began to think that it must be toasty warm inside the cabin and I wanted so much to be warm again. I worked my way to the left, staying low behind the tree line, wishing that I wasn’t dressed in red, until I found what I thought was a blind spot, an angle on the cabin where I wouldn’t be seen from either a side or front window.

I stopped and studied the cabin some more. To my left was Lower Red Lake, a body of water so large that I was unable to see the opposite shore. There were a half dozen such lakes in Minnesota. Plus about fifteen thousand more where you could see the other side and almost nine thousand miles of rivers and streams. In summer it’s glorious. In winter, well …

I counted slowly—One, two, three—and dashed forward. I used to have good speed. In high school I ran the hundred meters in 12.4 seconds. Only the snow was too deep for speed. I didn’t run so much as I plowed. I tried to keep my feet up, tried to rise above the snow and mostly failed. Floundering, once falling, I pushed myself forward—I must have made a terrific target, a slow-moving red blob against pure white. The vague fear of freezing was suddenly replaced by something far more tangible—the fear of being shot. It was a fear I had known before.

Finally, I was there. The cabin had been raised on a hill. The rows of cinder blocks supporting the back of it were only one deep, but in front the gray blocks were stacked six high. I slipped under the cabin and fell to my knees on frozen dirt. I took one deep breath. The noise of it distressed me. I quickly covered my mouth with a chopper, hoping my breathing wouldn’t be heard through the floor above.

I began to see things beneath the cabin while I waited to regain my breath—canvas lawn chairs, old planks, a stack of red-tinged shingles, an ax, a metal minnow bucket, a boat anchor, a busted oar, the cracked windshield of a speed boat—only it was the brown earth that seemed most out of place. With all the snow around, it seemed incongruous that this small patch of dirt would remain unmolested.

I pulled off my right chopper with my teeth. Underneath it I was wearing a knit glove, yet even with that protection I could feel the heat leaving my hand and the bitter cold settling in. I unsnapped a pocket of my snowmobile suit and pulled out my 9 mm Heckler & Koch, as fine an example of precision German engineering as there ever was. I had been issued a Glock like all the other street cops in St. Paul, but I had never liked the grip. That’s why I was carrying the 12-gauge pump when I killed the suspect outside the convenience store six months earlier, because I didn’t like the grip. It was something I still thought about late at night … .

Moving in a low crouch, I swung out from under the cabin and edged along the elevated wall to the front. The owners had built a redwood deck leading to the door, and it made me pause. God knew I didn’t want Teachwell to hear me coming, and creaking planks would be a dead giveaway, emphasis on dead. I slipped to the edge of the deck where I could get a good look at the entrance. There was a screen door and behind it another door made of solid wood. Around the lock I could see the unmistakable gouges left by a pry bar. Teachwell didn’t have a key—he had forced the lock to gain entry.

I crept back to the steps. There were six of them. The door was another six strides from the top. I squeezed the gun tightly. It featured a cocking lever built into the grip. Fifteen pounds of pressure compressed the lever and cocked the gun. When it was fired, the mechanism would recock automatically as long as I held down the lever. Release the lever, and the gun was deactivated. The lever allowed me to carry the Heckler & Koch safely with a round in the chamber. Only it occurred to me as I readied myself to hit the door that I had never fired the 9mm with a glove on.

I cursed silently, removed the knit glove and gripped the frozen metal with my bare hand. My fingers were exposed only for a few moments and I was astonished at how swiftly numbness set in. I transferred the piece to my gloved hand, slapped my bare hand against my chest, flexed the fingers, then gripped the Heckler & Koch again. It certainly was cold. That, as much as anything, propelled me up the steps—I needed to get out of the cold. I flung open the screen door and rammed the inside door with my shoulder even as I twisted the handle. I had guessed right, the lock was broken. The door opened so quickly that I nearly lost my balance. I was four steps inside the cabin before I recovered.

The cabin consisted of one room. There were several wooden columns to support the roof, but no interior walls save for those that enclosed the bathroom. In one corner was a kitchen table, refrigerator, stove and sink; in a second were two regular-size beds and two sets of bunk beds; in the third I saw several metal cabinets, and in the fourth there was a fireplace. The fireplace was working. Sitting in a wooden chair in front of the fire was Teachwell. He held a book in his hand, an index finger marking his place. His expression was one of complete surprise.

I brought the gun up and sighted on his chest, my legs spread, weight evenly distributed, my left hand supporting the right.

Freeze!

I couldn’t believe I said that.

What … ?

Don’t move! I cried.

Who are you? Teachwell wanted to know. Teachwell was five-eight and carried sixty pounds more than was healthy. He was wearing a white dress shirt, slacks that looked like the bottom half of a business suit, and wing tips. His hair, what there was of it, was white and his face had the pasty cast of a man who never went outside. He looked about as threatening as a Twinkie, only I was never one to take chances.

Stand up! I barked.

Teachwell seemed confused. I repeated the order. He set the book carefully on the chair as he rose.

Turn around. Teachwell hesitated. Now.

The man turned.

Hands against the fireplace.

Teachwell did as he was told, extending his hands until the palms rested on the fireplace mantel. Without prompting, he moved his legs back and spread them apart. Just like in the movies. I closed the cabin door and removed my other mitten and glove with my teeth. I frisked Teachwell from top to bottom, all the while making sure he could feel the muzzle of the gun against his spine. Satisfied, I stepped back and ordered the businessman to the chair.

Hands behind your head, I added.

Teachwell locked the fingers of both hands behind his neck and repeated the question he had asked earlier. Who are you?

McKenzie. St. Paul Police Department.

You’re a long way from home, Officer McKenzie.

You, too.

I brushed the hood back and removed my ski mask. The ice that had frozen to my eyebrows and lashes was melting now and I wiped the moisture away with my sleeve.

Mr. Teachwell, you’re under arrest. Bobby’s going to love this, I told myself. I recited his rights. When I finished I said, Now, where’s the money?

What money?

Mr. Teachwell, I have never been so cold in my life, I told him, although I was feeling much better now that I could see the fire and feel the warmth of the cabin. I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’m a little scared. I waved the nine through the air and shouted. Where in hell is the money!

Teachwell’s voice didn’t reply, but his eyes did. They glanced at a spot behind my right shoulder. It was a fleeting gesture, yet it was enough. I turned cautiously. Two large, blue, hard-sided suitcases on a bed. I backed away from Teachwell, watching him even as I crossed the cabin, found the handle of one suitcase with my free hand and pulled it off the bed—it must have weighed fifty pounds. I was surprised by its weight. I dragged the suitcase to the kitchen area. It required both hands to hoist the suitcase on top of the table, which meant I had to set down the gun. Teachwell was far enough away that I decided to risk it. He didn’t move.

After regaining my weapon, I unlatched the suitcase and slowly lifted the cover. My ears filled with a loud rushing sound that was like air escaping from a leaking tire. I swallowed hard and the sound stopped. I purposely blinked my eyes once, twice, three times, closed them for a few seconds, opened them again. There were countless stacks of bills held together with rubber bands in the suitcase. Under each rubber band was a torn piece of note paper on which Teachwell had written an amount; $10,000, $20,000, $50,000. I reached out and gingerly touched the green bills before pulling my hand back.

Mr. Teachwell? I’m sure he heard the admiration in my voice. How much money did you steal?

Six million, two hundred and fifty-seven thousand, one hundred and sixty-nine dollars. His voice was confident and clear, a man proud of his accomplishment.

Wow, I said.

And then, Wow, again.

I slowly closed the suitcase. It hurt my eyes to look at that much cash in one place.

Mr. Teachwell, I’m impressed.

Officer … Teachwell hesitated, his eyes moving from me to the gun I held loosely in my hand. I waited for it.

I’ll give you half, he announced. Teachwell started to rise from the chair, but I gestured him back down again with the Heckler & Koch.

I’ll give you half, he repeated. That’s three million, one hundred twenty-eight thousand, five hundred eighty-four dollars and fifty cents.

No way. I didn’t dispute his math, only his reason.

Think of it. Think of all that money.

I shook my head.

It’s all arranged, Teachwell continued. "Tomorrow we’re all set to cross the border at Rainy River. From there we go to Winnipeg. In Winnipeg we catch a flight to Quebec. In Quebec we hop a freighter that winds through the Saint Lawrence Seaway and down the east coast. It stops once in New York. We don’t even get off the boat. The next stop is Fortaleza, Brazil. From there, Rio de Janeiro. A man with three million, one hundred twenty-eight thousand, five hundred eighty-four dollars and fifty cents in Rio, you’d live like a

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