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I had learned a long time ago to say as little as possible to as few people as possible in matters involving the police. Actually, I didn’t learn it so much as my attorney beat it into me. The people who had gathered around Tommy and the car that killed him were of no such mind, however. They had plenty to say. Some of it was even true.
The young woman who hit Tommy was nearly hysterical with grief. She kept telling the police officers that the accident wasn’t her fault, that Tommy had jumped in front of her car. “Maybe it was suicide.” I felt terrible about the part I had played in causing her anguish, yet I did not attempt to console her. A witness—the brother who spoke up earlier—testified that he had witnessed Tommy and me struggling after he pulled a gun on me and that I threw him into the street. I had nothing to say to him, either, although I was grateful that he remembered the gun. I ignored the other witnesses who, taking the brother’s cue, claimed I had deliberately shoved Tommy in front of a speeding car, even though they were nowhere near when the incident occurred.
The officers who responded to the call kept asking for a statement. I told them they should secure Tommy’s gun, which had slid beneath the back bumper of my Audi. Beyond that, I kept my mouth shut. By then, word of a cop killing had electrified the entire police department. To say the officers were angry at my refusal to cooperate would be like saying that the sun rose in the east—it really wasn’t open to debate. If there hadn’t been so many witnesses, I suspect I would have been “tuned up,” as they say. Instead, I was roughly cuffed and shoved in the back of a squad car.
Cops have protocols and procedures when dealing with criminal activities, and few of them are executed in a hurry. Policing is, after all, a civil service job and prone to bureaucracy. More and more officers appeared at the scene. Lights were erected. Measurements were taken. Photographs were snapped. Statements were recorded. All this was made even more cumbersome by the simple fact that the exact same thing was happening in the park around Noehring’s body. The ME appeared and then disappeared. Forensic specialists arrived and stayed for a long time. Vans with the call letters from WCCO, KSTP, KARE-11, and FOX-9 blocked traffic, their cameras and lights adding to the chaos. Crowds of bystanders gathered, lingered for a bit, and then scattered when they discovered there was nothing going on that was intriguing enough to keep them standing out in the cold.
Eventually Lieutenant Rask came up from the park and crossed the street. He glared at me for a moment through the passenger window before taking verbal reports from his men. When he finished, he had the officer open the rear door to the squad car. I didn’t wait for him to ask questions. Instead, I spoke as succinctly as possible.
“I was going for the Lily—the money is in the trunk of the Audi—the dead man tried to take it from me—he might have been the one who shot Lieutenant Noehring, I don’t know.”
“Did you witness the shooting?” Rask asked.
“I saw Noehring fall, but I can’t identify who shot him. Lieutenant, I need to contact Mr. Donatucci and have him secure the money.”
“What was Noehring doing here?”
I looked away and then looked back. Rask saw the answer in my eyes.
“Don’t say a word, McKenzie,” he said. “Just this once, keep your mouth shut.”
I eventually gave a detailed statement to Rask. I then repeated it to Rask, a second investigator, and a video camera. Afterward, I gave it a third time to Rask, a second investigator, a video camera, two prosecutors from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, the chief of police, and Mr. Donatucci, who confirmed everything up to the moment I drove out of the parking ramp. I found myself sliding into a monotone while I spoke. Trust me when I tell you that I wasn’t bored. But I was feeling depressed, deflated. It was the inevitable fall after the adrenaline high, but knowing the cause didn’t change it. Several times I was asked to speak up. Nearly everyone had a question about Lieutenant Noehring, and each time I saw a look in Rask’s eye that told me to keep my opinions to myself.
“I have no idea why he was at Loring Park,” I said. “My guess is that he was there on a different matter and the thieves somehow made him, but I’m only guessing.”
Afterward, I was installed in the same interrogation room where I met Hemsted and Pozderac and told to wait. I did so, for nearly four hours. I did not complain. Rask had a cop killing on his hands. Nothing took precedence over that, least of all my comfort and convenience.
When he finally did arrive I was struck by the exhaustion on his face and the look in his eyes that suggested he was silently wishing the goddamned apocalypse would come already.
“Did Mr. Donatucci secure the money?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “So your problems are over. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I killed a man last night, LT.”
Rask pulled out a chair from under the conference table and sat down.
“One of mine was killed, too,” he said.
“So we’re both hurting.”