“Yeppers.”
“Honey, you may be the prettiest girl these guys have ever seen, but you’re not the prettiest I’ve seen. If you think a come-hither smile is going to work on me, you’re mistaken.”
Tracie shrugged as if she didn’t quite believe me.
“What would work?” she asked.
I clenched my fist and yanked my arm up as if I were going to punch her. I would have been about three feet short of her face even if the chain hadn’t shortened my swing, yet she flinched and leaned backward just the same.
“You can start by unshackling me,” I said.
“People are afraid of you, of what you might do.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m afraid of what you might do.”
“Like what?”
“I’m hundreds of miles from home, no friend knows I’m here, dressed only in soiled shorts, no wallet, no ID, chained to a table—think about it.”
She did, for a full ten seconds before she smiled a most beguiling smile and said, “Oh, that’s just silly.”
“You think?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then why am I still chained to this table?”
“I’m not—”
“Do you agree that I’m not the guy you’re looking for?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you apologize and let me go?”
Tracie spun in her chair and studied the interrogation room mirror as if she expected the answer to magically appear on the glass. When it didn’t, she turned back to face me.
“Can I tell you what happened?” she said. “Can we just sit here, calmly, like adults, and I’ll explain what happened?”
I made a big production of showing her the chain again. “Do I have a choice?”
“Rushmore.”
“Only one person gets to call me Rushmore, and you’re not her. My name is McKenzie. Just McKenzie, all right?”
“See, that’s one difference right there—between you and the other McKenzie, I mean. He always told people to call him Rush.”
I leaned back in the chair and made myself as comfortable as I could. I had a feeling this was going to take a while.
Tracie had a compelling voice, an actor’s voice, and as she told her story I flashed on Scheherazade telling tales for a thousand and one nights until the king, hardened by the betrayal of his first wife, learned both morality and kindness and renounced his vow of vengeance against all women. Somewhere along the line, I gave up my plans for payback, too. Well, most of them, anyway.
According to Tracie, the man who called himself Rushmore McKenzie came in the spring. He did not look like me, but Tracie said he was the same height, weight, hair color—if you went solely by physical description, people would have thought we were the same person.
“Although you are much more handsome,” Tracie said. She smiled at me, but I refused to give her anything in return.
The Imposter did not announce himself. He drove into town and settled in at the Pioneer, Libbie’s one and only hotel. He took his meals alone in the hotel restaurant. During the day, he would drive the county’s roads. Residents remembered seeing him parked on the shoulder at various intersections taking notes; they would wave to him, and he would wave back. He also spent time in the county assessor’s office, studying abstracts, deeds, and zoning maps without once explaining why. Anyone who attempted to engage him in conversation learned his opinion on the weather, and little else. Not even thrice-divorced Sharren Nuffer, who worked behind the desk and sometimes in the hotel’s restaurant, could get words from the Imposter no matter how breathlessly she asked if there was anything she could do for him.
It wasn’t until several days later that the Imposter stepped into the office of the City of Libbie’s director of economic development. A man named Ed Bizek—the department’s sole employee—was there to greet him. The Imposter told Bizek that he was the front man for a syndicate of developers from the Twin Cities. He said he’d found the perfect parcel of land at the intersection where Highway 20 met Highway 73. Unfortunately, a dryland farmer named Michael Randisi owned the parcel, and it was zoned for agriculture. The Imposter said he wanted to meet with the county commissioners and the Libbie City Council. He wanted to be assured that the county would rezone the land for commercial use if he bought it, and he wanted the negotiations kept confidential for fear that if word of his intentions leaked out, Randisi would demand more for the land than the syndicate was willing to pay. That would kill the deal, the Imposter said. It was this fear—that the deal would be killed—that would induce so many people to do so many foolish things in the coming weeks.
“What were his intentions?” I asked.
“The Imposter wanted to build an outlet mall.”