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The Minnesota Wild had just taken a 3–1 lead over the Detroit Red Wings deep in the third period when my front doorbell rang. I opened the door. I half expected to see Nina—she had a key yet never used it. Instead, I found a Minneapolis police officer standing there and looking as if he wished he were somewhere else. It was the worst job there was for a cop, knocking on a door at night. I had done it many times when I was in harness. Not once did I have good news to report.
“Mr. McKenzie?” the cop asked.
I nodded. My mouth was too dry to speak, although I could hear my inner voice screaming tell me quickly.
“I need you to come with me,” the officer said.
“Why?”
“Lieutenant Rask wants to speak with you immediately.”
“What about?”
“I wasn’t informed, sir, but since Lieutenant Rask is head of the Homicide Unit, I expect it has to do with someone’s murder.”
We drove west through Minneapolis until we found the winding parkway that cut through Theodore Wirth Park. The officer slowed his vehicle as if he were a sightseer afraid of missing something. Cars backed up behind him; no doubt they would have given him the horn if not for the light bar and the words MINNEAPOLIS POLICE TO PROTECT WITH COURAGE TO SERVE WITH COMPASSION printed on the side of the vehicle.
Theodore Wirth was the largest regional park in the Minneapolis Park System, even though it was actually located in the City of Golden Valley, go figure. I had no idea what we were doing there. The officer wouldn’t answer any of my questions, so after a while I stopped asking. Eventually we came to what a sign called Quaking Bog Parking Lot and pulled in, nestling among a dozen other assorted City of Minneapolis vehicles. Directly across the parkway was an area known as Wedding Hill. The hill overlooked Birch Pond, and a lot of nature lovers thought it was an idyllic spot to take their marriage vows—a couple of friends of mine married there fifteen years ago, and I knew it to be green and gorgeous in the summer. In the dead of winter with cops and medical personnel milling about under a dozen or so bright lights, not so much.
The area was surprisingly undisturbed despite the number of crime scene professionals who were present, including a couple of park patrol officers who looked as if they were seriously considering a different line of work. The investigators were trying to keep the scene intact for a more thorough search in the daylight. I followed the officer along a short, narrow path of packed snow to a small clearing. Lieutenant Clayton Rask was standing more or less in the center of it, directing traffic. There was something crisp and efficient about the way he barked out instructions, and I wondered if it was something some people were born to do or if it required practice. The officer led me to his side.
“Here he is, LT,” the officer said.
Rask nodded without looking. A tech holding a small digital camera turned it on me. It was his job to film the crime scene as well as articles of evidence as they were discovered, record the observations of the investigators, and generally keep a time-sensitive log of the proceedings. In the old days they called him the “master note taker.” Nowadays he’s the “photographic log recorder,” not to be confused with the “crime scene photographer,” who was busy taking photos with a 35 mm camera mounted on a tripod. Film might seem old-fashioned, but digital photographs are easy to alter—can you say “Photoshop”?—and rarely are used as evidence in court.
“Name, please,” the recorder said.
“Rushmore McKenzie,” I said. “I’m here at Lieutenant Rask’s insistence.”
Rask pretended not to hear. I wasn’t surprised. I’d had dealings with the lieutenant in the past. We were not friends.
“McKenzie,” someone said.
I turned toward the voice. A man extended his hand. He was tall and good-looking, not unlike Robert Redford in his Great Gatsby days, with wisps of blond hair peeking out from under a gray all-wool fedora. He was also wearing a charcoal Westbury overcoat from Brooks Brothers, Italian ankle boots, lambskin gloves, and a white cashmere scarf that nearly covered a tie that looked like it was made of blue silk. All in all, he was the best-dressed cop I had ever seen.
“Lieutenant Scott Noehring,” he said. I shook his hand. “I’m with Forgery Fraud.”
“Hey,” I said.
“Sorry to drag you out on a night as cold as this.” His words rose as a puff of steam and were quickly snatched away by the wind.
“What’s it about?” I asked.