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“My question is why. Why would you protect her?”
“For the same reason you protect your friends. Because they are friends.”
“Still, why go to all this trouble? Why didn’t you just pick up the phone and call Tuseman?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“The price was too high.”
“He wanted your support in the election.”
“I had already promised my support to another, and I never break my promises, Mr. McKenzie. That’s another quality in which you and I are much alike.” I wished he’d stop saying that. “Unfortunately, it would seem that Mr. Tuseman will prevail, in any case.”
“Don’t worry about Tuseman,” I said. “I’ll stick a fork in that sonuvabitch.”
“Indeed, Mr. McKenzie.”
“Only I’m not going to stop there. Unlike Ms. Bonalay”—I looked directly in her eyes when I spoke—“I believe in justice on earth, and I’m not above manufacturing some when the need arises.”
Muehlenhaus started to laugh, but only to prove that he could.
“Yes, I am sure my granddaughter would find you quite fascinating.”
I deactivated the cell phone without saying good-bye and handed it back to G. K.
“What are you going to do?” G. K. asked.
“Whatever I can.”
“McKenzie, you did good today. You probably saved one woman’s life, and you helped get an innocent woman out of jail. Can’t you be happy with that?”
“Genevieve,” I said, drawing out the name. “That little speech you gave me before about serving the law—all I can say is, thank God, I’m not an attorney.”
I was in my Jeep Cherokee heading east on Highway 10 toward New Brighton. It was slow going. Over one and a half million people were driving to work, and the Cities’ overburdened freeway system was clogged with traffic, most of it heading in the general direction of downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. It was becoming increasingly hot inside my car, but I had the air-conditioning off and windows open—I was trying to dry off.
My cell phone sang “Ode to Joy.” Normally, I don’t answer it when I’m driving for fear it might lead to an accident, but considering the speed at which I was traveling, I decided to take that chance.
“McKenzie, this is Dr. Ronning with the county coroner’s office.”
“Yes, Dr. Ronning.”
I was so surprised to hear from him that I nearly rear-ended the van in front of me.
“I ran a blood test on Eli Jefferson as you requested, this time specifically looking for GHB. I ran it twice.”
“And?”
“Negative.”
“Negative?”
“There was nothing there. Not a trace. I looked very hard.”
“Are you sure?’
“McKenzie, it’s what I do.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“How about, ‘Sorry for wasting your precious time and resources, Doctor’—that’ll do. Oh, never mind.”
Dr. Ronning hung up.
Suddenly, I felt like the tiredest man on the face of the earth.
I had asked Muehlenhaus why he was protecting Priscilla St. Ana. What I should have asked him was why Priscilla St. Ana needed protection. The answer had seemed obvious to me. She had killed Jefferson. She had all but confessed to it, along with the murders of her father, her brother, and Brian Becker. I thought I knew why. It was the reason I was driving to New Brighton. Now I wasn’t so sure.
Vonnie Lou Lowman was making a beeline from her front door to her car in the driveway, a Plymouth Reliant that couldn’t have been much younger than she was. I pulled in behind it.
My brain was all a-jumble with thoughts of signatures and motives and opportunities and the means of murder. Cilia claimed she had put Robert St. Ana and Brian Becker to sleep with her GHB analog and then allowed them to die of carbon monoxide poisoning. Eli Jefferson had also been asleep when he bled to death. The coroner now says there was no trace of GHB in his blood. If Cilia hadn’t killed Jefferson, why was she so anxious that I believe she had? Or maybe she did kill him, but instead of using GHB, she used the softball bat to make him unconscious.
Put that aside for now, I told myself. Instead, concentrate on motive. Concentrate on the why. Cilia killed her father for herself. She killed her brother for Merodie. She killed Becker for Silk. Why did she kill Jefferson?
“What is it?” Vonnie Lou wanted to know as I approached her car. She was dressed the way lots of women dress for work in the office nowadays, in a matching blue blazer and skirt and a white blouse with notched lapels. The outfit reminded me of a private school uniform.
“I need you to look at a photograph,” I said.
“I don’t have time,” Vonnie Lou insisted. “I just got a call for a receptionist gig that could last three weeks, maybe longer. I can’t afford to be late.”
“It’ll only take a sec.”
I showed her the computer printout of a photo of Priscilla St. Ana, the one that appeared in Women’s Business Minnesota.