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They didn’t have to create a new topic because Jon Duncan, Virgil’s boss, did it for them. Virgil answered his phone and Duncan said, “Did you dickheads give pictures of Doris Grandfelt’s dates to the true crime sites?”

Virgil said, “Maybe.”

Duncan: “Ah, shit. I knew it! I knew it! The first guy they found was the CEO of Earthwise Crypto, which, in case you didn’t know, is the fourth-biggest tech company in the state, and they give money to every politician in sight.”

“I’m sure you can handle it, Jon,” Lucas said.

“Handle it? I’m not looking to handle it. I’m looking for somebody to blame.”

“Blame us,” Lucas said. “We’ll be happy to pass the blame along to Henderson and the governor.”

“We could go on Jonesing on the News, ” Virgil said. “Daisy’d be happy to have us. We’re both old friends of hers. In fact, she already got in touch, but we put her off.”

“Stay the fuck away from all news outlets—YouTube, TikTok, TV, whatever else you can think of,” Duncan said. “Stay away until this quiets down. I mean, the guy has like six kids and the TV stations are parked outside the poor bastard’s house.”

“And you sent a crime scene tech over there to get a DNA sample?”

“I suppose somebody will. That’s not my job. My job is to shut you guys up.”

“We warned everybody. You were there,” Lucas said.

“I’ll deny that. Oh. Something else. You’re both movie stars on the true crime blogs. And it’s ‘fuck this’ and ‘fuck that’ and ‘fuck you’ and the guy who gets his wife to lick the tires of his shiny red car…”

“Tires weren’t mentioned,” Virgil said.

“You know what I’m talking about,” Duncan said. “We need one thing from you guys right now. It’s called discretion.”

“Too late for that, Jon,” Virgil said. “This is a snowball rolling downhill. You say the first guy was a CEO…what about the other ten?”

“Haven’t found them, but the crimers are out there beating the bushes. Just pray that a minister or a priest isn’t among them.” Pause. “Or a bishop. What are you guys doing now? Where are you?”

“On our way to the Wee Blue Inn to talk to one of the true crime people,” Virgil said. “Have you heard about Bud Light?”

“Everybody has. Peanut butter chili. The woman who came with him is trying to arrange for a cremation, but they’re expensive and she doesn’t have any money.”

“I can handle that,” Lucas said.

“You’re going to pay for it?”

“No, I’m going to guilt-trip Lara Grandfelt into doing it.”

“Ah. Excellent solution. Keep me out of it. I’m going to find the biggest clump of weeds I can find, and jump in. And you guys…easy. Easy does it.”

They ended the call, and Lucas said, “He was a pretty good investigator.”

“Right now, he’s a pretty good bureaucrat, as bureaucrats go,” Virgil said. “He does try to take care of me. Let’s find Dahlia. You can call Grandfelt on the way.”

Lucas did that.

—

The parking lot at the Wee Blue Inn was almost deserted, but Dahlia Blair’s car was parked outside her room, and when they knocked, she opened the door a crack and peeked out, then opened it all the way and said, “Thank you. Lara Grandfelt called. She’ll handle the cremation when we get Bud’s body from the medical examiner, and she offered to pay for a gravesite and a headstone.”

“Or, you could just pour him in the Missouri River when you go back home,” Virgil said.

“Nope. He’s getting the full deal,” Blair said.

Lucas: “What’s happening with the photos? Are you staying in touch?”

“Yes. I picked up a lot of readers today, and the other guys are starting to pay attention to me,” Blair said. “We got Darius Carmel, he’s the CEO of a big tech company…”

“We heard,” Lucas said.

“And we think we might have spotted another one—people have been getting calls about a man named Elias Johannson, we’re pretty sure we’ve got him,” Blair said. “He’s a retired pharmacist, which is why people remember him—they looked at him over a drugstore counter for thirty years.”

“He’s here in St. Paul?”

“No, he’s in a place called Golden Valley,” Blair said.

“Are all your friends congregating outside his driveway?”

“No, I don’t think so. Nobody’s put his name up, yet, in case it’s wrong and you’d get sued,” Blair said. “We’re being careful. That first guy, the CEO guy, is kind of a public figure, a publicity hound, so we’re safer there.”

“Since you got the word about Bud…you feel safer?” Lucas asked.

“Yes. Definitely. I’ll stay for a few more days, at least, to get the whole Bud thing settled, but now…I don’t feel so guilty about him,” Blair said. “I’m going to keep working on the Grandfelt case. I could use that reward money.”

Lucas looked at Virgil, who said, “Golden Valley.”

—

Lucas used Virgil’s iPad to download DVS—Driver and Vehicle Services—background on Elias Johannson, helped along by the unusual name. He had three cars, registered in his name and apparently in his wife’s, Jemna Johannson.

“We might have to deal with a wife,” Lucas told Virgil.

“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time,” Virgil said.

“That’s very empathetic of you,” Lucas said. “The guy’s got a Corvette Stingray, a ’69. That’s something.”

“Is that a good one?” Virgil asked. “I mean, I drive Tahoes.”

“Yeah, a ’69 is pretty good. It’s not a Porsche, but if you have to drive a Stingray, that’s the one you might want. In fire-engine red, of course. Tires licked by Jemna. What kind of name is Jemna anyway?”

—

Golden Valley was an older inner-ring suburb of Minneapolis. The trip across the Mississippi and through the Minneapolis downtown took half an hour. Johannson’s house was a sixties ranch style, robin’s-egg blue, on a comfortable block with overhanging maples, abundant hedges, and one shiny new tricycle. The house had an attached two-car garage, but the driveway split, with a narrow lane going around to the back—“Probably another garage for the Stingray,” Lucas said.

When they pulled into the driveway, Virgil saw a curtain move; somebody had heard them arrive and had snuck a careful look outside.

“They know about the photo,” Virgil said. “We won’t be a shock, but this could be sad.”

—

As it turned out, it wasn’t sad.

The front door was opened by Jemna Johannson, who looked like she’d just arrived from Sweden, a muscular woman, maybe sixty, with a single gray/blond braid hanging down her back. She was wearing a camo shirt, cargo shorts, and hiking boots.

“You look like police,” she said; her accent spoke of Australia, rather than Sweden.

“We are,” Virgil said, holding up his ID. “My partner…”

“Is a U.S. Marshal. We’ve been reading the blogs. C’mon in.”

A black-and-tan dog stood in the middle of the room; some kind of German shepherd variation with a foot-long tongue, and Lucas asked, “Is he friendly?”

“Sometimes,” Johannson said, with a grin. “If he comes for you, don’t cover your face. He’s going for something more delicate.”

“Good to know,” Lucas said.

A man hurried in from a back room, carrying an oversized backpack and a duffel. He did not look like anyone’s idea of a pharmacist: midsixties, two inches short of six feet, wide as a garage door, gray hair and reddish beard.

“You guys going somewhere?” Virgil asked.

“What do you think?” Elias Johannson said. “Getting the fuck out of here. If those true crime people want to interview us, they’re gonna need a boat.”

“We have to talk,” Lucas said.

“Sure thing. I’m gonna keep getting our gear together and packing the truck. And I need a cigarette. C’mon.”

They all went out to the garage where the Johannsons were in the process of packing an oversized white Jeep. A red canoe was already on the roof; Virgil read “Common Loon” hand-painted on the side of the boat, though the words were upside down from his point of view.

Virgil: “So you, uh, had a sexual relationship with Doris Grandfelt?”

“Not exactly a relationship; I did take her back to my bed on three different occasions. Cost me fifteen hundred bucks.”

Lucas looked at Jemna: “Did you know about this?”

“Not until last night, when we got the first call from the blog people. El was divorced at the time, forty-five years old, and she was a looker, from what I can see from the online photos. I was nowhere about. What was he supposed to do, spend all his nights choking the chicken?”

“Before we leave, I should mention that I didn’t kill her,” Elias said. “I last saw her probably a month before she was murdered. Didn’t know any of her other customers, so I had nothing to say about it that would have been of any use to anyone.”

“How’d you meet her?”

“In a bar. I read about that bartender who was hooking her up—I didn’t know him, and I never went to that bar. I met her at a place called the Big O. She was friendly right off. Too friendly, but boy, she looked good after a long dry spell. A couple dances, I knew it was going to cost me something.”

Jemna stuck her lip out: “You told me you don’t know how to dance.”

“I don’t. I jump up and down and wave my arms around. White man boogie. Honestly, nobody seemed to notice.”

Virgil: “You got nothin’ else?”

“I got nothin’ else,” Elias confirmed. “Where the hell are my cigarettes?”

“Front seat passenger side with your lighter,” Jemna said. “We need to stop and pick up a couple of cartons.”

“There goes the budget,” Elias said. He found his cigarettes, knocked a Winston out of the pack, fired it up, sucked up some smoke. “Ah: love the feel of those cancer cells crawling around my lungs,” he said.

Virgil: “What size shoes do your wear?”

Elias held up a foot: “Eleven and a half. Why?”

“Just wondering,” Virgil said.

Lucas said, “Look…”

“You look,” Elias said. “We gotta get out of here before those crime kooks start showing up. You got a DNA kit with you?”

“No.”

“Okay. Well, it’s out of our way, but we can swing by the BCA before we head north. Is it still in that building off Maryland?”

“Yeah, it is,” Virgil said.

“You might give somebody a call, tell them that we’re coming,” Elias said.

“We’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t leave town,” Lucas said.

“You can appreciate your ass off, but we’re leaving,” Elias said. “Unless you want to arrest me or get a court order or whatever you do. Here’s the facts of the matter: I slept with Doris—nice girl, and she liked my act—but I didn’t kill her. I’m willing to do the DNA. What else do you want? You can’t want me to stay around here so I can have a bunch of crazies parked in my driveway harassing us.”

“No, we don’t,” Lucas said. “We’ll take some pictures of your driver’s licenses and your rig and get out of your hair. We do want you to stop by the BCA—and if you don’t do that, we will come after you.”

“Great,” Jemna said. “Listen: there are a couple more big bags upstairs and a dog kennel in the kitchen packed with dog food and some bowls. Could you help us load?”

—

Lucas and Virgil took care of the dog kennel, which weighed a hundred pounds with all the stuff packed inside of it. They were paced by the dog, which turned out to be as violent as a chickadee. While they were hauling it out to the garage, and away from the Johannsons, Lucas asked, “What do you think?”

“I believe him,” Virgil said. “He’s not worried enough.”

“Yeah. Hey: don’t tip the fuckin’ kennel, everything will fall out. We ought to find out where they’re going.”

—

They were going, Jemna said, to the Boundary Waters. Lucas and Virgil’s help modestly sped up the loading process, but not quite quickly enough. Two compact SUVs pulled up to the curb outside the house as Elias opened the garage door before rolling out.

Two women climbed out of the cars and immediately began filming the four of them. One of the women shouted, “Officers, are you going to let him escape?”

Virgil turned his back to them and said to Lucas, keeping his voice low, “Not a word, okay?”

“Right.”

Jemna asked, “What should we do?”

“Step back in the garage,” Virgil said. “Close the garage door.”

When the door was down, Virgil said, “There are only two cars outside. If you still want to leave, you should go, now, before more of them start coming in. I’ll call the Golden Valley cops and ask for their assistance in identifying the occupants of the two cars, who seem to be frightening you. Are they frightening you?”

Jemna looked at Elias, who shrugged and said, “If that would be helpful.”

“When the cops show up, we’ll get them reading IDs and checking license plates, and you can make a run for the BCA without somebody trailing you. Don’t slow down. And don’t skip the BCA unless you want to spend some time in an outstate jail.”

Jemna nodded: “Let’s do it.”

Virgil called Duncan, explained the situation, and Duncan said he would talk with Golden Valley immediately, and that he would also get one of the newly assigned investigators on the Grandfelt case to interview Elias Johannson.

Jemna went into the kitchen and peeked out the window. “They’re still there, out of the cars, with their cameras.”

“On your property?” Lucas asked.

“No, they’re staying clear, in the street.”

“They know better than to trespass,” Lucas said.

Virgil said, “You’re going to be interviewed at the BCA. I mean, in addition to doing the DNA scrub. That’ll slow you down some, but you shouldn’t have these people on your back.”

Jemna: “Is this a sneaky way to arrest El?”

Virgil shook his head: “Not unless he decides to confess that he killed Doris Grandfelt. But it’ll be a formal interview. You can have a lawyer there if you want to.”

“See what happens,” Elias said.

“That’s what I would do,” Lucas said. He said that because he hated to have lawyers sitting in on interviews, because most lawyers understood that the best thing their client could say is nothing . Elias seemed like a talker, and Lucas loved talkers, as would his BCA interviewers.

A few minutes later a Golden Valley patrol car pulled up behind the two crimer vehicles, and a cop got out.

“Time to run for it,” Lucas said, and the Johannsons did, leaving the true-crimers showing their driver’s licenses to the cop.

—

In the Tahoe, Virgil said, “We need to get Stephanie Brady’s camera to Jon and get somebody to go over and give O’Brien a scrub.”

“Yes. I think…Elias picked Doris up on her own, which sort of expands the universe of what she was doing. She was kinda on the street, even if the street was a bar.”

“I did notice. That’s a little depressing. She was maybe turning pro.”

Lucas sighed, and said, “Damnit. The other way was easier. Let’s get over to the BCA and make sure the Johannsons showed up.”

“And then…”

“Klink the Shrink.”