Page 6

6

Next day.

Blue skies, as the song said, smilin’ at them. Warm, not hot, and dry as a potato chip.

Lucas parked a block over from the Lake of the Isles park, saw a familiar cream-colored Tahoe pull to the curb another block away, and waited until Virgil got out of his truck.

Virgil waved, took a sport coat off a back seat, pulled it on, and sauntered down the sidewalk. “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Lucas said, as they did the slap and knuckle-bump. “Henderson said something about consulting on the Doris Grandfelt murder. Were you around when that happened?”

“Still in the Army. I heard a lot about it when I got to the BCA,” Virgil said. He leaned forward, looking at Lucas’s face. “What happened to your lip? Weather bite you in a fit of blind passion?”

Lucas told him about busting the Bergstroms as they walked over to the lake, south of the Minneapolis downtown. They turned the corner toward a white house that looked like a wedding cake, three stories tall, each higher level set back from the one under it, crowned with a golden weather vane.

“That’s gotta be it,” Lucas said. “Henderson mentioned the weather vane.”

“I’m thinking seriously about quitting,” Virgil said, scuffing along. “The next book contract should be fairly large. Quitting money. I’ll find out this fall. If this turns out to be bullshit, it could be the perfect excuse.”

“You’d lose the state insurance,” Lucas said. “That’s like owning a gold mine when you have preschoolers. Those goddamn preschools are virus factories.”

“Yeah, you keep telling me. Still, I’m one disconsolate cop.” Virgil had twins, one of each.

“Big word for a shitkicker,” Lucas said, “If not for a famous novelist.”

—

Lucas was a tall man, athletic, restless, heavy through the shoulders. Dark hair touched with gray, a businessman’s cut, blue eyes, a hawk-like nose. A thin white scar crossed from his forehead to the cheek below his left eye, the result of a fishing accident, a thin wire leader snapping out of a log, slapping his face like a whip. He was wearing a summer-weight wool suit from Brioni, and a blue-green Hermès necktie that chimed with both his eyes and the suit, but not the scar. Despite being a cop, he was a fashion plate. If he wasn’t quite handsome, women tended to like him.

He’d gotten a deputy U.S. Marshal’s badge through sheer political pull. If a U.S. senator of either party developed a law enforcement problem, Lucas would do what he could to help out. Important people owed him, and when not working for a politician, he was allowed free rein to chase the assholes of his choice.

Virgil was as tall as Lucas, when they were both barefoot, and a bit taller in his alligator cowboy boots. He was hay-bale muscular, lanky, his blond hair worn too long for a cop. In addition to his job as a BCA agent, he was a three-time thriller novelist. His second novel had made it to the bottom of the New York Times paperback bestseller list, and the third one had gone to number six on the hardcover list and had hung on for three weeks. As a new author, he was still na?ve enough not to be especially grateful; he thought he deserved it.

Virgil lived on a farm near Mankato, Minnesota, eighty miles southwest of the Twin Cities. Although his territory was generally southern Minnesota, he was sometimes pulled into the St. Paul headquarters for special assignments. His clearance rate for major crimes was the best in the BCA, which was especially notable because of the twisted, not to say bizarre, peculiar, grotesque, or outlandish crimes that happened in rural Minnesota.

Virgil was wearing jeans, a lightweight blue fishing shirt, and a button-front tan canvas jacket that wasn’t quite a sport coat. The jacket had gaping pockets good for carrying notebooks and pens, and on occasion, a gun, though he didn’t like guns.

—

Together they climbed the wedding cake’s exterior stairs, walked across a wide stone porch, where Lucas pressed a doorbell. As they waited, a slender man in a blue-striped seersucker summer suit climbed the stairs behind them, said, “Hey, guys,” and Lucas asked, “Are you in on this? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. The senator didn’t tell me.” Neil Mitford, chief weasel for Elmer Henderson. Both Lucas and Virgil had worked with Mitford on other cases and had found him to be cheerfully untrustworthy. He was also absolutely loyal to Henderson and knew more about politics than any sane person should.

Virgil looked at Lucas and said, “He probably knows. He lies a lot.”

“True.”

“A key requirement in my job,” Mitford said. “Besides, if I didn’t lie to you, somebody else would. Might as well get it out of the way.”

“Also true,” Lucas said. The way of the world.

“Did you push the doorbell?” Mitford asked. He pushed it again, and the door popped open. A short, slightly heavy woman in a gray dress said, “Good, you’re here. I’m Marcia Wise, Lara’s personal assistant. Come in. The others are waiting.”

Virgil said, “Ah, man.”

Lucas: “Could be interesting.”

Virgil: “Could be stupid.”

Mitford: “We got rich people, we got politicians, we got lawyers and cops. Probably gonna be both.”

—

The others were waiting in an oversized, overdecorated living room, white plaster walls decorated with oil paintings of unidentifiable landscapes, most featuring a piece of an ocean with a sailing ship, or a field with horses; colorful red/blue oriental carpets that weren’t, but felt, ankle-deep; and mid-century furniture. Despite a plethora of chairs and sofas, the others were all on their feet holding glasses—a mocktail party with cranberry or orange juice. A tray of cheese and crackers sat on a side table.

Lucas picked out a woman who might have been fifteen years younger than he was, and decided she was Lara Grandfelt, because she carried the same flavor as the house, and the party seemed to rotate around her.

She was a little hefty but comfortable with it, had an unlined face with sharp, watchful blue eyes. She wore a middle-blue woman’s business suit, almost a match for Lucas’s own, and diamonds the size of macadamia nuts, one on each earlobe. She was holding two glasses full of juice, and handed one back to Wise, her personal assistant, when Wise led Lucas and Virgil into the room.

Lucas wondered briefly if Wise was another slightly less affluent Grandfelt sister, and Wise was her married name. She and Grandfelt were the same size and shape, same hairdos and color, their dress was different in color but similar in style, and Wise had diamonds in her ears as Grandfelt did, but with smaller stones. Henderson, the senator, said, “There you are. Virgil: why don’t you come to work for me? I need somebody down south.”

“You’re looking summery, Senator,” Virgil said. A polite Minnesota evasion for “go fuck yourself.”

Henderson, a willowy blond known for his rapacious appetite for pretty women of all ages and races, as well as a cocaine habit that sometimes made him feel younger than he was, had been talking to a tall auburn-haired woman who Lucas didn’t know, but who gave off attorney vibes. She had a long thin nose, long thin lips, and what looked like long legs under her dress, which was an intensely figured ankle-length crimson and black number that looked, to Lucas’s fashion-trained eye, suspiciously like a Loro Piana. She wore a librarian’s wire-rimmed glasses.

They were joined by Mitford, who said to Henderson, “The vice president is calling again.”

“I’ll talk to her later. She wants money and a bigger turnout in Washington County.”

A BCA agent named Jon Duncan, who was Virgil’s nominal boss, raised a glass of cranberry juice to Lucas and Virgil. He called, “You guys are looking great!” and Virgil said, “Yeah, no,” a Wisconsin idiom he’d picked up while fishing in the Northwoods, for “go fuck yourself.”

Duncan had been talking to Edie Lamb, U.S. Marshal for the District of Minnesota. Lamb was technically, but not actually, Lucas’s boss. Lucas knew, and both Henderson and Lamb knew he knew, that Lamb was divorced because her husband had caught the senator and Mrs. Lamb, in Henderson’s phrase, “buttering the biscuit” during a Christmas party at Henderson’s mansion.

The shared knowledge may have brought Henderson, Lamb, and Lucas closer; or maybe not. Really, who knew?

Henderson was responsible for Lamb getting the U.S. Marshal’s appointment, and for Lucas getting a deputy marshal’s badge. Together they’d been involved in a number of tricky situations, some of which a non-cynical observer might have considered questionable, if not entirely reprehensible.

Two other women were talking in a corner: a young blonde in a dark blue suit who also gave off attorney vibes, and a short woman with flyaway brown hair, skeptical brown eyes, and a few extra wrinkles on her olive-complected face. She said, “Hey, Lucas.”

Lucas knew Carla Benucci as a reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press . “You doing a story?” he asked.

“Not there anymore, I got bought out,” she said. “I’m doing PR for Mason, Tono, Whitehead and Boone.”

“I’m sorry,” Lucas said.

Benucci shrugged: “Shit happens.”

—

The auburn-haired woman talking to Henderson took a final sip of cranberry juice and tapped the empty glass with a spoon to make it ring. “Everybody? We’re all here. Time to work.”

She introduced herself and the blonde: “I’m Tricia Boone, of Mason, Tono, Whitehead and Boone, and Michelle Cornell is an associate with our firm. We represent Lara Grandfelt.” She reached out and touched the diamond-studded woman. “We’re here to help Lara launch a long-delayed quest. I will let Lara tell you about it and say only that our firm is firmly behind her, whenever our legal services may be needed.”

Grandfelt smiled, turned to look at everyone in the group, and said, “What we’re going to do, is we’re going to find the monster who killed my twin sister. That was more than twenty years ago now, and that’s long enough to know he’s roaming free.”

Lucas scratched his forehead, an unconscious gesture of skepticism, and Grandfelt caught it. “Marshal Davenport doesn’t think we’ll get anywhere, but he doesn’t know what we’re going to do,” she said.

Boone jumped back in: “Why don’t we all sit down. I believe there are enough chairs.”

They all did, and Grandfelt said to Boone, “You were going to fill in some background…”

Boone nodded. “Yes.” She opened a file folder on her lap, cleared her throat, and said:

“Lara Grandfelt and her sister, Doris, both graduated from Minnesota colleges—actually, Lara was at the university—just before the turn of the century. Lara studied finance and economics, and Doris studied accounting at Manifold College in Northfield.”

After graduation, she said, the sisters found jobs in the Twin Cities, Lara with U.S. Bank in their wealth management department, and Doris with a local accounting firm. Three years after graduation, Doris was brutally murdered, a murder that was never solved.

In the years between the murder and the present, Boone said, Lara left the bank to begin her own wealth management firm. “She has done very well with it. Lara’s not ridiculously rich, but she’s done very, very well. Is that correct, Lara?”

Grandfelt nodded and said, “Yes.”

Boone said, “I’m reviewing all of this so that we’re all on the same page, and so we know that the money involved in this project—I’m coming to that—was legitimately sourced. So. Lara has asked Mason, Tono, Whitehead and Boone to set up a project designed to investigate and find the perpetrator of the rape and murder of her sister, Doris.”

“Neither Virgil nor I worked that case…” Lucas began.

“We know. We’ve done the research. You were starting your own company, Davenport Simulations, and Virgil was in the Army. The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension handled the investigation,” Boone said. “When you, Lucas, later went to the BCA, Lara told me, she spoke to you once about the lack of progress in the investigation. She got you to review the files…with no result.”

“Yes, I remember it now.” Lucas shrugged. “The BCA ran a good investigation, but there was nothing to go on. They never got to first base.”

Boone said, “I understand. Lara, however, has been unable to escape the gravity of the murder. She can’t escape the injustice of it.”

“That’s true,” Grandfelt said, looking around at the crowd again.

“So she wants Virgil and me to reinvestigate, and Elmer and Edie and Jon are here to strong-arm us into it, if we need strong-arming.” Lucas said.

“I wouldn’t have chosen that precise phrase, but that captures the…substance…of it,” Boone agreed.

“What are you going to do?” Virgil asked Grandfelt.

Before she could answer, Boone stepped in again. “Lara has directed our firm to post a five-million-dollar reward for information leading to the identification of the killer. The reward is to be made as a gift of gratitude to the person or persons who provide the information. If that passes muster with our tax people, and I’m told that it should, the gift will be tax-free. If somebody wins it, they’ll get to keep the whole amount. Later today—and we’ve already prepared this—the reward will be posted on all the major true crime sites on the Internet.”

Virgil said, “Wow!”

—

Boone laid out the details. She expected a lot of people would be digging into the case, and Michelle Cornell would be in charge of reviewing submissions by what Boone called the true crime researchers. Anything that seemed even slightly relevant would be forwarded to Lucas and Virgil.

Lucas, as a deputy federal marshal, and Virgil, as a BCA agent, would have the legal authority, together, to get almost anything that needed to be gotten, to kick down any doors that needed to be kicked.

“We have the complete investigative files from the BCA and Woodbury, every piece of paper they have, already in-house. We didn’t steal them. That’s absolutely legal under Minnesota law. If we find that they’ve held anything back, we will sue them,” Boone told Lucas.

Lucas: “And you’ll post them? The files?”

“Yes. Including the crime scene photos. Lara has seen them and wants them on the sites.”

Grandfelt said, “I can’t tell you how painful that was, seeing those photographs.” Her lip trembled, but she kept her chin up. “I’m set on this. If you need anything from me—anything, day or night, you call. If for some reason I can’t answer, my personal assistant will.” She reached out and touched the woman in the gray suit. “Marcia Wise. She’ll find me wherever I am. You will have personal numbers for both of us.”

Virgil: “You will be stirring up a storm and you’ll have no control over it.”

“We will be complying with Lara’s wishes, which are perfectly legal,” Boone said, her voice gone sharp. “Frankly, we tried to talk her out of this, but she insisted. She is the client. The client does not have to accept our recommendations.”

“So it’s a done deal,” Lucas said.

Grandfelt nodded and Boone said, “Yes, it is.”

“Why now?” Lucas asked.

Grandfelt said, “I had…I’m having…a brush with breast cancer. I had a lumpectomy a month ago and I’m currently undergoing chemo. My doctors say I have an excellent chance of survival, but the whole death business…it came closer. I realized that one thing I had to do, if there was any way to do it, was find my sister’s killer. This is what I came up with.”

“Much of what you’ll get will be flat-fucking-weird,” Virgil said. “Excuse the language.”

Boone steepled her fingers and smiled over them, showing some teeth. “We understand that, Virgil. I have to say, that’s not our problem. It’s yours.”

Henderson, who was looking down at his phone, said, “C’mon, guys. Do it.”

Lucas checked Virgil, who lifted his hands, palms up, in a “why not?” gesture, and Lucas said, “I can see problems. But it sounds interesting. For a while anyway. I don’t want to plow through acres of made-up nonsense, but I’ll look at anything that might be real. If a guy starts talking about UFOs, we’re outa there.”

Boone didn’t care: “You can do anything you want. Totally up to you. If you need to travel, keep the receipts. There’s an expenses fund. That will also pay for any legal support you need.”

Virgil asked, “Is there a time limit on the award?”

Grandfelt said, “Yes. One year. After that, it goes to a range of animal welfare groups.”

“I’m not going to investigate for a year, not with no possibility…” Lucas began.

Boone interrupted, “We expect most of the action to happen in the first month, perhaps in the first couple of weeks. If the killer isn’t caught, we expect the attention will begin to dry up.”

Lucas turned to Grandfelt. “You should know that we’re not only gonna get true crime people, we’ll get treasure hunters and scam artists and nutjobs and probably a few lawsuits. People could get hurt.”

“Yes, Ms. Boone and I have talked about that. Extensively. We think the risk is small, and there’s a sound basis behind what we’re doing here,” Grandfelt said. “It’s called crowdsourcing. We’ll not only have the true crime people working on it, but they have a network of volunteer researchers who know how to use the resources of the Internet, and artificial intelligence, and have extensive connections inside law enforcement. At all levels. A large group of intelligent, motivated people, thinking out of all the correct boxes, often find solutions to problems that so-called experts would never consider.”

“And we’ll take care of the lawsuits,” Boone said. She’d been sitting, but now stood up and looked at Benucci, the former reporter.

“I think it’s time for you to step in, Carla,” she said. To Lucas and Virgil, she said, “Carla is our director of communications.”

Lucas: “Why am I not surprised that you have one?”

“We’re a large organization. She stays busy,” Boone said.

“Her job would be to spread the news about this…bequest?” Virgil asked.

“Exactly. We figure to be coast-to-coast by tomorrow night,” Boone said.

—

In the next five minutes, Benucci laid out what she planned to do. She had links to several of the most-used true crime sites, and would drop the information releases, and the reward notice, that evening.

She’d been in touch with most of the major network morning shows, she said, and two had already agreed to do interviews. She was hoping for two or three more. “We think CNN, Fox, or MSNBC will bite for the evening round. Haven’t heard back yet.”

She said the five million, the unsolved murder, the rich twin, the online photos, they all made for great hooks.

“Lara and Tricia will sit for the interviews. I’ve laid out several talking points.” She turned to the two women: “You, Lara and Tricia, should familiarize yourself with them. I’ve got files for both of you to review. Good stuff that will yank the talking heads straight into the story. Tomorrow morning we’ll put you at Senator Henderson’s media center. We’ll bring in Gloria Martinez to do your hair and makeup.”

“Why am I not surprised that you have a media center?” Lucas asked Henderson.

Henderson said, “Hey. Agree to do this and move on.”

“How much did Lara contribute to the reelection fund?” Virgil asked.

“She has been quite generous, and we are looking forward to an even closer relationship in the future,” Mitford said.

Benucci said to Boone and Grandfelt, “You’ll need to get there early for the New York shows. The files contain the address of Senator Henderson’s office and a complete timetable, which may change tomorrow if we make some of the evening shows. The media center isn’t a big deal. A back room with a walnut desk, bunch of books, picture of Senator Henderson shaking hands with the President, and an American flag. A painting of something. Not sure what, abstract landscape, won’t offend anyone. Good lights. We’ll lose the President and the flag.”

Boone smiled and said, “I’ll do it, but I’m a little nervous. I don’t do this kind of TV thing…”

“John Mason said you do. Good publicity for the firm and you’re the best-looking partner we got. Some of the others…” Benucci faked a shudder. “All you and Lara have to do is say what I write and not audibly fart.” To Lucas: “John Mason’s the managing partner.”

“I got that,” Lucas said. “I actually know him a little. Unlikeable guy.”

“Well, he’s a lawyer,” Benucci said. “He’s the co-inventor of the pop-tort. Made a lot of money with it.”

Lucas stood up, walked once around his bright red Eero Saarinen womb chair, looked from Henderson to Grandfelt to Boone: “Okay. I’m in.” He turned to Virgil. “Where are you at?”

“I have my doubts, but I’ll take a shot at it,” Virgil said. “I’ll probably have to move into a hotel up here, at least temporarily. Gonna be expensive.”

“We’ll cover the hotel, we’ll cover all your expenses,” Grandfelt said. “I believe your agent Duncan has already started a procedure to do that.”

Duncan, who had been sitting quietly, said, “We’re ready to go. Virgil, you just submit your expenses as you usually do…no problem.”

Henderson said, “We’re all set, then. It’s an opportunity to do some good.”

Benucci, former newsie: “Right. Lemme know when that happens.”