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Virgil called Lucas at eight o’clock the next morning. Weather had already gone to work, and the kids were at summer camp, so nobody was there to kill the phone except Lucas, who slept late. Virgil’s name popped up on the screen, so instead of throwing the phone under the bed, he answered.

“What do you want?” Lucas asked.

“We’re all over the goddamn network news. Our names are. They sorta fucked us.”

“What?” Still sleepy.

“The Doris reward. Boone was on NBC and got pushed around and finally said we’re running the investigation. She named us. She talked about you tracking the Vegas cannibal and shooting the 1919 killer, and about my testimony in the New York heroin sweep. She made it sound like we’re Butch and Sundance. Like catching the killer is a sure thing.”

Lucas sat up in bed, slightly more awake: “You’re saying if they put that on the jacket of your next book, that’d be a bad thing?”

Moment of silence. Then, “Let me get back to you on that.”

—

Lucas went downstairs in his shorts, turned on the TV, and there it was.

The reward created the expected media hubbub and lit a fire on the true crime websites. Lucas went out to the website set up for the reward and read that the crime files were downloaded 31,461 times in the first two hours after the morning show interviews. The files themselves were all over Facebook and included the crime scene photos in all their gruesome detail.

Lucas called Boone as soon as the law offices opened: “What the hell? You gave them my name, and Virgil’s?”

“We talked about it here at the office and thought we’d have more credibility if we mentioned the names of reputable law enforcement officers…who have a presence on the Internet,” Boone said. “As you two do.”

“You didn’t even call me?”

“Senator Henderson suggested that it wouldn’t be necessary. Or desirable,” Boone said.

“Fuck that guy,” Lucas said.

“No, I won’t be doing that,” Boone said.

Long pause.

“Uh-oh.”

“I don’t think we need to discuss the subject any further,” Boone said.

“You better lock Michelle Cornell in a closet.”

“Michelle has been spoken to,” Boone said.

“Henderson is a child,” Lucas said. “Smart, cynical, manipulative, influential and rich, but not totally in control of his sexual impulses. Listen, nobody mentioned my phone number or address or anything?”

“No, no, no, and we specifically emphasized that all inquiries should go through Michelle. My personal feeling is that a lot of these true crime hunters, the males anyway, may be sublimating something. We put up a picture of Michelle which we feel will tend to focus attention on her.”

“That’s good,” Lucas said. “Especially if the killer is still living around here and he’s insane and likes the idea of stabbing pretty, young blond women.”

“Oh…no!”

Cornell’s picture was taken down five minutes after Boone ended the call with Lucas.

—

Michelle Cornell herself called Lucas later in the morning, and again in the afternoon, to update him on the response.

“It’s not slowing down,” she said on the morning call. “If anything, downloads are picking up. Apparently, people have already shown up at the crime scene. The Woodbury police are talking about closing it off, but it is a public park.”

“God bless them,” Lucas said. “Has Lara been sued yet?”

“No, but it’s early, and Doris’s one-time boyfriend has been complaining about harassment.”

“He’s still local?” Lucas asked.

“He’s a revered high school coach up in White Bear. Somebody got his cell phone number and posted it on one of the websites, along with his address, and now it’s all over the place. He’s gotten a lot of calls and some people showing up at his house and the high school. So, we could be hearing from him.”

“I won’t be,” Lucas said. “That’s you guys.”

“What did you think of the files?” Cornwell asked.

“I haven’t looked at them,” Lucas said. “I went over them years ago and didn’t see any obvious holes. I’m waiting for you to give me something specific to chew on.”

“You’ll get it, if it comes in. We haven’t had much yet. Some requests for clarification of the rules for the reward.”

“All right. Well, stay in touch.” He rang off and went to mow the backyard. He was half done when he couldn’t stand it any longer, went back inside, and began looking at true crime sites, which he’d never seen before.

He wasn’t impressed, and after forty-five minutes, went back outside and finished mowing.

—

On the afternoon call, Cornell said that the files had been downloaded more than a hundred thousand times, probably because of the controversial nature of the crime scene photos, the inclusion of which was being debated on most of the major cable news channels. Cornell said she’d had some suggestions about who the killer might be. “I’ll be sending them to your email…now.”

“I’m busy,” Lucas said. “I’ll look at them tonight. Or tomorrow.”

“Lucas, Marshal Davenport, you’ve got to…”

“I’ll get to them when I get to them,” Lucas said. “I’ve got a broken storm window that I’ve got to take down to the hardware store. I need new covers for the air conditioner condensers. Winter’s coming.”

“It’s August…”

“And winter’s on the way and has been since June twentieth,” Lucas said. “This is Minnesota. I’ll look at your stuff when I can, but I will look at it.”

—

Virgil called at five o’clock: “They have a hundred and sixty-one thousand downloads. They’re breaking the Internet. I am forty-five thousand words into the fourth novel which will be make-or-break and I don’t have time to waste. Have you heard anything substantial?”

“Not a thing, yet. Cornell sent me some names, people that the true-crimers think might be possible suspects, but it’s all guesses and speculation. Too early, I think,” Lucas said. “And c’mon. What does it take to write a novel? You sit on your ass for a couple hours a day and type? If you sleep eight hours, and type for two, that gives you fourteen hours to work the Doris case.”

“Two hours? You’re an ignoramus. All these downloads…what the hell is going on? I thought we’d get a bunch of emails. It turns out there are people scouting possible crime scene locations. The same places the BCA looked at when Doris was murdered, and didn’t find anything.”

“Ride with it,” Lucas said. “With this assignment, you could probably ditch all the other routine shit you’d have to do out in the sticks. Get even more time to type.”

Virgil was silent for a moment, thinking it over. Then he said, “Stay in touch.”

—

Frankie, the mother of Virgil’s twins, was doing the bills when Virgil rang off. They were sitting at the kitchen table in the farmhouse. Honus the Yellow Dog was lying halfway under the table, chewing on a dried bull penis. The twins, Alex and Willa, were at preschool in Mankato.

“You didn’t really make it clear to him, that you were pissed about your names getting out,” Frankie said. “You should have been a little more hard-nosed.”

“Aw, it’s not his fault,” Virgil said. “He didn’t do it. And he made a good point toward the end.”

“What was that?”

“Listen and learn,” Virgil said. He was back on his phone, calling his BCA boss, Jon Duncan, who worked late.

Duncan said, “They’ve got a picture of you on CNN. You and Lucas. You’re on a witness stand and your hair is too long and you’re wearing cowboy boots and a suit that looks like it came out of Sears Roebuck’s sub-basement. Or Hitler’s bunker. You look like the defendant.”

Virgil: “What can I tell you? Grandfelt and her lawyers were supposed to get the publicity. They were supposed to sort out all the bullshit that comes in, and then if anything showed up, pass it along.”

“That no longer seems to be the case.”

“I know. Henderson and the governor are gonna be pissed if we don’t get results they can take credit for. You’re gonna have to take me off the books until this thing is over. I’m thinking at least a month. At least . Probably more.”

Duncan: “What about your caseload?”

“Put Jimmy over in Rochester,” Virgil said. “He knows the territory. Even better, I could get a rate for him at a motel in Mankato. I’ll link him to the current files.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” Duncan said.

“Or, you could get some guts up, and tell the governor to go fuck himself. Keeping in mind that Lara Grandfelt is a major moneyman. Woman.”

“Let’s agree that I won’t be telling the governor to go fuck himself,” Duncan said. “I’ll figure out something. I’ll cut you free. Let me know when you go full time on this.”

“I’m full time now,” Virgil said. “The Grandfelt files were downloaded a hundred and sixty thousand times, worldwide, as of now.”

“My God!”

“Yeah.”

—

Virgil rang off, smiled a sneaky smile, and said to Frankie, “Done deal. I’m off for a month. I’ll get another thirty thousand good words, and at that point, I’ll be running for home.”

“Unless Lucas manipulates you into taking the lead,” Frankie said. “He sounds unhappy…”

“No chance of that.” Virgil took a turn around the kitchen table, avoiding Honus’s tail. He looked in the refrigerator, at nothing in particular, then closed it. “Isn’t this the goddamnedest thing you ever heard of? Doris Grandfelt has been dead for more than twenty years.”

“I think it’s interesting,” Frankie said, putting down her pen and setting the checkbook aside. Honus the Yellow Dog stopped chewing on his bull penis to look up at them. “In fact, I was going to download those files and see if I might come up with an idea or two. I could use the five million. I could build a full-sized heated dressage barn and ride all winter. You and Sam could practice pitching in there.”

“Download the files twice and save a copy for me,” Virgil said. “Listen: maybe you could handle my end of it. You’ve always been a cop groupie. You read true crime sites. You know about this stuff. I could start doing two-a-days on the book.”

“Poor old Doris,” Frankie said, shaking her head. “Pushing up sod for more than twenty years and you cops just don’t care.”

—

If the cops didn’t care, Amanda Fisk did.

The new publicity was astonishing, the ghost of Doris Grandfelt risen from the grave to haunt her. Switching from network news to cable news to streaming services to YouTube, she found it all over the place. Five million dollars didn’t seem like that much anymore, but the reward and circumstances had gone viral.

Sure, five mil was a nice house, a nice car, no debt, money in the bank…but not so much that an entire city full of people should stampede into the search. Now, late in the evening, more than a hundred and seventy thousand people had downloaded the files. Of course, some of them were in Mumbai and Kiev, but still…

The photos were especially out there. Done on film, because digital hadn’t been good enough back in the day. Most of the shots were in color, but they’d been backed up in black-and-white. Because some of it was shot at night, there was a whole file of black-and-white images taken with flash, which doubled the harshness.

In the black-and-whites, blood was black, instead of red, so Grandfelt’s blood-clotted eyes were black holes, and her lips, painted with red lipstick, were black. Her face was white as paper, lashed with black streams of blood, and the green weeds, where her head lay, were as black in the photos as the blood, like Medusa hair.

Some vicious little pervert had made a cosplay mask of her face, had posted a death dance to TikTok, and had gotten more than a million hits, most of them from China.

—

The photos were grim—the aesthetic aspect of them—but not exactly a nightmare, not for Fisk. There was a thrill to it, seeing it all over again, remembering. The bitch had gotten what she deserved.

As disturbing as the renewed investigation was, even more worrisome was the cops who were doing it—Davenport and Flowers. She’d never had either of them in court, but knew them by reputation. Flowers seemed to have x-ray vision when it came to solving crimes; Davenport seemed happy to shoot anyone involved. Neither was stupid and both were experienced.

The thrill was threaded with fear. The murder was more than twenty years in the rearview mirror, and now right back in her face. The awkward slippery blade had cut more than Doris Grandfelt: the scar was still there on Fisk’s left hand; there might have been some blood left behind, possibly on the body.

If the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension had sampled that blood, then there would be a DNA record of it. That meant no ancestor search on Ancestry.com, because that site gave up matching information to law enforcement. It meant no job that might require a DNA search—no job with law enforcement or security or the military.

There was jeopardy, but how much was impossible to tell at this point. She needed to download the files, to see if the BCA was looking at more than one DNA profile.

The search and the reward would have to be carefully monitored. One thing to discover, if that were possible: what would happen if Lara Grandfelt died? Had she embedded the reward in her will? If she had not—there’d been no mention of it in the news stories—then her death might bring the whole hunt crashing down.

Though if Grandfelt were killed, a new hunt would begin. But this time, handled carefully, she’d leave no possible DNA evidence…

Something to think about.

She thought about it as she downloaded the files and began her research.