Jon-Ellen Nord lived in a snug green bungalow on Minnehaha Creek in south Minneapolis, a distinctly upscale neighborhood with lots of trees and the creek running through backyards. There was a light in the window, but no cars in sight; there was a detached two-car garage in back, so the cars could be there. Virgil cruised by the place a couple of times before he slowed and pulled into the driveway. He could see the flicker of a television screen as he walked to the front door and rang the bell.
Jon-Ellen Nord was a lanky, small-headed, dark-haired woman with suspicious dark eyes. She was probably around fifty years old, Virgil thought. Virgil identified himself and held up his ID so she could read it, and, after she had, she pushed open the door, and asked, “What’s this about?”
“I’d like to talk to you about an acquaintance of yours, Boyd Nash.”
“Haven’t seen Boyd in a couple of years. What’s he done now?”
“I don’t know if he’s done anything. We’re looking at a serious crime, and his name came up. Could be nothing, but we have to check.”
“How serious a crime?”
“Murder,” Virgil said.
She pushed the door farther open, and said, “Come in.”
He followed her inside; she left behind a light trace of floral perfume that reminded him of the scent of lilies of the valley. The house itself was snug: older, with smaller rooms, hardwood floors, a fieldstone fireplace, and built-in bookshelves. Nord had cats, three of them. Two were tabbies, one red and one gray. The third was black and white with a pink nose. The tabbies were shy and peeked around corners. The black-and-white cat came up and rubbed against Virgil’s leg, and when Nord pointed Virgil at a chair, the cat made a move to jump on his lap. Nord grabbed it and deposited it on top of an upright piano. She took an overstuffed chair facing Virgil, and said, “If Boyd killed somebody, it was either an accident or involved really big money. He wouldn’t kill anybody unless there was a large payoff.”
“You think he could kill somebody?”
“Oh, sure. He’s a classic sociopath. Doesn’t care about anyone but number one,” she said. “He can be charming, if he tries, butit’s always calculated. Taking care of number one would include staying out of jail. I’m sure you know he assaulted me, that’s why you’re here.”
“I saw that in a case file,” Virgil said. “Exactly what was the situation there?”
“He beat me up. We’d dated a couple of times—maybe three—and then I broke it off. He showed up at my door, right here, high as a kite and angry. I tried arguing with him through the screen door, and he grabbed the door handle and yanked the hook right out of the jamb,” Nord said. Her voice was flat, unemotional, as though she were talking about something she’d read. “I tried to push him out, and he started slapping me, and then he hit me with his fists. I had bruises all over my face and my rib cage. I hurt for weeks. Lucky for me, a neighbor was passing by with his wife, and they witnessed it and called nine-one-one. Boyd ran for it, but the neighbors jotted down the license plate number and the make of his car, and the police caught him less than a mile from here. He had blood on his hands.”
“But you dropped the charges.”
“We... came to a private settlement.”
“A large one?”
“I don’t want to get into numbers. It was substantial. I was at a critical stage in my entrepreneurial career, and the money was welcome. I inherited this place from my mother and mortgaged it to start my business and didn’t have enough money to expand when I needed to do that. Boyd, uh, filled the gap.”
She owned three coffeehouses, she said, in different but trendy parts of the Twin Cities. Virgil had been in one and liked it: the coffee was good, all the local papers were free, andThe New York TimesandWall Street Journalwere sold over the counter.
“Who’d he kill?” she asked.
Virgil explained that he was investigating the death of Barthelemy Quill, a professor at the University of Minnesota. Nord’s head started going up and down as soon as Virgil mentioned the name, said she’d read the news stories about the case.
“This all ties into his rather crappy career as a patent troll? Or his spying?”
“You knew about that?”
“Sure. He wasn’t embarrassed about it. He was right up front, in fact. He said if a company didn’t protect itself, it deserved what it got.” She shook her head. “He crossed a lot of lines, though. He would actually spy on companies, I think. He got beat up once by a security guard. He could beat on a woman, I guess, but apparently wasn’t real good against somebody who actually knew how to fight.”
“I have a note about that,” Virgil said. “He was charged in that case, too, and it was also dismissed.”
“I don’t know what happened there, but I knew about it,” she said. “He was a slippery fuck, if you’ll excuse the language. That was my final verdict.”
“As far as you know, did Nash have a relationship with Dr. Quill?” Virgil asked.
“I don’t know anything about that. I didn’t know much about what Boyd did, the details. I picked up a little in conversation while we were going out, and of course I looked him up on the internet. I don’t even know why I went out with him that third time. I didn’t like him that much on the first date, but I guess I decided to give him a second chance, and then maybe I went out the third time because I was bored. I wasn’t bored enough to go out a fourth time. Then he beat me up.”
“You said he was high when he beat you. That doesn’t sound like marijuana.”
“Cocaine, his drug of choice. I doubt he ever tried marijuana. Or, if he did, not more than once. It was always cocaine.”
They talked for another ten minutes, but she didn’t have much to add. They’d never gotten to a sexual relationship—not even close.
