“She’s already lawyered up,” Lucas said. “Wonder who she got? And what she told him?”
“I’ll bet she told him she was being persecuted by cops who are getting even for the Harrison prosecution. And her attorney will use that,” Roller said. He smiled at Lucas and Virgil: “You guys are gonna get roasted. Guilt by cop association.”
Fifteen minutes later, Fisk emerged with two deputies. She was carrying nothing at all and hadn’t been cuffed. She said something to the deputies, and they all swerved toward Roller, Lucas, and Virgil. To Roller, she said, “Thanks for not cuffing me up. That was nice of you. And for giving me a chance to feed the dogs.”
Roller nodded. “You’re welcome.”
To Lucas and Virgil: “As for you two, I hope you get cancer, die, and roast in hell.”
“You already tried that with my family and it didn’t work,” Virgil snapped.
The deputies took her off to jail.
“That was pleasant,” Roller said, smiling again.
“Fuck her,” Virgil said.
Lucas didn’t say anything. He was looking up at the house. “Can I go around back? I mean, I’m investigating.”
“There’s nobody here who says you can’t,” Roller said, as the sheriff’s car carrying Fisk disappeared down Summit Avenue.
Lucas went around back, with Virgil and Roller trailing. He stood on the patio, looking up at the balcony from which Timothy Carlson had fallen. They could hear the dogs barking inside.
“Interesting,” Lucas said.
—
Fisk’s attorney, EarlGray, had offices a few blocks from the jail. He was waiting for the sheriff’s car transporting Fisk and was present for the booking. Fisk found the time spent overnight in the Ramsey County jail to be unpleasant, but tolerable. Fisk told Gray that she would post any reasonable bond.
The next day, Roller argued against any bond, arguing that Fisk was a multiple murderer and should be held in jail. Gray, a broad-shouldered, white-haired man, argued that his client was a well-known lawyer, that all of the evidence presented by Roller was purely “speculative.” He didn’t use the word “circumstantial,” because circumstantial was perfectly good evidence, while speculation was not.
Duncan, Virgil, and Lucas had been sitting in the courtroom during the bail hearing and when Gray entered, Lucas leaned toward Virgil and Duncan and groaned, “Earl fuckin’ Gray. You might know it.”
“You surprised? They’ve gone up against each other, gotta be a dozen times,” Duncan said. “Fisk is good, but she was batting about .300 against him. I mean, who you gonna call?”
“I don’t have to like it,” Lucas said. And then, “Whatever you think of Gray, you gotta admire that suit. Wonder where he gets them?”
The judge decided he wanted a million and a half dollars to free Fisk, and when told by Fisk that her wholly-owned home on Summit Avenue had recently been appraised at one-point-seven million by a reputable real estate agent, agreed that the house would do as bond. There was paperwork, but Fisk and Gray were on the street shortly after noon.
—
The next day,Lara Grandfelt spoke to Lucas. “I want to do something about the reward.”
“Well, that’s up to you, Lara. Fisk hasn’t been convicted,” Lucas said.
“No, but I’m convinced. I know who killed Doris and that’s all I wanted. Who should I talk to?”
“I’ll give you some names. There are maybe twenty of them, who ought to get something, some big, some small,” Lucas said.
“Send me a list,” Grandfelt said. “And phone numbers.”
The discussion about the reward went on for a while, mediated by Mason, Tono, Whitehead and Boone, Grandfelt’s law firm. Big Dave called Lucas about the reward. His actual name was DerrickMcBride, and Lucas passed that on to Michelle Cornell and to Roller, should Roller think it necessary to get McBride on the witness stand. Lucas and Virgil were involved in a half-dozen phone calls about the reward, but that was all.
In the end, Dahlia Blair got five hundred thousand dollars and went back to Nebraska a happy woman, with an urn full of ashes in the back seat of her car. The reward distribution made headlines on every true crime site in the world, and was mentioned in theNew YorkTimes,Washington Post,andWall Street Journal, as well as all the cable news stations.
—
The following weekswere marked by jousting over disclosure of the state’s evidence, which was released in a trickle and leaked to the media at the same time, causing Gray to go to the media himself charging that the jury pool was being deliberately poisoned.
