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 goodinvestigation, 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 outthe 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 becomplyingwith 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 doesnothave 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 thewhole 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.”
