The photos weregrim—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 thrillwasthreaded 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.
8
The next morning, Lucas was stirring unappetizing, sand-like protein into his breakfast oatmeal when his phone rang. The number was unknown, but that happened, so he picked up and said, “Yeah?”
A woman’s voice: “Is this Marshal Davenport?”
“It is.”
“This is Sergeant Leeann Carney over at Woodbury PD. You gotta get over here.”
“What’s going on?”
“You sorta need to see it,” Carney said. Her voice had a whistle in it, as though she was breathing over a snaggletooth. “We got a boatload of true crime people crawling around the Grandfelt crime scene and there have been some…conflicting opinions. I’m talking potential assault.”
“Is a boatload bigger or smaller than a buttload?”
Brief hesitation, then: “Smaller, but it’s gonna be a buttload soon enough. The feeling is, since you’re the guy in charge of this circus, you oughta see it.”
Lucas: “I’m not really…Okay. Listen, are you there?”
“I am.”
“I’ll ask for you,” Lucas said. “Leeann Carney.”
“Yes. We’ll be looking for you,” Carney said. “Uh, what do you look like?”
“I’ll be wearing jeans, a light blue golf shirt, a dark blue sport coat, and a Wild ballcap. Women tend to find me incredibly attractive.”
“I’ll look for the ballcap,” Carney said. “You know, in case your animal attraction gets all clogged up.”
—
Off the phone,Lucas ran a shot of cold tap water on the oatmeal, remembered to drop a half-handful of raisins into the mix, popped it in the microwave for two minutes, and called Virgil while he waited for the mess to heat up. Virgil was still at home, although it was already 10:30.
“I’m going over to the crime scene,” Lucas said. “Meet me there. We’ll get an idea of what’s gonna happen. I’m told there’s a whole bunch of true-crimers already there.”
“I’m eighty miles away…”
“Yeah, I know. I haven’t eaten breakfast yet. I printed out the files last night and I’ll thumb through them while I eat, so…I’ll be a while. We should get there about the same time, if you leave in the next few minutes,” Lucas said.
“What are you having for breakfast?”
