—
Lucas and Virgilsaid goodbye to the true-crimers and hello to Weather, who said she was going back out with a neighbor to a Pilates class. She changed, came down to say that their daughter had called from summer camp to say that she could extend for a week and take the trail riding option. “I told her I’d call her back after I talked to you.”
“Horse riding is dangerous,” Lucas said. “I’d worry.”
“Ah, trail riding in a summer camp is not going to be dangerous, not any more dangerous than walking around in St. Paul,” Virgil said. “If you could see Frankie and her horses, you’d say yes.”
“That’s what I think,” Weather said.
Lucas shrugged: “If you all say so.”
Weather left, and they went to the den, where they called up Anne Cash’s website and read the Jepson story. She’d spoken directly toJepson and had a recommendation for all the other true-crimers: track down all Lite House employees from the early 2000s and interrogate them on the Grandfelt prostitution allegation. Find the names of her customers.
“All good.” Lucas tapped the screen with a greasy finger. “She’s offering to cut people in on the reward. I bet she breaks some loose.”
They were in the family room with the television on the local Channel Three, but muted, when the doorbell rang.
“Better not be Cash,” Lucas said. He went to a window and peeked out past the blinds. “Aw, shit; it’s Lara Grandfelt. Bet she heard about Jepson.”
“All part of the shit storm, man,” Virgil said. “Let her in.”
—
She came in,trailed by Wise, her assistant. Lucas pointed to easy chairs, but Grandfelt stayed on her feet, distraught, crying, which made the two cops feel a little bad, but not too.
“She was a prostitute,” she cried, tears running down her cheeks. “My sister…”
“Was more like an escort,” Lucas said. “Not a prostitute.”
Grandfelt looked at him with anger in her eyes: “Yes? Would you care to explain the difference? Men paid her money for sex.”
Virgil said, “Still…a prostitute, a hooker, generally will take on all potential customers, unless there’s something obviously wrong with him…or her. That’s always dangerous. Doris was more what we’d call a party girl—she’d go out dancing with these guys, and some she’d go home with. Not all of them. Most of them, but not all, would give her money. I mean, they’d say this was a gift, not apayment. That makes both sides feel better, even if it doesn’t seem like much of a difference to you.”
“Then how did she wind up with someone who murdered her, if they were just out dancing?” Grandfelt asked.
Virgil looked to Lucas, who said, “That…we don’t know. This man, this bartender, told us he was careful about who he recommended. Plus, if he knew she was going out with a particular…man…and she turned up murdered the next day, he said he would have gone to the police. And honestly? We believed him. He said she hadn’t gone out with anyone that night, that he knew of. So she was seeing men that she picked up on her own, or former acquaintances. And, I suppose this is a possibility, she was simply going somewhere and was attacked.”
Grandfelt shook her head: “You know that isn’t true, Lucas.”
“Why do I know that isn’t true?”
“Because of the knife,” Grandfelt said. “The knife that killed Doris came from the place that she worked. We need to track down every man who worked there, when she died, and do DNA.”
Lucas shrugged and nodded, conceding the point.
“The DNA search is underway,” Virgil said. “Before the knife was found, the BCA didn’t have any direction to go. They tested some of the men at Bee, but not all. They’ll get as many of them as they can now, but it won’t be perfect, unless they find him. The knife came from the executive dining room, and a lot of the men who had access to it were older—in their fifties and sixties. Several of them are dead.”
“Shit. Shit-shit-shit,” Grandfelt said. She took a turn around the living room, touched the passive Wise on the shoulder. “What happens next? You start hunting down her…dates?”
“If we can,” Lucas said.
“You don’t seem to be doing much right now,” she said, looking around the living room. “You’re eating potato chips.”
“Waiting for another interview, tonight. We’re seeing a woman who might have some information—and some of it might go to Doris’s dates,” Lucas said.
“Who are you interviewing?”
“Can’t say,” Virgil said. “Or won’t say, take your pick. Way too much stuff is leaking out to these true crime sites. But we are seeing someone. The possibilities are thin, but they’re still possibilities that nobody has looked at yet.”
