—
Golden Valley wasan older inner-ring suburb of Minneapolis. The trip across the Mississippi and through the Minneapolis downtown took half an hour. Johannson’s house was a sixties ranch style, robin’s-egg blue, on a comfortable block with overhanging maples, abundant hedges, and one shiny new tricycle. The house had an attached two-car garage, but the driveway split, with a narrow lane going around to the back—“Probably another garage for the Stingray,” Lucas said.
When they pulled into the driveway, Virgil saw a curtain move; somebody had heard them arrive and had snuck a careful look outside.
“They know about the photo,” Virgil said. “We won’t be a shock, but this could be sad.”
—
As it turnedout, it wasn’t sad.
The front door was opened by Jemna Johannson, who looked like she’d just arrived from Sweden, a muscular woman, maybe sixty, with a single gray/blond braid hanging down her back. She was wearing a camo shirt, cargo shorts, and hiking boots.
“You look like police,” she said; her accent spoke of Australia, rather than Sweden.
“We are,” Virgil said, holding up his ID. “My partner…”
“Is a U.S. Marshal. We’ve been reading the blogs. C’mon in.”
A black-and-tan dog stood in the middle of the room; some kind of German shepherd variation with a foot-long tongue, and Lucas asked, “Is he friendly?”
“Sometimes,” Johannson said, with a grin. “If he comes for you, don’t cover your face. He’s going for something more delicate.”
“Good to know,” Lucas said.
A man hurried in from a back room, carrying an oversized backpack and a duffel. He did not look like anyone’s idea of a pharmacist: midsixties, two inches short of six feet, wide as a garage door, gray hair and reddish beard.
“You guys going somewhere?” Virgil asked.
“What do you think?” Elias Johannson said. “Getting the fuck out of here. If those true crime people want to interview us, they’re gonna need a boat.”
“We have to talk,” Lucas said.
“Sure thing. I’m gonna keep getting our gear together and packing the truck. And I need a cigarette. C’mon.”
They all went out to the garage where the Johannsons were in the process of packing an oversized white Jeep. A red canoe was already on the roof; Virgil read “Common Loon” hand-painted on the side of the boat, though the words were upside down from his point of view.
Virgil: “So you, uh, had a sexual relationship with Doris Grandfelt?”
“Not exactly a relationship; I did take her back to my bed on three different occasions. Cost me fifteen hundred bucks.”
Lucas looked at Jemna: “Did you know about this?”
“Not until last night, when we got the first call from the blog people. El was divorced at the time, forty-five years old, and she was a looker, from what I can see from the online photos. I was nowhereabout. What was he supposed to do, spend all his nights choking the chicken?”
“Before we leave, I should mention that I didn’t kill her,” Elias said. “I last saw her probably a month before she was murdered. Didn’t know any of her other customers, so I had nothing to say about it that would have been of any use to anyone.”
“How’d you meet her?”
“In a bar. I read about that bartender who was hooking her up—I didn’t know him, and I never went to that bar. I met her at a place called the Big O. She was friendly right off. Too friendly, but boy, she looked good after a long dry spell. A couple dances, I knew it was going to cost me something.”
Jemna stuck her lip out: “You told me you don’t know how to dance.”
“I don’t. I jump up and down and wave my arms around. White man boogie. Honestly, nobody seemed to notice.”
Virgil: “You got nothin’ else?”
“I got nothin’ else,” Elias confirmed. “Where the hell are my cigarettes?”
