“Then what?”
“If she wasn’t raped and we get a DNA match with Carlson, then we’ve maybe—maybe—still got an unidentified killer on the loose.”
“You’re sayingmaybebecause the sex may have been consensual, but then he flipped out and killed her,” Virgil said. “Which would explain a lot, like the tight timeline between the sex and the murder.”
“Yes. Let’s say they had the sex, and then she confessed that she’d slept with somebody else earlier that evening, which we know she did. There’s your motive for the killing. He gets dressed first, he goes to the kitchen and gets a knife, whets it on a brick, and then he does her. But then, damnit, instead of killing her, he kisses her goodnight and somebody else comes in…”
After mulling that over, Virgil said, “You’re telling me that no matter what the ME says, everything’s gonna be up in the air.”
“Yeah.”
“I can buy some of that, but then who killed Marcia Wise?” Virgil asked. “And why? Carlson didn’t, he was dead.”
“Shut up.”
They sat silently, thinking about it. Finally, Virgil said, “A lot of great goat cheese comes from this part of the country.”
“You told me once before about goat cheese,” Lucas said. “Remember what I told you what you could do with your goat cheese?”
“I may have repressed it,” Virgil said.
They had the satellite radio tuned to an Americana station, playing low, and Ray Wylie Hubbard came on, singing “Drunken Poet’s Dream.” Virgil turned up the sound and sang along for a couple of verses in a grainy baritone.
When the song ended, he turned the radio down again, and Lucas said, “Fuck me. I don’t know what we’re doing.”
22
Fisk freaked when she read about the murder of Marcia Wise. She’d pulled off a risky killing, but of the wrong woman. Even worse, Grandfelt would now be on guard—might even have guards—and she’d told a true crime site that she would provide an additional one million dollars in reward money if anyone could tie the murder of Marcia Wise to that of her sister.
The story had been dying on the national media, but now was back with a vengeance. CNN sent a former Minneapolis TV anchor back to the Twin Cities to track every move by the BCA and the true-crimers.
When Fisk went out to a true crime site, she found a report that Virgil Flowers believed he’d identified the man who may have raped Doris Grandfelt twenty years earlier. The woman circulating the report—quickly picked up word for word on the other true crimesites—said that Flowers refused to give up the name but said that he was in the medical profession.
Fisk rocked back in her computer chair: “Jesus Christ.”
She scraped a thumbnail on her lower teeth until the fleshy back of her thumb began to bleed. She could feel herself coming unglued: if they thought the DNA donor was in the medical profession, it seemed to Fisk that it would only be a matter of time before they identified Timothy. In her various prosecutions, she’d known identities established with less evidence than a profession, a foggy photo, and a car, especially an elite car like a 911.
And, of course, Carlson was a Bee client, and they would have a list of those.
Not knowing what else to do, she got a gallon jug of Drano Max Gel, and walked around the house pouring the gel down drains; it was the third gallon she’d used in the various sinks, tubs, and showers around the house. The stuff supposedly dissolved hair, which was the objective.
With that working for her, she went back out to the various true crime sites for another look. After checking five or six, it appeared that the marshal, Davenport, was not nearly as involved as Flowers, the BCA agent. So what was Davenport up to? Was he up to anything? Flowers appeared to be the lead in the investigation.
Both law officers had gotten extensive coverage at one time or another in the local papers. She checked theStar-Tribunewebsite, did a search for both names. There was more about Davenport than Flowers, but Davenport lived in St. Paul while Flowers apparently lived on a farm near Mankato.
She checked the websites of the county tax collectors around Mankato and found nothing under Flowers’s name. Another searchof theStar-Tribunerecords turned up the name of Flowers’s “partner,” which meant they weren’t married: a woman named Florence Frances (Frankie) Nobles. Nobles had a farm in Nicollet County, a few miles northwest of Mankato.
She had to think about that. She was still thinking when Virgil called her.
—
“Miz Fisk,” Virgilsaid. “I was sorry to hear about your husband’s death. I’ve been investigating the death of Doris Grandfelt, twenty years ago, which has been the subject of a reward…I got your telephone number from Russ Belen…”
Belen was the Ramsey County Attorney, and Fisk’s boss.
“I know about it, the investigation, at least, what’s been in the media,” Fisk said.
“Okay. There have been some indications…well, if you know about it, you know that some DNA was recovered from Grandfelt’s body. We’ve had some indications that your husband may have been intimate with Grandfelt back on the day she was murdered.”
