“What? Indications? You mean DNA?”
“Yes. DNA. Dr. Carlson was a client of Bee Accounting…”
“I know that. I worked there briefly, at the time Doris Grandfelt was murdered,” Fisk said. “In fact, I met Timothy as the murder investigation was taking place. He had some complicated legal issues involving taxes…I can hardly believe that he was involved with Doris Grandfelt, though. She was a clerk, and I was told that she was not overly bright. I didn’t know her myself.”
Virgil was astonished, struggled to control his reaction. He took a low breath, and said, “It might not have been her IQ that attractedDr. Carlson. If you’ve been following the investigation, you know that there’s been a question about the extent and…quality…of Doris Grandfelt’s sexual activities.”
“Yes. There have been reports of sex for pay. That doesn’t sound at all like Timothy…”
“We’ve been told that Dr. Carlson was cremated after his death?”
“Yes, he was.”
“Well, we would like to come to your house and take some samples for DNA comparisons.”
“I have no objections to that, I suppose…Or wait a minute. Maybe I do,” Fisk said. “I’d really prefer that this didn’t become public. Could I get some kind of written agreement, a letter, perhaps, from you, saying that you and the BCA will hold this procedure confidentially?”
Virgil: “If it turns out that there’s a DNA match…”
“Then, I know, the information would become public,” Fisk conceded. “I don’t think Timothy would have touched Doris Grandfelt with a ten-foot pole, much less his penis. I would like the…mmm…examination to remain confidential if you don’t find a match. So we don’t have the rumor mill spewing its garbage all over Timothy and myself.”
“I understand,” Virgil said. “I’ll talk to my supervisors at the BCA and see what kind of agreement they would be willing to commit to. I don’t know what their answer will be.”
“Call me when you know. If we can make an arrangement, you will have my permission to examine the house and cars and anything else you might need.”
“Thank you. I will call you back.”
—
Fisk replayed theconversation in her head and decided that she’d handled it as well as it could be. She’d sounded surprised and concerned by the call, and she’d been cooperative. She had to be, she thought: all the information that she’d given them, they would have eventually found themselves, including the fact that she’d worked for Bee at the time of the murder. If she’d tried to hide that, they would have been curious about why.
She included one critical time change, but she didn’t think they’d be able to challenge that: she’d said that she’d started dating Carlson after the murder, rather than before. Was there anything else that she could throw at them that might lead them astray?
More thinking would be needed. She didn’t doubt that Flowers would be back in her face sooner rather than later.
—
“She told methe most amazing thing,” Virgil told Lucas and Jon Duncan in the borrowed office at the BCA. “She worked at Bee when Grandfelt was murdered.”
Lucas: “What!”
“That’s almost what I said. But I didn’t. I was nice. But man…she said she didn’t know Doris Grandfelt.”
“We gotta look at her,” Lucas said to Duncan. “There’s the jealousy motive.”
Duncan: “Is she gonna try to keep us out of the house?”
“No. She was cooperative,” Virgil said. “She wants a letter from us more or less promising to keep the DNA sampling confidential—shesaid she knows that we’d have to go public if we found a match with her husband. She doesn’t believe there’ll be a match.”
“Sounds like a win,” Duncan said. “We might be able to get a crew over there tomorrow…though somebody said something about comp time.”
“I’ll call her back and ask if tomorrow’s okay,” Virgil said. “She doesn’t believe that Carlson would mess with Grandfelt, not for money anyway. Oh, by the way, she said she met Carlson there at the same time the murder investigation was going on.”
“Curious,” Lucas said. “Things are beginning to coalesce around Bee.”
“If it turns out there’s a DNA match, we could get busy,” Virgil said. “If you guys don’t mind, if we could schedule the DNA sampling for tomorrow afternoon…anytime noon or later would be good…I’m going to run down home overnight. I can be back by eleven o’clock tomorrow.”
“Let me check about the DNA,” Duncan said. “Why don’t you head over to the hotel, get packed, and I’ll call you about the schedule.”
