The city of Minneapolis was founded near the Father Hennepin Bluffs, drawn, as nineteenth-century settlements were, to the convenience and natural power of the river and St. Anthony Falls. The city’s milling and lumber industries used the cascading water power to transport logs and grind grain. When the milling industry changed and moved on, and when the trees had been cut, what was left behind was a damaged and deformed landscape.
Mars stood at the top of the stairs leading down the bluffs. Behind him, the Pillsbury A Mill—the only mill still operating on the river—rose in monolithic splendor. The mill’s massive limestone face towered over the bluffs, facing the river. Mars winced as he looked at the mill. Its windows looked directly down on the crime scene. But they were frosted with flour dust. So much for getting lucky with what a casual witness might have seen from the mill.
The cobblestone road of Southeast Main Street—some of which was original to the 1800s and which ran between the mill and the bluffs—was barricaded with police stands. Three police squad cars were parked at random, arrogant angles within the barricaded area. The flashers over one empty car rotated with ominous self-importance. Black-lettered yellow tape roped the steps off.
Mars ducked under the tape and walked to the trailhead. Looking down the railroad-tie stairs that led to the river, Mars saw a gaggle of cops at a clump of bushes near a path. There were uniforms, some Crime Scene Unit guys and Dr. Denton D. Mont, the city’s chief medical examiner.
It was inevitable that Dr. Mont would be called Doc D, with reference to death rather than his initials. He was a short, wiry, buttless man who smoked cigarettes down to the filter, owned no suits, and kept his only sports coat in the trunk of his car, just in case. Rolled in the pocket of the sports coat was a maroon-and-navy striped tie, which he unrolled and tied on for court appearances. Sartorial standards aside, Mars liked working with Doc D for three reasons: Doc D was fast, careful, and curious.
Mars headed down the stairs, passing a small, well-dressed woman struggling to restrain a handsome yellow Labrador retriever. These two, Mars guessed, had found the body.
John Roseman, the CSU supervisor, greeted Mars. “Hey. Candy Man. Thought they might send you down on this one. Has a lot of front-page potential, is my guess.”
Mars made it a point not to take the bait. He was used to cynicism from his colleagues about his role as a special investigator reporting directly to the chief of police. Anytime he got called Candy Man, he knew the implied reference was not a play on his name and a candy bar. The reference was to candy ass.
Roseman made a motion to Mars, and they walked around the bushes and down the trail a bit before Mars caught sight of the girl’s body, her pink windbreaker standing out on the dull ground.
“We got an ID on her yet?”
Roseman nodded. “Yeah. She had a driver’s license in her purse. Mary Pat Fitzgerald. Lives out on Cornelia Drive, west of Southdale.”
“Edina?”
“Yup. Just what we need, huh? Some little princess from lotus-eater land comes into the city to get offed. Don’t know how a kid like that ends up dead on the bluffs. Unless it’s drugs.”
Mars moved closer to the body. She wasn’t what he’d been expecting. There’d been a group of Indians living under one of the bridges just up the river, and Mars had noticed a girl traveling with them for the past three, four months. When he’d gotten the call about a girl dead on the bluffs, his mind’s eye had seen that girl: short, potbellied, drunk. I’ll be scraping her off the sidewalk before long is what Mars had thought the last time he’d seen her weaving down Hennepin Avenue with three men. The group had stopped inside a bus shelter in front of the Minneapolis Public Library. One of the men had held a bagged bottle to the woman’s mouth.
Nothing like the girl lying maybe three yards away. Even in death this girl didn’t look like she belonged on the bluffs. Her hair was white blond. One arm was extended, the hand cupped, nails clean. An expensive-looking leather-banded watch on the fine bones of her extended wrist. Crisp white sneakers, creased khaki pants, a pink windbreaker. This kid was clearly a long way from home.
The only thing that looked off was her clothes. Her pants, which zipped in the front, were unzipped, the belt undone. Her shirt had been pulled up, as if she’d been about to take it off over her head. Her butt was slightly elevated, as if she’d been on her knees, then fallen forward. Mars couldn’t see any blood. He turned sideways to look for Doc D.
“Hey, Doc. Whatta ya got?”
Doc D walked over. Standing next to Mars, he held the filter of his cigarette between his thumb and index finger as he took a deep drag. He was careful to drop the ash from his
cigarette into the Styrofoam cup he carried. Peering through his exhaled smoke at nothing in particular, he answered.
“Let us just say that this scene does not speak to me.”
“Meaning? …”
“Meaning there isn’t a lot here and what there is doesn’t tell much of a story.”
“You at least know how she died?”
“Got a pretty good guess. Puncture wound to the chest. Probably took out her aorta.”
Mars looked at the body again. “The aorta? She took a stab wound to the aorta and we’re not up to our knees in blood?”
Doc D dropped the cigarette butt into the cup, giving it a little swirl. “I said puncture wound to the aorta. Remember how when you were a kid your mother warned you if you stepped on a nail you had to wash it out real good, ’cause the wound closed on itself when you pulled the nail out? And blood couldn’t flow out to wash the wound? Well, that’s what happened here. There’s blood all right. All pooled up inside her chest cavity.”
“So what would the perp have used? What kind of weapon are we looking for?”
Doc D didn’t hesitate. “A screwdriver, an ice pick, something like that. I should be able to tell when I open her up.”
“Any evidence of sexual assault?”
“First guess, no. Given the state of her clothes, she might have been in the middle of something with a boyfriend … .”
Mars walked closer to the body, dropping down, sitting on his heels, to get a closer look. “No tears or anything around the zipper. Looks like she undid it herself.”
Roseman came over. “Well, we’re about finished up. Gonna head back downtown. Talk to you tomorrow?”
Mars stood up, grimacing at how stiff his knees felt after
thirty seconds in a crouch. “You’ve got video and thirty-five millimeter?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?”
“She have any valuables on her?”
“About seventeen bucks. Two credit cards. If it was a robbery, someone got scared off before he got what he was after. Same goes, I’d guess, if he was trying to get in her pants.”
Mars turned to Doc D. “I’m going to want to do the family notification. Kid like this, I’m going to look real close at everybody she knew. I’d like to see their reaction. Anything on the line about her being missing?”
Doc D answered. “Doubt anyone’s had a chance to check. Took the wallet off her maybe an hour ago. Time of death is going to be a bitch.” He lit up again, glancing over at the body. “Between Monday and now, there hasn’t been more than six, seven degrees variation in the temperature, day or night. And the temp’s been between, say, thirty to thirty-eight degrees. Pretty near perfect conditions for maintaining a dead body.” Doc D kicked at the ground, glanced around, and shook his head. “Well, I’m as done as I’m gonna get. When you expect I can bring her downtown?”
Roseman glanced at his watch. “Like I said. CSU guys are done now. Take her.”
Mars said, “I’m going to talk to the woman who found the body.” He looked back at the woman, who was still struggling with the dog. “That’s her with the dog?”
“Yeah. I’d like to let her get going pretty quick. She’s sorta shocky. The guys from the Second did an interview with her.”
“All the same, I’d like to talk to her. Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes—assuming she’s not involved.”
“Not a chance.”
To Doc D, Mars said, “I’ll be down here another half hour or so. I’ll make a stop in the squad room, then I’ll come over
to the morgue. Why don’t you start without me, I’ll be along as soon as I can. Probably won’t hang around long with you. I’m going to track down Phil Keck in Edina, take a run out to Cornelia Drive.”
Mars walked over to an officer who was on the scene from the Second Precinct.
“What’s the woman’s name?”
“Linda Mistad. Lives a few blocks up, Southeast Fifth.”
Mars approached the woman, flashing his badge. The dog took an exuberant leap toward him.
“Robin! Stay! I’m sorry, he gets so excited around new people. It would help if I was stronger and better coordinated … .”
Mars took hold of the dog’s collar with both hands and gave the dog a firm shake. “Sit!” he said. The dog did a couple of quick, nervous gulps and sat. Mars stroked the dog’s head. “Good boy. Mrs. Mistad? I’m Special Detective Marshall Bahr with the Minneapolis PD Homicide Division. You found the body when? …”
Mrs. Mistad brushed her well-cut hair away from her face, holding it back from the wind. “It’s maddening how Robin always obeys men and totally ignores me—you asked when I found the body? I couldn’t say exactly. It’s been over an hour now, maybe longer.” She looked at her watch. “Good grief. It’s been almost two hours. My husband’s going to kill me. He’s told me not to come down here alone with Robin. But it’s usually pretty much deserted down here, so I can let Robin off the lead, and he can get a good run, burn off some energy without running me ragged.” She stopped, shivering, and folded her arms across her middle, sliding her hands deep into her jacket sleeves. “I’m sorry—I can’t stop shaking—”
Mars called to one of the Crime Unit technicians. “You guys got a blanket?” A technician came over with a heavy,
rough, dark green wool blanket. Mars hoped Mrs. Mistad wouldn’t give much thought to where the blanket had been before he draped it around her.
“You were saying you got down here when?”
“The blanket helps—thanks. Let’s see. I left the house around ten A.M., and it wouldn’t have taken me more than, say, six or seven minutes to get from there down here, especially with Robin knowing he was coming down to the river. When we got to the bottom of the steps, I let Robin off the lead and he started running for the rapids that come down just the other side of the power plant.”
Mars’s authority with the dog was short-lived. Robin bolted again, dragging Mrs. Mistad back toward the steps. Mars jogged forward to catch up, took the lead from Mrs. Mistad, and pulled the dog up short. “Come on, let’s sit down on the steps. I’ll hang on to this guy. So Robin was off the lead, headed in one direction, then he started off to where the body was?”
“When he got by the bushes, he stopped cold. Something he’s not done before, not ever on this path. He started, well, it was like he was tiptoeing. And his hackles went up. It frightened me. I thought there might be vagrants who’d made a camp in the bushes. That wouldn’t be unusual down here, which is why my husband …”
“Do you walk Robin here every morning?”
“No, Bob—my husband—is on vacation this week, and he’s been taking Robin out … .” She stopped, pulling the blanket tighter, and drawing a deep breath. “It’s just that he’s got a trip later today that he’s getting ready for, so I took Robin this morning. Last time I was down here was Sunday. Robin was fine. No problem.”
“And your husband wouldn’t have brought the dog down here between Sunday and yesterday?”
“God, no. He had a fit, as I said, about my coming here.”
“And when you found the body. You didn’t see anyone else in the area?”
She shook her head. “I went over to pick up Robin’s lead, to try to get him to move on. I didn’t want him antagonizing anyone who might be back there. When I approached Robin he ran farther into the bushes. I had to go after him, and I saw the pink of her jacket. At first, that’s all I saw. I thought someone had dropped a jacket in the weeds. Then I noticed her hand, her hair. My first thought was that she had fallen asleep. That’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Kids do sometimes come down here for parties. They drink too much, God knows what else. It’s not inconceivable someone would have ended up sleeping down here after a binge.”
She stopped, breathed deeply, and removing leather gloves, rubbed her hands over her face. “I’m sorry. I’m rambling. It was just such a shock … .”
Mars put his hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly. “You’re doing fine. So you thought she was sleeping?”
“Yes, at first. But there was something about the position she was in that didn’t seem right. And Robin was terrified of her. He didn’t really want to go up to her. If she’d been all right, he would have been bounding up to her begging for attention. I called out—asked if she was all right and … I don’t know how to explain this … but it was the silence after I called out. I just knew she was dead.”
She stopped again, readjusting the blanket. In a voice that was more controlled, she said, “Once I realized it was a body, I just tore up the steps to the pay phone down by the theater. To tell the truth, I don’t even remember getting from here to there. And I waited up at the top of the stairs until the police came. It’s silly, but I was afraid the body would be gone when they got here. That people would think I was crazy.”
“You did fine,” Mars said. “Look. Anything else you remember—it doesn’t matter how small a detail, or if it makes
sense to you—anything at all, just give me a call.” Mars handed her a card and called over one of the uniform guys from the Second Precinct.
“Officer, could you take Mrs. Mistad and her dog home? Just a couple blocks up the hill, other side of University Avenue.”
The cop, Mrs. Mistad, and the Labrador headed back up the steps. Mars grinned. If you’d put wheels on Mrs. Mistad, the Lab would have gotten her home ahead of the squad car.