Bobby was down at city hall by eleven-thirty on Thursday morning, the first day in almost five days when it wasn’t raining. “I hope,” he said to Mars, “you’ve planned someplace good for lunch. I’m starving and it’s going to take a lot to get my mind off what’s going on at Ann’s lunch.”
“How’d drinks go yesterday?”
Bobby paused. “Fine. But Ann’s feeling pretty tense about having lunch with Owen today.”
Mars looked at his watch. “You want to make book on when she’ll be back?”
“Not a clue. Any more than I’d guess how Owen is going to respond. What’s your guess?”
“About the same as yours. Not a clue. I would say this. The longer she’s gone, the better for us. I think he’ll either turn her off immediately or he’ll go along and they’ll talk it through. If he goes along, it’s going to take some time.”
“Which gives us plenty of time for lunch. Where we going?”
Nettie had decided lunch should be just the boys, and stayed downtown. Mars and Bobby took the Pontiac to Thirty-fifth and Cedar to Matt’s Tavern.
Bobby looked around and made a face as they parked. “I
think I’d feel better about being here if this was a marked squad, and you were wearing a uniform.”
“Don’t tell me you were born and raised in Minneapolis, and you’ve never been to Matt’s for Jucy Lucys.”
“I was born and raised in Edina, six blocks from the Minneapolis city limits. There’s a difference.”
Bobby was right about the neighborhood. It had never been great. At its best it had been a working-class neighborhood. Its best was probably twenty-five years ago. In the last ten years it had slid into decay and dereliction. Matt’s, however, had survived the change. It was a classic neighborhood bar: long and narrow, semidark, with the bar along one wall facing a mirror, a row of booths on the opposite wall. Down the center was a line of tables with four chairs at each table. Bobby picked up the single-sheet plastic-sealed menu and gave it a moment’s consideration. Mars reached over and took the menu out of Bobby’s hands.
“When you have lunch at Matt’s, you have Jucy Lucys.”
“I saw Jucy Lucys on the menu. I make it a practice not to order anything in a restaurant that’s misspelled on the menu.”
“At Matt’s, jucy is the correct spelling.”
Two things distinguished Matt’s from other neighborhood bars: the clientele—which was an unmingled combination of locals, journalists, curious yuppies, and cops—and the Jucy Lucys, which brought the clientele in. Jucy Lucys were a distinctly retrograde menu choice. They were a high-fat variation on cheeseburgers, a double beef patty with a wad of cheese stuffed inside the two hunks of beef before the patty hit the grill. If you weren’t careful when you ate a Jucy Lucy, the grease would roll down your arms into your sleeves.
Bobby was somewhere between amused and appalled. But being half-appalled didn’t stop him from eating two Jucy Lucys
and all the fries in the basket. “You come here often?” he asked Mars, looking as if he doubted that someone who came to Matt’s very often would live to tell the story.
“Not often. I stop by now and again to pick up a basket for my kid.”
“I didn’t know you were married.”
“Not married. Not anymore.”
“I suppose being divorced is an occupational hazard for a cop.”
Mars chewed for a few moments before saying anything. “True. But not true in my case—not if you mean that the stress of being a cop causes tension in the marriage. I married a woman who wasn’t real emotional. I was a cop when we got married, she knew what she was getting into, and she isn’t the kind of woman who changes her mind much. I was the one who changed. That, and I’ve been told by more than one woman I have ‘intimacy problems,’ whatever that means.”
Bobby dropped the remains of his Jucy Lucy in the basket. With his mouth still full of greasy beef he sputtered, “Jeez. Intimacy problems. It’s all you hear from women. Do me a favor: you ever figure out what women mean when they hit you with this intimacy-problem crap, give me a call. Day or night.”
Bobby paused, then said, “I’ve meant to apologize to you about something … .”
“Apologize? To me?”
Bobby nodded. “When you called just before I left for England. To ask about my dad and Mary Pat …” Bobby traced his finger through beads of water on their table. “It was a hard time for me, and I’m afraid I responded—defensively.” He looked up at Mars. “You did check my dad out pretty thoroughly?”
Mars nodded. “Everybody in your family. You included. Actually, your mother was the only one without an alibi.”
“My dad. He checked out?”
Mars said, “Him we checked out backwards and forwards. Nettie went over your dad’s alibi personally. It was tight.”
“What’s tight?”
“Well, we had people who could place him at the hospital throughout the day—from six-thirty A.M. through just after eleven P.M. The two pieces of information that were really strong, in my book, were patient chart notations—nurses’ notes and your dad’s orders in a couple of patient charts—and a statement by a parking lot attendant. The attendant had come in at seven A.M. Apparently they’d been doing construction, repaving or something, on one end of the lot, so by eight A.M. things had gotten jammed up. The attendant double-parked some of the docs’ cars. Your dad’s car was parked in from around eight A.M. until nearly three P.M. The attendant had checked with your dad to make sure that was okay, and he’d said no problem. He expected to be at the hospital all day. So we know he was there until at least three. And, we have a statement from the third-shift guard that your dad left just after eleven P.M.”
There was no other way to say it. Bobby looked relieved. He looked Mars in the eyes for a brief moment, then looked at his watch. “One-thirty-five. Whaddya think?”
“I think Nettie would page me if Ann had come back. If she met Owen at noon—where did you say they were having lunch?”
“Not sure. Ann hadn’t heard from Owen before I left this morning.”
“Want to head back?”
“Might as well. Mind if I hang out with you down at city hall? I’d like to be there when Ann calls.”
“Not a problem. I’ll give you crayons and paper to keep you busy. I used to keep some in my desk for my kid, when
he was younger. They’re probably still there. You can draw pictures.”
Bobby snapped his fingers. “Damn. I keep forgetting. My mother asked me to pick up Mary Pat’s senior picture, the one you took the first day you came out to the house.”
“I’m sure Nettie is through with the photos by now. There were two pictures actually—the senior picture and a snapshot of Mary Pat with your Dad.”
They exchanged eye contact. Bobby said, “Mom only mentioned the senior picture, but I’ll take whatever you have.”
Mars nodded, feeling that Mother Fitz had at long last broken her silence on what had gone on between Mary Pat and Doc Fitzgerald. “Sure thing,” he said. “Just remind me when we get back downtown.” He stood up. “I’m gonna hit the john. Meet you at the car?”
Bobby shook his head. “No way I’m going out there by myself. I’m waiting here for you and your gun.”
Owen called Ann’s hotel just after 11:00 A.M. He suggested lunching at a restaurant on the other side of the river.
“I’m staying at the Hyatt on the downtown side of the river. Why don’t you walk to my hotel from the Marriott, and we’ll walk to the restaurant from there,” he suggested.
“Great idea,” Ann said. “I’ve got cabin fever after all this rain. Looks decent out now.”
The Nicollet Island Inn sat on a small island just up river from the falls. An old limestone building that had lived many lives prior to its current incarnation, the inn was overdecorated in a florid Victorian style. Ann and Owen arrived ahead of the lunch crowd and were rewarded with a choice table in a windowed area that looked out at the river.
Once seated, Ann said, “Has—has Neville said anything to you about me?”
Owen smiled an affectionate mocking smile. “Surely you know him better than that. I don’t expect to live long enough to hear your name on Neville’s lips. You’ve not told me how your farewell went.”
The waiter came to the table for their orders. “You’re ready, are you?” Owen asked.
“I’ll have the veal piccata—and—a green salad. A glass of the house white wine would be good.”
“That will do for me, as well,” Owen said. The two of them sat silent for a few moments after the waiter left. Ann didn’t want to start a discussion of Neville until after their food came, and an awkward pause fell.
Owen broke the silence. “So. You and Fitzgerald. I must confess, I thought you’d make a good pair when I invited him to Charhill.”
Ann smiled. “I don’t know that you’d say we’re exactly a pair … .” There was nowhere to go with this, other than to say that they were bound at this moment in time by murdered sisters.
Their wine came, and shortly after their food. Ann ate with relish, in part because she was nervous about the conversation they would be having. “How did you know about this place?” Ann asked. “It’s off the beaten path, I should think, for someone who doesn’t know the city well.”
“Neville and I probably know this part of the city—the riverfront—better than most of the residents. Cook Limited has considered property investments in the warehouses along the river.”
Ann felt her breath catch. She said in a controlled voice, “Neville was in Minneapolis in April, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. We came very close to doing a deal, ended up walking away. A Japanese firm came in after us. Will do badly on the deal, I should think. Another five years, and we should be able to pick up the same property later at half the price.”
Owen looked at her. “You still haven’t told me about the farewell.”
Ann was trembling so violently she thought it must be visible to Owen.
“Owen, there’s something I’ve been thinking about. Something—about Neville—that’s bothered me since I left Charhill. I hardly know how to ask, but for my peace of mind, I must.”
He was staring at her, but he didn’t speak.
“When I told Neville I was leaving Charhill, I saw a side of him I wouldn’t have believed existed. A capacity for emotion—rage. It terrified me. I was expecting him to resist what I was saying, but … he was violent. Physically violent. And I had the impression that it took every bit of self-control he had to keep that violence under control. As it was, he hit me so hard that I fell—but my impression then, and even now, remembering how he looked, was that the blow was only a bit of what he might do … .”
Owen said, “I won’t pretend to be surprised, Ann. But to tell you the truth, it’s more or less what I’d expect from him—given the right circumstances. And as I said at Charhill—losing control over you was something I thought he’d have a very hard time with indeed.”
“But it’s more than that, Owen. On the plane back … Bobby said he told you we came back on the same flight?”
“Yes. He said as much on the phone when he rang.”
“We talked then—and found out that both our sisters had been murdered. That’s a bit of a coincidence on its own, you’d have to admit. But there were other things, things that Bobby said about the circumstances of how his sister died …” She looked at Owen. “Owen, the things Bobby told me—I don’t believe they could be coincidence. As I thought about it—if it’s not coincidence, if in fact my sister and Bobby’s sister were
killed by the same person …” She paused, hoping Owen would state the obvious, but he only stared.
“Owen, you must know what I mean. I’m saying that Neville was the only person who knew both sisters, who would have had an opportunity to kill them both.”
Still he stared. Ann reached across the table, to touch his hand. “Owen, I need to know. And you can help me with that, if you will. You can help.”
“I can help?”
“I know it’s asking a lot, but I have to believe that, brother or not, you’d want the truth, too. The thing is, you’d know where Neville’s been. When he’s been there. Was he in Minneapolis in April? I thought he had been out of Boston when my sister was murdered—but for all I know, that could have been a lie. If I could just satisfy myself that there wasn’t any way he could have killed Holly and Mary Pat—if you could help me look at expense records that would show where he was when they died …”
“And Bobby. What does Bobby have to say about this?”
She drew breath and sounded convincing, even to herself. “Bobby knows nothing. I couldn’t bring myself to say out loud what I’ve been thinking—not without being sure … so I didn’t tell him anything about how my sister died.”
Abruptly, Owen stood. Digging in his inside jacket pocket, he pulled bills from a wallet stuffed with cash and dropped several bills on the table without looking at them.
“Ann, I don’t want to have this discussion here. Let’s walk, there are benches back by the bridge.”
They walked in silence on the cobblestones for what might have been three or floor blocks. Ann spoke first. “Can you understand why I’m asking? I know it’s not fair—that whatever your differences have been, Neville is your brother. But Owen, Holly was my sister. My only sister. If there’s even
a chance that Neville was involved in her death, I have to know. I’m sorry if this shocks you … .”
They approached an open park area, with a sheltered bandstand on the bluffs directly over the river. Owen led her to a bench. They sat close to each other in the center of the bench. Owen remained quiet before saying, “You haven’t shocked me.” He turned to look at her. “You haven’t said anything I haven’t thought myself.”
Owen’s words chilled Ann. Until that moment her fears and suspicions had been abstract. Now she felt real terror. In a voice hoarse with emotion, she said, “But, Owen, if you thought he might be involved, why didn’t you say something?”
Owen looked away. “I’d been out of town when your sister died. It had been my understanding that Neville would be in Boston while I was gone. When I came back and heard what had happened, the possibility that Neville was involved occurred to me almost immediately. It’s what I said to you in England: I can’t say why, but I’ve always felt Neville was capable of—well, evil is the only word for it. I agonized then over what I should do about my suspicions. But the police came to the office to talk to Neville—it wasn’t until then that I found out he’d been called to Dallas on a property agreement that was going sour. So I put aside my suspicions—chalked them up to paranoia, I suppose—and forgot about it. And I didn’t know about Bobby’s sister until just now. Bobby’s never said anything. Neville was in Minneapolis in April, Ann. And I agree with you, it’s too much of a coincidence to be ignored.”
Ann closed her eyes for a moment. Owen was as anxiety ridden over his suspicions as she was over hers. She drew a breath to gain courage. It was time to depart from the plan.
“I haven’t been altogether honest with you, Owen.” With Owen watching her closely, she said, “I haven’t been honest
about who I’ve shared my suspicions with. I didn’t want to feel that I was boxing you in a corner, I didn’t want to go ahead unless I was sure that what I was thinking might be possible … .”
“You and Bobby talked.”
Ann nodded. “Bobby feels at least as strongly as I do that Neville might be involved. But there’s more. The Minneapolis Police Department contacted Bobby when we got back from England. They’ve found a witness—a witness who identified a photo of Neville as being that of the man she saw with Bobby’s sister before she died.”
Ann could see that this information had struck Owen with the same force she had experienced when she realized Owen shared her suspicions. It was one thing to hold a half-formed suspicion that someone you knew might be capable of murder; it was quite another to be presented with facts that supported suspicion.
Owen said, “A picture? How did they get a picture of Neville?”
“They contacted Bobby with a drawing of the person the witness said she saw. We gave the police the film Bobby had shot at Charhill … .” Ann gave a bitter laugh. “You remember the famous picture, when Neville didn’t want to stand next to me, much less have his picture taken—anyway, that’s the picture the witness identified.”
Owen looked increasingly distressed. “That’s all they have, after all these months—a single witness who says he saw Neville with the Fitzgerald girl before she died? I’m not going to risk going forward against Neville if all they have is a single witness—and what do we know about the reliability of the witness? You know as well as I what Neville is like. If we pursue him with flimsy claims, he’ll destroy our charges. More to the point, he’ll destroy me. He could use this as an excuse for excluding me as a trust beneficiary.”
“The witness is a woman. And Detective Bahr—the lead investigator on the case—says she’s impressive. He’s very, very confident about her.” Ann paused. She felt she needed to be completely forthcoming with Owen. “From what Bahr said, she got into drugs through an abusive relationship. But I read her witness statement, Owen. Evelyn Rau is smart—you can tell just reading what she’s written.” She gave Owen a little poke. “She’s even an academic, a graduate student in English at the university. What more can you ask?”
Owen said, “But it’s not enough—”
A little impatiently, Ann said, “That’s the point, Owen. That’s why we need your help. There isn’t enough evidence to get a search warrant on Neville’s financial records—but that’s something you could find for us. With those records we can pin down Neville’s whereabouts on the day Bobby’s sister died—we may even find something about Neville’s alibi for my sister’s murder that Boston missed. Neville wouldn’t need to know—unless you find incriminating evidence.”
Owen sat stock-still. Something else was bothering him.
Ann pressed. “What is it, Owen?”
He leaned back heavily against the bench, putting his hand up over his face. His words were muffled. “There’s something I haven’t told you … .”
“What? I can’t understand what you’re saying.”
His hand dropped. His revealed face looked worn. “There’s something else. I don’t know what it means, but my gut tells me it’s important to all of this.”
“Tell me, Owen.”
“When we moved into our offices in Boston, there was a wall safe in Neville’s office. I came back from an extended trip late one Friday. Neville was still in the office, and as I had a good bit of cash with me, as well as some important executed documents, I suggested to Neville that I put my cash and documents in the wall safe until Monday. He said he’d
never opened the safe, didn’t have the combination. I didn’t think anything of it, at the time.”
Ann prompted him, “But?”
“But—and this is what I’m just remembering—the day Neville came back from Minneapolis, last April, I walked into his office to ask him how things had gone. He was standing at the wall safe, and it was open. I probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but he was so startled—and you know Neville—even if something did surprise him, he never showed it—it registered with me. He did have a combination to the safe, and he was using the safe. It particularly troubled me as Neville and I had had a very bitter disagreement over the annual bonus distribution the previous month. I felt that Neville had jiggled the numbers a bit to deny me my fair share. I suppose when I saw the open wall safe, I thought Neville might be keeping altered records in the safe … .”
Owen sighed and sat forward before going on. “In any event. It troubled me. So the next time Neville was out of town, I looked about for a combination to the safe. I found it in Neville’s desk … .”
Ann’s skin tingled at the prospect of what was to come, but nothing could have prepared her for what he said.
“When I first opened the safe, I thought it was empty. I put my hand in on the floor of the safe and felt about—and I found two small envelopes—glassine envelopes, we’d call them in England. You know, the kind of semiopaque envelopes your post office puts stamps in.”
“Yes?”
“The thing is, all that was in the envelopes was—” He turned to her, and in almost a whisper, said, “Pubic hair.”
“Pubic hair?” Ann’s first reaction was incomprehension. Then a rush of understanding overtook her consciousness. In a safe in his office, a man she had lived with, a man she had slept with—had a small envelope that contained pubic hair
from her dead sister. Ann gagged, then stood and moved away from the bench.
In a moment, Owen came up behind her, placing a hand softly on her shoulder. “We’re both thinking the same thing, aren’t we?”
Together they walked slowly over the Stone Arch Bridge, back toward downtown. Owen asked Ann to give him twenty-four hours to think through what to do next, how he should be involved.
“I promise. I will help—it’s only a question of how best to do it. I want to think over everything we’ve talked about, try to remember things that may be useful … .”
“I want you to meet Mars Bahr. He’s been great, Owen, and he’s not going to force you to do anything you’re not comfortable with—but he’s really good at thinking through how to get information, what’s important.”
Owen shook his head vigorously. “The one thing I’m sure of just now is that my meeting with the police would make me feel like Judas Iscariot. For now, I’ll cooperate, but I want to cooperate through you. Perhaps if I talk with Bahr by phone on occasion, I may develop the trust I need—but we needn’t make that decision now. You’ll be at your hotel tomorrow afternoon?”
“If that’s where it’s easiest for you to reach me …”
“I’ll call you there.”
Mars was the first to see Ann enter the squad room. He was startled by her appearance. Her usual paleness was gone; her face glowed with color. She must have walked at a fast pace back from lunch.
“Here she is,” he said, standing in anticipation.
Bobby stood too. “So? My God, you look like you’ve been launched by a rocket—what is it?”
Ann gasped, pulled up a chair, and sat down hard. “I feel like I’ve been launched by a rocket. Let me catch my breath, I’ve been running … .”
“Ann! C’mon! What is it?” Bobby looked like he was about to shake Ann’s news out of her.
She drew deep breaths. “I need to think where to start.”
Bobby said, “Just tell us. Is he willing to consider that Neville may have been involved—is he willing to help?”
Ann’s eyes moved from Bobby to Mars to Nettie. She didn’t speak, but, grinning, nodded her head yes.
It was more than they had expected—that Owen not only was willing to cooperate but that he shared their suspicions about Neville. The bizarre information Ann brought about pubic hair in a wall safe was confounding to everyone except Mars. To Nettie, he said, “Don’t you remember? From Doc D’s exam?” Mars pulled out the final medical examination report. Flipping through the pages, he found what he wanted. He read it outloud: “‘Exam of pubic area shows no evidence of’—blah, blah, blah, blah—here it is. ‘There is superficial trauma to the pubic epidermis, including evidence of pinpoint bleeding, consistent with strands of pubic hair being removed at a vertical angle … .”
Nettie was on her feet before Mars could ask. She returned with the Amundsen case file the Boston police had sent. She flipped through the pages, pulling out the medical examiner’s report. She skimmed the pages, her index finger tracing the words. On the last page, she looked up. “Nothing,” she said.
Mars said, “That doesn’t bother me. I looked at the body before Doc D did Mary Pat’s exam—and I didn’t notice anything. Doc D picked it up when he ran a magnifying glass over the pubic area—and even when he saw it, he didn’t think it meant anything. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he hadn’t included it in his report.”
Bobby Fitzgerald was pacing a tight path. He turned to Mars. “What next? Shouldn’t Cook be put under arrest or something?”
“The first order of business,” Mars said, “is to put hands on the two envelopes in Cook’s wall safe. That’s the missing physical-evidence link between our perp and the murder. Tie that to Neville Cook, who’s been ID’d by our witness, and we are, as our prosecuting county attorney would say, cooking with gas.”
Nettie said, “Doesn’t the pubic hair also get us closer to motivation? If Cook is keeping pubic hair from the victim, doesn’t that confirm deviant sexual behavior?”
Mars hesitated. “Yeah, sure. It does.” Almost to convince himself, he added, “Deviant sexual behavior or not, keeping some object from the victim suggests we’re dealing with a repetitive killer—a nut case, which is just about the only motivation I can come up with for Cook.”
Bobby asked, “What about Neville wanting to make Ann more dependent on him by killing Holly?”
Mars nodded slowly. “If we were dealing with one murder, that might work—but it’s a stretch. Then, you add Mary Pat’s murder—it doesn’t hold up.”
“What if Neville began by killing Holly to get to me—and was excited by the experience, wanted to do it again?” Ann asked.
Mars shrugged. “Possible, I suppose—but almost impossible to take something like that into court. We’re better off going full bore that he killed the women for psychological gratification. Look, we’re wasting time. I don’t want those envelopes in the safe in Boston to take a walk. Nettie—I need you to get hold of Glenn. At this point, even Glenn is going to agree we’ve got probable cause for Boston PD to execute a search warrant on Cook’s office. If they find the envelopes
in the wall safe, and can pull Cook’s prints on the envelopes, I want them to take him into custody—”
Nettie frowned. “Are we going to run into some jurisdictional conflicts here? Once they have the envelopes, won’t Boston want to hold Cook on the Amundsen case? At least until they double-check his alibi?”
“Probably,” Mars said. “But Glenn can worry about that later. Right now I want to get those envelopes and keep Cook from getting on a flight back to England.” Turning to Ann, Mars said, “I want to talk to Owen. We need to start pinning down in detail exactly what he knows and what he can do to help us—”
Ann shook her head. “He asked for time to think through what he should do next. He said he’d call me at my hotel tomorrow afternoon.”
Louder than he meant to, Mars said, “No! Time counts on a deal like this. If he doesn’t want to talk, I can have him brought in to talk. He wants to get a lawyer and stonewall us, that’s another issue.”
Ann was upset. “Please, Mars. I promised him we’d respect how he wanted to do this. Put yourself in his place. This is his brother. He’s just found out that his brother is most likely a murderer—and that he’s an important part of proving that. He said he feels like a traitor—at this point, he doesn’t want to deal directly with the police at all. But I really think if we give him time—only till tomorrow afternoon—he’s going to be okay. He was starting to soften on that as we talked. But I think if we pressure him now, he’s going to back away.”
“All right. He’s got until tomorrow afternoon. It will take us that long to pin things down in Boston. But at that point, I’m not going to dance around with Owen Cook. He’s got to either tell us he’s not going to cooperate—in which case he risks becoming an after-the-fact accessory to the murders—or he’s got
to come forward.” Mars paused, nodding to Ann and Bobby. “For now, the two of you can head back to your hotel and get some rest. Just let us know if you’re leaving there at any time. Nettie and I need to get cracking on the Boston end.”
Boston called back shortly after 1:00 P.M. the following day. Bobby Fitzgerald, who was too restless to hang out at the hotel, had come down to city hall. Mars, Nettie, Bobby, and Glenn took the call on a speaker phone. It was mostly good news. They had executed the warrant at 9:00 A.M. that morning. Neville Cook had been in the office and had denied having a combination to the wall safe. Boston police removed the lock from the safe and found the two envelopes from the safe. Cook professed having no general knowledge of the safe’s contents nor any specific knowledge regarding the two envelopes or the envelope’s contents. Cook had volunteered to provide the police with his fingerprints, and Boston police had confirmed just prior to calling Minneapolis that Cook’s prints were on the envelopes.
“Couldn’t have been better,” the Boston investigator said. “Clean as a whistle, except for Cook’s prints. The other good thing—some of the pubic hairs in each of the envelopes have roots. We’re going to be able to do DNA tests to confirm the hair is from our victims.”
“Outstanding,” Mars said. “We appreciate how fast you moved on this. You’ve taken Cook into custody?”
“Absolutely. He’s waiting on his lawyer as we speak. Denying everything. Mad as hell.”
Mars said, “I asked yesterday if the person who conducted the medical examination on Holly Amundsen could be contacted regarding any evidence found suggesting that pubic hair had been removed from her body.”
Another voice came through the speaker. “That would be me. Dr. Elton Mischke. I’m sorry, there wasn’t anything. But
remember, the Amundsen girl’s body was badly decayed when it was recovered. The type of epidermal trauma you described on the Fitzgerald girl would have been obliterated.”
“Oh, right,” Mars said. “Hadn’t thought about that. And it’s not as important, anyway, given that we’re probably going to have DNA evidence to prove the hair was taken from the victims. Look, we’re going to initiate the extradition process to bring Cook to Minneapolis.”
There was some mumbling on the line, and the investigator’s voice came back on the line. “Uhhh—what I’m hearing from our legal people is that we’re going to have a continuing interest in this case and may want to hang on to Cook here in Boston.”
Mars made a face, and said, “Can’t say that surprises me. Nonetheless, we’re going to go ahead on our end. Do me a favor, will you? Two favors, actually. Let me know as soon as you get the DNA results—and once we’ve identified the Fitzgerald hair, I’d appreciate getting that transferred back to us. Then, stand on your heads to keep Cook from going out on bail, will you? And if he is granted bail, let us know immediately, okay?”
“No problemo,” Boston said. “The Amundsen murder got a lot of press here. I don’t think we’re gonna have any trouble denying Cook bail.”
After the call ended, Mars looked at Glenn. “So, Counselor. Are we cooking with gas yet?”
“High octane,” Glenn said. “I’m going back to get started on the extradition shit. Don’t mind telling you it’s going to be tough. Boston’s got the first murder in time and Cook’s U.S. residence is in Boston.”
“I’m going to let you worry about that. Right now I’ve got other stuff to do.”
After Glenn left, Bobby said, “What do we do next?”
Nettie was looking at Mars. “You look like something’s bothering you.”
Mars rocked back on his chair, running his fingers through his hair. “There is something. I just can’t put my finger on it. If it’s important, it’ll come. As for what’s next, I’m going to return some long-overdue phone messages, including one that I made to U.S. Customs more than a week ago. Thought they might be able to give us something on when Cook was and wasn’t in the U.S.”
Bobby snapped his fingers. “Damn, I forget yesterday. Can I get those photos back? At least my sister’s senior picture? I promised my mother—”
“Sure thing,” Nettie said. “I’ve got all the pics we finished with in a photo file. Hang on a sec.” She walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a file. She brought the file back to Bobby. “Everything’s in here, including the pictures you took in England. Only thing is …” She opened the file, looked through the pictures, and pulled out a strip of negatives. Holding it up to the light, she said, “This is it. I want to keep the negative of the picture of the three of you with the photo of Neville we cropped and blew up for the evidence file. If I’d been here when the picture was developed, these negs wouldn’t have ended up in the photo file.” She dropped the file on the table in front of Bobby. “Take whatever you want.”
Bobby started sifting through the file. “I never did see the other pictures I took in England … .”
Mars was on hold with Customs, one foot propped on his desk, when he noticed Bobby staring at one of the photos from the file. Still holding the photo, Bobby walked over to Mars.
Mars tucked the phone aside and said, “I’m on hold with Customs. What?”
Bobby dropped the photo he’d taken of Ann, Neville, and Owen on Mars’s desk. “What do the red marks on the picture mean?” he asked.
“Grease-stick marks. It’s like a red crayon. We use it to indicate how we want to crop a photo we’re having printed. After the picture’s been printed, you can wipe the grease-stick marks off with a tissue. No problem. Here …”
Thinking that Bobby was concerned about the photo being defaced, he opened a desk drawer to pull out a tissue. But Bobby, increasingly agitated, said, “No. That’s not the problem. What I’m asking is—do the marks mean that’s the person whose picture was used in the photo lineup?”
“Sure,” Mars said. “Isn’t that the picture you left with Nettie after you ID’d Neville?”
“Yeah,” Bobby said, “the picture’s right. But the grease-stick marks are around Owen, not Neville. I told the girl—it wasn’t Nettie—I can’t remember her name, but it wasn’t Nettie—I pointed to Neville. She said something about the guy being good-looking and asked if the girl as the girlfriend, and I said yes … that was it.”
Bile was rising in the back of Mars’s throat. “Tina.” He said. “Nettie was on vacation. You left the photo with Tina.” Mars dropped the phone back on the cradle. He sat down at his desk and looked hard at the picture. Tina wouldn’t have remembered for a nanosecond which of the two men Bobby had pointed to. And if you looked at that picture and asked yourself—which of the two guys is the boyfriend—you’d guess Owen. Owen and Ann were standing close together. Owen even had his arm draped loosely on Ann’s shoulder. Neville was standing to the side, looking unconnected with the other two.
Mars closed his eyes to forestall panic.
Bobby said, “They must have used both pictures in the
lineup. I mean, there isn’t any question that the witness identified Neville, is there? I thought you said she didn’t hesitate … .”
“I said the witness didn’t hesitate on the identification. But whether it was Neville or Owen—that wasn’t the question. I put the photo lineup together. I don’t remember—” Mars thought about the one picture that had been so close.
To Nettie he said, “Is it possible Tina had pictures printed of both brothers—and both photos were in the lineup?” Mars thought back to the one photo in the lineup that had looked so much like Neville/Owen that Mars had trouble telling them apart.
Nettie pulled the photos that were used in the lineup. The picture of Owen was plastic wrapped and already notated for evidence as the photo that had been identified by the witness as the individual seen with Mary Pat Fitzgerald on April third. Mars’s palms were wet as he went through the rest of the pictures at a clip. The best he could hope for now was that Evelyn Rau had ID’d the wrong brother. But none of the other pictures matched the picture of Neville.
Mars looked up and spoke slowly and clearly. “We need to think about this very carefully. Is there anything we’ve been saying about Neville that wouldn’t also apply to Owen?”
Bobby dropped to a chair. “My God. What Ann and I focused on was that Neville was the only person to know both sisters. But that wasn’t true. Owen had met both Mary Pat and Holly. Only briefly—but not any less contact than Neville had with the girls … .”
Mars said, “I just figured out what was bothering me after the call with Boston. Boston said the envelopes were clean—only had Neville’s prints. Owen would have had to have handled the envelopes when he found them in the safe. Where were his prints?”
“Meaning?” Bobby said.
“Meaning,” Mars said, “that somehow Owen got Neville’s prints on the envelopes with the intention that they have only Neville’s prints. Meaning Rau didn’t make a mistake. She didn’t identify the wrong brother.”
Mars sent a squad to pick up Ann at her hotel. She was confused when she arrived. “What’s going on? I’m going to miss Owen’s call—” She looked at Mars, Nettie, and Bobby. “What is it?”
Mars sat her down and told her what they’d discovered. “The more I think about it,” he said, “the more sense it makes. My first—and lasting—impression of the crime scene was that it was staged. Someone was trying to make it look like something it wasn’t. It makes perfect sense that if Owen committed the murders to implicate Neville, he was trying to make it look like a sex crime.”
Nettie said, “Where does the blood alcohol level fit in?”
“My guess? Owen used alcohol to maintain control over the women—and to suggest to investigators how the women could have gotten themselves in a vulnerable position. He didn’t know either girl well enough to know that heavy drinking wasn’t something they’d do.”
“And motive,” Nettie said. “Does this mean Owen is the nut?”
Ann spoke before Mars could. Her voice was small and tired. The increasing evidence that Owen was the murderer was even more painful to her than if it had been Neville. “Owen’s all but told me what the motive was. I just wasn’t thinking. The only way he could get what he wanted from the estate was if Neville was out of the picture. He even mentioned a provision in his father’s will where a trust beneficiary could be excluded if there were issues of ‘moral turpitude’—he made a joke about Neville shitting at Buckingham Palace. He’d thought it through. He knew what
to do to get Neville excluded as a trust beneficiary.” Ann made a cynical grimace. “Not, I guess, that any of this eliminates the fact that Owen is a nut. Someone who would kill two women for money could hardly be called sane.”
Bobby said, “What about that—killing two women? Why not just kill Ann’s sister, and leave it at that? Why risk another murder?”
Mars nodded. “We know the answer to that, as well. I think Neville’s alibi is solid. He left Boston unexpectedly, and I don’t think Owen knew Neville had left town until after the murder. He’d expected the police to discover the evidence in the safe during the investigation of Holly’s death. But police don’t keep looking at a suspect if an alibi is solid—unless other compelling evidence is available. So Owen needed to kill again. He probably thought he was strengthening the case against Neville with the second murder.”
Mars walked around the room, thinking about the next step, trying to decide if it made more sense to arrest Owen immediately, or to try questioning him further before Owen realized he, not Neville, was the suspect. To Ann he said, “Something else. You said Owen didn’t want to meet with the police—that could very well be because he was afraid we might recognize him, or that our witness would see him.”
“Now that I think about it,” Ann said, “he asked a lot of questions about what you did know. I read that as Owen wanting to be sure he wasn’t implicating Neville unfairly. But as I think about it; I can see where he was really pushing for information—he even wanted details about the witness, how reliable she was. I told him she might be the only solid evidence you had at this point, but that she was a graduate student in English at the U. I thought that would impress him.”
A chill slid across Mars’s back. He said, “Did he ask the witness’s name?”
Ann thought for a moment. As she thought, she realized
why Mars had asked the question. For the second time, the heat of emotion broke her pale color. She looked up at Mars. “He didn’t ask. I said her name. I’d just read her statement, and I remembered the name. I said the name.”
To himself as much as to anyone else, Mars said, “We need to get hold of Rau right away. Then we need to pick up Owen Cook.”