Just So You Know

Not all homicides are solved. Hell, not all homicides are even investigated. Cops look at a murder and determine what the chances are of clearing that specific crime versus all the other crimes they have on their desks, then allocate their limited resources accordingly. Case in point—the Joes. They were found dead in the trunk of a smoldering Buick in a vacant lot on the North Side of Minneapolis. The only way the cops were able to identify their badly burned bodies was by tracing the ownership of the car. It was believed that a pyromaniac known as Bug, who held a grudge against the Joes, might have had something to do with it. Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack two weeks after he was incarcerated at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Stillwater, and the Minneapolis cops didn’t have a chance to interview him, so they lost interest. Eventually a forensic pathologist at the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension managed to connect the murders of two young men outside a coffeehouse in Edina to two suits who were found dead at a motel in Hastings, using ballistic evidence taken from guns and bullets found at the scenes. He then matched the bullets found inside the suits to a gun found inside the burned Buick. That allowed all the law enforcement personnel involved to close their various investigations—such as they were—with a clear conscience.

This information was relayed to me while I was having drinks with Officers Dailey and Moulton. None of us laughed over it or chuckled or even smiled. We didn’t make a toast to justice. We didn’t talk about the ends justifying the means. Come to think of it, we didn’t talk much at all.

A few days later, Bobby and I were sitting on the brick patio that we built together in his backyard a few years ago, having one last beer before Bobby stored his furniture in the garage for the winter. The myveryfirsttime.com case was still in the news. That was pretty much how the news media referred to it, by the Web address. As far as they were concerned, the fact that the case so closely utilized the Internet was what made it news; otherwise it would be just johns and whores, and we’ve all heard that before.

“I tried to do the right thing,” I said. “I really did.”

“Stop beating yourself up,” Bobby said. “You did fine.”

“Prosecution has been a mess.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Better a messy prosecution than no prosecution at all. All that Internet exposure didn’t help. On the other hand, it made sure that a lot of johns are being held accountable that probably would have skated otherwise. I know some divorce lawyers that are very happy.”

“All they got was fines and probation.”

“You didn’t think anyone was really going to jail, did you?”

“Roberta did.”

“A three-year jolt in Shakopee; she’ll be out in eighteen months with a nice payday. She was a good little soldier. Kept her mouth shut, refused to name names even when the names and pictures were set in front of her. You know the big boys will take care of her. My favorite was Caitlin Brooks. I like how she gave the media a lecture on the courthouse steps about the place of call girls in history.”

“She got nine months.”

“That’s only because the judge ruled she demonstrated a clear lack of remorse for her crimes. I wish we could have found Vicki Walsh. I would have loved to hear what she had to say. I wonder where she is.”

“God knows,” I said.

The cops found my rented Altima in the parking lot of the American Bank on the corner of Snelling and University in St. Paul five days after Vicki stole it. She could have taken the bus from there to Cleveland Avenue and jumped on the Amtrak. I shared that possibility with Bobby. There were a few others that I kept to myself. I didn’t want Vicki found.

Bobby pushed his chair back and put his feet on the patio table.

“It’s funny,” he said before taking a long sip of beer.

“What’s funny?” I asked.

“How in all the photos and videos on her cell phone Vicki’s face was out of focus or turned away from the camera or in shadow or just plain pixelated.”

“You’ll notice Vicki had different hair colors and styles, too,” I said. “She was trying disguises on for size.”

“Interesting girl.”

“She was that.”

“Too bad about Jason Truhler, though.”

“Yeah, too bad.”

There were many more prominent names revealed during the prosecution of the case than Jason Truhler’s, yet he seemed to get most of the attention. That’s because while we might all snicker at the johns, drug dealers are no laughing matter, and that’s how Truhler was portrayed, as a major drug dealer. It wasn’t entirely true, of course, and for a long time I thought hanging Truhler out to dry was Muehlenhaus’s way of getting back at me. If it was, though, it worked against him—or, I should say, it worked against Muehlenhaus’s many acquaintances, because unlike Roberta, Truhler had no intention of taking one for the team. He was happy to name names, thrilled even. He cut a deal with the prosecutor, giving up every single one of his friends and customers in exchange for a token sentence at the Level 1 minimum-security prison in Lino Lakes, about a half-hour drive north of the Cities.

Erica was desperate to help her father, of course. She kept asking me if there was anything I could do. I kept telling her it was out of my hands, at the same time I was terrified that she would somehow learn that I had the chance to cover up her father’s many sins and chose not to.

“He’ll need a lawyer,” she said. “I have money saved.”

“That’s for college,” Nina said.

Erica didn’t care. She offered the money to her father, and he took it, even though his case never actually came to trial. As a condition of his plea agreement, Truhler was forced to allocute fully in open court. Erica sat in the back row and listened intently to every word while her father explained his involvement with drugs and prostitution. She did not react to what she heard, at least not physically. Emotionally—she never spoke of it, not to her mother and not to me except to ask once, “What happens to people?”

“They change,” I said. “Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

After Truhler was sentenced, he asked Erica to visit. She said she would, but it would be difficult since she was going to Tulane University in New Orleans in the fall. All nine colleges that she applied to had accepted Erica. I’m sure it was just a coincidence that Tulane was the one farthest away from Lino Lakes.

I finished my Summit Ale and set the empty bottle on the patio table.

“It just wasn’t worth it,” I said. “Erica asked me to do a favor for her father, and I agreed because I wanted to help her, but what help did I give? It all turned out to be just one monstrous SNAFU.”

“A what?” Bobby asked.

“Never mind.”