They walked into the chapel, Dunn leading the way. Bernadette removed her knit cap and, as she stepped into the aisle, a shiver ran down her back. It was hard to tell if the chill in the Winterstone was real—or if it was a product of the cold March day and the open chapel door.
Vivian Roundhouse knelt beside a wooden table in the apse, taking tall red candles off the table and placing them in a long, squat box on the floor.
“Good afternoon, Reverend Roundhouse,” Bernadette said.
Roundhouse glanced up but continued with her work. “You were at my house yesterday. You’re the federal agent.”
“Investigator,” Bernadette corrected. Oof, she sounded so pedantic. “This is Detective Kerrigan Dunn from the Milwaukee Police Department.”
“I hope these candles aren’t a problem for you,” the reverend said. “I’d hate for there to be some controlled substance in the wax.”
“We have a few more questions.”
Roundhouse cackled. “I didn’t think you came here to get on the guest list for Tommy’s anchor ceremony.”
Bernadette cocked her head. “Anchor ceremony?”
“His memorial service,” Dunn said to Bernadette.
“I am not she that list my anchor to let fall,” Roundhouse recited. “Anne Askew believed her journey through this life was as a ship crossing the sea. Our Tommy has crossed.”
“When is the ceremony?” Bernadette said.
“Friday evening.”
“Is it all right if we pay our respects?”
Roundhouse looked into Bernadette’s eyes. “Are you serious?”
“If it’s not appropriate—”
“No, it’s fine,” Roundhouse said. “We’d be happy to have you.”
Roundhouse set down the two candles in her hand, grabbed the edge of the table, and pulled herself to her feet. “But that’s not why you’re here.”
“No.” Bernadette cleared her throat. “Were you looking for Tommy on Monday night?”
Roundhouse knit her eyebrows. “Monday night? No.”
“You didn’t visit Tommy’s girlfriend looking for him?”
“Of course not. Why would I have done that?”
“We have a witness who puts you at Annika Nakrivo’s door shortly before the murder.”
Roundhouse shook her head firmly. “I was nowhere near the campus that evening. You heard Suzanne—I was with her all evening.”
“Yes,” Bernadette said, “and since I received conflicting information, I’m trying to clarify where you were. You didn’t go to campus first and then come back to your house?”
“No. I worked on my sermon in my study all afternoon. Suzanne arrived about six o’clock.”
“Where’s your study?”
“It’s one of the spare bedrooms in my house.”
“So you didn’t leave the house after midday?” Dunn asked.
“No.” Roundhouse glared at the two of them. “Is that all?”
“One more thing,” Bernadette said. “Does Agios Delphi own a light blue van?”
Roundhouse pursed her lips. “May I ask what this is about?”
“Can you answer the question, Reverend?” Dunn said, a touch of menace in her voice.
Roundhouse paused. “The church does have a van, yes.”
“Where is it now?”
“One of our members has offered to garage it for us.”
“Garage it for you?”
“That’s right. You may have noticed that there’s no room for our church materials at the Anne Askew Chapel,” Roundhouse said. “Many of the items we need for our services can go in boxes in my trunk, but the van—when we need it—can’t be kept here.”
“Who’s storing the van?”
“I told you—a member of the church.”
“Which member?”
Roundhouse looked from Bernadette's face to Dunn’s and crossed her arms. “I don't believe I’m obligated to provide that information to you.”
“Listen, rev—” Dunn began.
Bernadette interrupted. “That van was involved in a shooting earlier today, Reverend.”
A pause. Roundhouse blinked rapidly. “Is—is Suzanne okay?”
“Suzanne?” Bernadette said. “That’s Suzanne Thao, who I met at your house yesterday?”
“Is she okay?”
“No one in the van was shot, Reverend,” Bernadette said. “We believe someone shot a gun from the van and injured a co-worker of Kymer Thompson.”
The Agios Delphi priest reached for the edge of the table and leaned against it. “But Suzanne’s okay?”
“We don’t know who was there,” Dunn said. “I didn’t get a good look at the driver. You’re saying that Suzanne Thao stores the van at her residence?”
Roundhouse shook her head. “Not at her residence. She owns a commercial property in Walker’s Point. We keep the van there.”
“Does she rent out the property?” Dunn asked.
“Not yet. She bought it cheap after Superior Salt & Feed went out of business. But it’s been sitting empty for a while. She plans on renovating the property before she offers it for lease again.”
“And she lets the church keep its van there?”
“Yes, and we’ve put some items in storage in the warehouse. She’s working on retrofitting part of the building for a conference room so our elder board can meet.”
“Do you know where Ms. Thao is?”
Roundhouse scowled. “No.”
Bernadette stepped forward. “Your church is listed as the registered owner of that van, Reverend, so we have to ask. Where were you at ten thirty this morning?”
“On my way to the chapel.”
“Were you in the van?”
“We keep the van at the warehouse. I was in my own car.”
Bernadette turned to Dunn. “All right,” Bernadette said, “let me confer with my colleague.”
“Ask anyone,” Roundhouse said. “I got here at ten forty-five. Walked straight in.”
Bernadette nodded and she and Dunn walked together into a corner, behind the pews. “What do you think?”
“The apartments are only a few blocks away,” Dunn said. “She could have shot him and gotten dropped off here. An accomplice could be getting rid of the van right now.”
“Maybe we need to go to the salt warehouse. See if the van’s there.”
Dunn shook her head. “I don’t think it is. The way the shooter’s probably thinking, we could have officers there before the van could get back.”
“You think if the shooter is Vivian Roundhouse and the driver is Suzanne Thao, they’re actually taking all of that into account? Maybe they didn’t think anyone would see them, and that Suzanne would get back to the warehouse without any problems.”
Dunn shook her head again, more adamantly this time. “No. I don’t buy it.”
“But it’s enough for a search warrant for her property, isn’t it?”
“Roundhouse’s property? No. It’s probably enough for the warehouse, but not where Roundhouse lives.” Dunn flexed the fingers of her right hand. “You have anything else you want to ask her?”
“Not right now.” Bernadette frowned. “But if it’s not Roundhouse or Thao, why use this van?”
“Could be someone else at the church.” Dunn squinted. “Maybe someone’s trying to put the blame on the church. Or one of the members.”
“Roundhouse has to be our prime suspect. She doesn’t have a good alibi. She’s the head of the nonprofit that owns the van.”
“It’s all circumstantial. Besides, you saw her react when she heard there was a shooting involving the van. She wanted to know if Thao was okay.”
“Right,” Bernadette said, “but even so, given the evidence, and having Eddie Taysatch in the hospital, with his life still in danger, we can’t let her go.”
“If we bring her in, the clock starts ticking on when we can formally charge her,” Dunn said. “I’m not confident we can build a case against her in forty-eight hours.”
Bernadette was silent.
“We could get a couple of uniforms to watch her after we check out the salt factory,” Dunn said. “Can’t be a big priority—we’re already getting slammed by the chief for all the overtime this month—but it’s better than nothing.”
“We can’t let Roundhouse leave, though, can we?” Bernadette asked. “I mean, she might have shot Eddie this morning.”
Dunn shook her head. “If we can’t place her with her van, we can’t place her at the scene of the shooting.”
“I don’t like it.”
Dunn clenched her jaw. “Unless you want to get her on some fake federal domestic terrorism charge, we can’t bring her in. We could ask her to come down to the station with us, but what exactly would we ask her there that we didn’t ask her here?”
Bernadette stared out the passenger window of Dunn’s cruiser on the drive back to the District 5 station. The snow had lightened into occasional flurries.
She couldn’t get Eddie’s pleading eyes out of her mind, the incredulity that he’d been shot. She closed her eyes for a moment. Eddie would be all right, wouldn’t he?
She figured, when she’d gotten demoted to case analyst, that her days of excitement in the field were over. Then a flash of Sophie’s face—only a what if—but she saw Sophie’s face crumple when in her mind she was told that her mother had been shot in the head and wasn’t coming back to Virginia.
Bernadette’s phone rang, and her head snapped up as her eyes popped open. She hit Answer and put the speakerphone on.
“Becker.”
“Hi, Bernadette. It’s Maura.”
“Oh, hi, Maura. You’re on speaker—I’ve got Detective Dunn here with me. Any word from Dr. Woodhead?”
“Not since he said he’d meet up with you and Dunn later.” Maura paused. “How are you two doing?”
“We believe the shot came from the Agios Delphi van. But we’re not able to connect Vivian Roundhouse to the vehicle. It wasn’t stored near Roundhouse’s residence or the Anne Askew Chapel.”
“I asked some of my officers to go to the warehouse where the van was stored,” Dunn piped up. “It’s the old Superior Salt & Feed in Walker’s Point. Out of business for a few years. Roundhouse’s girlfriend keeps it there.”
Maura was silent.
Bernadette glanced at Dunn, but her eyes were on the road. “What is it, Maura?”
“Didn’t Annika Nakrivo say that Vivian Roundhouse had visited her on Monday night?” Maura responded. “The night of the murder?”
“That’s right.”
“Roundhouse drives a Mercedes.”
“Right,” Dunn said. “Neighbor across the street took her dog outside about nine forty-five. Swore the Mercedes was in the driveway.” A note of uncertainty hung in her voice.
“What is it?” Maura asked.
“Probably nothing—but most of the people in that neighborhood are well off.”
“So?”
“It’s winter. If they can, they put their vehicles in their garages.”
“There are many good reasons not to have a car in a garage,” Bernadette said. “Even in winter. Even if you’re rich. And you don’t have to be a murderer for any of them.”
“No,” Dunn said carefully, “but you’ve met women like Vivian Roundhouse before. You saw how meticulous her house is. She’s a control freak.”
“Maybe the garage is where she lets it all hang out,” Bernadette said, a smile touching the corner of her mouth. “Maybe it’s crammed to the brim with old magazines and broken file cabinets and trash she refuses to throw away.”
“Or maybe,” Dunn said, “she parked it outside in the driveway specifically so people passing would think she was home.”
“Hang on,” Bernadette said. “Didn’t she say she was over at Suzanne’s?”
“No. Suzanne was at her house. Not the other way around.”
“She still could have been at Annika Nakrivo’s dorm,” Maura said. “She could have gone in Suzanne’s car. Or in the van, for that matter. Maybe she parked it near campus Monday night. Then she took it to shoot Eddie Taysatch this morning.”
“It’s all speculation,” Bernadette said. “No real motive, no sign that she was at any of those places.”
“I’m telling you this so you don’t rule her out,” Maura said.
Dunn snickered. “Oh, there’s no chance of that.” Her phone rang and she answered it, holding it to her ear with one hand as she drove with the other. “Dunn.” A pause. “Okay. Let’s keep the APB. Widen the search area to neighboring counties.” She pulled the phone away from her face. “Officers arrived at the old salt warehouse. Gate’s open. No sign of the van.”
“Any cameras in the area?” Maura said.
“We’re checking, but the warehouse didn’t have cameras, and there aren’t any businesses near that area—not near enough to get a good look at the property.”
“Still, maybe we can see the van drive by at some point.”
“It’s a long shot,” Bernadette said.
“Better than the shot we have now,” Maura said. “Where are you heading?”
“Back to District 5,” Dunn said.
“Did you get a statement from Douglas Rheinstaller?”
Dunn hesitated.
“Oh,” Bernadette said. “The guy who punched Eddie Taysatch a couple of days ago.”
“I know.” Dunn glanced at Bernadette. “Send his address.”
“He lives in Bay View,” Maura said. “I’m texting the address to Bernadette. Bring him in to the district office. If he won’t come voluntarily, arrest him on suspicion of assault. It’ll give us some leverage.”
“We’re heading through Bay View right now.” Dunn cleared her throat. “I did some background on Rheinstaller yesterday. This guy’s been a commercial fisherman twenty or thirty years. Do you think holding him on suspicion of assault will make him talk? He’s used to being on a boat, confined in a tiny space, for days on end.”
Bernadette’s phone dinged; it was the address.
“Being in open water is a lot different than being confined in a cell,” Maura said.
“True.” Dunn sighed. “I want him off the streets too. He punched a scientist who was trying to do his job, and now that scientist has been shot. But I want you to know—I don’t expect him to talk.”
“Of course, Detective Dunn,” Maura said. “We’ll support your decision.”
“Thank you,” Dunn mumbled.
Bernadette gave Dunn the address and Dunn nodded.
“If you do bring Rheinstaller down to the station, try to do it in the next hour. We’re talking to the IT worker responsible for the lab—Nick LaSalle. He’ll speak with Curtis about the keylogger programs found on Kymer Thompson’s machine. Bernadette—you may want to sit in.”
“Are we talking to the LaSalle at the Freshie?”
“We’re still negotiating the location.”
“Are you going to call Dr. Woodhead again?”
“As soon as I hang up with you,” Maura said.
The cruiser turned onto a residential street with small, one-story homes set back from the street. About a hundred yards away on the right side of the street, a man in a parka, a Boston Bruins winter hat, and a light blue scarf covering his face stood stoically on a shoveled driveway.
“Never mind,” Bernadette said. “We found him.”
“It’s about time you got here,” Kep Woodhead said. “I was losing confidence that you’d arrive at this address.”
“What are you talking about?” Bernadette said, closing the patrol car door behind her. “You’re the one who’s gone AWOL for the last few hours.” Her boots crunched on the snow.
“Douglas Rheinstaller has been the subject of five complaints in the last six months from three different people at the lab—one of whom was Kymer Thompson. I also discovered the assault on Eddie Taysatch. Witness statements make fascinating reading sometimes. It was obvious you’d want to talk with Rheinstaller. I’d have thought he’d be first on your list after the girlfriend.”
“How long have you been here?”
“About two hours.”
“Standing out here in weather like this?”
“Don’t be silly. There’s an excellent taphouse on the main thoroughfare. I had a delightful midday meal, and a wonderful beer.”
“Pinky’s Taphouse?” Dunn asked, coming around the front of the cruiser.
“That’s the one.”
“They’ve got a great selection of IPAs.”
Kep chortled. “I have found there’s no such thing.”
Bernadette rolled her eyes and turned to Dunn. “The overhopped IPAs are, uh, offensive to those with a, uh—”
“Superschnozz. Yeah, I got it.” Dunn shook her head.
Bernadette grabbed Kep’s elbow and pulled him to the side. “I waited in the hotel lobby for over an hour for you to show up.”
Kep pulled himself out of Bernadette’s grip. “I was able to get further in the case without your assistance.”
“You wasted hours of my time, Kep,” Bernadette hissed. “Maura’s been trying to reach you, too.”
Kep looked sideways at Bernadette. “I know you’re my handler—”
“Case analyst.”
“—but I have an investigative process.”
“You can’t disappear like that.”
Dunn cleared her throat. “So—all three of us are going up there?”
Bernadette took a step away from Kep. “Looks like it.”
“All right,” Dunn said, “you show your federal IDs, and see if he’ll come voluntarily. We’ll even say he can drive his own car to the station.”
“Sure,” Bernadette said, pulling out her identification.
“Perhaps we can ask to enter his domicile first,” Kep said.
“Why?” Dunn asked.
Bernadette blinked. Her eyes were dry from the cold. “So he can smell.”
Dunn looked at Kep, who nodded.
“You’ve gotta be crazy,” Dunn said. “This guy’s been a commercial fisherman for decades. His house probably smells like low tide. You think you’ll recognize the smell from Thompson’s corpse?”
“The lamprey has a distinct odor from the trout and salmon that Rheinstaller is paid to catch,” Kep said. “I’ll recognize it.”
Dunn shook her head. “He’s got the odor of a zillion trout and a zillion and a half salmon. And you think you’ll stick your nose into his house and with one whiff be able to tell if he was in the lamprey aquarium for five minutes?”
“You don’t have to believe me,” Kep said. “CSAB believes me, and I’ve got certifications that say I’m an expert with my—how did you put it?—superschnozz.”
Bernadette chuckled.
“Shall we get started?” Kep turned and walked up the path to the front door. The porch was small—miniscule compared to Vivian Roundhouse’s residence. Dunn reached out and rang the doorbell. No dogs barked.
Bernadette heard rustling inside, then the deadbolt turning, and finally the door creaking open. A tall man, at least six-four or six-five, stood in the doorway, dressed in a red-checked flannel shirt and a pair of dirty blue jeans. His feet were clad in thick gray wool socks.
“Douglas Rheinstaller?” Bernadette said. She tried to keep her voice even, but it sounded high in her ears.
“Aw, shit,” Rheinstaller said. “What did I do now? One of those science geeks say I scared ’em off with my ugly mug?”
“We do want to have a word with you,” Bernadette held up her identification.
“CSAB? Why does a drug agency want to talk to me? I ain’t even smoked pot for twenty years.”
“We need to establish your whereabouts late Monday night,” Bernadette said. “And we have a complaint for assault that we need to discuss.”
“Oh, please,” Rheinstaller said. “One of those pissy little lab rats, right? He can take away my livelihood, but I can’t defend myself?”
“Perhaps we should come in, sir,” Kep said. “It’s rather cold out here and—”
“The hell you are. I know my rights. You aren’t setting foot in this house.”
“Really,” Kep said, “I think you’ll find that we’d like to eliminate you as a suspect—”
“No. Nice try.”
“Mr. Rheinstaller,” Bernadette said, “we’d rather have a productive conversation, not—”
“If you’re not arresting me,” Rheinstaller said, “you can get the hell off my property.”
“Okay, we’ll do it your way,” Dunn said, taking her handcuffs off her belt. “Douglas Rheinstaller, you are under arrest for assault and—”
The front door slammed in their faces.
Bernadette saw red.
She launched herself past Dr. Woodhead’s side, planting her left foot, then punching her right leg forward.
The heel of her boot made a satisfying low thwack as it made contact below the doorknob—followed by the sound of splintering wood.
The door swung open hard and connected with Douglas Rheinstaller’s hip—he hadn’t even had time to turn the deadbolt. He stumbled backward, his heel catching the edge of the tile, and fell, sprawling into the tiny living room in front of a worn tan couch.
Bernadette pounced on top of him, landing on the small of his back. He was a big man, but he gave a whine as all the wind escaped his lungs. She grabbed his left wrist and twisted his arm behind his back. “Douglas Rheinstaller,” she repeated, “you are under arrest for assault.”
“And resisting arrest,” Dunn said, appearing at Bernadette’s side, pulling the other arm behind his back, and cuffing his wrists together. “You have the right to remain silent…”
While Dunn was reading Rheinstaller his Miranda rights, Bernadette stood up. She caught a bemused grin on Woodhead’s face and glared at him. “Aren’t you stepping inside to get that whiff of lamprey you were hoping for, Doctor?”
“Right,” Kep said, “I appreciate the reminder. Your crimefighting technique vied for my attention for a moment.”
“The key is to drive the heel of your foot into the weakest part of the door,” Bernadette mumbled.
“You didn’t even jump-kick.”
“Come on,” Bernadette said, rolling her eyes. “That’s a Hollywood move. You’ve gotta have a solid plant foot. Otherwise, you lose power.”
Kep knelt next to Rheinstaller and inhaled deeply, then rose, stepped into the living room between the coffee table and the television, and inhaled again. Then he shook his head.
“We won’t find any crime here except punching Eddie Taysatch in the face,” Kep said.
Bernadette helped Detective Dunn get Rheinstaller to his feet. “How did you know about that?”
Kep pointed at Rheinstaller’s cuffed hands. “Swollen knuckles here. Mr. Taysatch had a black eye when he went for his morning run. I take it you also paid a visit to Mr. Taysatch?”
Bernadette nodded. “And after our interview, a light blue van drove up, and someone in there shot Taysatch right in front of us.”
Kep’s face fell.
Rheinstaller groaned. “I don’t know nothing about that. I didn’t shoot anybody.”
“Do you own a gun, Mr. Rheinstaller?”
“I’m not saying nothing.”
“How about a light blue van? Maybe the Piscary Association has one.”
Rheinstaller was silent.
Kep blinked and steadied himself against the door frame.
“You okay, Kep?” asked Bernadette.
Kep looked up into Bernadette’s eyes. “He was shot in front of you?”
“That’s right.” Bernadette felt the tug on her insides, the phantom look on her daughter’s face.
Kep glared at Rheinstaller on the ground. “I don’t know where he was this morning,” Kep said. “The smell of the lampreys is absent both in this house and on Mr. Rheinstaller’s clothes. I also smell no ibogaine here.” He turned to the handcuffed man whose eyes shot daggers at Bernadette. Kep bent down and sniffed.
“What the hell are you doing?” Rheinstaller spat.
“I don’t smell nitroglycerin,” Kep said.
“Nitroglycerin?”
“Modern ammunition is primarily wood pulp soaked in nitroglycerin. A little mercury fulminate in the primer for that nice little metallic zap that sets my teeth on edge. But I smell none of that on Mr. Rheinstaller. If he had shot Eddie Taysatch this morning, I would smell it.”
“You’d be able to smell that over the fish?” Bernadette asked.
“Correct.”
Bernadette put her hands on her hips as the detective pulled Rheinstaller to his feet and led him outside in cuffs. “Mr. Rheinstaller gets the back seat all to himself, but that means only one of us can ride back to the district station with Dunn.”
“I don’t want to go back to the district station. I’d like to talk with Annika Nakrivo again.”
“The girlfriend? She’ll be hard to talk to now. You’ve already said you didn’t believe it when she was crying but you couldn’t sense her tears.” Bernadette held the broken front door open for Kep, then followed him out to the driveway, watching Dunn as she opened the back door of her cruiser for Rheinstaller. “I think we need to talk to a couple of the suspects in the first round. Besides—Curtis is interviewing the IT specialist who was responsible for the software on the lab’s computers. I want to make sure we sit in on that.”
“That task requires no scent identification. Curtis should have it covered—after all, he’s the technology expert, isn’t he?”
“Still,” Bernadette said, “let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Dunn closed the rear door after putting Rheinstaller inside. “You’re saying you want me to leave you here?”
“How far away is the Kilbourn Tech campus, Detective?” Kep asked.
“Too far to walk, that’s for sure,” Dunn said. “Three, maybe four miles, and you don’t want to do it when the sidewalks are icy.”
“We’ll order an Uber,” Kep said. “Come on, Bernie, let’s catch our killer.”
She glared at him. “Bernadette.”
Dunn laughed. “With a woman who can kick like that, you better get her name right.” She opened the driver’s door. “Maybe I’ll see you at the station later.” She disappeared inside the car, pulled into the street, and a moment later she turned the corner and was gone.
Bernadette glared at Kep, who had pulled his phone out of his pocket and was requesting an Uber. “You sure you want to talk to Annika Nakrivo again? Curtis may know his tech, but he doesn’t know what questions to ask in an interrogation.”
Kep lowered the phone from in front of his face. “Six minutes,” he said. “And I have to ask—when have you interrogated anyone? Aren’t you a handler—sorry, case analyst?”
“You assume I’ve always been a case analyst, Kep. It is entirely possible I have more interrogation experience than our good Detective Dunn.”
Kep’s eyes glittered with amusement. “Be that as it may,” Kep continued, “my nose won’t do the case any good at the station. My olfactory talents will be put to much better use interviewing Miss Nakrivo again.”
“Even better if you go back to the lab, if that’ll be your argument,” Bernadette pointed out. “There will be a full contingent of employees and interns there—you can sniff them to your heart’s content, and I can even ask a question or two.”
Kep snapped his fingers. “Interns—of course. Miss Nakrivo is scheduled to be at the laboratory today. She won’t be at Juneau Hall.” He brought his phone back up in front of his face and tapped the Uber app.
“See?” Bernadette said. “There’s a reason you need a case analyst babysitting you and your supershnozz. So don’t go disappearing again.”