After talking to Weiler, Mars found a student lounge area with a Coca-Cola machine. His weariness was transitioning into a general sensation of being unwell, and even the Coke did little to make him feel better. Looking at his watch, he remembered that he hadn’t called Karen to thank her for the use of the lodge and to ask if she knew anything about Ted Pogue’s whereabouts the afternoon and evening of December 6.
“Mars! How was it—did everything go okay?”
“Better than okay. It was wonderful. I don’t often covet other people’s possessions, but I could definitely whip up a little envy over the lodge.”
“Oh, good. I feel so much better when it’s used. It costs us a small fortune to maintain the place, and we go up less and less.”
Mars mentioned how helpful Ivings had been and the genealogy album Mars had taken from the Beck cottage. “So you found something that was helpful?” Karen asked.
“More like I found something I think the Becks should have. I’ll see that it gets back to Mona Beck. I need to talk to her later this week anyway.” He paused, reluctant to bring up his questions about her husband. There was no other way, short of meeting with Ted Pogue. Reminded of that alternative, he began. “Karen—there is one other thing.”
“Which is?”
“I should have thought of it at dinner. When we were talking about Ted’s problems with Frank Beck. You understand I need to ask. Do you have a good handle on where Ted was the afternoon and evening of December sixth?”
He expected surprise, confusion. Maybe even resentment. But Karen was fast and firm off the mark. “His office had their annual client reception on the sixth. I was there from two-thirty until five, then Ted and I went home together, changed, and went to friends’ for dinner. We got home after midnight.”
The line was silent for a moment after her answer. Then Karen said, “Are you surprised I was able to answer that question so quickly and completely?”
“Maybe a little.”
“It’s only that when you said at Alma’s that Frank might have been murdered, the first person I thought about was Ted. Terrible thought to have about someone you’ve been married to for almost fifteen years. Pure luck that it was the one period of time in probably the last year that I could say with certainty I knew where Ted was. Don’t know what I would have done if that hadn’t been the case.”
“You would have called me,” Mars said.
“Yeah. I think you’re right,” Karen said. “Well, anyway. Glad you enjoyed the lodge. I probably won’t see you before the holidays, huh?”
“Probably not.”
“So,” Karen said, “you’ll be the first person I say Happy Holidays to this year—and mean it.”
Mars considered going back downtown from the university, but he had no energy to negotiate late afternoon traffic. He went back to his apartment with the intention of calling Nettie to get Esther Moberg’s phone number in Iowa, but instead lay down on the bed to catch his breath. He fell into a fitful sleep, getting up just before dawn.
The dull headache and vague gut churning he’d felt over the past twenty-four hours were immediately present. He drank a cold Coke from the can and felt somewhat better. He showered, dressed, and arrived at the department ahead of Nettie.
She’d left a note on his desk. She’d been checking on commercial vendors for hangman’s nooses. She’d started by checking with the three states—Delaware, New Hampshire, and Washington—where hanging was currently a capital punishment option. She’d faxed photos she’d had made of the Beck noose and all three states indicated that it did not resemble nooses used in executions. Only Delaware had executed a prisoner by hanging in the 1990s—one of only three hangings nationwide since 1976. “Not,” Nettie had written in her note, “much of a market for a commercial supplier.” Delaware prisoners held on death row who had been sentenced before 1986 had the option of death by lethal injection or hanging. Prisoners sentenced after 1986, when Delaware had eliminated hanging as an option, got the needle.
Based on what Nettie had been told in her prison contacts, should a hangman’s noose be required, the prison would contract with a craftsperson to tie the knot. Nice work if you can get it. Mars wondered idly what the going price was for a hangman’s noose. Nettie had added that she thought they should assume that the Beck knot was made by an individual—probably the killer or someone the killer had paid. Mars guessed that the killer would have made the noose himself rather than risk introducing another party to the crime. As soon as that thought came and passed, Mars added a caveat. He was making an assumption that the killer worked alone. Mars was a long way from having a solid basis for making that assumption.
Thinking about the noose, Mars picked up the phone and called Dr. Denton D. Mont. After the call he found the plastic bag with the Beck noose, then went downstairs and out onto Fifth Street. He turned left coming out of city hall and jogged the block and a half to the Hennepin County Medical Center. It had warmed into the 30s and the air was heavier,
more humid than it had been for days. Clouds hung low and gray, giving the city a forlorn, unloved look.
The short run, absent a winter coat, had not been a good idea. By the time Mars walked into the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office, he felt like a candidate for one of the ME’s sliding drawers.
“You look awful,” Doc D said from behind the cloud of cigarette smoke that formed a permanent haze around his head. He squinted at Mars as he inhaled on his cigarette. Doc D routinely ignored public facility restrictions on smoking, and as the people who cared about such matters made it a point to stay out of the morgue, he got away with it. He and Mars had as close a relationship as was possible for two people who never saw each other outside of work. And while Mars couldn’t remember a time when either had complimented the other, the trust between them was implicit.
Mars slumped into a chair. “I feel awful. But a little aromatherapy down here with you should set me up. You find the Beck file?” Mars suddenly felt warm, and pulled his sport jacket off, placing his cigarette pack on Doc D’s desk.
Doc D’s eyes went to the pack of cigarettes. “Let me ask you something. All the years we’ve known each other, I’ve seen you carrying that pack of cigarettes around, but I’ve never seen you smoke a cigarette. Not in here, while I’m smoking, or when we’ve been out at a scene. How many cigarettes you smoke a day?”
Mars held up his hand, his thumb and index finger forming a zero. Then he held up the cigarette pack. “My security blanket. I quit smoking when my kid’s mother got pregnant. But I missed having the pack. So I buy a pack, carry it around, play with it until it wears out, then I buy another pack.”
“What’ya do with the cigarettes?” Doc D said, an idea forming behind his eyes.
“Toss ’em when the pack wears out,” Mars said.
Doc D frowned. “Terrible waste. Tell you what I’ll do. Fifty cents on the dollar. You keep the pack, I get the cigarettes.”
“I buy filters. You don’t smoke filters.”
“For God’s sake, Mars. What difference does it make if you buy filters or not if you don’t smoke ’em anyway.”
“It matters.” Mars said. “Besides, it wouldn’t be the same, carrying an empty box. And the box would probably fall apart faster if it was empty. So even getting back fifty cents on the dollar, I’d probably end up spending more money.”
Doc D swiped his hand through the air in Mars’s direction. “You homicide dicks think too much.”
“Why don’t you do some thinking about the Beck file.”
“You know I didn’t cut this one up?”
“So I should have this conversation with Resch?”
Doc D’s eyebrows raised and dropped. He flipped through the file, looking for the signature of the doc who’d performed the post. Finding it, he raised and dropped his eyebrows again. “I take your point. What’s on your mind?”
Mars stretched out on the chair and rubbed his right hand against his temple. “This case came in to you as a suicide. Since then, some questions have come up, and we’ve opened a homicide investigation. Which isn’t to say it still couldn’t end up as a suicide. I’d just like to walk through the file with you and see if, between the two of us, we can find anything that got missed first time around.”
Doc D was flipping through the file again, “We released the body yet? Ahhhh … yup. Too bad. Well, let’s see what we’ve got here.”
He spread the photos taken at the scene and during the autopsy across his desk. Then he sat back and read from the file, occasionally sitting upright to take another look at the photographs.
“Here’s something—not sure what it means, but it’s worth thinking about.”
“Whatcha got?” Mars asked, sitting forward.
Doc tapped the autopsy report. “Resch lists cause of death as ‘asphyxiation.’
“So?”
“Well, I agree with that. No evidence from looking at the photos that the guy’s neck is broken,” Doc said. “Looking at
the photo taken from behind, if the neck had been broken, you’d expect to see a bruise behind the left ear. Someone getting hanged, if you want ’em to die fast, you use a hangman’s knot, and you put the knot directly behind the left ear. That way, when he drops, the neck is gonna break between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae—provided you’ve got the right drop depth … .”
“The right drop depth?”
“I used to know this down to the foot. Came up in a military case I got involved in when I did my residency at a military hospital. It goes something like this. If you want to break the hangee’s neck, you’ve gotta be sure, first, that you’re using the hangman’s knot. If you’ve got the right knot, you’ve got to have the knot positioned correctly behind the left ear—that way, the knot will deliver the force of the fall to the neck. Now, to break the neck, you’ve gotta have—I don’t remember exactly—something like, twelve, thirteen hundred pounds of force … .”
“This is sounding way too complicated for your average suicide … .”
“Don’t disagree—but it pretty much depends on the victim. There are guys out there that will go to a lot of trouble to do things right. But, in general, I have to say your average suicide isn’t going to be thinking about any of those things. Probably doesn’t even know the difference.”
“Okay. So we’re agreed that our guy used a hangman’s knot, but there’s no evidence that his neck was broken … .”
“You got a better picture of the knot, by any chance? I can’t really tell from these pictures.”
“I can do you one better,” Mars said. Mars pulled his sports jacket off the chair and took the plastic bag with the noose out of his pocket. He tossed it on the desk in front of Doc.
“Ahhh,” Doc said. “Just what I wanted to see.” He put on latex gloves and removed the knot from the bag. Nodding slowly, he said, “What you’ve got here is a gallows knot, not a hangman’s knot.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Makes a big difference in how you die. The gallows knot is a simpler knot—based on a multifold overhand knot. You hang yourself with a gallows knot, you’re gonna choke to death. The hangman’s knot is much more precise in how it delivers the force of the fall—which is how it breaks the neck. A hanging that takes place in a state that uses hanging as a form of execution for capital punishment? They’re gonna use the hangman’s knot. They don’t want their hangee to be dangling around gagging for ten minutes while justice is being done. The hangman’s knot is—at least by comparison—far and away the more humane method. Provided you’ve calculated the drop depth correctly.”
“Explain again about the drop depth.”
“Didn’t really finish explaining before. And it’s important to what your looking at with this victim,” Doc said, tapping Beck’s photo. “You wanna make sure your hangee is gonna break his neck—apart from using the right knot—you’ve gotta divide the hangee’s weight into, oh whatever that number was, say, twelve hundred pounds. That’ll give you the number of feet your hangee’s gotta drop to break his neck.”
“Way too complicated for Beck. But then, we already know that’s not what he did. He used a gallows knot and he didn’t break his neck.”
Doc D looked again at the photos. “Not even an option. Say your guy weighed a hundred and eighty pounds. Divide that into twelve hundred pounds and you get something like a drop of seven feet. Your guy—just looking at these pictures, didn’t have more than three, four feet to fall from where he hung the noose. Even if he’d used the hangman’s knot and positioned it correctly, he wouldn’t have broken his neck on that drop.”
Mars tapped his cigarette box on Doc D’s desk. “Let’s say Beck hanged himself. The gallows knot is a simpler knot, you say, so that fits with what we know about Beck—although I’m pretty sure even the gallows knot was beyond Beck’s expertise and patience. As far as wanting to make his death easier—I just can’t see Beck knowing the difference or taking the time to find out.”
Doc was nodding slowly. “So?”
“Let’s play it the other way. Assume what I’m looking at is murder. What I ask myself,” Mars said, “is whether the choice of the knot means something to the murderer. On the one hand, if I was gonna murder someone by hanging them, I’d wanna be sure he went fast, so I’d know he was dead, and I could get the hell out. On the other hand, if I really hated the guy, if my motive was based on strong emotion, it might be real satisfying to see him dangling there—gagging, turning blue, shit running down his leg …” Mars pointed to the picture of Beck’s swollen, darkened, distorted face.
Doc D lit another cigarette. Simultaneously shaking out the match and blowing smoke, he said, “Tough choice. But remember what I said. Strangulation might have been his only option if he didn’t have a place where he’d get a good drop.”
“But he came with the gallows knot, Doc. No perp is going to walk in to murder a guy by hanging him and wait to tie the knot until he’s measured up the drop depth. Maybe a suicide victim wouldn’t have thought that through, but our murderer would have.” Mars rocked back and forth on his chair for a moment. “The other thing. How do you get a guy to hang himself? I mean, even if you’ve got a gun on the vic, if I’m the vic, I’d rather have the guy shoot me than to have a noose around my neck and strangle to death. I mean, what leverage does the killer have to get the vic to go along with a hanging?”
“That’s the other thing I was going to mention,” Doc D said, tapping Resch’s report. “Blood tests came in after the report you looked at. Those tests indicated that Beck had a small amount of alcohol in his system and a large quantity of barbiturates—not sure that works for or against a suicide conclusion.”
Mars sat forward, elbows on his knees, rubbing his palms together. “So it could go either way. Beck could have had a drink, washed down some barbs to dull his consciousness, then hanged himself …”
“Not at all unusual to find a suicide used more than one method to take himself out,” Doc said. “But I’d have to say it
would probably be more typical to see barbs used with wrist cutting. A hanging, you might see a guy cut his wrists, then climb up on a chair. Don’t ever remember seeing a hanging and barbs before.”
“Play it this way,” Mars said. “We know from the convenience store clerk that Beck was feeling ‘up’ shortly before he died. That he was meeting someone at three o’clock. Put those two things together. Someone who wanted to murder Beck arranged a meeting, suggesting he had capital to invest. They meet. Agree to join forces. The guy promises to inject capital, then pulls out a hip flask and says, ‘Let’s toast our future. ’ Passes Beck the flask. The barbs are in the flask.”
“Believable,” Doc D said.
“Once Beck gets dopey, the guy proceeds with the hanging.”
“You don’t have a clue why the guy wanted Beck dead?”
“I think the clue we have is the number on Beck’s arm. I was telling the chief. We know Beck couldn’t have written the number—he was right-handed and the numbers were written on his right arm. And the numbers didn’t match Beck’s writing. So we’ve got a perp who’s murdered someone in a real precise way, and he doesn’t bother to cover details like the number? For that matter, why write the number at all unless the perp is making a point.”
Doc D took out another cigarette, but didn’t light it right away. “And a perp who makes a point that doesn’t have any meaning to anyone who knew the victim. That make sense to you?”
Mars sighed. “No. And it’s why this case is making me nervous. We’ve found another hanging death in Wisconsin where numbers may be involved. Haven’t been able to confirm the numbers, but I don’t like the way this is shaping up.”
Doc D raised and dropped his eyebrows, then lit his cigarette. “No wonder you look lousy.”
The meeting with Doc D got Mars past how bad he felt. Energy renewed, he decided to take on Mona Beck. He stopped
first at the department to pick up the genealogy album, thumbing through the album again before leaving. The picture of Frank Beck’s ancestor caught his eye. It was a portrait shot in a Union uniform. The uniform was crisp, fresh. The picture must have been taken just after he had enlisted in the First Minnesota Volunteers and before he’d gone off to battle.
Then Mars’s gut tightened. The hanging victim in Wisconsin had been wearing a uniform when he died. An old uniform. Mars found Esther Moberg’s number and dialed again. There was still no answer. This close to Christmas, he had to face the possibility that she was out of town.
Mona Beck’s address was a cooperative apartment at 510 Groveland. The 510 was an unusual building in the Minneapolis market. It sat at the top of a low hill, across Hennepin Avenue from the Walker Art Center and just south of Loring Park. It was a building that would have been more in place in Manhattan, where realtors would have described it as having prewar construction. This translated into high ceilings defined by hand-carved moldings, deep windows, and hardwood floors.
Mona Beck opened the door to Mars’s knock with a frosty greeting, the tone of which Mars recognized from their phone conversation. Except seeing her as she said it made it altogether different. Years alone don’t ravage a face the way Mona Beck’s face was worn. She was as beautiful as the woman he’d seen in the pictures at the cottage, but the serenity of that face was gone. In the place of serenity there were sharp lines. More than that, what animated Mona Beck’s face—and the expression in her eyes—was a sort of terror. In a moment, Mars knew that the hardness in Mona Beck’s voice came from a bitter blend of fear, guilt, and a perpetual grief.
She saw him looking at the apartment, noticing the hand-woven rugs, the original artwork, the cabinet that was interior lit to show off a collection of porcelain. “It’s not mine,” she said. “Not any of it. My sister and her husband are in Germany for the next few months. They’re letting me camp
out here until they’re back or until I figure out where—and how—I’m going to live. Whichever comes first.”
Mars walked slowly around the living room, from which he had views in three directions. To the east you caught a corner of the pond in the center of Loring Park. The south view framed the intersection between Hennepin and Lyndale avenues. Walker Art Center’s rooftop sculpture gallery and a glimpse of the outdoor sculpture garden filled the west windows.
“Nice place,” Mars said in a neutral voice, trying to make clear that it didn’t make any difference to him if she owned the place or not. “I’d like to bring you up to date on where we are on the investigation, then just a couple of questions—may I?” He gestured to a couch.
She sat in a chair opposite the couch without speaking. She sat tightly, on the edge of the chair, her arms crossed, each hand cradling an elbow.
Mars spoke slowly. “I told you on the phone a few days ago that we were considering the possibility that Mr. Beck did not commit suicide. That he was murdered. And I’m sorry, but I have to ask you. Can you tell me where you were on December sixth, between three and ten P.M.?”
Without looking at him, and without emotion, she said, “I suppose that’s right. If you’re considering murder, I’m a suspect. Maybe your best suspect—I was really, really angry at Frank. But I can tell you where I was. I took my sister and her husband to the airport. Their flight was delayed, and I stayed at the airport until it was clear they would be leaving that night. I got back—well, I’m not sure exactly what time, but they got on the plane just before nine P.M. I got back to the apartment just before Joey called to say he hadn’t heard from Frank. I looked at my watch while I was talking to him, and it was about nine-thirty. I was here after that—but alone. Do you want my sister’s phone number in Germany?”
Mars shook his head. “My partner will call you to follow up on that. Sounds fine. We just have to …”
She held up a hand. “I understand. Really I do. What I don’t understand is why you think murder is a possibility.”
Mars hesitated. Experience had taught him when small details were significant. And his intuition was, at this stage of his career, as reliable as a set of fingerprints. But he considered how to explain the subtle facts of the case to Mona Beck in a way that wouldn’t sound like he was spinning webs out of air.
“There are several things. Some of the physical evidence in the case is inconsistent with what we know of your husband’s character. Then, we have a witness who says Mr. Beck had an appointment the afternoon he died. We haven’t yet identified that individual. And, in spite of the problems Mr. Beck had at the time of his death, we haven’t found anything to indicate that he was subject to despondency—in fact, quite the reverse. He seemed to thrive on adversity … .”
Mars stopped. He knew what he was saying sounded trivial. But he didn’t want to go into details about the gallows knot with a woman who so clearly had not worked through complex feelings about her husband’s death. And bringing up the lottery tickets at this point seemed irreverent. So he made a leap that took him where he wanted to be in this conversation.
“I know this might sound like not a lot to go on, but I don’t want to go into greater detail until we’re further into the investigation. I want to assure you that we wouldn’t be proceeding if we didn’t feel there were substantial questions. What I particularly wanted to talk to you about was anything you might know about people Mr. Beck might have known or activities he may have been involved in where he might have generated some enemies. What I’ve heard so far suggests that even his investors didn’t hold any ill will toward Mr. Beck …”
She shook her head. “They considered the money they lost the price of admission to one of the best shows in town. Until this last failure, anyone involved with Frank had fun. And Frank always paid back his investors—at least, paid back what they’d put in. He did that even when it meant personal sacrifice.” Her face tightened. “Even when it meant sacrifice for his family.”
“Why was the last venture different?”
Mona sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. One time too many. It wasn’t fresh anymore. Everyone’s getting older. What’s fun when you’re in your thirties, your forties—well, it isn’t as much fun when you’re fifty. And the money was big. Bigger this time than all the others put together. When people pulled away, they didn’t do it with anger—they were just burned out. And I don’t think they wanted to see the wreckage. They weren’t prepared to raise capital, so they just wanted not to look.”
She sat back in the chair, more relaxed than she’d been since Mars had come in. An expression that resembled amusement crossed her face. “Ted Pogue,” she said. “Ted Pogue was the only person I knew who held a grudge against Frank. And over something that really wasn’t important. Ted hadn’t invested the last time, so he didn’t fall out with Frank over money.”
Mars decided to be indiscreet. Mona Beck deserved it. “We’ve talked to Ted Pogue, actually. I’m satisfied he wasn’t involved.” Mars bent over and picked up The History of Dad, which he’d brought in a bag.
“I mentioned I was going to be up at Lake Guelph.” He handed the bag over. “I did go through your—well, now the Pogues’ cottage. There wasn’t anything, other than …”
She took the book out, then closed her eyes. Holding the book against her chest, her arms folded around the book, she said, “Just like Joey to do this. And just like Frank not to be interested. For Frank there’s no past, no present, only the future.” She opened her eyes and looked at Mars. “There was no past, no present—and now there’s no future.”