Mars, Nettie, and the chief formed a loose circle in the squad room. Mars had run through Evelyn’s suggestions about narrowing the descendent pool. The chief and Nettie had the same immediate rush of recognition that had struck Mars.
“What we need to do now,” Mars said, “is start identifying descendents of the First Minnesota based on that criterion.” He looked at the chief. “I need to get Linda VanCleve and some of her researchers in as soon as possible. You okay with that? It’s probably going to cost an arm and a leg—I don’t think we can ask the History Center to do this on their dime.”
The chief was impassive. “We will spend—and do—whatever needs to be spent, whatever needs to be done.”
Mars stood. “When we have the descendents identified, we’re going to have to put together a major cross-jurisdictional push to get those folks protected while we track down the perp.” Mars looked up at the clock. Not quite midnight.
At just after two o’clock on Christmas morning, Linda VanCleve, two young women with brush cuts, and a young man with a long ponytail arrived in the squad room. Mars took a half hour to cover the bases with the folks from the Historical
Society, ruing every minute that he was spending on old business. By prior agreement, what they were telling the researchers was that they were looking for a murder suspect who was a descendent of the First Minnesota Volunteers. It was enough to get them started without blowing the confidentiality of the investigation.
Linda VanCleve’s face was stony. But for her three younger associates, even the cover story was dramatic enough to burn off the sleep fog and make their pupils dilate.
When Mars stopped talking, Linda VanCleve asked to talk to the chief, Mars, and Nettie privately. “I agree with everything you’ve said about focusing on male descendents. And using simple demographic statistics, we can assume it will reduce our research by something more than fifty percent. But that’s still too big a population. I’m going to make another suggestion for narrowing this thing. It’s a riskier assumption, but I think it’s reasonable.”
“Shoot,” Mars said.
“Primogeniture,” VanCleve said. “I think from what you’ve said, your killer would pick eldest-son descendents.”
Mars thought about it. “I think that’s fine—but am I wrong in thinking that criterion would be useful in narrowing down the current generation population, but wouldn’t save us any research time getting to the current generation?”
VanCleve squinted, not getting what Mars was saying.
“Let me state this as a question,” Mars said. “Are you saying we’d eliminate any First Minnesota descendent who didn’t produce a male in the first generation or in any succeeding generation—or that we would look at our current generation population and eliminate any males who weren’t the eldest sons?”
VanCleve blinked hard. “I see what you mean. What I had in mind was this. Say there is a descendent who had four male offspring. I’d say, just track the descendents of the eldest boy. If that son had a daughter, but no sons—” VanCleve hesitated. “That’s a problem. But to be safe, I think we need to track the daughter to see if we end up with a son in the target
generation. When we get to the current generation we can eliminate any descendent who is not an eldest male.” She sighed. “So it might help some, but not a lot.”
Nettie said, “Isn’t it possible we’ll have more than one eldest son living? Like, a father and son—even a grandfather, son, and grandson?”
Another long sigh from VanCleve. “Of course,” she said. “Maybe even probable.”
They sat in silence. It was discouraging, but Mars felt they were close to something. He twisted slowly on his chair, thinking. The chief’s phrase—‘an eye for an eye’—kept coming back to him. He thought about revenge in connection with the number nineteen, and it came to him at once.
“Just the survivors,” he said. “An eye for an eye—our perp is just going to track First Minnesota Volunteers who survived the Battle of Gettysburg.”
The statement went click for him. He would have wagered his life he’d just nailed it. To VanCleve he said, “Can we do that? Can you tell me how many of the First Minnesota survived the Battle, a ballpark number?”
VanCleve scratched her scalp hard with both hands. She covered her face with her hands. “Let me think.” She was silent for a moment, then she dropped her hands.
“In some sense, what the First Minnesota is best known for is the casualty rate at Gettysburg. They suffered the highest rate of casualties—after the second day of battle—of any unit in any American war—at least, that’s one point of view. The exact numbers have been challenged …”
“Number of survivors?”
VanCleve took a deep breath. “Let me back into this. I kind of know these numbers by heart, but I need to go through it in order.” She bent over and pulled up her purse, a large leather satchel. She rummaged in the purse for a moment, finding a notebook and a pen.
Writing as she talked, she said, “Okay. Four hundred and sixteen members of the First Minnesota in all ranks on
July 1, 1863.” She hesitated, closing her eyes. Writing again, she said slowly, “At the end of the first day there were, like …”
“Try to be as exact as you can.”
She grimaced. “I think at the end of the first day of the battle there were two hundred and sixty-five members left—” She stopped. “What I can remember—off the top of my head—is going to be the number of troops that were available for muster on each day following the previous day’s battle. Which means the number I’m going to come up with for ‘survivors’ after the third day will exclude guys who did survive, but were too badly injured to be available for battle … .”
“I understand.”
“I’m not saying it would be impossible to break the data out by killed, wounded, and uninjured, but you’d need someone other than me to get it for you. Tee Tucker, one of our senior historians, said he’d help later today. His specialty is Minnesota’s involvement in the Civil War. It’s just that sorting that out will take some time.”
Mars said, “We may want to get to that later, but for now, let’s look at the number you come up with that just shows guys available to muster.” He looked around at the chief and Nettie. “If our assumption is right, our perp probably would consider that revenge has already been delivered if someone was injured too badly to fight the next day.” Nettie nodded silently in agreement. “And once we know your number, we’ll have a good idea if we’re on the right track.”
VanCleve picked up her pen and paper again. “So, after the first day of battle, two hundred and sixty-five men were available for muster on the second day … .” She looked around the room. “The second day was the killer—literally and figuratively. In terms of casualties, that’s the day that lives in legend. After the second day’s battle, there were only sixty-two guys available for muster on July third, 1863.”
“And of the sixty-two, Linda. How many were available for muster on July fourth, 1863?”
“Well, the battle was over by the fourth, of course.”
“But you know how many would have been available for muster?”
“There’s a bit of disagreement …”
“A number, Linda.”
“It’s generally agreed that on July fourth, 1863, there were seventeen men available for muster.”
Mars looked at the chief, Nettie, and Linda.
“The dead survivors,” Nettie said, her voice quiet.
Mars smiled at her. “Okay. The dead survivors are the source for our descendent pool.” Looking especially at the chief, he said, “We’re making some pretty big assumptions here. You okay going forward on this basis?”
The chief said, “I like it—but it seems a little risky to me. We need to start by checking to see if Beck and Rowe match the assumptions—I mean, that they were eldest sons in their generation and that their ancestors at Gettysburg survived the battle. Then we need some kind of quality control as we move forward to make sure that identified targets match the criteria.”
“I know that Beck’s ancestor—Herman Beck––survived the battle,” Mars said. He glanced at his watch. “Too early to call Joey Beck, but he’ll know if his dad was an eldest son. Not sure Rowe’s sister will know about the ancestor, but …” He looked at VanCleve. “I assume you can verify that?”
VanCleve nodded. “What I don’t understand,” she said, “is how you’re going to end up with a target descendent pool of nineteen when you’re tracking only sixteen guys?”
“I thought you just said there were seventeen guys available for muster on July forth, 1863?”
“Marshall Sherman didn’t marry, didn’t have descendents. To my knowledge, he’s the only one of the—what did Nettie call them, the dead survivors?—anyway, Sherman’s the only one who wouldn’t have descendents. So you’re tracking sixteen guys, and you need to come up with nineteen targeted victims.”
Mars sighed. “I agree. It’s not perfect. But I think it’s a fit. It just goes click for me. We’re gonna have to hope that something surfaces while we do the research that will fill in the three blanks.”
“Big enough fizz for you?” Nettie said, looking a Mars with a smug smile on her face. She’d just wheeled in a big white board on which they’d track their progress in identifying the names of First Minnesota survivors of the Battle of Gettysburg and their male descendents.
He looked back at her with raised eyebrows, not getting it.
Nettie turned full toward him. “You said this case didn’t have enough fizz.”
“I may have been wrong about that.” He looked at his watch, frowning. Probably another six, seven hours before Keegan arrived. He stood and began a slow pace, fiddling with his cigarette box. Then stopped and smiled.
“You’ve got fifteen seconds. ‘I’m a little wound up.’ And you say …” Mars pointed at Nettie, giving her the cue.
Nettie made a face. “Mars, for God’s sake. I’ve been here going on forty-eight hours.”
“The clock is ticking. And you are going to feel like a complete fool if you don’t get this one.”
“No, I’m not.”
“One more chance. ‘I’m a little wound up,’ and you say …”
Nettie closed her eyes, concentrating. “Well, The Fabulous Baker Boys is always a good guess … .” Nettie opened one eye to check Mars’s reaction.
Mars frowned, causing Nettie to smile. “It is The Fabulous Baker … oh, I know. Beau Bridges says, ‘I’m a little wound up,’ and Jeff Bridges says, ‘You’re a fucking alarm clock.’”
Behind them, the fax machine rang, followed by the piercing, hollow sound of the connection. Mars and Nettie looked at each other. Nettie walked over to the machine and
stood as it chugged out three pages. She read each page as it flopped out, then, without saying anything, walked back, handing the pages to Mars.
The fax came from Salina, Kansas. The first line read, “In response to your request for information concerning deaths by hanging where the deceased was found to have the numbers 2822173631958 written on the body, the Salina Police Department can confirm such circumstances … .”
Mars looked up at Nettie. “Now,” he said, “we’re talking big fizz.”