30

Mars stood in the corridor outside the State Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s meeting room, dreading the moment when he had to transform himself into a team player who was carrying his weight as a Cold Case Unit investigator.

Nettie usually covered the CCU’s weekly status meeting. But with the active investigation on the Bergstad case stalled, Nettie had more to do at the office than Mars, so they’d agreed that today Mars would carry the torch.

There were a lot of good reasons for Mars to attend the meetings, at least on an occasional basis. It was the only scheduled time that he saw his new colleagues, whose offices were in a different location from Nettie and Mars’s office.

Mars liked his fellow investigators. What he knew of them. And it wouldn’t hurt for him to get exposed to how experienced cold case investigators worked, to hear firsthand about the cases they were involved in and how they were moving their cases forward.

But the meetings had been uncomfortable because Mars didn’t have much to say for himself. Nettie always had plenty to report. But that wouldn’t work indefinitely. Eventually, reasonable people would have reasonable questions about what Mars was doing.

Ironically, today he had a lot he could say. Things he could say that would be directly responsive to the principal agenda topic: how to demonstrate in the face of the state’s fiscal crisis that the CCU provided value to justify the unit’s budget allocation.

Mars had noticed from the first that the tone of these discussions was different from similar discussions at the MPD. There was precious little grandstanding, no implied threats to public safety if budget cuts were threatened. The CCU had no leverage for such actions as their principal constituency was the friends and relatives who suffered the ongoing pain of unresolved death. Compared to the number of voters who’d never suffered such a loss but who felt perpetually vulnerable to violent crime, the CCU’s constituency was impotent.

The very nature of the unit’s work undercut that kind of strategy. Rarely were they in a position to argue that the work they did would prevent future deaths—even if there were instances when that might have been true. The work they did was perceived as providing justice to those who’d already suffered a failure of public safety. No one would argue against it, but the cause did not carry the same weight as protecting the living.

It was one of the reasons the unit had been enthusiastic in its support for Mars’s and Nettie’s work on convenience-store crime. That project was seen as a way the CCU could demonstrate that it was not only redressing past wrongs, but that it was also making a contribution to public safety going forward.

As Mars listened to the discussion around the table he considered the effect of saying, “Nettie and I are gathering evidence that Senator Alan Campbell was involved in the 1984 disappearance of a young woman who gave birth to his child and was subsequently murdered. Our investigation suggests that the senator was also involved in the murder of a political opponent and the murder of a potential witness to the disappearance of the mother of the child. In addition, there is evidence to suggest that Senator Campbell was involved in atrocities during his service in Vietnam.”

He imagined their faces, slack-jawed with disbelief. Then he imagined the questions they would have, none of which he could answer. Couldn’t answer because he didn’t have the answers and couldn’t answer because he didn’t want to risk what he did know about the Green Man leaking out.

So when it was time for him to give his report, he talked about Nettie’s concerns about the DOJ’s proposed slackening of information quality standards for criminal databases, and the work he and Nettie were doing to review the tip sheets that had come in response to The Get List program.

“We had a call from Senator Campbell’s office about the status of the investigation,” the unit director said. “Anything I can pass on that would make them happy?”

Mars froze. “Campbell’s office is asking questions about the investigation?”

“Routine. Given the senator’s public interest in the case, they want to make sure he’s current. He’ll probably try to make political hay out of any progress we do make. That’s to be expected.”

Mars said, “Nothing to pass on at this point.” It had chilled him to be reminded of how close Campbell was to the investigation.

He had just finished his report when his cell phone vibrated. He excused himself and went out to the hall to return Nettie’s call.

“Get back to the office,” Nettie said. “There’s someone here you need to meet.”

*   *   *

His first thought when he walked into the office was that his theory about Andrea Bergstad had been all wrong. She couldn’t have been shot at a convenience store in Vermillion, South Dakota, in 1987 because she was now sitting in his office next to Nettie.

It took seconds before his brain was able to make sense of what he was seeing. The young woman sitting next to Nettie was an exact replica of the images he’d seen of Andrea Bergstad, but the young woman before him today was maybe twenty years younger than Andrea Bergstad would be if she were still alive.

“DeeDee Kipp?” Mars said.

DeeDee Kipp nodded.

*   *   *

“I didn’t expect anybody to contact me after I called into The Get List,” DeeDee said. “I knew what I said didn’t make any sense. But I couldn’t think how else to say it. After I called, I sat down and tried to write a letter, and that got all tangled up. So when my roommate said she was coming up to the cities today to find a bridesmaid dress, I got off work…”

She looked at her watch. “I’ve only got, like, another couple hours before she picks me up. I had a hard time finding this place. We went to the BCA’s main office first, but the guard at that building gave me this address. My roommate dropped me over here, but she’s got to get back to Mankato by six, so we need to leave…”

“DeeDee,” Nettie said, “I can get you back to Mankato. It’s important that we talk this through now that you’re here. And there are things you need to know. Things that are important for you to understand…”

DeeDee said, “I’ve got to be back tonight. I work the A.M. shift at a nursing home. So I’ve got to be in my uniform and ready to leave my apartment by six-thirty tomorrow morning.”

“Tonight isn’t a problem,” Nettie said. “What I want you to do now is to tell Mars what you told me.”

There was a disconnect between DeeDee Kipp’s soft voice, her pretty, delicate appearance, and the shrewd, observant young woman who emerged from the story she told.

“There were always things about my family that didn’t make sense,” DeeDee said. “Like, my parents were way older than any of my friends’ parents. When I was maybe eleven or twelve, one of my friends said her mom thought I was adopted, because she thought my mother was too old to be my biological parent. I even asked my parents if I was adopted. They said ‘no,’ but I’d always wondered. Not just because they were older, but I didn’t look anything like them.

“The other thing that was weird was that my family was just me and my mom and dad. No grandparents, no aunts and uncles, no cousins. Just the three of us. From what I’d been told, my parents moved to Vermillion right before I was born. But it never made sense to me why they’d moved there. My dad opened an insurance agency in Vermillion, but he retired when I was still in grade school. Why would they move, start a business, then retire? It was like there was another reason they moved to Vermillion—but I couldn’t ever figure out what the reason was.”

“You remembered your babysitter,” Mars said.

DeeDee shook her head. “No. I just said that when I called in the tip. This is the part that’s so hard to explain…”

“Just talk,” Mars said. “We’ll figure it out along the way.”

DeeDee drew a deep breath. “My dad died when I was a freshman in high school and my mom died my senior year. My dad had been sick, but my mother died suddenly. I mean, she hadn’t expected to die, she’d seemed pretty healthy and everything. After she’d died, I was going through all their stuff and I found a photo album with lots of pictures. Family pictures—I’m sure. And there were three pictures of me with this young woman. One picture when I was a baby, one when I started to walk—she was behind me, holding my hands—and one when I was sitting on her lap. I must have been two or three in that picture. The thing is, the way she touched me in those pictures, the way she looked at me—it wasn’t like she was a babysitter. It seemed like she was someone closer to me than that.

“The other thing was, she looked just like me. I mean, it was like looking into a mirror or something. I knew when I saw those pictures that there were things about my family my parents hadn’t told me. I thought, maybe she was my older sister? I just couldn’t figure out why they wouldn’t tell me.

“The other thing I found was my parents’ birth certificates. My mother was sixty-nine when she died, which meant she would have been at least fifty-two when I was born…”

DeeDee looked at Mars and Nettie. “Wouldn’t that be like a world record or something for a biological birth? My dad was seventy-three when he died. But they’d both told me they were ten years younger than they were.”

DeeDee sighed. “I wanted to figure out the whole thing right then. But I couldn’t. Like I said, my mother hadn’t expected to die, or I think she probably would have destroyed the things I found. After she died I moved in with a friend’s family until graduation. But besides school, I had to do all this stuff with lawyers to get my parents’ estate settled. I couldn’t find a birth certificate for me and there was no record of my birth in Clay County. So I was never able to get social security benefits. What I got was money from selling the house—which wasn’t all that much—and a scholarship to attend Mankato State. I’ve had to work, like thirty hours a week, to support myself while I’ve been going to school. Summers I work full-time at the nursing home and that keeps me going.

“The point is, I haven’t had time to figure out my family’s mystery. I’d kind of put it on hold until I finished school. Then, the night The Get List program was on TV, I was in the kitchen popping popcorn, and my roommates started yelling for me to come into the living room. They said I was on TV. And there was my picture—I mean, Andrea Bergstad’s picture. The same woman in the pictures with me when I was little. What I thought was, maybe calling the program would be a way of figuring out what had happened with my family. The only thing I could think to say was that my babysitter looked just like Andrea Bergstad. I hadn’t heard the whole program, so I thought they were saying she’d been murdered in 1984. I didn’t know she’d just disappeared.”

DeeDee was quiet for a while. Then she said, “She does have something to do with me, doesn’t she?”

Mars said, “We’ll talk about that, DeeDee. But first I need to know what you think. Like, any reason your parents wouldn’t have wanted you to know that you were adopted?”

“What I’ve thought is that maybe they got me illegally. You know, paid money to get a baby. We hardly ever went anywhere. But when my dad got sick, we’d go up to Sioux Falls to a hospital there. Once, while we were in Sioux Falls, a woman recognized my mother. She came up to her and hugged her and said how much everybody in ‘God’s Choice’ missed her. When she saw me, she said, ‘Oh, so you did decide to adopt. I’m so happy for you. I know how much having a child meant to you.’ My mother hardly said anything. She just got me away from that woman as fast as she could. Why would she have done that unless there was something to hide?”

DeeDee looked up at Mars. There was an expression on her face somewhere between dread and guilt. “When I heard the TV program about Andrea Bergstad, when I thought she was dead, I even thought maybe my parents had something to do with her death. I mean—I didn’t believe that, but I thought about it. Would they have taken her to get me? And they were so protective. Not just about normal things, like being careful crossing streets, but about everything. When I think about it, I wasn’t ever left alone. One of them was always with me. It was like they were afraid of something…”

Nettie and Mars looked at each other. There was an implicit message that passed between them. It would be Nettie who would tell DeeDee what they knew about her mother.

Nettie sat down close to DeeDee, taking one of DeeDee’s hands between her hands.

“We don’t begin to know everything about what happened between your parents and Andrea Bergstad, but we think Andrea Bergstad was your mother.”

Nettie gave DeeDee time to take in that message. At first DeeDee didn’t show much emotion. But then her expression began to contort, her eyes filled with tears, and she buried her face on Nettie’s shoulder.

Nettie looked up at Mars, near tears herself. She signaled Mars to bring a box of tissues. Then she put a hand on DeeDee’s shoulder.

DeeDee lifted her head, taking a tissue and blowing her nose loudly. “Is she dead—Andrea Bergstad?”

This was the hard part. Telling DeeDee that her biological mother had been murdered and that because Andrea Bergstad was her biological mother, DeeDee was also at risk. Telling DeeDee that there had been a good reason why her parents had been so protective.

Slowly, Nettie said, “DeeDee, we think your mother was involved in a relationship with a powerful man. The man who was your father. To keep anyone from finding out about the relationship, this man arranged to have your mother murdered…”

DeeDee drew in a sharp breath. It was one thing to suspect that a woman of whom you had no direct memory was dead. It was quite another thing to be told the woman was your biological mother and that the man who was your biological father had arranged to have your mother murdered.

DeeDee shuddered. Mars was suddenly conscious of the fact that DeeDee was dressed in classic teenage style. Low-riding jeans, sandals, and a soft white-cotton sleeveless top that left her midriff bare. In the air-conditioned office, barraged with one brutal fact after another, DeeDee was turning blue before their eyes.

Mars got a sports coat he kept in the closet and draped it around DeeDee’s shoulders. She pulled the lapels closer together and said, “Could I have a coffee or something?”

Nettie laughed. “You’re in the only office in the civilized world where no one drinks coffee. Mars…”

“There’s a coffee room on the first floor,” Mars said. “I’ll get you a coffee down there.”

When he came back, Nettie and DeeDee had leaned back on the couch, Nettie still holding DeeDee close to her, DeeDee’s head on Nettie’s shoulder.

Nettie was the last person Mars would have described as being maternal, but the bond between the two women was just that. An affectionate protectiveness on Nettie’s part, a trusting dependence from DeeDee.

Already DeeDee looked calmer. She sat up as Mars handed her a paper cup of coffee. After taking a sip, she said, “Do you think my parents—I mean, the Kipps—knew why Andrea was murdered?” Then she stopped. “Wait. If she was murdered, how was I born? How did the Kipps get me?”

Mars talked DeeDee through what had happened at the Redstone One-Stop in 1984. “As for how the Kipps got you—we haven’t had a clue. But what you said before about your mother running into a woman in Sioux Falls who talked about the God’s Choice organization—that may be the link. I know from the investigator in Redstone that Andrea Bergstad’s mother…” Mars paused. “Your grandmother. Ruth Bergstad. Ruth Bergstad had been active in a number of Right to Life organizations all over the Midwest. I’m thinking Ruth Bergstad met your mother through God’s Choice. Maybe Andrea met the Kipps, too. And when she ran, she ran to somebody she thought would give her shelter. Somebody she thought would take her baby, give her baby a different name, to protect the baby.”

Nettie picked up the story.

“We think Andrea was killed at a convenience store in Vermillion in 1987. By the same person hired by…” Nettie stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to refer to Alan Campbell as DeeDee’s father. Instead she said, “… the same person who had been hired to abduct Andrea in 1984.”

DeeDee clasped her head between both hands. “How did he find her in 1987? And if he found her, why wouldn’t he have killed me, too? I would have been proof that my mother had a relationship with the person who hired him…”

“We don’t know how he found her,” Nettie said. “We just know the shooter was a person capable of finding almost anyone, almost anywhere.” Then, in a soft voice, a voice meant to comfort DeeDee as she began to confront the most terrifying aspect of her family’s mystery, Nettie said, “That he didn’t find you, DeeDee, is a tribute to your mother. Both your mothers. A tribute to how much strength and courage they both had to make you safe. How carefully they planned to protect you.”

DeeDee stared at Nettie.

“The man who was my father. Is he still alive?”

Mars said, “Yes.”

DeeDee didn’t ask who he was. Instead she said, “And the man who shot Andrea. Is he still alive?”

Again Mars said, “Yes.”

DeeDee said, “So now that you’ve started this investigation, they could start looking for me?”

Mars said, “There’s no reason they should know you exist, any more than they did in 1987. Nettie and I figured out that Andrea may have had a child through pure happenstance. We noticed on your tip sheet that you were from Vermillion and we knew from the database that Nettie had been developing that there’d been a convenience-store murder in Vermillion three years after Andrea disappeared. That got us thinking. Nobody else knows that, DeeDee. Not our colleagues in the Cold Case Unit, nobody at The Get List. That you are still alive is solid proof that nobody else has made that connection. And we’ve put the investigation on hold because we don’t want to put you in danger. Not until we’re sure there’s a way it can be done without creating more risk.”

DeeDee looked away from them, quiet, before she said, “So I live the rest of my life not being sure. Not knowing if some night, when I’m alone, the shooter might come after me. Not knowing if my children—who will have a genetic link to the man who was my father—will be in danger.”

She looked at each of them. Mars and Nettie looked at each other.

They all sat in silence for a long time. Then Mars said, “Maybe there’s a way. Timing would be critical, but maybe there’s a way.”

“How?” Nettie said.

“We need to inoculate ourselves,” Mars said. “We need to go public with what we know.”

DeeDee said, “I don’t understand…”

Mars looked at DeeDee. The stress was showing on her face. She was holding up well considering everything they’d hit her with over the past hour. But she needed a break before she could rationally consider what he was thinking about.

“Let’s do this,” Mars said. “Your friend is going to be here to pick you up when?”

DeeDee looked up at the wall clock. “Maybe another hour.”

“Can you get hold of her to tell her Nettie will be bringing you back to Mankato?”

DeeDee shook her head. “I don’t know where she was going shopping…”

“No cell phone?”

DeeDee grinned. “She’s driving her mother’s car. And her mother won’t let her have her cell phone in the car because she doesn’t want her to drive while she’s on the phone.”

“A mother after my own heart,” Mars said. “Okay. Nettie, you free for dinner tonight?”

“You buying or Chris cooking?”

“Chris said he was going to cook tonight. Then he’s going over to Denise’s sister’s. Why don’t we plan on going back to the apartment after DeeDee’s friend stops by. We can have dinner, and after Chris leaves, we can talk through what I’m thinking about. It won’t take long. I’d like the two of you to be on the road no later than nine, so Nettie can get back here before midnight.”

“Sounds good to me,” Nettie said.

“Perfect,” DeeDee said.