Cole and Michele sat by a window at a table for two at Simply, the quaint café on Blackhawk Avenue, across the street from the Courier Press building. It was a little after eleven a.m., and they were on the early side for the lunch crowd.
Simply had a deal where you could pick two of three main items; a half sandwich, a half salad, and a cup of soup for less than nine dollars. Cole selected the half grilled chicken Po’Boy sandwich with a cup of gumbo, and Michele ordered half a cranberry walnut salad with a cup of vegetable soup. A good portion of kettle chips came with their meals and Michele told Cole to help himself to hers. Cole sipped a black coffee while Michele nursed a caffé mocha.
A mixture of coffee, chocolate, herbs, and spices scented the air around them. The café was warm and Cole liked the feel of the sturdy maple chair he sat in. He felt grounded. It felt natural, sharing the intimate setting with Michele.
“I like this town,” she said, sipping her mocha and enjoying the little jolt the double espresso brought her. She licked her lips to savor the rich flavors of chocolate and sweet milk. “Quaint comes to mind, but it’s somehow better than that. It’s hard to put into words, but I get the feeling that people care about one another here. Everyone feels connected to each other and to the town somehow. You don’t often find that in cities like Milwaukee or the suburbs that surround them.”
“The downside is you never have any anonymity unless you get out of town. Everyone knows your business,” Cole said.
“Well, then, I guess if you live here you’d want to be a decent human being,” Michele said, smiling through the steam of her mocha.
They sat in silence, savoring a moment’s respite from thoughts of the murder. Cole looked across the street at the newspaper building. “My parents used to own that place.”
Michele looked at him, cocking her head. “Hmm?”
He nodded out the window in the direction of the Courier Press. “My parents owned the building that houses the newspaper now. When I was growing up they ran a supper club there called Geisler’s Blue Heaven. It looked a lot different then…especially on the inside. My grandpa’s last name was Geisler, and he started the restaurant.”
Michele could see he was drifting back in time, struggling with his emotions, but she was glad he wasn’t hiding it from her. “Do you have good memories of the place?”
He smiled as he looked across the street. “Yeah, I do,” he said. “But it’s not easy owning a restaurant. My mom and dad put in long hours, six days a week. Mom waited tables and Dad tended bar. I spent a lot of time there growing up. I started helping out when I was five I think, washing dishes in the kitchen alongside my grandpa. I’d stack dirty dishes and plates in these big racks and they’d go through the automatic machine. I’d do that for hours and he’d give me a dollar. I thought I was rich.
“When I got older, I bussed tables. Everyone who worked there watched out for me. We only had one car and later, when I came home on a break from college, I’d want to take the car. My parents would let me, but the one attached string was that I’d have to pick my dad up at work after I’d closed down the bars. When I went inside the Blue Heaven to get him, he’d usually be cleaning up or restocking the coolers behind the bar. He’d give me some quarters to feed the jukebox and I’d play oldies like Cab Driver and I left my heart in San Francisco. We’d sing along until he was finished and could lock up. They sacrificed a lot for me.”
“Seems like you should come back here more often,” Michele suggested.
“Maybe,” Cole said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that since you made the connection to Prairie du Chien last night. This town and the people here shaped me in so many ways…but it’s hard. It’s hard because things here remind me of my parents; how much I lost and how suddenly I lost them. Like most kids, I took my parents for granted and I’ve missed them so much for so long now…”
They suffered an awkward moment, neither knowing what to say when Cole changed the subject. “So, what do you make of our conversations with Lawler and Grae?”
“I think that sermon pushed a button with at least a few people in attendance at that Christmas Mass. It set things in motion. Lawler stood up at the end of the sermon and after talking with his wife, he headed down to City Hall and started a hunger strike. That doesn’t happen every day. Grae stood up at the same Mass and now he’s running that counter in his paper. He believes in the righteousness of what he’s doing and did it knowing it would cost him readers and advertisers. He said they’re coming back, but he wrote his editorial and began providing his running total of abortions thinking it would cost him financially…maybe some friends as well. As much as I believe they’re both wrong, I admire their conviction. One is willing to sacrifice his life and the other was willing to sacrifice his livelihood. And the sermon seems to have been the catalyst that set them both off.”
“I think you’re right,” Cole said. “It’s too much of a coincidence to not see it that way. Obviously, the elder Lawler isn’t the shooter, and his boys are too big to be considered suspects given the boot prints we found after the Martin murder. But do you think Grae could have committed the murders?”
Michele looked at him smugly. “I’m not on your payroll, you know. Shouldn’t you be answering my questions?”
“You should be flattered that a decorated FBI agent is interested in your perspective,” Cole said with a smile, taking a sip of coffee. “I noticed when Grae stood up to shake hands goodbye, that he was shorter than you, but not by much. So, let’s put him at five-six or seven. Determining height from shoe size is iffy at best, but that would put him outside the outer end height-wise of our range of probability based on the boot prints we made. He obviously has the skill and the motivation though, and he admitted to owning a 30/30 and favors the same 170-grain bullet our killer’s used. So he can’t be ruled out. I’m going to see what kind of alibi he has for both of the murders and the rifle purchases. Chances are he won’t have a solid alibi for all those, but he should have an alibi for at least one.”
“What does your gut tell you?” she asked. “You don’t have much of one, but you think with it more than anyone I know.” She was staring at him.
“Thank you?” he said. “I’m not sure how to respond to that. You need to trust your instincts, but you also need to vet them. I don’t know where intuition comes from, but it pulls from all the things that we don’t see, hear, or feel in a clear and obvious way. We pick up on subtle cues and hints and our ‘gut’ helps put those pieces of the puzzle together until we have a clearer picture. My gut has served me pretty well over the years.”
“So FBI Special Agent Cole Huebsch, what is your gut telling you right now about Grae?”
“Frankly, he’s our best suspect. A lot of signs point to him. He’s got the ability and a motive, but I like him more as a person than a suspect. I tended to believe him when he said he hasn’t killed anyone. So my gut tells me we check him out but keep looking.”
“What’s next?”
“We need to talk to Father Wagner. I don’t know if he’ll remember me, but I sat through hundreds of his sermons growing up. I want a copy of his Christmas sermon and I want to get that in the hands of our analysts. I also want to see what he knows, and to rule him out as a suspect.”
Michele’s eyebrows shot up. “You think the priest could have killed the physicians?”
“Right now he’s as good a suspect as any. When he called out to his parishioners it sounded like he asked, ‘Who will stand with me?’ He included himself in the fight. And he was standing when he asked the question. So far we haven’t heard of anyone else who stood up besides Lawler and Grae when Wagner called the congregation out. Someone could have stayed seated and felt the conviction to act, though, so there’s still a lot we need to know.
“I also want to find out everyone who was in church for that Mass on Christmas morning. I want to know every butt in every pew. If you and I are right that Wagner’s sermon was the match that set off the fireworks that have come from this, then we’ve narrowed down our suspect list to a few hundred. By the time we rule out women, kids, and larger guys, we could get our suspect list down to a couple dozen or less. That would be real progress.”
“If we’re right about the sermon being the key to the whole thing.”
“Of course, there is that,” Cole answered, finishing his sandwich.
Michele reached into her purse and retrieved her iPhone. The screen was covered in texts. She scrolled through them as Cole flagged down their waitress and gave her his credit card. He could tell Michele was getting nervous and excited. She unlocked the phone and sent out two quick messages and looked up as Cole signed the merchant copy of their receipt.
“I need to get to the airport,” Michele said, jumping up and sending her napkin flying. “The Journal is sending me to New York to do an interview on Fox News about the murders. They’ve chartered a small plane that will take me to the Twin Cities and I’ll fly nonstop from there to LaGuardia. They expect me on the air live in the studio tonight. My editor said I can expense a new outfit once I get to Manhattan if I need to. This is crazy.” She let out a whoop that caught the attention of everyone in the café.
“Whoa. Slow down. We should have expected this,” Cole said. He reached across the table and took one of her hands in his, looking directly into her eyes. “Please, try not to give away too much. Don’t share anything about the sermon or this town if you don’t have to.”
“Okay,” she said cautiously. “I’d really like to do a story on John Lawler’s hunger strike, though. I realize someone might connect the dots like we did, but I’d be careful not to mention the sermon or the local editor’s abortion update. Tonight, I’d also like to mention that the killer emailed me. Would you be okay with that? It would allow me to bring something new to the table and I wouldn’t provide anything that could get in the way of the investigation.”
“I can live with that,” he agreed. “If you can omit the crucifix, deer blood, rifle type, cigarette butts, etc., we should be all right. That still leaves you with a lot to talk about.”
“What if I run out of things to say?” She smiled.
“Then look the camera in the eye with that beautiful smile of yours,” he said, knowing as the words came tumbling out that he was taking a chance.
Michele winced when he said beautiful and she pulled her hand away from his distractedly.
Cole cursed himself for losing his professionalism. ‘“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was trying to be funny and helpful and I was neither. I didn’t mean to come across as an ass.”
“No. It’s okay,” Michele said, confused. “I’m kind of messed up and I have a lot going on right now.”
“Well,” Cole said, using his phone to summon a ride for her from Deputy Hubbard, “again, I really am sorry. Let me see what I can do to get you on a plane bound for New York.”