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“Maybe we could talk to the owner, show him our IDs, explain at least part of the problem to him, and see if he’d let us sit in the window over the porch.”
Lucas looked at the blue-and-cream mansion, shrugged, and said, “It’s worth a try. If the owner is a friend of Cooper’s, though... he might squeal on us. But it’d be a hell of a lot warmer in there than out on that lawn.”
When they were talking about the Victorian’s owner, they kept saying “he,” but when they knocked on the door, the owner turned out to be a she, who, after a first look, appeared to be as old as the house.
Martha Muller, widow, looked at their IDs, as they stood on her porch, and said, “Wait here for a moment.”
She came back with a pen and a notepad, wrote down their names, and said, “I’ll be right back.” She shut the door in their faces. They stood around, shuffling their feet, for five or six minutes, talking about nothing, then Virgil’s phone rang and the BCA duty officer asked, “Are you talking to a lady named Martha Muller?”
“Yeah, we are,” Virgil said.
“I’ve got her on the other line. She’s confirming your identities.”
“Well, why don’t you do that?” Virgil asked.
He did that, and Muller came to the door and invited them in. “What’s up? I know about you two, by the way. You got shot last winter. Does this have something to do with Picky-Arc?”
Lucas and Virgil looked at each other, then Lucas said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what Picky-Arc is.”
“Hmm. Okay, it’s the St. Paul Police Civilian Internal AffairsReview Board. No, not board, Commission. Picky-Arc. I’m on the commission.”
“No. It’s not about that.” Virgil looked around the living room, into which they’d moved from the doorway. Thoroughgoing Victorian: high white plaster ceilings, walls painted a pale lemon yellow with white baseboards. Landscape paintings and overstuffed furniture around a coffee table completed the furnishings. The faint odor of burnt toast hovered around them. “It’s complicated. Can we sit down?”
They sat and Muller asked, “If it’s not about Picky-Arc, it must be about the Sands. You don’t think Maggie bumped off her husband and kids, do you?”
Lucas said, “Uh, no. But it’s about that case.”
“Good. Because she didn’t. They were fine parents with nice boys. What a tragedy this is,” Muller said. “I will tell you one thing, though. I’ve heard so much bullshit from cops, I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t bullshit me.”
Virgil asked, “If we tell you a secret thing, could you keep your mouth shut?”
She smiled: “Of course. That’s one reason I’m on the Picky-Arc. I do love a good secret.”
Lucas turned to Virgil: “We gonna tell her?”
Virgil scratched the side of his nose, judging Muller. “Yes,” he said.
—
They told herwhat Cooper planned to do, and why she shouldn’t. That she might get killed trying, and that even if she didn’t,if she didn’t do everything perfectly right, she could be charged with murder.
“I don’t see how it would be murder...”
“If the guy showed up hoping to talk, to explain something, to claim he had nothing to do with the murders, and he is empty-handed and she panics and shoots him... that’s murder,” Virgil said. “I can tell you, she’s so angry, and so fixed on revenge, that could happen. She’s blinded by it.”
Muller leaned back in her chair and said, “I can put you up above the porch. There’s a microwave in the kitchen, I’ve got cocoa and coffee and some burritos in the freezer. Vegetarian, beans and cheese. Or you could bring your own.”
“Ms. Muller, that would be great,” Virgil said. “Your driveway goes around behind your house. We’d like to park there so if we needed the car in a hurry...”
“Feel free,” she said. “Would you mind if I spent some time up there watching with you? Be better than another streaming video. Get to watch some actual police work.”
“Of the unbelievably boring kind,” Lucas said. His phone rang, and he looked at the screen. Durey.
“We got the search warrant reinstated,” Durey said. “The feds are heading over to Heath’s house right now, if you want to come along.”
“He won’t be there,” Lucas said. “He’s at a meeting of the Heart/Twin Cities board, where he’ll be fired. He doesn’t know that yet. Cooper told us. I don’t know where the meeting’s at...”
“We don’t need him. We’re going in. Russo’s there already, I’m about to leave here. If you want to come...”
