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“Weather Karkinnen...”
Melton smiled and said, “Weather! This is really a small town. I met her years ago. Haven’t seen her in a while, but I still go to the chamber orchestra.” To Cooper, she said, “Weather is one of the best plastic surgeons in the Twin Cities. Maybe the best.”
“What do you do?” Lucas asked Melton.
“I’m an attorney. I’m a partner in Alex’s old firm, before he became a judge,” Melton said. “I’ve taken some personal time to... you know... hang out with Margaret.”
“Nice. Good friends,” Virgil said.
—
For the nexthour, they plodded though the file, asking questions that came sideways out of the facts, pushing the two women to speculate. In the end, the women agreed to look more closely at Sand’s financial affairs. Melton said she could help with that; Cooper thought it more likely that the killings were the result of something that happened in court.
Lucas asked Melton: “Is it possible that something happened backbeforeAlex was a judge, something in his legal firm, came back to him? Something traumatic, a lost case?”
She looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then said, “He’s been a judge for eight years, so that’s unlikely. But, I’ll have one of our paralegals pull all his cases going back, say, fifteen years. See if anything pops. The B-Team didn’t ask that.”
Lucas smiled and said, “Please don’t call them a B-Team, at least where they can hear about it. They’re good at what they do, and it’ll piss them off. At Virgil and me. They’ll think we started it.”
Virgil looked at Cooper: “Could we get a couple of private minutes with you? Now?”
She nodded and Melton said, “I’ll go put Chelsea down. Call me when you need me.”
Lucas: “I’ve got to run out to the car and make a personal call. Back in a minute.”
—
Out in thecar, he called Weather, who was driving from her University Hospitals office to Regions Hospital in St. Paul, where she was also on staff. “You know an Ann Melton?”
“Sort of. To nod to, small talk before concerts. She’s a regular. Her ex-husband is a radiologist, I knew him better. He goes to the concerts with his new wife.”
“Ah. I didn’t know she’d been married,” Lucas said. “She’s not now, I don’t think. She doesn’t have a ring and there’s no sign of a husband around her house. I was going to ask you if she might be gay.”
“Is that important?” Weather asked.
“It could be, if she had a sexual relationship with Margaret Cooper.”
“Okay. Yes, I’ve gotten that feeling with her,” Weather said.“That kind of testing thing—she’s never hit on me or anything, but there’s this... thing...”
“Vibration. I get it from gay guys, just checking,” Lucas said.
“Right. She was married, her ex might have some ideas about her status.”
“Won’t be necessary. I’m gonna ask her,” Lucas said. “Or Cooper.”
“Tread lightly,” Weather said. “I like her.”
“But you like everybody.”
“Not true...”
—
Lucas said goodbyeand went back to Melton’s house and let himself in. Cooper was still on the couch but Melton had gone. Virgil had asked if it were possible that Melton had had a relationship with Sand, when they worked at the same firm, and Cooper was in the process of replying that it was not possible.
“They were really quite friendly. And competitive, to some extent—Alex had the benefit of being wealthy and he was something of the firm’s rainmaker because of his social contacts. She didn’t have that. But she worked harder,” Cooper said. “They were friendly enough, still were when Alex and the boys... you know. She was married, but never had children. She took an interest in ours. Like a godmother.”
—
