“Yes?”
“I’d like to speak with Ms. Jacoby, please.”
“She is not here.” Her is came out ees.
“Do you know how I might reach her?”
“Who is this?”
“Sheriff Corcoran O’Connor. I’m calling from Aurora, Minnesota.”
“Mrs. Jacoby is gone. She will be back tomorrow.”
“Does she have a cell phone number?”
“I can’t give that out.”
“Who am I speaking to?”
“I’m Carmelita.”
“Carmelita, this is an emergency.”
Carmelita breathed a couple of times before replying, “Mr. Edward?”
“Yes. Mr. Edward.”
“Sometheen happen?”
“I need to speak to his wife.”
She paused again, again considering. “Just a moment.” Her end of the line went quiet. Then: “She is on a boat on the lake. I do not know if you can reach her. Her cell phone number is…” Cork wrote it down. Then she said, “His father. You should call him.”
“His name?”
“Mr. Louis Jacoby. You want his telephone number?”
“Thank you.”
He tried the cell phone that belonged to the dead man’s wife, but it was “currently unavailable.” He punched in the number Carmelita had given him for the father. It was the same area code as Edward Jacoby’s home phone. The call was picked up on the first ring.
“Jacoby residence.” A man’s voice, modulated and proper.
“I’d like to speak with Louis Jacoby, please. This is Sheriff Corcoran O’Connor.”
“Just one moment, please.” The elegance of his voice seemed to lend a formality to the silence that followed. Half a minute later: “May I ask what this is in regard to, sir?”
“His son Edward.”
A very proper silence again, then: “This is Lou Jacoby. What is it, Sheriff?”
“Mr. Jacoby, I’m calling from Aurora, Minnesota. It’s about Edward.”
“What’s he done now?”
“It’s not that, sir. I’m sorry, but I have some very bad news. Are you alone?”
“Just tell me, Sheriff.”
“There’s no way for this to be easy. The body of your son was discovered this morning in a park not far from here.”
“His body? ”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Jacoby, your son is dead.”
Cork hated delivering this kind of news and hated doing it in this way.
“How?” Jacoby finally managed to ask.
“At the moment, we’re treating it as a homicide.”
“Somebody killed my son?” It was not a question but a hard reality settling in.
A silence that was only emptiness filled the line.
Then Jacoby rasped, “Eddie, Eddie. You stupid little shit.”
10
A little before ten, Cork visited Marsha at the hospital. Charlie Annala had taken time off from his job at the fish hatchery and was a constant companion. Marsha’s father, Frank, was there, too. Marsha looked better, with more color in her face, and she was sitting up. She’d heard about Mercy Falls and asked for details. Cork told her what they had. Then he had to tell her that as far as her own shooting was concerned, he knew nothing more than he did yesterday. But Rutledge was waiting for results from the BCA lab that he was sure would be helpful.
A few minutes after noon, he met with Simon Rutledge and Ed Larson in his office.
Larson explained that they’d completed their investigation of the crime scene at Mercy Falls after daybreak when they had more light to work with. They’d gone over the interior of the Lexus, taken hair samples from the upholstery that didn’t appear to match that of the dead man, and had found in the ashtray two cigarette butts with lipstick on them. They’d fingerprinted everything; it was a rental, so there was a shitload of prints to process, and that would take a while. The door handles, however, had been wiped clean.
“Tom got right on the autopsy. He completed it about an hour ago. He’s working on the official report right now, but basically this is what he found,” Larson said, reading from his notepad. “There were fourteen stab wounds, all in the upper torso. Death was the direct result of a single stab wound to the heart. The mutilation came after Jacoby was deceased. The stab wounds were all delivered by a sharp, slender blade seven inches in length. The same instrument was probably used in the castration.”
“Sounds like a fillet knife,” Cork said.
“That’s exactly what Tom thought.”
In addition to being a physician and the county medical examiner, Tom Conklin was an avid angler.
“Was he robbed?” Cork asked.
“Nearly five hundred in his wallet, along with half a dozen credit cards.”
“What was he doing out at Mercy Falls late at night?”
“Good question,” Larson said.
“No indication of a struggle?”
“No lacerations on his arms or hands that would indicate he tried to defend himself.”
“So Jacoby was taken completely by surprise?” Cork said.
“I’m guessing the final autopsy report will show a high blood alcohol level. There was a nearly empty bottle of tequila in the Lexus. Probably it’ll show other drugs as well. We found a stash in the glove box. Cocaine, Ecstasy, marijuana, and Rohypnol.”
The date-rape drug. Also known as Roofies, Ruffies, Roche, and by a dozen other names.
“It’s entirely possible that Jacoby was too high to put up a struggle,” Larson said.
Rutledge picked it up from there. “Jacoby had some receipts from the Four Seasons Lodge in his wallet. While Ed and his people finished at the scene, I dropped by and spoke with the lodge staff. Jacoby was staying there. He was a big tipper, flamboyant guy, and it wasn’t unusual for him to be seen returning to his cabin at night in the company of a woman.”
“Description?” Cork said.
“Not any particular woman anyone could describe. But we’ll do more checking. Also we’ll try to put together a complete history of his activities prior to his death.”
“We’ll be going over his room as soon as we leave here,” Larson said. “See what turns up there.”
“The drugs in the SUV,” Cork said. “How’d he get those? Did he bring them with him? Risk a search of his luggage or person at airport security? Or did he buy them here?”
Rutledge nodded thoughtfully. “The castration might point toward a drug connection. Not uncommon to see something like that in drug deals gone bad. It could be the drugs were the reason he was at Mercy Falls.”
“Anyone around here would know we patrol the park,” Cork said.
Larson made a note on his pad. “Still worth checking out.”
“Jacoby worked for Starlight. Casino management, right?” Rutledge said.
“That’s right. He’s made half a dozen trips over the last six months trying to convince the Iron Lake Ojibwe to become clients. The RBC is going to vote on it pretty soon.”
“RBC?”
