using the place names from the text thread.
“I DID AN ADVANCED Google search,” Marybeth said, seated at her desk in her office. She wore her reading glasses that made her look serious and thoughtful, Joe thought. She tapped the monitor of her computer with an index finger. “I did several combinations of the words Chicago, Madison, Cheyenne, Mount Rushmore and words like crime, murder, killing, police. I got thousands of hits, of course. Then I narrowed down the search to the last two weeks, because April said she’d been on the road for two weeks, right?”
“Right.”
“So since she said she used to live in Chicago, I assumed the two weeks in the car started there. Of course, we don’t know for sure, but that’s what I’m guessing. So I narrowed it down to the second week of August. Guess how many murders took place that week?”
Joe shrugged.
“Eight. It’s a big place. Of the eight, four were ‘gang-related,’ but I guess we can’t rule them out until we get more information from April. The others run the gamut, from the murder of a doctor—wife arrested—to a truck driver in a suspected road-rage incident. And a brothel owner got shot in the head but nobody saw anything. So who knows?”
Joe agreed. “All we’re going on is that one line she wrote—
“Right,” she said, doing another Google search. “But let me see if I can find what I found last night. Madison is smaller than Chicago, of course, and there was an unexplained murder there eleven days ago.”
Joe’s antennae went up because of the way she said it.
“Here,” she said jabbing the screen. “From the
It meant nothing to Joe, and he shrugged.
The printer purred, and she snatched out the sheet that slid out and handed it to Joe.
By Rob Thomas, Staff Writer
MADISON—Madison Police are looking for suspects in the alleged slaying of controversial anti-environmentalist blogger Aaron Reif, 38, author of “PlanetStupido.com.” According to MPD Spokesman Jim Weller, Reif’s body was found Tuesday night in his studio apartment at 2701 University Avenue slumped over his computer. According to Weller, Reif had been shot twice in the head with a small-caliber weapon at point-blank range. Because there were no signs of forced entry, the police assume the alleged assailant may have been an acquaintance of Reif, according to police sources who asked to remain unnamed.
PlanetStupido.com attracted national and international notoriety last year when Reif publicly accused the proprietors of several international carbon-offset brokers of fraud and corporate malfeasance. Police sources refuse to speculate whether the alleged murder was connected with the website or Reif’s high-profile activities.
Weller stated in a hastily called press conference at police headquarters that Reif’s body was discovered at 9:47 P.M. by a pizza de liveryman who arrived at the apartment to deliver a pizza that Reif allegedly ordered, leading the police to believe that Reif was killed between 9:20 P.M. when the order was received and the time of delivery. The Madison Police Department urges citizens who may have been in the vicinity of 2701 University Avenue between 9:15 and 10:00 P.M. to report any suspicious persons, vehicles, or activities . . .
“Interesting,” Joe said. “I’ve never heard of this website, have you?”
“No, but when we get done here, I’m going to spend some time on it,” she said. “But first I’ve got to show you something else.”
She found no major crimes in Cheyenne or at Mount Rushmore, she said. But when she looked at the road atlas for South Dakota, she noted how many small communities there were around the monument. Hill City, Custer, Keystone, and Rapid City, the only city of any size.
“Keystone,” Joe said, sitting up. “Wasn’t that where—”
“Yes,” she said, leaping in. “That’s where that old couple from Iowa were found murdered a week ago in that RV park. Remember that they thought those poor old people had died because their motor home caught fire while they were sleeping, but they later found they’d been shot first?”
“With a small-caliber weapon,” Joe finished for her.
He sat back, his head swimming.
“This proves nothing, I know,” Marybeth said, spinning in her chair to face Joe, whipping her glasses off. “But you’re right—we need to ask April more questions.”
As they looked at each other they both came up with the same thought.
Marybeth returned to the keyboard and the Google home page, typed ASPEN + MURDER, and directed the search within the last twenty-four hours.
Joe observed her as she read the screen. Suddenly, she gasped, sat back in her chair, and covered her mouth with her hand.
He stood up and leaned across the desk. There were only four hits.
The first one, from the Aspen
MURDER IN ASPEN: COUPLE SLAIN ON EVE
OF WEDDING WEEKEND
9
STENKO HAD SAVED HER. SHE OWED HIM; SHE WAS LOYAL. Her journey from that frozen campground on fire in Wyoming to Chicago had been cruel and difficult, consisting of movement with no destination in mind. Until Stenko.
As Stenko and Robert argued back and forth in the front seat of the SUV as they drove north toward Wyoming again, she reviewed how she got to this place at this time and let their voices become nothing more than a discordant background soundtrack.
