“You got that back from the lab?'
'No-one of our guys looked at it and sniffed it, but I believe him,” Pratt said. “What I’m thinking is, maybe she was transported, wrapped in the plastic, in a work truck or a pickup, where you might have some tools or other gear. Engine parts. From talking to Benson, I got the impression that the killers were in a hurry to get out of the house. And he checked with Mrs. Austin, and she said they hadn’t had any painting done recently. So I’m thinking that the killers had the plastic with them. So maybe a painter’s truck? Or somebody else who’d have a plastic sheet in their truck. Anyway, if we can find the truck, we might be able to match the transmission fluid. That stuff is sticky, and it’s hard to clean up.”
“That’s something,” Lucas said, and it was. “Any other debris with it? Leaves, or anything organic, or paint? Carpet fibers? Something we could put with the transmission fluid to triangulate on the truck, when we find it?”
“Don’t know yet,” Pratt said. “The lab stuff won’t be back for a while- we’re pushing it, but you know: it takes time. We’re going over the plastic sheet with a microscope. I’ll tell you, the transmission fluid was sticky as hell, so if anything else was floating around in the truck, it probably picked it up.”
“That’s good; that’s good,” Lucas said. “What else?'
'Well, she had a coat wrapped around her legs and there are no holes in the coat, so she wasn’t wearing it when she got stabbed. I don’t know if that means anything.”
It did, Lucas thought, going back to his reenactment. It meant that she’d had time to take off her coat in the house, which probably meant that she wasn’t ambushed in the dark. “They were trying to cover up the killing, probably just threw it in,” Lucas said. “But get Mrs. Austin to ID it.”
“Yup. And there was about a half- roll of paper towels soaked in blood, and you can see where somebody held them, squinched them, and one of our guys thinks we might be able to get something out of there. Prints. I have my doubts.”
“Sounds unlikely.'
'You gotta know the guy,” Pratt says. “He watches all the science shows.'
'Anything else?'
'If you mean, did she scratch ‘John did it’ on her palm-she didn’t.'
'Okay. Get me all the paper on it, will you? I’m trying to pile up as much stuff as I can… copy everything that you send to Jim.'
'I’ll do that,” Pratt said. “One more thing. The ME says there’s so much damage that she bled out in a minute or two. So the murder was done in Sunfish. You guys still got the case.”
Lucas got Benson on the phone and asked, “Have you talked to Alyssa Austin this morning?”
“No, I haven’t. You want me to?'
'I’ll go. You got any ideas?'
'I’m just watching you, man- you’re the guy who got shot, so there’s gotta be something there. I’ll take care of the lab stuff.”
Austin was on the phone when the housekeeper let Lucas in, and her mother was still there, fussing around the kitchen, and gave Lucas a cup of coffee. She said her husband was at the funeral home, making financial arrangements, and that Austin was turning her business over to her Number Two. She still hadn’t been told when Dakota County would release the body, but it could yet be several days, she said.
When Austin got off the phone, she came to him with a smile and gave him a hug, but she looked pale and thin and dry, and felt that way when she squeezed him: “Thank you for finding her,” she said.
“I just… uh. I just talked to the Dakota County cops,” Lucas said. “I don’t know what they told you about what happened to Frances.”
“Hardly anything.'
'I can tell you some of it, if you want to hear it.'
'I do. Absolutely,” she said. “Your mother said you were turning your business over to an assistant?'
'Not an assistant-she’s a vice president and does our finances,” Austin said. “She does the hard part of running the place. I told her I’d be away for a few weeks. No big deal. She’s done it before, when I ran off to Europe or China.”
They sat in the living room with coffee. Lucas knew from experience that relatives wanted to know what had happened to their loved one, not every brutal note, but the substance of it, and that plain talk was valued over euphemism. “She was stabbed to death. She died quickly. I think the Dakota cops told you that she was wrapped in a plastic sheet.”
“A painter’s sheet,” Austin said. “A drop cloth. We last had painters here four or five years ago. I could look it up, but they were older men. Fifties, anyway. I wouldn’t think that they’d fit a profile for this kind of thing.'
'When we had our house painted-we built our house a few years ago-I don’t think the painters used that plastic,” Lucas said. “I think that’s what you get when you’re painting one room, one time, on your own. Our painters used regular canvas cloths.”
Austin frowned, and her eyes shifted away, and then came back. “I think you’re right. That’s what ours did. I remember they had a lot of tape.”
“So did ours. The Dakota guys didn’t say anything about painter’s tape. I don’t know. Looking for painters might be going in the wrong direction, but we’ll check- I’ll have Jim Benson run them down.”
“Was there any… I mean, you know, on TV… Did she have any skin or anything under her fingernails…?”
“I don’t know. They’re going over the plastic with a microscope. Literally-with a microscope. If there’s any blood there, or skin, or anything that would nail a killer, the lab will find it.”
“I had another thought,” Austin said. “I don’t know whether you had it or not. But if they wrapped her in plastic, is it possible that they brought the plastic to wrap her with? That they came here knowing that they were going to kill her?”
Lucas scratched his jaw: “I didn’t have that thought. When I did my little reenactment, I decided that it was spontaneous. The evidence is consistent with her having been stabbed with that little knife, the one that’s missing. If somebody came here planning to kill her, and then to cover up, why did he do it that way? There are other ways to have done it that wouldn’t have left any blood.”
“She
“I don’t know. I just don’t know,” Lucas said. “But I’m gonna find out.”
Austin had gone off in a new direction. “Is the autopsy done?'
'I’m not sure; I know they at least did a preliminary.'
'Did they check to see if she was pregnant?'
'Huh. I’m sure they would have… and they would have said something. Why?'
'I just keep wondering about it; about the whole scene, about the attack. Spontaneous, violent, had to be very emotional. What would set somebody off that way, somebody that she knew well?”
Lucas shook a finger at her: “That’s something. That’s what I’ll push next. She had money, maybe she’d hooked up with somebody, some thug, who had his eye on the money. Then something happened here and she blew him off.”
“And you’re going to find out who it was.'
'Oh, yeah. Yeah. Count on it.” Austin leaned forward from her spot on the couch and touched Lucas on the knee: “You think it’s the money? And not the Goth thing? The dark culture?”
“Could be both; could be the killer is wiping out the people who he knows talked with Frances. Maybe he’s afraid she told them something that would identify him.”
She shook her head: “The Goths. It has to be in that circle, somewhere. I mean, look what happened to you. You talk to Goths and you get shot.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He shifted around in his seat and looked out toward the lake, trying to piece it together. He said, “I spoke to some people at your husband’s company, about Martina Trenoff. She works at General Mills now.”
Austin nodded: “They got rid of her.'
