“I know your kind,” she said. “I’ve dealt with your kind all my life. Men like you. Selfish and cruel and greedy beyond belief. All you care about is what you can get for yourself—what you can take from me for yourself! Just like my father. And my brother. And all the rest. Well, you’re not taking anything from me, do you hear? Not a dime. Nothing. If you come back here, I’ll kill you.”
I regarded Cilia closely. There was much to admire. There was much more that made me want to bash her brains in. The story she had told about her father, her brother, and Brian Becker—it was true. Looking into her hate-filled eyes, I knew it was true. I could forgive her all the rest. Trying to protect her niece, going to Muehlenhaus, certainly, I could forgive her for that. But cold-blooded murder? The men who died around her might have been bastards, but one of the first things I was taught as a cop was you can’t choose the vie, and I was still too much of a cop to let it slide. Yet what could I do about it? If I took it to the cops, I’d have to give them all the rest, too, and I couldn’t do that. Not to Silk. Not to Merodie. Besides, where was the evidence? It was my word against hers, and my word consisted solely of repeating an admittedly outrageous story she told me that might or might not be true. Except it was true.
I gripped Cilia’s elbow in a way that made her cry out in pain and release my arm. She stepped backward, rubbing her elbow. There was no pain in her eyes, though. Only anger and hatred.
“You’re a dangerous woman, Cilia,” I said. “Someone ought to do something about you.”
They call Minneapolis City Hall the “Pink Palace” because of its Camelot-style Gothic architecture and the color of its granite facade. Room 108 in the Pink Palace was reserved for the Minneapolis Police Department’s homicide unit. No outsider was allowed entry without an escort, so I had called ahead to warn Lieutenant Clayton Rask that I was coming and to request that he fetch Lieutenant John Weiner from Anoka for a brief meeting. I was quickly ushered to Rask’s desk. It was made of rich mahogany. Basic gray metal government desks served all the other officers in the department. Rank does have its privileges, I decided.
Neither officer rose to his feet or offered me a hand in greeting.
Rask said, “Look at you. What rock did you crawl out from under?”
I was hoping he was referring solely to my appearance.
“You have a homicide,” I said.
“I have several homicides,” Rask said.
“Mollie Pratt.”
“Have you come to confess?” Weiner asked.
I guess that was his idea of humor.
“We both know who did it,” I said.
He rose quickly from the chair next to Rask’s desk.
“Don’t push it,” Weiner warned.
“I don’t know who did it,” Rask said. “Tell me.”
“Richard Scott Nye,” I said. “He lived next door to Mollie Pratt before he was busted for dealing meth—that’s how they met. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding him, either. Weiner here has him in custody at the Anoka County Correctional Facility. He and the county attorney are protecting him. He’s their chief witness in the meth busts they made yesterday. You might have heard about them. It was in all the papers.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Weiner said.
“Then I apologize in advance for accusing you of shitting on your badge.”
“I bet this is going to be an interesting story,” Rask said.
I told it as concisely as I could, filling in the blanks with assumptions that I had made. Mollie knew Nye was dealing; she was one of his customers. Mollie told Nye that she had seen him at Merodie’s house the day Eli Jefferson was killed either as a favor or to blackmail him into giving her dope. Nye raped and killed her; that was why he had been so confident that no one could testify against him when I confronted him at his apartment. Ain ‘t nobody around no more to say otherwise.
“Weiner knew about Nye,” I added. “That’s why he hustled me out of his office the other day when Nye’s name first came up.”
Rask didn’t speak, but I had seen the expression on his face before. Lordy, but I was glad he wasn’t angry at me.
“This is nonsense,” Weiner said.
“It is a tad thin, McKenzie,” Rask said.
“It should be easy enough to check out,” I said. “You have the DNA the killer left on Mollie’s body. Match it against Nye’s. You won’t even have to get a warrant. Nye was busted twice for sexual assault in the past. His DNA is on file.”
“What do you think, Lieutenant?” Rask asked.
“It’s your case,” Weiner said.
“So it is.”
“Something else,” I said.
“What’s that?” Rask asked.
I was going to tell him about Priscilla St. Ana, I really was, but at the last moment my mind’s eye focused on Silk’s face—and Merodie’s. I couldn’t see past them.
“Never mind,” I said.