John Sandford - Field of Prey

“Too much information,” Mattsson said. And, “I stopped at the office and pulled this off the computer. List of locksmiths within seventy-five miles.”

She handed him the paper she’d brought in, and Lucas took it and scanned it: “Not many down here.”

“But a whole load of them on the south side of the Cities,” Mattsson said.

“I don’t think he’s up in the Cities-I think he’s here.”

“But he’s a locksmith?”

“Or a cemetery worker. Or both. Somebody who could get a key to a coffin, and a bunch of sepulchers.”

They ate lunch in a hurry, then crossed the river in Lucas’s truck and turned north to Diamond Bluff. As Lucas came off the bridge, he took a call from Duncan, and told him what they were doing. “That’s interesting. We’re already looking at every cemetery worker in the world. This certainly seems to confirm that idea. You got any interviews set up in Diamond Bluff?”

“Not yet, but we’ll be there in one minute.”

“Let me see what I can find out from up here,” he said. “I’ll call you.”

Diamond Bluff was an unincorporated settlement, in which the major public establishment seemed to be the bar. They asked in the bar, but nobody could identify a town official of any kind, or even a better place to ask. Nobody in the bar knew who might run the cemetery.

Out in the parking lot, Mattsson looked across the highway at the short clutch of streets between the highway and the river-there were only two, or maybe three-that made up the town. She put her fists on her hips and said, “I can’t believe nobody’s in charge. How could they get anything done?”

“Maybe everyone just takes care of himself,” Lucas suggested.

They went down to the cemetery. It was both pleasant and predictably melancholy, with big trees and grass that had been cut, but not recently.

“Now what?” Mattsson asked.

“We’re not doing any good, standing around like this,” Lucas said.

“Tell you what,” Mattsson said. “You can drop me at the office and I’ll start calling people. I’ll have a list of names by the end of the day. I’ll call all the funeral homes. They gotta know who’s running these places.”

“Look for locksmiths,” Lucas said. “I’ll give your list to Duncan, and have him run them all.”

“You ever think it might be like this?” Lucas asked, as they walked back to his truck.

“What?”

“Investigating. You get what feels like a hot lead, but you can’t find anyone to talk to?”

“It’s worse than that, in my job, anyway. You get a hot lead, but the crime was so low-rent that the lead bores you,” she said. “So-what’re you going to do?”

“I’m going to read the murder books again. Shaffer knew more than I do-I’m pretty sure the key thing is what he figured out. The question is, how’d he take the next step? It’s gotta be in what he knew.”

“Okay. That’s boring.”

They never did any of that, because as they were leaving, Duncan called and asked Lucas where he was.

“Over in Diamond Bluff.”

“Look-I never could find who takes care of the cemetery at Diamond Bluff, but we’ve had something else come up. There was a funeral down in Zumbrota this morning-just wound up a few minutes ago. We’re being told that the funeral party found Shaffer’s wallet and the other notebook. The big one. They say it looks like somebody threw them in a patch of long grass. One of the funeral party picked up the wallet-they thought somebody had lost it-but they haven’t touched the notebook. We’re hoping for prints or DNA. Could you get that Goodhue crime-scene guy and go get it?”

“Yeah, but don’t we have a few guys still up at the Hole? They’d be closer.”

“No. They wound that up this morning, they’re already back,” Duncan said. “Besides, I want to know what’s in that notebook just as soon as I can.”

“On my way,” Lucas said.

Mattsson had been listening, and she said, “Take me back to my truck, and I’ll follow you over. Actually, if you follow me over, we’ll get there faster. I know the shortcuts. I’ll call Johnston now.” Johnston was the Goodhue County crime-scene investigator.

The run was a fast one: down across the river through Red Wing with Lucas’s flashers going, and then a two-truck caravan rocketing cross-country to Zumbrota. When they arrived at the cemetery, they saw a hearse, a line of civilian cars, a Zumbrota cop car, a Goodhue sheriff’s car, and a cluster of people in suits and somber dresses. Off to one side, an open grave and a rank of folding chairs.

Mattsson pulled up and hopped out, with Lucas a few steps behind. She turned and said, “Johnston’s already here. He was cleaning up at the Hole from yesterday, taking some site photos.”

Johnston was, in fact, taking photos of the wallet and the notebook, which lay by a tree ten yards from the still-open grave; the mourners were spread around him in a semicircle, watching him work. The notebook was actually a yellow legal pad, inside a leather cover.

When Mattsson and Lucas walked through the semicircle of mourners, Johnston looked up and said, “Almost done. I need another two or three shots.”

“You got any of those plastic see-through evidence bags?” Lucas asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

“When you’re finished with the photos, let’s get the notebook in a bag. I want to take a look.”

Mattsson walked over to the mourners, Lucas a few steps behind, and asked, “Who found the notebook?”

A white-haired older man, in a dark blue suit, white dress shirt, and shiny blue necktie, raised his hand and said, “That’d be me.”

“Tell us about it,” Lucas said.

The mourners had come to the cemetery in a short convoy, he said. When they got to the new gravesite, they’d all gotten out, sat in the folding chairs, and listened to a few words from the Lutheran minister who was presiding. When he mentioned the minister, the minister raised his hand, and Mattsson nodded at him.

“. . was talking about Gillian and her good works, and I happened to look over there by that tree, and I saw it. The wallet. I wasn’t sure it was a wallet, but it looked like one. When we finished here, I walked over there to check, and it was, and I picked it up.”

He automatically checked the cash compartment, which was empty, then opened it to the driver’s license window. When he saw the name, he replaced it where he found it and told the crowd.

They’d called the local cops, who’d come over in five minutes or so, and shooed everybody away from the tree. One of the cops had spotted the notebook, which was lying fifteen feet away, in a patch of long grass behind a tombstone. Nobody had touched it.

Johnston finished the photography, chimped the photos to make sure they were correctly exposed, and present on both the main and backup memory cards, then put the camera in his car. He took plastic gloves out of his kit, pulled them on, and carried two evidence bags over to the wallet and notebook.

They did the notebook first, and when it was safely isolated in the oversized evidence bag, Lucas asked Johnston to open to the last pages. There wasn’t much from Shaffer’s last day-names, mostly, written in blue ink.

On the last page was the enigmatic notation “Horn,” surrounded by a double-lined box.

Lucas asked Mattsson, “What does that mean? Horn?”

The Zumbrota chief of police, standing behind him, looking over his shoulder, said, “You gotta be shittin’ me.”

Lucas turned: “What does it mean?”

The chief said, “That’s the killer: he was saying that Jack Horn is the goddamned Black Hole killer?”

Lucas and Mattsson, simultaneously: “Who’s Jack Horn?”

The chief told them.