Rick Mofina - Full Tilt

“I don’t understand, what’s happening?”

“Our Minneapolis bureau got a tip that some bird-watchers found the body of a white female in the forest and that investigators have evidence tying the murder to Rampart. We hear they’re planning a major press conference up there with Rampart cops, FBI. The story’s getting bigger.”

Kate froze.

“Excuse me, miss, are you using that machine?”

Kate turned to an older man with a ball cap, then stepped away, keeping her phone to her ear and swallowing.

She thought of Vanessa.

“Chuck, did they identify the victim?”

“No, nothing like that so far. Sorry. Kate, can you handle this?”

“I’ll get on the next plane to Minneapolis.”

Albany, New York

All right, here we go again.

Constance Baylick set out on another day of searching the regional, state and national data banks holding DNA profiles to determine if any new ones added to the system matched hers.

Maybe this time.

She’d been assigned to lead on DNA analysis of profiles collected thus far from the Rampart investigation to help with identification or links to other crimes.

Constance was a new hire of the New York State Police Forensic Investigation Center, part of the state police crime lab in Albany. She’d graduated among the top in her class at University of California, Davis, where she’d studied molecular cell biology. She was still working on her PhD. She knew her stuff.

Constance slipped on her headphones to listen to “Born This Way.” Mother Monster helped her concentrate as she set out to work.

She had full authority to access CODIS, all affiliated databases and networks. She received all the newsletters, alerts and bulletins and was well aware of the backlogs.

Sometimes you pray and sometimes you get lucky.

She started by running her routine checks, locally, then with the New York State DNA Databank, then the regional systems.

Then she went into the National DNA Index System, known as NDIS, which held profiles of convicted criminals, people arrested or detained, unidentified human remains, missing persons and the relatives of missing persons. It was common for police agencies across the country to regularly search their profiles against new ones added to the system.

As expected, nothing new so far.

Constance continued clicking through the system. The song had nearly ended when Constance froze.

Ping. Ping. Two hits. Holy cow!

Constance yanked off her headphones, the music ticking at her neck as she checked the identifier number of the submitting agency: Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. She entered her security code and downloaded the profiles.

These were two distinct forensic hits that the system had identified as possible matches with profiles she’d submitted from the Rampart case.

Constance immediately began working to verify that the two Minnesota profiles matched two from Rampart. She scrutinized and tested the genetic markers-alleles-comparing them to the first one until she had it.

Okay. Looks like a definite match here.

She went to the second.

It was trickier. It drifted into pedigree and familial searches that required all alleles to match. But Constance knew that the target and candidate profiles could contain a different number of alleles, as was the case here.

What we have here is a partial DNA match. But it’s strong enough to confirm identity. One person in the Minnesota case and a person in the Rampart case are in the same family.

Constance would swear on it under oath in court if she had to.

She began writing her preliminary report for her supervisor to send to the investigators in Rampart and Minnesota.

Pine Mills, Minnesota

After landing in Minneapolis, Kate got on a regional flight to Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Ninety minutes later, when she arrived in the Grand Forks terminal she saw a tall man with white hair and a friendly face holding a piece of cardboard with “Kate Page” scrawled in black marker.

She went to him.

“I’m Kate Page.”

“Hi, Kate. Lund Sanner, freelance with Newslead. All set? We’ve got a two-hour drive ahead of us.”

Along the way Kate worked on her Chicago story. After she’d sent it to New York she called home to Nancy and then spoke with Grace for fifteen minutes before she had to go.

“I’ll be back in a few days. I miss you like crazy, sweetie,” Kate said.

Kate then bombarded Rampart Detective Ed Brennan again with calls, texts and emails. Again, she received no response. She tried his partner, Paul Dickson. Nothing. It was futile, leaving her frustrated and uneasy.

Something’s happened with this murder. Maybe they got a break?

The sun was setting when they got to Pine Mills, which was at the edge of Lost River State Forest near the Canadian border. Sanner had had the foresight to reserve two rooms at the Timberline Motel.

“You’re lucky,” the clerk said. “Everybody around here’s booked up, mostly with newspeople from all over. Folks say it’s got something to do with that murder. Do you guys know anything?”

“There’s a press conference in the morning in the community hall. We’ll all know more after that,” Sanner said.

Kate was exhausted but agreed to have dinner with Sanner at Greta’s Homestyle Restaurant across the street. Over club sandwiches Sanner told Kate he’d retired from the Pioneer Press after thirty years as a news photographer. He had a cabin near Thief River Falls, not far from here. Kate told him a bit about herself, then Sanner spoke up.

“Kate, when I got the call for this assignment I did some reading on the New York case,” he said. “You’ve got a connection to all of this.”

Kate nodded and told him the story.

“I saw that you were pretty intense during the drive,” he said. “And I didn’t want to interrupt you.”

“I’m sorry, Lund, that was rude of me.”

“No, no apologies. I understand. That was work. I hope things go well for you tomorrow, Kate, all things considered.”

Alone in her room, Kate switched off the lights, stood at her window and stared into the night and at the stars.

What am I doing? My life is moving at a thousand miles an hour. I should be home holding Grace. But I’m so close, so close I can feel it.

She got into bed and as sleep came, she thought of the victim in Lost River.

Up here, amid the isolation rolling with fields, lakes, rivers and forests.

Such a lonely place to die.

Then she thought of Vanessa and cried.

The Pine Mills Community Hall was a sturdy stone-and-wood structure built by volunteers in the 1930s.

Police vehicles and scores of news vans, some from Minneapolis and Winnipeg, jammed the parking lot. Satellite trucks from the major networks had their antennae extended. Radio news cars lined the street in front of the hall. A deputy at the entrance checked and recorded press IDs.

Rows of folding chairs had been set up in the main room before a long table, with TV monitors on stands posted at each end and a large board, covered with large sheets of paper. A heap of recorders and microphones with station flags rose at the center of the table as reporters settled into spots while taking calls from their desks. Kate estimated upward of seventy news types were there.

Metal clanked as TV crews erected tripods, called for cables and batteries to be ferried from satellite trucks. Harried cell phone calls were made to editors, patched through to booths and networks. Data about birds, dishes, coordinates, feeds, airtime and sound tests were exchanged. Overgroomed TV reporters checked their hair, teeth, earpieces, mikes and helped with white balances by holding notebooks before cameras.