John Sandford - Escape Clause

He pushed the screen door open, said, “Come in,” and led Virgil to the living room, where two beige couches, a faux-wood coffee table, and a blue reading chair made a conversation group. He stubbed out the cigarette, took the blue chair, pointed at a couch, and asked, “What can I do for you?”

“We’re trying to track down the tigers taken from the zoo,” Virgil said, resisting the temptation to wave away the secondhand smoke. “We’re trying to figure out who in Minnesota, or close to here anyway, would have the knowledge and ability to process a dead tiger into traditional medications. We understand that you’re an expert in the area and might have some ideas about that.”

Peck rubbed his forehead, thinking, halfway scowled, and said, “The compounders of traditional medications here in the Twin Cities area work with herbs and other vegetation. Roots and so on. Not with fauna. Well, there’s one exception that I’m aware of…”

“Toby Strait?”

Peck frowned. “Is he still working? I heard he’d been shot by some animal rights nut.”

“He was,” Virgil said. “He wasn’t killed and he’s up and around again. You weren’t thinking of him?”

“No, I was thinking of Bobbie Patterson-Roberta Patterson. She processes roadkill, the carcasses of animals trapped for their fur, and bats.”

“That’s… unusual.”

“Not a profession I’d choose for myself. She was a biologist, failed to get tenure a couple of times, and decided to make some money,” Peck said. “She has an operation over in Wisconsin, east of Hudson somewhere. Always been legal, as far as I know.”

“You have an address or number for her?”

“No, but I think she’s called Patterson Biologic Resources or something close to that. She has a website.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Virgil said. “Exactly what kind of equipment would you need to process biologics?”

Peck shrugged. “Not my area. I’m more interested in traditional medicine as an academic discipline. I publish books and papers in the field; I don’t engage in the production of herbal or animal compounds. And to tell you the truth, those that do, around here, are usually a bunch of shitkickers stumbling around in the woods, trying to get something for free. They’re not exactly high-end biologists. Bobbie Patterson is the exception there.”

“But you do use some traditional medicines from time to time, right? Or at least buy some?”

Peck nodded. “Sure. I have a small, select patient list. Some of these things have a long history of efficacy against certain kinds of illnesses. Rheumatism, for example, or gout. Karl Marx suffered from gout and so did Henry the Eighth.”

“Didn’t know that,” Virgil said. “Do your medicines work?”

“Like Western medicine, they work some of the time. Some of the time, they don’t,” Peck said. “But they do no harm.”

“Hmm,” Virgil said. Then, “I don’t mean to offend you, but I have to ask a few questions. We’re asking these of everyone we speak to. Could you tell me where you were two nights ago?”

“Well… here,” Peck said, waving toward a wall-mounted television. “Two nights ago, let me see, I was working here until midnight or so and watching some television- The Freshman was on, an old movie, but it always makes me laugh. Marlon Brando reprising The Godfather as a comedy. Anyway, I was making a few notes from a book, a catalog really, called Life in the Bengal , about primitive medicine in India, as it was preserved into the 1890s.”

Virgil would check the movie time later. “Nobody here with you? No visitors?”

“No… I did see my neighbor when I was pushing the garbage out to the curb. That’s Maxwell Broom, next house down the street. That was late, probably ten o’clock.”

“I’ve been told that a fully processed tiger would be worth quite a lot in terms of medicine, and again, not to be offensive, I understand that you ran into some financial difficulty recently.”

“Been doing some research on me, huh? Well, it wasn’t a difficulty, it was a goddamned disaster,” Peck said. “Started out simple, made a little money with an iPhone app aimed at people who are hard of hearing. Most ringtones are high-pitched, see, and people suffering hearing loss can’t hear them, even when they’re loud. I had an idea: ringtones based on lower-frequency sounds. I hired a coder, put together the ringtones based on lower-frequency tones, bought advertisements in AARP Magazine , which were quite expensive, and made some money. Then this coder started pressing me with this idea for an emoji-type figure. He said it would go viral and make us millionaires…”

“Nipples,” Virgil said.

“Don’t even say the word to me,” Peck said. “I must have been out of my mind. But: the Star Tribune article was wrong. I assume that’s where you got your information? I didn’t declare bankruptcy, the company did. I was the nominal head of the company.”

“Said they took your car.”

“They got it wrong. That was the company van,” Peck said. “Don’t ask me why we had one; my accountant suggested it. A tax thing. Anyway, I did have to sell it to pay off creditors, along with a couple computers and some office equipment. The company’s remaining assets, is what it was. I don’t deny that I was hurt, but… I still have considerable personal assets.”

Peck was up-front and calm, yet his left leg bounced against his toes for the whole time of the interview. Nervousness, Virgil thought, brought rigidly under control in his voice and face, but tipped off by the leg. Not necessarily an indictment: most people were nervous when being interviewed by a cop.

Virgil asked him, “If you had to throw out three names-you know, if somebody put a gun to your head-who’d you say, in the traditional medicine market, might do this?”

Peck frowned, and after a moment’s thought and a couple of facial scratches, said, “Well… nobody. Nobody here in this area. Most of these people involved in traditional medicine, to be honest, are somewhat timid. Backwoods people, the ones who actually produce the basic flora and fauna. They’re not the kind to be sneaking around stealing tigers. They tend to be reclusive, rather than aggressive. And I’d say… poor. They usually don’t have a lot of resources. I couldn’t see them organizing anything like this raid on the zoo.”

“So…”

“I think you’re looking in the wrong direction. You want somebody who’s more confrontational, somebody who’s not afraid to go to jail. Somebody with money and lawyers. I’m thinking the anti-zoo people or animal rights people. People who lie down in front of bulldozers. Not some lady who goes mushroom hunting.”

Virgil’s phone buzzed, and he looked at the screen. Bea Sawyer, the crime-scene specialist.

He said, “I’ve got to take this.”

Peck said, “Sure, walk into the kitchen, if you want some privacy.”

–

Virgil walked into the compact kitchen and, on the way, punched up the call.

“Virgil, this is Bea. Hey, we got a hit on those prints we took off the lightbulb, believe it or not. The feds say they’re from a small-time crook named Hamlet Simonian: three convictions for burglary and one for hijacking a Best Buy truck.”

Virgil was astonished. “Convictions here? Do we have an address?”

“No, not here,” Sawyer said. “He was busted in Brooklyn, New York; Camden, New Jersey; and Glendale, California, on the burglaries, and Phoenix, Arizona, on the Best Buy truck. He’s never done any serious time and has apparently either been clean or clever for a few years now, but we’ve got lots of mug shots.”

“Bea, let me call you back in a minute. One minute.”