* * *
—
The recording cut out. Trane looked at Virgil, and said, “This can’t be an original recording. Not on a CD.”
Virgil nodded. “You’re right. It’s a rerecording. But why? Blackmail? They were talking about human experimentation. If it’s blackmail, why hide it behind a couple of cowboy songs?”
“I don’t know about that part,” Trane said. “I’ve got a doctor I could talk to about the experimentation, see if he can clarify the situation.”
“He might not want to. He might even have to report it to somebody, and we wouldn’t want that to happen until we’re ready for it,” Virgil said.
“He won’t report it.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure, and I can get it done in a hurry,” Trane said. “The fact is, I’m sleeping with him.”
“That’s more information than I needed,” Virgil said. “And that doesn’t guarantee—”
“The other thing is, he’s my husband,” Trane said.
“Ah. Then we’re okay. I was wondering where those Louboutin boots came from on a cop’s salary. I saw the red soles when you were walking up the steps outside.”
Fists on hips. “You’re were thinking I was crooked?”
“I was thinking you were looking good,” Virgil said.
“You do know how to dodge a bullet,” Trane said, with another of her uncommon smiles.
* * *
—
Trane wanted to talk to her husband, who was planning to spend the afternoon with his sketching group but would still be at home. “After I talk to him, I’m going back to wife number three. Maybe she knows exactly what situation they were talking about—who they were going to experiment on.”
“I’ll see if I can find Combes,” Virgil said. And, “Hey, Trane, you did good. I wouldn’t have thought of the CD in a hundred years.”
“That makes us even,” Trane said. “I never would have seen the tricky desk.”
* * *
—
Virgil called Davenport about Combes. Davenport went away for a minute, then came back and gave him a phone number for a lawyer named Carleton Lange, who referred him to a lawyer named Shelly Carter, who gave him Combes’s personal cell phone number, and said, “Don’t tell him I sold him out to a cop.”
Combes was on the sixteenth green at his golf club about to putt, he told Virgil, but would be done in half an hour or so. “Come to the clubhouse, I’ll meet you in the grill. You can grill me.”
Combes lived in the prosperous St. Paul suburb of North Oaks, which was north of St. Paul and had a lot of oaks and, from what Virgil had been told, had a decent, private golf course set among architecturally challenged McMansions. He’d never been on the course, which wasn’t disappointing since he ranked golf only slightly above thumb wrestling and joggling as a sport. He suspected the members wouldn’t let him on the greens anyway.
Saturday traffic slowed him down, and though North Oaks was only ten miles or so from Quill’s house, it took a half hour to make the trip. Combes had just come off the course when Virgil walked in from the parking lot. He was a beefy, sun-reddened, square-jawed guy with square white teeth, his brown hair going a little gray at the temples, maybe looking like a high school tight end gone slightly to seed. He had on a red golf shirt like Tiger Woods wore—and maybe still did—and plaid golf shorts.
He was sitting with three other men when he was pointed out to Virgil. As Virgil walked over, he stood up to shake hands, and said to his friends, “Gotta talk to this guy. Be right back.” They got a table away from other patrons, and Combes asked, “What’s up? This is about Barth? . . . Wanna beer?”
“No, thanks, I’m working. I’d take a Diet Coke.”
When Virgil had his Coke, he said, “We’re talking to a lot of Barth’s friends . . .”
“I hear you’re dead in the water. If you’re talking to me, you must be deader than I heard.”
“We’ve started to make progress in the last few days,” Virgil said.
“How’d you get my cell phone?”
Virgil lied. “I don’t know. I’m friends with Lucas Davenport, who you know, and I asked him to make some calls. He did and got me the number.”
“Huh. I’ll tell you something about Davenport and basketball: you don’t want to be standing in the paint when he’s coming through,” Combes said. “He’ll lay that hockey defenseman shit on your ass and you’ll wind up in the bleachers.”
“He said you can shoot,” Virgil said.
Jock bonding. Combes was pleased. “I do have my moments.” Then, “So . . .”
“Yeah. How close were you and Dr. Quill?”
“Hell, not real close—we didn’t go out drinking or anything. He came to my Christmas party most years; he kinda liked my old lady. We did play handball most Friday afternoons when we both were in town.”
Virgil dropped his voice. “Here’s the thing, Jack. I mean, you’ve done criminal law, you know what we do. We’re looking for people who Dr. Quill might have been involved with, and who might have a propensity to violence.”
Combes: “That’s not me.”
Virgil took a nip of his Diet Coke, and said, “That’s not where I was going. We pretty much tore apart his house and we found the remnants of an eight ball of cocaine hidden in a desk drawer. You’ve dealt with druggies. Did you ever see any sign that Dr. Quill was using cocaine? Did you ever see him with anybody who might have been dealing it to him?”
Combes was already shaking his head. “You gotta know that I’ve defended a lot of these guys, court-appointed deals. Sure, I know the signs. All of them. I can look at two guys and tell you which one is a coke freak and which one is a methhead. I’ll tell you this: Barth Quill never in his life used cocaine. He didn’t know any coke dealers. The whole idea is laughable.”
“But—”
Combes shook off the interruption. “No buts. Look. What you really want to know is if I might have slipped him a little coke. If I might have introduced him to one of my clients. The answer is no. If I’d even suggested that he might like a little chemical fun, he would have crossed me off his list of friends. You know the phrase ‘rectally challenged’?”
“I’m not—”
“That’s the lawyer version of ‘He’s got a corncob stuck up his ass.’”