“Any hint that he might be violent?” Virgil asked.
“Yes!” Rosalind said. “He was arrested for assault after he was caught trespassing somewhere. I remember seeing it in the Star Tribune. I don’t remember where he was trespassing, but I remember the story.”
“The problem with Nash is, he has an alibi,” Virgil said. “If I’m remembering right, he was at a convention that night. There were several people who were willing to back him up on that.”
“Then he probably did it for sure,” Anderson said, leaning toward Virgil, a light in his eyes. “One thing I remember Barth telling me about him is that he always has an alibi. He never moves without an alibi. He’s been arrested at least a couple of times, but always had a story. Wasn’t there, didn’t do it. Wasn’t there when somebody talked directly to him. Barth and I were laughing about it. I was anyway.”
“Interesting,” Virgil said. “Boyd Nash.”
“That’s him,” Rosalind said. “I got a little chill when I thought of him. I think he could be something.”
* * *
—
Back across the river again in Minneapolis, Virgil found Trane, Cohen, Hardy, and a Hennepin County assistant attorney named Harmon Watts in an interview room at the jail. Virgil pulled Trane out—“We only need one minute”—and in the hallway told her about Boyd Nash.
“You think it could be something?”
“The lab people thought it was something,” Virgil said. “I think we’ve got to take a serious look at him.”
* * *
—
Back in the interview room, Watts asked, “What’s the history here?”
Virgil said, “You guys have to handle the details, I’m here as Maggie’s assistant. But I proposed to Mr. Hardy that we weren’t so much interested in the various possible charges against Miz Cohen as we are in getting complete cooperation from her.”
“How will you know if you’re getting complete cooperation?” Watts asked.
“Because if we don’t think we’re getting it, we walk away and refile,” Trane said.
“I’m going to need a false arrest waiver,” Watts said.
“We’re okay with that,” Hardy said.
Cohen said, “Wait. False arrest? Can we sue them for this?”
“Not really,” Hardy said.
Watts: “If you don’t sign the waiver, we don’t drop the charges and you go to jail. ’Cause it wasn’t a false arrest, but we don’t want you coming back later saying that it was.”
Hardy: “She’ll sign.”
And so on and so forth. Cohen signed, Watts picked up the paper, said, “Bless you all,” and left.
* * *
—
Virgil and Trane started pushing Cohen. She and Quill had made three separate trips to the library, all in the middle of the night. “An adventure,” she said, which Quill seemed to enjoy. “I wasn’t all that big on it because that yoga mat wasn’t thick enough and it hurt my back and ass,” she added.
Quill paid her five hundred dollars per trip.
They’d met on Tinder, first hooking up in Dinkytown. She knew he was well-off because of the car, but she hadn’t known his real name. She’d asked, and he told her it was Alex Nolan. She’d later tried to look him up on the internet, and while she’d found lots of Alex Nolans, none of them seemed to be the man she was having sex with. She hadn’t learned his real name until she’d seen a TV news story about his murder.
“So you did know about it,” Trane said. “In your apartment you told us—”
“She may have misspoken,” Hardy said. “Hardly a major issue.”
Cohen admitted that she knew that Quill must have been the man who’d taken her to the library, but said she was afraid to talk to the police. “I didn’t see how anything good could come from that. I mean, I didn’t know anything. And, you know, with my job and all, I’d be an easy one to pin it on.”
They took her through a second-by-second recital of their approach to the library. They’d met at a bar in Dinkytown, had walked across the campus, then across the footbridge, past a couple of dormitories, scouting the Wilson Library for lights.
“We saw some kids outside the dorms, around the dorms, but there was never anybody around that library. I mean, this was midnight,” she said. “The first two times, it was even later—like, one o’clock.”
Quill had a key. They entered the library, listened for sounds, heard none, then Quill took her hand and led her up a flight of steps to the second floor. His carrel was behind some high book stacks, and as they got close, they saw a light.
“I think it was an iPhone light. Alex—I mean, Dr. Quill—was holding my hand going up the stairs, but then we saw the light.”
Quill dropped her hand and whispered for her to stay where she was. She didn’t. She hid behind one of the tall bookshelves on the other side of the aisle from the shelves near the carrel. She heard Quill say something but wasn’t sure exactly what it was but thought he said he was calling the police. “I think I heard that word ‘police.’”
“Do you think they just ran into each other? Or was the killer waiting for Dr. Quill?” Virgil asked.
“Oh, I don’t know.” She squinted at the ceiling. “You know, why would he have the light on if he was trying to sneak? I think maybe it was an accident, that they ran into each other.”
Virgil: “Do you think the person, whoever it was, was already in the carrel when you got there?”
“Oh, yeah, I think so. Something else, you know, that I just thought of: I think Dr. Quill knew the person. Recognized him. I don’t know what he said, but the tone of his voice, it was like he knew him.”
“Maybe somebody from his lab?” Trane suggested.
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure about it. But when I think back, I think he recognized him. Knew him.”
She heard the struggle, heard the door close, thought she heard keys, but remained huddled behind the shelves where she thought she wasn’t visible. When the light headed toward the stairs, she didn’t look at it, or the man who carried it, because she was afraid he’d see her eyes. “I kept my head down. So I never saw this other person.”
Virgil asked about drugs. “I’m not going to hassle you about it, but I need to know. Do you use coke?”
“I’ve tried it,” she admitted. “The guy buys it and wants to party, you know? I don’t buy it myself. It’s nice, but it’s expensive.”