Bloody Genius (17 page)

“You don’t think these guys were the ones talking to Dr. Quill?” Virgil asked.

“No. But maybe they’d have some ideas who they might be. If they’re real.”

“If they’re real? They sound pretty real to me.”

Anderson shook his head. “Listen, Virgil, I need to explain something to you. Okay? Listen carefully.”

“I’m listening carefully,” Virgil said.

Anderson leaned back in his desk chair, looked briefly at the ceiling as he gathered his thoughts. “What we do here uses multiple disciplines—chemistry, biology, mechanical engineering, brain science, surgery—and we pull in all kinds of scientists and doctors. What that recording refers to, apparently, was a proposed unethical operation on somebody suffering from a spinal injury. That’s not something you pull out of your butt. That’s not something you can hide. When we do an op, there are usually a couple of dozen people directly involved, everybody from scientists and surgeons to accountants. The surgical team alone would probably have a lead surgeon plus one or two assistant surgeons. Even the assistants would be big shots on their own. Barth would be in the room
probably with one of our techs, or even two. There might be residents coming and going, and for sure several nurses, surgical techs, anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists, imaging people, radiologists, and maybe some specialists in other fields—engineering, for instance. There’s no
Weird Science
stuff going on, surgeries in the middle of the night by a couple of guys using lightning bolts for power. If a little cabal of doctors tried to pull off an unethical operation in Barth’s field, they’d be immediately ratted out and challenged and hanged by their nuts the next day.”

“Then what the hell is happening there?” Virgil demanded.

“I don’t know. That sounded like Barth on the recording, but I don’t know. I mean, it’s like movie dialogue where they have to make things simple. The reality isn’t simple. In Barth’s field, it takes weeks or months to get an op together. Hours of talk and work. Whole seminars. It’s all very public.”

Virgil: “What if they had a guy they hadn’t started on yet, all very preliminary, even before the guy was in your system? Quill knew he couldn’t get past these other people without talking to them. I mean, they hadn’t even talked to the human experimentation committee—or whatever it’s called—yet.”

Anderson chewed on his lip for a few seconds, then looked up. “Yeah. It could work that way. In fact, that’s about the only way it makes sense.”

Down in his truck again, Virgil sat and rubbed his eyes, then got on the phone to Trane.

“Where are you?”

“Courthouse,” Trane said. “Might not be able to talk. They could call me this morning. On the other hand, they might not. There’re
rumors that the defendant’s attorneys might make a bunch of motions about evidentiary custody this afternoon.”

“I talked to Anderson, Quill’s lab manager.”

“What’d he say?”

Virgil told her about the conversation and Anderson’s conclusion. “He thinks it’s possible that this was a preliminary, very secret talk, so it’s possible. Barely possible. He thinks it was Quill on the recording, but he’s not absolutely sure.”

Silence. Then, “You need to jack up some doctors.”

“I got a list of names from Anderson, people who worked with Quill. He thinks that if the recording is real, some of them might be able to tell us who the other voices belong to. He doesn’t think they belong to any of them.”

“We need to jump all over that, get those guys on the list, see what they think. We need to follow through. Nancy now says it was Quill?”

“Sorta. But she’s like Anderson: she says she can’t swear to it,” Virgil said. “She thinks the people on the tape sound odd. She might have a point.”

“Listen, you’ve got that list of doctors. There’s a decent chance that those guys know the people on the recording. And maybe even the killer,” Trane said. “Why in the hell am I sitting here on my ass? I need to be out there. You, go jack up those doctors.”

Because it was summer and the new semester was barely underway, two of the five doctors were out of town at their northern Minnesota fishing cabins. The other three, though, were in town, just scattered around. Because he wanted to talk to them face-to-face, it took Virgil the rest of the day to track them down.

Robert Harris, a microsurgeon and the last of the three that Virgil interviewed, said the same things the other two did. “I don’t know those voices, I really don’t. Not except for Barth’s, of course—if that is Barth. Must have been a long time ago or very recent, nothing in the middle. We’ve got a solid team, and have had for five or six years now. Nobody wants to leave. We get our names in the journals, we make the big bucks. Barth could be a prick, but he was our prick. And, frankly, pricks are not unknown among the surgical fraternity. Not only can we handle it, it’s a fact of life.”

“If it’s recent—and I have to think it’s recent—he was listening to the recording shortly before he was killed,” Virgil said.

“How shortly?”

“We don’t know,” Virgil conceded. “Anyway, is it possible that he was putting together another team that might not be so reluctant to go for the Hail Mary operation? The rest of you guys—the current team—could push back, right? What if he had a bunch of, say, younger, more obscure guys?”

“Nope. Agent Flowers, this is not work you’d do with a bunch of residents,” Harris said. “I spent four years in med school and then eight years doing plastic and microsurgery residencies before I felt I could lead a complicated operation. Even then, I had to be careful. I mean, I was thirty-seven or thirty-eight before I felt I was hitting it out of the park. He wouldn’t do something like nerve splicing with a pickup team.”

“You’re sure about that.”

“I am. Listen, Flowers. Barth was a concepts guy, an intellectual. The way the thinking goes in medicine, you’ve got your really, really smart guys like Barth who think up all kinds of things, who know all kinds of stuff, but can’t do anything. They’re lab
people. Chin-scratchers. Thumb-suckers. Then you’ve got surgeons, who are looked on as the dumb guys in the profession but dumb guys who’ll try just about anything. ‘We wanna cut. We like it. Get in there and fix it. If the patient dies, we did our best.’ If anything, that recording is backwards: Barth was the conservative guy. The ‘Let’s do it’ guys would be the surgeons. If that’s who he was talking to.”

“Damnit,” Virgil said.

Virgil called Trane and told her what he’d found.

“Virgil, this recording is tied into the murder. I don’t care what these doctors are telling you. It’s tied.”

“Figure it out tomorrow. Where are you on the trial?”

“I’ll be going on the stand tomorrow afternoon. The judge is going to make a bunch of rulings in the morning, but he’s told the jury they have to be back at one o’clock.”

“There won’t be something weird, like a mistrial? And you’ll have to do it all over?”

“No, no. The lead defense attorney is, like, about fourteen. I think he got out of law school on Monday morning, and he’s filed so many motions that they contradict each other. I think it’s possible that he’s looking to wear down the prosecution and get a deal. Because his motherfucker is a guilty motherfucker.”

“All right. I may stop by tomorrow to watch you do your act. Maybe we can have a séance after you’re done.”

“Talk to ya.”

Virgil was headed back to the hotel when Del Capslock, the BCA agent, called. “You free?”

“Yup. As the breeze.”

“Meet me over at the Territorial,” Capslock said. “I’m there now, back by the foosball table.”

“The sun’s not down yet.”

“Fuck the sun. The place opened at six. Don’t see any sun in here.”

Virgil got directions; the bar was ten minutes away. He found a spot on the street, walked a half block to the theater-type marquee that said “Drinks.” And, under that, “Ladies Nite E ery Nite.” Virgil spent the next few seconds of his life wondering if the “v” had fallen off, been stolen for some reason, or was simply a scarce letter that the bar hadn’t happened to have on hand.

Calling the bar shabby was an insult to the word. Some dive bars had peanut shells on the floor; the Territorial made do with ordinary dirt, apparently ground in over several decades of near failure. Virgil made his way past the long, shabby bar, and its equally shabby bartender, to the broken foosball machine, and Capslock, who was sitting in a booth and facing a thin, shabby criminal whose narrow face was framed by brown, greasy hair pulled back in a pigtail.

Virgil flicked his fingers at Capslock, gesturing him to move over—he wasn’t going to sit next to Pigtail—and Capslock slid over, and asked, “You want a beer?”

“No, I’m on duty.”

Capslock laughed, finished his PBR, and waved at the bartender. “Hey, Rick, two more.”

He turned back to Virgil, and said, “This is Long Wayne Gibbs, aka Long Doyle Gill, aka Long Bob Greer. Part of him used to make pornos.”

Virgil said to the criminal, “Should I just call you Long for short?”

“Call him Wayne. That might be his real name,” Capslock said.

Reacting to Virgil’s “Long/short” comment, Wayne was giving him his version of the prison death stare, which was interrupted by the arrival of two more PBRs. When the bartender had gone, Capslock said, “Wayne, tell Virgil about China White.”

“There isn’t one,” Wayne grunted.

Capslock said to Virgil, “There you go . . .”

“You mean, no one anywhere?” Virgil asked.

“Maybe in California—I wouldn’t know about that—but not in Minneapolis or St. Paul. Nobody would call themselves that. It’s too stupid.”

“I’m not sure how many bright drug dealers I’ve known,” Virgil said. “I could probably count them on the fingers of one finger.”

“Still too stupid,” Wayne said. “Even a dumb guy wouldn’t call himself that.”

“Or woman.”

That caused Wayne to pause halfway through a swallow of beer, his Adam’s apple stuck briefly under his chin. When he took the bottle down, he said, “You know, China White would be a good name for a porn star. One of them chink half-breeds, looks kinda white but with slanty eyes?”

Virgil: “So, you know any porn stars named China White?”

“Not yet,” Wayne said.

Capslock: “Wayne’s getting out of the art side of porn, going into production work.”

Wayne: “That’s where the money is.”

Virgil said to Capslock, “Well, I appreciate meeting this gentleman. Now, I think I’ll head over to my hotel—”

“Virgil, Virgil. Listen to the man,” Capslock said.

“He said there’s no China White.”

“But that’s not the only question you’re asking, is it? Wayne’s connections in the sex business are extensive . . . You tell him, Wayne.”

Wayne leaned forward, dropped his voice: just us boys here. “I was, uh, auditioning this chick for a role in one of my upcoming productions, and we got to talking and she mentioned that this girl she knew was fucking a famous professor.”

Virgil looked at him for a moment, then asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

“As a favor to Del,” Wayne said.

“Wayne was supplying medical marijuana to some needy people—”

“Injured veterans,” Wayne said.

“—and was found to have twenty kilos of primo Mexican weed in the back of his Camaro,” Capslock said.

“The whole thing was a total misunderstanding,” Wayne said. “One of my friends put it there. I didn’t even know about it.”

“What happened to his friend?” Virgil asked Capslock.

“He returned to his residence in Juárez. He refuses to come back and testify on Wayne’s behalf,” Capslock said. “A group of us law enforcement officers pointed out to the county attorney that Wayne has insights into several local criminal enterprises. An arrangement was made.”

“I gotta do two thousand hours of community service,” Wayne said. “Two thousand hours. Jesus Christ and all the fuckin’ Apostles didn’t do that many.”

“Careful,” Capslock said. “Virgil’s the son of a preacher.”

“Well, then, I apologize to you, your dad, Jesus Christ, and all the fuckin’ Apostles—the whole fuckin’ bunch of you.”

Virgil: “I’m losing track of the conversation. You have a friend who knows somebody who was fucking a famous professor?”

“Yeah. At the U.”

“What’s your friend’s name? Not China White?”

“Paisley.”

“Paisley what?”

“Just Paisley. Some of the guys call her Paisley Tied because, you know . . .”

“Yeah,” Virgil said. “Like a necktie.”

Wayne glanced at Capslock, then looked back at Virgil. “Necktie? What the fuck are you talking about?”

Virgil said, “What?”

Wayne said, “No neckties. She’s called that because you can tie her up. Or she can tie you up. Strictly voluntary. Costs extra, of course.”

Capslock laughed, and asked the world, “We’re talking about a classy chick, are we not?”

“Where can I find her?” Virgil asked. “Paisley?”

“You gotta call her and she’ll meet you. I got her number. Tell her that she was recommended by Richard. Ask her what facilities she offers,” Wayne said. “That way, she’ll know you know about the tie thing.”

“I’ll do that,” Virgil said. “And Wayne? If word leaks back to her before I get there, you’ll be doing six thousand hours.”

Wayne looked at Capslock. “This guy’s an asshole, Del. You said he was okay.”

Capslock shrugged, and said, “Wayne, we can all be assholes. Isn’t that the way of the world? Assholes everywhere. You’re an asshole, I’m an asshole . . .”

Wayne took a swig of beer, tipped the bottle at Virgil. “And this guy’s an asshole. You’re right, Del. Assholes everywhere. Six thousand hours, shit snackin’ crackers.”

Virgil thought to go somewhere with Capslock to make the call to Paisley, but Capslock said, “Why not now?”

“You mean here?”

“Yeah. Here. I mean, we’re already sitting down.”

“Tell her you met Richard here, at the Territorial,” Wayne said.

Virgil laid his phone faceup on the table so everybody in the booth could hear and he called. A man answered. “Who’s this?”

Virgil: “Could I speak to, uh, Paisley?”

“She ain’t here. Who are you?”

“Bob.”

“Why do you want Paisley, Bob?”

“My friend Richard recommended that I take her out, you know, on a date.”

“Richard, huh? Tall black dude with this bald spot?”

Wayne was shaking a finger, and mouthed, Short . . . white . . .

Virgil said, “Well, uh, this guy was a sort of short white guy. I met him down at the Territorial.”

After a moment of silence, the man said, “Wait one. Paisley walked in.”

A woman came on a minute later, and asked, “What’d Richard say about me?”

“He said to ask what facilities you offer.”

“Well, Bob, what exactly do you need?”

“He said some people call you Paisley Tied. And, you know . . .”

“Are you here in town, Bob?”

“I’m from Mankato. I’m staying at the Graduate tonight.”

“Huh. Nice place. Okay, it’s a date. I’ll meet you at the Applebee’s. How will I recognize you?”

“I’m wearing an old Led Zeppelin T-shirt that just says ‘Zep’ and a sport coat, and I have blond hair down over my ears.”

“Ooo, sounds handsome. Half hour from now?”

“See you then,” Virgil said.

Virgil and Capslock said good-bye to Wayne as they all walked out to the street, and just before they parted, Wayne said, “Del, for extra credit . . .”

“Like what?”

“If you could put me down for like a hundred hours picking up trash on St. Dennis Road?”

“That’s a lot of trash,” Capslock said. “What do you have?”

“A warning?”

“Let’s hear it.”

Wayne said to Virgil, “That guy you talked to? That’s Paisley’s brother. The word is, he flunked out of the Vikings offensive line for being too mean. I swear to God, the guy could pull the arms off a gorilla.”

Virgil went with that. “Okay.”

Wayne turned to Capslock and lifted his eyebrows.

“I’ll think about it,” Capslock said.

A half hour later, Virgil was in a booth at the Applebee’s, looking at a cheeseburger and a Diet Coke, and Capslock was across the room, talking to a waitress about her impending motherhood. Paisley walked in, but nobody turned to look. She was a nondescript, slender, dark-haired woman with a soft face, a mole under one eye, and dark eyebrows that nearly met in the middle. She was carrying an oversized leather purse. She was alone.

She spotted Virgil, took in the Zep T-shirt, and slid into the booth across from him. She said, “Give me your hand, Bob,” and Virgil put his hand on the table. She gripped it, and said, “I can do about anything you want, but I don’t allow myself to get hurt. When we go outside, you’ll see my assistant. He’s the guy who looks like an old telephone booth. And, I promise you, he could yank off your head and shove it up your ass. That’s not a threat. I’m saying he’s my protection. Do you understand?”

Virgil bobbed his head dumbly, and she went on with her price list. Virgil nodded in Capslock’s direction, who broke away from the waitress, walked over to the booth in four long strides, and slid in beside Paisley, trapping her and pushing her to the wall.

Capslock smiled, and said, “I’m Del Capslock, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. This hippie gentleman is Virgil Flowers, also an agent with the BCA. We’re cops, but this is not necessarily a bust.”

She looked from Virgil to Capslock, and then snarled, “If it’s not a bust, then what is it?”

“A good-natured search for information,” Virgil said. “I taped your offers and your price list, so you’re out of luck, Paisley. But,
I have very little interest in your moneymaking activities. I need to know something from you.”

“What?”

“The name of a friend of yours who was having a sexual relationship with a university professor. Don’t lie to us—we’re investigating a murder, and if you lie to us, you’ll be an accessory to murder. That’s a whole different thing than a prostitution arrest.”

She didn’t argue but frowned at Virgil, and asked, “How’d you hear about my friend?”

Virgil said, “There’s word going around on the street. It got back to us as a tip. A bad guy got a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

Capslock was looking over Virgil’s shoulder, and said, quietly, “A very large personage just walked in.”

Virgil said to Paisley, “If that’s your brother, wave him off.”

“What happens if I don’t?” she asked.

Capslock said, “Paisley, for Christ’s sakes, we’re cops. We’ve got guns. He starts on us, and I’ll shoot him three times in the fuckin’ heart and I won’t lose ten seconds of sleep over it. Wave him the fuck off.”

Paisley raised her eyes, looked over Virgil’s shoulder, and shook her head no.

“That was a wise move for all of us,” Capslock said, settling back into the booth. “Now, what’s your friend’s name?”

“Lilith.”

Virgil said, “Lilith? I mean, does she read the Bible or something?”

“What?”

“Never mind,” Capslock said. “Lilith. You have a number for her?”

“Yes. We sometimes party together.” She looked at Virgil.
“We would have partied with you, if you weren’t a fuckin’ cop. You missed the best sex of your life.”

“I’ll live with it somehow,” Virgil said. “Gimme the number. And let me make a few threats before you go. If the lunch box, or the phone booth, or whatever the fuck he is, tries to molest us in the parking lot, we’ll shoot him. If he calls Lilith, you’ll both get free five-year housing courtesy of the state government. Like I said, this is a murder case.”

She said, “Okay.”

They got Lilith’s real name, which was Abigail Cohen, and which led Virgil to think that perhaps she did read the Bible, or at least had heard some Jewish folktales. They said good-bye to Paisley, who didn’t exactly trot out the door. Still sitting in the booth, still working on cheeseburgers, they ran Cohen’s name through the DMV and got her birth date and an address, and then through the NCIC database, which showed three arrests, but no convictions, two for soliciting and one for a small amount of marijuana.

“Must have a good lawyer,” Capslock said.

“Or the courts just don’t give a shit about sex and weed anymore,” Virgil said.

“That could be,” Capslock said.

Virgil called Jon Duncan, his nominal supervisor at the BCA, who called another agent, who got in touch with Verizon and AT&T. An AT&T billing address confirmed the driver’s license address, and since hookers relied on cell phones at least as much as dope dealers, it was probably good. Virgil finished his third Diet Coke, then asked Capslock if he’d like to come along to Cohen’s address.