Hidden prey

Chapter 23

They found Jan Walther in the back of Mesaba Frame and Artist's Supply, doing inventory on her acrylic paints; the place smelled of paint and freshly cut wood and coffee. They'd been to her house, had been told by a neighbor that she and Roger Walther had divorced years before, and that while Roger was still around, the neighbor didn't know where.

"Good riddance, if you ask me," the neighbor said. She had the eyes of a chicken, small and suspicious. "He used to beat her, and the boy, too. More'n one time she'd be hiding a black eye. He drinks, is what does it."

If they wanted him, the neighbor said, Jan would probably know where he was: "He must be paying child support; I don't think she makes enough to support both her and the boy." She directed them to the frame store, just off Hibbing's main drag.

Walther was a busy, pretty woman, with the beginnings of worry lines on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes and mouth. She was wearing a pink blouse with a round-tipped collar, inexpensive beige slacks, and a matching vest, with an arty silver dangle on a chain. With a round face and ten extra pounds, she was precisely a Minnesota Scandinavian; and when they came in, a bell jingling overhead, she was happy to see them.

That didn't last.

Lucas identified himself, told her that they were investigating the murders of two Russians and a cop, and she put both hands at her throat and said, "What do you want from me?"

"We'd like to talk to your husband," Lucas said. "We really don't know who is doing what, but there seems to be a group of associated families up here, and he belongs to one of them. We think they may have been spies for the Soviet Union."

"The Walthers? That's ridiculous. They've been here forever. They're from German stock, not Russian…" But her interlaced fingers were white as chalk.

"You wouldn't know about these people, whoever they are?" Nadya asked.

"Well, sure, I know Grandpa Walther," she said. "I never knew Roger's parents. They were killed in a car accident. This spy thing… you're not joking? This is absolutely ridiculous. If this rumor gets out, you'll ruin my business…" Now she had tears in her eyes.

Nadya was not sympathetic. "Did Roger tell you that he was a spy?"

"No. No. Roger's not a spy. If you knew Roger… Roger's an alcoholic. A drunkard. He goes around in a haze. He couldn't spy on anything. If he'd had a gun, he'd have sold it by now, so he could buy more beer. He's about one inch from going on the street. I mean, the whole thing…" She looked from one of them to the other, her voice rising. "The whole thing is ridiculous."

"I understood he was an athlete in college," Lucas said. "At UMD."

She nodded. "That's his problem. That's why he's drinking. He was a big hero here in Hibbing, he was a second-stringer in Duluth, and after that… nobody wanted him."

Roger Walther, she said, was basically a good guy, but had never studied anything but hockey and when his eligibility was gone, he was gone. "The coaches nursed him through four years of college with a C average, and the fifth year, when he couldn't play anymore, it was nothing but big red F's," she said indignantly.

"Where does he live?" Lucas asked.

"I don't know, exactly," she said. "Virginia. I heard that he had a job somewhere, that he was working, but he hides that from me because he's afraid that I'll have the child-support people get after him. He owes me almost fifteen thousand dollars in support."

Lucas said, "We heard that he, ah, has gotten physical with you. In the past."

"He hit me a few times-that's why I eventually threw him out. I wasn't going to put up with it. He was always drunk, but that was no excuse. He says it himself-it's no excuse."

"You ever call the cops?"

"No. I threatened to, but he begged me not to. He used to hunt, and the way the law is now, if he got a ticket, he could never have a gun again. He could never hunt again. So I didn't call; I just threw him out."

"Okay." Lucas looked around. "Where's your kid?"

"He's in school," she said. "I don't want you bothering him, he's just a child. God, you'll ruin his life, too…"

Jan Walther knew nothing about anything, she said. Nothing about spies, nothing about the other families, although she knew the Svobodas and had been inside Spivak's, but not for years. As a final question, Lucas asked, "Is he a runner? Roger? Go out and jog and stuff?"

An incredulous look passed over her face: "Roger? Roger has a cigarette with every drink. He couldn't run around the block."

When they left, and were back at the truck, Nadya said, "Everybody lies. She was too worried, but not enough… amazed… when we asked about spying. She should have been amazed."

"Maybe," Lucas said. "We're a half hour from Hibbing… wanna get a late lunch? I'm starving. Then we find Roger."

The lunch service was slow, and took a while; and there was roadwork on the way to Virginia, and they got hung up while a paving machine tried to maneuver across the highway. By the time they arrived at the Virginia police station, it was almost four o'clock. John Terry, the chief, said he didn't know Roger Walther, but he could check with his on-duty cops in a few minutes. He went to do that, took ten minutes, and came back: "Nobody on-duty knows him. I took a minute and went out on NCIC and they have no record of him. He's kept his nose clean."

"He's a drunk," Lucas said.

"Really a drunk, or just an alcoholic?" Terry asked. "Lots of alcoholics hold it together forever. Keep working, never drive drunk."

"He beats his wife."

"She ever charge him?"

Lucas was already shaking his head. "Okay, listen. If he's a drunk, he's drinking up here. If you could have your guys check the bars and get back to me. Somebody's got to know him."

Lucas's cell phone rang, and he said, "Excuse me," took it out, and turned away. "Yeah, Davenport."

Larry Kelly, from Duluth. "Is Nadya Kalin with you?"

"Yes. Right here."

"We'd like to get you both down here, this evening, if we could. We need to take statements. We're not trying to cover up the relationship, but we want to make it clear that Reasons was guarding her, that he'd been assigned to do that, and that the, mmm, emotional relationship grew out of that, uh, closeness."

"I think we can do that," Lucas said. "Nadya and I will coordinate and get down there."

"Come right into the Detective Bureau. The statements are for our shooting board, and the chief and the city attorney both say that written statements will be okay."

"See you in an hour," Lucas said.

Terry promised to have every bar in Hibbing checked by morning. Lucas gave him a cell-phone number, and he and Nadya headed for Duluth.

"What they're doing is, they're taking testimony on the shooting to make sure nothing illegal happened, and that all proper procedures were being followed," Lucas told her on the way, explaining the board. "If Reasons was assigned to guard you, then your, mmm, emotional involvement becomes irrelevant. He was killed in the line of duty."

"He wasn't exactly…"

"Shhh…" Lucas said.