And Williamson would have no reason to talk to Betsy Carlson, unless he knew that Judd was his father.
NEW FACT: When he and Stryker checked Williamson's police record, they'd found nothing at all. But the tattoo on Williamson's arm hadn't come from a tattoo parlor. It was a prison tattoo, done with a sewing needle and ballpoint-pen ink. Maybe he'd gotten it on the outside, from somebody who'd been inside, knew how to do it. Maybe he chose a crude tattoo for aesthetic reasons. But Virgil was willing to bet that Williamson had been inside, at least for a while.
So why didn't Virgil know that? Why hadn't a record popped up? He could think of one good reason…
He looked down at the speedometer: one-oh-one. He called the Highway Patrol in Marshall again, and cleared the way out front. Got off the phone, then got back on when the cell burped.
Sandy.
"SANDY: I want you to find Todd Williamson's adoptive parents. Search every database you can find. Look at their taxes, find out when they stopped paying them, then check all the surrounding states and Florida, California, and Arizona, see if you can find them. Call old neighbors, if you have to."
"I can do that," she said.
"Then: Check Margaret Lane, died seven-twenty-sixty-nine. See if you can find a birth certificate. Find out if her parents are still alive-this would be Todd Williamson's grandparents. Then, check the NCIC for a Lane, unknown first name, born seven twenty sixty-nine."
"You think he used his mother's name?" Sandy asked.
"If he got a birth certificate, he could use it to get a driver's license, and he could use that to get a Social Security number. He could do the same thing with his adoptive parents' names, have two perfectly good IDs based on official state documents."
"How soon do you need it?"
"I'm on the way up there, hundred miles an hour," Virgil said. "Feed it to me as you get it. If you find people, route me to their locations."
When he got off, he looked down at the speedometer. Hundred and five. He'd always liked speed-but the truck was squealing like a pig.
SANDY CALLED BACK as he was making the turn north on I-35. "The NCIC has a William Lane, seven twenty sixty-nine, showing arrests in eighty-seven and twice in eighty-eight, possession of a small amount of cocaine on the first one, and then two assault charges in eighty-eight, apparently a domestic thing. He spent four months in the Hennepin County jail on the second assault…let me look, blah, blah, a Karen Biggs, I'll see if I can find her…"
"E-mail it to me…"
SHE CALLED fifteen minutes later: "I've got the Biggs woman, she lives in Cottage Grove now, her name is Johannsen, got a bunch of DWIs. I checked William Lane, he shared an address with Todd Williamson in 'eighty-eight and 'eighty-nine…"
"Got him," Virgil said.
"Yup. Haven't found his parents yet, they left too long ago," Sandy said.
"Keep looking. How about the grandmother?" Virgil asked.
"Ralph and Helen Lane. Ralph died a long time ago. Helen is still alive, she lives up in Roseville, but I haven't been able to reach her."
"Give me those addresses." He propped his notebook in the center of the steering wheel, kept one eye half-cocked toward the highway, took the addresses down.
TEN MINUTES AFTER THAT, Sandy was back. "The Williamsons are in Arizona. I've got an address but no phone number. I'll try to get one."
"Good. If you have to, check on neighbors, have them go next door and find out the number."
"Okay. I'm looking at license photos on Williamson and Lane and they are indeed the same person, though Lane has some facial hair and an earring," Sandy said.
"E-mail them."
He got off the phone, stayed on the accelerator, took a call from Davenport as he swung onto I-35E south of the Cities. "I talked to Sandy. She says you're rolling on this thing."
"I think so."
"You got anything for a trial?" Davenport asked. "Gotta think about trial."
"Not yet. Gonna have to think of something cute, to get that. Right now, I'm trying to nail down the fact that my guy's a psycho."
"All right. Stay in touch."
HE CAME OFF I-35E, cut east across the south end of the Cities on I-494, and then south on Highway 61, the same one that Bob Dylan revisited, heading into Cottage Grove. Off at 80th Street, he called Sandy, who got on MapQuest and took him straight in to Johannsen's place.
Johannsen's son came to the door, wearing rapper jeans with the crotch at knee level, and a T-shirt that was four sizes too big; he had a GameBoy in his hand. His eyes were at half-mast, and the odor of marijuana floated out of the house when he opened the door.
"She's at work," he said, sullenly.
"Where?"
"Either SuperAmerica or Tom Thumb. She works at both of them," he said. "I don't know where she's working today."
KAREN JOHANNSEN was at the SuperAmerica, throwing expired doughnuts in a dumpster. "I have some questions about William Lane, who was convicted of assaulting you," Virgil said, flashing his ID.
"Shoot. That was twenty years ago, almost." She was a short, broad woman with black hair and watery brown eyes, a pushed-in nose, older-looking than her years.
"I know that," Virgil said. "What we're trying to do is, we're trying get a grip on what kind of a guy he is. The assaults…were they heavy-duty, or just sort of…routine domestic fighting?"
"He was trying to kill me," Johannsen said, matter-of-factly. She waved her hand in front of her face, like a fan. They were too close to the dumpster, which smelled of spoiled bananas and meat, and sour milk. "He would have, too, if he'd been stronger. The first time, he was hitting me with a chair, and he couldn't get a good swing and I was running around, so he never did hit me square. The neighbors called the cops. There was a car in the neighborhood, and they got there in time. But he would have killed me."
"What set it off?" Virgil asked.
"Basically, we were drinking, and started arguing," she said. "I was working and he wasn't and I told him he was a worthless piece of shit who couldn't even pay the rent, and he punched my arm and I hit him with my purse, and knocked him down, and he just went off…completely out of control."
"What about the second time?" Virgil asked. "When he went to jail?"
"That time, he choked the shit out of me," she said. Her hand went to her neck, as she remembered. "He came home, drunk. I was asleep, he woke me up and wanted, you know, and I didn't want to. He started screaming at me, and I wised off, and he jumped on me and choked me. He had some friends with him, out in the living room, and they heard the fight…One of his friends pulled me off, and then I wasn't breathing so good, so the girlfriend of the friend called the cops, and they called an ambulance and they started me breathing again."
"That was all for the two of you?"
"Yeah. When he was in jail, I moved. Changed my address and got an unlisted phone…but I saw him anyway. We had some of the same friends. But we were all done, and he didn't come around anymore," Johannsen said. "Good thing, too. He would have killed me, sooner or later."
"Did he ever mention his parents?" Virgil asked.
"Said his mom was killed in a car wreck," she said. "Didn't say who his dad was."
"What about his adoptive parents…some people named Williamson?"
She shook her head. "Oh…I thought they were his foster-care people, or something. They adopted him?"
"Yes. When he was a baby."
"Jeez-I didn't know that," she said. "That makes it worse."
"Worse."
"Yeah. I met them two or three times, I guess, going over there with Bill. We used to go over there for beer-he had a key. But. They were like, total assholes."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Like they believed in slavery," she said. "They used to tell him about how much he owed them-in money. Bill ran away when he was fourteen; he was living on the street when I met him. He ran away because they wanted him to work in their store all the time. They called it earning his keep, but most kids who are thirteen or fourteen don't have to work sixty hours a week. That's what they wanted. No kidding-they were assholes."