Virgil told her about the murder of Zhang, and she whistled. “That’s three. The tigers don’t look so important anymore. You’ve got to get this guy off the street.”
“Yeah, I do. Did you hear about the fire?” Virgil asked.
“What fire?”
He told her about the fire, and the question of who might be behind it. “We’ll get Blankenship and squeeze his turnip-like head,” Mattsson said. “I got his location from his brother, who hates him. His brother got it from their mom, who also apparently hates him.”
“How far out are you?”
“I went through Jordan a few minutes ago,” Mattsson said. “What’s that, forty-five minutes?”
“I’ll meet you at the office in forty-five minutes. If this guy is with a biker friend, maybe I ought to get Shrake to back us up.”
“I’ll buy that.”
Virgil called up Jon Duncan, told him about the murder of Zhang and about the pending arrest of Blankenship. “I need Shrake, if I can get him.”
“I saw him here a few minutes ago,” Duncan said. “If you had to guess… how long before you wrap the tiger thing?”
“Tomorrow? The Minneapolis cops are going to squeeze Zhang the younger, and I doubt that he’ll hold out. Not completely hold out, anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gives up Peck. I think Zhang will know about the tigers.”
“Good. That’s good,” Duncan said. “Man, three dead. This really turned into something. Virgil? Remember what I said about you and Blankenship. You can go, but let the other guys carry the load. We don’t need him walking around loose, but we don’t need him shoving a lawyer down our throat, claiming that you violated his civil rights or some shit like that. Don’t touch him.”
“I won’t even take my gun with me.”
“I wasn’t worried about you shooting him, Virgil. You couldn’t hit the side of a barn from the inside-”
“Hey!”
“I was worried about you breaking his face. Oh, yeah, I was supposed to remind you: you’re up to qualify again. Get your pistol and stop by the range as soon as you’re done with this tiger thing. So: day after tomorrow? At the range?”
29
Shrake had called Jenkins, who had been getting up anyway, so both the BCA thugs met Virgil and Mattsson in Jon Duncan’s office at BCA headquarters. Duncan himself was at a meeting to discuss security at the state fairgrounds, trying to figure out what might blow up, if anything might. The Secret Service wanted the state to hire septic system inspectors to put cameras down all the water lines, but the state was pleading poverty.
“If I was involved in that particular disaster, I might go looking for a security-guard job at the Mall of America,” Shrake said.
Jenkins asked Mattsson, “Blankenship’s brother hates him? What’d he do to his brother?”
“Both Brad Blankenship and his brother, George, were interested in the same woman, one Ellen Frye of Henderson, Minnesota. I talked to her yesterday. She’s a hot little number, but not entirely what you’d call a one-man woman,” Mattsson said.
Shrake said, “Ah. The brothers became competitive.”
“If it was only that, there might not have been any trouble,” Mattsson said. “Ellen Frye sees that Brad is not such a good risk, and so she slides on over to George. One thing leads to another, she gets pregnant, and George does the right thing and marries her. They’re married for two days when a DVD arrives in the mail, from Brad. Seems that she and Brad had done a little experimentation on camera. Even worse, it wasn’t a selfie porno. There was a cameraman in the room. George is an unhappy man right now.”
“It’s exactly this kind of thing that can create stress in a family tree,” Jenkins said.
Virgil raised a finger. “I’m as interested in porno gossip as the next guy, but uh… any hint that Blankenship might carry a gun? You know anything about his biker friend? I’d hate to run into some cop-hating Nazi without seeing it coming.”
They all looked at Mattsson, who said, “I ran the biker-name is Dougie Howe-and he’s been picked up a few times on dope charges, small amounts of weed and small amounts of heroin, and twice for DUI, plus a boatload of speeding tickets. That’s about it. No violence on the record. He runs a home-based motorcycle customizing business called Harley Heaven. Blankenship is the guy we have to worry about. He’s flashed guns a few times, but never pulled a trigger, as far as we know.”
Shrake asked, “Armor up?”
Virgil said, “It’s really hot.”
“I don’t think we’ll need it,” Mattsson said. “A Sibley County deputy told me Blankenship’s a puncher, not a shooter.”
Jenkins said, “Yeah, fuck it. Who’s driving?”
–
They went in two cars: Virgil’s 4Runner and Shrake’s truck. Mattsson rode with Virgil and said, “Alvarez is out of the hospital. She looked worse going in, but wasn’t actually as bad as Frankie.”
“Frankie’s gonna be hurting for a while,” Virgil said. “She can’t find a comfortable way to sleep.”
“I know-but don’t take it out on Blankenship. You really do have to be a little careful here.”
“I already got the lecture from Jon,” Virgil said. “I’ve also got the TV people hanging on me about the tiger thing. They haven’t figured out that Zhang is connected, but they will. I gotta get back on that, but I want to do this one, too. I want to be there when you get him.”
After a moment, Mattsson said, “You know, the only reason Blankenship is getting any attention at all is because you’re a BCA agent and the whole question of why Frankie was beaten up. We know the answer to that, and it doesn’t have anything to do with you. Or Frankie. They got the wrong woman. Ordinarily, an assault, even a bad one, isn’t going to pull in four BCA agents.”
“I know, I know. But when it’s all said and done, Frankie’s still hurt-and then, there’s the firebomb last night.”
“Yeah. The firebomb. You agree that it’s possible that the firebomb could have come from the tiger job, if it was aimed at you at all.”
“Possible. I want to see what Blankenship has to say about that. I want to see his face.”
–
Dougie Howe lived in a neighborhood of ranch-style houses a few blocks from the University of Minnesota’s golf course, where Virgil had whiled away some time as a bad golfer: he’d always preferred team sports to solo games like golf or archery. Howe’s house was visible from two blocks away. It didn’t exactly have a bluetick coonhound lolling in the shade of a short-block Chevy engine that hung from a sassafras tree in the front yard, but it was over in that direction, with bits and pieces of motorcycles lining the driveway and scattered around the front yard. A bumper sticker on the side of the mailbox said, “Forget the Dog, Beware of Owner.”
A red Ford pickup was parked at the curb in front of the house next to Howe’s, and Mattsson said to Virgil, “That’s Blankenship’s truck. He’s here.”
“Good,” Virgil said. “We can tie it up here.”
Shrake called on Virgil’s cell, which Virgil switched over to the speaker: “Who’s gonna knock?”
Mattsson said, “You and me, Shrake. I want Jenkins on the side of the house to the left, because he’s the sprinter among us, and Virgil down the side of the house to the right. Everybody good with that?”
Everybody was good with it.
Shrake and Mattsson walked up to the house. The front door was open, although there was a screen door in front of it. Mattsson pushed the doorbell, which didn’t work, so she knocked on the aluminum screen door, and a man yelled, “C’mon in, whoever it is. I’m in the kitchen.”
Virgil got a phone calclass="underline" a BCA number. He rejected it for the time being.
Out front, Mattsson and Shrake looked at each other and Mattsson said, “Sure.” Shrake pulled his pistol and held it by his leg, and they both walked back to the kitchen where Howe was sitting at a counter with a little girl, both of them eating bowls of cereal. Howe was a fat man, bald, with a blond beard that had been twisted into a number of pigtails; he wore rimless glasses, a T-shirt, and cargo shorts. He asked, “Who are you?”