One of the Lorens who owned a pickup had had a minor drug bust-personal use marijuana-in Minneapolis. Another had been arrested and convicted of theft from a Wal-Mart warehouse and had made restitution. The Wal-Mart guy didn’t sound like he’d be the type to hang around with Frances. The third guy lived in Fertile, and that was too far away.
The doper was a possibility. 2002 Toyota pickup. Huh. He called Del.
“You got a little time?"
"What’s up?” Del asked. “I want to talk to a guy on the Austin case, but I’ve taken a couple of pain pills."
"You need a designated driver."
"Yeah."
"I’ve never been one,” Del said. “I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
LOREN WHITESIDE O’KEEFE lived in a nice- enough, but not too nice, apartment complex in Woodbury, east of downtown St. Paul. They pressured an assistant manager into letting them through the locked outer doors, and took the elevator up to three. Identical blond wood doors were spaced evenly down long blank corridors, the medium- blue carpet the indoor- outdoor stuff that looked good for a year.
“Place will be a slum in ten years,” Del said. “Walls look like they’re made out of cardboard.”
“Owners’ll pay it off in ten, though,” Lucas said. “Then it’s all gravy.”
“If you don’t mind being a slumlord,” Del said. Lucas was limping, and Del asked, “You all right?"
"Yeah, I’m terrific.” The pain had definitely backed off, but every once in a while, a muscle spasm took him by surprise. O’Keefe was in 355. They heard music, knocked, and a pudgy, big-
headed, rosy- cheeked man opened the door. “Eh?"
"Loren O’Keefe?"
"Ya. Who’re you?” He had dark hair, a big head, and sloping shoulders. The man who'd shot at Lucas had square shoulders and a small head. Couldn’t see that in the driver’ s- license photograph. The photo also didn’t mention that O’Keefe had a slight but distinct Irish accent. Austin had said specifically that her Loren sounded local.
“Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.” They showed O’Keefe their IDs.
“So what’s up?” he asked. The TV behind him was tuned to an Oprah rerun.
With the sure sense that he was wasting everybody’s time, Lucas said, “We’re looking for a Loren who dated a girl named Frances Austin.”
O’Keefe looked at them blankly. “I’m sorry. That’s not me."
"Ever hang out with any Goths?” Del asked. “I’ve had a couple in my classes."
"You’re a teacher?” Lucas asked.“At Augsburg,” he said. “I teach drama."
"Huh. You had a bust for marijuana."
"Yup. Two fat boys,” he said cheerfully. “Jesus, I bought three, only had time for one. Why couldn’t I be one of the guys who’s arrested for three seeds? No, they gotta get me with two-thirds of the weekly allotment.”
Lucas looked at Del, and tipped his head toward the corridor. “Okay. Well, I think you’re not the guy we’re looking for.”
“What? Already? You can’t leave me hanging,” O’Keefe said. “C’mon and have a cuppa tea and tell me about it.” If his leg hadn’t hurt, Lucas wouldn’t have done it. He said, half to O’Keefe, and half to Del, “I’ve dinged up my leg. I wouldn’t mind sitting down for a minute.”
“Oho! Are you that copper that got shot?” O’Keefe was delighted. “Your name rings a bell.”
Lucas nodded: “That’s me."
"You’re chasing a ripper, like good old Jack. Damnit, what goodluck. Come in, come in.” He’d had a pot of tea going, and had it ready in two minutes, fussing around like an old lady, with a tray and cup, and offered them milk to put in it. They both declined, while he took some; he had them sitting in a conversation group, two easy chairs and a love seat.
“So it’s this bartender and this liquor store clerk you’re investigating, then,” O’Keefe said. “How did my name come up?”
Lucas gave him a short version of the investigation, O’Keefe manically stirring his tea as he listened, his bright blue eyes like cornflowers in his pink face. He asked questions, and winkled more out of Lucas than Lucas had intended to give.
When Lucas finished, O’Keefe took a sip and said, “You shouldn’t be chasing Lorens, then. You should be putting pressure on the Austin woman. You should be… reenacting the crime. Right at the scene of the murder.”
“There’s a surprise,” Del said. “A drama teacher who wants to reenact.”
“Ah, but I have a reason,” O’Keefe said. He shook a finger at them, like a professor might. “You have only two things. You have a motive: money. And you have a scene of a crime and it’s the first crime. Would I be wrong in assuming that the first crime of a series is probably the key crime?”
“Sometimes it is,” Lucas said, mildly amused. “There have been cases where a first murder was done to set up a second one, so that it would look like a series killing.”
“About as often as you’ve seen a leprechaun, I would expect,” O’Keefe said. He went on without waiting for an answer. “You have a motive and a crime scene. If you go back and reenact the crime as you believe it happened, you will see much more deeply into it, I guarantee it. I’m a playwright, as well as a teacher, and when you’re writing a play, you always go and look at the scene of the crime. Or whatever scene. You go to the actual place. When you’re in the actual place, you can work out possibilities and discard impossibilities. You can see the idiosyncrasies that make a scene come alive. I would urge you to reenact.”
“Maybe I will,” Lucas said. “Maybe-"
"And then, of course, there’s the obvious question. Often comes up in drama… in fact, it’d be a clichй, I’m sure you’ve already checked it out thoroughly.”
Lucas spread his hands. “What’s the obvious question?” O’Keefe leaned forward, his trigger finger still crooked through the cup handle: “Mistaken identity.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “The daughter comes home, it’s dark, she turns off the security system, and the killer strikes! But, ho! To his or her horror, he finds that he has struck at the wrong person. Hoping to recover, somehow, he bundles up the body and cleans up the crime scene. Since the daughter doesn’t live there, perhaps nobody will tumble to her disappearance for a day or two. Or three or four. Give him a chance to cover his tracks-or to strike again at his real target! The Austin woman!”
At some point during the recitation, O’Keefe had gone on stage, and Lucas and Del both bought it. When he snapped, “The Austin woman!” they both jerked away.
O’Keefe smiled: “But you’ve thought of that.” They argued about it for a bit, as they finished their tea, and Del told O’Keefe about working undercover, which was something of an acting job.
“Fascinating! Fascinating!” O’Keefe said. “Have you ever thought about collaborating on a play? I think there could be great potential in a play about an undercover man: it’s so right for the stage; it combines friendship and treachery and a modern existential angst. Should you destroy your friend for the sake of The Man? There are so many ways we could take it. It’s just fantastic material!”
AS THEY TOOK the elevator down, Del asked, “You gonna reenact?"
"No,” Lucas said, with a Valley- girl inflection. “Jesus Christ, Del."
"The guy might be on to something,” Del said. “You gonna collaborate on a fuckin’ play?” Del didn’t say anything for a moment, then shrugged. “Maybe.” Limping across the parking lot, Lucas asked, “Mistaken identity?"
"Never occurred to me,” Del said. “It’s got a funky logic to it.”
“Funky being the key word.” Lucas nibbled on the corner of his lower lip, then laughed and said, “Reenact. Reenact, my big white ass.”