Girl Most Likely

by Max Allan Collins

  “Everybody has the same alibi for Astrid,” she said, “and they all have something for Sue Logan, too, but I’ll be looking into those. Vacations and such.”

  “What ‘same alibi’?”

  “They were mostly in the bar, the lounge. Some were sitting around a lobby area, a few in suites where people were gathering to drink and talk, take selfies, and compare kid pics and travel photos.”

  “What do you think of that as an alibi?”

  “I’m thinking somebody could slip away for half an hour or even a little more and not raise suspicion. And leave the impression they never left.”

  “Your mother and I raised a smart girl. And you figure a wife or husband who noticed that absence might cover for a husband or wife, in such a case.”

  “Or be an accomplice.”

  “Wouldn’t rule it out. Any special insights?”

  He could hear her in the kitchen, getting in the fridge.

  She said, “People were hiding things. The guys particularly.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Not sure. Yet.”

  Talking to his daughter, even about a murder investigation, was somehow comforting.

  She asked, “Where are you staying?”

  “The Drake.”

  Long silence.

  Then: “Was that a good idea, Pop?”

  “No. Seemed like it, but no.”

  “Do me a favor.”

  “Sure.”

  “Think good thoughts.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “And come back soon as possible. I could use you here.”

  “See what I can do.”

  They had said goodbye and he got off the bed, leaving John Wayne silently shooting at bad guys, and went to his laptop, which he had set on the little table apparently provided for that purpose. He looked up the television station’s address and more, and wrote some information down.

  Twelve hours later, Monday morning, a cab dropped him off at WLG-TV’s private entrance on West Washington. His breath was visible as he identified himself on an intercom as an investigator with the Galena, Illinois, PD; he got buzzed in. The lobby was small, warm, and cold-looking, all light gray faux marble. A dark-haired young woman in a business suit behind a slab desk looked up at him with red eyes behind brown-rimmed glasses. She had been crying. Word about Astrid had beaten him here, not surprisingly.

  He held up the badge pinned in his wallet.

  “This is about Ms. Lund?” she asked, confirming his assumption.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll let Mr. Carlson know you’re here.”

  William R. Carlson was president and general manager of the station, or so Google had informed Keith last night. Also the husband of Rebecca Carlson, the longtime anchor of the morning news and a local celebrity. No Chicago channels were available in Galena, but Keith nonetheless knew who she was, just from his occasional visits here with Karen.

  A small bank of elevators was to the receptionist’s left, which—after he signed in—she gestured to.

  “Twentieth floor,” she said.

  He nodded and was moving toward the pair of elevators when behind him her voice, less businesslike than before, said, “Do you know who did it?”

  He turned his head and gave her a tight smile. “No. But we will.”

  She smiled a little and nodded. “Good.”

  On the twentieth floor, he was met by a young female production assistant in a headset with mic, in jeans and a long-sleeve white T-shirt rolled to the elbows. She ushered him past a sprawling silver-and-blue news set in a studio setting. It looked like a million bucks. Then the PA led him down a narrow hallway—lined with small open-door offices, makeup areas, and dressing rooms—that looked like a buck-ninety-eight.

  Scurrying PAs seemed to have split off like amoebas and appeared to be in a perpetual state of hurried distress. Some, he could tell, had been crying. But that didn’t stop them in their tasks.

  Finally, rather than walk into a wall, the PA took a left and the world transformed into a standard modern business building, the narrow hall given over to a wide corridor. Light gray walls were all but blotted out by huge framed posters of newscasters with big smiles and bigger station logos, between glassed-in offices with receptionists and expensive furniture worthy of a top legal outfit or a plastic surgeon.

  With a “wait right here” nod, the PA deposited Keith in a windowless conference room, where an endless narrow table could seat twenty but didn’t. Looming flat-screens were at either end of the room. The walls were cream, the tabletop maple, the leather chairs tan. All very high-end, and with no more personality than an empty glass.

  What the hell. Keith sat at the head of the table. For five minutes, he checked his email on his phone, and then through a nearby door, a man came in who went very well with the room, though he was neither cream nor maple nor tan.

  He shut the door behind him. Tall, maybe six three, in a charcoal suit with a light gray shirt and black-and-white tie, so well tailored that by comparison Keith might have shopped at Walmart, not Men’s Wearhouse. Lincolnesque, if Lincoln had been better looking, the black frames of his glasses so heavy they intimidated. So did the quietly judgmental eyes, which were a disturbingly light gray, like the corridor walls.

  “Mr. Carlson,” Keith said, rising, recognizing the station’s president and general manager from the photo at the WLG-TV website. “My daughter is chief of Galena Police. I’m a retired police detective from Dubuque, helping her out on this.”

  “Officially?”

  “Yes.”

  Accepting that, Carlson offered his hand to shake, and Keith took him up on it. The grip was bony and strong but didn’t show off. About what he might have expected from Lincoln.

  “We’re devastated to hear about Astrid,” Carlson said, in a voice resonant enough for him to have been on-air talent. He took a seat next to Keith, allowing his guest to resume head-of-the-table positioning. “The AP had it this morning.”

  So Krista’s former roommate had made the big time, a little.

  Keith said, “I haven’t seen the coverage, but I imagine you know at least the basics, probably more. It was a brutal thing and we are committing all of our resources to the investigation.”

  Smiles didn’t come fainter. “All of the resources of a twelve-person department, I understand.”

  The station manager had access to Google, too.

  “Yes,” Keith said, “but for a small town, Galena has an exceptional PD.”

  “With all due respect,” Carlson said, with a smile that twitched at one corner of his mouth, “I would think calling in the state police would be advisable. And there are several other options for major crime support.”

  “Yes, and we’re aware of that. I understand your concern, and your vested interest. Astrid Lund was something of a star at this station.”

  Carlson’s head went back; he seemed to bristle at that. “She was a valuable contributor to our news team. We didn’t think of her as a ‘star,’ but as a journalist, and a very fine one.”

  “My understanding,” Keith said pleasantly, “is that she was your top investigative reporter.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And, also with respect, sir, I am not here to seek your advice on how to conduct our investigation. I will assure you, if it puts your mind at ease, that if we feel we’re in over our heads, we will certainly call for help.”

  “Good to hear.” Carlson adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “But what are you here for? Is there information about this crime that’s been withheld, that you might share with us?”

  “No. I’m here because Ms. Lund was an obvious target of certain people, and certain elements in Chicago—because of the investigative journalism that’s made her a star.”

  His chin came up, his gaze came down. “From what I understand, from the wire service story, this was a crime of extreme violence. With none of the earmarks of. . . a professional assassination.” />
  “Some assassinations pose as something else. A killing that appears to be the work of a psychopath might be that of a cold-blooded hired killer disguising what he’s up to.”

  He nodded. “So what is it you want from me, Detective Larson?”

  “I need to ask you a few questions that I’ll record on my phone, if you have no objection.”

  “None.”

  Keith got out the phone and placed it between them on the table. “Ms. Lund was working on a story about sexual misconduct, presumably in the workplace. Were you aware of that?”

  An eyebrow rose above the black frames. With light sarcasm, he said, “Of sexual misconduct in the workplace? Certainly. But this station has a very clean record in that regard. We’ve had a zero tolerance policy for that kind of thing, long before doing so became fashionable.”

  Keith raised a palm. “It may not be in this workplace. I don’t think she was necessarily looking into, say, sexual harassment at one workplace, rather that subject, that problem, in general. Possibly as involving various Chicago-area businesses.”

  He nodded. “I can look into that. I didn’t work directly with Astrid, of course, but she did intersect with any number of others on our staff. She was, however, something of a self-contained. . . shall we say, force of nature. Tended to do her own research, pick her own subject matter, clear it with me only when she’d done some preliminary homework, at least.”

  “Did you know about this story?”

  He shook his head. “No. I’m not surprised, in the wake of the #MeToo phenomenon, however, to find Astrid looking into that area. And we haven’t done a major investigative piece on it, so it makes sense.”

  “Anything else she was working on?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Something political maybe? Possibly involving the current-day Outfit?”

  Carlson seemed amused. “Gangsters, Detective? You are an old-school type. Galena may be frozen in time, but this city isn’t.”

  “Understood. I do have to ask you where you were Saturday evening.”

  “At a play with the woman I’m seeing now,” he said, adding, “my wife and I are separated.” He provided the specific information, then Keith asked about the second week in August.

  “Out of the country. A vacation in the UK with the same individual.” He provided that information, too.

  The station manager stood. Keith—knowing he was being dismissed—collected his phone and rose as well.

  “I’ll make sure any calls to me from you go right through, Detective Larson. Any way I can support you in this endeavor, I will. I would hope you folks in so small a town will soon come to realize that this is bigger than you can handle. If you need me to pave the way for you, say the word.”

  Carlson opened the door and revealed the PA waiting in the corridor to show Keith out. A huge framed poster of a beaming Astrid Lund was looking over her shoulder.

  Soon Keith was following the PA down the narrow hall again, where from a dressing room—larger than most, but its door open just the same—a woman with her back to them called out, “Detective! Could we talk?”

  The woman had seen him in the mirror, which was where he saw her now, framed by the traditional backstage lights as if this were Broadway and not a news station.

  Rebecca Carlson.

  The wife of the handsome Lincoln with whom he’d just spent an unproductive fifteen minutes—the real star of the station, whether her husband liked the word “star” or not.

  She wore a dark blue satin robe, her light brown hair pinned up out of the way as she cleaned her face with cold cream. She was forty-something and at her worst, yet astonishingly beautiful.

  Looking back at him in the mirror, as he stood in the hall frozen next to the PA who was also in pause mode, she said, “Come in, would you? And close the door.”

  The PA shrugged at him, and he shrugged at her, then went in, closed the door, and pulled up a chair—not too close to his hostess, just a little to the left of her back to him.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” she said. “I always take the war paint off, after the noon broadcast. I do the morning show and leave it on for noon, and then it’s off for the day and so am I. Not a bad way to make a bundle, huh?”

  “Not bad at all,” he said to her back. He couldn’t see much of her face.

  “You’ve been talking to my ex?” she said.

  He nodded. “I hadn’t been aware he was your ex.”

  “Not final yet, but trust me. It’ll take. That’s not a divorce either one of us is questioning. No-fault divorce in Illinois kicks in after a two-year separation—‘irretrievable breakdown.’”

  He said, “Sorry to hear it.”

  “I’m not. He’s a charmer, isn’t he? Funny how he knows more than anybody he meets, particularly about whatever it is they do.”

  “I noticed that.”

  “Told you how to run your investigation, right?”

  “He started to.”

  “Ah! And you cut him off! Good for you. I hate the son of a bitch. I don’t remember why I married him. Job security maybe? Thank God we have no kids. Thank God I’m past that. This is your investigation, isn’t it? You just have that look.”

  “Actually I’m retired. Just consulting. My daughter is chief of police in Galena. I was a cop for a long time, detective in Dubuque.”

  “Galena is charming. I love Galena. I didn’t do it, by the way.”

  “Didn’t do what?”

  “Kill the bitch. Sorry. She wasn’t a bitch, not really. Just ambitious, which makes me a bitch and a half. It’s just. . . well, you’ll find out anyway.”

  “Find out what?”

  “That she broke me up with that bastard. Her and my cold-fish husband, although she warmed him up, I’ll bet. They had an office affair, didn’t you know that? You’d find out soon enough.”

  “Would he have any reason to kill her?”

  “I wish he did. And you’d get him for it. Be nice not to have him around. The minute my ratings slip, my pretty bottom. . . and it’s still very pretty, I assure you. . . will be bounced out of here. I’ll be looking for work at a small station somewhere. Is there a station in Galena?”

  “No. There’s a couple in Dubuque.”

  “Good to know.” She was unpinning her hair. “You know, I had a lot to do with her success, Astrid’s. It was an All About Eve thing. I’m Margo, she’s Eve Harrington. You know that movie?”

  “I know all Marilyn Monroe movies.”

  “Ha! Anyway, I helped her climb, then she climbed on me, on her way over. I keep my eye on her, believe me.”

  “Not anymore.”

  She was applying some cosmetics now, from her purse. Leaning into the mirror. “I’m sorry. I sound cold.”

  He said, “Astrid may have been a bitch or Eve Harringbone or whatever. But she didn’t deserve to get hacked up by some lunatic, or somebody pretending to be one.”

  She turned to him. Her personal makeup was perfectly applied, very subtle, just right for a woman her age. Of course, to him forty-something was a kid. And oh you kid. . . big blue eyes, lovely carved features, just the face you want to deliver you the news, good or bad.

  “I’m the bitch,” she said, “talking about her like that. She was very good at what she did, and she was going places. I don’t resent her that—certainly now I don’t. And it was my ever-loving ex who made the moves on her, I’m sure.”

  “He has a motive.”

  One eyebrow hiked. “Does he? Well, I know she dropped him. She has the ratings to get away with it. What motive? Getting dumped? Even my ex wouldn’t carve a woman up over that.”

  “She was doing an investigative piece on sexual misconduct, presumably in the workplace.”

  Both eyebrows hiked. “Was she? I heard she was looking into something more dangerous than that.”

  “What?”

  She stood. One nice leg peeked out from the dark blue silk dressing gown. “I’m going to put the rest of my
clothes on now. This conversation is over, and I have things to do this afternoon. If you’d like me to answer that question, and really answer it, maybe we could. . . how long are you in town?”

  “Probably just tonight.”

  “Staying where?”

  “The Drake.”

  “Ever eaten at that little old-fashioned bar on the lower level—the Coq D’or?”

  “Many times.”

  “Good. It’ll be my treat.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll meet you there at seven. Can you wait that long to eat? You have that Midwestern meal-at-five kind of look, but I like you anyway. Now shoo.”

  She got up and literally shooed him out and the door closed on him.

  He looked at it.

  Did he have a date?

  SEVENTEEN

  Krista had returned to Galena High School a number of times as a patrol officer, but this was her first visit in the uniform of chief. Like many former students walking the halls of a school they’d attended long ago, she felt like a ghost haunting the place, particularly since these halls were largely empty. This was an in-service day and teachers were holed up in committee meetings and training sessions, temporary prisoners of their own classrooms.

  GHS hadn’t changed much. The building dated back to the mid-1950s, but the interior had been updated and renovated over the years. On the fringes of Galena’s west side, an educational oasis in a fast-food and Walmart wilderness, GHS was well maintained, with a small, handsome campus serving 260-some students. The local sports teams were well supported by the community, and the school itself was highly rated nationally.

  She felt lucky to have gone there.

  At a table at one end of the otherwise deserted library, Krista interviewed one by one the teachers who’d attended the reunion Saturday night. All were cooperative and happy to get out of training sessions they seemed to find redundant and committee meetings they appeared merely to endure.

  First up was Chris Hope, the drama teacher, handsome as ever in a crisp white shirt and dark jeans, his short blond hair perfectly parted above his dark brown eyes. He sat back casually with an elbow on the arm of the hardwood chair.