Delores turned on her youngest daughter so fast that Hannah almost burst out laughing. “Why do you have a fake birth certificate and a fake driver’s license?”

Michelle didn’t quite meet her mother’s eyes. “Oh, just to see if I could get them. I had to do some research for a psychology class I took last year.”

“They told you to get a fake birth certificate and a fake driver’s license?” Delores looked shocked.

“Not exactly. But I had to get into a club to do the research and they carded at the door. It was twenty-one or older.”

Delores looked up at the ceiling and Hannah suspected she was thinking, Where did I go wrong?

“I wrote a really good paper and I got an A in the class.”

Hannah watched her mother alternate between worry and pride. “Well . . . I guess it’s all right as long as you didn’t use it for anything illegal. You didn’t drink, did you?”

“Only iced tea, Mother. And I don’t mean Long Island Iced Tea.”

Everyone laughed, even Delores, at Michelle’s little joke, and Hannah knew it was time to change the subject before her mother started asking Michelle about more illegal activities.

“So did Keith Branson have a rap sheet?” Hannah asked Mike.

“No. All they had on him were a couple of traffic tickets he paid right away, and one charge of misdemeanor indecent public exposure.”

“What was that?” Delores asked him, and Hannah knew her mother was imagining the worst.

“Nothing serious. A highway patrol officer happened to come along when he was urinating by the side of a gravel road in a wooded area of Anoka.”

Delores didn’t say anything to that and Hannah wondered if her mother wished she hadn’t asked the question.

“Stella did find one charge that was disturbing,” Mike said. “The vice squad worked with Stella’s detectives to get Branson on aggravated assault or attempted murder, but they couldn’t gather enough evidence to turn it over to the district attorney.”

Hannah noticed that Lonnie didn’t look surprised. “Was it that prostitute Stella told us about? The one who died in the condemned building?”

“Yes. All they had was the phone call from her friend, claiming that Branson was the one who beat her. And the friend didn’t show up at the station to give a statement.”

Hannah wasn’t sure if she should feel good or bad about that. It seemed the man she’d killed had been a pimp, an abuser, and perhaps even a murderer. She noticed that Delores was leaning toward her and she quickly framed another question before her mother could ask her again how she felt about that. “Did Keith Branson have any relatives that we should notify?”

“Not that the MPD knows of. Don’t forget, we don’t even know, for certain, that Branson is his real name.”