Sissel whispered to Anna, who clambered off the bench. Serena saw the man’s hand graze Anna’s ass as she wandered away, still engrossed in her phone.

‘You can do better,’ Serena murmured as the girl passed her.

Anna shrugged, as if nothing could be more obvious. ‘I do.’

Serena crossed the lot and sat on the opposite side of the bench. Sissel, still sucking on a cigarette, smoothed his hair and rubbed two greasy fingers together. The smoke on his breath mingled with beer.

‘Some guy came into the bar this afternoon,’ he told her. ‘He was asking a lot of questions about that woman who was killed. Kelly Hauswirth.’

‘Who was he? A sailor?’

‘No, he wasn’t from the boats.’

‘What did he look like?

‘He was hard to miss. Blue glasses, blue pants, a white button-down shirt. Short, maybe five-six, skinny.’

‘So what did this guy do?’ Serena asked.

‘He came in mid-afternoon when the place was pretty empty. He ordered a beer, and then he asked me if I knew which table this woman Kelly was sitting at before she got shot. It was weird, but hey, people have their kinks. I told him which table it was, and he took his beer over there and sat down. When I went to take his order, he grilled me with more questions. Did I talk to the woman? How long was she there? Did I see what happened to her? That struck me as more than the average freaky curiosity, so I went out back and sent you a text. By the time I got inside again, the guy was gone. He finished his beer and told Anna to make his burger to go. Paid cash.’

Serena frowned. They often found hangers-on at murder scenes, but this one sounded odd. ‘Did he say where he was going?’

‘No, but I talked to one of the guys who came in right after Blue Pants left. He saw him get into a red compact. Headed toward Grassy Point.’

Serena stood up. ‘Thanks for the information, Fred.’

‘You’re welcome. Maybe you’d like to have dinner sometime.’

‘Maybe I wouldn’t,’ Serena replied.

She left Sissel on the bench and went around the side of the bar to the street. In the distance, the Bong Bridge slashed across the bay to Superior. She put out an alert with the description of the man and the car, and then she drove her Mustang into the industrial area near Grassy Point. This was where the business of Duluth got done. Boats belched iron ore down gravity feed ramps. Trains and trucks came and went. Lumber got stacked like matchsticks, and taconite was piled into black pyramids. The air always smelled of cut wood, and engines thundered like storms that never moved off. White columns of steam rose from the plants and merged into the white clouds.