For now, local reporting on the Bernie Madoff scandal has waned, but Fortune magazine's Dave Kansas is just out with a feature titled "Madoff Does Minneapolis."

There's not a ton new if you've paid attention to the Star Tribune or Pioneer Press, but there is one arresting passage:

The losses have affected people of much smaller means. One woman had kept her ties to Madoff secret for more than a decade. She was a mistress of a rich and powerful man in the Twin Cities. After a chance meeting in a park, they began a relationship that lasted nearly 20 years and included a promise that he would always take care of her. Once every quarter, a check from a Swiss bank account that included the name of Madoff's securities firm arrived in her mailbox.

She moved into a new apartment, got a nice car, and like many associated with Madoff, gave away some of the money to charities and favored causes. She had a habit of reading the New York Times to keep track of the world she had intersected with in secret. Even after the man's death a few years ago, the checks continued to arrive on schedule.

"Then one morning I pick up the Times, and there's Bernie," she recalls. "What's he doing in the paper? I read the article and realized that my life was over." Now she is struggling to find a way to survive, relying heavily on the generosity of friends. The check scheduled for the first week of January didn't arrive, as she expected, and her car has been repossessed.

Let the guessing games begin.