Lucas wrote Stanley Reckless and $415,00in his notebook as they drifted out toward the door. “You know,” Lauren said, squinting at him. “I think I met you once, a long time ago, out at the track. You gave me a tip on a horse. This must have been… what? Seven or eight years ago?”
Lucas studied her face for a minute, then said, “You were wearing cowboy boots?”
“Yes! I went off to place the bet, and when I got back, you were gone,” Lauren said.
She touched his arm. “I never got to thank you.”
“Well…”
“Enough of that,” Kidd said, and they all laughed.
“You know, these killings… they might be art pros, but they aren't professional thieves,” Lauren said. “A pro would have gone in there, taken what he wanted, maybe trashed the place to cover up. But he wouldn't have killed anybody. You guys would have sent some new detective over there to write everything down, and he would have come back with a notebook that said, 'Maybe pots stolen,' and nobody would care.”
Lucas shrugged.
“Come on. Tell the truth. Would they care? Would anybody really care if some old bat got her pots stolen, and nobody got hurt? Especially if she didn't even know which pots they were?”
“Probably not,” Lucas said.
“So they might be art pros, but they weren't professional burglars,” Lauren said.
“If you kill an old lady, everybody gets excited. Though, I suppose, it could be a couple of goofy little amateur crackheads. Or maybe acquaintances or relatives, who had to kill them.”
Lucas's forehead wrinkled. “What do you do, Lauren? You weren't a cop?”
“No, no,” she said. “I'm trying to be a writer.”
“Novels?”
“No. I don't have a fictive imagination. Is that a word? Fictive?”
“I don't know,” Lucas said.
She bounced the baby a couple of times; stronger than she looked, Lucas thought.
“No,” she said. “If I can get something published, it'll probably be more on the order of true crime.”
When Lucas left, Lauren and Kidd came to the door with the baby, and Lauren took the baby's hand and said, “Wave goodbye to the man, wave goodbye…”
Lucas thought, hmm. A rivulet of testosterone had run into his bloodstream. She was the kind of skinny, cowgirl-looking woman who could make you breathe a little harder; and she did. Something about the tilt of her eyes, as well as her name, reminded him of Lauren Hutton, the best-looking woman in the world. And finally, she made him think about the killers. Her argument was made from common sense, but then, like most writers, she probably knew jack-shit about burglars.
There were a half-dozen cops at Bucher's, mostly doing clerical work-checking out phone books and answering-machine logs, looking at checks and credit cards, trying to put together a picture of Bucher's financial and social life.
Lucas found Smith in the music room. He was talking to a woman dressed from head to toe in black, and a large man in a blue seersucker suit with a too-small bow tie under his round chin.
Smith introduced them, Leslie and Jane Little Widdler, antique experts who ran a shop in Edina. They all shook hands; Leslie was six-seven and fleshy, with fat hands and transparent braces on his teeth. Jane was small, had a short, tight haircut, bony cold hands, and a strangely stolid expression.
“Figure anything out yet?” Lucas asked.
'Just getting started,” Jane Widdler said. “There are some very nice things here.
These damn vandals… they surely don't realize the damage they've done.”
“To say nothing of the killings,” Lucas said.
“Oh, well,” Jane said, and waved a hand. She somehow mirrored Lucas's guilty attitude: old ladies came and went, but a Louis XVI gilt-bronze commode went on forever.
Lucas asked Smith, “Get the insurance papers?”
“Yeah.” Smith dipped into his briefcase and handed Lucas a sheaf of papers. “Your copy.”
Lucas told him about Kidd's take on Stanley Reckless. “Between the jewelry and this one painting, we're talking big money, John. We don't even know what else is missing.
I'm thinking, man, this is way out of Nate Brown's league.”
Smith said, “Ah, Brown didn't do it. I don't think he's bright enough to resist the way he has been. And I don't think he's mean enough to kill old ladies. He's sort of an old hangout guy.”
“What's the Reckless painting?” Leslie Widdler asked, frowning. “It's not on the insurance list.”
“Should it be?”
“Certainly. A genuine Stanley Reckless painting would be extremely valuable. Where was it hung? Did they take the frame, or…”
“Wasn't hung,” Lucas said. “It would have been in storage.”
“In storage? You're sure?”
“That's what we've been told,” Lucas said. “Why?”
Widdler pursed his lips around his braces. “The thing is, some of these paintings here, I mean… frankly, there's a lot of crap. I'm sure Mrs. Bucher had them hung for sentimental reasons.”
“Which are purely legitimate and understandable,” Jane Widdler said, while managing to imply that they weren't.
“… but a genuine Reckless shouldn't have been in storage. My goodness…” Widdler looked at the high ceiling, his lips moving, then down at Lucas: “A good Reckless painting, today, could be worth a half-million dollars.”
Smith to Lucas: “It's piling up, isn't it? A pro job.”
“I think so,” Lucas said. “Professional, but maybe a little nuts. No fight, no struggle, no sounds, no signs of panic. Whack. They're dead. Then the killers take their time going through the house.”
“Pretty goddamned cold.”
“Pretty goddamned big money,” Lucas said. “We both know people who've killed somebody for thirty bucks and for no reason at all. But this…”
Smith nodded. “That Ignace guy from the Star Tribune really nailed us. We've got calls coming in from all over.”
“New York Times?”