“What?”
“I wonder why? He never made a move? He doesn't even flirt with me,” she said.
“Probably because I carry a gun,” Lucas said.
“Probably because I'm too old,” Weather said.
“You're not too old, believe me,” Lucas said. “I get the strange feeling that Virgil would fuck a snake, if he could get somebody to hold its head.”
“Sort of reminds me of you, when you were his age,” she said.
“You didn't know me when I was his age.”
“You can always pick out the guys who'd fuck a snake, whatever age they are,” Weather said.
“That's unfair.”
“Mmm.”
A minute later, Lucas said, “Virgil thinks that going to Dakota County was a little… iffy.”
“Politically corrupt, you mean,” Weather said.
“Maybe,” Lucas admitted.
“It is,” Weather said.
“I mentioned to Virgil that I occasionally talked to Ruffe over at the Star Tribune.”
She propped herself up on one arm. “You suggested that he call Ruffe?”
“Not at all. That'd be improper,” Lucas said.
“So what are the chances he'll call?”
“Knowing that fuckin' Flowers, about ninety-six percent.”
She dropped onto her back. “So you manipulated him into making the call, so the guy in Dakota County can't bury the case.”
“Can you manipulate somebody into something, if he knows that you're manipulating him, and wants to be?” Lucas asked, rolling up on his side.
“That's a very feminine thought, Lucas. I'm proud of you,” Weather said.
“Hey,” Lucas said, catching her hand and guiding it. “Feminine this.”
Another great day, blue sky almost no wind, dew sparkling on the lawn, the neighbor's sprinkler system cutting in. Sam loved the sprinkler system and could mimic its chi-chi-chi-chiiiii sound almost perfectly.
Lucas got the paper off the porch, pulled it out of the plastic sack, and unrolled it. Nothing in the Star Tribune about Kline. Nothing at all by Ruffe. Had he misfired? Lucas never liked to get up early-though he had no problem staying up until dawn, or longer-but was out of the house at 6:30, nudging out of the driveway just behind Weather. Weather was doing a series of scar revisions on a burn case. The patient was in the hospital overnight to get some sodium numbers fixed, and was being waked as she left the driveway. The patient would be on the table by 7:30, the first of three operations she'd do before noon.
Lucas, on the other hand, was going fishing. He took the truck north on Cretin to I-94, and turned into the rising sun; and watched it rise higher for a bit more than an hour as he drove past incoming rush-hour traffic, across the St. Croix, past cows and buffalo and small towns getting up. He left the interstate at Wisconsin Exit 52, continuing toward Chippewa, veering around the town and up the Chippewa River into Jim Falls.
A retired Minneapolis homicide cop had a summer home just below the dam. He was traveling in Wyoming with his wife, but told Lucas where he'd hidden the keys for the boat.
Lucas was on the river a little after eight, in the cop's eighteen-foot Lund, working the trolling motor with his foot, casting the shoreline with a Billy Bait on a Thorne Brothers custom rod.
Lucas had always been interested in newspapers-thought he might have been a reporter if he hadn't become a cop-and had gotten to the point where he could sense something wrong with a newspaper story. If a story seemed reticent, somehow; deliberately oblique; if the writer did a little tap dance; then, Lucas could say, “Ah, there's something going on.” The writer knew something he couldn't report, at least, not yet.
Lucas, and a lot of other cops, developed the same sense about crimes. A solution was obvious, but wasn't right. The story was hinky Of course, cops sometimes had that feeling and it turned out that they were wrong. The obvious was the truth. But usually, when it seemed like something was wrong, something was.
There'd been a car at the murder scene-if there hadn't been, then somebody had been running down the street with a sixty-pound printer on his back. So there'd been a car. But if there'd been a car, why wasn't a lot of the other small stuff taken? Like the TV in the bedroom, a nice thirty-two-inch flat screen. Could have carried it out under one arm.
Or those video games.
On the other hand, if the killers were professionals after cash and easy-to-hock jewelry, why hadn't they found the safe, and at least tried to open it? It wasn't that well hidden… Why had they spent so much time in the house? Why did they steal that fuckin' printer? The printer bothered him. He put the fishing rod down, pulled his cell phone, was amazed to see he actually had a signal, and called back to the office, to Carol.
“Listen, what's that intern's name? Sandy? Can you get her? Great. Get the call list going: I want to know if anybody in the Metro area found a Hewlett-Packard printer.
Have her call the garbage haulers, too. We're looking for a Hewlett-Packard printer that was tossed in a dumpster. You can get the exact model number from John Smith.
And if somebody saw one, ask if there's anything else that might have come from Bucher's place, like a DVD player. Yeah. Yeah, tell everybody it's the Bucher case. Yeah, I know. Get her started, give her some language to explain what we're doing.”
He'd no more than hung up when he had another thought, fished out the phone, and called Carol again. “Has anyone shown Sandy how to run the computer? Okay. After she does the call list, get her to pull every unsolved murder in the Upper Midwest for the last five years. Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin. Might as well throw in the Dakotas.
Don't do Illinois, there'd be too much static from Chicago. Have her sift them for characteristics similar to the Bucher case. But don't tell her where I am-don't tell her about Donaldson. I want to see if she catches it. No, I'm not trying to fuck her over, I just want to know how good a job she did of sifting them. Yeah. Goodbye.”
Feeling as though he'd accomplished something, he floated the best part of a mile down the river, and then, with some regret, motored back up the opposite shore to the cop's house and the dock.
The river was cool, green, friendly. He could spend a lot of time there, he thought, just floating. Hadn't seen a single muskie; usually didn't-which meant that he didn't smell like fish slime, and wouldn't have to stop at a McDonald's to wash up.
Despite the interruption of the cell-phone call, he had seen a mink, several ducks, a brooding Canada goose, and a nearly empty Fanta orange bottle, floating down the river. He'd hooked it out, emptied it, and carried it up to the truck. Returned the keys to their hiding spot, put away the rod, wrote a thank-you note to the cop, and left it in the mailbox.
Not a bad way to start the day, he thought, rumbling up the hill to the main road.
Took a right and headed into Chippewa.
The Donaldson mansion was on the hill on the west side of town. There were other big houses scattered around, but the Donaldson was the biggest. Frazier was already there, leaning against an unmarked car that everyone but a blind man would recognize as a cop car, talking on a cell phone. Lucas parked, got out of the truck, locked it, and walked over.
Frazier was a short man in his fifties, stout, with iron gray hair cut into a flattop.
He was wearing khaki slacks, a red golf shirt, and a blue sport coat. His nose was red, and spidery red veins webbed his cheekbones. He looked like he should be carrying a bowling bag. He took the phone away from his mouth and asked, “Davenport?”
Lucas nodded and Frazier said into the phone, “Could be a while, but I don't know how long.” He hung up, grinned at Lucas as they shook hands, and said, “My old lady.
My first priority is to get the dry cleaning and the cat food. My second priority is to solve the Donaldson killing.”
“You gotta have your priorities,” Lucas said. He looked up at the mansion. “That's a hell of a house,” Lucas said. “Just like the Bucher house. When are the Booths…?”