“One last question, just popped into my head. Did you know Connie Bucher? At all? Through antiques, or whatever?”
“No.” She shook her head. “One of my jobs at the foundation is roping in potential donors, especially those who are old and infirm and have buckets of cash, but she was well tended by other people. She was surrounded, really. I bet she got twenty calls a week from 'friends,' who were really calling about money. Anyway, I never met her. I would never have had a chance to clip her money, under any circumstances, but I would have liked to have seen her antiques.”
“ 'Clip her money' “ Lucas repeated.
“Trade talk,” she said.
Lucas's cell phone rang.
He dug it out of his pocket, looked at the screen, and said to Anderson, “Excuse me. I have to take this…”
He stepped away from her, toward the front door, turning a shoulder in the unconscious pretend-privacy that cell-phone users adopt. In his ear, Flowers said, “I'm at the Barths with Susan Conoway- have you talked to her, she's from Dakota County?”
“No. I talked to somebody. Lyle Pender?”
“Okay, that's somebody else. Anyway, Susan was assigned to prep the Barths, but Kathy's heard that she can take the Fifth, if she thinks she might have committed a crime.
Or might be accused of one. So now she says she doesn't want to talk to Susan, and Susan's got a date that she doesn't want to miss. The whole fuckin' thing is about to go up in smoke. I could use some weight over here.”
“Damnit. What does Barth's lawyer say?”
“He's not here. Kathy's nervous-I don't think this is coming from her lawyer,” Flowers said. “It might be coming from somewhere else.”
“I'm sure Kline wouldn't have… Ah, Jesus. You think Burt Jr. might have talked to her?”
“Maybe. The thought occurred to me, that fat fuck,” Flowers said. “If he has, I'll put his ass in jail. I told Kathy that the grand jury could give her immunity and that she'd have to testify, or go to jail. Nobody told her that. But if she decides to take the Fifth, it's gonna mess up the schedule and it could create some complications.
If Cole started getting cold feet, or Kline's buddies in the legislature got involved… We need to get this done.”
“Why doesn't Conoway talk to her?” Lucas asked.
“Says she can't. Says the Barths have an attorney, and without the other attorney here, she's not comfortable examining a reluctant witness. That's not exactly what she said, but that's what she means.”
“Listen: It'll take me at least ten or fifteen minutes to get there. I have to walk home, I'm six or seven minutes away from my car,” Lucas said. “What is Jesse saying? Is she letting Kathy do the talking, or can you split them, or what?”
“They were both sitting on the couch. It's all about the money, man.”
Lucas groaned. “I don't know why the Klines are holding on like this. You'd think they'd try to deal. Suborning a witness… they'd have to be crazy. How could they think they'd get away with it?”
Flowers said, “Burt's a fuckin' state legislator, Lucas.”
“I know, but I'm always the optimist.”
“Right,” Flowers said. “Ten minutes?”
Lucas glanced at Anderson, who at that moment tipped her wrist to look at her watch.
“I need a minute or two to finish here, then walk home, so… give me fifteen.”
He rang off and stepped back into the living room, took a card from his pocket, and handed it to Anderson. “I've got to run. Thanks for your time. If you think of anything…
About Donaldson, about Bucher, about possible ties between them, I'd like to hear it.”
She took the card, said, “I'll call. I've got what we call a grip-and-grin, trying to soak up some money. So I've got to hurry myself.”
“Seems like everything is about money,” Lucas said.
“More and more,” Anderson said. “To tell you the truth, I find it more and more distasteful.”
Lucas hurried home, waved at a neighbor, stuck his head into the kitchen, blurted, “Got something going, I'll tell you when I get back,” to Weather, and took off; Weather called after him, “When?” He shouted back, “Half an hour. If it's longer, I'll call.”
There was some traffic, but the Barths lived only three miles away, and he knew every street and alley. By chopping off a little traffic, and taking some garbage-can routes, he made it in the fifteen minutes he'd promised Flowers.
Flowers was leaning in a doorway chatting with a solid dishwater-blond woman with a big leather bag hanging from her shoulder: Conoway Lucas had never met her, but when he saw her, he remembered her, from a lecture she gave at a child-abuse convention sponsored by the BCA.
A small-town cop, working with volunteer help and some sheriff's deputies who lived in the area, and a freelance social therapist, had busted a day-care center's owner, her son, and two care providers and charged them with crimes ranging from rape to blasphemy. Conoway, assigned as a prosecutor, had shredded the case. She'd demonstrated that the day-care center operators were innocent, and had shown that if the children had been victimized by anyone, it had been the cops and the therapist, who were involved in what amounted to an anti-pederasty cult. She hadn't endeared herself to the locals, but she had her admirers, including Lucas.
Lucas came up the walk, noticed that the yellow-white dog was gone, the stake sitting at an angle in the yard. He wondered if the dog had broken loose.
Conoway looked tired; like she needed to wash her hair. She saw Lucas coming, through the screen door, cocked an eyebrow, said something to Flowers, and Flowers stepped over and pushed open the door.
“You know Susan Conoway…”
Conoway smiled and shook hands, and Lucas said, “We haven't met, but I admired your work in the Rake Town case.”
“Thank you,” she said. “The admiration isn't universal.”
Lucas looked at Flowers: “What do you need?”
Flowers said, “We just need you-somebody-to talk to the Barths in a polite, nonlegal way, that would convince them to cooperate fully with Ms. Conoway, who has a hot date tonight with somebody who couldn't possibly deserve her attentions.”
Lucas said, “Huh.”
Conoway said, “Actually he does deserve my attentions. If they're not going to talk, I'm outa here.”
“Give me a minute,” Lucas said. “I've got to work myself into a temper tantrum.”
Kathy and Jesse Barth were perched side by side on a green corduroy sofa, Kathy with a Miller Lite and a cigarette and Jesse with Diet Pepsi. Lucas stepped into the room, closed the door, and said, “Kathy, if Ms. Conoway leaves, and this thing doesn't go down tomorrow, you'll have messed up your life. Big-time. You'll wind up in the women's prison and your daughter will wind up in a juvie home. It pisses me off, because I hate to see that happen to a kid. Especially when her mom does it to her.”
Kathy Barth was cool: “We've got a lawyer.”
Lucas jabbed a finger at her, put on his hardest face: “Every asshole in Stillwater had a lawyer. Every single fuckin' one of them.” She opened her mouth to say something, but Lucas waved her down, bullying her. “Have you talked to your lawyer about this?”
“Doesn't answer his cell. But we figured, what difference do a few hours make?”
“I'll tell you what difference it makes-it means somebody either got to you, or tried to get to you,” Lucas said. “You can't sell your testimony, Kathy. That's a felony.