"All right," Lucas said. He took his phone out of his pocket, called the van, and said, "Go when you're ready."
LUCAS AND DEL stood in the window with the Christmas Ink people and watched the van unload. Carolyn Rie, the Sex Unit cop, led the way in her letter jacket. A uniformed cop followed just behind, carrying a sledge. Another uniformed cop and a computer specialist climbed out behind them.
Rie tried the door handle, shook her head no, stepped aside, and the uniformed cop lifted the sledge. As he started his backswing, Lucas and Del opened the door at Christmas Ink, and as the unmarked door at Ware's exploded inward from the impact of the hammer, they joined the surge into the office.
The front was exactly that: a front. Only seven or eight feet deep, it contained four chairs lined up against one wall, and a metal desk with a red telephone. A door, closed, led into the back. The uniformed cop didn't bother to try the knob, but simply kicked it, and the door flew open.
The back room was huge: a warehouse space draped with rolls of backdrop paper. A plush red couch was sitting on one of the rolls; a brass bedstead with a king-size mattress was pushed into a corner. A table held lamps, and two floor lamps stood behind them. There were five strobes on their light stands, two of them covered with soft-boxes, and more lighting equipment sat on another side table.
A short, balding man sat on the couch, holding a camera the size of a shoe box; he was frozen in place. Another man, older, taller, wearing a crisp white shirt and gray slacks, was walking briskly toward a desk full of computer equipment. The computer cop yelled, "Hey, hey hey…" and the man walked faster, reaching, and the computer cop ran straight into him and pushed him away from the computer desk.
The man in the white shirt started screaming at the computer cop: "Get away, get away, get away, this is all illegal this is all illegal get away…"
Another man, who had been out of sight behind a lighting rack, walked to the back door and punched it open: Two cops stood there, and he turned back. "Hey, what's happening…"
Then the guy on the couch with the big camera stood up and said, "I'm leaving. I'm not even supposed to be here."
"Everybody shut up," Rie shouted. "We're Minneapolis police. You two guys…" She pointed at the man who'd tried the back door, and the man by the couch. "Sit. Just sit."
"I want to call my lawyer," the man in the white shirt shouted.
Lucas walked over to him. "How are you, Morris?" he asked. "You remember me?"
Ware looked at Lucas for a moment, then said, "No. I don't. I want my attorney, and I want him now."
"Somebody give Mr. Ware a copy of the warrant," Lucas said. And to one of the squad cops from the blocking car: "Then take him out front and let him use the phone."
Rie got IDs on the other two men, Donald Henrey and Anthony Carr, as Ware was taken into the front room. As he went, he said to Rie, "You're all going down for this. This is the end of your jobs. This is the end…"
The computer specialist pulled a phone line out of the back of Ware's sleek Macintosh, and checked the power cords that went out to peripherals. "Looks okay," he said. "We're isolated, but I'd rather not work on it until I can get it back to the shop."
Lucas nodded. "Whatever's best. The way he was going for it when we came in… gotta be something there."
One uniformed cop from the blocking squad watched the two men on the couch, while Rie, Larsen, Del, Lucas, and the two entry-team uniforms began taking the back room apart-pulling out drawers, looking under pillows, shaking out boxes. They found not a single photograph. They did find two dozen Jaz disks for the Macintosh.
Nothing to look at.
Finally, Lucas asked Henrey, the man with the big camera, "What're we going to find on the disks?"
"I don't know," he said. He sounded depressed. "I'm just hired to shoot. Nothing illegal. I won't shoot anything illegal."
"Does anything illegal get shot in here?"
"I don't know," he said. He turned the big camera in his hands. "I was just hired for one shoot."
"When? Now? Earlier? Later?"
Henrey looked at his watch. "Half hour. We were just setting up lights."
Lucas turned to Rie. "Maybe we ought to get Ware back in here. You could sit out front and be a receptionist."
She ticked a finger at him. "Not bad."
WARE CAME BACK with his escort, looked at Lucas, and snapped, "What?"
"Sit on the couch," Lucas said.
"My attorney is on the way," Ware said.
"Good. I suggest that you not say anything until he gets here."
"I won't. Nobody else better say anything, either," he said, looking at the two other men. "I'll sue for slander and get every nickel you've got. You better believe it."
Lucas crooked a finger at the man with the camera, who followed him into the front room. Rie was moving a chair behind the metal desk, ready to receive visitors.
To Henrey, Lucas said, "If we find child porn on those disks-child stuff is Ware's big thing-then you could wind up in Stillwater for a few years. You know how it goes."
"Listen, man, honest to God, I was hired," Henrey said earnestly.
"We understand that, and we'll take into account any help you give us. Give me just one thing that'll help."
"I gotta talk to a lawyer."
"One thing, buddy," Lucas said. "Just give me one thing. We might not need you an hour from now."
The guy looked around and said, "You better not be lying. Give me a note or something."
"We don't really have a lot of time to fool around."
"I'm not a bad guy, I'm just trying to make a living taking a few pictures. I usually do wildlife and nature."
"Yeah, well, that's cool."
Henrey sat head-down for a moment, and Rie looked at Lucas and winked. Then Henrey said, "I don't know about the child-porn thing. I heard that he does it, but it'd be stupid. It's death. There're plenty of places outside the States where you can do it all you want, and nobody cares."
"Ware is sort of a hands-on kinda guy," Lucas said.
The photographer winced and said, "Just one thing?"
"Just one."
He nodded. "But you gotta help me… The thing is, sometimes when I've been here shooting, the actors-"
From Rie: "Actors?"
"Models, whatever. They sort of like to get their noses into it, and Morrie usually has a little coke around. I've seen him get it a couple times… go for it. It's not like I could go over and see what he's doing, but I think one of the power outlets behind his desk is a fake. I think he keeps a little stash in there."
Lucas slapped him on the back. "See? That was no problem. And if you're like an up-and-up nature guy, like you say… maybe we can deal. Okay? Now, I'm gonna put you back on the couch with Ware. Don't say anything to him."
Lucas brought Del out to the front, told him about the power outlets, then sent Henrey back to the couch and brought Carr into the outer room. Lucas sat him down where Henrey had been, and made the same pitch.
"Look, all I do is maintain his website," Carr said. "He's never bothered to learn how to do that. He puts his pictures on disks, gives me the index number, and I move them over to the Web and set up thumbnails. ErosFineArtPhotos. com."
"Any children on the site?" Lucas asked.
"No. Of course not," Carr said.
"Does he do kids?"
Carr looked uncomfortable. "I don't know. I don't see everything. I just move megabytes. I'm a moving guy."
Lucas nodded and said, "Listen, pal-you better get an attorney. If we find pictures of kids around here, you're gonna go down as an accomplice, and that means a couple of years in prison. You better think of ways to help us, and get your lawyer to cut a deal… I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm threatening you, but this is serious shit."
Carr puffed up his cheeks and audibly exhaled. "If I don't have the money for a lawyer…"
"We'll get one appointed," Lucas said.