"Who?"
"Suzanne Brister was killed in your apartment. We have all the evidence, Randy-her blood was all over the place."
"Dude…" Randy scrubbed his face with both hands. "I can't remember. I was partying that night, and I come home and she was dead. I freaked out."
"Did you do it?"
"No, man, that's what freaked me out. I didn't do it; I'd remember that. I walked up the stairs in the dark and I stepped on her and I felt down and here was this cold titty, and I almost jumped out the window. Then I turned on the light and there was this blood…" He shuddered. "Felt her up in the dark. I didn't know she was dead."
"So when was James last over?"
He scrubbed his face again. "I can't remember."
Lucas went back to the envelope of photographs, shook out the shots of the two rings found at Randy's, and handed them to him. "We found these at your place-in your hideout. They came off a woman professor at St. Patrick's University. You remember where you got them?"
Randy looked at them and scratched his head. "You got them at my place? My stash?"
"Yeah."
"Must've been when I was wrecked, because I don't remember."
"What do you remember?"
"Well, that night, I was partying. I partied all night. I ran out of money and I went home and I got some more money, and then I partied some more and then I ran out of money again… I kept running out of money and I kept going home and getting some more… That's what I remember, going back and forth, and then feeling this cold titty."
"Who were you partying with?"
Randy rolled his eyes at Lansing, who nodded. "Dude named Lo Andrews."
"I know him," said the St. Paul Homicide cop. "Got a place off Como. There's usually smoke coming out of the windows."
"That's the dude," Randy said.
"You don't know when Suzanne was killed or when you last saw James."
"If James gave me those rings, he must have come over when I was wrecked," Randy said.
They talked a while longer but got nothing significant. Out in the hallway, Lucas asked the St. Paul cop for Lo Andrews's address, and the cop made a call to St. Paul Narcotics and get the number on Como.
Back in the car, Lucas called Marcy and said, "We've got a positive ID on Qatar. We're gonna pick him up. Get started on a warrant for his house."
"That's great-I'll get the warrant started right now. Del wants to talk to you."
She handed the phone off to Del, who said, "Can I come with you?"
"Sure. He's down at St. Patrick's. Meet you there. Is Lane around?"
Lane came on the line, and Lucas gave him Lo Andrews's address. "Find the guy-St. Paul Narcotics will give you a guy to walk around with-and ask him about that night. If anybody went home with Randy, if anybody saw anything…"
"Talk to you this afternoon," Lane said.
"NEVER THOUGHT I'D see it," Marshall said. "Goddamnit."
Lucas looked at him, and Marshall seemed to be sweating. He'd gotten a Coke from the hospital waiting room, and when he lifted it to take a drink, his hand was shaking. "You feel all right?"
"Well, uh, I'm not having a heart attack or anything, but my blood pressure's probably nine hundred over nine hundred. I want to drag that sonofabitch out of that schoolroom… He's a goddamn teacher, Lucas. A teacher."
"Teachers… They're about as messed up as anybody. We've had a few of them over here."
Marshall sat staring out the window, his lips moving, as though he were saying a silent prayer, but he'd heard Lucas, and suddenly smiled and seemed to unwind a notch. "Yeah, you're right. Did I ever tell you about this weird old white-haired teacher from River Falls? I got a friend who's a deputy in the county next door, and he swears it's a true story… Did I tell you this, the story about the guy and the llama and the golf club? No? Anyway…"
He had Lucas laughing in two minutes. But Lucas, glancing sideways, could see what seemed like despair hanging in his eyes over the storytelling smile.
THE ARREST HAPPENED almost exactly as Qatar had seen it in his nightmares, give or take a snap-brimmed fedora. He was in his office, and heard the voice and footsteps in the hall-the bustle of people moving, a voice that was hushed. He turned his head, sat up straight, listening. A second later, the door opened and a dark-haired, dark-complected man in a gorgeous charcoal suit opened the door and asked, "James Qatar?"
Behind the man in the suit were two other men, and Burns Goodwin, the college president.
Qatar stood up and tried to look puzzled. "Yes?"
"HE SORTA FREAKED," Lucas told Marcy. "He denied it all and then he started crying-I mean, really weeping. Sobbing. I think it bummed Marshall out. He wanted resistance, and all he got was this mud puddle."
"Where is he? Marshall?"
"Still over at the jail talking with the county attorneys about Wisconsin stuff. If we find anything in the house, there may be a Wisconsin claim."
"What difference does it make? He's gonna get thirty years."
"If we get him. If we don't, but if we have something from Wisconsin, that could be another trial."
After talking to Marcy, Lucas walked down to tell Rose Marie about the arrest.
"Another notch," she said.
"If we get him. Towson is worried that Randy's identification might be a little shaky."
"Ah, we got him," she said. "With Randy and the jewelry, with Qatar's access to all the victims, with the Wisconsin school record… we've got him."
He went back to Marcy. "I'm gonna go over to Qatar's house, see what's going on there," he told her. "Then I'm gonna go home and take a nap. Fuck around the with car. Let me know."
The phone rang, and she held up a finger, picked it up, listened, and said, "Just a moment. I'll see if he's in." She pushed the hold button and asked, "It's that Culver guy. He says he really needs to talk to you."
"Let me have that." He took the phone and said, "Lucas Davenport."
"Chief Davenport, listen, did you take Ellen somewhere? I mean, do you know where she is?"
"No-she was at her place the last time I saw her. What's going on?"
"I haven't seen her. Usually she comes over for a cup of coffee or I go over to her place, but it's all locked up. Now a bunch of women are milling around outside. They were supposed to have a quilting class, and they say whenever she's had to cancel a class she's called them. She doesn't answer her phone. I can't see inside very well because of the one-way stuff, but I can see a little, and it looks like some stuff has been tipped over or thrown around."
"Stay right there," Lucas said. "I'm on my way." He dropped the phone, looked around for Del, a little wild-eyed, said "Fuck," and headed for the door.
"What? What?" Marcy yelled after him. "Where're you going?"
"Call the dispatcher and tell them I want a squad, right now, out front… Right now," he shouted back. He was running down the hallway when he saw Marshall carrying a carton of yogurt and a cup of coffee.
"Terry, c'mon, Terry…" He kept running, and Marshall ran carefully after him, calling, "What happened, what happened?"
A squad was cutting across the street toward the front entrance, the driver waving at Lucas. Lucas caught the front door and Marshall piled in the back. Lucas said, "Go that way, across the Hennepin Bridge, lights and siren." The driver nodded, and they took off, slicing through the traffic like a shark. When they were moving, he turned to look at Marshall in the backseat and said, "Nobody can find Ellen Barstad. The Culver guy from next door says it looks like the place is a little torn up inside."
"No, no." Marshall was shocked. "Not that girl-we've been following him, he couldn't have."
"Maybe it's nothing."
Lucas began giving directions to the driver as they made the turn onto Hennepin, and then Marshall said, "But this feels really bad. This feels bad."
"She's from outstate somewhere. Maybe she got freaked and went home."
"No, I don't think so. This has got that bad feeling about it."
Lucas nodded. "Yeah, it does."
THEY WERE HALFWAY there when Del called: "What the hell's going on?"