Long looked at Towson. "We'd need some kind of color chart, or maybe a PowerPoint presentation, to sell that to a jury."
Towson shook his head. "We're not at a jury yet. We need more."
"We're just starting on the guy," Del said.
Long leaned into the discussion. "I got all the paper from Atheneum. Spooner's boss was looking over my shoulder, and you know what? If we push the guy, he'll tell us the loans shouldn't have been made. The goddamn things are dirty. Rodriguez was paying him off."
"Can we crack him?" Towson asked.
"I don't know. He's sort of a nebbish, but he's scared, and if he keeps his mouth shut I mean, he's got a lawyer, and if he claims that the loans were on the up-and-up and keeps going back to this minority business, and if Rodriguez doesn't talk, there's not much we can get him on."
"We'll get some paper going on him," Lucas said. "If he's been paid off by Rodriguez, he might have an income-tax problem."
Towson said to Long, "Talk to the IRS."
Lester summarized the case against Tom Olson. "He had motive, he had opportunity, he had access to a car that we now know for sure was used in the Marcy Sherrill shooting"
"How do you know that?" Long asked.
"We took the slug out of the car door. It didn't penetrate the passenger compartment, it wound up inside a plastic handle inside the door. It came from Marcy's revolver."
Long nodded. "Okay."
"But you haven't found the. 44 that was used on Marcy," Lucas said.
"No."
"That's a problem," Del said.
"Yup. Especially since he's been here, and not back in Fargo, ever since the shooting. We went through his motel room, and his car, after his parents were killed. No gun. The gun that was used to kill his parents belonged to his father: It was his father's car gun."
"Where'd you get that?" Lucas asked.
"Olson told us. His father kept it under the front-seat cushion. We ran the serial numbers, traced it to a gun store up in Burnt River. Lynn Olson bought it six years ago."
"You think he did his parents?" Towson asked.
"We've got this whole theory" Lester explained the multiple-personality concept, and explained the trap they'd set for Olson.
"The trap better work," Towson said, "Because the multiple-personality theory sounds like bullshit."
A secretary stuck her head in and said, "Lucas, you've got a call from the White House."
The group all looked at him, and Lucas said, "What?"
"The guy said he's with the White House. He didn't sound like he was joking."
"You better take it," Rose Marie said.
Lucas took it on the secretary's desk. Mallard said, "I bet that impressed everybody. The switchboard lady told me you were in a meeting in the chief's office."
"It certainly impressed the shit out me," Lucas said. "What's happening?"
"Your boy Rodriguez started selling out his accounts Monday morning. It'll be a couple of days before he gets the checks, but he's got a quarter million in the mail."
"Goddamn," Lucas said.
"I've only got one thing from Miami. Rodriguez set up the Miami company nine years ago. The attorney's name is Haynes, and as far as the guys in the Miami office know, he's straightsmall time, private office, business-oriented guy. Does real estate, that kind of stuff."
"Mallard, you're a good egg," Lucas said.
"Ho ho, very funny," Mallard said. "By the way, you remember Malone?"
"Of course. How is she?"
"She's fox-trotting with somebody else," Mallard said.
"Uh-oh. Gonna be number five?"
"Could happen. Anyway, we'll grind some more on Rodriguez, but I thought you'd want to know he was collecting cash."
"That's one more thing," Towson said when Lucas told them about Mallards call. "And it's a good one. We've got to slow him down, though."
"So what do we do?" Rose Marie asked.
"Some lawyer shit," Del said, looking at Towson.
"The IRS," Towson said. "Tell them about the dopemaybe they can do something about the money he's got coming."
Rose Marie said, "So we push on Rodriguez, and we keep baiting Olson. Everybody agree?"
Everybody nodded.
"Best we got," Lester said.
Chapter 21
Del took a call from Narcotics and headed that way. Lucas borrowed a uniformed cop from the patrol division, put him in plainclothes, and sent him to relieve Lane.
On the phone to Lane, he said, "When he gets there, I want you to brief him, then go on over to the county attorney's office, talk to Tim Long, and look at all that loan paperwork on Spooner. Spooner's criticaclass="underline" If he knows anything at all about Rodriguez, then he probably knows about everything. If we crack him, we may have enough."
"How much paper?" Lane asked.
"About a ton," Lucas said.
"Goddamnit, Lucas, how come I'm always the one stuck with paper?"
" 'Cause you can read; I'm not so sure about the other guys. So get your ass over here. Also, an FBI computer file just came in on Rodriguez and his money. I'll print it out and leave it with Lester. Take it with you, see if there's anything that, you know"
"What?"
"Shit, I don't know. Correlates, or something."
When he was done with Lane, he got out the phone book, got the number for Browns, dialed, and asked for India. She came on the phone a minute later. Lucas identified himself and asked, "Are you gonna be around for a few minutes?"
"Until six."
"I want to stop by," he said.
When he got off the phone, Lucas walked down to Homicide with the printed-out FBI file, left it with Lester. "Did you guys print those pictures of Rodriguez?"
"Uh, yeah I think they're down in ID. They handled it."
Lucas went down to the Identification division. The photo guy's name was Harold McNeil, a former uniform cop who got tired of cold squad cars and got the photo job by lying. Photography he said, was a longtime hobby, although he didn't know a small-format camera from a yak. He read a book calledLearn Photography in a Weekend, fooled around with the department's cameras, and after a week or so, was better than the last guy, and kept the job.
He had two good shots of Rodriguez: a full-frontal head shot, and one side view.
"Got some heads I can use in a spread?" Lucas asked.
"Yup." McNeil turned around, opened the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet, and took out a handful of photos. They found sets, front and back, of a half-dozen guys. Lucas stuck them in his pocket.
"I'll bring them back," he promised.
"That's what everybody says. Nobody ever does," McNeil said.
Lucas got his coat and walked across town to Brown's; the cold air felt good; the walking felt good. India was behind the desk and smiled when she saw him coming.
"Did you ever see any of these guys with Sandy Lansing?" Lucas pushed the stack of photos at her. "There are two photos of each guy."
India took her time looking at them. Another woman came along and asked, "What's going on?"
Lucas said, "Police. We're trying to see if we can find somebody Sandy Lansing might have gone out with."
"I've seen her with a guy a few times," the other woman said.
She stood at India's elbow, and they went through the photos together, India slowly shaking her head. "I don't think so," she said finally. "This guy but I don't think it was him."
The other woman said, "I don't think so, either. Sorta like that, though. If you put him in a suit."
"It's not him. This guy looks a little rough," India said.
"You're right," the other woman said. She looked at Lucas. "I don't think I've ever seen any of them."
Lucas looked at the one photo they'd talked about. A honey-haired white guy, round-faced, but without Rodriguez's heft. He and Rodriguez looked nothing alike.
"Thanks," he said.
Strikeout.
Back at the office, Lucas had a note to call Tim Long at the county attorneys office. He did. "You can't count on getting anything from the IRS," Long said. "I talked to a guy over there, and they said if we get anything that looks like hidden income, to send them a copy of what we get. But they've had too much trouble with citizen complaints to go after a guy who they've never had a problem with. He was audited a couple of years ago, in a random audit, and everything worked out to the penny."