"Are you saying that Spooner'll never be punished?" Olson asked.
"I don't know what's going to happen, I really don't," Lucas said.
"I don't know what to say," Olson said. "I should talk to Chief Roux again."
"Don't do that, it'll just cause problems for her. She's trying as hard as she can with all this media attention She wants the media to concentrate on Rodriguez for a few days, since it can't hurt him anymore, while we go after Spooner."
"This is I don't know."
"I'll tell you what you can do," Lucas said, trying tofeel the sincerity. "You can pray for us. After what I saw last night, I believe it will do some good."
Olson looked at him for a moment, a speculative examination of several seconds, then said, "I will."
Lucas said goodbye, shaking Olsons hand, then walked through the group of Burnt River people, down the hall, and to his office. Felt the dark finger of hypocrisy stroking his soul. All for justice, he thought. Or for something. Winning, maybe.
Lucas waited in his office until he figured Olson would be gone, then walked down to Homicide to talk to Lester. "We need to put a couple of people on William Spooner," he said. "More to cover him than to watch him."
"What's going on?" Lester asked.
"I just gave Spooner's name to Olson. I didn't tell Rose Marie, so she'll have a little insulation. But if Olson starts wandering around in his car, and we're too far back he could walk right up to Spooner's front door and nail him before we could catch up."
"Man, I don't know about this," Lester said, shaking his head.
"We were willing to do it with Jael and Catherine Kinsleyuse them as decoysand they weren't even guilty of anything."
"Yeah, but they sorta volunteered," Lester said.
"They had no choice, Frank. Their names got leaked and played in the papers and on television, and somebody in this department leaked them. They wouldn't have volunteered if their names hadn't already been out there."
"All right, all right I get a little puckered up sometimes."
"Will you put some guys with him?"
"Yup. I'll do it now."
"One more thing, if you don't mind," Lucas said. "I talked to Spooner about coming in today with his attorneyI don't want to do that now. Tell him that after Rodriguez's death, we're reassessing the case and it may not be necessary for him to come in at all."
"I can do that."
"I'd do it, but I don't want to talk to him," Lucas said. "We don't want to lie to him at this point."
After leaving Homicide, Lucas walked over to the hospital. Del was just leaving. "Took her back into intensive care," he said; he looked a little frightened. "Pneumonia's getting on top of her."
"Can she talk?" Lucas asked.
"She's asleep. They say it's controllable, but she looks worse to me than she did yesterday."
"Ah, man. Let me see" Del went back inside with him. A nurse led them in, but Marcy was asleep, as Del said. Back outside, Lucas led the way to Weather's office. Nobody home. "What do you do around here to find out what's going on?"
"Black left ten minutes ago, to get something to eathe said they're still optimistic."
"What doeshe think?"
"He's not a doctor," Del said.
"I know, but what does he think?"
"He thinks she's getting into trouble," Del said.
They went back down to intensive care and stood outside and looked at her. After a while, they walked back to City Hall.
Lucas's door had a "See me ASAP" note on it from Loring. Lucas and Del walked down to Homicide and found Loring taking a statement from a pale blond man dressed all in black. In a different age, he might have been an undertaker.
"What's going on?" Lucas asked.
"There you are," Loring said. "This is John Dukeljin, he was at the party at Sallance Hanson's. He picked William Spooner out of a photo spread, says he was at the party."
"Oooh," Lucas said. "That's excellent."
"Almostsure," Dukeljin said. "He was leaving, we were coming back. I saw him coming down the front walkSilly has that low-voltage lighting all along there, we could see him quite clearlyand I pointed him out to my friend. But he got to the end of the walk before we did, and he went the other way."
"Why did you point him out to your friend? Was there something about him?" Lucas asked.
"I thought he might be gay," Dukeljin said.
"Mr. Dukeljin and his friend are gay," Loring said.
"Why?"
"He was carrying a bag. Carrying a bag is way over with, for men. But usually, if you see a man carryingone, you know, unselfconsciously it's something to think about."
Lucas looked at Loring. "Sometimes you show a tiny flicker of intelligence."
"You're just jealous," Loring said.
"What?" Del asked.
"We never found Sandy Lansing's purse," Loring said. "If we had, we probably would have made her as a dealer."
Lucas looked at Dukeljin. "Do you think your friend would recognize Spooner?"
"I haven't been able to get in touch. He's out on a projecthe's an engineerbut I pointed this fellow out. I'm sure he'll rememberthat. And the bag, you know, because it's so over with. I don't know if he'll exactly remember the face."
"Where's this project?" Lucas asked.
"In Rochester, something to do with the Mayo Clinic He'll be back tonight," Dukeljin said.
Lester came in while they were talking, and said, "Loring told you."
"Yup."
"Pain in the ass, Lucas. It'd be better for everyone if it was Rodriguez. Close the books and walk away."
"Can't do that."
"Yeah, I know," Lester said. "I just talked to Rose Marie, and she said the Spooner ID was your third prediction; she's a believer. So I've got four guys all night with Spooner. And we're tracking Olson."
"Something's got to pop soon: there's just too much pressure building. If anything happens, have them call me."
Weather called. "I understand you were checking on Marcy Sherrill and stopped up."
"Yeah. We're pretty worried," Lucas said.
"I talked to the people in Medicine, and they still think she'll be okay. They got on it right away. She's in intensive care so they can keep a closer eye on her."
"Tom Black is probably hanging around there. Could you tell him that? He's really sweating it," Lucas said.
"Sure. I'll walk down there now."
"And I want to get together. I need to talk with you," Lucas said. "But you know what it's like"
"I heard about the Rodriguez fellow. Doesn't that solve a lot of problems?"
"No. Not really. I'll tell you about it. Could we get lunch tomorrow?"
"Sure. It might be a little late. I've got two jobs tomorrow, and the second one's scheduled for ten o'clock."
"That's okay. I'll try to get over there Listen, just call me anytime. I'll keep my cell phone on, and I'll run over whenever you're ready."
At the end the day, Lucas stopped back to look in on Marcy; no change. He walked back to the parking ramp, got his car, and headed south to Jael Corbeau's studio. She'd been making pots; a couple of new cops were sitting around in her studio, watching. When Lucas walked, in she looked up and said, "Dinnertime?"
"Talked me into it," he said.
One of the cops said, "That's the goddamnedest thing I've ever seen. You oughta see her make pots. It's, like, weird."
"Interesting," Jael said.
"If I got interested in that," the cop asked, "is there someplace I can take lessons?"
"Yeah, about a hundred," she said. "This is one of the big ceramics places in the country."
"It's so goddamned neat," he said.
The other cop raised his eyebrows and shook his head. "Playing with mud."