"You got it, Chief."
Back on the phone, calling the cops who were watching Jaeclass="underline" "Somebody may be coming. Keep her away from the windows, keep her away from the doors. If anythingmoves, shoot it."
He and Lester walked across the street. One of the St. Paul plain-clothesmen said, "We got a shell."
"What kind?"
One of the patrol cops who'd found it said, "Forty-four Mag."
"He's shooting a rifle," Lucas said. "One of those Ruger carbines, I bet. The shell ejected, and this one he couldn't find."
"What does that tell us?" Lester asked.
"Damned if I know," Lucas said.
Lucas called Rose Marie. "I've got a problem. I've got to come see you."
"What happened?"
"I'll come see you," Lucas said.
Rose Marie lived in a comfortable neighborhood on the south side of Minneapolis, a fifteen-minute drive from Spooner's. Lucas didn't think about what he was going to say, except that whatever it was, he had to cover Lester and the other cops. Rose Maries husband was just walking out the door with the family cocker spaniel when Lucas arrived. "As long as it's not another killing," he said genially.
"I hate to wreck your mood," Lucas told him grimly.
"Oh, boy. Here in town?"
"Over in St. Paul."
"That's a little break."
Rose Marie was reading. She dropped the book on the floor when Lucas pushed through the front door and called, "Hello?"
"Lucas what's going on?"
"William Spooner was shot to death. A half hour ago, over in St. Paul."
"My God." She was appalled.
"It's worse than that," he said. He told her the story, made it as flat as he could. She listened without much change of expression, and when he finished, said, "Let me think for a minute." She took the full minute, then said, "We're gonna have to talk to the mayor, I can put it off until early afternoon."
"Then what?"
"I don't know. You've saved several peoples butts over the years, but this could be tough. Especially if we can't make Spooner as the guy who killed Rodriguez and the others."
"You don't sound nearly as pissed off as I thought you'd be," Lucas said.
"Well" She shrugged. "I'm not. I know what you were doing. The fact is, Spooners name would have leaked sooner or later, just like Rodriguez's, and just like the muff-diving thing. This way, we controlled it."
"I controlled it," Lucas said. "I think, for damage-control purposes, we ought to keep the emphasis on me. I'd especially hate to see anyone else get hurt."
She shook her head. "I think it's just you and meif they hang you, they'll get me for not controlling the department."
"Which is bullshit."
"Its politics," she said. "Anyway, I can put it off until after lunch. You say you want to shake Olson. Go do it. I'll get the St. Paul chief moving, and serve some warrants on Mrs. Spooner, God help her. If we can get something going by noon, or one o'clock, the mayor'll think twice before he throws us to the dogs."
"If we actually get somebody, if we start a hunt, with an actual name"
"Then we've solved the crimes. Especially if we can make the case against Spooner. Then we've solved the crimes, and the whole thing becomes moot."
Lucas looked at his watch. "Fifteen hours."
He left Rose Marie's house in a better mood than when he arrived, hut the leaking of Spooler's name seemed, in retrospect, unforgivably stupid. On the other hand, if it had worked, it would have seemed brilliant: like Napoleon at Waterloobeaten by a hairsbreadth, but beaten.
The cops at the church called. Olson was moving west on 494, headed back toward his motel. Lucas scrambled to get to Dels, picked him up, and filled him in on the Spooner ploy. "So you're now one of four people who know what happened," he said.
"Should have worked," Del said.
"We had a wrong concept in our heads," Lucas said. "We figured the killer walked up, close range, like he had to with Plain, and bang! A pistol. But he was only close with Plain because he had to be. He was inside a building. A fuckin' rifle, manif we'd found a shell from a. 30-06, I would have had a two-block-wide net around Spooner. But a. 44? I assumed it was a pistol."
"So'd we all," Del said. "I wonder why that chick in the Matrix building"
"Yeah, the Oriental chick."
"why she didn't see the rifle. If that was him?"
"It's a small gun, man. You could put it down your pants leg, if you wanted to walk with a limp."
Del thought it over, looking out the window at the dark. Then: "How'd he get Spooner to come outside?"
"Huh. I didn't ask that," Lucas said. "The surveillance guys said he came out and looked at his chimney. You got your phone?"
"Yeah."
"Call St. Paul. See if Spooner took a call."
St. Paul was already working it. Spooner took a call, the St. Paul cops said, supposedly from a neighbor down the block, who said Spooner might have a chimney fire. Spooner had run outside to look, his wife said. St. Paul was in the process of tracking the calling number.
"That could be interesting," Lucas said.
"Got a buck that says it's from a pay phone," Del said.
Olson beat them to the motel by ten minutes. Lucas and Del checked in with the surveillance cops, then headed up to Olsons room. "I want you down the hallway, out of sight," Lucas said. "I'm going in hard. If I need you to interrupt, I'll call you on the cell phone and I'll ask for an update, as though I were calling downtown. Give me a minute, then come knock on the door."
"How do I come in?"
"Soft. He might need somebody to give him a little sympathy."
Del stayed out of sight. Lucas knocked on the door, heard a man's voice call, "Just a minute," and a minute later, Olson came to the door, buckling his belt. He looked out past the privacy chain, frowned, and said, "Chief Davenport?"
"We got to talk," Lucas said.
"Sure." Olson slipped the chain out, and Lucas banged in hard, put a hand on Olsons chest before he had a chance to react, and shoved him back against the bed. Olson fell back on it, and Lucas kicked the door shut and screamed, "How the fuck did you do it? Who are you working with?"
Olson, eyes wide, tried to sit up, but Lucas crowded against his legs, slipped his. 45 out of its holster, and held it by his side. "What what're"
"Don't give me that shit," Lucas said. "You set him up, you know you set him up. You got your own parents killed, and I don't want to hear any bullshit."
"What what"
Lucas took a breath. "I told one guy about Bill Spooner. One guy. You. So tonight Bill Spooner is shot to death on his own lawn, in front of his wife's eyes. Cold-blooded murder. Shot with a rifle."
"I don't, I Oh, no. No, no," Olson stuttered. "I told, I told, I told, oh no. I told four people. I told four people, my God, I told four people."
"Who?"
But the question died with a knock on the door. Del should have stopped any visitors. Lucas stepped back, opened the door, looked. Del was standing in the corridor. "Something came up," he said. He looked past Lucas at Olson, who was now sitting up on the bed. Lucas stepped back, and Del asked, "You already tell him about Spooner?"
"Yes."
Del looked at Olson. "Spooner was lured out on his front lawn by somebody who told him he had a chimney fire. The St. Paul police traced the phone call. It came from a cell phone registered to your mother."
"What?"
"To your mother," Del repeated.
Olson looked from Lucas to Del. "My God, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't know she had her own phone."
"You didn't have anything to do with it," Lucas said skeptically.