"This is Mikkelson," said a deputy medical examiner. "Things are getting strange outside."
"What'd you find?" Lucas asked.
"All kinds of shit. There was fresh blood and fresh fecal matter in George's clothing when he went into that grave. It mixed with the mud before it started to congeal, so it hadn't congealed yet when he went into the hole."
"Which means he wasn't killed until last night…"
"That's what you'd think, but that'd be wrong," the medical examiner said. "The holes in his eyes were filled with mud, too, but the holes were made after all the blood had pooled into his chest and arms, a long time after he was killed."
"That doesn't compute," Lucas said, confused.
"Only one way," the deputy M.E. said with evident relish.
"They had to bury him and then dig him up to do the eyes. We've got some more tests going, but from the tissue evidence, I'd say that's what they did."
"Why?"
"Shit, Lucas, I'm a goddamned doctor, not a fuckin' psychic. But that's what happened. And there's something else, too-some people from your lab brought me over a bunch of footprints from the Bekker house?"
"Yeah?"
"Not a match in the bunch. Not even close."
CHAPTER 18
"I need help," Daniel said. "Political help. You know how the city council gets. They think the voters are stupid, they think the voters are gonna run them out of office if we don't catch the guy today. They're getting pissy."
"You got a couple of bad columns, too," Lucas said. They were sitting in Daniel's office, under the watchful eyes of Daniel's political mug shots.
"Yeah, well, what do you expect?" Daniel said. He looked in his cigar humidor, then slammed the lid. "Column-writing is the only job I know where sarcasm passes for intelligence… God damn it, Davenport. I need something, and I don't care what it is."
"Stick full-time surveillance on Bekker," Lucas suggested.
"All right," Daniel said, grasping. "Why?"
"To settle him, one way or another. Tag everybody he talks to, track everywhere he goes. If he's involved, he hired a really strange-looking dude for the killing. We need somebody on the team with enough brains to break off Bekker, if he has to, and go after a likely-looking killer. And we ought to get a court order, tap his phones both at home and at work. We either clear him or we hang him."
"What do you think? Is he the guy?" Daniel asked with genuine curiosity.
"I don't know." Lucas shrugged. "He's the only thing we've got, but everything points somewhere else."
"All right, I'll get the surveillance going," Daniel said. "I can give that out to a couple of people, that we've got a guy being watched. That'll cool some of the council fever. But it'd be nice if we got a little decent PR for a change."
"I was talking to a snitch a few nights ago, and he said a mutual acquaintance came into a bunch of TV sets-maybe a couple hundred of them, a boxcarload from over in St. Paul. Then I talked to another guy and he says Terry-this is Terry Meller, you remember him? No? He's a longtime semi-bad dude-he says Terry is working out of a rental warehouse off Two-eighty. He says the TVs are stuffed in there, and probably a bunch of other shit. We could get the ERU and a warrant, call up the TV and the papers…"
"I could tell the ERU guys to armor up some of the reporters-we got some extra vests…" Daniel said, brightening. The Emergency Response Unit always got airtime. "Give them some good film."
"We won't lose the Bekker story, but we'll look good on this other thing," Lucas said. "And there'll be film…"
"Get a warrant," Daniel said enthusiastically, poking a finger at him. "I'll get the ERU started and some Intelligence guys over to look at the warehouse. Stop down at Intelligence when you leave and give them the location."
"I've got a new friend at TV3, by the way," Lucas said. "She kind of owes me…"
"You feed her that break on George's body?" Daniel asked, looking sideways at Lucas.
Lucas grinned and shrugged. "Maybe something slipped out. But since we're not going to kill the Bekker story, anyway, I want to tell her that I'm going off the reservation. I want to tell her I don't think George is the lover, and I want to make it seem like there's a little controversy between me and the department. Good guy, bad guy, the department being the bad guy. That'll get us better play, and the other stations will come after it, and the papers…"
They'd talked about the possibility that Loverboy was still alive, but Daniel was skeptical. "You really think he's still out there?"
Lucas' forehead wrinkled. "Yeah. I know there are some problems with that-like, why was George killed and dumped if he wasn't the lover? I can't figure that out. I mean, he should have been her lover. They knew each other, they were the right age for each other… I don't know… By the way, has Shearson got anything on this shrink he was looking at? Stephanie's other friend?"
"He thinks there's something."
"He ain't exactly the sharpest knife in the dishwasher…"
"Hey, he's okay," Daniel said mildly. "You don't like him because he wears better suits than you do."
"Yeah, but with golf shirts…"
"Look," Daniel said. "We know that Bekker didn't kill either George or his wife, not in person…"
"Yeah. And I was sure that he set me up as an alibi on George, but now… God damn it, this thing is getting on top of me. And Loverboy's the key. If he's still out there, I want to get to him. Maybe I can make some kind of appeal. Or drop a hint that I'm closing in on him, and that he'd be better off talking to me now-that if he doesn't come in, we'll find him anyway and pack him off to Stillwater on a charge of accessory to first-degree murder."
"I don't know," Daniel said. He rubbed his developing five-o'clock-shadow fuzz with the back of his fingers. "My inclination is not to do that."
"Your inclination?"
"Yeah. That's my inclination. But you're an adult. Your ass is in your own hands," Daniel said. Lucas nodded. Daniel was in politics. If Lucas went public and was wrong, Daniel had planted a little ambiguity around the decision process.
"Okay," Lucas said. "And you can tell the mayor we're watching a guy and hustling after Loverboy…"
"He's no dummy, the mayor," Daniel said.
"Yeah, I know, but all he wants is something to feed to the sharks, and that's something."
"Good enough. I'll get Anderson to pull some guys for a surveillance team and we'll get on Bekker by tonight."
Lucas stopped at Intelligence, gave the duty officer the address of Terry Meller's TV warehouse, went to his office and called Carly Bancroft, then talked to the department artist and got a quick sketch done. A half-hour later, he met Bancroft at a Dairy Queen in the Skyway.
"I've got another piece of story for you," he said, nibbling around the edge of his chocolate-dipped cone. "Some of it's points for me-you'd owe me more-but some of it's part of your paycheck. Call it a wash. But I want to get it on the air."
"Let's hear it," she said.
"Everybody's assuming that Philip George was Mrs. Bekker's lover and the killer took him out to protect himself."
"Yeah, that's what we're saying," she said.
"I don't think that's right. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's wrong," Lucas said. "I think the guy's still out there. The Loverboy."
She took a lick of her vanilla softie and nodded. "That's an okay story if we can put your name on it. What else?"
"You've got to hint that I'm closing in on the guy-that I'm talking to people and that I've got an identikit picture I'm showing around. I'll show it to somebody you can interview, and they'll know they're supposed to talk to you. They'll describe the guy for you, but I'll refuse to show you the picture."