“They…” He shrugged.
“I know,” she said, waving a hand dismissively.
“So you would categorize that as 'Not true,'“ Lucas suggested with a grin.
She laughed, more of an unhappy bark: “Of course it's not true. Those people…
But I will tell you, the Booths didn't have as much money as people think. I know that, from talking to Claire. I mean, they had enough to go to the country club and pay their bills, and go to Palm Springs in the winter, but I happen to know that they rented in Palm Springs. A condo. They were very tight with money and they were very happy to get Claire's-and they got all of it. She had no other living relatives.”
“You sound unhappy about that,” Lucas said. “Were you expecting something?”
“No. Claire and I had a businesslike arrangement. I was a secretary and I helped with the antiques, which was my main interest. We were friendly, but we had no real emotional connection. She was the boss, I was the employee. She didn't pay much, and I was always looking for another job.”
They looked at each other for a moment, then Lucas said, “I suppose you've been pretty well worked over by the sheriff's investigators. They found no boyfriends, no missing keys…”
“Officer Davenport. Not to put too fine a point on it, I'm gay.”
“Ah.” He hadn't gotten that vibe. Getting old.
“At that moment, I had no personal friend. Chippewa is not a garden spot for lesbians.
And I wasn't even sure I was gay.”
“Okay.” He slapped his knees, ready to get up. “Does the name Jacob Toms mean anything to you? Ever heard of him? From Des Moines?”
“No, I don't think so. I've never been to Des Moines. Is he another…?”
“We don't know,” Lucas said. “How about a woman named Marilyn Coombs. From here in St. Paul?”
Her eyes narrowed. “God. I've heard of the name. Recently.”
“She was killed a couple of days ago,” Lucas said.
Anderson's mouth actually dropped: “Oh… You mean there are three? Or four? I must've heard Coombs's name on television. Four people?”
“Five, maybe, including Mrs. Bucher's maid,” Lucas said.
“That's… crazy,” Anderson said. “Insane. For what?”
“We're trying to figure that out,” Lucas said. “About the Booths. Do you think they were capable of killing Mrs. Donaldson? Or of planning it?”
“Margaret was genuinely horrified. I don't doubt that,” Anderson said, her eyes lifting toward the ceiling, as she thought about it. “Glad to get the money, but horrified by what happened. Landford wasn't horrified. He was just glad to get the money.”
Then she smiled for the first time and looked back at Lucas. “Thinking that Landford… no. He wouldn't do it himself, because he might get blood on his sleeve. Thinking that he might know somebody who'd do it for him, you know, a killer-that's even more ridiculous. You have to know them. Deep in their hearts, way down in their souls, the Booths are twits.”
He smiled back at her and stood up. She was right about the twits.
“One last question, just popped into my head. Did you know Connie Bucher? At all? Through antiques, or whatever?”
“No.” She shook her head. “One of my jobs at the foundation is roping in potential donors, especially those who are old and infirm and have buckets of cash, but she was well tended by other people. She was surrounded, really. I bet she got twenty calls a week from 'friends,' who were really calling about money. Anyway, I never met her. I would never have had a chance to clip her money, under any circumstances, but I would have liked to have seen her antiques.”
“ 'Clip her money' “ Lucas repeated.
“Trade talk,” she said.
Lucas's cell phone rang.
He dug it out of his pocket, looked at the screen, and said to Anderson, “Excuse me. I have to take this…”
He stepped away from her, toward the front door, turning a shoulder in the unconscious pretend-privacy that cell-phone users adopt. In his ear, Flowers said, “I'm at the Barths with Susan Conoway- have you talked to her, she's from Dakota County?”
“No. I talked to somebody. Lyle Pender?”
“Okay, that's somebody else. Anyway, Susan was assigned to prep the Barths, but Kathy's heard that she can take the Fifth, if she thinks she might have committed a crime.
Or might be accused of one. So now she says she doesn't want to talk to Susan, and Susan's got a date that she doesn't want to miss. The whole fuckin' thing is about to go up in smoke. I could use some weight over here.”
“Damnit. What does Barth's lawyer say?”
“He's not here. Kathy's nervous-I don't think this is coming from her lawyer,” Flowers said. “It might be coming from somewhere else.”
“I'm sure Kline wouldn't have… Ah, Jesus. You think Burt Jr. might have talked to her?”
“Maybe. The thought occurred to me, that fat fuck,” Flowers said. “If he has, I'll put his ass in jail. I told Kathy that the grand jury could give her immunity and that she'd have to testify, or go to jail. Nobody told her that. But if she decides to take the Fifth, it's gonna mess up the schedule and it could create some complications.
If Cole started getting cold feet, or Kline's buddies in the legislature got involved… We need to get this done.”
“Why doesn't Conoway talk to her?” Lucas asked.
“Says she can't. Says the Barths have an attorney, and without the other attorney here, she's not comfortable examining a reluctant witness. That's not exactly what she said, but that's what she means.”
“Listen: It'll take me at least ten or fifteen minutes to get there. I have to walk home, I'm six or seven minutes away from my car,” Lucas said. “What is Jesse saying? Is she letting Kathy do the talking, or can you split them, or what?”
“They were both sitting on the couch. It's all about the money, man.”
Lucas groaned. “I don't know why the Klines are holding on like this. You'd think they'd try to deal. Suborning a witness… they'd have to be crazy. How could they think they'd get away with it?”
Flowers said, “Burt's a fuckin' state legislator, Lucas.”
“I know, but I'm always the optimist.”
“Right,” Flowers said. “Ten minutes?”
Lucas glanced at Anderson, who at that moment tipped her wrist to look at her watch.
“I need a minute or two to finish here, then walk home, so… give me fifteen.”
He rang off and stepped back into the living room, took a card from his pocket, and handed it to Anderson. “I've got to run. Thanks for your time. If you think of anything…
About Donaldson, about Bucher, about possible ties between them, I'd like to hear it.”
She took the card, said, “I'll call. I've got what we call a grip-and-grin, trying to soak up some money. So I've got to hurry myself.”
“Seems like everything is about money,” Lucas said.
“More and more,” Anderson said. “To tell you the truth, I find it more and more distasteful.”
Lucas hurried home, waved at a neighbor, stuck his head into the kitchen, blurted, “Got something going, I'll tell you when I get back,” to Weather, and took off; Weather called after him, “When?” He shouted back, “Half an hour. If it's longer, I'll call.”
There was some traffic, but the Barths lived only three miles away, and he knew every street and alley. By chopping off a little traffic, and taking some garbage-can routes, he made it in the fifteen minutes he'd promised Flowers.
Flowers was leaning in a doorway chatting with a solid dishwater-blond woman with a big leather bag hanging from her shoulder: Conoway Lucas had never met her, but when he saw her, he remembered her, from a lecture she gave at a child-abuse convention sponsored by the BCA.
A small-town cop, working with volunteer help and some sheriff's deputies who lived in the area, and a freelance social therapist, had busted a day-care center's owner, her son, and two care providers and charged them with crimes ranging from rape to blasphemy. Conoway, assigned as a prosecutor, had shredded the case. She'd demonstrated that the day-care center operators were innocent, and had shown that if the children had been victimized by anyone, it had been the cops and the therapist, who were involved in what amounted to an anti-pederasty cult. She hadn't endeared herself to the locals, but she had her admirers, including Lucas.