You know who the real beneficiary is? Kresge said. Wilson McDonald.
He made a deal with her, Lucas said.
Kresge made a rude noise: She might have made a tactical agreement with him, just to grab the top slot. But after shed gotten rid of Bone and a few other people, shed have gotten rid of McDonald. She and Jim were actually friends, in a waybut she hated McDonald.
But everybody says McDonalds out of it.
Not if theres nobody else left, Kresge said. She looked at Bone. Jim darling, Id be very careful if I were you. Very careful.
BONE AND KRESGE AGREED TO STAY AT THE APARTMENT until Sloan got there. Lucas talked to Sloan by phone, and Sloan said he was nearly done with the McDonalds.
What do you think? Lucas asked.
When I talk to Mrs. McDonald alone, shes pretty straight, Sloan said. When I get her around her old man, shes a fucking ventriloquists dummy.
I talked to Elle Kruger about that. She said severely abused women can get like that.
We need to give McDonald a good look, Sloan said. Something tells me hes involved. I dont know if I think that because hes really involved, or because I just dont like the sonofabitch.
Listen, when you get to Bones… get him aside and talk to him about his sex life. Who hes screwing. Because I think that tip about him sleeping with Kresge is right. Youll understand what I mean when you see them together. And find out if hes screwing his assistant. Shes a little chilly, but thats probably just me. Maybe Bone can warm her up.
Ill do that, Sloan said.
And youll need to talk to the assistant. Ill give you her name and you can call her, and get her over to Bones.
Wherere you going?
Home to make a list, Lucas said. This fuckin thing is starting to confuse me.
FOURTEEN
LUCAS LIVED IN A RANCH-STYLEHOUSE IN ST. PAUL, ON a road that ran along the top of a Mississippi River bluff. From his front window he could see the lights of Minneapolis across the river. The neighborhood was quiet, fine for walking, and he and Weather had walked a lot when they were together.
Weather.
Why would somebody hit Weather? The Edina cops had exactly nothing. Zero. Zip. No likely neighborhood kids. One of the Edina guys had checked on Lucaswould he do it, why wouldnt he do it. Hed been told emphatically that Lucas would not, and the cops had gone away.
But Lucas couldnt accept it as a nutcase. Nutcases didnt pick out random houses to bomb; or if they did, the chances of hitting someone with Weathers history were…
Impossible. Not just slim. Impossible.
HE'D ONCE CONVERTED THE MASTER BEDROOM TO use as a den, but after Weather arrived, hed converted it back to a bedroom, and moved his drawing table into one of the smaller bedrooms. He hadnt worked on a commercial game for years now: everything had gone to computers, and while he might still develop ideas and scenarios, hewas rapidly moving away from game development.
Too much money, he thought sometimes. Hed made too much money, almost inadvertently, as sometimes happened in the computer age. Hed drifted from writing tabletop war games to writing game scenarios, which a University of Minnesota computer freak turned into games, to writing simulations of police emergencies to be played out on police computers. And his company had simply grown, first run out of his hip pocket, then with the computer freak, and finally by a professional businessman whod taken the company public.
And now that he really didnt need to write games, didnt need to sit up until three in the morning thinking of new sci-fi beasts to challenge computer geekdom… he didnt. He missed it, but he didnt do it.
NOW HE SAT AT HIS DRAWING TABLE, CLEARED AWAY detritus from earlier skull sessions, pulled out a sheet of heavy paper and started making a chart.
The situation at the bank was too complicated. There were too many suspects, and all of them had motives. He needed to simplify and clarify.
But the firebombing prowled around the edge of his consciousness: thats what he needed to settle. The bank killings were almost technical problems, problems that cops solved. The firebombing was personal. What if it was aimed at him rather than Weather? But why would it be?
What if Weather had a new boyfriend, a freak of some kind? Naw. That wasnt Weather. She had a built-in bullshit detector, and nobody would get past that. Maybe she snubbed somebody…
Goddamnit. Work. The suspects:
Wilson and Audrey McDonald. What appeared to be a possibly explosive relationship; who knew what might be brewing in that little perfecta? And the more he thought of it, the more he thought that Audrey McDonald was the woman whod called himwho was pointing the finger at her own husband.
JIM BONE. AND MARCIA KRESGE AND KERIN BAKI.
He chewed on the end of his pencil. Baki was a little thinwhat would she get out of the killings? Her job? An assistants job didnt seem heavy enough, but hell, it might to the assistant. Bone, of course, had that reputation as a ladies man, and supposedly had been sleeping with Kresges wife. What if he was also sleeping with the assistant? And if he was, so what? There might be some kind of twisted connection between an illicit relationship between Bone and Marcia Kresge, and the killing of Dan Kresge, but even if they had a relationship, how could that lead to the killing of ODell?
Blackmail? He remembered one of Bones colleagues saying that Bone wouldnt tolerate blackmail. Could ODell have tried? But Bone, if he wasnt bullshitting about the phone records, pretty much had an alibi. Of course, the phones could be finessed.
Then there was Mr. X.
A Mr. X who might be killing for the reason everybody suspectedto stop the mergereither to save his job or simply as an expression of the general feeling at the bank. But if the killer was a Mr. X, hed be almost impossible to find. And nobody knew what jobs would be lost yet. And why would he kill ODell, whod taken a stand against the merger?
The killing of ODell, Lucas decided, had been an insane risk. Neither the McDonalds nor Bones group had enough to gain by killing her, to take the risk. If anybody had come along while the killer was going up and down in the elevator, theyd have been cooked…
Lucas frowned, thought about that for a minute, then called Dispatch. Is Swanson still at the ODell apartment?
Yes, I believe so. You want his phone number?
Give it to me. He wrote the number at the top of his suspect sheet, then punched it into the phone.
Yeah. Swanson.
This is Lucas. Is Louise Compton there yet?
Yeah, right here, want to talk to her?
Put her on.
Hello?
Ms. Compton, sorry to bother you… Could you tell me the exact words that Ms. ODell said to you when the doorbell rang? Did you actuallyhearthe doorbell ring?
No, I didnt hear the bell… She just said, Theres somebody at the door, and the next thing I heard was the shots. Comptons voice was breaking up under the stress of the killing, and ranged from hoarse squawks to sudden squeaks; every word was like a nail on a blackboard.
Was she a good friend of yours?
No, not sociallyshe was my boss. Oh, God, I cant believe…
You wouldnt know who she was seeing socially… in a sexual sense, I mean.
I… I dont think she was seeing anyone. Not at the moment. Not for quite a while. She has a friend over at North, but hes gay. They sort of squire each other around, when she needs an escort. Or he does.
And she said that Audrey McDonald had already left?
Yes. She said she put Audrey in the elevator, and ran right back to call me.
She put Audrey in the elevator.
Thats what she said. And thats what she usually doesyou know, the elevator is right by her door, she steps out to see you off. Like stepping out on the porch to say goodbye to someone.