Theyve got to cool, she said firmly. And Ive got some frosting. You all go sit down.
Krause retreated to the table and his papers. Anything good? he asked Lucas.
Lucas said, You know what a Contender is? Long pistol, single-shot, breaks open like a shotgun?
Ive seen em, Krause said.
You didnt show one on the inventory of guns taken out of the house.
There wasnt one, Krause said. There were three rifles and two shotguns.
You got a diver on your staff? Lucas asked.
Sure. You think you know where the gun is?
Maybe. Itd be nice if it were right downhill from McDonalds stand. Theres a big patch of water there… I wouldnt be surprised if he pitched it in there.
I dont know about diving in swamps, Krause said doubtfully. It might mess up the scuba gear. I can check.
Hell need a metal detector, Lucas said. Mrs. Wiener said, Theres a gun just like that in the drawer in the gun cabinet.
Lucas looked at Krause and Krause closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and said, Shit. Then at Mrs. Wiener, Excuse the language, and then at Lucas: I told Ralph to take the guns out of the cabinet. I didnt check.
Wiener said, Well, lets go look, and Mrs. Wiener said, I saw it while I was cleaning. I dusted the cabinet cause they left it open, and thats one place I usually cant dust.
The gun cabinet was built into an internal wall, behind a set of shallow shelves. A key fit into a small lock that was out of sight below one of the shelves, and the entire unit swung out. Inside was an empty gun rack with space for eight long guns, and below the rack, two closely fit drawers.
Was this a big secret, or did everybody know about it? Lucas asked Wiener.
Hell, all his friends knewall the guests. It was just supposed to hide the guns from burglars. But when he had one of those parties, the cabinetd just be standing open.
Okay.
Top drawer, Mrs. Wiener said.
Did you move the gun? Lucas asked.
No. I never touched it. As soon as I saw a gun in the drawer, I shut it.
She dont like guns, Wiener said, as Lucas gently pulled the drawer open.
And there was the Contender, with a Nikon scope, sitting neatly on a black plastic pad with two boxes of. 308 ammunition off to the side.
That goddamn Ralph, Krause said. He never opened the drawers.
Lucas took a pen from his pocket, slipped it through the guns trigger guard, lifted it out of the drawer, and carried it over to the kitchen table and placed it carefully on the table. Then, using a paper napkin to unlock the barrel, and touching only the tip of the stock and the tip of the barrel, he pushed the barrel down and open. A spent shell ejected onto the table.
Dont touch it, Lucas said. He knelt and looked through the barrel, said, Yeah. Fired and never cleaned. He looked at Wiener: Do you know anything about Kresges gun habits?
Wiener shrugged: He always cleaned them. Big thing, you know, sit around and bullshit about the Army and shooting and chain saws and clean the guns.
Krause again said, Goddamnit, and then, a moment later, Thats the gun, you betcha. That goddamn Ralph.
Mrs. Wiener…
Sophia, she said.
Sophia, do you have any plastic bags… garbage bags or anything?
Sure. Right here.
Sophia produced a box of kitchen garbage bags. She stripped one out and held it open, while Lucas stuck a pencil in the barrel of the Contender and gently slipped it inside. The shell went into a sandwich bag.
Ill have them in the lab tonight, Lucas said. Ill get somebody in to look at them right away.
Krause was still fuming, pushing papers into his briefcase. I gotta go. Im gonna find that sonofabitch and Im gonna choke him to death. He couldnt
Sophia Wiener broke in: You dont have time for a roll?
Krauses eyes clicked to the tray of cinnamon rolls, cooling on the stovetop with the pan of warm frosting next to them.
Well, he said. Maybe one.
SEVENTEEN
THE DAYS WERE GETTING SHORTER, TWO OR THREE minutes of sunlight clipped off each afternoon; and the sky had gone dark by the time Lucas was within cell phone range of the Cities. He called the dispatcher, told her to locate the fingerprint specialist and get her down to the office. A half hour out, the car phone rang and he picked it up: Yeah, Davenport.
Lucas, this is Marcy… Sherrill. Her voice was tentative, as though he might not know her first name. Are you on the way back?
Yeah. Ill be at the office in a half hour. We maybe found the gun.
What? Where? Her voice suggested that she was on solider ground now, talking about the investigation.
In a drawer in the gun cabinet. In the cabin.
After a moment of silence, Sherrill said, Oh brother. Im glad Im not the one who missed it.
You oughta see the sheriff: hes talking manslaughter… Anyway whatve you got going? Id like to stop by your office and talk about it. If youve got a minute.
Sure. Where are you?
Out in Bloomington, she said. At the Megamall.
See you in a while.
HARRIET ASHLER SHOWED UP TWO MINUTES AFTER LUCAS, wearing an ankle-length wool coat and a frown, and trailed by her husband: Dick and I were going to a movie, she said.
Jeez… Is it too late to go?
She looked at her watch. If we go, we gotta be in the car in twenty minutes.
Lucas handed her the cardboard box hed used to transport the guns: A pistol and a fired shell. If theres anything on the shell, I gotta have it ASAP. If its a matter of going over the whole pistol, that could wait until morning.
Ashler took the bag and said, Ill call you in ten minutesyoull be in your office?
Yeah…
We could come back after the movie and take a look at the pistol, if youre willing to pay the OT.
Thatd be goodbut tomorrow morning, early, would be okay.
Ill do it tonight. Dick can hang around. Then I can sleep in tomorrow.
I like fingerprinting, Dick said cheerfully. He was a letter carrier and had a six handicap in golf. Id just as soon watch her fingerprint as go to a movie.
Well, were going to the movie, Ashler said.
Art movie, said Dick, as his wife started off down the dimly lit hall. Made by some Jap.
You have my sympathy, said Lucas.
Coulda been worse: coulda been a Swede, Dick said, looking after his wife. Gotta go: I guess Im just a goddamn culture dog.
LUCAS HEADEDDOWNTOHIS OFFICE, FLIPPED ON THE lights, pulled off his coat and hung it on the antique government-issue coatrack. Then he walked up and down his ten-foot length of carpet a couple of times, rubbing hishands, looking at the phone, waiting. Wanted to call someone, but there was no one to call.
Sherrill. Where in the hell was she? If shed been in Bloomington, she should be here. Or close. Hed left the door open, and he stepped out and looked up and down the hall. Nobody: he could hear a radio playing somewhere, a Leon Redbone piece. He listened for a moment, groping for the name, pulling it from the few muted notes flowing down the hall. Ah: She Aint Rose.
Despite what Sherrill had argued earlier, knowing that McDonald was the killer was a huge advantage. If they could pull together enough bits and pieces on all the killings, they could indict him on several counts of murder, let the jury throw a couple of them out, and nail him on the easiest one. All they needed was one. One first degree murder was thirty years, no parole. McDonald was unlikely to pull the full load. Hed die inside.
So one was enough.
Lucas hummed to himself, caught it: Jesus, he hadnt been humming to himself in months. And with all the shit happening, he should be. .. He listened to the back of his mind. No static. Not much going on back there. He let himself smile and took another turn around the carpet, looked at his watch.
And the phone rang.
He snatched it up, said, Davenport, and at the same time, heard footsteps in the hall.
This is Harriet Ashler. Theres nothing on the shell. It looks like it was lifted out of the box, maybe with gloves, loaded up, and fired. Its absolutely clean. Polished, almost.