She should be, Lucas said.
Ive been bothered by it all day, she said. It kept nagging at me, and nagging at me, and finally I said, Annette, go over and talk to Chief Davenport for goodness sake, and let him worry about it.
Well… Lucas spread his hands, waiting, an edge of impatience barely suppressed.
After you told me that Wilson McDonald was probably responsible for killing Andy…
Mrs. Ingall, I didnt exactly say
She waved him down and continued:… I was pretty satisfied, because it made a nice pattern. He killed George Arris, shooting him with a gun. Then he killed Andy, by sabotaging the yacht. And then he killed Dan Kresge, shooting him, and Susan ODell, shootingher.
Yes?
But thenthis is what was nagging mewhen I read about what happened with you, with your fiance
ґe firebombed, and then this morning, with your friend the nun being hurt…
Yes, yes.
Look: There were two other incidents which helped Wilson McDonalds career, that nobody probably told you about, because they didnt involve anybody being killed at the bank, where it would be obvious.
Two others? Lucas leaned forward, now interested.
Two weird… accidents, Ingall said. One involved a man named McKinney, who was in the investments department and was also competitive for promotions with Wilson. They were sort of neck and neck. This is way back, when Wilson was still selling out of the investments division, before he went to mortgages. And all of a sudden, this other mans son was killed in a hit-and-run accident. If I remember, he was riding home in the evening on his bike, in the summer, I think he had a paper route or something, and he was hit and killed and they never found out who did it. Anyway, McKinney just fell apart. He couldnt do anything, and when the job came up, which was right after that, Wilson got it.
Huh, Lucas said. Del was looking at Ingall with interest.
Then, and this mustve been, oh, about 1990, there was sort of a bank recession going on. Lots of banks were restructuring and jobs were being cut. Wilson was one of a half-dozen people in the mortgage division as a vice president, and people knew some jobs were going to be cut over there. The man who was in charge of the cuts wasnamed Davis Baird, and he had an assistant named Dick McPhillips. Davis Baird didnt like Wilson, he thought he was a fat pompous oaf. He might have cut him. But Dick McPhillips was always under the influence of Wilsons father. If Davis Baird had wanted to cut Wilson, McPhillips couldnt stop it. But… She paused dramatically.
But, Lucas said, and Del nodded at her.
But, while they were working out the cutbacks, all of a sudden Bairds parents were killed in a fire at their cabin up north. I thought about this because of the firebomb at your friends house. Something exploded in the Bairds housethey even called it a firebomb in the paper, I thinkand they were killed, and Baird had to take time off to deal with all of it. McPhillips was in charge of making the cuts, and he got rid of two of the five vice presidents over there.. .
But not Wilson, Lucas said.
Not Wilson.
Go ahead, Lucas said.
So I started thinking, this took a strange mind. Not to attack the principal target directly, but to incapacitate the principal by attacking someone close to them. Distracting them in a really awful way. And I thought, you know, thats whats happening to Chief Davenport. Hes investigating these murders, and suddenly his fianceґes house blows up, and then an old friend is almost killed. If Wilson McDonald werent dead, I would say he was doing it for sure. Especially since Andys death almost might be an accident, and Arriss death was also easy to blame on somebody else that gang. Nothing is what it looks like.
Wilson McDonald is dead, Del said.
Yes. Shot to death, Ingall said. And thats very curious.
Lucas closed his eyes, rubbed his face: Jesus.
Do you think this line of thought might be useful? Ingall asked.
I dont know, Lucas said. But you are a very smart lady.
Yes, Ive always thought so, she said.
TWENTY-FOUR
MOST OF THE FILE ON AUDREY MCDONALD HAD BEEN developed since she killed Wilson: name, age, weight, distinguishing marks. She had a number of scars; too many, Lucas thought. Her only prior contact with police had been two traffic tickets, one for speeding, one for failure to yield, which had resulted in a minor collision.
He made quick calls to the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Public Safety: shed never had a hunting license, never taken gun safety training, never applied for a handgun permit.
Shed graduated from St. Annes. That was interesting shed know her way around out there, shed know what would happen if she called the Residence. She might even have overlapped with Elle Kruger, if just barely. He made a note to ask. After college, shed worked as a librarian, then with a couple of charitable organizations.
He mulled over the file for a few minutes, then glanced at his watch. Almost time to see Elle. But first he picked up the phone book and looked up Helen Bell, Audreys sister. She was listed in South Minneapolis. Not expecting too much, he punched in her phone number. She answered on the second ring.
Id like to come talk to you about the whole case, he said, after he introduced himself.
I… thought it was just about done, Bell said. He noticed her voice immediately: she sounded like Audrey, who sounded like the woman whod called him to press him on McDonald.
Well, we havent settled the Kresge thing, Lucas said. I just want to come over and chat. Get some opinions.
Okay. Ill be here the rest of the day.
THREE NUNS, ALL IN TRADITIONAL DRESS, WERE perched on chairs in Elles room, watching a young nurse change a saline drip. When Lucas stepped in, easing the door closed, one of them chirped, Hi, Lucas. Shes awake.
Lucas stepped around the beige curtain that masked Elles bed from the outside, and looked down at his oldest friend. Theyd gone to Catholic grade school together, goofing along the sidewalk, her long golden hair shimmering in the autumn sunlight, her blue eyes happy, smiling at him… His first clear memory of a female other than his mother. Now, her head was swathed with bandages, her face bruised, showing yellow disinfectant, her eyelids drooping over blue eyes that seemed more hazy than happy. She smiled weakly and he thought she looked wonderful.
You look terrible, he said. Like somebody beat the daylights out of you.
Thats funny, she mumbled. I sort of feel that way too.
He touched her foot. Youre gonna make it.
Yes, probably. Do you know what happened?
Pretty much. You got a phony phone call. Somebody pulled you out of the building, and ambushed you.
I dont know, she said. I cant remember much after about six oclock, but thats what Ive been told.
How bad is the memory thing? He swallowed as he said it: he didnt need bad news, not about Elle.
Again she smiled weakly: Just a couple hours of amnesianothing unusual. Ive taken a few tests: theres no impairment. Permanent impairment.
All right, he said. All right.
The girl…
The girl would live. She smelled vanilla when a nurse wiped her arm with an alcohol swab; smelled fried eggs in a glass of apple juice, celery in oatmeal. When asked to read aloud from a chart, shed read quite wellexcept that shed read some words backward, pronouncing them correctly in their backward form.
She could recover, Elle said. I feel so bad that she was running after me…
Nothing you could do, Lucas said.
Does anybody have any idea who mightve done it? A shadow of fear in her eyes, something hed never seen before.
He shook his head. Not yet.
They talked for ten minutes before Elles eyelids grew heavy; Lucas kissed her on the cheek, with much approval from the squad of nuns who perched like blackbirds on their row of red leatherette chairs. Before he left the hospital, he talked to her doctor for a minute, picked up a pack of X rays and some preoperative photos at the radiology department.