Connie!
He is… Slightly seductive, intended to tease her mother.
Please! This is Chief Davenport from the Minneapolis Police Department.
A cop? You cant be asking if Aunt Audrey really killed himshe admits it, the teenager said. She dropped her bookbag in the entry. I dont think she killed anyone else.
Were just making routine calls, Lucas said.
The chief of police makes routine calls?
Im not the chief, Im a deputy chief, Lucas said. And sometimes I make routine calls, if the case is important enough.
We were just finishing here, Bell said.
Well, good luck with Aunt Audrey, the girl said. The meanest woman alive.
Connie! And Bell looked quickly at Lucas: Connie and Audrey dont get along as well as they should.
She is such a tiresome little bourgeois, Connie said, rolling her eyes. The only interesting thing she ever did was kill Wilson.
Which was, when you think about it, pretty interesting, Lucas said.
Connie nodded: Yup. I gotta admit it.
Lucas smiled at her, deciding he liked her. The girl picked it up, and smiled back, a touch of shyness this time. Lucas said to Bell, If anything else comes up, Id like to give you a call.
As Lucas passed Connie, he picked up just the slightest whiff of weed; he glanced at her, and she pickedthatup too. Smart kid, he thought, as he walked down the sidewalk.
Thinking: More dead people. Audreys parents, dead and buried.
From his car phone, he called Sherrilclass="underline" Im gonna run up to the Red River Valley tomorrow, up by Grand Forks. Can you go?
Yup: this is my weekend. Can we stay overnight in one of those sleazy little hotels with the thin walls and fuck all night so the people can hear us on the other sides of the walls?
I dont know about all night… maybe, you know, once.
Ill start practicing my moaning. Call me tonight.
The phone rang a minute later, and he thought it was Sherrill calling back. It was Lucass secretary. Rose Marie wanted to see him.
ROSE MARIE ROUX WAS WORKING ON THE BUDGET when Lucas stepped in. Sit down, she said, without looking up. She worked for another moment, humming to herself without apparently realizing it: she was happy doing budgets.
So, she said eventually, dropping her yellow pencil and linking her fingers. Are you sleeping with Marcy Sherrill?
Lucas got frosty: Were seeing each other. I dont think its much of anyones business what happens
Lucas, for Christs sakeare you living in a goddamn cave? she asked in exasperation. A deputy chief of police can get away with sleeping with one of his detectives only if
Shes not one of my detectives, Lucas said. I dont have any regular supervisory control…
Oh, bullshitshe works for you when you need her. And besides, the media wont give a shit about technicalities. Youre a deputy chief, shes a sergeant. I dont care I really dont. What I was about to say is, a deputy chief can get away with sleeping with one of his detectives only if hes very, very careful. Not secretive, but careful. Now:
You left a message that you were going off to this place… She looked at a notepad. Oxford. Tomorrow. Up in the Red River Valley? Were you planning to take Sherrill?
I thought
If you take her, shes gonna have to take vacation time. Or she puts in her regular hours, and you go up on her days off and she doesnt get paid at all.
Look…
No, you look: Im not trying to saveherass. Im not trying to savemyass. Im trying to saveyourass. I can guarantee you that if you go up there with her, and shes paid for it, and the press finds out, youll wind up being fired. Id back you up, but it wouldnt do any goodyoud get it in the neck anyway.
Maybe we just oughta forget the whole thing, he said. Me n Marcy.
She softened a quarter-inch: I didnt say you gotta do that. But youve got to be discreet, and youve got to be politically careful. She cant be on the payroll when youre off together.
All right, he said. Thats it?
Elle Kruger seems to be doing okay.
I was just talking to her, and her doctor. Shes gonna have a lot of pain for a long time, Lucas said. But her brain wasnt affected. At least, not as far as they can tell. Motor is all right, memory, language.
Nothing on it?
Nothing yet. But thats why Im going up to the Red River. Theres a question about whether Audrey McDonald might be involved.
Rouxs genetically enabled left eyebrow went up: Seriously?
Seriously. We might have the edge of something pretty interesting, Lucas said.
Okay. But remember what I said about Sherrill.
Shes off the next couple of days. We should be all right.
No expense accounts, no meals, no nothin…
Nothing, he said. Not a nickel. For either of us.
All right, she said. Good luck.
With Marcy? Or the case?
Whatever, she said.
LUCAS, BACK IN HIS OFFICE, CALLED THE COUNTY ATTORNEY'S office and asked for Richard Kirk, the head of the criminal division. He waited for a moment, and Kirk came on: Whats up?
How long can you hold off on a decision about Audrey McDonald?
Why? Just like a lawyer.
Cause.
Just like a fuckin cop: Cause, Kirk said. Anyway were gonna take McDonalds story to the grand jury and let them decide. Thats the democratic way, and also lets our beloved county attorney off the hook if something goes wrong.
So when do you go to the jury?
Next Wednesday, but itd be no problem to hold off for a while. We could present the basic case Wednesday and hold the decision for the meeting one after that.
Thatd be good, Lucas said. Some odd stuff has come up.
So well do thatand dont surprise us at the last minute.
Okay. And tell your boss to hold off any speeches to the Feminist Fife and Drum Club, about it being an obvious case of self-defense.
Okay. But if something happens, call me, so we know which way to lean, Kirk said.
Ill call.
Goddamnit, Davenport, youre old enough to know…
What?
That too much investigation will screw up a perfectly good case.
TWENTY-FIVE
MORGAN BITE HAD SUCH A BEATIFIC LOOK ON HIS face as he stood at the edge of the Bite Brothers parking lot, at the end of the line of black Cadillac limousines, still holding the check, that Audrey McDonald actually thought of killing him; actually thought that after she received all the money she was due, after all the legal matters were cleared away, after all the police were gone, she might come back some night and murder the man, for the simple pleasure of doing it.
Bite was speaking in clicheґs:… able to achieve such a natural appearance that the loved one seems to be undoubtedly present among us…
She wanted to say, Yes-yes-yes, and run away down the sidewalk; she limped instead, putting on a stunned expression, as though she might at any moment suffer a relapse. Though, now that she thought of it, Bite might find a relapse attractive, given his profession.
… not regret this in any way, and do not hesitate for a moment to call me at any time, day or night, with any concerns…
Shed just given him a blank check to handle Wilsons funeralwell, blank to the tune of twenty-five thousand dollars, which he thought would be adequate to protect Wilsons image in the business community. Whenever shed mentioned anything having to do with Wilsons death, Bite had seemed intimately aware of every detail, while somehow remaining unaware that shed had anything to do with it. Come to think of it, she sort of liked that. Maybe she wouldnt kill him.
Welclass="underline" She could decide that some other time.
Audrey McDonald came with a full set of the negative emotions: hate, anguish and anger, pain, fear, dread and loathing were her daily bread, illuminated by an active imagination. Love and pleasure were not quite a mystery. She thought she might have loved Wilson, and her parents, and even Helen. She felt pleasure with the prospect of moneynot with what it could buy, but the lucre itself; she loved handling it, reading account statements. She had talked Wilson into buying a hundred gold coins, American Eagles, which she kept in a box in a cubbyhole in the kitchen. Once a week she would take them out and handle them, so smooth, so beautiful and cool to the touch.