The deli was in a yellow cinder-block building with a parking lot in back. When they got out of the car, an old woman was watching them through a restaurant window while she gnawed on the end of a whole pickle. Lily's face lit up when she saw it.
"That pickle… There's a marginal chance that this place could be all right," she said. Inside, she scanned the sandwich menu, then ordered a corned beef and cheese combo with coleslaw, a Side order of french fries, a seven-layer salad and a raspberry-flavored Perrier.
"A thousand calories," she said five minutes later, looking ruefully at the brown plastic tray the counterman had just delivered. The counterman snorted as he turned away. "What, you think more than a thousand?" she called after him.
"Honey, the sandwich is six, seven hundred and that's only half of it," the counterman said.
"I don't want to hear it," Lily said, turning back to the food.
Lucas got a sausage on rye, a bag of potato chips and a Diet Coke and led the way to the back.
"I'm an eater," Lily said as they slid into the booth. "I'll weigh two hundred pounds when they bury me."
"You look all right," Lucas said.
Her eyes came up. "I'd look great with ten less pounds."
"I'll stand by my original statement."
Lily got busy with her food, keeping her eyes away from his. "So," she said a moment later. "I understand you've got a new kid but aren't married."
"Yup."
"Doesn't that embarrass you a little?" She licked a fleck of slaw off her upper lip.
"Nope. I wanted to get married, but the woman wouldn't do it. We're still together, more or less. We don't live together."
"When did you last ask her to marry you?" Lily asked.
"Well, I used to ask her once a week. Then I just made a general open offer."
"Do you love her?"
"Sure," Lucas said, nodding.
"Does she love you?"
"She says so."
"So why doesn't she marry you?" Lily asked.
"She says I'd be a great father but a fuckin' terrible husband."
"Hmph." Lily took a big bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully, watching him. "Well," she said after she swallowed, "it sounds like you might fool around a little."
"Not since she got pregnant," Lucas said. "Before that…"
"A little?"
"Yeah." He grinned. "Now and then."
"How about you?" Lucas asked. "You're wearing a ring."
"Yup." She snapped off a french fry. "My husband's a sociology professor at NYU. He did position papers for An-dretti. That's one of the reasons I'm out here. I knew the family."
"Good guy?"
"Yeah, for a.politician, I guess."
"I meant your husband."
"David? David's great," Lily said positively. "He is the gentlest man I've ever known. I met him when I was going to school. He was a graduate assistant, I took a class. It was about the time everything was going to hell up at Columbia, people were in the streets, McCarthy was running for president… Good times. Interesting times."
"So, what, you got married right after college?"
"Before graduation. Then I got my degree, applied to the department under a special program to bring in women, and here I am."
"Huh. How about that." Lucas watched her for a few seconds, finished a last chip and slid out of the booth. "I'll be right back."
They've got problems, Lily and David, he thought as he walked to the counter. He ordered another bag of chips and another Diet Coke. She likes him okay, but there's no heat. When he looked back, she was watching people in the street, a shaft of sunlight cutting across the table and her hands. She's beautiful, he thought.
When he got back to the table, she was licking her fingertips. "Done," she said. "Where to next?"
"Gotta go see a nun."
"Say what?"
A seven-foot-tall alabaster statue of the Virgin Mary hung over the driveway. Lily looked doubtfully up at it.
"I've never been to a nunnery," she muttered.
"It's not a nunnery," Lucas said. "It's a college."
"You said nuns lived here."
"There's a residence on the other side of the campus," Lucas said.
"How come her eyes are rolled back like that?" Lily asked, still looking up at the Virgin.
"The ecstasy of perfect grace," Lucas suggested.
"What's she doing to that snake?" The tail of a snake was visible beneath the Virgin's sandals. The snake's body curled up one of her robed legs, its head poised to strike at knee level.
"Crushing it. That's the devil."
"Huh. Looks like one of the investigators on my squad. The snake, I mean."
Lucas had been to grade school with Elle Kruger. They'd tracked each other over the years, Lucas on the Minneapolis police force, Elle Kruger as a psychologist and a Sister of Mercy. Her office was on the third floor of Albertus Magnus Hall. Lucas led Lily down a long, cool hallway that echoed with their footsteps. At Elle's office, he knocked once, opened the door and stuck his head inside.
"About time," Elle Kruger snapped. She was a traditionalist, and wore the black habit with a band of beads hanging down beside her hand.
"Traffic," said Lucas in way of apology. He stepped inside, Lily close behind. "Elle, this is Lieutenant Lily Ro-thenburg of the New York Police Department, out here investigating the death of John Andretti. Lily, this is my friend Sister Mary Joseph. She's the chief shrink around here."
"Pleased to meet you, Lily," Elle said, and reached out a bony hand.
Lily took it and smiled. "Lucas tells me you've helped on some of his cases."
"Where I can. But we mostly play games," Elle said.
Lily looked at Lucas, and Lucas explained, "We have a gaming group that meets once a week."
"That's interesting," Lily said, looking from one of them to the other. "Like Dungeons and Dragons?"
"No, no role playing," Elle said. "Historical reconstruction. Get Lucas to tell you about his Gettysburg. We played it three times last year and it always comes out wildly different. Last time, Bobby Lee almost got himself into Philadelphia."
"I've still got to do something about that damn Stuart," Lucas said to the nun. "When he gets loose too early, he fouls up all the calculations. I'm thinking of…"
"No game talk," Elle said. "Let's get some ice cream."
"Ice cream?" Lily said. She put her fingers over her mouth to cover a tiny burp. "Sounds good."
As they walked down the hall, Lily turned to Elle and asked, "What did you mean when you said, 'his Gettysburg'? Did Lucas make the game or something?"
Elle raised an eyebrow. "Our boy is a famous games inventor. Didn't you know that?"
"No, I didn't," Lily said, looking at Lucas.
"He surely is," Elle said. "That's how he got rich."
"Are you rich?" Lily asked Lucas.
"No," Lucas said. He shook his head.
"He is, take my word for it," Elle said to Lily with a phony confidentiality. "He bought me a gold chain last year that has scandalized my entire wing of the residence."
"For a good German Catholic girl, I think the influence of the Irish is beginning to seep in," Lucas said.
"The Irish?"
"The blarney." Lucas turned to Lily and said in a stage whisper, "I'd never use a word like 'bullshit' around a nun."
They sat in a booth in the ice cream shop, Lucas and Lily side by side, Elle across the table. Elle ate a hot-fudge sun dae while Lily worked on a banana split. Lucas blew into a cup of coffee and thought about Lily's warm thigh next to his.
"So you're working on Andretti," Elle prompted them.
"There's some kind of conspiracy," Lily said.
"The Indian man who killed the people in Minneapolis, and the Indian man who killed Andretti?"