He looked in his wallet. Nine dollars, and he hadn't eaten in a day. Had to eat. Had to get the goods. THE MINNEAPOLIS police department is in the city hall, which is an ungainly, liver-colored building that squats in the Minneapolis glass-and-steel loop like an unseemly wart. Marcy Sherrill was slumped in her office chair, door closed to a crack. Lucas poked his nose in, called, "Hello?" He got what sounded like a feminine snore, so he knocked and tried again, louder this time. "Hello?"
Marcy twitched, sat upright, and turned and yawned, disoriented.
"Ah, jeez… come on in. I dozed off." She half-stood, then dropped back in her chair, dug in her desk drawer for a roll of breath mints, popped one.
Marcy was a tidy, athletic woman, forty or so, who'd never had a problem jumping into a fight. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, she and Lucas had once, pre-Weather, spent some time together-or as Marcy said, forty days and forty nights. She'd later had a lengthy, contentious affair with a local artist, then married a medium big shot at General Mills.
And quickly produced James.
James was just back to preschool after a bout with the flu, she said, as Lucas and Weather settled into visitors' chairs. "I've been getting about two hours of sleep a night," she said. "As soon as he got better, he started running again. He never stops. He starts when he gets up, he runs until he drops, he sleeps like a log, then he starts running again."
"Same with Sam," Weather said. "Sam is starting to learn his letters now…"
They one-upped each other for a minute or two, on their respective kids' looks, intelligence, vigor, and overall cuteness. When they were done, Lucas scored it as a tie, though, of course, Weather was correct. Sam was the superior kid. "SO WHAT do you think about this Don Peterson guy?" Lucas asked. "What'd you get?"
"The killing was pretty straightforward," Marcy said. "The killer probably didn't mean to do it. Kicked the guy a few times. According to Baker-"
"Baker's the nurse," Weather said.
"Yeah. Dorothy Baker. She was doing inventory on the drugs. She couldn't see anything, or say anything, because they taped her up, but she could hear everything. Peterson got a hand free, somehow, tried to slip his cell phone out and call nine-one-one-Baker heard the robbers talking about it-but he fumbled it and got caught. One of the guys kicked him a few times, in the back, and in the chest. That broke him up. He bled to death, internal bleeding around his kidneys. They got him to the emergency room before he died, but he only lasted a few more minutes. He was on Coumadin; there was no way to stop the bleeding."
"So this Baker-"
Marcy held up a hand, cutting him off. "You know what Peterson did? Took some balls, but he did it on purpose. When the guy started kicking him, he grabbed him, probably on his leg, and scratched him. He told Baker what he'd done, and on the way down to the ER, he came to and told one of the docs. That he scratched this guy. He had blood on his hands, skin under his nails."
"DNA," Lucas said. He'd never met Peterson, but he was suddenly proud of the guy. "That's terrific… if we can find the guy who did it."
"Yeah: we find him, we've got him," Marcy said.
"She hear anything else? Baker?" Lucas asked.
"Yes. Interesting stuff. These guys were talking as they cleaned the place out, and she said they sounded kind of dumb-like street guys," Marcy said.
"Black, white?"
"White, four of them. She saw their hands-hands of three of them, anyway. Big guys, wearing ski masks. Their hands were rough, like they worked outside. They sounded dumb, but they knew exactly what they were doing. More interesting is the fourth guy, and what she didn't hear. Or see."
"What didn't she hear?" Weather asked.
"She didn't hear anybody knock on the door, because nobody did," Marcy said. "The door just popped open and there they were, all over Baker and Peterson. The fourth guy stayed out of sight until they were on the floor."
"That door should have been locked," Weather said.
The door was locked, Marcy said. It locked automatically, and to prevent that, it had to be deliberately disabled. Peterson was already inside when Baker got there, and she used her key to get in. "She's absolutely sure the door was locked, because when she put her key in, she didn't turn it far enough, didn't click it, and when she tried the handle, it was still locked and she had to twist the key harder. So it wasn't disabled."
"The robbers had a key," Weather said.
"Yes. Plus, the fourth man stayed out of sight until both Baker and Peterson were blind. Baker said he came in and pointed out specific lockers… and she thinks she might have heard his voice before. She said he sounded like a doctor, but she didn't know who. If so, that's why they taped their eyes-they would have recognized the fourth guy. Maybe even if he wore a mask. He's the inside guy, who got the key for them."
"Interesting," Lucas said. "You're pushing that?"
"Of course. We're pushing everything," Marcy said. "We looked like goofs this morning. All the TV stations were there, a couple cable networks, for this operation on the twins-and we had to cancel it because our hospital gets knocked over? It's like when the I-35 bridge fell in the Mississippi: people ask, what the hell are you doing, your bridge fell down? Now they're asking, 'Your hospital gets held up? Your hospital? What's going on up there?'"
"Hard to believe it's a doctor," Weather said.
"Why? I've known a couple psycho doctors," Lucas said.
Marcy nodded: "Don't even get us started on nurses." She stood up and said to Weather, "Let's get you going on that drawing. I'd like to get it on the noon news."
As they were walking down the hall, Marcy added, "I want you guys to take it a little easy until we've got them locked up."
"Why's that?" Lucas asked.
Marcy said, "Well, Weather saw them-so they probably saw her."
Lucas stopped in his tracks: "I never thought of that." He looked at Weather. "I'm so dumb. That never occurred to me." HONEY BEE had once been a professional hairdresser, so she offered Joe Mack a choice of styles: greaser, punk, industrial, skater, Mohawk, or military sidewall.
"We don't want a rearrangement. We want something so different that nobody'd dream that some long-haired guy might have been him," Lyle Mack said. "Cut it all off. Right down to the scalp."
"Ah, man…"
But she did it, using a couple of plastic attachments on a barber's clipper, and took his hair down to a quarter-inch, Joe Mack sitting on a toilet with a towel around his neck. That done, she lathered him up and, using a straight razor, gave him the most sensuous shave of his life, not only because he was scared of the razor, which added a certain frisson to the proceeding, but because either her left or right tit was massaging his either left or right ear, depending.
"You think Mikey meant to kill that man?" Honey Bee asked.
"No way," Joe Mack said. "He's just… dumb."
Honey Bee nodded. Mikey was dumb. And violent. Unlike Joe Mack, who was just dumb. Mikey might not have meant to kill the old man, but he probably enjoyed it. Give him a month or two, and he'd be bragging it around, just like Shooter and the black dude in California.
When she was done with Joe Mack, he washed off his face and looked at himself in the mirror. Christ: he looked like a German butcher, big, red, wind-burned nose sticking out of a dead-white face.
"What do you think?" Honey Bee asked.
"Ah, man… Not your fault, though." He rubbed his head. "Bums me out."
She went to the back door, peered through it. Lyle Mack was in the back, moving stuff around. She turned back to Joe Mack, hooked the front of his jeans. "You could come upstairs, later, if that'd make you feel better."