"Yeah," Lucas said. "But I'd like to stick her somewhere that nobody knows about."
Weather put her hands on her hips. "That's right, talk around me-I'm a lamp," she said.
Climpt looked at her, sighed, said, "Goddamn feminists." And to Lucas: "You could put her at my place."
"Everybody in town would know about it in ten minutes," Weather said. "They know my car, they know your schedule… if there were lights in your place when you're supposed to be working, they'd be calling the cops."
"Yeah."
"I'm okay here as long as you guys are around," Weather said, looking from one of them to the other.
When Climpt had gone, Weather took Lucas by the collar, kissed him, and said, "Show me the picture."
He got his coat and handed it to her.
"Quite the display," she said, peering at it. She shook her head. "I've probably got thirty patients who look more or less like that-the belly and the fat butt. How do you identify them from that?" She shook her head. "You won't get any help from me."
"Bums me out," Lucas said, running a hand up through his hair. "We've got to find some way to crank up the pressure. I thought there'd be something in the picture. If it didn't ID the guy, there'd be something."
"I'll tell you one thing," she said, poking the photograph at him. "If Jim Harper was involved in a sex ring, I can't believe that Russ wasn't aware of it. If blackmail ever occurred to anybody, it'd be Russ."
Lucas took the photo back, stared through it, thinking. Then: "You're right. We've gotta squeeze him. Squeeze him for public consumption. Maybe our asshole will come after him, or maybe Harper can put the finger on him." He wandered around the living room, touching her things: the photos of her parents, a Hummel doll, thinking. "If we play these Schoeneckers off against Harper… Huh…" He carefully folded the photograph, took his billfold out of his pocket, and stuck the photo in the fold, where he'd see it every time he paid for something. "How're you doing?"
She shrugged. "I'm tired but I can't sleep. I guess I'm a little scared."
"You should get out. Visit some friends in the Cities."
She shook her head. "Nope. He's not going to get on top of me."
"That's a little dumb."
"That's the way it is, though," she said. "How about you. Tired?"
"Stiff from the drive," Lucas said. He yawned and stretched.
"When I bought this place, the only big change I made was to fix up my bathroom. I've got a big whirlpool tub back there. Why don't you go in and lay in some hot water? I'll put together a snack."
"Terrific," he said.
The tub looked like it might be black marble, and was easily six feet long. He half-filled it, fooled with a control panel until he got the whirlpool jets working, then eased himself into it. He found he could rest his head on a back ledge and float free in the hot water. The heat smoothed him out, took him out of the truck.
The photograph had to be the key, and now he had the photograph. Why couldn't he see it? What was it?
The door opened and Weather walked in, wearing a robe, carrying a bottle of wine. Lucas, embarrassed, sat up, but she pulled off the robe. Naked, she tested the water with her foot. She had small, solid breasts, a smooth, supple back, and long legs.
"Hot," she said, stepping into the far end of the tub. She might have been blushing or it might have been the hot water.
"What about the snack?" Lucas asked.
"You're looking at it, honey," she said.
Fourth full day of the investigation: he felt like he'd been in Ojibway County forever. Felt like he'd known Weather forever.
Lucas made it into the sheriff's office a few minutes after eight. The day was warmer, above zero, with damp spots in the streets where ice-remover chemicals had cut through the snow. The sky was an impenetrable gray. Despite the clouds hanging overhead, Lucas felt… light.
Different. He could still smell Weather, although he wasn't sure if the smell was real or just something he'd memorized and was holding on to.
There was nothing light about Carr. He'd been heavy and pink, even at the LaCourt killing. Now he was gray-faced, drawn. He looked not hungry or starving, but desiccated, as though he were dying of thirst.
"Get it?" he asked when Lucas walked in.
Lucas handed him a copy of the porno magazine, folded open to the page with Jim Harper on it. "Is this it?" Carr asked, studying the photo.
"That's it. That's what the LaCourts had, anyway," Lucas said.
Carr held it to the window for extra light. Henry Lacey ambled in, nodded to Lucas, and Carr handed him the photo. "Who is it, Henry? Who's the fat guy?"
Lacey looked at it, then at Lucas. "I don't see anything. Am I missing something?"
"I don't think so," Lucas said. Carr put his thumb to his mouth, began nibbling his cuticles, then quickly put his hand back on his desk, his movements jerky, out of sync. Strung-out. "When was the last time you had any sleep?" Lucas asked.
"Can't remember," Carr said vaguely. "Somebody tell me what to do."
Lucas said, "How tight are you with the editor of the Register? And the radio station."
"Same thing," Carr said. He spun in his chair and looked out his window toward the city garage. "The answer is, pretty tight. Danny Jones is the brother to Bob Jones."
"The junior high principal?"
"Yup. We played poker most Wednesday nights. Before this happened, anyway," Carr said.
"If you just flat told him what you wanted in the paper, or on the radio, and explained that you needed it done to break this case, would he buy it?"
Carr, still staring out the window, thought it over, then said, "In this case-probably."
Lucas outlined his proposaclass="underline" that they go to the county attorney with the photographs they'd found of Jim Harper and get an arrest warrant for Russ Harper. They would charge Harper with promoting child pornography, drop him in jail.
"He'll bail out in twenty minutes," Lacey objected.
"Not if we work it right," Lucas said. "We'll pick him up this afternoon, question him, charge him tonight. We won't have to take him to court until Monday. We tell the Register that he's been arrested in connection with a pornography ring that we uncovered during the investigation of the LaCourt murders. We also leak the word that Harper's dealing-that he's trying to make an immunity deal if he turns in other members of the ring. And we tell Harper that we'll give him immunity unless the Schoeneckers come in first. Anything about the Schoeneckers, by the way?"
"Nothing yet," Carr said, shaking his head. "What you're saying about Russ Harper is… we set him up. I mean, the charges wouldn't hold water."
"We're not setting him up. We're using him to make something happen," Lucas said. "And who knows? Maybe he has some ideas about the killer."
"If he doesn't, he'll sue our butts. He'll probably sue our butts anyway," Carr said.
"A good attorney would get him in court and stick those pictures of Jim right up his ass," Lucas said. Lucas leaned across the deck. "I'll tell you, Shelly, there's a possibility that the LaCourt murders and the Mueller kid and Jim Harper have nothing to do with this sex ring. Possible, but I don't believe it. There's a connection. We just haven't found it. And Weather said last night she can't believe a guy like Harper didn't have some idea of what his kid was up to."
"We've got to do it, Shelly," Lacey said somberly. "We've got nothing else going for us. Not a frigging thing."
"Let's do it then," Carr said. He looked up at Lucas, exhaustion in his eyes. "And you and me, we've got to go talk to Phil Bergen again."
Bergen was waiting for them. Like Carr, he'd changed. But Bergen looked rested, clear-faced. Sober.
"I know what you're here for," he said when he let them in to the rectory. "Bob Dell called me. I didn't know he was homosexual until he called."
"You've never…" Lucas began.
"Never." Bergen turned to Carr. "Shelly, I never would have believed that'd you'd think…"
"He didn't believe it," Lucas said. "I brought it up. I looked at a plat map of the lake road, saw Dell's house, made some inquiries, and maybe jumped to the wrong conclusion."