"Al-Balah has already broken," Rose Marie said. "The county attorney's guys decided it'd be better to get out there first with the news, put some of their own spin on it."

"Still"

Rose Marie nodded. "I'll get them started on a tap."

Then Rose Marie laid out the situation with Tom Olson. He was out of the hospital, but was being tailed by relays of Homicide and Intelligence cops, who would stay with him twenty-four hours a day. Alie'e's funeral had been delayed until the elder Olsons' bodies were released, so they could all be buried togetherand that might be a while yet, because the situation in the Bloomington motel room was so complicated.

"If Olson's the guythe one who's going after everybodyelse, in revenge for his sisterwe think he might go after Jael Corbeau again, or the other woman, Catherine Kinsley."

"Or that Jax guy."

"Jax checked out," Rose Marie said. "He's gone to New York, but says he'll be back for the funeral. He's probably shopping for the right outfit to wear when he throws himself in her grave."

"So we're just watching?" Lucas asked.

"No. We've had these family briefings every day, and we're going to continue them. In fact, Olson's coming here in"she looked at her watch"about twenty-five minutes. We're going to try to point him at Kinsley. We'll talk a little about Alie'e's relationship with her. Kinsley and her husband are going up north to their cabin, which is way the hell out in the woods. You can't even find them with a map. We'll have a team at her house, waiting, if Olson goes that way."

"How about Jael?" Lucas asked.

"We think he's less likely to try her, because he tried once, and she ran him off," Rose Marie said. "But we'll have a team there, too. I'd appreciate it if you'd stop by and talk to her. She's scared, and she'd like to have you around."

"All right," Lucas said. "And listen, I know Angela Harris is a smart shrink, but I saw Olson's face when he came running across the grass to tell us about his folks. And man, I don't know about this multiple-personality stuff, but that was real. That was so strong that if his personalities were gonna dissolve, or whatever they do, that would have happened right then. I mean I've never seen anything like it. Ever."

"We're keeping that in mind, of course," Rose Marie said. "But its what we've got, right now."

"So we're set?" Del asked, stepping toward the door.

"If everything went exactly rightexactly rightwe could have both these guys in twenty-four hours," Rose Marie said. "If the bank guy calls Rodriguez, if Olson goes for Kinsley"

"There's gotta be at least one time in life when everything works," Del said. "One time."

"Bullshit," Lucas said. Out in the hall, when they were away from Rose Marie, he added, "She says they're keeping in mind that it might be somebody else, but they're not. They just put all their chips on Olson."

"And we put all of ours on Rodriguez," Del said.

"Yeah, but there's a major difference," Lucas said.

"What's that?"

"We're right. They might not be."

Chapter 19

Del went off to coordinate with the county attorney's office on the wiretaps and the subpoena for Rodriguez's bank records. Lucas went down to the Homicide office and spent an hour looking over the typescript of the Rodriguez interview, and talked to Frank Lester and Sloan about the multiple-personality idea.

"Everything I know about it I learned from TV," Sloan said. "But you gotta admit, the guy looks good. He's got motive, he had access to the shooting car, he could get close enough to take his parents out"

"When he came running after us, after he found the bodies he looked like his head was trying to explode," Lucas said. "He was trying to pull the hair out of the sides of his head; I've never seen anything like it. Then he dropped in his tracks."

"Could be psychological pressure from the other personality," Lester said. "Or maybe he's just goofy."

"What we saw was real. He wasn't faking anything. If his other personality killed his parents, the personality we saw didn't know it," Lucas said.

Lucas left the City Hall as the streetlights were coming on. Fifteen minutes later, he slid to the curb at Jael Corbeau's house and headed up the walk. Every room inside the house was lit; everything outside was dark, including the front porch. When Lucas reached for the doorbell, a voice from the corner of the porch said, "Go on in, Chief."

"Who is that?" he asked. He didn't turn his head.

"Jimmy Smith. From dope."

"You cold?" Lucas asked, still speaking at the door panel.

"Nah. I'm wearing my deer-hunting camies."

"Excellent." Lucas pushed through the door into the living room, where he met another dope cop, Alex Hutton, who stood to one side with a hammerless. 357 in his right hand. He slipped it away when he saw Lucas's face, and said, "Franklin and Jael are upstairs. Cooking."

"Franklin cooks?" It seemed unlikely.

"He's teaching her how to make one-minute meals, you know, for during football commercials."

"The guy has talent," Lucas said.

Hutton took a step closer, dropped his voice, and said, "I don't know where this chick has been for the first part of my life, but she ishot."

"I thought you were married with about nine lads," Lucas said, dropping his voice. He added, "Besides, she sorta likes other girls."

"I only got three kids and I think Jael likes a little of everything," Hutton said, glancing at the door that led into the back of the house and the kitchen. "If she wanted to bring another chick along, I could handle thatconceptually, anyway."

"Except that your wife would stab you to death."

"Fuck my wife. She's history. I'm abandoning her. I figure if I abandon a wife and three kids, the papers will pass on the story. You only get in trouble for five or more."

"I forgot all about stakeouts," Lucas said. "The sexual fantasies, and all that, when you've got nothing to do."

As he walked up the stairs, Lucas could hear Franklin's gravelly voice. He was saying, "All right, hands clear of the counter. Hands clear"

Jael: "I'm arranging the cheese sacks."

"Nope. No good. Gotta be like you just threw them in the 'fridge"

Lucas leaned in the kitchen door, and a second later, Hutton came to stand behind him. Franklin and Jael had their backs to them, and Jael was closing the refrigerator door. Franklin looked at his watch and asked, "Ready?"

"Ready."

"Five seconds four, three, two, one, GO!"

Jael jerked the refrigerator open, pulled out two sacks of grated cheese, threw them at the kitchen counter, snatched a plate out of the cupboard, opened a bag of blue-corn nacho chips, and spilled them on the plate.

"Too many chips, too many chips," Franklin warned. She grabbed a handful of them off the plate, threw them back in the bag, quickly arranged the others on the plate, and Franklin said, "Fifteen seconds." Jael opened the two bags of cheese, working frantically, spread a small handful from one bag over the plate of chips, opened the other, spread another small handful, and asked, "Is that good?"

"You're looking good, but you're a few seconds behind," Franklin said. "Gotta keep rolling."

She picked up the plate and pushed it into the microwave, said, "One minute," pressed a series of buttons, and the microwave started to hum. Then she went back to the refrigerator, grabbed ajar of salsa, popped the top, got a spoon and dumped three large spoonfuls into a small glass dessert bowl, glanced at the microwave timer, put the top back on the salsa jar, stuck it in the refrigerator, and wrapped up the top of one of the cheese bags, while watching the timer. Then she reached out

"Not too soon, not too soon," Franklin said. Jael jabbed a button, popped open the microwave door, thrust the salsa bowl inside, slammed the door, and pushed the Resume button.