Chapter 21

Del took a call from Narcotics and headed that way. Lucas borrowed a uniformed cop from the patrol division, put him in plainclothes, and sent him to relieve Lane.

On the phone to Lane, he said, "When he gets there, I want you to brief him, then go on over to the county attorney's office, talk to Tim Long, and look at all that loan paperwork on Spooner. Spooner's critical: If he knows anything at all about Rodriguez, then he probably knows about everything. If we crack him, we may have enough."

"How much paper?" Lane asked.

"About a ton," Lucas said.

"Goddamnit, Lucas, how come I'm always the one stuck with paper?"

" 'Cause you can read; I'm not so sure about the other guys. So get your ass over here. Also, an FBI computer file just came in on Rodriguez and his money. I'll print it out and leave it with Lester. Take it with you, see if there's anything that, you know"

"What?"

"Shit, I don't know. Correlates, or something."

When he was done with Lane, he got out the phone book, got the number for Browns, dialed, and asked for India. She came on the phone a minute later. Lucas identified himself and asked, "Are you gonna be around for a few minutes?"

"Until six."

"I want to stop by," he said.

When he got off the phone, Lucas walked down to Homicide with the printed-out FBI file, left it with Lester. "Did you guys print those pictures of Rodriguez?"

"Uh, yeah I think they're down in ID. They handled it."

Lucas went down to the Identification division. The photo guy's name was Harold McNeil, a former uniform cop who got tired of cold squad cars and got the photo job by lying. Photography he said, was a longtime hobby, although he didn't know a small-format camera from a yak. He read a book calledLearn Photography in a Weekend, fooled around with the department's cameras, and after a week or so, was better than the last guy, and kept the job.

He had two good shots of Rodriguez: a full-frontal head shot, and one side view.

"Got some heads I can use in a spread?" Lucas asked.

"Yup." McNeil turned around, opened the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet, and took out a handful of photos. They found sets, front and back, of a half-dozen guys. Lucas stuck them in his pocket.

"I'll bring them back," he promised.

"That's what everybody says. Nobody ever does," McNeil said.

Lucas got his coat and walked across town to Brown's; the cold air felt good; the walking felt good. India was behind the desk and smiled when she saw him coming.

"Did you ever see any of these guys with Sandy Lansing?" Lucas pushed the stack of photos at her. "There are two photos of each guy."

India took her time looking at them. Another woman came along and asked, "What's going on?"

Lucas said, "Police. We're trying to see if we can find somebody Sandy Lansing might have gone out with."

"I've seen her with a guy a few times," the other woman said.

She stood at India's elbow, and they went through the photos together, India slowly shaking her head. "I don't think so," she said finally. "This guy but I don't think it was him."

The other woman said, "I don't think so, either. Sorta like that, though. If you put him in a suit."

"It's not him. This guy looks a little rough," India said.

"You're right," the other woman said. She looked at Lucas. "I don't think I've ever seen any of them."

Lucas looked at the one photo they'd talked about. A honey-haired white guy, round-faced, but without Rodriguez's heft. He and Rodriguez looked nothing alike.

"Thanks," he said.

Strikeout.

Back at the office, Lucas had a note to call Tim Long at the county attorneys office. He did. "You can't count on getting anything from the IRS," Long said. "I talked to a guy over there, and they said if we get anything that looks like hidden income, to send them a copy of what we get. But they've had too much trouble with citizen complaints to go after a guy who they've never had a problem with. He was audited a couple of years ago, in a random audit, and everything worked out to the penny."

"Which it would, if he's faking his cash flow with drug money."

"Yeah, well, the IRS guy said, 'You catch 'em, we fry 'em.' But they ain't gonna hang up his investment money and have a congressman screaming at them. Not when they've got a whole file that says the guy is clean."

Another strikeout.

Rose Marie said, "Olson isn't moving. He's not doing anything."

"You're talking to him, aren't you? In the family briefing?"

"Yeah." She looked up at the office clock. "We're gonna do it again in about fifteen minutes."

"Why don't you tell him, in utter confidence, that we've got a candidate for the guy who actually killed his sister. If he's nuts, and anything is going to get him stirred up, that should do it."

"Lucas"

"Don't give him the name," Lucas said. "Tell him you can't do that, but there's a possibility that we'll know something in a couple of days. The idea is to get him cranked, get him back in the mood, if he's the one doing the killings."

"I don't know"

"Another benefit is, it'd keep him from pissing on us in the press."

After leaving Rose Marie, Lucas walked over to see Marcy. Tom Black was sitting next to her bed, and her head was turned toward him. When Lucas walked in, Black said, "She comes and she goes. She's asleep right now."

Lucas got another chair and carried it over to Marcy's bed. Two beds down, an old man with a shock of white hair, a desiccated face, and a thin, hawk nose, tried to breathe; worked at it.

"What do you think of this Olson guy?" Black asked.

"He's maybe crazy," Lucas said.

"You think, uh, he'll be doing a trip down to the state hospital?"

"Hard call. A guy executes his parents, it's pretty easy to say he's nuts."

"Yeah, well" Black exhaled, and looked down at the tile floor.

"What?" Lucas asked.

"I'd hate to see the fucker get away with what he did to Marcy," Black said. "No goddamn justice in the world if you can blow her up and get away with it."

Lucas looked at him for a moment. Black was Marcy's best friend on the force. And he was gay, so they didn't have the sex problem that tended to come up around herthat had come up with Lucas. "Listen, Thomas my friend, if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, stop thinking it."

"You haven't thought about it?"

"No, I haven't. You get some guy you can't stop, a pederast or a serial rapist and you just can't get at him then I might do some thinking, but I sure as hell wouldn't mention it to anyone. Toanyone. And I wouldn't pop somebody for shooting a cop. You know? Cops get shot; that's part of the job. Marcy knew it could happenhell, it already happened to her, once. It's not like she's an innocent little lamb."

"But if he gets away"

"Jesus, Torn, give it some time. We'll get him. I'll tell you what, I think maybe it's fifty percent Olson, maybe fifty percent somebody else. You can't go popping a guy on fifty-fifty chance."

"It's got me fucked up, dude," Black said.

"I know."

Marcy woke up a couple of minutes later, recognized both of them, croaked, "I could use a beer."

"I got one, but I already used it once," Black said. "If we could find a bottle someplace"

She smiled. She looked almost okay, Lucas thought. "How're you feeling?"

"Like I got hit pretty hard."

"You did, you dumb shit. You ain't the goddamn Secret Service, and Jael ain't the President," Lucas said.

She closed her eyes for a minute, seemed to drift off, then snapped back. "How's Jael?"

"We've got her covered twenty-four hours a day," Lucas said. "Franklin taught her how to cook nachos."

"I feel hollow," she said. She licked her dry lips. "I don't hurt."