When Del was gone, Lucas went back to his office, locked the door, looked at his watch, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. Ten minutes later, his eyes popped open. Time to move. He got up, walked back down to Rose Marie's office, and peeked: door closed. He stepped inside and asked the secretary, "The Olson bunch in there?"

"Yup. A pretty sad-looking bunch, too."

Lucas backed out of the office, got his coat, put it over his arm, and went to the end of the hall, where he could see the chief's office door but where somebody also might think he was waiting for somebody to come in the front door. Out on the street, the media wagons were piled up; a square-jawed trench-coated reporter was doing a stand-up, with City Hall as background. More airtime for Alie'e.

A cop named Hampstad wandered by, leered at Lucas, and said, "You hear the one about the guy with the headache?"

"Aw, Jesus," Lucas said.

"Guy goes to the doc, and he says, 'Doc, you gotta help me. I got this terrible headache. It feels like somebody is pounding a nail through my forehead. Like I got a big pair of pliers squeezing behind my ears. It's tension from my job. I can't stop working right now, but the headaches killing me. You gotta help.' So the doc says, 'You know, Ido have a cure. Exactly the same thing happened to meI was working too much, and I got exactly the same headache. Then one night I was performing oral sex on my wife, and her legs were squeezing my head really tight, really hard, and the pressure must have done something, because the headache was a lot better. So I did this every night for two weeks, and at the end of two weeks, the headache was gone.' And the guy says, I'm desperate, Doc, I'll try anything.' The doc said, 'Well, then, I'll see you in two weeks.' So the guy goes away, and two weeks later he comes back for his appointment and he's the most cheerful guy in the world. And he says, 'Doc, you're a miracle worker. I did just what you told me, and the headache's gone. Vanished. I feel great. I think it's got to be the pressure, andby the way, you've got abeautiful home.' "

"Saw it coming," Lucas said without cracking a smile.

"Bullshit, saw it coming. You're cracking up inside," Hampstad said.

"Have I mentioned our sensitivity sessions? We have them"

"Fuck a bunch of sensitivity," Hampstad grumbled. "Nobody has a sense of humor around this place anymore."

At the end of the hall, Olson stepped through the chief's door. Lucas pushed away from the wall. "Gotta go," he said. He walked down to the front doors, looked at the media wagons for a count of twenty, then started back toward the chief's office. He heard them as he was coming to the corner, and nearly ran headlong into Olson. They milled for a second, Lucas said, "Sony, sorry, excuse me," and then Olson said, "Chief Davenport we just talked to the chief."

"Yes, I knew you were coming."

"Not very satisfying," Olson said. "She was much moreI don't want to save evasive, but she was much less positive than I had expected. About this Rodriguez man."

Lucas looked at him for a long beat, then at the rest of the group from Burnt River. "Could I speak to you privately for just a minute?" Lucas said.

Olson nodded, looked at the Burnt River people, said, "Excuse me for a minute," and he and Lucas walked down the hall toward the front door.

"The chief is, uh Did you know I came to see you preach last night?"

"I thought that might be you in the back. I wasn't sure," Olson said.

"I was impressed. I'm not from the same stream of Christianity as you, I'm a Roman Catholic, but I was affected." Lucas said, letting himself grope for the words. "What I'm trying to say is, I know you're a good man, I could see it last night. I hate lying to you. The chief wasn't King, but, to tell you the truth, most of us think that Rodriguez was innocent. That hemay have been murdered himself."

"What?" Olson was stunned, but his voice was hushed. "Then who"

"A banker named William Spooner. He essentially set Rodriguez up in the drug business, showed him how to launder his money He was carrying on an affair with Sandy Lansing."

"Then why don't you"

"We're investigating him every way we can, but to be honestplease don't tell anyone I told you thisit's going to be very difficult to get him on this. The two chief witnesses against him would be Sandy Lansing and Rodriguez himself. They're both dead. And even if we arrested him, a defense attorney could simply prosecute Rodriguez during Spooner's trial, and frankly, Rodriguez is a much more inviting suspect. Even if he didn't do it."

"Are you saying that Spooner'll never be punished?" Olson asked.

"I don't know what's going to happen, I really don't," Lucas said.

"I don't know what to say," Olson said. "I should talk to Chief Roux again."

"Don't do that, it'll just cause problems for her. She's trying as hard as she can with all this media attention She wants the media to concentrate on Rodriguez for a few days, since it can't hurt him anymore, while we go after Spooner."

"This is I don't know."

"I'll tell you what you can do," Lucas said, trying tofeel the sincerity. "You can pray for us. After what I saw last night, I believe it will do some good."

Olson looked at him for a moment, a speculative examination of several seconds, then said, "I will."

Lucas said goodbye, shaking Olsons hand, then walked through the group of Burnt River people, down the hall, and to his office. Felt the dark finger of hypocrisy stroking his soul. All for justice, he thought. Or for something. Winning, maybe.

Lucas waited in his office until he figured Olson would be gone, then walked down to Homicide to talk to Lester. "We need to put a couple of people on William Spooner," he said. "More to cover him than to watch him."

"What's going on?" Lester asked.

"I just gave Spooner's name to Olson. I didn't tell Rose Marie, so she'll have a little insulation. But if Olson starts wandering around in his car, and we're too far back he could walk right up to Spooner's front door and nail him before we could catch up."

"Man, I don't know about this," Lester said, shaking his head.

"We were willing to do it with Jael and Catherine Kinsleyuse them as decoysand they weren't even guilty of anything."

"Yeah, but they sorta volunteered," Lester said.

"They had no choice, Frank. Their names got leaked and played in the papers and on television, and somebody in this department leaked them. They wouldn't have volunteered if their names hadn't already been out there."

"All right, all right I get a little puckered up sometimes."

"Will you put some guys with him?"

"Yup. I'll do it now."

"One more thing, if you don't mind," Lucas said. "I talked to Spooner about coming in today with his attorneyI don't want to do that now. Tell him that after Rodriguez's death, we're reassessing the case and it may not be necessary for him to come in at all."

"I can do that."

"I'd do it, but I don't want to talk to him," Lucas said. "We don't want to lie to him at this point."

After leaving Homicide, Lucas walked over to the hospital. Del was just leaving. "Took her back into intensive care," he said; he looked a little frightened. "Pneumonia's getting on top of her."

"Can she talk?" Lucas asked.

"She's asleep. They say it's controllable, but she looks worse to me than she did yesterday."

"Ah, man. Let me see" Del went back inside with him. A nurse led them in, but Marcy was asleep, as Del said. Back outside, Lucas led the way to Weather's office. Nobody home. "What do you do around here to find out what's going on?"

"Black left ten minutes ago, to get something to eathe said they're still optimistic."

"What doeshe think?"

"He's not a doctor," Del said.

"I know, but what does he think?"