"What?"

"Just listen. I want you to give the tape to the TV stations, if you can get it from the police. I'm not sure if this will work, but I am making it my last will, and I am appointing you to administer it."

"Burt…!"

"Good-bye."

Grandpa punched the power button on the cell phone, looking up at the camera, and said, "I leave everything here, my entire estate, to Janet Walther, the wife of my grandson, Roger. I swear before God that Janet knew nothing of this, nor do the descendants of any of the other families. And I am proving my sincerity with this last act."

He thought of the "swear before God" at the last second, and it amused him: he no more believed in God than he did the tooth fairy, but he wanted viewers to sympathize.

He rubbed Melodie on the head one last time, and tears started down his cheeks. He looked up at the camera, to let them see the tears, which were real enough, then kissed his wife on the forehead and said, "I will see you in heaven, my love," placed the pistol against her temple, and pulled the trigger. The blast was deafening in the small room, and he turned away from her, at the sound of the shot, so he wouldn't have to see the wreckage.

Without looking back down at her, he spoke directly to the camera, said, "Workers of the world, unite: you have nothing to lose but your chains." Then he put the muzzle of the gun to his temple, just above and a little forward of his ear.

I should've been in show business.

He pulled the trigger.

Chapter 28

Lucas stuck the light on the roof, and they took off. Nadya, one hand braced against the dashboard, excited, face flushed, said, "This could be the end."

"Whatever it is, it's gonna be complicated," Lucas said.

"Big question: Was it a shooting, or a gunfight?" Andreno asked.

"Only two shots; doesn't sound like much of a fight," Lucas said. "Ought to know soon now."

With Lucas running hard, passing everything on the road and blowing through stoplights, the trip to Hibbing took sixteen minutes. When they got to Walther's house, there were six cop cars outside, all their lights going. A group of gawkers stood down the street, every one of the women with their arms crossed. Jan Walther stood directly across the street with a cop.

Lucas pulled up and they all piled out and Janet Walther shouted, "What did you do to them?"

Lucas ignored her and they tramped across the small yard, nodding at cops. Roy Hopper stood in the doorway and said, "Looks like a murder-suicide. Looks like Burt shot Melodie and then himself."

Lucas was shocked: "Ah, shit. You're sure?"

"Not positive, of course, but our guy was right outside, and he says nobody came or went. He was inside in ten seconds, and found everything just like it is now. And-we think they made a movie of it. Here, step careful."

The three of them crowded inside behind him. The bodies were on the floor, uncovered, Melodie still in her chair with a spray of blood on the wall behind her, Burt facedown on the rug, a puddle of blood around his ruined head. The air in the house was suffused with the coppery odor of blood and raw meat. Hopper pointed at a camera that was aimed at the two bodies.

"Jimmy said it was still running when he came in. He let it run, and we just decided to turn it off a couple minutes ago. We were afraid something might happen and it might erase itself."

"Nobody looked at the tape?" Andreno asked.

"Not yet. We've got a crime-scene guy coming, and we want him to check the camera for prints… and the tape too, I guess. Goddamnit. What a mess. Oh. Forgot. Burt called his lawyer just before he did it, told him what he was going to do. The lawyer called nine one one, but by that time, Jimmy was already inside."

"We need to see the tape," Lucas said. "Get your guy to bag it, and make a copy of it, before he tries to lift any prints. I don't want him putting anything on the tape, or doing the Super Glue trick, or anything that might fuck it up."

"I'll tell him."

Nadya touched Lucas on the shoulder and said, "This tape will tell us."

"I hope."

Nothing to do except get out of the way. Lucas gave Hopper his cell-phone number, asked him to call when they could move the camera, and they went back to the truck, ignoring Janet Walther, who called to them from across the street.

In five minutes, they were in a downtown cafe, drinking coffee, eating hamburgers and fries, not much to say.

"Is this a good time to get back home?" Lucas asked Nadya.

"You mean, weather? I think this is the best time, the early autumn. We still have the daylight, the trees begin to color. Do you think I'll go?"

"Something will come out of the tape," Lucas said. "Walther completely bullshitted me the first time, and the second time, he was the tough guy. Now this, with the camera. There'll be something."

"Maybe you oughta defect," Andreno said to Nadya.

She laughed, said, "No, I don't think. I am happy to get back."

"Too many signs here?"

Now she frowned, looking at her sandwich: "You know, it seems very hard here. Harsh. All the time, work, work, work, money, money, money." She turned to Andreno. "You are retired, no? You have this pension. Yet, you travel hundreds of kilometers to work on a job with no future. Why is this?"

"Better than sitting on my ass," Andreno said.

She nodded. "This is the thing. In the rest of the world-maybe not Japan, I have not been there-people enjoy sitting on their asses and talking, dancing, playing games. Here, there is no time. You are all too busy making signs."

Then Hopper called and said, "Our technical guy has popped the tape and bagged it. We're going to take it downtown and look at it."

"See you there."

The police station was five minutes away. They watched the tape in the chief's office, ten people crowded inside, standing, the tape running on an aging Panasonic TV out of an equally aged VCR. "This is a copy," the tech said. "I made a quick copy so there wouldn't be any screw-ups with the original, and we can run it back and forth. I watched it. It's nasty. You don't want to be here if you don't have a strong stomach." Nobody moved, and he started the tape.

Lucas had been shocked when Hopper told him about the suicide: the tape dragged him further down, and he flinched away from the killing of Melodie, and Nadya dug her fingers into his arm and pressed her forehead into it, not looking, and jumped at the sound of the shot that killed her. Half the people in the room said, "Oh, Jesus," or "Ah, shit," and one woman hurried out of the room.

When Walther killed himself, Lucas watched-did Walther have a small amused smile on his face?-then closed his eyes as the body flung itself to the floor. He felt the air leaking out of him, out of the case.

The tech said, "Anybody want anything run back?"

There was a chorus of "nos" except Lucas: "Let me see the lawyer part again. When he's talking on the phone."

They watched the lawyer portion again, and then shut down the machine.

Lucas said to Hopper, "Keep the house sealed. Nobody in, nobody out, at least until I talk it over with the feds."

"Okay. What else?"

"I don't know. There might not be much more."

"What about the tape? We can't just give it to Burt's lawyer-I mean, he's a good guy, and all, but I don't see…"

"Hang on to it. Just hang on to it. Make him take you to court to get it-that'll take awhile, and by the time he gets it, it won't be of so much interest."

"Oh, bullshit," Andreno said. "That tape'll be hot two years from now. Fox would give its left nut to get its hands on it."

"Okay," Lucas said. "It won't be so hot for us."

"Ah. Now that you 'splain it that way…" Hopper said.