"It wasn't hearsay,and it was exact," Ignace insisted.

"I won't argue," Sloan said, and he stepped away from microphone, turning it back to Lucas.

"It's not right for you to stand up there and suggest that I wrote something that was incorrect when both you and I know it was correct," Ignace said.

"I won't argue," Sloan said again, dismissively.

The other reporters were enjoying the show, a little hand-to-hand combat at Ignace's expense. They would all mention in the report that Sloan suggested that some of Ignace's details were incorrect, revenge for his having beaten them.

At the end of the press conference, with all questions repeated three times so the various media representatives could be shown on tape asking them, Lucas, Sloan, and Nordwall moved off the podium and out through the conference room's back door.

Ignace followed them through the door and said, "Wait a minute."

Lucas turned: "Uh, you're not supposed to be back here…"

"Yeah, yeah." Ignace went after Sloan: "What was that all about? About my details being wrong? You know that's not right."

"I know," Sloan said. "I'm trying to figure out where our leak is. If all the details were right, and they were, and you insisted on it, and you did, then you probably saw photographs. There are about six people who could have made copies for you. I didn't, so that gets it down to five. I'll figure it out."

Ignace stared at him for a moment, then turned, shoved his notebook in a hip pocket, walked back out the door, and as he went through it, said, "Fuck you."

"Talk to you later, Rufus," Sloan called back, adding, in a slightly lower tone, "You little asshole."

THE INFORMATION ABOUT POPE, and the press conference, froze the investigation: the routine continued, but there weren't a lot of decisions to be made until the DNA came back. Lucas talked to the BCA director about space and personnel for the co-op center, then went home and ate a microwave dinner. He reread the murder file as he ate, talked to Elle by phone: she had no more suggestions.

"I saw you on television," she said. "This will add pressure to find somebody."

"Yep."

"And it might also put pressure on the perpetrator to act again- when the attention starts to fade away in a day or two, he may move to get it back."

"Thanks for the thought."

He read the file some more, he went out to a used bookstore, then on to a movie, a spy thriller about an assassin who'd lost his memory. None of it seemed likely, but it had a decent car chase involving BMWs and Mercedes Benz Yellow Cabs.

The next morning, at eight o'clock, Weather called, and he told her about the press conference.

"Has there ever been a crime solved by matching DNA from a scene to something that was already in the bank?" she asked. "I mean, the primary solution, rather than an after-the-fact thing?"

"Yeah. A couple of times. But it's rare."

AFTER CLEANING UP, he took 35E to the BCA headquarters, settled into his office, signed papers that Carol put in front of him, and then checked with Bill James, who was doing the biographical research on Adam Rice and who'd uncovered Rice's connection to the hookers.

"Not getting much more," James said. "I'm doing background on the people he worked with, neighbors, like that, you know, but nothing is popping up. The hookers thing was… way out of control. If you knew everything else about him, you never saw that coming."

"Maybe just sex," Lucas said.

"I think it was. But it's the only point where he sorta connected with the underworld… the Minnesota underworld. If you're doin' hookers, you're not too far from the drugs and all the rest of it. So if he knew the killer, a sex killer, where'd he meet him? Those hookers seem like a possibility."

"Exactly. Keep digging. Look for a snaky guy, real white complexion, with a barbed-wire tattoo around his biceps."

"Who'd that be?"

"Maybe just a fantasy," Lucas said. "Good job on the hookers."

HE CALLED MARK FOX, Charlie Pope's parole officer: "Could you ask the people Pope worked with, if he ever hung out at a place called the Rockyard, in Faribault? It's not too far…"

"I know it, and it's Charlie's kind of place," Fox drawled. "I'll ask around and get back to you today. Still haven't found a car, have we?"

"No. I worry about that."

LUCAS TALKED TO SLOAN. Sloan said, "I can't get Angela Larson and Adam Rice together, except for one thing and it's weak."

"What?"

"If you look at the transcript of Nordwall's interview with Rice's mother, they talk for a minute about Rice's wife. Laurina Rice says, quote, 'She liked doing artistic things,' unquote. Larson worked at an art-supply store…"

"So your theory is…"

"No, no, no, it's not a theory," Sloan said. "It's not that strong. But maybe… they could have met? Like on an art-supply buying trip up here? And after his wife dies, when he starts thinking about companionship, he remembers Larson. That they hit it off a little, so he drops by."

"Then what?" Lucas asked.

"I don't know. Maybe some sort of kinky artist guy is fixated on her, and sees them together…"

Lucas: "That's not weak-it's just not quite ridiculous. Why don't you get one of your millions of investigators and see if he can make the link?"

"Ah, jeez, they'd think I was crazy."

"Get a young one," Lucas said.

WHEN HE GOT OFF THE PHONE with Sloan, Lucas went down the hall and bought a pack of almonds from a snack machine: they were his permitted midmorning snack. He was back at his desk, counting out the allotted fifteen almonds, when John Hopping Crow stuck his head in the door and said, "They fuckin' match."

Lucas sat up, astonished: "They fuckin' match?"

"They fuckin' match," Hopping Crow repeated, stepping inside. He was wearing the largest smile Lucas had ever seen on him, big white teeth like Chiclets. "How about that for a little CSI: Minneapolis bullshit, huh? We're going network."

"You got enough goop to repeat the procedure?" Lucas asked.

"We don't have to…"

"For the trial? For the defense, if there is one?"

Hopping Crow caught on: "Yes. We've got the evidence chain nailed down, everything passed hand to hand and signed for, and we've got enough for three or four more tests."

"I'd French-kiss you if you weren't married," Lucas said, picking up the telephone.

"It's always something," Hopping Crow said.

SLOAN WAS AS ASTONISHED AS LUCAS.

"Got him. Goddamn it, Lucas. Got him." Lucas heard him turn away from the phone and shout to somebody, "They matched it. We got him." Then, back to the phone, "If you get the media hooked up, we can have his face all over five states by six o'clock."

"I'm going down to St. John's today, talk to the people who worked with him. If you're loose…"

"How soon?"

"I want to make those media calls, set up a four-o'clock press conference. Say, an hour?"

"Pick me up at the Mall of America. I'll go down there now, I wanna buy some shoes."

LUCAS TOLD CAROL, his secreetary, to set up a press conference for four o'clock; called Nordwall and told him.

"Goddamnit, that's wonderful," Nordwall said, his voice warm with relief. "But why four o'clock? Why wait?"

"I've got stuff to do. We need more background on the guy, we should organize some more pictures, and besides, it doesn't matter- we can't do it in time for the noon news, and at four o'clock they'll have it in time for every single evening news program, and both papers."