The tea calmed her down, redirected her mental energy through a calm space, and when she finished the tea, she had determined the best possible way to dispose of the clothing.

She did the Fairy clothes and the wig, first, then got the clothes from the dryer, before the end of the cycle, still damp.

She was still working when the phone rang. She looked at the caller ID, Davenport. She knew what he’d say: that there had been a new killing. She licked her lips, drew a breath, picked up the phone: “Oh, no, no, no. Oh, no. Lucas…”

He would see her tomorrow, he said. She’d pulled it off.

AN HOUR LATER, she was at her spa in Highland Park-not far from Davenport’s house. He’d be in bed, probably. She’d have to think about Davenport, already regretted inviting him in on the case. He was too smart- he’d have to be dealt with.

How to do that? She’d think about it overnight. The spa was dark, silent. She went back to the women’s locker room, into one of the bathroom stalls, and carefully and slowly fed the shredded wig and the Fairy costume and her clothes from the evening, all carefully scissored into one- inch squares, down the toilet.

There. Let the police find that. She gave it a couple of extra flushes to make sure nothing had gotten blocked, and walked out to her car. She wasn’t sleepy yet. She remembered the crime- scene crew working in the kitchen after Frances disappeared…

Maybe she could go on the Internet and find out if there was anything about destroyed DNA. If there was a cleaning product, she’d take the time to clean out the Benz, even though there was no visible blood. Then, maybe, trade it. She’d been told that a lot of low- mileage traded Mercedeses wound up in Mexico. If that were true, they’d never locate it…

Outside, she paused in the parking lot, her hand on the car door. Not a bad night, she thought. The air was cold, but you could smell the spring just around the corner.

Tomorrow, she’d figure out the small car. And Davenport. And maybe Fairy.

16

LUCAS GOT UP angry, felt the mood settling in for a stay. Knew it, suppressed it at breakfast, but both the housekeeper and Sam picked it up: he was trailing the anger around like a faint odor of skunk. He called Austin before he left for the office, and she told him that she was at the Highland Park spa. If he could stop on the way to work, she said, she had some thoughts.

“We could use a few thoughts,” he said. “Then I’ll see you in ten minutes?”

AUSTIN WAS WEARING a form- fitting bloodred tracksuit, a peculiar shade of red that always looked good on blondes, and that only blondes knew about. She was talking with another client, who patted her on the shoulder, then gave her a squeeze. Lucas recognized the other one’s face, but couldn’t remember her name. Then Austin looked past her friend and the woman turned, eyebrows went up and she stuck out a hand and said, “Dalles Burger, Stone amp; Kaufmann. Lucas, how are you?”

“Sure, Dallie”-like he knew who she was all the time, doing a little tap dance while his brain retrieved her file card: lawyer-“I don’t think I’ve seen you since, what, the no- strike committee meeting. Are you going to arbitrate?”She was flattered that he remembered: “I will. We’ll be doing it right on the spot, so it’ll be touchy.”

“Ah, you’ll work it out."

"I’ve got to talk to Lucas for a moment,” Austin told Burger. “He’s investigating what happened to my daughter."

"Oh, boy. Let me get out of here,” Burger said. And, “I want you to call me. If you need anything, just call. I’ll run errands, whatever."

"Thanks, Dallie; I’ll call.” When Burger was gone, Austin pointed Lucas at a chair and asked, “What was this committee? No- strike? Arbitration?"

"The building trades have agreed to a no- strike provision on the Republican convention work, but they wanted arbitration if there was a disagreement. The governor’s people put together an arbitration committee.”

“Ah. Politicians.” Austin settled back in her own chair. “They’re not all terrible,” Lucas said. “Yes, they are. Every single one of them,” Austin said, a little serious behind the smile. “They take property away from people who work to get it, and give it to people they think will vote to keep them in their jobs. It’s that raw.”

“Then you should be happy to see the Republicans come to town,” Lucas said.

“They’re just as bad as the other ones,” Austin said. “I am seriously disaffected. I believe what’s going on in this country is evil. The president is an evil man, and the people who oppose him are evil people. That’s what I think.”

Lucas shrugged: “All right."

"You think I’m crazy."

"Well…” He spread his arms and gave her his most charming smile, and made her laugh.

She leaned back and said, “I was thinking last night, that of all the issues that have come out of these killings, Frances and all the other people, we know one thing for sure, and we also know that you have developed the only worthwhile clue, and only one of them. I don’t feel that you’re pushing it in the right way.”

Lucas said, “Tell me."

"The thing we know for sure, is that all the killings are linked. They have to be. Same style. One group of people is being attacked. Something is going on that got all these people killed-and it seems like it’s still going on, whatever it is. Okay?”

Lucas nodded: “Okay. But knowing that doesn’t get us far, if we can’t break into what’s happening.”

She held up a finger. “The second thing that happened was that Frances created a secret bank account that was apparently set up simply to get fifty thousand dollars in cash-in currency, in bills.”

“I’m pushing that."

"Not hard enough,” Austin said firmly. “And that must lead somewhere. Fifty thousand isn’t that much in this day and age, but it’s not nothing, either. If she spent fifty thousand dollars in a couple of weeks, it’ll have to show up somewhere. And there are other odd things about it… like the secrecy. So my opinion is, that whatever’s going on-the thing that links the killings-must involve the fifty thousand. Somehow. And maybe the bank itself… because the bank involvement is odd, when you think about it.”

Lucas leaned forward. “What do you mean?"

"When Hunter was alive, we’d go out to Las Vegas every April for a military procurement convention,” she said. “It’d still be cool and wet here, but Vegas would be warm and dry and it made a nice vacation. Hunter would talk to his military people, and Francie and I would hang out. Instead of taking a lot of cash with us, Hunter would set up an account at the hotel. When Francie or I needed something, we’d charge it. Or, we’d go get some tokens, if we felt like it, and play the slots.”

“Yeah?” She shook a finger at him. “If you needed to get fifty thousand in cash, from money that you had legally, but you didn’t want people to know about the cash aspect, that you were putting together this… pot… how would you do it?”

“Might be a few ways,” Lucas ventured. “Maybe. But one of them, which Frances knew about, would be to send checks totaling fifty thousand dollars to two or three of the big casinos in Vegas, to set up accounts. Once they were cleared, you simply fly out and lose it. But not really. You buy tokens for the slots on the account, and then cash them in for hundred- dollar bills. Do it for a week: party, lie around the pool, pretend to play the slots, cash the tokens. You could easily do six or eight or ten thousand dollars a day, spread between the casinos, and nobody would know and nobody would care and nobody would remember. Except that the hotels would call you up three times a year with offers of a free room.”

They thought about it for a minute, then Lucas said, “The point being, there were easier ways to get this money, even in cash, even anonymously, discreetly, than to set up a secret account.”