Part 2 (1/2)

”Yeah.”

”Says he'd of taken a plea to second if it'd been only one whack,” Sloan said. ”With whack-whack-whack, he's gotta go for first degree.”

A truck moved in front of them suddenly, and Sloan swore, braked, swung behind it to the right and pa.s.sed.

”The Louis Capp thing,” Lucas said.

”We got him,” Sloan said with satisfaction. ”Two witnesses, one of them knew him. Shot the guy three times, got a hundred and fifty bucks.”

”I chased Louis for ten years, and I never touched him,” Lucas said. There was a note of regret in his voice, and Sloan glanced at him, grinned. ”He got any defense?”

”Two-dude,” Sloan said. Some other dude done it. ”Ain't gonna work this time.”

”He was always a dumb sonofab.i.t.c.h,” Lucas said, remembering Louis Capp. Huge guy, arms like logs, with a big gut. Wore his pants down under his gut, so the crotch of his pants dropped almost to his knees. ”The thing is, what he did was so simple, you had to be there to catch him. Sneak up behind a guy, hit him on the head, take his wallet. The guy must have f.u.c.ked up to two hundred people in his career.”

Sloan said, ”He's as mean as he was dumb.”

”At least,” Lucas agreed. ”So that leaves what? The Hmong gang-banger and the fell-jumped-pushed waitress.”

”I don't think we'll get the Hmong; the waitress had skin under her fingernails,” Sloan said.

”Ah.” Lucas nodded. He liked it. Skin was always good.

Lucas had left the department two years earlier, under some pressure, after a fight with a pimp. He'd gone full-time with his own company, originally set up to design games. The computer kids he worked with had pushed him in a new direction, writing simulations for police dispatch computers. He'd been making a fortune when the new Minneapolis chief asked him to come back.

He couldn't return under civil service; he'd taken political appointment as deputy chief. He'd work intelligence, as he had before, with two main objectives: put away the most dangerous and the most active criminals, and cover the department on the odd crimes likely to attract media attention.

”Try to keep us from getting ambushed by the fruit-cakes out there,” the chief said. Lucas played hard to get for a little while, but he was bored with business, and he finally hired a full-time administrator to run the company, and took the chief's offer.

He'd been back on the street for a month, trying to rebuild his network, but it had been harder than he'd expected. Things had changed in just two years. Changed a lot.

”I'm surprised Louis was carrying a gun,” Lucas said. ”He usually worked with a sap, or a pipe.”

”Everybody's got guns now,” Sloan said. ”Everybody. And they don't give a s.h.i.+t about using them.”

THE ST. CROIX was a steel-blue strip beneath the Hudson bridge. Boats, both sail and power, littered the river's surface like pieces of white confetti.

”You oughta buy a marina,” Sloan said. ”I could run the gas dock. I mean, don't it look f.u.c.kin' wonderful?”

”Are you getting off here, or are we going to Chicago?”

Sloan quit rubbernecking and hit the brakes, cut off a station wagon, slipped down the first exit on the Wisconsin side, and headed north into Hudson. Just ahead, a half-dozen emergency vehicles gathered around a boat ramp, and uniformed Hudson patrolmen directed traffic away from the ramp. Two cops were standing by a Dumpster, their thumbs hooked in their gun belts. To one side, a broad-backed blond woman in a dark suit and sungla.s.ses was facing a third cop. They appeared to be arguing. Sloan said, ”Ah, s.h.i.+t,” and as they came up to the scene, ran his window down and shouted, ”Minneapolis police” at the cop directing traffic. The cop waved him into the parking area.

”What?” Lucas asked. The blonde was waving her arms.

”Trouble,” Sloan said. He popped the door. ”That's Connell.”

A bony deputy sheriff with a dark, weathered face had been talking to a city cop at the Dumpster, and when the Porsche pulled into the lot, the deputy grinned briefly, called something out to the cop who was arguing with the blond woman, and started over.

”Helstrom,” said Lucas, digging for the name. ”D. T. Helstrom. Remember that professor that Carlo Druze killed?”

”Yeah?”

”Helstrom found him,” Lucas said. ”He's a good guy.”

They got out of the car as Helstrom came up to Lucas and stuck out his hand. ”Davenport. Heard you were back. Deputy chief, huh? Congratulations.”

”D. T. How are you?” Lucas said. ”Haven't seen you since you dug up the professor.”

”Yeah, well, this is sorta worse,” Helstrom said, looking back at the Dumpster. He rubbed his nose.

The blond woman called past the cop, ”Hey. Sloan.”

Sloan muttered something under his breath, and then, louder, ”Hey, Meagan.”

”This lady working with you?” Helstrom asked Sloan, jerking a thumb at the blonde.

Sloan nodded, said, ”More or less,” and Lucas tipped his head toward his friend. ”This is Sloan,” he said to Helstrom. ”Minneapolis homicide.”

”Sloan,” the woman called. ”Hey, Sloan. C'mere.”

”Your friend's a pain in the a.s.s,” Helstrom said to Sloan.

”You'd be a hundred percent right, except she's not my friend,” Sloan said, and started toward her. ”I'll be right back.”

THEY WERE STANDING on a blacktopped boat ramp, with striped s.p.a.ces for car and trailer parking, a lockbox for fees, and a Dumpster for garbage. ”What you got?” Lucas asked Helstrom as they started toward the Dumpster.

”A freak . . . He did the killing on your side of the bridge, I think. There's no blood over here, except what's on her. She'd stopped bleeding before she went in the Dumpster, no sign of anything on the ground. And there must've been a lot of blood . . . Jesus, look at that.”

Up on the westbound span of the bridge, a van with yellow flas.h.i.+ng roof lights had stopped next to the rail, and a man with a television camera was shooting down at them.

”That legal?” Lucas asked.

”d.a.m.ned if I know,” Helstrom said.

Sloan and the woman came up. The woman was young, large, in her late twenties or early thirties. Despite her anger, her face was as pale as a dinner candle; her blond hair was cropped so short that Lucas could see the white of her scalp. ”I don't like the way I'm being treated,” the woman said.

”You've got no jurisdiction here. You can either shut up or take yourself back across the bridge,” Helstrom snapped. ”I've had about enough of you.”

Lucas looked at her curiously. ”You're Meagan O'Connell?”

”Connell. No O. I'm an investigator with the BCA. Who are you?”

”Lucas Davenport.”

”Huh,” she grunted. ”I've heard about you.”

”Yeah?”

”Yeah. Some kind of macho a.s.shole.”