Storm prey

23

WEATHER SLEPT LATE, for her, until six o'clock-three too many daiquiris-and as she slowly surfaced, thought first of the Raynes twins, and then, quickly, of the fact that she was alone in bed. She rolled over and patted Lucas's side, saw that it hadn't been slept in.

She sat up, scratched and stretched, the worry pulling at the back of her brain-Virgil would have woken her if anything disastrous had happened, right? She threw the covers off, made a quick stop in the bathroom, got a robe and headed downstairs, still tasting the mixture of Bacardi rum and Crest toothpaste on the back of her tongue.

Virgil was curled on the couch, watching Channel Three's good-morning show. He sat up when she walked into the living room. "Where's Lucas?" she asked.

"Down in St. Paul Park. He's fine, but there was a big shoot-out with our skinhead. Caprice M. Garner. He's dead, he blew himself up with a grenade."

"No!" She stared at the television, as though the talking heads would refute what Virgil had just said; instead, the television told her about the joys of growing winter tomatoes in your basement, using equipment available in an ordinary hardware store. "Has he been on? Lucas?"

"Hovering in the background. Marcy's been up front."

"Good for her," Weather said. "Ambitious witch." SHE RAN back up the stairs, cleaned up, got into jeans and a sweater, got her cell phone, and punched up Lucas's number. He came up and she said, "When are you coming home?"

"I'm just fine," he said.

"I knew that-Virgil saw you on TV. So it's done."

"There's a question about the doc. I would like to talk to the guy you saw in the elevator," Lucas said.

"Maybe I was off base-"

"You think so? The dead doc, Shaheen, was about an inch taller than you. You think you would have missed that, and thought he was taller?"

"Well. No."

"Then we've-"

"Let me make a phone call," she said. "So-when'll you be home?"

"There was a mess last night. I fired one of the shots, we're working through the reconstruction for everybody's reports. It'll be a while, yet."

"How do you feel? You okay?"

"You know. Coming down. Garner was hurt, but he would have made it-he pulled the pin himself." WEATHER CALLED the MMRC and was told by the duty nurse that the Raynes kids were okay: Sara still struggling a bit, but coming on. Ellen was fine. "The parents are still here. They've been sleeping off and on."

"I'll be there in a bit," Weather said. "Has Gabe been around?"

"He's sleeping in the OR."

"Tell him I'll be in before ten. Don't wake him, though."

She spent the next couple of hours getting the kids off to school, talking with the housekeeper, watching television.

One piece of film they kept playing over and over was a freaked-out woman who'd been taken hostage by the killer, who had put a hand grenade between her thighs and pulled the pin. The reporter explained how a grenade worked, and how the woman lay on the floor for ten minutes before she got her hands free. She'd then cut the tape on her ankles, and had thrown the grenade through her kitchen window, right through the glass, and it had blown up in her side yard.

Nobody hurt, though Weather suspected the woman might need some serious counseling.

Virgil cleaned up, and when Jenkins showed up, took a nap. At nine o'clock, Weather was on the phone again to University of Minnesota Hospitals, a friend in administration.

A few minutes later, she stepped into the front room: "Virgil?"

Virgil's eyes popped open. "Yeah?"

"I didn't know if I should wake you. I talked to some friends over at University Hospitals, where the Shaheen man was doing his residency. You know when we were talking about checking people to see when they were working over at MMRC? I checked Shaheen. He was working the morning that the Macks were murdered. He started at six, and it's two hours up to Ike Mack's house."

"Huh." Virgil sat up, looking dazed. He had pillow hair, canted to the left side of his head. "That doesn't entirely mean he couldn't have done it. We know Mack was alive after one o'clock in the morning, when the bar closed. I mean, he could have been there, helped murder Mack, and then gone to work while Garner went up and killed Ike."

"Doesn't seem likely, though," she said. "If you're out murdering people, wouldn't you want to go together?"

Virgil yawned, rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm just thinking like a lawyer. If we accused somebody else, a defense lawyer could drive back and forth, starting at one A.M., get back and still have an hour to get Shaheen to work… assuming it only took one second to kill Ike," he said. "In other words, he could convict Shaheen, and get his client off."

"So, think like a cop."

"Well, shoot. That would mean we're not done. Still looking for an Arab, but a tall thin one with a mustache. Somebody who would know Shaheen. Who would know that Shaheen would look enough like himself to throw us off, especially… Hmm." His eyes flicked at her.

"Especially if I were gone," she said, brightly.

"Yeah. That would pretty much be the icing on the cake. For the doc, I mean." He looked around. "Where's Jenkins?"

"I got him blowing snow. I want to get down to look at the twins."

Virgil listened, heard the snowblower. "Okay. Soon as the driveway's clear, we'll head out. Full convoy again. Though, I think Garner was the designated hitter." SHE LEFT THE HOUSE at nine-thirty in the convoy, headed to the hospital. Lucas said he was on the way back, and would take a nap.

At the hospital, Virgil left Weather at the ICU, with Jenkins leaning against the door, while he headed back to the cafeteria. Two Minneapolis cops were drinking coffee, and Virgil squatted next to their table. "Who's running things today?"

"Nobody much-I guess Lee Hall would be the senior guy," one of them said.

"Know where I could find him?"

"Let me buzz him," the cop said. He did, told the cop that Flowers was looking for him, hung up and said, "He'll be right down. He was up watching crime scene picking up blood."

Virgil took a table, and a call from Lucas. "I got a call from the ME," Lucas said. "Between the time Garner ran, and we got him, somebody operated on his toe. You hit him in the little toe. The ME says it's a professional job."

"And Shaheen was completely dead by that time."

"Totally."

"All right, we knew that," Virgil said. "The guy we want looks like a tall, skinny Shaheen."

Even with that information, it took Virgil almost four hours to find him. "WE WERE so blessed to have this team," Lucy Raynes said. "This whole thing has been so unbelievable."

"Not finished yet," Weather said.

"There's so much to do, I can't begin to cope," Lucy Raynes said. "I've got a notebook just to write it all down. There'll be educational therapy, physical therapy-they're physically so far behind where they should be, because they haven't been able to move on their own. We've got Sara's heart operation, and, if there are any adjustments to the caps, or any emergencies…"

Sara woke up, whimpered. She'd spent her short life sleeping on her back, always with torque from her twin, and now she seemed almost stuck that way, until she suddenly jerked her head to the right, and her face came around without resistance and Weather imagined she saw a flash of surprise on the baby's face.

"You know what the most amazing thing is? They always slept and woke up together, because… they were physically connected. Now, look-Sara wants to eat, and Ellen's sound asleep. That sounds so trivial, but…"

She started leaking tears.

"I'll see you two tomorrow," Weather said. Then, "How are things, financially?"

"They're fine," Larry Raynes said. "I took my vacation for the operation, and the insurance covered all but twenty percent, and the church raised money in town and about everybody gave something… Heck, if we could do this every couple years, we could start turning a pretty good profit."

His wife swatted him and he said, "Ow," and Weather walked away thinking that that had been the first sign of humor she'd seen from either of them. THEY WENT BACK to the house by convoy, and Lucas got up, still tired, and they sat around and talked about it, and Virgil said, "I got the Minneapolis cops looking for another Arab, but a tall thin one, this time."

"Call me when you get him," Lucas said. A LITTLE AFTER two o'clock a Minneapolis cop called and identified herself as Marilyn Crowe. "I heard you were looking for a tall, thin, Arab-type guy who sort of looks like Dr. Shaheen."

"Yup."

"Well, Shaheen's best friend, supposedly, is named Alain Barakat, and he works in the emergency room at MMRC," Crowe said. "My partner and I interviewed him about Shaheen. Barakat is probably six-two, one-eighty, got a black brush mustache."

Virgil smiled into the phone: "You know where he is?"

"He's in the emergency room until three o'clock," Crowe said.

Virgil said, "Thank you." LUCAS SCOUTED the hallway outside the ER, found a spot, took Weather by the arm and parked her where they could see through the scuffed Plexiglas window into the main room. "Do not move."

A moment later, Marilyn Crowe walked into the ER, looked around, found a nurse, and Crowe asked, "Is Dr. Barakat here?"

Barakat appeared a minute later, spotted Crowe, and walked over. "I wanted to let you know," she said, "because of all the other stuff, it looks like it'll be at least a couple weeks before the ME can release the body. Did you call the uncle?"

Barakat nodded. "Yes. They were completely devastated. He was the golden boy of the family. You know this phrase? Golden boy?"

"I do…" she said. "If you go down to the medical examiner's office, they can tell you how to get the forms you need to fly the body back to Lebanon…" OUT IN THE HALL, Weather whispered, "That's him. That's the guy."

"No doubt in your mind?"

"None. That's him." BACK AT THE HOUSE, Marcy said, "Every time I come here, I wind up eating buns." Shrake wiggled his eyebrows at her, and she said, "Shut up," and took another bite.

Virgil said, "So to sum up, at this point, we have, on our friend Barakat, what is technically referred to as 'jack shit."'

"That's where you'd be wrong, surfer boy. We've got that bandage on Garner's toe. If we find any DNA on it, and it's a good possibility, because Barakat was wrapping quite a bit of sticky tape, we got him. Or, if there's any up on those boxes up north, where they killed Ike…"

"Might sound like a good possibility to you, Deputy Chief, but it sounds thin to me," Virgil said.

"I'm with Virgil," Lucas said. "I suggest we try to find a judge who'll give us a search warrant on his house, based on Weather's identification. We hit his house tomorrow morning when he's at work."

"Tell you what," Marcy said. "Why don't we see if there's any hint of DNA…"

And so they wrangled on into the afternoon. JOE MACK POKED OUT of the dimness next to the support pillar: "That you?"

"It's me," Honey Bee whispered. "Oh, God, Joe, I'm so sorry about everything."

"Yeah, me too," Joe said. "What about you and the cops?"

"I think they suspect everything, but they don't know anything, for sure. They're tearing up the world looking for you, though. They think you went to Mexico."

"I almost did," Joe Mack said. "Listen, did you bring the money?"

"Yeah. Right here…" She dug it out of her purse.

Joe Mack waved her off. "Put it back in the bank box," he said. "Everybody's dead. I'm turning myself in."

"Oh, Joe!"

"It's okay," he said. "You been a good friend, Honey Bee. I'll probably wind up doing some heavy time. Maybe you could give, like, ten K to the attorney… Keep the bar going, send me some spare change now and then."

"Is there anything I can do now?" she asked.

"Just keep the bar running."

"Well, I meant, you know… you need a little friendship, or anything?"

He hadn't thought of it, but looked quickly around the parking ramp. They could use Eddie's van, tell Eddie to take a walk. He looked at his watch. "I gotta be outa here before three o'clock," he said. "But we got fifteen minutes." BARAKAT COULD no longer keep track of the world.

He was high most of the time, but still operating; but the whole business of planning, of figuring out the future, had gone away. He now lived thirty seconds at a time, one twist at a time. He'd had the pound of cocaine for less than a week, and already had the feeling that he was running dangerously low.

Had to find an outlet for the dope he had. Had to find a way to move it.

Couldn't plan.

Needed another twist.

Looked at the kid's sprained ankle, couldn't focus. Said, "I'll be right back. I don't think it's broken."

Needed the twist. JOE MACK SAT in the snow, in the dark, actually inside the hedge. He was wearing insulated coveralls, his Carhartt coat draped over his shoulders, with his hands pulled inside. He was wearing gloves and boots and a black watch cap pulled down over his ears.

He'd been waiting since twenty after three, head down, not moving: a technique he'd perfected hunting deer, back when it snowed during Wisconsin deer season.

Three-thirty came and went, then four o'clock. Moved only twice, to stretch his legs out in front of him.

Cold and clear; the storm was done, the cold coming in behind it. At four-twenty, a car turned into the driveway, bucked up the hump. The drive hadn't been shoveled.

The car stopped, and Barakat stepped out. Joe Mack saw his face when the car's interior lights went on. The tall man got out and slammed the door, slipped a bit as he turned in the snow to head around the nose of the car. When he did, Joe Mack rose out of the dark behind him.

Joe Mack threw his right forearm around Barakat's neck, his hand catching the inside of his own left elbow, while his left hand went behind Barakat's neck. The other man struggled, tried to turn, but Joe Mack held him fast, bending Barakat's neck over his forearm.

He said, "You killed my family, you motherfucker."

Barakat tried to choke out some words, but failed. He actually heard his neck break; an instant later, he was gone.