Sudden prey

TWELVE

THE DAWN CAME LIKE A SHEET OF DULL STEEL PUSHED over the eastern horizon, cold, sullen and stupid. Fifteen cop cars blocked off the neighborhood, and yellow crime-scene tape wrapped the trail along which Butters had fled. A halfdozen cops were walking the route, looking for anything he might have thrown from his pockets-a piece of paper, a receipt, anything.

Tennessee cops had been to Butters's broken-down acreage since the night before, when his prints had been nailed down. They'd discovered what looked like a fresh grave in a decrepit apple orchard, opened it and found a Labrador retriever, shot once in the head.

''Old dog, had bones sticking out of his back, all gray on his muzzle,'' a

Tennessee state cop told Lucas. ''Probably shot him a couple of weeks ago. It's been cold enough that the body's still intact.''

Lucas, standing in the street next to the shot-up cop car, was impatient with the dog information: ''We need anything in the house that might point to associates,'' Lucas said.''Any piece of paper, phone records, anything.''

''We're tearing the place apart,'' the Tennessee cop said. ''But when we saw the grave, we thought we had to do something about it.''

''Screw the grave, we gotta find out where he's been and who he was hanging out with…''

''We're watching you on TV, we know you got a problem,'' the Tennessee cop said dryly. ''We're turning over everything.''

LUCAS RECOGNIZED THE TRUCK THE MOMENT HE SAW it: the truck that had slowed through the intersection. He couldn't be absolutely sure, but he was sure enough. Butters had been on his way in to Small's house. Whoever had called him had known, had saved Sarah's life, and probably Jennifer's and Small's and the boy's…

''Belongs to Elmore Darling,'' the St. Paul cops told him when he walked up.

''Wisconsin cops are on the way out to his house.''

''Goddamnit,'' Lucas said. The woman had suckered them. They'd had her, they'd let her go, and here was her truck.

The truck produced gas charge slips, maps, empty soda cans, and dozens of prints. The guns at the house had produced nothing but fragments of prints: they'd all been carefully polished with cleaning rags. There were a few good prints on a hunting bow, and more on some hunting arrows. The prints were on the way to the FBI.

St. Paul crime-scene guys had shrouded the truck's license plate from cameras, and asked the local media not to mention it, but the word was going to leak, and probably soon. If the Dunn County cops got to the Darlings' place soon enough, they might surprise them, and anyone staying with them. Lucas had to smother an impulse to run over to Wisconsin, tobe in on the raid. The Wisconsin cops would do well enough without him.

As Lucas ran through the bits and pieces of paper coming out of the van, all carefully cased in Ziploc bags, Del wandered up.

''How's Cheryl?'' Lucas asked.

''Hurtin'. They were giving her another sedative when I left. Christ, I heard about this, I couldn't believe it.''

''It was interesting,'' Lucas said.

''What happened to your head?''

''Cut, somehow. Nothing much.''

''You're bleeding like a stuck pig.''

''Nah…'' He wiped at his hair, and got fresh blood on the palm of his hand.

''Did you hear about the St. Paul cop that got shot? Waxman?'' Del asked.

Lucas was trying to find a place to wipe the blood, stopped, and asked, ''I didn't know his name… What?''

''Just came on the radio: he died.''

''Ah, shit.'' Lucas looked down the street. Everywhere, the St. Paul cops were clustering. The word was getting out.

''Radio says they never got him to the table,'' Del said. ''He was barely alive when he went in the door. They say he was gone thirty seconds later.''

ROUX CAME THROUGH WITH THE ST. PAUL CHIEF AND found Lucas and Del eating cinnamon mini-doughnuts at the house. The guns from the closet had been carefully laid out on the living-room floor, waiting for a ride downtown.

''Jesus,'' Roux said to Lucas, shocked. ''You were hit…''

''Naw, just cut.'' He pawed gently at his scalp. The cut was beginning to itch, and when he touched it, a burning sensation shot through his scalp, and he winced. ''The bleeding's stopped…'' He took his hand away and looked at it; blood dappled his fingertips.

''Lucas,'' she said, ''I'm telling you, not asking you. Go get it fixed.''

''Yeah…''

''Now,'' she said. Then, looking at the guns: ''They brought an arsenal with them. We lucked out.''

''Look, you gotta talk to the patrol people,'' Lucas said. ''LaChaise is on the street, now. He'll be looking for a friend-old bikers, dopers, somebody like

Dexter Lamb. In fact, we ought to stake out the Lamb place, they could turn up there.''

''Yeah, yeah…''

''And you gotta get the patrol guys pushing the street people. Put some more money out there. The money worked. If we start running the assholes around, and there's some money in it, we'll find them.''

Roux said, '' We'll do that. You get your head fixed.''

DEL DROVE LUCAS A FEW BLOCKS TO RAMSEY MEDICAL Center, where a doctor anesthetized, cleaned and stitched the scalp wound.

''Souvenir,'' the doctor said.

She handed Lucas a scrap of silver metal, like a fragment of Christmas-tree tinsel, but stiff-maybe a scrap of car aerial.

''How many stitches?'' Lucas asked.

''Twelve or thirteen, I imagine,'' she said, sewing carefully.

Del was reading a two-year-old copy of Golf Digest, looking up every once in a while to see how it was going. When she finished, the doctor said ''Okay,'' and tidied gauze and disinfectant-soaked cotton away into a steel basket, and thenpaused and asked, ''Why were you laughing after you killed that man?''

''What?'' Lucas didn't understand the question. Del dropped the top of the magazine and stared at the doctor.

''I saw it on television,'' she said. ''You were standing there laughing, right over his body.''

''I don't think so,'' Lucas said, trying to remember.

''I saw it,'' she snapped. ''I thought it was pretty… distasteful, considering what just happened. So'd the anchorpeople: they said it was shocking.''

''I don't know.'' Lucas shook his head, reached toward his scalp, which now felt dead, then dropped his hand. ''I mean, I believe you-but I can't remember laughing about anything. Christ, we just finished carrying a shot cop down to a car.''

''The cop died,'' Del said, putting the magazine down.

''And I didn't kill anyone,'' Lucas said. He hopped off the exam table where he'd been sitting, and loomed over the doctor.

''That's not what they're saying on television,'' the doctor said, giving no ground. She glanced at Del, pulled off her latex gloves with a snap!.

''Don't believe everything you see in the movies,'' Lucas said.

''This wasn't the movies-it was videotape, and I saw it,'' she insisted.

''The only difference between TV news and the movies,'' Del said, ''is that movies don't lie about what they are.''

''Oh, bullshit,'' the doctor said.

''If you operated on a cancer patient, and the patient died, and when you came out of the operating room, you saw a friend and smiled at him.. . if somebody took a picture of you, would that represent the way you felt about the patient dying?''

She studied him for a minute, then said, ''No.''

''I hope not,'' Lucas said. ''I don't remember laughing. Maybe I did. But that doesn't have anything to do with what happened.''

ON THE WAY OUT, DEL SAID, WONDERINGLY, ''ARE WE in trouble or something?''

''I don't know,'' Lucas said. They tracked through the endless hallways to the back, where they'd ditched the car away from the reporters in the lobby. ''More and more, with TV, it's like we fell down the fuckin' rabbit hole.''

ANDERSON CALLED: HE'D BEEN TRACKING THE VARIOUS investigations. ''The Dunn

County cops hit the Darling place. They found the husband… uh, Elmore

Darling… was shot to death in the kitchen. His wife is missing. His truck is up there, so she's down here, somewhere, if she's still alive.''

Lucas shook his head: ''Huh. Family feud?''

''Hard to tell what's going on,'' Sloan said. ''They got a charge slip from yesterday-from last night-at an Amoco station off I-94 over in St. Paul, so he was over there, probably at that house. And then he gets shot up there. There's no doubt he was shot in place, there's splatter all over the kitchen. Short range with a shotgun.''

Lucas repeated the story to Del, who scratched his chin: ''That don't compute.''

Lucas said into the phone, ''They're printing everything, right?''

''I guess. They've got their crime-scene guy up there.''

''Be nice to know who all was in that house,'' Lucas said. ''If Sandy Darling was there with the rest of them.''

''I'll push them on it,'' Anderson said.

LACHAISE, MARTIN AND SANDY HAD BEEN HEADING back to the house with a bag of supermarket doughnuts andtwo quarts of milk, when Stadic had called and told them to get out.

''Shit.'' LaChaise was stunned. ''They got us, they got the house.''

''Maybe something happened with Ansel,'' Martin said slowly. ''Maybe they spotted him scoutin' out the Davenport house, and followed him back.''

He pulled the truck to the curb, reached out and poked the ''power'' button on the radio, got old-time rock 'n' roll, and started working down the buttons.

Sandy looked from one of them to the other: ''Now what?''

''I'm trying to think,'' LaChaise said.

''Let me go back home,'' Sandy said.

''Fuck that,'' Martin said. To LaChaise: ''We gotta get out of sight.''

''How about the trailer? We could probably lay low in the trailer for a while.''

''If they've got Elmore's truck, they'll bag Elmore for sure, and he'll tell them about the trailer,'' Martin said. ''If they put any pressure on him, he'll talk his ass off.''

He was still playing with the car buttons, and finally switched over to AM. They found a news station almost instantly, but no news-nothing but blather.

''Let's get turned around, and get out of here,'' LaChaise said finally. ''If

Stadic's right, we're too close.''

''If he's right, we ought to hear something on the radio,'' Martin said.

But he swung the truck around, and they headed west toward Minneapolis. At that moment, a helicopter roared overhead, cutting diagonally across the city blocks, headed for Frogtown.

''Goddamnit,'' Martin said. ''They're doing it.''

LaChaise punched the radio buttons again, still found nothing.''Let's get over to Minneapolis. We can figure it out there.''

''Maybe it wasn't Butters led them in-maybe it was Elmore,'' Martin said.

''Maybe Butters is still out there.''

LaChaise seized on the idea: ''That's gotta be it.'' To Sandy: ''You were talking about it last night, weren't you? Bailing out on us.''

''No, we weren't,'' she lied.

''Don't give me that shit,'' he muttered; he poked spasmodically at the radio, and tripped over the news station again. This time, they were on the air locally:

''… police are flooding the east side neighborhood around Dale on the possibility that one or more members of the gang escaped the house at the same time as Butters. Residents are asked to report unusual foot traffic through their streets, but not to approach anyone they may see. These men are armed and obviously dangerous…''

''C'mon,'' LaChaise said impatiently, ''what happened?''

''They got Butters,'' Sandy said. ''If they know he was one guy coming out of the house, they got him.''

''Yeah, but is he dead or alive?''

''… we've just gotten word from our reporter Tim Mead at Ramsey Medical

Center that the St. Paul police officer wounded in the shoot-out has died. We still have no identification, and authorities say the officer won't be identified until next of kin can be found and notified, but our reporter at

Ramsey says the officer definitely has died. With Butters's death, that brings to two the number of people killed in this latest clash between Twin Cities police officers and the LaChaise gang…''

LaChaise groaned: ''Oh, goddamn, they killed Ansel. The sonsofbitches killed

Ansel.''

Martin: ''We gotta get under cover. If they got the house, they'll get my prints. If they get my prints, sooner or later they'll get this truck. We don't have much time.''

The highway was slippery with the snow, and LaChaise finally told Martin to get off and find someplace to park. ''We gotta talk this out. We're in big fuckin' trouble. We lost our gear.''

''You got your 'dog, I got my forty-five and the knife.''

''We lost the heavy stuff,'' LaChaise said. He patted his pocket and said, ''But

I still got Harp's money.''

''Dick, you gotta give this up and run for it,'' Sandy said. ''Drop me off, I'll call the cops. I'll tell them I was kidnapped and you let me go. I'll tell them you're headed for Alaska or the Yukon, you can head for Mexico.''

''Aw, that ain't gonna work,'' LaChaise said.

''The whole thing lasted one day, Dick,'' Sandy said, pressing him. ''Now you're on the road, no guns, no transportation, no place to run to.''

''But we do have some money,'' Martin said. ''That can get us some guns. And I just thought where we might get a car and a place to hide.''

MARTIN TOOK THEM INTO SOUTH MINNEAPOLIS, TO Harp's laundromat. The laundromat was empty: it was too early and too cold to think about washing laundry. They parked the truck in front of the garage doors, Martin got a claw hammer out of his toolbox, and all three of them walked around to the front. The door that led up the stairs was locked. Martin, with LaChaise blocking, popped the door with the hammer. The lock was old, and not meant to stop much. When Martin pushed the door shut, it caught again.

''Locks are different at the top,'' Martin said quietly. ''Bestyou can buy. And it's a steel door. But if we can get him to open it, just a crack, there's nothing but a shitty little safety chain after that.''

Martin led the way up the stairs. He'd told LaChaise about the pile of cardboard boxes at the top of the stairs. They moved and restacked them until they had a narrow passage to the door.

''Ready?'' Martin had his. 45 in his hand, and LaChaise drew his Bulldog.

''Try it,'' LaChaise said.

Martin banged on the door, then tried the doorbell next to it. And then banged some more.

''Open up, Harp,'' he shouted. ''Minneapolis police, open up.''

Silence.

Martin tried again. ''Goddamnit, open the fuckin' door, Minneapolis police.''

They could hear themselves breathing, but felt no vibration, no footfall, no bump or knock that might suggest somebody was home.

''He should be here, this time of day,'' Martin said.

''Maybe he can't hear us.''

''He could hear us…'' Martin put his ear to the door and stood that way, one hand up to silence LaChaise, for a full minute. Then he looked at LaChaise:

''Shit, he's not here.''

''We gotta get off the street,'' LaChaise said.

''I know, I know.'' Martin looked at the door, shook his head. ''No way we're going through that. And the garage door will be locked. We could try pulling the fire escape down.''

''The whole city would see us climbing up there,'' La-Chaise said. Then: ''Run downstairs and see if there's anybody in the laundromat.''

Martin nodded, trotted down the stairs, fought the jammeddoor for a moment, then disappeared outside. A second later he was back. He shoved the door shut and called up, '' Nobody.''

LaChaise crushed one of the boxes, pushed others in front of the door, until he had a clear patch of wall.

''What're you doing?'' Martin asked, hustling up the stairs.

''This,'' LaChaise said. He hit the wall with the claw side of the hammer. A square foot of old plaster cracked and sprayed out, showing the laths beneath.

''Jesus, sounds like dynamite,'' Martin said, looking back down the stairs.

''Nobody to hear us,'' LaChaise said. ''And Harp don't come up this way, so he won't see it.'' He hit the wall again, a third time and a fourth. ''Why don't you go down to the bottom and keep an eye out. This could take a few minutes.''

LACHAISE BROKE A SIX-INCH HOLE THROUGHTHEWALL, alternately beating it with the head of the hammer, smashing it, then digging the hole out with the claw. When the hole was big enough, he reached through and popped the locks on the door.

They pushed inside, and found an empty apartment.

''Nobody around,'' Martin said, after a quick reconnaissance. ''But his car's downstairs. The Continental. Maybe he ran out to the store.''

''Give us some breathing space,'' LaChaise said. ''We gotta be ready, though.

Shouldn't cook nothin' until we got him.''

Sandy had followed Martin through the apartment. The place had once been four tiny apartments, she thought, remodeled into one big one. A hallway divided the new unified apartment exactly in half-that would have been the old main entry hall.

The place felt empty. More than that. Vacated. She looked in the refrigerator: it was nearly bare. She stepped back downthe hallway and looked into the master bedroom-she'd peeked in when they first entered, but this time, she pushed in and looked around. A small leather suitcase was lying empty at the end of the bed. The apartment was cold, she noticed. She went back to the living room and checked the thermostat. It was set at fifty-five.

She said, ''I think they went on a trip.''

''Huh?'' LaChaise looked at her. ''Why?''

''Well, there're holes in the closet where they took a whole bunch of clothes out at the same time. And there's a suitcase sitting on the floor like they decided to take a different one, but didn't put the first one back. And the thermostat's set at fifty-five, like you'd turn it down before you went somewhere.''

''Huh,'' said Martin, nodding. ''It feels like they left.''

Martin noticed the two telephone answering machines, sitting side by side.

''He's got two answering machines,'' he said. ''I wonder if he left a message.''

He picked up one phone, and dialed the number posted on the other: the phone rang twice, then a man's voice said, ''Leave a message.'' Nothing there. He hung up, picked up the second phone and dialed the first. And Harp's voice said,

''We're outa here. Back on the twenty-sixth or so. I'll check the messages every day.''

''He's gone,'' Martin said to LaChaise. ''He says they're gone until the twenty-sixth.''

LaChaise made him redial, listened to the message, then looked at Martin with a broad grin. ''Goddamn. We landed on our feet,'' he said, when he'd hung up. He looked around the apartment: ''This place is six times better than the other one. This is great. And we got a Continental. A fuckin' luxury car

…'' He started to laugh, and whacked Martin on the back. Even Martin managed to crack a smile.

• • •

ROUX AND THE MAYOR MET LUCAS IN ROUX'S OFFICE, and heard about the laughing incident.

''I didn't believe it was me, until I saw the tape,'' Lucas said. ''I don't know why we were laughing. We just about had a goddamned disaster on our hands, and instead, it was all done with. I guess that's why.'' The explanation sounded lame.

''The St. Paul cop getting killed-that's not a disaster?'' the mayor asked.

''We didn't know the cop was dead. And we thought we were going to get a whole goddamned family shot up. When Butters ran in there, when he blew through that door, I thought we were out of luck.''

''The TV people are wondering why there weren't enough people out there in the first place. Enough to take him as soon as he showed,'' the mayor said.

''Normally, it would have been plenty. Except that he saw us coming and he had a machine gun. And he didn't care if he died. All that-that changes everything.

We're lucky only one guy got killed; it could have been three or four. If he'd had some combat experience, he might've waited until the entry team was halfway into the house, and then took them on at close range.''

''Anyway, that's all St. Paul's problem,'' Roux said. ''And as far as Lucas is concerned, the laughing thing, I think I can clear it out.''

The mayor's eyebrows went up. ''How?''

Roux said, ''You know Richard Small-TV3? He was on the stakeout last night. He wouldn't leave, and Lucas let him keep his shotgun. I talked to him this morning and he figures Lucas and Del are his war buddies now. I'll call him about the laughing incident, and why they were doing it-out of relief, or hysteria, and how unfair this is, some horseshit like that. He just about runs TV3. If he goes on the air with anotherperspective, we can turn it around. And he'll do it. When

I talked to him this morning, he was still jacking shells in and out of the shotgun.''

The mayor looked from Lucas to Roux. ''Do it,'' he said, nodding. ''Emphasize the fairness thing, and how he'd be setting the record straight on his combat buddy.''

And to Lucas: ''You gotta keep your ass down and out of sight.''

''I'm trying,'' Lucas said.

HOMICIDE HAD BEEN TURNED INTO A WAR PLANS room: file cabinets and desks pushed into corners, two tables shoved together with a six-foot plastic map of the Twin

Cities spread across it. Sherrill was there, wearing her. 357 in a belt clip.

''You okay?'' Lucas asked.

''Yeah. We got the arrangements going on Mike. I'm all cried out.''

''We got one of them,'' Lucas said.

''Not the one I want, not yet,'' Sherrill said, shaking her head. ''We got

Kupicek's guy. I want the third man, the one we don't know yet.''

Anderson wandered in, spotted Lucas, and stepped over: ''I got a lot of new paper, if you want it.''

They talked about the paper for fifteen minutes, what the Tennessee cops were doing, the Wisconsin cops, about the death of Elmore Darling. ''We've got more pictures of Sandra Darling, we'll put those out. But I don't know. I don't know if she's with this LaChaise, or we're gonna find her dead in a ditch somewhere.''

''She's with him,'' Sherrill said.

''Why do you think that?'' Lucas asked.

''I don't know. I just think she's with them. If they were going to kill them, why not kill both of them? I bet she'sscrewing LaChaise. Or maybe the second guy. I bet she helped set up the funeral home thing with the second guy…''

''Bonnie and Clyde,'' Lucas said.

''More like Dumber and Dumbest,'' said Sherrill.

LACHAISE, MARTIN AND SANDY DARLING WERE RIVETED by the images on the television.

The pictures came up from a winter street, with a woman in a long wool coat and fur hat talking into a microphone.

''… rushed the wounded officer to the hospital, but he died seconds after arrival. As that was going on, Chief Davenport and Lieutenant Selle were seen laughing as they stood over the body of the attacker…''

Her voice rolled on over a videotape, taken from a high angle, a uniformed cop and a guy in street clothes, standing over what looked like a pile of clothes in the street. Had to be Butters. And the cops were laughing, no doubt about it.

''… police were refusing to disclose the identity of the officer or officers who actually shot Butters, saying that information would be available after

LaChaise and his gang members are caught, but nobody has denied that Deputy

Chief Lucas Davenport took part in the gunfight and was himself wounded. At the moment, a police spokeswoman said, the threat to the officers' families will not allow full disclosure…''

''Look at the fuckers,'' LaChaise said.

Martin frowned as the tape of Davenport and Selle was run again. The picture seemed wrong. ''They don't look too happy,'' he said.

''They're laughing,'' LaChaise shouted at him. ''They're laughing.''

LaChaise paced in front of the TV, snarling at it, beating his hands together, palms open, the angry claps snapping intothe room. He went to the window shades, looked down at the street, listening, then stalked back to the television.

''That cop who was laughing. They said it was Davenport, right? The guy on our list?''

As if to answer his question, the television reporter said, ''The chain of events started last night, when Chief Davenport put a surveillance team on the home of his daughter by TV3 correspondent Jennifer Carey, who now lives with TV3 executive vice-president Richard Small…''

She went through the story, ending with the tape loop of Davenport and Selle laughing over Butters's body.

''We're gonna mow those fuckers down,'' LaChaise brayed at Martin.

Martin said, ''Dick, we gotta take care. We can't go off half-cocked, if we want to get anything done.''

LaChaise stalked around the apartment, kicking walls, then looked at Sandy:

''Why'n the fuck don't you do something useful? Go cook something.''

She got up, wordlessly, and went to the kitchen and started looking through the cupboards. She found canned food, but not much else. She dumped a couple of cans of Dinty Moore beef stew in a pot, put it on the stove and started a pot of coffee.

''If we're gonna stay here for more than a couple of hours, we'll need food,''

Sandy said, as she brought the stew out to the living room. The men were on the couch, still watching the television. As they ate, a TV3 television reporter was delivering a eulogy on the dead cop. He was cut off in midsentence. An anchorman came up, quivering with the urgency of his message.

''In Wisconsin, Dunn County sheriff's deputies raided the home of Dick

LaChaise's sister-in-law and her husband, Sandy and Elmore Darling. According to first reports, ElmoreDarling was found shot to death in the kitchen of the couple's rural home, and his wife, Sandy, is missing.''

A five-year-old snapshot of Sandy Darling filled the screen. Sandy screamed,

''Elmore.''

LaChaise grinned. ''You put on a few pounds,'' he said, pointing at the picture.

She had her hands to her face: ''They killed Elmore.'' She looked from Martin to

LaChaise. ''My God. They said Elmore's dead. They killed Elmore. Elmore's dead.''

''Could be bullshit,'' Martin said, his voice even, almost uninterested. ''They maybe got him in jail. Don't want anybody to know.''

''I don't think so,'' LaChaise said. The TV anchor was going on, then Martin said, ''Guess not.''

''No, no…'' Sandy said, riveted to the screen.

''You didn't much like him anyway,'' LaChaise said.

Tears started down her cheeks: ''I didn't want him dead. He wasn't supposed to die.''

LaChaise shrugged. ''Shit happens.''

Martin: ''I wonder if the cops killed him?'' His voice was flat, with no real emotion; he was only curious.

LaChaise thought for a minute, then said, ''Must've. Who else would do it?''

He looked at Sandy, who backed away from the TV and collapsed in a chair.

''Nobody was gonna kill Elmore,'' she said. And after a minute, ''Who'd kill

Elmore?''

STADIC WAS WALKING DOWN THE HALL TO HIS APARTMENT, shell-shocked, his mind running at two hundred miles an hour. He was digging for his keys when the cell phone chirped at him. He pulled it out of his pocket. ''Yeah.''

LaChaise, without preamble, asked, ''What happened to Butters? And Elmore?''

''Jesus Christ, where are you?'' Stadic said, his voice hushed. ''You know what's going on?''

''We're at a friend's,'' LaChaise said. ''We seen it all on TV. Who killed

Butters?''

''Davenport, of course. I told you…''

''We thought it might be him. What happened to Elmore?''

''I don't know about that. I thought you did it, when I heard.''

''We didn't do it,'' LaChaise said. He pulled his lip. ''Maybe the Wisconsin cops.''

''Or the guys from Michigan,'' Stadic suggested. ''There're a couple of Michigan guys running around over there. They are very pissed about this Sand guy, you cuttin' his throat.''

''Yeah, well, that's what you get for working in the fuckin' joint,'' LaChaise said. ''Try to find out who did it.''

''Okay,'' Stadic said. ''But listen-the wives up in the hotel-.. . I hear they're getting antsy. They want out. Davenport's girlfriend is going back to the University of Minnesota hospital.''

''What's her name? We never got any insurance on her.''

'' 'Cause they're not married and you didn't say what you wanted the information for. Her name is Weather Karkinnen and she's a doctor over there. In surgery.''

''Who else? Who's leaving the hotel?''

''Jennifer Carey, the TV news reporter. She's the mother of Davenport's daughter

… She's going back to work, but there'll be guards all over her and they've got locked security doors and stuff. She'd be hard to get at.''

''All right. Find out about Elmore, if you can.''

LaChaise hung up, pulled at his lip again, thinking. After a minute, Sandy said,

''What?''

''Davenport killed Butters… and the women are gettin'unhappy about being locked up. They may be going back to work.''

''Probably got guards all over the place,'' Martin said. ''Tell you what: let's get Harp's car, and go on out to a supermarket and buy some food. Maybe dump the truck: hate to see it go, but I think we better.''

Sandy was sitting in the chair, folding into herself, not hearing any of it.

Elmore was dead.

The guilt was almost too much to bear.