And his Raven.

THE GRANT CARAVAN had pulled to the side of the street in what passed for downtown Afton. A small crowd was hanging around in the park across the street, and a cable TV station was setting up a small video camera in front of a bandstand. Grant and her people were apparently in an ice cream parlor.

Lucas dumped the Porsche and started across the street to the parlor. As he did, Alice Green came out the front door and moved to one side, and nodded toward Lucas; then Grant came out the door holding an ice cream cone, squinted at him in the sunlight, and licked the cone as he came up.

Lucas thought, Some women shouldn't be allowed to lick ice cream cones, because it threw men into a whole different mental state... .

Schiffer came out of the ice cream parlor, also licking an ice cream cone, with markedly less effect; she was followed by a tall, bullet-headed man with fast eyes who Lucas suspected was one of the bodyguards; his eyes locked on Lucas. Then another man came out, smaller than the first, but with the same fast eyes, and the same quick fix on Lucas. Lucas wanted to put a hand on his .45, but instead, called, "Ms. Grant-glad you had the time."

"What's so urgent?" she asked.

"These two gentlemen," Lucas said, flicking a finger at Carver and Dannon. "Are they Misters Carver and Dannon?"

Grant turned, as if checking, then turned back and said, "Yeah," and nibbled on the cone, which looked like a cherry-nut, one of Lucas's favorites.

"Then let's find a place where we can talk," Lucas said.

"Courtyard," Green said, nodding toward an empty outdoor dining space to the left of the ice cream parlor. "You don't want to talk to me?"

"Not at the moment," Lucas said. "You might keep people away? Even other staffers. This is sort of private."

Green nodded; Schiffer said, "I'm going to listen in."

They moved over to the empty space, Green hovering on the periphery, listening. Lucas said, "One of Porter Smalls's secretaries was murdered last night. Shot to death in her house, in Minneapolis. I went through her laptop and she'd been corresponding in a fairly cryptic way with Bob Tubbs before he disappeared, and just before the pornography popped up on Smalls's computer."

He'd been watching Carver and Dannon, and nothing moved in their eyes, which Lucas thought interesting, because he thought something should have.

Grant said, "Well, that's awful, but what does it have to do with us?"

"Tubbs is dead, I'm almost certain of it, at this point, and now Helen Roman has been murdered. It was all done very well, from a professional-killing standpoint. Most people who kill for money are fools and idiots and misfits. This doesn't appear to be the work of fools."

Grant said, "Yeah, yeah," and made a rolling motion with one forefinger-moving right along-as she simultaneously took another nibble of the cherry-nut.

"Well, it's possible that she put the porn on Smalls's computer to get revenge on him," Lucas said. "They'd had some personal disagreements, apparently. But if that was what it was, a personal matter, why would anybody kill her? Or Tubbs?"

"Well, I don't know," Grant said. "Are you sure she was killed for that reason? Because it had something to do with Smalls?"

Lucas was forced to admit it: "No. Not absolutely sure. But pretty sure. The other possibility is that the people who paid for the porn to be dumped on Porter Smalls, knowing that doing so involves a number of felonies, are breaking the link between themselves and the pornography. Breaking the link very professionally. I did the obvious: I looked for professional killers. The only ones I could find"-Lucas nodded at Carver and Dannon-"are employed by you."

"What!" Schiffer blurted, not a question.

Lucas had been watching Carver and Dannon again, and again, their eyes were blank; if they'd been lizards, Lucas thought, a nictitating membrane might have dropped slowly across them.

"That ..." Grant waved her arms dismissively. "I really do have to talk to somebody about you. Professional killers? They're decorated war veterans. Were you in the military? Did you-"

Dannon interrupted her, and said to Lucas, "We had nothing to do with anything like that. We're professional security guys, end of story. If you have any evidence of any sort, bring it out: we'll refute it."

"I want to have a crime-scene guy take DNA samples from you," Lucas said. "Doesn't hurt, nothing invasive-"

"DNA?" Grant sputtered. "You know what-"

"It's okay with us," Dannon said, and now there was something in his eye, a little spark of pleasure, a job well done. Lucas thought, This isn't good.

Grant snapped at Dannon: "Don't interrupt. I know that you had nothing to do with this, I know the DNA will come back negative, but don't you see what he's doing? When the word gets out that my bodyguards have been DNA-typed in a murder case? This guy is working for Smalls-"

"No. I'm not," Lucas said. "I guarantee that nothing about the DNA samples will get out before the election. I'll get one guy to take the samples and I'll read him the riot act. He will not say a word, and neither will I. If word gets out, I'll track it, and if it's my guy, I'll see that he's fired and I'll try to put him in jail."

Grant, Schiffer, Carver, and Dannon exchanged glances, and then Grant said to Dannon, "You've got no problem with this?"

"No. It's probably what I'd do in his place." He showed a thin white smile: "Because, you know, he's right. We are trained killers."

He poked Carver in the ribs with an elbow, and Carver let out a long, low, rambling laugh, one of genuine amusement, and ... smugness. Lucas thought, They know something.

WITH THEIR CASUAL ACQUIESCENCE to the DNA tests, Lucas was left stranded. He asked some perfunctory questions-where were you last night at one o'clock? (At our apartments.) Did anyone see you there? (No.) Any proof that you were there? (Made some phone calls, moved some documents on e-mail.) Can we see those? (Of course.) Did you know either Tubbs or Roman? (No.)

Lucas walked away and made a call, asking them to wait, got hold of a crime-scene specialist, and made arrangements for Carver and Dannon to be DNA-typed.

He went back to them and said, "We'd like you to stop in at BCA headquarters on your way back through St. Paul, anytime before five o'clock. You'll see a duty officer, tell him that you're Ronald and Douglas-you won't have to give your last name or any other identifier-and that you're there at my request, Lucas Davenport's request, to be DNA-typed. A guy will come down to do the swabs. This will take one minute, and then you can take off. The swabs will be marked Ronald and Douglas, no other identifiers."

Carver and Dannon nodded, and Grant said, "What a crock," and tossed the remains of her ice cream cone into a trash can. "If you're done with us, I'm going to go shake some hands. I'll tell you what-nothing about this better get out."

"It won't," Lucas said. To Carver and Dannon: "Don't go anywhere."

Grant led her entourage across the street, with Green lingering behind. She said to Lucas, "Interesting."

"They did it," Lucas said. "You take care, Alice."

"I can handle it," she said.

"You sure? You ever shot anyone?"

"No, but I could."

Lucas looked after Dannon and Carver: "If it should come to that-and it could, if they think you might have figured something out-don't give them a chance. If you do, they'll kill you."

CHAPTER 18

Ray Quintana was a fifty-one-year-old Minneapolis vice cop, a detective sergeant, and having thought about it, he figured that he'd thoroughly screwed the pooch, also known as having poked the pup or fucked the dog. He didn't know who'd been calling him about Helen Roman, but he suspected that whoever it was had gone over to Roman's house the night before and killed her.