The next step was not obvious. Lucas had Quintana's belief that he'd spoken to Dannon on the phone, but that was not proof. Nor would it convince a jury to believe that a crime had been committed, not beyond a reasonable doubt. He needed a scrap of serious evidence, something that he could use as a crowbar to pry Grant, Dannon, and Carver apart.

He was also bothered by the sporadic thought: What if Tubbs showed up? In most killings, there was some physical indication that violence had been done. With Tubbs, there was nothing.

THE NEXT MORNING he did what he usually did when he was stuck, and needed to think about it: he went shopping. Nothing was so likely to clear the mind as spending money. He idled over to the Mall of America and poked around the Nordstrom store, looking for a good fall dog-walking jacket.

He didn't have a dog, but a good dog-walking jacket was useful for a lot of other things. He had the exact specification: light, water-resistant, knit cuffs and waistband, modern high-tech insulation, warm enough for late fall and early winter days. And, of course, it had to look good.

He'd drifted from jackets to cashmere socks, especially a pair in an attractive dark raspberry color, when his phone rang: Cochran, from Minneapolis Homicide. Both Dannon and Carver had shown up to give DNA samples, and Lucas had sent the samples to Minneapolis.

"Turk, tell me we got them," Lucas said.

"No, we don't. We got James Clay," Cochran said. "We got a cold hit from your DNA bank."

James Clay? "Who the hell is James Clay?"

"Dickwad from Chicago. Small-time dealer," Cochran said. "Moved up here five years ago when he got tired of the Chicago cops busting him for dope. We've been chasing him around for the same thing. We got him on felony possession of cocaine, got DNA on that case, he went away for a year. Since then, we've caught him holding twice, and both times, it was small amounts of marijuana, so he was cut loose."

"Jesus Christ, that can't be right," Lucas said. "Roman wasn't killed by any small-time dope dealer."

"Sort of looks that way-of course, it's possible he was paid to do it, though I doubt anyone would hire him," Cochran said. "I'll tell you, the dope guys say he's exactly the kind of punk you'd want for a killing like this. He thinks the house is empty, goes in, she surprises him, he freaks out, whacks her with his gun, then shoots her, with some piece-of-crap .22."

"Aw, man ... Turk ..."

Cochran said, "Listen, Lucas: he's an old gang member, probably done two hundred nickel-dime burglaries, funding his habit, been shot at least once himself. He'll steal anything that's not nailed down. If all this election stuff hadn't been going on, it'd be exactly who you'd have been looking for."

"Is Clay still alive?"

"Far as we know. He was last night. He was hanging out at Smackie's," Cochran said.

"If he was paid to kill Roman, he'd be dead himself, and we wouldn't be finding the body," Lucas said. "He sure as hell wouldn't be hanging around Smackie's."

"Lucas, what it is, is what it is," Cochran said.

"You gonna find him?" Lucas asked.

"Sooner or later. Sooner, if he goes back to Smackie's."

"We need him right now," Lucas said. "You know Del?"

"Sure."

"Del knows all those guys. If you don't mind, I'm gonna go get him and look around town."

"Hey, that's fine with me. If you find him first, give me a call-I'll do the same, if we find him."

Lucas walked out to his car, calling Del as he went. Del picked up and Lucas asked, "Where are you?"

"In my backyard, looking at a tree," Del said.

"Why?"

"We got oak wilt," Del said. "We're gonna lose it."

"Look, I'm sorry about your tree, but I need help finding a guy. Right now. I'm going to get some paper on him. Meet me at my place."

"Half hour?"

"See you then."

LUCAS WAS TEN MINUTES from his house, driving fast. On the way, he called his office, talked to his secretary, told her to call Turk, get the specifics on James Clay, including any photos, and e-mail them to him. "I'll be home in ten minutes. I need it then," he said.

The house was quiet when he got home. Letty was in school, Sam in preschool, the baby out for a stroll with the housekeeper.

He went into the study, brought up the computer, checked his e-mail, found a bunch of political letters pleading for money, and a file from his secretary. He opened it, found four photos of James Clay along with Minneapolis arrest records and a compilation of Chicago-area arrests from the National Crime Information Center.

Clay had somehow managed to make it to thirty-one, despite a life of gang shootings, street riots, drugs, knife fights, beatings, burglaries, and strong-arm robberies. His last parole officer wrote that there was no chance of rehabilitation, and that the best thing anyone could hope for was that Clay would OD. He sounded pissed.

The photos showed a light-complexioned black man with cornrows, a prison tattoo around his neck-ragged dashes and a caption that said, "Fill to dotted line"-and three or four facial scars, along with a nasty jagged scar on his scalp. A photo taken from his right side demonstrated the effects of being shot in the ear with a handgun with no medical insurance. Some intern had sewn him up and sent him on his way, and now his ear looked like a pork rind.

Lucas was reading down the rap sheet when Del knocked on the door. He walked through the living room to the front door and let him in: "What kind of shape are you in at Smackie's?"

"They won't buy me a free beer, but they know me," Del said. He was dressed in jeans, a dark blue hoodie, and running shoes. "Is that where we're going?"

"Yeah. To start with." He picked up all the paper on Clay and thrust it at Del. "I'll drive. You read."

They took Lucas's Lexus SUV, which had gotten a little battered during the last trip to his Wisconsin cabin, when a tree branch fell on the hood. Lucas couldn't decide whether to get it fixed, or wait until he was closer to trading it in. Something else to think about.

On the way up Mississippi River Road, headed to Minneapolis, Lucas filled Del in on the problem. Del was reading Clay's sheet, and said, "The name sounds familiar, but I don't know the guy. Any reason to think that he might be holed up somewhere, with a gun?"

"Turk apparently went in to Smackie's looking for him, so if he had any friends there, somebody might have told him to start running. If he gets down to Chicago, it could be a while before we find him."

"I see his mother lives here," Del said. "There's a note on the probation report."

"I hate that. The mothers always turn out to be worse than the children," Lucas said. "You remember that one mother, those two brothers-"

"I heard about it. Shrake thought it was fun."

"Sort of was, I guess," Lucas said. "Especially when he fell off the roof into that thornbush. He was crying like a Packers fan at the Metrodome."

They crossed the Marshall/Lake Bridge into south Minneapolis, and four minutes later left the car on the broken tarmac of the Pleasure Palace Bar & Grill parking lot. An "A" had fallen off the sign over the bar's door, so it now said "Ple sure Palace," but it didn't make any difference, because everybody who was nobody called it Smackie's.

The bar was painted Halloween colors of black and orange, supposedly because it was once all black, and when the new owner decided to paint over the flaking black concrete blocks, he ran out of orange halfway through; either that, or got tired of doing the work. The bar had two long, low, nearly opaque windows decorated with neon beer signs and stickers from various police and fire charitable organizations.

Del led the way inside. Smackie's was dark, and smelled like boiled eggs floating in vinegar, and maybe a pickled pig's foot. Fifteen men, and four women, half of them black, half white, were scattered down a dozen booths, looking at beers or the TV set mounted in a corner or nothing at all. A bartender was leaning on the back of the bar, eating an egg-salad sandwich. As they came up to the bar, he swallowed and said, "Del." Nobody else looked at them, because Lucas was so obviously a cop.