He left, and one of the nurses asked if she'd heard any more about the killer who'd kicked the pharmacist to death.

"Nothing more. My husband is out chasing him today. I should get an earful when I get home."

"How can that happen in a hospital?" the nurse asked. She was a young blond woman, three years out of school.

"All kinds of weird and awful things happen in hospitals," Weather said. "Now listen to the nice music, and let me finish this arm."

BARAKAT WANDERED onto the surgical floor, nodded at a nurse at the monitoring station. "I've been trying to watch the separation work as much as I can. Is it on for tomorrow?"

The nurse had recognized him as a doc, both from pa.s.sing him in the hallways and from the ID clipped to his jacket. She'd had other inquiries, and never even thought about the question: "Yup. Seven o'clock. Get there early for a good seat."

"The whole thing is so cool, huh?"

They chatted for a couple of minutes; Barakat was tall, dark, handsome, and convivial. The nurse liked him for all of that. He patted her hand as he left: "Thanks for the info. Maybe I'll see you up there."

Nice guy, she thought. she thought. Definitely husband material. Definitely husband material.

LUCAS LEFT MACY'S with a bag of short-sleeved golf shirts--January in Minnesota, how far away could summer really be?--and the information that the menswear department hadn't sold any coats at all that morning. By January, everybody in Minnesota already had one.

9.

LUCAS WAS LEANING against Joe Mack's refrigerator with a Diet c.o.ke in his hand, watching with little interest the two men from the BCA crime-scene crew. Joe Mack lived in a nice-enough but bland apartment with all-eggsh.e.l.l walls, in a singles' complex in Woodbury, a suburban town six miles from Cherries.

Joe had decorated the place with framed posters of Harley-Davidsons and Playboy Playboy Playmates. He had a stereo/TV system that occupied an entire wall in the front room, and a swinging-singles wet bar with every kind of North American alcohol known to man. No scotch. One of the crime-scene technicians had a Janis Joplin alb.u.m playing on the stereo, a nice quiet background to nothing much. They'd found two ounces of marijuana in a baggie in the refrigerator. They'd tag it, and if needed, it could be used to hold Joe Mack, but with an outstanding charge of kidnapping, the dope wasn't lighting anybody's fire. Playmates. He had a stereo/TV system that occupied an entire wall in the front room, and a swinging-singles wet bar with every kind of North American alcohol known to man. No scotch. One of the crime-scene technicians had a Janis Joplin alb.u.m playing on the stereo, a nice quiet background to nothing much. They'd found two ounces of marijuana in a baggie in the refrigerator. They'd tag it, and if needed, it could be used to hold Joe Mack, but with an outstanding charge of kidnapping, the dope wasn't lighting anybody's fire.

A DNA specialist had already come and gone. It seemed likely that Joe had been sleeping alone, since there was only one pillow on his bed. The pillow provided a harvest of curly, auburn hair, and the sheets a couple of s.e.m.e.n stains that should, altogether, provide excellent DNA.

They also found two pistols, a 9mm Beretta and a Colt .45 with full clips, and several boxes of ammo, a twelve-gauge shotgun and three boxes of sh.e.l.ls, a scoped .22 rifle, a scoped .30-06 rifle, a broken taser, and a paintball gun with a bag of b.a.l.l.s. They took them away, but except for the taser, they were really nothing more than any Wisconsin boy might have in his closet. That included the dope.

"Now here's something really interesting," one of the techs said. He was in the bedroom, across the hall from the kitchen, kneeling next to Mack's bed. The other tech came down the hall from the front room and Lucas asked, "What is it?"

The tech turned and sat down with a magazine in his hands. "The February 1990 Playboy Playboy with Pamela Anderson. The gatefold is worn, but intact." with Pamela Anderson. The gatefold is worn, but intact."

"Whoa." The second tech drifted into the bedroom to look over the first tech's shoulder.

"Think it could be a clue?" Lucas asked.

"It's a clue to something, but I'm so old I can't remember what it is," the first guy said. "Look at this: thirty-six, twenty-two, thirty-four. This woman was in exceptionally good shape."

"I'm not so big on blondes," the second tech said.

The first tech looked at him with pity and said, "Loser."

After a bit, Lucas said, "We're not going to find anything here, are we?"

HE WAS GETTING READY to leave when his cell phone rang, and he looked at the screen: Marcy.

"Yeah?"

"The airport police looked at their tag file, and they found out that Jill MacBride's van came into the Blue Ramp about forty minutes after Mack ran. They went looking for it and found it up on top. Door was unlocked. MacBride was inside. Looks like she was strangled."

Janis was singing that "freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose," and Lucas said, "I, uh ... Ah, c.r.a.p."

"I'm going down there. We'll get crime scene on the way. Are you still at Mack's?"

"Yeah. Not much here. Got the DNA going. I'll see you over there."

THE SADNESS CAME ON like a wave. He'd never met the woman, but he'd seen the kid, and there was another kid still at school. Weather was talking about having another kid, looking for a daughter, and he wouldn't mind, Lucas thought. Tough to have too many daughters.

What about the girls, Joe? And in a way, he couldn't believe that Mack had killed the woman--he'd seemed like a screwup, but didn't have the hard edge of somebody who could throttle a woman in cold blood. On the other hand, the questioning might have triggered a psychotic state. If that were the case, then he could have strangled MacBride without really understanding what he was doing; from a terrible need just to remove her. That would also explain the irrationality of it. He must've known that they'd put it together, that they'd be after him.

Or maybe he was simply too d.a.m.n dumb.

Janis echoed in his head as he climbed into his car, and he thought, No. Not Right. Dead Dead is just another word for nothing left to lose. is just another word for nothing left to lose.

DEL CAPSLOCK was leaning against the barrier wall, watching crime-scene techs working through the white van, when Lucas pulled onto the top level of the Blue Ramp. A couple of airport cops were observing, and Marcy was standing at the van. Del was wearing a Russian Army greatcoat, a black watch cap and galoshes, and looked like a guy who might have been hired to shovel the snow.

Lucas parked and Del ambled over and said, "Shrake told me about what happened this morning, and then Everson mentioned this deal."

"You look at her?"

"Yeah. Not much to see," Del said. "I guess you know who did it."

"Guy named Joe Mack," Lucas said. "He's one of the guys who stuck up the hospital, and probably killed the other two guys who were with him. Dumb sonofab.i.t.c.h."

"You're looking pretty grim."

"I'm feeling pretty grim," Lucas said. "Woman had a couple kids, and we met one of them. A preschooler. Cute. Scared for her mom. And herself."

"Ah, jeez."

MARCY HAD NOT TURNED to look toward Lucas, so he and Del walked up behind her and Lucas touched her shoulder and asked, "How you doing?"

"I'm okay," she said. She glanced at him, then peered back into the van. "But we got him. More blood, and it's not hers. Same deal as at the hospital--she tried to fight whoever it was, scratched him."

Marcy stepped back a foot or so, and Lucas leaned past her. The dead woman was on her back, her legs spread, her eyes still open. Stiff, either with rigor mortis or the cold.

The anger bit at him again. Not necessary: a woman dead because of nothing. Lucas backed away, then asked to the technician's back, "You see any other damage? Head wounds? Was she hit with anything?"

"She might have been hit a couple times," the tech said. "She's got some abraded skin on her cheek and forehead, but she died from strangulation."

"Was a cord used, or . . ."

"Looks like fingers," the tech said. "Like he crushed her windpipe with his thumbs. Really dug in."

"Raped?"

"No sign of that. Her clothing is fine."

"So he just killed her," Lucas said.

"Looks like it."

"Okay. We need to go over every inch of the van. We need everything you can get from the driver's seat and the pa.s.senger seat... We need to know if she drove over here, or if Mack did."

"Okay." The tech sounded annoyed: of course he would do that. Lucas backed out.

"What are you thinking?" Marcy asked.

"What Lyle Mack said--that Joe took a cab into town, went to Macy's. I went to Macy's, up to the men's department. There were two salespeople up there and neither one remembered anybody like him."

"Did you think they would?" Marcy asked.

"I wanted to check. He's gotta get a coat from somewhere. Anyway, they hadn't seen him. It's possible he carried the coat to another checkout desk. I'd want to see the receipt before I believed it, but it's possible."

"And the point is . . ."

"The point is, Joe didn't seem like this big an a.s.shole." Lucas waved at the van. "He seemed like this hang-out guy. He seemed like a 'how ya doin'?' guy. He might do a burglary, he might strong-arm somebody, he'd steal something if he thought he wouldn't get caught, but... not this. This freaks me out."

"He was panicked. Something cracked. I mean, look at the guy in the hospital. Somebody kicked him, didn't mean to kill him ... dumb guys, trashing around," Marcy said. "How many times have you seen it? A hundred?"

"Yeah, yeah. It's just that everybody keeps saying what a basically good guy he was." He looked back at the van. "I'll tell you what--that wasn't done by a nice guy. He looked right into her eyes and choked the life out of her."

THEY WERE still talking when Virgil called: "We're leaving the hospital."

"Nothing happened with the kids?"

"Nope. Sara's still got problems. They're now saying they could go tomorrow."

"How's Weather?"

"She's okay, but it's wearing on her," Virgil said. "There are Minneapolis cops over here, talking to people who might have been around when the pharmacy got hit. It's p.i.s.sing people off."

"It's a murder investigation."

"I know, but a lot of the people over here, especially the docs, are pretty busy, and they figure what they're doing is pretty important. I mean, it is pretty important. So ... A couple people have made remarks to Weather, because they know she's involved."

"f.u.c.k 'em," Lucas said. "When'll you be back?"

"Fifteen minutes."

"See you there."

LUCAS MENTIONED the cop-doctor tension to Marcy, who shrugged. "Not much to do about it. I'll tell the guys to go as easy as they can, but no easier."

Del said, "They oughta ask why somebody would hold up the pharmacy."

"For money," Marcy said.

"But how much? I saw in the paper that they were estimating the loss at a million or so . . ."

"Less than that," Lucas said. "That's if you count every last nickel on every last pill at street level . . ."

"But say a million. Just for argument's sake. So, wholesale, on the street, a half-million, or less. If there is somebody involved at the hospital, that's at least four people, and probably more."

"Lyle Mack makes five," Lucas said. "He's too short to have been one of the robbers."

"Whoever," Del said. "So, say five guys, because the math is easier. Say they've got direct retailers--they'd get half of the half-million. That means these five, if they divide it evenly, it's fifty thousand each. How many big-time docs need fifty thousand so bad that they'd hook up with a bunch of dumb-a.s.s bikers to rob a pharmacy?"

Marcy said, "I see what you mean. We were working on the doctor angle because a witness thought it might be a doc. We'll start looking further down the food chain ..." She looked back at the van, then at Lucas. "As soon as we nail down Joe Mack, we go after Lyle Mack with a flamethrower. Joe Mack, when he gets a lawyer, won't say anything. He's toast, no reason to. Can't plead out on this thing. But Lyle. Lyle could talk, with the right encouragement. Or get Joe to. Put the finger on the guy in the hospital."