LUCAS DUMPED THE PORSCHE IN AN AMBULANCESONLY zone and they banged into the emergency room. A startled nurse turned toward them from the reception desk, and Lucas said, ‘‘I’m Deputy Police Chief Lucas Davenport from Minneapolis and a nun named Elle Kruger was brought in here . . .’’
‘‘Yes, yes, she’s in X ray, she just got here, the doctors are working—’’
‘‘Where?’’
‘‘Sir, I can’t let you go—’’
‘‘Where?’’ He shouted it at her, and she stepped back and a couple of male white-coated orderlies started down the hall toward the desk.
‘‘Hold it,’’ Sherrill said. ‘‘Miss, can you tell us who the doctor in charge is? Jim Dunaway?’’
‘‘No, Larry Simone . . .’’
‘‘Okay, he’s a friend of mine. Could you tell him Chief Davenport and Detective Sherrill are here asking about . . .’’
‘‘Sister Mary Joseph. Elle Kruger,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘I’ll be right back.’’
As the nurse started down the hall, waving off the orderlies, a thin, ill-tempered man stuck his head in the door and called, ‘‘Hey, whose car is this out here?’’
‘‘I’ll get it,’’ Sherrill said to Lucas. ‘‘Gimme the keys.’’
Lucas dug the keys out and handed them to her. The illtempered man raised his voice: ‘‘I’m asking, who the hell left their car out here—’’
‘‘I’ll move it,’’ Sherrill said, walking toward him.
‘‘You goddamn well will move it,’’ the man said. ‘‘Or I’ll push that thing right into the wall.’’
Sherrill stepped to within four inches of his face, her voice low and controlled. ‘‘You shut your fuckin’ pie hole or I will break all your teeth out,’’ she said. She pulled one hand back on her hip so the ill-tempered man could see the wooden butt of the .357. His eyes slid away from hers, and she pushed through the door to the car.
A BALDING, HATCHET-FACED DOCTOR WALKED OUT of a back room, trailed by the reception nurse. He looked around, spotted Lucas. ‘‘Are you with Marcy Sherrill?’’
‘‘Yes. Elle Kruger—the nun—is my best friend.’’
‘‘This is Chief Davenport,’’ said the nurse.
‘‘Come on back,’’ he said. ‘‘Where’s Marcy?’’
‘‘Outside, moving a car off the ramp. How’s Elle?’’
‘‘Not good, but she’s better than the other one. We’ve got head injury but no direct brain damage, like the girl. We’ve got to manage the swelling and so on, which is gonna be a problem, but I’m more worried about blunt trauma to her kidneys and liver. Somebody beat the hell out of her with what looks like a baseball bat.’’
‘‘Baseball bat?’’
‘‘Yeah . . .’’
Sherrill caught up with them and said, ‘‘Larry, how are you?’’ and the doc said, ‘‘I’d like to look at that leg of yours again.’’
‘‘I think it’s okay,’’ she said.
‘‘Oh, I know; I just wanted to look for aesthetic reasons.’’ And Sherrill snorted and said, ‘‘Aesthetic, my ass,’’ and he said, ‘‘That too . . .’’ and Sherrill said to Lucas, ‘‘Larry was one of the docs that took care of me after that thing with John Mail.’’
‘‘Ah.’’ Lucas said, and looked wildly at Simone, who said, ‘‘Through there.’’
HE COULD BARELY SEE HER. SHE WAS FLAT ON HER back, under an operating drape, her head tilted back, her head already shaved and painted with iodine-colored disinfectant. A drip flowed into her arm, and her mouth was propped open. She looked like a saint who was about to be committed to fire.
‘‘Elle,’’ Lucas whispered.
‘‘She can’t respond,’’ Simone said. ‘‘She might hear you, somewhere in her head, but she’s too doped up to show it.’’
‘‘Gonna be all right,’’ Lucas said, his face a foot from her ear. She didn’t look like any Elle Kruger he remembered: separated from the habit and other paraphernalia of the church, she looked stark; and the disinfectant added a strange otherworldly touch, like an image from Heavy Metal. ‘‘Gonna be all right, we’re here with you; we’re waiting.’’
‘‘Come on,’’ Simone said. ‘‘They’ve got to finish getting her ready for the OR.’’
LUCAS RELUCTANTLY FOLLOWED SIMONE OUT OF THE prep room, Sherrill a step behind him. ‘‘You want to look at the X rays?’’ Simone asked.
‘‘Can I see anything?’’
‘‘C’mon.’’
The X rays were clipped to wall-mounted view boxes and a man in a tweed sportcoat was peering at them. Simone said, ‘‘Jerry, what do you think?’’
‘‘I’ve already called Jack Bornum in; we’re gonna have to do them both at the same time. I’ll take the kid, she’s gonna go if we don’t get in quick. Jack can have the nun.’’
‘‘How bad’s the nun?’’ Lucas asked.
‘‘Who’re you?’’
‘‘I’m a cop—and her best friend. Oldest friend.’’
‘‘Whoever hit her missed; looks like two or three blows, hard, but never quite brought it down over the top of her head, like with the kid. Everything sort of skidded off.’’
‘‘What about the blunt trauma?’’ Lucas asked.
The tweed man shrugged: ‘‘I don’t know; I do brains.’’
He glanced at his watch. ‘‘And I better go do this one.’’
‘‘How long before the other guy gets here?’’
‘‘Five minutes maybe. He’ll be here before she’s ready to go,’’ Tweed said gruffly. ‘‘He’s a good guy too—he’ll take care of her.’’
THE OTHER DOCTOR, BORNUM, ARRIVED IN THE ALLOTTED five minutes, and disappeared into the back. Simone caught a knife wound to the liver area, and also disappeared. Twenty minutes later, Weather pushed through the door, with Andi Manette a step behind. She saw Lucas and Sherrill and said, ‘‘Lucas, my God, what happened?’’
‘‘Somebody beat her up. Almost killed her,’’ he said. His voice got shaky and she touched his arm.
‘‘How bad?’’
‘‘Pretty bad. They’re getting her ready for the OR. They’ve got a neurosurgeon working on her.’’
‘‘Oh, no . . .’’
He wanted to wrap her up and hold on, but there was a wall between them: he could feel it, pressing them away from each other. ‘‘I don’t know what happened . . . In fact, I think I’m gonna . . .’’
He walked over to the reception desk. ‘‘Could somebody let me know when Elle Kruger goes into the OR, and get an idea of how long it’ll take?’’
‘‘I’ll check,’’ the nurse said.
WEATHER STEPPED CLOSER TO SHERRILL AND ASKED, ‘‘How is he?’’
She shrugged: ‘‘Freaked out. Really freaked.’’
Weather smiled, a thin, tentative smile but a real one, Sherrill thought. ‘‘Take care of him,’’ Weather said.
Sherrill blushed and nodded, then said, ‘‘If I can.’’
Lucas wandered back, and Weather said, ‘‘The bomb through my window, and now Elle.’’
Lucas shook his head: ‘‘I can’t figure it. It’d have to be somebody who knows me, to know about you two. But who? And why not come after me? And why with the bomb and now a beating, for Christ’s sake? There’s too much risk involved. If they really want to get at me . . .’’ He rubbed his chin, wandered away, deep in thought.
A moment later, the nurse appeared in the hallway, busily stepping down toward the reception area; Lucas went to meet her.
‘‘She’s in the operating room now,’’ the nurse said. ‘‘They’re just putting in the anesthesia. Doctor says he can’t tell how long it’ll be, anywhere from two to six hours.’’
‘‘Okay, okay . . .’’
‘‘He said she’s strong,’’ the nurse said.
Lucas turned back to Weather and Sherrill: ‘‘Did you hear that?’’
They nodded and Weather said, ‘‘Have you been to the scene?’’
‘‘No, that’s where I’d like to go . . .’’
‘‘You guys go ahead,’’ Weather said. ‘‘I’ll wait here, and if anything comes up, I can handle it.’’
‘‘Thanks, Weather,’’ Lucas said. To Sherrill: ‘‘You wanta come?’’
‘‘Yeah, I do.’’ She glanced at Weather and quickly nodded.
They’d just started toward a door when a middle-aged couple hurried in, and the woman, tightly controlled, went to the reception desk and said, ‘‘My daughter was just hurt in some kind of accident at St. Anne’s and we were told she was here, but I don’t see her, do you know . . .’’
And Lucas shook his head at Sherrill and they hurried out: ‘‘I didn’t want to see that,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I don’t need it.’’
A ST. PAUL LIEUTENANT NAMED ALLPORT WAS RUNNING the crime scene at St. Anne’s when Lucas and Sherrill arrived. He spotted Lucas getting out of the car, and yelled at a patrolman, ‘‘Send that guy over here.’’
The patrolman whistled at Lucas to get his attention, and pointed at Allport. Lucas waved, took Sherrill by the elbow, and they walked along the side of the Residence building to a cluster of cops duckwalking around the parking lot.
‘‘I heard,’’ Allport said. ‘‘The nun’s an old pal of yours. She gonna be all right?’’
‘‘She’s in the OR. So’s the girl; the girl’s in trouble.’’
‘‘Ah, jeez. She’s some kid from the neighborhood here. One of the neighbors said her parents sent her here because she could live close to home and it’s safe.’’
‘‘You figure out what happened?’’ Lucas asked.
‘‘Yeah. What there is. You ain’t gonna like it.’’
‘‘I already don’t like it . . .’’
‘‘No, no. I mean, you really ain’t gonna like it. There’s a girl sitting in by the switchboard, she’s talking to one of her friends—they’re doing homework together. So a call comes in for Sister Mary Joseph—family emergency.’’
‘‘She doesn’t have a family anymore,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘Yeah.’’ Allport looked up at the night sky. ‘‘But that’s what they said. So the girl runs down and gets the sister and the sister takes the call and she listens and she freaks out and she hangs up, and she says to this girl, ‘Lucas has been shot; they’re taking him to Midway. I’ve got to go.’ ’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘So she ran to get her keys and her bag and she ran back out and the girl at the phones says to the other one, ‘I don’t think she should drive,’ and the other one says, ‘I’ll take her,’ and she runs out. Then the girl sits there by the phones, and ten minutes later . . . or sometimes later . . . another kid comes in and says there’re two people hurt on the sidewalk and to call an ambulance.’’
‘‘Jesus,’’ Lucas said.
And Sherrill said, ‘‘It is aimed at you.’’ To Allport: ‘‘You know Lucas’s former fiance
´e was firebombed last
Allport nodded: ‘‘I read about it. You had guys running all over town, kicking ass.’’
Lucas looked around at the duckwalking crime scene cops: ‘‘You finding anything?’’
Allport shook his head. ‘‘Nope. Not a thing. We’re walking around the neighborhood, looking for the weapon—a ball bat, or a big stick—but we haven’t found it yet.’’
‘‘Goddamnit . . .’’ A thought flew through Lucas’s head, quick as a scalded moth; he grasped at it, missed. He shook his head, turned to Sherrill: ‘‘Nothing to do here. I’m going back to the hospital.’’
‘‘I’m coming.’’
‘‘You don’t have to.’’
‘‘I’m coming.’’ Allport, arms akimbo, said, ‘‘I hate this shit. If the assholes want to beat each other up, or even us, that’s one thing. A nun and a kid?’’
In the car, Lucas said, ‘‘Something’s happening, and we don’t know what it is.’’
‘‘I knew that a long time ago,’’ Sherrill said.
Lucas shook his head: ‘‘I don’t mean that somebody is trying to get at me, or even get at Weather or Elle. There’s some kind of apparatus here. Somebody’s set up a machine, and it’s not some simpleminded revenge. It’s doing something . . .’’
TWENTY-THREE
ELLE KRUGER CAME OUT OF THE OPERATING ROOM just after four A.M. and the doctor, yawning, came to see Lucas, Sherrill, and Weather: ‘‘I’d say the prognosis is good—she’s gonna have a few days in the ICU, but there wasn’t any direct mechanical damage that I could see. We’ve got swelling, but we’re controlling it. We’re going to keep her sedated, keep her quiet, so she won’t be talking for a couple of days.’’
‘‘She’s gonna make it,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘Unless we missed something—or if there’s just a further natural complication. But it’s about as good as you could have hoped for, given the circumstances.’’
‘‘How about the other girl?’’ Weather asked.
The doc shook his head: ‘‘She did have some mechanical damage. I think she’s gonna live, we’re just gonna have to wait and see. She might be fine, she might be . . . not so fine.’’
Lucas turned away, suddenly exhausted. ‘‘Man.’’
‘‘Let’s go home,’’ Sherrill said.
Weather said, ‘‘I’ll be back tomorrow—every day until she wakes up.’’
‘‘You got a ride?’’ Lucas asked. Andi Manettte, who’d brought Weather over, had left earlier.
‘‘I’ll get a cab. They can have one here in a minute.’’
‘‘We came in the Porsche,’’ Lucas said. Two seats: Weather smiled; she understood the math.
Out the door, walking to the car, Sherrill asked, ‘‘Did Weather and Elle have some kind of relationship?’’
‘‘Yeah, they liked each other a lot,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘Think Elle will like me?’’ Sherrill asked.
Lucas nodded. ‘‘She likes almost everybody. You two’ll get along fine.’’
ROSE MARIE ROUX TALKEDTOTHE ST. PAUL CHIEF, AND St. Paul put together a group of four detectives to work with two Violent Crimes detectives from Minneapolis.
‘‘You can do what you want, personally, but I want you to stay clear of these guys,’’ Roux told Lucas. ‘‘You’ve set up this paradigm: you think these attacks on Sister Mary Joseph and Weather are aimed at you. Maybe they are, but I want to keep these guys outside the paradigm. I want them to take a cold look at it.’’
Lucas agreed. ‘‘That’s smart. But I’m putting Del on the street, looking into a few things; and I’ll be looking around. Sherrill, Sloan, and Black are going back to Homicide now that we’re done with McDonald.’’
DEL AND LUCAS SPENT THE DAY CRUISING THE STREET, talking to druggies, thieves, bikers, gamblers—anyone smart enough to take revenge on Lucas by attacking his friends; and checking in every hour with the hospital. No change on Elle Kruger.
At the end of the day, they sat in Lucas’s office, Del with his feet on the edge of Lucas’s desk, Lucas with his feet on an open desk drawer, looking for new ideas.
‘‘All day, absolutely nothing. I’ve never seen it this dry. Usually there’s rumors, even if the rumors are bullshit.’’
‘‘Nobody wants to get involved with a run at a cop,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘Tell you the truth, I’ve been thinking of terminating our friendship, at least for the time being. Maybe take out an ad in the Star-Tribune.’’
‘‘I once talked to a guy, a lawyer—defense attorney— whose son was arrested for stealing some stereo gear from a Best Buy,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘The kid was one of those ineffectual audiovisual freaks, didn’t know which way was up. Anyway, the judge gave him six months in the county jail, and this was a first offense.’’
‘‘Oops.’’
‘‘Yeah. And this attorney tells me, he knows it was because the judge didn’t like him , the attorney. Thought he was sleazy, because he did personal injury and DWI and made
a lot of money at it. So anyway, the kid does most of the time, like four months, and gets out, and he’s okay. But the attorney spent the whole time worrying that he was gonna hang himself in his cell or something.’’
‘‘Something to worry about, with kids like that,’’ Del said.
‘‘The attorney’d go down every day to visit the kid, keep him connected. But he still worried. And what he told me was that he decided in the middle of the kid’s jail term that if the kid killed himself, he’d kill the judge. He made the decision, he worked it all out. He wasn’t irrational about it, it wasn’t a big macho thing. He’d just do it, and try not to get caught. The first thing he’d do was, he’d wait two years before he made his move. Wait until his son’s death was way in the past. Then he’d find a way to kidnap the judge—he said that in his fantasies, he had to explain to the judge why he was going to kill him, he couldn’t sleep if he didn’t do that—and then he was gonna tie him up or chain him to a tree, and douse him with gasoline and set him on fire.’’
‘‘Jesus.’’
‘‘Yeah. He said he’d decided this, but when his kid got out okay, it wasn’t necessary, so he let it go. He hates the judge, but he says he’ll get at him politically, he doesn’t have to burn him up.’’
‘‘What you’re saying is . . .’’
‘‘What I’m saying is, I hope it’s not something like that,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I hope it’s not somebody I bumped into years ago, took care of business, didn’t even think about it. And he’s been plotting all this time.’’
‘‘We checked all recent prison releases.’’
‘‘That’s what I mean. What if it’s not recent? What if it’s somebody from ten years ago, somebody I busted on a solid felony, say, who did a couple of years but figures I ruined his life and his family? And now he’s coming after me, by going after my family? I mean, I might never figure out who it is.’’
A TENTATIVE KNOCK INTERRUPTED THE THOUGHT. Del looked at the door, then back at Lucas, show-shrugged. ‘‘Come in,’’ Lucas called.
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