message from Druze to Bekker, telling him it's done… We went back to the phone company, checked it, and the call came in a half-hour after the woman was killed at Maplewood. There's another fragment of conversation under that, just a few words, but it's Bekker.'
'So that ties it,' Lucas said.
'Yeah. And there are a couple of other things, coming along.'
'What about Loverboy?' Lucas asked.
'I pulled Shearson off the shrink. Shearson thinks he's the one, but we'll never know. Not unless he just comes out and tells us.' Daniel rolled the cigar between his palms. He looked more than unhappy.
'What's wrong?' Lucas asked.
'Shit.' Daniel backhanded the cigar butt at the wall, where it bounced off the black-and-white face of Robert Kennedy and fell to the floor.
'Let's have it,' Lucas said.
Daniel swiveled his chair to look out the window at the street. Spring was definitely coming, the days stretching toward summer. The street was sunlit, although the temperatures hung in the forties. 'Lucas… God damn it. You beat up Bekker. His fuckin' face… And remember that pimp, that kid, Whitcomb? His goddamn attorney has been back to Internal Affairs-Whitcomb's family don't believe a word of that pimp story, they think their little boy fell into the hands of a bad cop. They're talking about the courts…'
'We've handled it before…' Lucas suggested.
'Not like this. You've been in fights. These people… Shit, these people didn't have much of a chance.'
'Whitcomb is a fucking violence freak,' Lucas said, leaning forward. 'Has his attorney looked at the girl he worked over?'
'Yeah, yeah. Whitcomb's a criminal-but you're not supposed to be. And now there are rumors about you going into Druze's apartment. Too many people know about it. If you tried to deny it at a hearing, you'd be perjuring yourself. And there's more…'
'Like what?'
'A guy from Channel Eight was talking about making a formal complaint that you gave special privileges to one of the reporters from TV3. That wouldn't be any big deal, normally, except that Barlow picked it up, and decided that you fed her confidential investigatory material.'
'You could quash that,' Lucas said.
'Yeah. That. Or any one of the others. But the whole bunch…'
'Cut to the action,' Lucas said. 'What're you telling me?'
Daniel sighed, turned back and leaned over his desk. 'I can't fuckin' save you.'
'Can't save me?' Lucas said it quietly, almost pensively.
'They're gonna hang your ass,' Daniel said. 'The shooflies and a couple of guys on the council… And I can't do a fuckin' thing about it. I told them that you'd maybe had some psychological problems, they were straightening out. They said bullshit: If he's nuts, get him off the street. And you've killed a few guys. You see that Pioneer Press editorial? Our own serial killer…'
'Jesus Christ,' Lucas said. He levered himself out of the chair and took a turn around the office, looking at all the black-and-white mug shots, the smiling sharks, a lifetime of politicians. He stopped at the color, the Hmong tapestry, the Minnesota weather calendar. 'I'm gone?'
'You could fight it, but it'd be pretty bad,' Daniel said. 'They'd be asking about the break-in, about the fight with Whitcomb and about Bekker's face… I mean, Jesus, you look at a picture of the way Bekker used to be, and his face now. Jesus, he looks like Frankenstein. On top of it all, you haven't gone out of your way to win any popularity contests.'
'There are some people in the press…'
'They'll turn on you like rats,' Daniel said. 'Nothing gives an editorial writer more satisfaction than seeing somebody else booted out of his job.'
'I've got friends…'
'Sure. I'm one. I'd testify for you… but like I said-and I'm a politician, I know what I'm talking about-I can't save your ass. As a friend, I tell you this: If you resign, I can turn it all off. I can short-circuit it. You walk away clean. If you decide to fight it, I'll stand with you, but…'
'It wouldn't do any good.'
'No.'
Lucas stared bleakly at the weather calendar, then nodded and turned to face Daniel. 'I knew I was getting close to the end of my string,' he said. 'Too much shit coming down. I just kind of wish…'
'What?'
'I wish I'd dumped Bekker. Damn it…'
'Don't talk like that. To anybody,' Daniel said, pointing a finger at Lucas. 'That can only bring you grief.'
'When do I go?'
Daniel tipped his head. 'Soon. Like now.'
'Do you have a sheet of department paper?' Lucas asked.
Lucas hunched over Daniel's desk, writing it out in longhand, two simple sentences. Please accept my resignation from the Minneapolis Police Department. I've enjoyed my work here, but it's time to pursue new interests. 'Twenty fuckin' years,' he said, as he dotted the i and crossed the ts in interests.
'I'm sorry,' Daniel said. He had turned his back again, and was staring out the window. 'The retirement'll be there, of course, if you care…'
'Fuck retirement…' Lucas looked at his hand, found that he was holding a square of pink paper, a receipt from a tire store. On the back was a list, with the word 'Loverboy' at the top. He crushed it into a tight little wad and tossed it toward the big plastic basket that stood in an alcove behind Daniel's desk. The paper wad rimmed out, and they both watched it bounce across the rug. 'I dated the letter tomorrow-I've got some official things to clean up. And I want to slide some of my files over to Del.'
'Okay. Del… I know he pounded on Bekker, but he doesn't have the history…'
'Sure. If there's a problem, if Internal Affairs gets on his case, tell them to talk to me. I'll take the heat for it.'
'Won't happen. Like I said, I can contain it, if you're not around to goad them. And I can do something else, I think. I can take your resignation and put you on reserve…'
'Reserve? What the fuck is that?'
Daniel gestured helplessly. 'It's nothing, right now. But maybe, if you get out clean, let things cool down, we could get you back… If not full-time, in some kind of consultant capacity…'
'Sounds like bullshit,' Lucas said. He looked at Daniel for a moment, then said, 'You could do more than contain it… but you can't, can you?'
Daniel turned, uncertain. 'What?'
'You can't have me around. I'd…' He looked at Daniel for another long minute, then shook his head and said, 'I'm outa here.'
Daniel, still confused, said in a rush, 'Do something, Lucas. You're one of the smartest guys I've ever known. Go to law school. You'd make a great attorney. You got money: see the world for a while. You've never been to fuckin' Europe…'
As Lucas was going out the door, he stopped, and he turned back again to look at Daniel, who was standing behind his desk, his hands in his pockets. Lucas looked for a long three seconds, opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head and walked out, pulling the door closed behind him.
From the chief's office he went down to the evidence room, signed for the box on Bekker and started through it. The physical evidence was there-plaster casts of the footprints at the Wisconsin burial site, the pieces of the bottle used to kill Stephanie Bekker, the hammer used to kill Armistead, the notes from Stephanie's lover.
Tape pickups had been used to preserve the lover's footprints from the floor of Stephanie Bekker's bedroom. They'd been sealed in plastic bags, with a label stapled to the top of the bag. They were gone.
After checking out of the evidence room, Lucas got his jacket, locked his office and walked up the stairs to the street level, out past the bizarre but strangely interesting statue of the Father of Waters, and onto the street.
Where to go? He waited for the pull of the guns, down there in the safe in the basement. They'd be glowing, wouldn't they, like a luminescent brand of gravity…
