Lucas got up angry, felt the mood settling in for a stay. Knew it, suppressed it at breakfast, but both the housekeeper and Sam picked it up: he was trailing the anger around like a faint odor of skunk. He called Austin before he left for the office, and she told him that she was at the Highland Park spa. If he could stop on the way to work, she said, she had some thoughts.
“We could use a few thoughts,” he said. “Then I’ll see you in ten minutes?”
Austin was wearing a form- fitting bloodred tracksuit, a peculiar shade of red that always looked good on blondes, and that only blondes knew about. She was talking with another client, who patted her on the shoulder, then gave her a squeeze. Lucas recognized the other one’s face, but couldn’t remember her name. Then Austin looked past her friend and the woman turned, eyebrows went up and she stuck out a hand and said, “Dalles Burger, Stone amp; Kaufmann. Lucas, how are you?”
“Sure, Dallie”-like he knew who she was all the time, doing a little tap dance while his brain retrieved her file card: lawyer-“I don’t think I’ve seen you since, what, the no- strike committee meeting. Are you going to arbitrate?”She was flattered that he remembered: “I will. We’ll be doing it right on the spot, so it’ll be touchy.”
“Ah, you’ll work it out.'
'I’ve got to talk to Lucas for a moment,” Austin told Burger. “He’s investigating what happened to my daughter.'
'Oh, boy. Let me get out of here,” Burger said. And, “I want you to call me. If you need
'Thanks, Dallie; I’ll call.” When Burger was gone, Austin pointed Lucas at a chair and asked, “What was this committee? No- strike? Arbitration?'
'The building trades have agreed to a no- strike provision on the Republican convention work, but they wanted arbitration if there was a disagreement. The governor’s people put together an arbitration committee.”
“Ah. Politicians.” Austin settled back in her own chair. “They’re not all terrible,” Lucas said. “Yes, they are. Every single one of them,” Austin said, a little serious behind the smile. “They take property away from people who work to get it, and give it to people they think will vote to keep them in their jobs. It’s that raw.”
“Then you should be happy to see the Republicans come to town,” Lucas said.
“They’re just as bad as the other ones,” Austin said. “I am seriously disaffected. I believe what’s going on in this country is evil. The president is an evil man, and the people who oppose him are evil people. That’s what I think.”
Lucas shrugged: “All right.'
'You think I’m crazy.'
'Well…” He spread his arms and gave her his most charming smile, and made her laugh.
She leaned back and said, “I was thinking last night, that of all the issues that have come out of these killings, Frances and all the other people, we know one thing for sure, and we also know that you have developed the only worthwhile clue, and only one of them. I don’t feel that you’re pushing it in the right way.”
Lucas said, “Tell me.'
'The thing we know for sure, is that all the killings are linked. They have to be. Same style. One group of people is being attacked. Something is going on that got all these people killed-and it seems like it’s still going on, whatever it is. Okay?”
Lucas nodded: “Okay. But knowing that doesn’t get us far, if we can’t break into what’s happening.”
She held up a finger. “The second thing that happened was that Frances created a secret bank account that was apparently set up simply to get fifty thousand dollars in cash-in currency, in bills.”
“I’m pushing that.'
'Not hard enough,” Austin said firmly. “And that must lead somewhere. Fifty thousand isn’t that much in this day and age, but it’s not nothing, either. If she spent fifty thousand dollars in a couple of weeks, it’ll have to show up somewhere. And there are other odd things about it… like the secrecy. So my opinion is, that whatever’s going on-the thing that links the killings-must involve the fifty thousand. Somehow. And maybe the bank itself… because the bank involvement is odd, when you think about it.”
Lucas leaned forward. “What do you mean?'
'When Hunter was alive, we’d go out to Las Vegas every April for a military procurement convention,” she said. “It’d still be cool and wet here, but Vegas would be warm and dry and it made a nice vacation. Hunter would talk to his military people, and Francie and I would hang out. Instead of taking a lot of cash with us, Hunter would set up an account at the hotel. When Francie or I needed something, we’d charge it. Or, we’d go get some tokens, if we felt like it, and play the slots.”
“Yeah?” She shook a finger at him. “If you needed to get fifty thousand in cash, from money that you had legally, but you didn’t want people to know about the cash aspect, that you were putting together this… pot… how would you do it?”
“Might be a few ways,” Lucas ventured. “Maybe. But one of them, which Frances knew about, would be to send checks totaling fifty thousand dollars to two or three of the big casinos in Vegas, to set up accounts. Once they were cleared, you simply fly out and lose it. But not really. You buy tokens for the slots on the account, and then cash them in for hundred- dollar bills. Do it for a week: party, lie around the pool, pretend to play the slots, cash the tokens. You could easily do six or eight or ten thousand dollars a day, spread between the casinos, and nobody would know and nobody would care and nobody would remember. Except that the hotels would call you up three times a year with offers of a free room.”
They thought about it for a minute, then Lucas said, “The point being, there were easier ways to get this money, even in cash, even anonymously, discreetly, than to set up a secret account.”
“Not just that: also,
“So what would you suggest?” Lucas asked. She shrugged: “I’m not the famous detective. I’ve got a funeral to work through. I’ve got… things. But. You have to push the money. That’s what people always said in the procurement business, when we went to Vegas. If something smelled bad, look at the money. Always look at the money. Maybe you could go back to the bank… push all of her friends about the money. It befuddles me: what would she use it for? What, that she couldn’t simply write a check for? That she couldn’t get
Lucas peered at her for a moment, then asked, “That’s what you’ve got?”
“That’s what I’ve got,” she said. “Are you going to think about it?'
'Yes. That’s what I’ll do today,” Lucas said. “Think about the money, God help me, and nothing else.”
That’s what he did. His secretary, Carol, came and looked at him, and went away, and then came back and looked at him again, and finally asked, “What are you doing?”
“Thinking.” She looked worried. “Huh. Could you take a look at-” He held a hand palm- out to stop her: “No. I won’t look at anything
Go away.” She peeked a couple more times. Once she asked, “How’s the leg?'
'Not good,” Lucas said. “I need to find a teenage girl to suck on it.'
'I’ll leave you alone,” she said. Just before noon, as he was sitting reviewing, in his mind, everything that had happened, the obvious occurred to him. He called Austin on her cell and said, “I need pictures of Frances.”
“I’m at home, working on the funeral. I’ll get a bunch together. Is this about the money?'
'Yeah. But I’ll tell you what, this would all be a lot easier if she had a loser boyfriend.”
He called the vice president at the Riverside State Bank. “Could you get me the name of the banker who opened Frances Austin’s account?”
“Sure. Just a minute.” More like two minutes. When he came back, he said, “Emily Wau. She’s now the manager at the Maplewood branch. I checked, and she’s working today.”
“Give me her number,” Lucas said.
Lucas ran down to Sunfish Lake, left the car turning over in the driveway. Austin had a dozen photographs: “I’ll get them back to you as soon as I can,” he said. “At the funeral?”
