beyond. At that hour, he wasn’t particularly concerned about being seen in his underwear. He caught sight of an old pickup, driving slowly out of the light of the streetlamp in front of his house. For a moment, he thought it might be the pickup truck he’d seen at the Bayport Court. Then he shook his head and drew the curtains.

You need some sleep, Thorsen, he told himself. You need it bad.

chapter

seventeen

The ringing of the telephone on the stand beside his bed pulled Bo from a deep slumber.

“Thorsen,” he mumbled into the mouthpiece.

“You sound asleep,” Stuart Coyote said.

Bo looked at the clock radio. 7:00A.M. “I am. What’s up?”

“Just checking in with my partner.”

“Partner?”

“Diana took me off the Wildwood detail and assigned me to work with you on the Tom Jorgenson thing. Interesting developments last night, I hear. How about you fill me in completely over breakfast at the Broiler.”

“When?”

“Is an hour enough time to make yourself gorgeous?”

“An hour,” Bo said.

Coyote was already waiting at the St. Clair Broiler, drinking coffee, looking over notes he’d scribbled on a small pad. “You look like you didn’t get any sleep at all.”

“Not much,” Bo admitted.

“Tom Jorgenson?”

Bo nodded. “The questions are piling up. The answers aren’t.”

Bo ordered black coffee and the Texas scramble. Stu Coyote asked for a Greek omelet.

“According to Diana, this is what we’ve got so far.” Coyote glanced at his notes. “A laundry worker with access to Jorgenson’s floor skips work the day after the apparent accident that killed the guard. The pickup he’s driving is registered to one Luther Gallagher. He abandons his motel room wiping away all traces of himself before you can talk to him. Is that about it?”

“One more thing. Luther Gallagher hasn’t been home in over a month.”

“How do you know that?”

“I went to his house last night.”

Coyote checked his notepad, then scowled at Bo. “You already went to St. Peter?”

Bo shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep. Looks like he’s a Sundays-only customer of thePioneer Press. Five weeks’ worth of newspapers are lying around his front steps, and a pile of unopened mail is sitting on his porch.”

“What do you know about Ableman?”

“Not much.”

“I can tell you the name’s an alias,” Coyote said. “Diana gave me the Social Security number you got off his job application and I ran it first thing this morning. It belongs to Max Ableman all right. But according to Social Security, Max Ableman is sixty-two years old and living in Florida. Looks like our guy plucked a name and Social Security number out of the air.”

“Knowing it would be quite a while, if ever, before the error was discovered,” Bo concluded.

Coyote referred again to his notes. “Gallagher works at the Minnesota State Security Hospital in St. Peter. Let’s head down there this morning.”

“You’re reading my mind, partner,” Bo said.

They drove in separate cars, giving them the flexibility to divide their time and energy if necessary. Bo led the way.

In daylight, St. Peter was a pretty little town set in the wooded valley of the Minnesota River. The Regional Treatment Center, of which the Minnesota State Security Hospital was a part, lay in the hills south of town. The facility was a mixture of imposing sandstone block buildings that looked several decades old and newer, more functional brick structures.

At the reception desk in the administration building, Bo and Coyote met briefly with the director of personnel, who arranged for them to talk to the program director in the Security Hospital where Luther Gallagher was employed as a security counselor.

The Minnesota State Security Hospital sat behind trees atop a hill a quarter mile west of the other buildings. It was a relatively new single-story facility, dull red brick, with barred windows, razor wire on the fencing, and a perimeter maintained with motion detectors and infrared cameras. Housed therein were the most dangerous of the patients remanded by the courts for treatment.

Helen Wardell, the program director, met them in her office, a gray, windowless room. She was a gaunt woman with dark circles under her eyes and a look on her face that seemed perpetually braced to deal with crises. The odor of cigarette smoke rolled off her clothing, and her voice was raspy in the way of someone long addicted to nicotine.

“Luther Gallagher,” she said. It was clear the name was significant and not in a good way. “What’s he up to now?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Bo replied. “We were hoping to speak with him, but apparently he hasn’t been to work in quite a while.”

“He went to Albuquerque. Christ, I could use a cigarette. You guys mind if we take this outside?”

They stepped out of the building into an internal courtyard reserved for staff. It consisted of two stone benches and a small patch of grass, separated from the sky above by a mesh screen. Helen Wardell lit her cigarette and breathed smoke that drifted upward toward freedom.

“What’s this about Albuquerque?” Coyote asked.

“Luther called one morning with some cock-and-bull story about his father having a heart attack in Albuquerque. He requested a leave of absence to drive down and spend a few weeks there while his father recovered.”

Bo asked, “Why cock-and-bull?”

“Luther? Giving a good goddamn about his old man?” She started to laugh, but it turned into a hacking cough.

“He’s not a particularly sensitive guy?” Coyote said, encouraging her.

“He’s big, that’s why he’s here. Dealing with the kind of people we house, big is a definite plus. But sensitive? Yeah, like a rhino.”

“Did he say when he’d return to work?”

“He was supposed to be back last week. We haven’t heard from him.”

Bo asked, “Does the name Max Ableman mean anything to you?”

She watched the smoke escaping through the mesh and thought a moment. “Should it?”

“I spotted a pickup truck registered to Luther Gallagher in a motor court in Bayport yesterday. According to the desk clerk, a man named Max Ableman was driving it. Ableman is an alias, but it’s still possible Gallagher might have mentioned him.”

“If he ever did, I don’t remember it.”

“Not that it will help, but why don’t you describe Ableman,” Coyote suggested to Bo.

“Probably in his late thirties, early forties, just under six feet tall, approximately one hundred eighty pounds, sandy hair, pale complexion, quiet. And scars.” Bo made a couple of slashes across his upper arm.

Wardell paused with the cigarette just shy of her lips. “Sunglasses, even indoors?”

“That’s him.”

“Oh, my God.” She dropped the cigarette on the sidewalk without bothering to crush it out. “Gentlemen, if you please.” She signaled them to follow and returned to her office, where she asked them to wait. She left and came back in less than five minutes with a small, dark woman at her heels. “These are the agents. I’m sorry, I’ve

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