Weather said to him, "You've been in never-never land again. What's going on?"
"Working on a little puzzle," he said.
"Want to talk?"
"No. Not right now." He looked at her. "Maybe tomorrow."
She was mildly offended and a little stiff after that, but that had happened before. She always got over it. Again, Lucas lay awake after she slept.
The phone call, when it came, would probably be a little after three o'clock, he thought. The pit of the night…
Three o'clock passed, and he dozed. Woke up briefly at four, then dropped back asleep, more soundly now. The problem may have resolved itself, he thought as he went under.
He really wasn't prepared when the phone rang at five o'clock.
He was awake instantly, rolling off the bed, Weather waking and saying, "What? What?"
Lucas picked up the phone. "Yeah."
"Chief? This is Mary Mikolec over at the Center. You asked to be called. We've sent a car over to Qatar's place. He's running."
"Okay," he said. "When did he walk?"
"About fifteen minutes ago."
"Thanks… Thanks for calling."
"What's happening?" Weather asked.
"Qatar's gone," Lucas said.
"Are you going?"
"No… nothing for me to do," he said.
"Lucas, what's going on?"
He sat on the bed and said, "Jesus. I dunno-I might have screwed up, but there's no way to know. That's what's been worrying me."
"Tell me," she said. She sat up and put a hand on his shoulder.
He thought about it for a minute, then said, "It was that call to Randy. You gotta ask yourself, who knew the direct-line number into his room? After they moved him out of the ICU, they put him in this little room by himself where he'd be away from everybody else, and you could see the door from the nursing station. The switchboard was told not to switch any calls without an okay from Lansing. I asked the nurses: He didn't have any visitors… And then you've got to ask why somebody would do that. Make that call, even if he could?"
Weather was puzzled. "Well, why?"
"Because he wanted Qatar turned loose, or at least let out on bail. If he was in jail, and if he cut a deal on a plea-second-degree with psychological evaluation, whatever-he'd be out of reach."
Weather thought about it for half a second, then her hand went to her mouth. "Oh, no. Oh my God."
"Yeah. I think Terry Marshall probably picked him up. It's about sixty-forty that Qatar's dead already."
"Lucas… why did you…?"
"Because I wasn't sure. And even if I thought so, I'm not sure it's not the right thing. What if Qatar gets out in ten or twelve years and starts killing again? That could happen."
"Yes, but Lucas-this isn't right. This is awful."
"But Qatar-"
"Lucas, this is not about that asshole. This is about Terry. If he's done this, it's gonna be terrible for him. The heck with Qatar, it's Terry."
He looked at her and said, "It's only about sixty-forty that Qatar's dead. If he's not, it's about sixty-forty that I know where they're going."
Weather said, "The graveyard."
"That would fit with the way Terry's mind works, I think."
"Lucas, you've got to call somebody," she said. "Lucas, you can't let this happen."
Lucas put his hands to his head, sitting on the bed, frozen. Then, suddenly, looking up: "All right. I'm going. I can beat them down there. The alarm went off fifteen minutes ago. Maybe I can work something, maybe I can, if there's time, maybe…"
He was out of bed, pulling on his pants, boots. "Gimme my sweatshirt, give me my sweatshirt…"
They stumbled all the way through the house, Lucas pulling on clothes, out to the garage. He climbed into the Porsche as the garage door rolled up, and she shouted, "Go! Go!"
29
LUCAS FUMBLED HIS flasher up on the dash and plugged it in, and with the harsh red light cutting holes through the night, he followed it down along the Mississippi, across the river by the airport, across the Minnesota River at the Mendota Bridge, and then south on Highway 55, all the time running the numbers. Marshall wouldn't be driving more than a mile or two over the speed limit, to avoid any possible traffic cops-it was early for traffic cops, but the first trickle of the rush was beginning, and Marshall wouldn't want to take any chances.
And that gave Lucas a chance. Giving Marshall a twenty- or twenty-five-minute head start-Marshall was starting farther into town than Lucas was, and facing more traffic-he and Lucas should arrive at the graveyard about the same time. What would happen there, Lucas didn't know; and if Marshall wasn't there, if he'd just decided to drop Qatar out in the woods somewhere, in some predug hole, then it was over.
Cell phone, he thought. Maybe he should call the Goodhue County sheriff, get them to send a car. But then, if Marshall wasn't there, they'd know that Lucas knew who had taken Qatar… He touched his jacket pocket for the phone, still thinking about it. The pocket was empty. The phone was back on the charger on his desk.
One option gone.
He touched his belt: The. 45 was there. He'd taken it without thinking. But what for?
THREE PEOPLE WOULD know about all of this-he and Weather, and Marshall-and Del would probably figure it out if he ever sat down to think about it. There would never be any proof. Marshall would be too careful for that. What to do if he got there too late, with Qatar already dead? Just keep going?
He had to run…
He went through the suburbs, through the red lights and around shying cars, watching for movement along the sides of the roads, of people unaware. If he hit another car at this speed, the Porsche would be flattened into a hubcap; if he hit a wandering human, he would instantly convert that human to hamburger.
All the way, calculating, wondering: He hadn't told Weather or anyone else about the laptop. If he'd taken the laptop downtown after he found it, had processed it, they could have rearrested Qatar on the Aronson charge and he probably wouldn't have made bail. Marshall's whole concept would have been short-circuited.
But then what happens to justice? Ten or fifteen years in jail, with Qatar coming out all clear, even more careful, to kill again? Some of them, some of the Qatars, never stopped. Lucas was still uncertain of the equities. If it weren't for Weather, he might have let it go…
HE HIT THE blacktop north of the Pine Creek crossing with enough daylight to see it clearly. He slid through the turn and jumped back on the gas, then cut out on the gravel road. Close now; more light. He saw the DNR parking area coming, and sitting in it…
"Goddamnit." Marshall's red Jeep Cherokee.
Lucas screamed into the lot, braked down beside the Cherokee, and hopped out.
Looked around…
Marshall and Qatar were up on the hillside. They had stopped walking, and both were looking down at him. Qatar was dressed in pajamas, and his feet were bare. He had been gagged for a while, Lucas thought: Several coils of duct tape were looped around his neck, as though they'd been pulled down from his face. He was shivering, either from fear or simply from the cold.
Marshall was wearing jeans and a tan barn coat. He had one hand on Qatar's jacket, and in his other, the big-frame. 357.
Qatar shouted down, "Help me, please. He's crazy, he's going to kill me." There was a catch in his voice. His hands had been cuffed, and he held them out toward Lucas as though he were praying.
"Terry, goddamnit," Lucas called. "Don't do this, man."
Marshall called back, "I was about half afraid you'd show up here. I didn't think you'd be this quick. Ten minutes later and we'd have all been fine."
"Terry, we got him," Lucas shouted, moving closer. "I found his laptop computer. It was in the ceiling in the museum. Me and the janitor found it. It's got pictures of the women on it, it's gotta have prints-we got him for everything, man."