“That motherfucker,” Pilate said. Coward? Only fights women? Ran out on his friends? “He’s smearing me, he’s ruining my whole fucking reputation.”
Kristen said, “Keep your voice down, for Christ’s sakes. They can hear you three rooms down. And what difference does it make? You can never be you again . . . ever.”
“Fuckin’ coward? Fuckin’ coward?”
“Keep your voice down.” She’d seen him like this, when he’d pick up an insult and turn it into a cataclysm. That’s how they wound up killing Kitty Place: because another woman had insulted Pilate.
Late that night, three o’clock, Kristen woke up and heard Pilate rattling something. She turned her head and opened her eyes. He was pointing his .45 at the darkened television. He said, aloud, “Coward?” Pulled the trigger and the hammer fell with a metallic smack and he racked the slide again.
? ? ?
LETTY CAME DOWN the stairs wearing dark slacks, low heels, and a dark blue silk blouse: dressed up to talk to the cops. Lucas looked at her and thought that she’d never work undercover as a cop, unless it was a very classy assignment. With her dark hair, she gave off a little too much of a private school vibe. Of course, if she focused on economics at Stanford, she could be a real undercover weapon if she investigated economic crime, where the criminals wore five-thousand-dollar suits.
She looked at Lucas and said, “You look like a rich cop.” Lucas was wearing a navy blue suit, English loafers, and a very pale blue shirt made in France.
“Why not a banker?”
“Bankers don’t have noses that are crooked from being broken or scars like yours. But cops do. I mean . . . look at Jenkins. Or Shrake.”
“Please,” Lucas said. And, “You ready to go?”
“We need to stop at a Caribou for some iced coffee.”
“Not a problem.”
? ? ?
THE DAY WAS PERFECT: low eighties, bluebird sky, the slightest touch of a breeze. If the Minnesota August lasted all year, nobody would live anywhere else. That hadn’t always been true, he told Letty, as they went out to the Porsche. There had been the whole era of the infamous St. Paul Smell, but that was gone now. Forever, he hoped, because it had been nasty.
They made it to the BCA in twenty-five minutes, with a stop at Caribou Coffee so that Letty could get a Cold Press iced coffee and a Diet Coke and scone for Lucas, and they dropped the top on the car and took their time.
Sands was waiting in an adjoining office, talking to an agent, but jumped up the instant he saw Lucas and Letty. “Lucas, we gotta talk.” He looked at Letty, recognized her, and said, “Your daughter can wait in your office.”
? ? ?
THE MINUTE THEY GOT in his office, Sands turned around and poked a finger at Lucas, raised his voice and said, “What the hell have you been doing out there? You had responsibilities here, and instead, you go tearing around the countryside, not even in Minnesota, you get five cops shot and one of them killed.”
“Don’t shout at me, Henry,” Lucas said. He said it calmly enough, but Henry took a quick step backward.
“You don’t fuckin’ threaten me, Davenport. I’ve had enough of this shit, your goddamn gang operating however they want, that fuckin’ Flowers pisses off a state senator, who’s still calling me—”
“I didn’t threaten you, Henry. In fact, I’m in the process of reevaluating my position at the BCA. I don’t think I’m up high enough in the food chain to avoid the bullshit. I’m gonna talk to the governor about moving me up another step or two, so I can do some actual investigation, instead of sending my men out to blow moronic state senators.”
Sands put up both hands, said, “Okay. Okay. You talk to whoever you want. But the first thing you do is, you figure out how you’re going to pay for this little excursion to Michigan. What are you gonna do when we get sued by some—”
“I’ll pay for it,” Lucas said. “If we get sued and lose, I’ll pay for it. I’ll pay for my own mileage, my own hotels, won’t put in for any overtime. Henry, we wiped out a gang that butchered at least ten innocent people, and quite possibly more, including a crucifixion. You want me to go on television and tell people that Henry Sands disallowed my travel expenses for killing off a gang that slashed an actress to death and crucified a young boy from Texas? You want to be famous, I think I can manage it,” Lucas said.
“You’re threatening me again,” Sands said.
“I’d never threaten you,” Lucas said. “If I got to that point, I’d just bust your fuckin’ nose. In the meantime . . .” Lucas gave him the finger. “Fuck you.”
“Hey! Hey!”
Sands’s voice cut off when Lucas pulled the door shut.
? ? ?
LUCAS AND LETTY gave their statements about the Wisconsin part of the investigation, sticking close to the statement they’d given the Sawyer County Sheriff’s Department. Lucas expanded into the conflict in the Upper Peninsula. Everybody called them depositions, but they weren’t really, because there was no swearing in, or an opposition attorney to monitor them. Real depositions would come later, if somebody decided to sue. Given the viciousness of Pilate and the disciples, Lucas thought that successful suits would be thin on the ground.
The statements took an hour and a half, then they shook hands all around, and Lucas and Letty stopped at Lucas’s office on the way out. Del was sitting there, reading a hippie newspaper, and when he saw them coming, he shook his head.
“I understand you got harsh with Henry.”
“I let it out a little,” Lucas agreed. “Why?”
“There’s a hot rumor going around that he’s going to bring you up on a bunch of charges, try to get you fired, or at least, suspended for, you know, months. Demoted, probably.”
Lucas smiled and said, “Well, as some great philosopher should have once said, it is what it is. Don’t worry about it, Del. Though you might want to keep your head down: avoid as much of the stink as possible.”
“Lucas, the whole group is talking about ways to back you up. We’re all with you—”