yet?” Lucas asked.

“Just getting started,” Jane Widdler said. “There are some very nice things here. These damn vandals…they surely don’t realize the damage they’ve done.”

“To say nothing of the killings,” Lucas said.

“Oh, well,” Jane said, and waved a hand. She somehow mirrored Lucas’s guilty attitude: old ladies came and went, but a Louis XVI gilt-bronze commode went on forever.

Lucas asked Smith, “Get the insurance papers?”

“Yeah.” Smith dipped into his briefcase and handed Lucas a sheaf of papers. “Your copy.”

Lucas told him about Kidd’s take on Stanley Reckless. “Between the jewelry and this one painting, we’re talking big money, John. We don’t even know what else is missing. I’m thinking, man, this is way out of Nate Brown’s league.”

Smith said, “Ah, Brown didn’t do it. I don’t think he’s bright enough to resist the way he has been. And I don’t think he’s mean enough to kill old ladies. He’s sort of an old hangout guy.”

“What’s the Reckless painting?” Leslie Widdler asked, frowning. “It’s not on the insurance list.”

“Should it be?”

“Certainly. A genuine Stanley Reckless painting would be extremely valuable. Where was it hung? Did they take the frame, or…”

“Wasn’t hung,” Lucas said. “It would have been in storage.”

“In storage? You’re sure?”

“That’s what we’ve been told,” Lucas said. “Why?”

Widdler pursed his lips around his braces. “The thing is, some of these paintings here, I mean…frankly, there’s a lot of crap. I’m sure Mrs. Bucher had them hung for sentimental reasons.”

“Which are purely legitimate and understandable,” Jane Widdler said, while managing to imply that they weren’t.

“…but a genuine Reckless shouldn’t have been in storage. My goodness…” Widdler looked at the high ceiling, his lips moving, then down at Lucas: “A good Reckless painting, today, could be worth a half-million dollars.”

Smith to Lucas: “It’s piling up, isn’t it? A pro job.”

“I think so,” Lucas said. “Professional, but maybe a little nuts. No fight, no struggle, no sounds, no signs of panic. Whack. They’re dead. Then the killers take their time going through the house.”

“Pretty goddamned cold.”

“Pretty goddamned big money,” Lucas said. “We both know people who’ve killed somebody for thirty bucks and for no reason at all. But this…”

Smith nodded. “That Ignace guy from the Star Tribune really nailed us. We’ve got calls coming in from all over.”

“New York Times?”

“Not yet, but I’m waiting,” Smith said.

“Best find the killer, John,” Lucas said.

“I know.” Smith wasn’t happy: still didn’t have anything to work with, and the case was getting old. “By the way, Carol Ann Barker’s upstairs, checking out Bucher’s stuff.”

“Barker?” Lucas didn’t remember the name.

“The niece, from L.A.,” Smith said. “She’s the executor of the will. She’s, uh, an actress.”

“Yeah?”

“Character actress, I think. She’s got a funny nose.” He glanced at the Widdlers. “I didn’t actually mean that…”

“That’s all right,” Jane Widdler said, with a wooden smile. “Her nose is quite small.”

LUCAS WANTED to talk to Barker. On the way up the stairs, he thumbed through the insurance papers, which, in addition to the standard boilerplate, included a ten-page inventory of household items. Ten pages weren’t enough. He noticed that none of the furniture or paintings was valued at less than $10,000, which meant that a lot of stuff had been left off.

He counted paintings: ten, twelve, sixteen. There were at least thirty or forty in the house. Of course, if Widdler was right, many of them had only sentimental value. Lucas would have bet that none of the sentimental-value paintings were missing…

LUCAS FOUND Barker sitting on the floor of Bucher’s bedroom, sorting through family photo albums. She was a little too heavy, her hair was a little too big, and she had glasses that were three fashions ahead of anything seen in the Twin Cities.

The glasses were perched on one of the smallest noses Lucas had ever seen on an adult; its carefully sculpted edges suggested a major nose job. Weather would have been interested. She had a whole rap on rhinoplasties, their value, and the problems that come up. Barker had been ill served by her surgeon, Lucas thought.

She looked up when Lucas loomed over her. The glasses slipped a quarter inch, and she peered at him over the black plastic frames. “There are way too many pictures, but this should give us a start.”

“On what?” Lucas asked.

She pushed the glasses back up her tiny nose. “Oh, I’m sorry—you’re not with the police?”

“I’m with the state police, not St. Paul,” Lucas said. “Give us a start on what?”

She waved her hand at three stacks of leather-bound photo albums. “Aunt Connie used