you know? Nothing.”

THE BED they slept in was broken down; tended to sag in the middle. Neither could sleep much; and Leslie woke in the middle of the night, his eyes springing open.

Two people in the world knew about him and the killings. One was Amity Anderson, who wanted money. They’d promised her a cut, as soon as they could move the furniture, which was out in the steel building.

The other one was Jane.

A tear dribbled down his face; good old Jane. He unconsciously scratched at a dog bite. He could pull Anderson in with the promise of money—come on out to the house, we’ve got it. Kill her, bring her out here.

And Jane…Another tear.

14

JENKINS WAS ASLEEP in the visitor’s chair when Lucas arrived at his office the next morning. Carol said, “He was asleep when I got here,” and nodded toward the office. Lucas eased the door open and said, quietly, “Time to work, bright eyes.”

Jenkins was wearing a gray suit, a yellow shirt, and black shoes with thick soles, and, knowing Jenkins’s penchant for kicking suspects, the shoes probably had steel toes. He’d taken off his necktie and gun and placed them under his chair.

He didn’t move when Lucas spoke, but Lucas could tell he was alive because his head was tipped back and he was snoring. He was tempted to slam the door, give him a little gunshot action, but Jenkins might return fire before Lucas could slow him down. So he said, louder this time: “Hey! Jenkins! Wake up.”

Jenkins’s eyes popped open and he stirred and said, “Ah, my back…This is really a fucked-up chair, you know that?” He stood up and slowly bent over and touched his toes, then stood up again, rolled his head and his hips, smacked his lips. “My mouth tastes like mud.”

“How long you been here?” Lucas asked.

“Ahhh…Since six? I found the Kline kid last night, then I went out with Shrake and had a few.”

“Until six?”

“No, no. Five-thirty, maybe,” Jenkins said. “Farmer’s market was open, I ate a tomato. And one of those long green things, they look like a dildo…”

“A cucumber?” Lucas ventured.

“Yeah. One of those,” Jenkins said.

“What about the kid?”

“Ah, whoever was in the truck, it wasn’t Kline,” Jenkins said. He yawned, scratched his head with both hands. “He was out with some of his business-school buddies. They’re not the kind to lie to the cops. Stuffy little cocksuckers. They agree that he was with them from eight o’clock, or so, to midnight.”

“That would have been too easy, anyway.” Jenkins yawned again, and that made Lucas yawn.

“Girl have any kind of description?” Jenkins asked.

“The guy had a nylon on his head,” Lucas said. “She was too scared to look for a tag number. All we got is the dead dog and a white van, and we don’t know where the van is.”

“Well, the dog’s something. I bet they’re doing high-fives over at the ME’s office,” Jenkins said. He yawned and shuffled toward the door. “Maybe I’ll go out for a run. Wake myself up.”

“Call nine-one-one before you start,” Lucas said. Jenkins was not a runner. The healthiest thing he did was sometimes smoke less than two packs a day.

“Yeah.” He coughed and went out. “See ya.”

“Eat another tomato,” Lucas called after him.

LUCAS COULDN’T THINK of what to do next, so he phoned John Smith at the St. Paul cops: “You going up to Bucher’s?”

“Yeah, eventually, but I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Smith said.

“Anybody up there?”

“Barker, the niece with the small nose, an accountant, and a real estate appraiser. They’re doing an inventory of contents for the IRS—everything, not just what the Widdlers did. Widdlers are finished. School got out, and the Lash kid called to see if he could go over and pick up his games. He’ll be up there sometime…probably some people in and out all day, if you want to go over. If there’s nobody there when you get there, there’s a lockbox on the door. Number is two-four-six-eight.”

“All right. I’m gonna go up and look at paper,” Lucas said.

“I understand there’ll be some excitement in Dakota County this morning, and you were involved,” Smith said.

“Oh, yeah. Almost forgot,” Lucas said. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Pioneer Press reporter,” Smith said. “He was on his way out to Dakota County. Politicians don’t do good in Stillwater.”

“Shouldn’t fuck children,” Lucas said.

HE CHECKED OUT of the office and headed over to Bucher’s, took a cell-phone call from Flowers on the way. Flowers wanted the details on Jesse