A little tension now. She went straight to the shower and stood under it, breathing deeply, flexing the muscles in her back and shoulders. Stiff. When she got out of the shower, she downed four ibuprofen tablets, then dressed: black slacks, a deep red sweater, and a dark blue jacket over the sweater. She found a pair of brown cotton gardening gloves, and pulled them on. The best she could do for nighttime camouflage. Now for a weapon.
The police had been all through the house, but she remembered that when the closet rod broke in the front closet a year or so earlier, Wilson had tossed the broken dowel rod up in the rafters of the yard shed, where it lay with other scrap wood. She found a flashlight in the kitchen, let herself out the back, and walked in the dark to the shed. Inside, she turned the flash on. She could see the scrap wood overhead, but couldn’t reach it. The lawn tractor was there, and she stood on the seat, stretched to push the wood around, and saw the two pieces of the dowel rolling to one side. She got both of them down. One was a little more than six feet long, including the split; the other a little more than two feet long, including the sharp split end.
She carried them both back to the house in the dark, and inside the porch gave the shorter of the two pieces a test swing. A little lighter than a baseball bat, but it swung just as well. Wearing the gloves, she rubbed both of them down with WD-40, eliminating any fingerprints.
In the garage, she put both pieces in Wilson’s Buick, then climbed on top of the car hood, pulled the cover off the light on the garage door opener, and unscrewed the lightbulb. She climbed down from the car and put the bulb on the passenger seat.
Ready. She took a deep breath, started the car, pushed the garage door opener. The door came up, but no light came on. She backed out of the garage, lights out, then rolled down the long driveway to the street. The houses were far enough apart, and the street dark enough, that she should be able to get out without being seen . . . a calculated risk. If anyone saw her driving without lights, they’d remember it. A risk she’d take. She rolled into the street, drove a hundred feet, and turned on the lights. She’d gotten away with it, she thought.
On the south side of Minneapolis, she stopped in a beatup industrial area and threw the longer of the two pieces of dowel rod into a pile of trash; the other waited beside the passenger seat.
ST. ANNE’S COLLEGE—ST. ANNE’S COLLEGE FOR BLOND
Catholic Girls, as Audrey thought of it—was a leafy, redbrick girls’ college in St. Paul, a short walk from the Mississippi. Davenport lived somewhere in the neighborhood, Audrey knew. The newspaper article didn’t say exactly where: just the Highland Park neighborhood.
Maybe to be close to the nun, she thought.
Audrey had spent four unhappy years at St. Anne’s, getting finished. She’d needed the finish, with her Red River farm background. And the unhappiness hadn’t counted for much, since she couldn’t ever remember being happy. She’d plowed through her courses, a smart, reasonably pretty brunette, and had carefully weeded out the likely husband prospects from St. James’s—St. James’s College for Blond Catholic Boys.
Wilson McDonald had been the result of her four years of winnowing.
ON THE SOUTHWEST SIDE OF THE CAMPUS, THE RESIDENCE squatted in sooty obscurity. A near-cube built of red brick like most of the other buildings on campus, it housed the declining numbers of the sisterhood of nuns who ran St. Anne’s. The newspaper article, ‘‘The Pals of Lucas Davenport,’’ had mentioned that Sister Mary Joseph lived on campus, and continued to wear the traditional black habit on public occasions, including the classroom, though she sometimes went out in civilian clothing when working in area hospitals.
Audrey had never seen her in anything but traditional dress, and wasn’t sure she’d recognize her in civilian clothing. Still, she thought, she could pick her out.
Audrey parked on the street, and after sitting for a moment in the dark, looking up and down, she got out, leaving her purse but carrying her cell phone, the dowel rod held by her side. She walked to the Residence along the sidewalk, and, in the dark space between streetlights, turned into the parking lot and moved quickly to the far corner of the building. She stood there, between two tall junipers, an arm’s length from the ivy-twined walls— the bare ivy like a net of ropes and strings climbing the bricks—and listened. She could hear voices, but far away; and a snatch of classical music from somewhere. More the feel of the conversation than the actual words and notes. The parking lot itself held only a dozen cars, most of them nunlike—black and simple; along with a few civilian cars.
She remembered this moment from the other times. The moment before commitment, when she could still back away, when, if discovered, she hadn’t done anything. The moment where she could wave and say, ‘‘Oh, hello, I was a bit confused here, I’m just trying to find my way.’’
And the thrill came from piercing that moment, going through it, getting into the zone of absolute commitment.
She took the phone from her jacket pocket, and punched the numbers in the eerie green glow of the phone’s information screen.
‘‘St. Anne’s Residence.’’ A young woman’s voice. Audrey had done this very job, answering the phone as a student volunteer, two nights a week for a semester, six o’clock to midnight.
‘‘Yes, this is Janice Brady at Midway Hospital. We have a family-emergency call for a Sister Mary Joseph . . .’’
‘‘I think Sister is in chapel . . .’’
The chapel was in the Residence basement. ‘‘Could you get her please? We have an injured gentleman asking for her.’’
‘‘Uh, just a moment. Actually, it’ll be two or three minutes.’’
‘‘I’ll hold . . .’’
Then she heard more voices, close by. A man came around the corner, said something, laughed, walked into the parking lot.
Shit . This could ruin everything . . .
The man waved, walked to a car, fumbled with his keys, got in. Sat for a moment. Then started the engine, turned on the lights, and drove to the street.
And Sister Mary Joseph was there: ‘‘Hello?’’ Curiosity in her voice.
‘‘Is this Sister Mary Joseph, a psychologist at St. Anne’s College?’’
‘‘Yes, it is . . .’’
‘‘There’s been a shooting incident, and one of the victims asked that you be notified. An Officer Lucas Davenport.’’
‘‘Oh no! How bad is he?’’ ‘‘He’s in surgery. I really don’t have any more information; a priest on the staff has been notified—we assumed he was Catholic.’’
‘‘Yes, he is. Is the priest doing extreme unction?’’
‘‘No, Officer Davenport is in surgery, but we thought a priest should be notified; it’s purely routine in these cases . . .’’
‘‘I’ll be right there.’’
‘‘If you will check with the information desk at the front entrance, not the emergency entrance, you will be directed to the surgical waiting area.’’
And the nun dropped the phone on the hook.
AUDREY BRACED HERSELF AGAINST THE WALL. IF THE nun came out the main entrance, the entrance closest to the parking lot, and headed straight toward the lot, she’d pass Audrey at little more than an arm’s length. Audrey would have only a moment to determine if she was alone. If she wasn’t, Audrey would follow her to Midway Hospital and try there—the nun would have to walk some distance to the main entrance, and would probably be dropped off.
She was rehearsing it all in her mind when she heard the main door open. No voices, just the clank of the push bar on the door, and the door opening. Three seconds later, a woman in a black habit swept by, and down the walk. Audrey instinctively knew she was alone: she was moving too quickly, with too much focus, to be with another person. Audrey swung out from behind the junipers, her heart gone to stone in her chest, a step and a half behind the nun.
And she struck, like an axman taking a head.
The heavy rod hit the nun on the side of the head, glanced off, hit the nun’s shou
lder; the woman sagged, her knees buckling, one hand going to the ground. She started to turn.
And Audrey struck her again, this time full on the head, and the nun pitched forward on her face . . . Audrey lifted the dowel rod, her teeth bared, her breathing heavy, and struck at the nun’s head again, but from a bad angle: the rod this time bounced off the side of the nun’s head and into her shoulder.
With building fury, with the memory of all these decades of slights and slurs against her, with the thought of all the people who’d held her back and down, with her father, her mother, with all the others, Audrey struck again and again, hitting the nun’s neck and back and shoulder . . .
And heard the clank of the door again, froze, looked wildly around—nowhere to run, not at this instant, this was the very worst moment for an interruption—and stepped back in the shadow of the junipers. The girl came around the corner no more than a second later, saw the nun, said, ‘‘Sister!’’ and bent over her.
And Audrey struck at her, hitting the girl on the back of the head. Like the nun, the girl pitched forward, onto her face. Audrey hit her again, and again, breathing hard now. Stopped, hovered over the two motionless women for an instant, jabbed at the nun’s leg with the end of the dowel rod, got no response, then scuttled away. Around the corner, onto the sidewalk, down the sidewalk to the car. Nobody on the sidewalk. Inside the car, dowel rod on the floor—a sudden touch of panic: she felt her pocket. Yes! The phone was there—and the car started and she eased away from the curb.
This was always the hardest part, staying cool after an attack. With her heart beating an impossible rhythm, Audrey drove slowly off the campus, to the Mississippi, left to the bridge and across to Minneapolis.
She stopped once, on a dark street, to throw the dowel rod down a sewer. She went on, dropped the cotton gloves one at a time out the window. She hadn’t seen any blood from either of the women, but it had been dark: she should burn these clothes, or get rid of them, anyway.
That would have to wait—she could wash them tonight, immediately—and throw them out tomorrow.
But now, there was more to do.
Twenty minutes later, headlights on, she pulled into her driveway, and into the darkened garage. She dropped the garage door, groped to the kitchen entrance, went inside and flipped on the light.
Upstairs, she took off her clothes, inspected them closely. Nothing she could see. Still, they’d go in the washing machine. She picked up the phone: no messages. Good.
She dialed, got Helen: ‘‘Hello?’’
‘‘Helen . . . I just . . . can’t sleep,’’ she said, her voice crumbling. ‘‘I hate to bother you, have you come over here, but I’m just so blue, I’m just lying here thinking about Wilson.’’ She began to weep, a bubbling, pathetic wail. ‘‘Help me.’’
‘‘Oh God, hang on, Audrey, I’ll be right there.’’
‘‘And H-Helen . . . b-b-bring a few of those Prozacs. Maybe they would help. I’ve got to try some thing.’’
‘‘I’ll be right there. Hang on.’’
She hung up, satisfied. Cleared her face, gathered her clothes for the wash. She might not ever need the Prozac, she might not ever need Helen coming up the drive with her lights on, to muddy any witness statements—but who knew what the future might hold? Better to work all the possibilities now, than to regret it later.
She thought about the nun, lying on the sidewalk.
Wonder if she’s dead?
She never thought about the other woman at all; the other woman was irrelevant.
TWENTY-TWO
SHERRILL HAD BROUGHT WITH HER A VOTIVE CANDLE scented faintly with vanilla, and a crystal candleholder, and their second night together took on the feel of college days, making love in the yellow flickering candlelight. And Sherrill said, as they lay comfortably warm under a sheet, ‘‘Do you think you could go for somebody like Candy La-Chaise?’’ Sherrill had put four .357 slugs through Candy LaChaise’s chest during an abortive holdup at a credit union.
‘‘I don’t think so,’’ Lucas said. He was lying on his back, hands behind his head. ‘‘I think she’d smell pretty bad by now.’’
Sherrill made a quick move toward his groin and he flinched and said, ‘‘Don’t do that, I almost killed you with my karate reflexes.’’
And she said, ‘‘Yeah, right. Answer the question.’’
He didn’t have to think about it: ‘‘Nope. She was pretty, but she was missing a couple of links. You know those kinds of people—basically, they’re a little stupid. Maybe they don’t get bad grades in school, or maybe they even get good grades, but somewhere, down at the bottom, they’re fuckin’ morons. They don’t connect with the world.’’
‘‘You remember Johnny Portland?’’
‘‘Yeah. Asshole.’’
She got up on one elbow, looking down at him. ‘‘I went out with him a couple of times.’’
Lucas turned his head to look at her: ‘‘Jesus. Did he know you were a cop?’’
‘‘I wasn’t. This was like my sophomore year in college, I met him at this Springsteen concert. He liked younger girls, I was like twenty; he picked me up at my mom’s house in a Rolls-Royce.’’
‘‘That will turn a girl’s head,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘He never touched me. I wasn’t gonna sleep with him anyway, he was too old for me, but he never made a move. I thought maybe, you know, he couldn’t.’’
‘‘There were some stories around that he sorta liked wrestling with guys . . .’’
‘‘That occurred to me too—you know, not like I was Miss Queen of the May and everybody’s drooling over me, but he was showing me off to the guys, like, ‘Look what I got.’ But he never seemed much interested in really getting me. Just showing.’’
‘‘Yeah . . . Listen, don’t tell anyone else you went out with John Portland. He was an asshole.’’
‘‘I think he might’ve been missing a couple links too,’’ she said. ‘‘And all these other missing-linkers would come around, acting like they were Robert De Niro or something, like wise guys, but they were really like bartenders and tire salesmen.’’
‘‘De Niro’s old man was a famous artist and De Niro grew up with the intellectual artsy crowd on the East Coast,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Somebody told me that.’’
‘‘Really? He seems pretty real to me. Like he grew up on the streets, and I thought—’’
The phone rang, and Lucas rolled out of bed.
‘‘Every goddamned time,’’ she said, eyes following him. ‘‘You could skip it.’’
‘‘Not when they call at this time of night,’’ he said. ‘‘Back in a sec.’’ Lucas picked up the phone in the den: ‘‘Yeah?’’
SHE HEARD HIM POUNDING DOWN THE HALL; IT might have been funny if she hadn’t heard him virtually screaming at the telephone. Lucas thundered into the bedroom, found Sherrill pulling up her underpants, snapping on her bra.
‘‘My pants . . .’’ He seemed confused.
‘‘On the floor, by the foot of the bed.’’
‘‘My friend Elle . . .’’
‘‘I heard. She’s hurt and you’ve gotta go,’’ she said. She rocked back on the bed to pull her jeans on. ‘‘I’ll drive.’’
‘‘Bullshit, you will,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘I don’t think you’ll be in any shape—’’ she protested, but Lucas cut her off.
‘‘I’m fuckin’ driving,’’ he snapped. ‘‘Shoes?’’
‘‘I think one of them is under the bed, I think I kicked one under . . .’’
She was one garment ahead of him, stepping into her Nikes, collecting her revolver and purse from beside the nightstand, heading for the door. Lucas was ten seconds behind, out through the kitchen, into the garage, into the Porsche, slipping out under the garage door before it was fully up.
‘‘Flasher,’’ she said, as they hit the street.
‘‘Busted,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘Better go over to Cretin then, it’s b
etter lit and you’ll hit some college kid if you run like this on Mississippi.’’
Lucas grunted, downshifted and slid through a corner, punched the car two blocks down to Cretin, ignored the stop sign and cut across the street in front of a small Chevy van and gunned it again; Sherrill braced herself and asked, ‘‘How bad is she?’’
‘‘She’s bad,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘Take her to Ramsey?’’
‘‘Yeah.’’
‘‘They notify Minneapolis?’’
‘‘That was one of the nuns at the Residence calling, another friend.’’ They clipped the red light at Grand Avenue, barely beat the red at Summit, came up behind a line of cars, and Lucas threw the Porsche into the oncoming lane, whipped by a half-dozen vehicles. ‘‘She was just calling because she knew I’d want to know.’’
‘‘Better call Sloan or Del,’’ she said, digging a cell phone out of her purse. ‘‘This is the second run at you. Until we figure out what’s going on, the rest of the guys ought to know.’’
Lucas risked a glance at her: she was sitting comfortably in the passenger seat, one hand forward to brace herself, the other hand working the cell phone. She was calm and composed, maybe a slight pink flush to her face. He looked to the front again, ran the red light at Randolph, burned past the golf course, and dove down the ramp onto I-94.
They made a four-and-a-half-minute run to Ramsey Medical Center; Sherrill hooked up with Sloan one minute down the road, filled him in. ‘‘Tell him to find Andi Manette’s home phone number and call her,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Weather’s staying with the Manettes. Tell Weather about it. She and Elle are pretty tight.’’
Sherrill passed the word, clicked off the phone, looked at the speedometer. ‘‘That all you can get out of this thing?’’
‘‘No,’’ he said, and the needle climbed through 120.
She watched his face for a moment—a brick, a stone— then looked out at the cars flicking by. Good thing, she thought, that she hadn’t driven. She’d never moved this fast on a vehicle that didn’t have a stewardess.