John Sandford - Storm prey

Virgil cleaned up, and when Jenkins showed up, took a nap. At nine o'clock, Weather was on the phone again to University of Minnesota Hospitals, a friend in administration.

A few minutes later, she stepped into the front room: "Virgil?"

Virgil's eyes popped open. "Yeah?"

"I didn't know if I should wake you. I talked to some friends over at University Hospitals, where the Shaheen man was doing his residency. You know when we were talking about checking people to see when they were working over at MMRC? I checked Shaheen. He was working the morning that the Macks were murdered. He started at six, and it's two hours up to Ike Mack's house."

"Huh." Virgil sat up, looking dazed. He had pillow hair, canted to the left side of his head. "That doesn't entirely mean he couldn't have done it. We know Mack was alive after one o'clock in the morning, when the bar closed. I mean, he could have been there, helped murder Mack, and then gone to work while Garner went up and killed Ike."

"Doesn't seem likely, though," she said. "If you're out murdering people, wouldn't you want to go together?"

Virgil yawned, rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm just thinking like a lawyer. If we accused somebody else, a defense lawyer could drive back and forth, starting at one A.M., get back and still have an hour to get Shaheen to work… assuming it only took one second to kill Ike," he said. "In other words, he could convict Shaheen, and get his client off."

"So, think like a cop."

"Well, shoot. That would mean we're not done. Still looking for an Arab, but a tall thin one with a mustache. Somebody who would know Shaheen. Who would know that Shaheen would look enough like himself to throw us off, especially… Hmm." His eyes flicked at her.

"Especially if I were gone," she said, brightly.

"Yeah. That would pretty much be the icing on the cake. For the doc, I mean." He looked around. "Where's Jenkins?"

"I got him blowing snow. I want to get down to look at the twins."

Virgil listened, heard the snowblower. "Okay. Soon as the driveway's clear, we'll head out. Full convoy again. Though, I think Garner was the designated hitter."

She left the house at nine-thirty in the convoy, headed to the hospital. Lucas said he was on the way back, and would take a nap.

At the hospital, Virgil left Weather at the ICU, with Jenkins leaning against the door, while he headed back to the cafeteria. Two Minneapolis cops were drinking coffee, and Virgil squatted next to their table. "Who's running things today?"

"Nobody much-I guess Lee Hall would be the senior guy," one of them said.

"Know where I could find him?"

"Let me buzz him," the cop said. He did, told the cop that Flowers was looking for him, hung up and said, "He'll be right down. He was up watching crime scene picking up blood."

Virgil took a table, and a call from Lucas. "I got a call from the ME," Lucas said. "Between the time Garner ran, and we got him, somebody operated on his toe. You hit him in the little toe. The ME says it's a professional job."

"And Shaheen was completely dead by that time."

"Totally."

"All right, we knew that," Virgil said. "The guy we want looks like a tall, skinny Shaheen."

Even with that information, it took Virgil almost four hours to find him.

"We were so blessed to have this team," Lucy Raynes said. "This whole thing has been so unbelievable."

"Not finished yet," Weather said.

"There's so much to do, I can't begin to cope," Lucy Raynes said. "I've got a notebook just to write it all down. There'll be educational therapy, physical therapy-they're physically so far behind where they should be, because they haven't been able to move on their own. We've got Sara's heart operation, and, if there are any adjustments to the caps, or any emergencies…"

Sara woke up, whimpered. She'd spent her short life sleeping on her back, always with torque from her twin, and now she seemed almost stuck that way, until she suddenly jerked her head to the right, and her face came around without resistance and Weather imagined she saw a flash of surprise on the baby's face.

"You know what the most amazing thing is? They always slept and woke up together, because… they were physically connected. Now, look-Sara wants to eat, and Ellen's sound asleep. That sounds so trivial, but…"

She started leaking tears.

"I'll see you two tomorrow," Weather said. Then, "How are things, financially?"

"They're fine," Larry Raynes said. "I took my vacation for the operation, and the insurance covered all but twenty percent, and the church raised money in town and about everybody gave something… Heck, if we could do this every couple years, we could start turning a pretty good profit."

His wife swatted him and he said, "Ow," and Weather walked away thinking that that had been the first sign of humor she'd seen from either of them.

They went back to the house by convoy, and Lucas got up, still tired, and they sat around and talked about it, and Virgil said, "I got the Minneapolis cops looking for another Arab, but a tall thin one, this time."

"Call me when you get him," Lucas said.

"Yup."

"Well, Shaheen's best friend, supposedly, is named Alain Barakat, and he works in the emergency room at MMRC," Crowe said. "My partner and I interviewed him about Shaheen. Barakat is probably six-two, one-eighty, got a black brush mustache."

Virgil smiled into the phone: "You know where he is?"

"He's in the emergency room until three o'clock," Crowe said.

Virgil said, "Thank you."

Lucas scouted the hallway outside the ER, found a spot, took Weather by the arm and parked her where they could see through the scuffed Plexiglas window into the main room. "Do not move."

A moment later, Marilyn Crowe walked into the ER, looked around, found a nurse, and Crowe asked, "Is Dr. Barakat here?"

Barakat appeared a minute later, spotted Crowe, and walked over. "I wanted to let you know," she said, "because of all the other stuff, it looks like it'll be at least a couple weeks before the ME can release the body. Did you call the uncle?"

Barakat nodded. "Yes. They were completely devastated. He was the golden boy of the family. You know this phrase? Golden boy?"

"I do…" she said. "If you go down to the medical examiner's office, they can tell you how to get the forms you need to fly the body back to Lebanon…"

Out in the hall, Weather whispered, "That's him. That's the guy."

"No doubt in your mind?"

"None. That's him."

Back at the house, Marcy said, "Every time I come here, I wind up eating buns." Shrake wiggled his eyebrows at her, and she said, "Shut up," and took another bite.

Virgil said, "So to sum up, at this point, we have, on our friend Barakat, what is technically referred to as 'jack shit."'

"That's where you'd be wrong, surfer boy. We've got that bandage on Garner's toe. If we find any DNA on it, and it's a good possibility, because Barakat was wrapping quite a bit of sticky tape, we got him. Or, if there's any up on those boxes up north, where they killed Ike…"

"Might sound like a good possibility to you, Deputy Chief, but it sounds thin to me," Virgil said.

"I'm with Virgil," Lucas said. "I suggest we try to find a judge who'll give us a search warrant on his house, based on Weather's identification. We hit his house tomorrow morning when he's at work."

"Tell you what," Marcy said. "Why don't we see if there's any hint of DNA…"

And so they wrangled on into the afternoon.

Joe Mack poked out of the dimness next to the support pillar: "That you?"

"It's me," Honey Bee whispered. "Oh, God, Joe, I'm so sorry about everything."

"Yeah, me too," Joe said. "What about you and the cops?"

"I think they suspect everything, but they don't know anything, for sure. They're tearing up the world looking for you, though. They think you went to Mexico."