Storm Front

IRGIL AMBLED around the corner to Kaar’s house. Jenkins and Shrake, now in Jenkins’s personal Crown Vic, hovered at the corner where they could both see Virgil, but nobody in the house could see them. They could be at the house, Jenkins swore, in four seconds.
    The fat guy was sweating heavily, and as Virgil came up, took off his Twins hat and wiped his face with a hairy forearm. Virgil could smell him from ten feet away: not dirt, just hot sweat. As Virgil came up, the man asked, “How you doin’?”
    “Okay,” Virgil said. He stopped, and pivoted, which put his back to the house. “I’m a cop. Does Max Kaar live here?”
    “Thought you might be a cop,” the man said. “What’d Max do?”
    “Is he here?” Virgil repeated.
    “He was fifteen minutes ago, and still is, unless he went out through the back fence. He lives in the casita out back.”
    “Casita?”
    “The guesthouse.”
    Virgil stepped back and looked down the narrow driveway. “You mean the garage?”
    “I converted it,” the man said. “It’s really pretty . . . okay . . . inside.”
    “What’s your name?” Virgil asked.
    “Larry Swanson.”
    Virgil waved at Jenkins and Shrake, and gestured past himself, so they’d roll on by the driveway where they couldn’t be seen from the garage. They did, and got out, and Virgil explained the situation, and introduced Swanson.
    “You’re sure the man you saw fifteen minutes ago was Max Kaar?”
    “Well, yeah. I’ve been renting to him for two years.”
    “Was he here yesterday?”
    “Yeah, he said he had a couple of days off. I mean really, is this some kind of terrorist thing? ’Cause he seems like a nice enough guy.”
    Virgil said, “Listen, you guys hang here for a minute, I need to make a phone call.”
    He went back to his car to make it, wound up on hold for a moment, then was put through to an assistant attorney general named Pat Golden, who said, “They tell me it’s that fuckin’ Flowers, lookin’ to get me in trouble.”
    “Pat, I’m really pushed, and I don’t have time to explain it all to you, but I will later, or someday, if I’m allowed to. . . .”
    —
    V IRGIL WAS back out of the car a couple of minutes later and Jenkins said, “There’s no window on the front of the garage, but there’s one down the right side where the main entry door is.”
    Virgil waved him off and asked, “Mr. Swanson, are you married? Is there anyone else in your house?”
    “No, I’m divorced, there’s nobody else here.”
    “Good. I’d like you to put away your lawn mower, get a shirt, and lock your door, right now. Quickly as possible. You’re not being arrested at the moment, but I will arrest you if I need to. Either way, you’re coming with us.”
    “What’d I do? What’d I do?”
    “I’ll explain on the way. Now hurry. Hurry!”
    Jenkins and Shrake were as confused as Swanson, but they asked no questions, just hurried the fat man through a quick armpit-wash and clean shirt, and out the door and into the back of Jenkins’s car. Virgil said, “I’ll see you guys at the BCA. Fifteen minutes.”
    “What’d I do?”
    Virgil and Shrake walked all the way around the block to get back to their cars, taking no chance of being seen should Kaar step out in the yard.
    When Virgil was back in the truck, he did a U-turn and drove north toward I-94, then took the double-secret phone out from under his seat and poked “1.”
    Lincoln answered. “What?”
    “I think we need to confer,” Virgil said. “As you undoubtedly know by now, the stele exchange takes place sometime around nine o’clock tonight.”
    “We’re all over it.”
    “Are you watching the Hatchet and the driver, both?”
    “Why do you ask?”
    “Because I had a very bad night, and spent a lot of time thinking it all over, and so this morning I came up to the Cities and talked to Max Kaar’s landlord, who said he saw Max about fifteen minutes ago. Here, at his house. He said Kaar was here all day yesterday. What I’m saying is, after due consideration, I suspect that the driver is the Hatchet, and the man in the backseat is a decoy.”
    After a long silence, Lincoln said, “I will call you back in two minutes.”
    —
    F IVE MINUTES LATER , she called back and said, “You’re on a speaker here, so speak clearly. Please, please tell me that you didn’t arrest Kaar.”
    “Of course not,” Virgil said. “I was afraid he’d tip off the Hatchet, one way or another.”
    “Thank