Storm Prey

Weather says the biker was a small guy, and Joe Mack is notably large.”
    “So there’s at least one other guy,” Virgil said. “The guy who killed Jill MacBride. That’s some outsider DNA, right?”
    “If it doesn’t belong to the doc.” Lucas thought about it for a minute, then said, “But it won’t belong to the doc, because the guy who killed Jill MacBride is the guy who tortured Lyle Mack. Same cold killer. Same ...”
    He stopped and turned away from Virgil and said, “Oh, Jesus.”
    “What?”
    “How did the guy who killed Jill MacBride get to the airport? And how did Joe get out? MacBride’s car was still there.... Somebody picked him up, and killed MacBride, right? The killer picked up Joe Mack. Joe either called him, or Lyle Mack called him and sent him over to pick up Joe. We know Joe Mack talked to Lyle, after he ran.”
    “They could have taken the train in and out,” Virgil said. “But it’s about nine hundred and ninety-nine to one that they drove.”
    Lucas stood up, suddenly excited: “You know what? You know what? The day Joe Mack ran, he was signing his van over to a skinhead. He signed the paper, but the guy never gave Joe any money. No check, nothing. Nothing we saw. I suppose the skinhead could have given Joe a wad of cash ahead of time, but that usually doesn’t get done, you know, until the papers are signed. They were either friends, or Joe Mack owed him big. And this was a hard-looking guy.”
    Virgil’s eyebrows went up. “The skinhead—what does he look like?”
    “You know, a skinhead,” Lucas said. “Probably twenty-five, wind-burned face, skinny, muscles in his face ...”
    Virgil leaned forward, intent. “Man, I’ve seen that guy, wandering around by the twins’ team, doing nothing,” Virgil said. “An orderly, or a whatever, a nurse. He’s wearing a hospital uniform. I’ve seen him a couple times. I’m always catching his eyes—”
    Lucas snapped his fingers: dug out his cell phone, called the duty officer: “I need the tag numbers of a van owned by a Joe Mack, M-A-C-K, sold in the last few days ... I can wait.”
    They waited, no more than a minute, and the duty officer came back. “We’ve got a Joe Mack as the owner of a 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan cargo van, white in color, but there’s no transfer come through.”
    “You got the tags?”
    “Yeah. You want them?”
    “No. Get onto the airport cops, find out if those tags came into the airport ...”
    Lucas gave him time and date and said he’d wait again. The duty officer came back after two minutes and said that it’d be another two minutes; and came back and said, “Well, you got it. The van came in at ten forty-two and was out at eleven-oheight.”
    “Thank you. Get all the numbers, tell the airport cops to be careful with the data, see if they’ve got a face in their van photo. Get back to me.”
    He clicked off and said to Virgil: “Got him. It’s our skinhead. Goddamnit, we should have scanned all the tags coming in and out around the time of the MacBride murder. It would have kicked out Joe Mack’s van. I mean, I saw the guy.”
    “And if it’s the same guy I saw ...”
    “Where’s Weather right now?” Lucas asked.
    “Either operating or up in the observation room.” They both stood up and Virgil said, “This way,” and as they hurried back toward the elevators, they both reached down and touched their weapons.
    Lucas said, “He’s maybe got hand grenades.”
    “I was just thinking that,” Virgil said. “Shoot first, ask questions later.”
     
     
    WEATHER OPENED the operation as she did each day, moving fast now. Moving fast, she was in and out in ten minutes, laying bare the ring of bone that connected Ellen and Sara. Most of the bone had been taken out, and Hanson, at her elbow, was ready to take out all but about a centimeter of the rest of it.
    “Anything I can do before I go?” Weather asked him.
    “I could use a couple more sterile hands in close,” he said.
    She stayed, to help hold the babies’ heads, six hands in close and tight. Maret asked, through the crowd, “Hearts?”
    “Okay so far,” somebody answered from the back.
    The saw, in cutting through the bone, kicked up the stink of raw blood mixed with something else ... almost a floral scent. Dead peonies, maybe.
    Hanson was a half hour, against an estimate of forty minutes. His mask was dotted with sweat when he backed away. “We’re good.”
    The neurosurgeons moved up.
    Weather backed