Storm Prey

Then you got lucky. He didn’t know that you’d seen the other guys,” Virgil said.
    “Oh my God,” she said, hand to her chest. “He was so polite. And good-looking. Like Zorro.”
    Virgil said, “Good-looking. Like Zorro.”
    “Yeah, you know. Zorro.”
    “I went down to take a look at him. He didn’t look like Zorro. He looked like Sancho Panza. He was about five-six and chubby.”
    She said, “Oh. Then he’s not the man I saw. The man I saw was more than six feet. As tall as Lucas, but thin. Like you. But dark-complected, black hair, a mustache.”
    “A doc?”
    She nodded. “He was wearing a physician’s scrubs. But maybe ... I’m misremembering. I didn’t expect to see anybody there at that time in the morning, and we were alone in the elevator. Maybe it was this Shaheen man. Maybe he seemed larger to me.”
    “And thinner? And better-looking?”
    “That doesn’t seem likely, does it?”
    Virgil stood up. “No, it doesn’t. Don’t let any of these French people take my beer. I gotta call Lucas.”
     
     
    LUCAS THOUGHT about it for a minute, then said, “Shaheen getting killed was pretty convenient, huh? An Arab-looking doc, who didn’t keep any of the good stuff around his apartment, but did keep the cheap stuff and a bunch of packaging.”
    “That’s what I’m thinking,” Virgil said.
    Lucas told Marcy about it, and she said, “I suppose it’s possible. Not likely, though.”
    “Not likely, but Weather’s got a good eye. And that part of the hospital is about empty—it’s mostly equipment storage, mechanical systems, all that. Why would a doc be there, in scrubs, at that time in the morning?”
    “I’ll get some photos of Shaheen; she can check him out. Maybe when she sees a photograph, she’ll recognize him.”
    Lucas sat alone and thought about it. And he thought:
    If Weather could identify nobody but Joe Mack, and if Joe Mack was long gone in Kansas, and if they were going to get him for some involvement with the kidnapping and murder of Jill MacBride—and Lucas still thought they would, when the DNA came back from traces taken from the driver’s seat of MacBride’s van—then why was somebody still looking for Weather? Weather was no longer Joe Mack’s big problem.
    And the answer was, Weather had seen the doc.
    The doc needed to kill Weather. And he would continue to need to kill her.
     
     
    SHRAKE CALLED. “Guess what?”
    “What?”
    “I got something,” he said.
    “Did you hurt him bad?”
    “Who?”
    “Whoever you beat up,” Lucas said.
    “Hey—this was purely brain work. There’s a skinhead who used to hang out with Chapman and Haines from time to time,” Shrake said. “The guy I talked to said his name is Cappy. At least, that’s what people call him. Rides a big BMW, might have come from California. That’s all I got, but I think if I go around and hammer on people a little, I might be able to break out more. All we need is a license number, a last name ...”
    “Tell you what, I think you got him,” Lucas said. “Push it. Something else: I think the doc is still running around loose.”
    “Whoa.”
    “Yeah. Take it easy out there.”
     
     
    LUCAS SAT SOME MORE, eyes closed, tried to visualize the moment he saw the skinhead in Joe Mack’s office. Ran through the scene several times: he’d recognize Cappy if he saw him, Lucas thought, but really couldn’t describe him for a sketch. The problem with a sketch was, it was the details that counted, not the generalities.
    What had they talked about? Joe had said something about insurance? Back through the scene. Get insurance? The skinhead said his was good for thirty days. Then Joe said something about boxes? Could that be right?
    Then he remembered something else. Honey Bee Brown had gone into the office ahead of them, to shout at Joe Mack about not telling her that Haines and Chapman had been killed. The skinhead had snapped something at her that shut her up. Would that work with somebody you didn’t know?
    He took out his cell phone and notebook and called Honey Bee Brown. She answered on the third ring.
    “This is Davenport. Who is Cappy?”
    “Cappy? Who is Cappy?”
    “You’ve got this bad habit of trying to bullshit me, Harriet, and it makes me not like you,” Davenport said. “Cappy is the skinhead who told you to shut up, after we told you that Haines and Chapman were murdered. He was in Joe Mack’s office, buying Joe’s van.”
    “Cappy. Okay, I got him,” Honey