Storm Prey

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.
     
     
    A LITTLE AFTER two o’clock a Minneapolis cop called and identified herself as Marilyn Crowe. “I heard you were looking for a tall, thin, Arab-type guy who sort of looks like Dr. Shaheen.”
    “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