Storm Prey

here to wait for the police,” she said.
    “Stay there, stay inside. I’m coming.”
     
     
    WHEN THE FIRST St. Paul cops showed up, they were skeptical. When she explained that she might have seen the face of one of the robbers who took down the hospital, they became interested. When she mentioned that Lucas was her husband, and that she had some familiarity with assholes, and this particular asshole may have dropped a gun on the highway, they got busy.
    Lucas arrived in the truck, shouldered past the cops and asked, “You okay?”
    “I’m fine.” She was fine, but she could see that he was not. He was white-faced with anger.
    He turned to one of the cops and said, “Did you get somebody to look for a weapon?”
    The cop nodded. “We’re rolling on it. We’ve got a highway patrol guy to block off 94, and two of our cars down there with him. It’s gonna be a mess, though. Rush hour.”
    Back to Weather: “The guy you saw yesterday. He’s got to be the robber. What kind of a bike was it? Anything you recognize?”
    “It wasn’t a Harley, that’s all I know,” she said. “The guy’s legs were behind him, so he was leaning over the handlebars. When he took off, the front wheel came right off the ground. He was wearing a black helmet. But he was kind of a small guy, I think. That’s the impression I got.”
    “Crotch rocket,” one of the cops said. “The highway patrol guy had a stop just east of downtown, and when Miz Davenport called, they passed the word to him and he was looking for the bike. Nothing came through, so the guy got off somewhere.”
    “Not many bikes at this time of year,” the other cop said. “Too much snow and ice.”
    “Clear right now,” Lucas said.
    “On I-94 it is, but you wouldn’t want to cut any corners on the back streets,” the cop said.
    Lucas nodded: the cop was right. “Had any reports of stolen bikes?”
    “We’ll check.”
     
     
    LUCAS TURNED BACK to Weather. “We’ve got to lose you until we find the guy. We could put you in the University Radisson....”
    Weather shook her head. “Nope, nope. I need my sleep, and I need to be at home, with the kids, and I need to get to the hospital at the right time every day. And maybe in the middle of the night.”
    “How’re the twins?”
    “Sara’s heart is a problem,” Weather said. “They’re working on it now, but the stuff they need to give her causes problems for Ellen. So—maybe we’ll be good tomorrow.”
    “Tired?”
    She shrugged. “Not terribly—but it could get bad if this goes on for a few days. We knew it might, but hoped it wouldn’t. That’s why I need to be at home.”
    Lucas said, “What would you think about a house guest?”
    She shook her head. “Lucas, I don’t want Shrake or Jenkins bumbling around the house. I mean, those guys could fall on the piano and break it.”
    “I called Virgil. He said he would be here in an hour.”
    She nodded. “Virgil would be okay. Besides, it sounds like it’s settled.”
    “Yes, it is,” he said.
    She recognized the tone. They both had tempers, and they had learned to recognize when the other was putting his/her foot down, when things had moved beyond negotiation. She nodded: Virgil it was.
     
     
    LUCAS CALLED the cops’ supervisor, an old friend named Larouse, who said he’d call with any news. “You want a car outside your house?”
    “You don’t have to park it, but if you’d cruise it pretty steadily, that’d be good.”
    “We’ll check every movin’ dog,” Larouse said. Then, “Hang on a minute.” There was a moment of silence, then Larouse was back. “We’ve got a gun. A Taurus revolver. Listen to this: it’s loaded with three .410 shells and two Colt .45s. Got run over about two hundred times, but the shells are still inside. Maybe we’ll get something off them.”
    They talked for a couple of more minutes, then Lucas signed off: “Get back to me, man.”
    Weather had been listening and she asked, “Good news?” “Well, you weren’t hallucinating—they found the gun.”
    “I knew it.”
    “It’s all beat up. Got run over a lot. They’re running it back to the lab. They’ll check the shells for prints and then ship them over to us and see if we can pull any DNA.”
    “Doesn’t sound too hopeful.”
    “Hey: if there’re prints on the shells, Lodmell will pull them up. And I believe the guy’ll be on record. You don’t send somebody out with a man-killer and a crotch rocket if he’s a