Hello? Her sister, Helen, cheerful, inquiring.

Helen? Could you come get me?

Helen recognized the tone. Oh, Jesus, what happened?

Wilsons drunk. He beat me up again. I think I better get out of the house.

Oh, my God, Aud, Ill be right there… hang on, hang on…

LUCAS ARRIVED AT THE OFFICE LATE MONDAY MORNING, neatly dressed, neatly shaved, dead tired. The simpler things in life could be done on automatic pilot: take the clothes to the cleaners, shower, shave, and eat. Anything more complicated was difficult. Exercise took energy, and a heavy workout was impossible after a month without sleep.

Hed been the route before. The last time over the edge, he hadnt recognized what was happening, hadnt seen it coming, and itd almost killed him. This time the process felt slightly different. He could feel it out therethe depression, the breakdown, the unipolar disorder, whatever the new correct name for it wasbut it didnt seem to be marching on him with the same implacable darkness as last time.

Maybe he could fight it off, he thought. But he still dreaded the bed. The minute his head touched the pillow, the brainstorm would begin. Sleep would come only with exhaustion, and then not until after daylight…

IN THE WINTER JUST PAST, WEATHER KARKINNEN, THE woman he'd been about to marry, had been taken hostage by a killer looking for revenge against Lucas. Weather hadmanaged her attacker: shed talked him into surrender. Shed given him guarantees. But nobody on the outside knew.

When Lucas closed his eyes at night, he could see the two of them walking down the narrow hospital corridor toward him, Weather in front, Dick LaChaise using her as a shield, with a pistol to her head. He could also feel the pressure at his back, where a hidden police sniper, a kid from Iowa, was looking at LaChaise through a rifle scope.

Lucass job was to talk the gun away from Weathers head, if only for half a second. If he could just get LaChaise to move the muzzle. .. And he did. The Iowa kid was cold as ice: Dick LaChaises head had been pulped by the mushrooming. 243 slug.

Weather, whose face was only inches away from La-Chaise, had been showered with bone, brain, and blood. She had recovered, in most ways. She could work; she could even forget about it, most of the time. Unless she saw Lucas. They tried to pull the relationship back together, but three months after Dick LaChaise died in a hospital hallway, she was gone.

Gone for good, he believed.

And Lucas was staring into the darkness again.

Hey, Lucas?

Lucy Ghent, a secretary, was calling down the hall from the chiefs office door. She was one of the older women in the office, who competed with her peers on hairdos. Chief Roux is down in Identification. She wants to see you right away.

Trouble?

Ghent flopped a hand, dismissively. Just… weirdness.

Rose Marie Roux was sitting at a cluttered desk in Identification, chewing Nicorette, paging through a document Lucas recognized as the departmental budget. She looked up when Lucas came in and said, I swear to God, if you killed the smartest guy on the city council, the average IQin Minneapolis would go up two points. Dont quote me.

What happened?

The York case.

Yeah?

Morris York, two years on the force, found with a halfounce of Mexican bud in a Marlboro box behind his patrol car visor. His marijuana habit had been detected by a departmental mechanic who claimed he was getting a contact high off the cars upholstery. Internal Affairs made movies of York getting mellow on the job.

Tommy Gedja says this morning, at the council meeting, if thats all were doing in our cars, why do we need new cars? I think he was serious. I think theyre gonna try to pull twelve cars out from under us.

Lucas shrugged: Life sucks and then they cut your budget. Whatre you doing down here?

More budget problems. A piece of white paper, wrapped in a plastic folder, lay on the desks otherwise empty typewriter tray. She picked it up and handed it to him. Came in the mail, first thing this morning.

Dear Chief of Police Roux:

One week ago, Mr. Kresge sent a memo to Susan ODell which said that her department would not be allowed to continue with a planned expansion because of budget constraints. Mrs. ODell has worked on the expansion for a long time and when she got the memo, her quote was, God Damn him, Im going to kill him. There were three people in the room at the time: Sharon Allen (assistant to the vice president), Michelle Stephens (executive secretary), and Randall Moss (assistant head cashier). I cant tell you my name, but I thought you should know.

Not much here, Lucas said. He snapped the paper with his index finger. We could interview Stephens to see how serious she thinks it is. Or if shes just trying to torpedo ODell.

Stephens? Roux had the gene that allowed her to lift one eyebrow at a time, and her left brow went up.

Lucas nodded. Shes probably the one who sent it sounds like somebody who actually heard ODell say it, but she misuses the word quote, which means not a lot of education. On the other hand, everything is spelled right, and secretaries spell things right. Shes very aware of titles and refers to Kresge as mister, which means she saw him as somebody with a lot more status than she has: not an associate. She wouldnt put herself first on the list, because that would make her nervous. And an assistant head cashier probably has a college education.

So hows she dressed, Sherlock?

Lucas smiled, but a droopy, tired smile: Navy jacket and skirt or tan jacket and skirt with an older but neatly ironed white shirt and some kind of tie. Practical heels. Single mother. Tense. Anxious. Angry with ODell for personal reasons. Hurting for money.

Roux said, Smart-ass. She turned and shouted into a closet-sized office: Beverly! Bring the other thing out so Sherlock Holmes can take a look.

The departments document specialist, a dark-haired woman with a faint Moravian accent, bustled out of the closet with another slip of paper wrapped in plastic.

Also in the mail, Roux said. Beverlys checking for fingerprints.

There are none, the woman said. Not on the letter or the envelope. Standard twenty-pound copier paper, no watermark. Printed with a laser printer. Lucas took the paper.

Chief Roux:

Daniel S. Kresge was shot by Wilson McDonald, who was hunting with Kresge when the shooting occurred. I have known Wilson McDonald for many years and I believe that he has killed two other people to further his career. These people were:

A man named George Arris, who was killed about1984, in a shooting outside a restaurant in St. Paul.

Andrew Ingall, who was killed in a boating accident in 1993 on Lake Superior. (He was from North Oaks and his wife still lives there.)

I hope you catch him on this one. He cant go on like this.

A Concerned Citizen.

Lucas looked at Roux, and she caught the small light in his eye. Interesting?

More than the first one, Lucas admitted. No waffling about the presentation. He gets right to it: Daniel S. Kresge was shot by Wilson McDonald.

You think a man wrote it?

Lucas hesitated for a minute, then said, Maybe not. Could be a woman.

When I read it, I assumed it was a woman. I dont know why, Roux said.

Something about the wording, said Beverly. I think its a woman too.

Would you look into it? Roux asked Lucas. Sort of… carefully? Lot of rich people involved.

Lucas said, Sloan and Sherrill are on it.

Sloan is working on the Ericson killing. Thats getting complicated. Sherrills doing the routine for the sheriff up there. Id just like you to look at this letter. It sounds so… sure of itself. You want me to look into it because you think its necessary? Lucas asked. Or because youre worried that Im going crazy?