“You have fingerprints on him?” I said, frowning. “Was he arrested down there?”

“Nothing like that. Miss Hennessy didn’t tell you about her brother’s hand?”

“No,” I said.

“Her brother is missing a finger on his left hand. The card would have only nine prints on it.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said. “But then, our conversation wasn’t exactly a long-ranging one.”

“She’s a funny one, isn’t she?” Fredericks said. “I guess she started looking for a detective up in the Cities to listen to her story, and you got elected. Did you explain to her about jurisdictional lines?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But you know what’s interesting to me in all this?”

“The father?” Fredericks said.

“Yeah,” I said. “He knew his son was missing and told his friend he’d take care of it, but then he never did anything. And then the daughter, Marlinchen, is willing to nag us about finding her brother, but she won’t bother her old man up at his cabin. And when I pressed her about it, it upset her to the point that she walked out on me.”

“It is odd,” Fredericks said. “If you find out anything up there I should know about, give me a call.”

“I will,” I told him.

The deputy I reached at a sheriff’s substation in Cook County, near Tait Lake, identified himself as Begans. He sounded quite young.

“So what can we help you with?” Begans asked.

“I’m trying to get in touch with a man who’s got a cabin up there,” I said. “I’m told there’s no phone, and he’s holed up writing a book.”

“Nice work if you can get it,” Begans said. “What’s the name?”

“Hugh Hennessy,” I said. “I need to talk to him about a missing-persons case. Don’t scare him, just ask him to get in touch at his earliest convenience.”

“His… earliest… convenience,” Begans said slowly, obviously writing it down. “Okay, whereabouts is the cabin?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Well, that’s going to slow things down,” Begans said, sounding bemused.

“I know, I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t have a lot of information.”

“You know, we’ve got a guy here who’s three weeks from retirement,” Begans said. “He knows everything about this area, after thirty-five years here. Let me ask him about Hennessy.”

“That’d be great,” I said.

After we’d signed off, I went into the kitchen to make tea. The cold symptoms were abating, just as Cisco had suggested they would. In another day, I thought, I’d probably feel good enough to crave coffee again. The prospect made me feel better.

I was leaning against the counter in the break room, waiting for the microwave to finishing nuking the water for my tea, when a quiet voice in my mind said, apropos of nothing, Isn’t it possible that you’re sending that nice kid Begans on a wild-goose chase for nothing? Isn’t there a big assumption here you haven’t checked yet?

What if Hugh Hennessy were in Minneapolis and simply refusing to become involved in his oldest son’s situation?

With the lemon tea steeping on my desk, I dug Marlinchen Hennessy’s phone number out of my desk and dialed it.

“Hello?” A boy’s voice, adolescent.

“Is Hugh Hennessy there?” I asked.

“No, I’m sorry,” the boy said.

“Is he going to be in later tonight?”

“No, he’s out of town.” He did not offer to take a message. “This is Liam, can I help you with something?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “I think I’d better call back later.”

The story that Hugh Hennessy was out of town was cohering. So far.

While I’d been on the phone with Fredericks, or perhaps Begans, two young men were knocking over a liquor store in Eden Prairie. I caught the call and drove down there to talk to the clerk and the sole customer who’d witnessed the holdup. The details were sketchy: the two guys were probably white, wearing nylon stockings that flattened and obfuscated facial features. I took notes, left my card, and asked the witnesses to call me if they remembered anything else.

As I drove back to the city, the sun was playing hide-and-seek with us behind galleons of cloud, deep gray on the bottom, white at the edges. I was nearly at the parking ramp the detectives used, when a red light stopped me. Just then, two men emerged from the overhang of the Government Center. Normally, I would have ignored them: two men in suits, a common sight downtown. But one of them was familiar to me. At six-five, he stood out in a crowd, and his gait was distinct: long and confident strides, but not hurried ones, as if to say, I’m going to rule the world, but all in good time.

I knew Christian Kilander both as a county prosecutor and a regular player in pickup basketball games. We’d always been friendly but never close, and he’d surprised me when he’d broken ranks with the system we both served to warn me that I was the primary suspect in the Royce Stewart investigation. Immediately after Gen’s warning phone call, I’d wanted to seek him out, ask if he’d heard anything. I hadn’t done so because the last thing I needed was for anyone, even Kilander, to know that I was concerned about the Royce Stewart case.

Maybe I wasn’t being honest with myself, either. I hadn’t sought Kilander’s help for another, simpler reason. Since our meeting beside the fountain last December, we hadn’t spoken, except briefly as part of an investigation. When we crossed paths downtown, he only nodded where he would have greeted me before, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that he was avoiding a tainted colleague in the same way that a fastidious man would avoid a mud puddle on the sidewalk.

Now Kilander’s companion turned slightly, looking west, and I realized I’d seen him before. He was six feet, with brown hair graying at the temples, somewhere in his mid-thirties. Then I knew: unless I was very mistaken, he was the man I’d seen watching me from behind the wheel of his car, when I was doing my prostitution-decoy operation.

Then the light changed, and I was pushed ahead with the end-of-day traffic. In my rearview mirror, Kilander and his new colleague crossed their intersection, and I lost sight of them.

Back at my desk, I was writing up a quick report when the phone rang.

“I have some news for you,” Begans said.

“Okay,” I told him. “Shoot.”

“Well, Bob knew where Hugh Hennessy’s cabin was, and then we had some business up there anyway, kids target-shooting where they’re not supposed to. We drove up and knocked on the door.”

“And?” Begans seemed to want to be asked.

“There’s nobody there. Nobody’s been there for a while. Locked up tight. The water’s shut off.”

“No kidding?” But I’d been coming to suspect it: that Hugh Hennessy, not Aidan, was the real X in the equation.

“Yes. Is that what you needed to know?” Begans asked.

“It is,” I told him, shifting the receiver to my other ear; my left was sore from having the phone pressed to it. “I appreciate how quickly you got to it. Wish Bob a happy retirement for me.”

Begans chuckled. “Oh, he’ll hate it. In three weeks he’ll be so sick of fishing he’ll be here asking for his old job back.”

After we’d hung up, I thought about what I’d learned. Aidan Hennessy, I’d reflected, wasn’t Hennepin County ’s problem. But if Hugh Hennessy, a county resident, was missing, that sure as hell was our business, wasn’t it?

I could easily get the Hennessys’ address, but going to the house wouldn’t be productive. I didn’t believe that Hugh was there, simply refusing to be a part of the search for his missing son. The boy, Liam, had told me that Hugh wasn’t there, and he’d done so without me identifying myself, which meant that He’s out of town was the answer the Hennessy children were giving all callers.