“I don’t want to talk about it,” Lucas said. “Get me the 550.”
—
AT THE PANCAKE HOUSE,Lucas and Rae—Rae Givens—ordered blueberry pancakes, while Bob—Bob Matees, which he pronounced like the painter Matisse—ordered waffles because, he said, they were less fattening.
“Probably would be,” Rae said, “if you didn’t put an ice cream scoop full of butter on top of them.”
“And then drowned them in fake maple syrup,” Lucas added.
Bob said pleasantly, “Fuck you.” He poured more syrup and saidto Lucas, “As I understand it, you’re an ex–state cop and you saved Michaela Bowden at the Iowa State Fair and she wired you up to get a special appointment to the service. Is that right? Can you introduce us to Bowden? I’ve got a few things I’d like to tell her.”
“Like what?”
“Like she’s gonna lose if she doesn’t start hustling her ass around the Midwest.”
Lucas pointed a fork at him: “Every poll in the country says you’re full of shit.”
“Not every poll.L.A. Timessays she’s gonna lose,” Bob said. “They’re right, unless she starts hustling her ass around the Midwest. Why the hell does she go to states that she’s sure to lose, like Arizona and Texas, or that she’s sure to win, like New York and California? What the hell is she doing in California?”
“There’s gotta be a reason, they gotta know more than we do. They’re political pros,” Lucas said. He looked at Rae. “What do you think?”
“Ithinkshe’s gonna win, but Bob’s smarter than he looks. Actually, given the way he looks, he’s way smarter. He’s got me worried.”
“So what about your appointment?” Bob asked. “What about Bowden?”
Lucas told them about his appointment, and Bob and Rae gave him some background on their own work. They were both career deputy marshals assigned to the Marshals Service’s Special Operations Group, which tracked and busted federal fugitives. They were a cross between an investigative unit and a SWAT squad, and, as Bob said, “We got more guns and armor in our truck than a Humvee in Iraq.”
Neither one of them was married, both had a divorce in thebackground, and Rae’s ex-husband had custody of their two kids while she was out of town. She got them back when she was home.
“It works,” she said. “My ex is a good guy, as guys go, so I don’t have to worry.”
“Heisa good guy,” Bob said. He tipped his head toward his partner. “They got a divorce because Rae... well, Rae isn’t.”
“Glad to hear it,” Lucas said.
—
“NOW,”said Bob, “tell me if this is right—you’ve never really had a clue about where Poole is, but you’ve been interviewing his relatives, and some of them turned up dead, and one other lady got her leg sawn upon.”
Lucas: “I also located the guy who might be the spotter who took Poole to the counting house...”
He told them about Sturgill Darling and the shoot-out at the Darling farm, Darling’s alleged history with Poole, and how Darling’s wife said he was on his way to Canada without a cell phone, to shoot a bear.
“Sounds like she was lying through her teeth,” Rae said.
“With that kind of insight, you could become a St. Paul detective someday,” Lucas said. “Here’s the thing. It’s possible that Darling has a burner phone. It’s also possible that he doesn’t. Most of these guys don’t keep them after they use them. Which is the whole point of having a burner.”
“We know that,” Rae said.
Lucas continued, “While I’m over doing the paperwork on my truck, I’d like you guys to do two things—check with Verizon andAT&T and any other phone services that cover Darling’s farm area and find out if he has a cell phone. If he does, we’ll call it, see where he is. With any luck, he’s planning to hook up with Poole. Or, maybe, he’s just running. If he’s just running, you guys can chase him down and squeeze him.”
“What if he really doesn’t have a phone?” Bob asked.
“He was already gone when I got to the farm. I suspect he got a call from John Stiner, my source down in Florida, and took off. But I don’t think he’d do that and leave his wife behind. I think he probably fixed it with his wife to hide out herself, but she hadn’t quite left yet. If Stiner is the one who tipped him, Darling probably took off the night before I got there, or maybe early yesterday morning. If that’s what happened, then he may well have called Poole. He wouldn’t have done that on his cell phone—he’d know that we could figure that out. If he had a burner, he could have called on that. But if he didn’t have a burner already in his pocket... he might have gone into this small town where the farm is and made the call from a pay phone, if there is a pay phone.”
“You want us to figure out if there’s a pay phone and check the calls out of it in the last couple of days,” Rae said.
“Exactly,” Lucas said.
