On the way over, with Lucas driving, Capslock riding shotgun and Sherwood in the back, Capslock asked a lot of questions about the investigation so far, and after Lucas filled him in, he turned to Sherwood and asked, “Do you know if the FBI did one of those Identi-Kit facial things with the neighbor who talked to the Russian? Out in Minnetrista?”
“Yeah, they did. It’s been on TV news shows, it’s on the Internet,” Sherwood said.
“Do you guys, the CIA, do facial recognition stuff? Picking guys out of a crowd?”
“Sure. Not in the States, that’s FBI again.”
“I’m wondering what would happen…I mean, there are camerasall over Hennepin Medical Center…I wonder if facial ID could pick out the guy, based on Identi-Kit, if he shows up at the hospital? If they decide to go into the hospital, they’d have to do a recon first,” Capslock said.
Sherwood said, “Hmm. I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone’s ever tried it. I could call St. Vincent and ask.”
“You’re not doing anything else right now,” Lucas said.
Sherwood called. St. Vincent was in a conference and couldn’t be interrupted, so Sherwood left the request with an assistant, who promised to get the question to St. Vincent as soon as he was free. “I’ll have him call you back. Should be within the hour.” He added, in a hushed tone, “He’s talking to Washington.”
Sherwood rang off and Capslock said, “Talking to Washington? All of it?”
• • •
Bell’s place wasanother well-kept older house, like Thompson’s had been, and, as had happened at Thompson’s, the door was opened by a female housekeeper. She looked at the three men on the porch and said, “I will get Mr. Bell.”
She closed the door on them, but a minute later, it cracked open again and Bell peeked out. He was almost Thompson’s opposite: while Thompson was tall and soft-looking, Bell was short, thick, with a face that would have fit a minor evil character inLord of the Rings.He was chewing on something, possibly a cud.
Sherwood smiled and said, “Ilarion Belov, as I live and breathe. Good to see you prospering, man.”
Bell swallowed and asked, with a heavy accent, “Do I know you?”
“No, you don’t, but I know you. You don’t know these other twopeople, either, but they’re police officers and honestly—he switched to Russian—“You’re up shit creek without a paddle.”
Bell regarded him with stone eyes, and then said, in English, “I have been up this creek before, but here I am.”
Capslock: “What? A creek?”
“Shit creek,” Sherwood said.
Bell looked over his shoulder, as if to make sure the front room had been evacuated, and said, “You come in. Is this about Friday?”
“It might be,” Lucas said, improvising. Friday? What happened on Friday? “If this keeps happening, this Friday problem…”
“That boy, he was spoiled and he was too rough,” Bell said. “He got what he deserved and is fine this morning. I asked and his father said we are all okay. We returned the escort fee, and they will not be back, either one of them.”
“That’s not exactly what we heard,” Capslock said.
“But that is where we are,” Bell said. They followed him into a living room, and he said, “I would give you a beer, but you’re working.”
“That’s okay,” Lucas said. “Is your housekeeper a Russian?”
“Ann? No.”
“I don’t want to get you in trouble, in case you decide to answer some of our questions,” Lucas said. “I should tell you that we have a search warrant for your house. We may not need it, if you cooperate. If you don’t, I will call a BCA search crew with hammers and screwdrivers, and they will take this house apart.”
“Can I see this warrant?” Bell asked.
“Sure,” Capslock said. He took the folded document from his jacket pocket and passed it over.
Bell looked at it for a full two minutes, even though there wasn’ttwo minutes’ worth of information, sighed, and handed it back to Capslock. “There’s nothing here, you can look,” Bell said. “It might be true that you’ll find things that you don’t want to find. I have some very prominent clients. They hate being disturbed. This thing on Friday, it’s very, very unusual.”
Capslock, Sherwood and Lucas looked at each other and Lucas said, “Maybe we’ve pushed that as far as we can. I would kinda like to know what happened on Friday, though.”
