Rimes nodded. “She’s gone. We got two more down, another cop named Buster Hill, and Todd Barker, the husband here—”
“Aw, man.” Lucas stopped, put his hand to his forehead. Del put a hand on his shoulder. “Aw . . . can’t be right.”
“I’m sorry,” Rimes said.
“I interviewed them a couple days ago; this is part of the Jones investigation,” Lucas said, as they walked around to the side of the house. A kind of black dread was enveloping his brain. “I talked to Marcy a couple times today.”
Del said, “Easy . . .”
Lucas shook him off. “I’m okay.”
Rimes said, “Hill got off a couple of shots and it looks like he hit the guy—we’ve got a blood trail going around the side of the house over to the next street. Not much, but it’s a trail.”
Del asked, as they went through the side door, “Anybody get the tags?”
“No, but a guy down the street said it was a white cargo van. . . . Of course, there are only about thirty thousand of those.”
Lucas said to Del, “It’s him. It’s the van. It’s the guy.”
Rimes asked, “Who?” but Lucas shook his head.
Then they were crossing a kitchen toward a crowd of people in the living room, and Rimes said, “Make a hole,” and people stepped back and Lucas looked down and suddenly, shockingly, saw Marcy, eyes still open, faceup on the living room rug, only a small hole under her chin, but a big puddle of blood under her neck. She was wearing a white silky blouse with bloody handprints down the front, where somebody had tried to tend to her. Her eyes were blank as the sky.
“Aw, Christ,” he said, and he began to shake.
Around her, the house was a shambles, overturned chairs and blood tracks on the carpet, telling the story.
“This Hill guy was hit in the leg. He started screaming for an ambulance, but she was gone,” Rimes said. “He said he knew she was gone the minute he looked at the wound. Hill’s gonna be okay, the husband’s hurt bad, but he’ll make it. He took two in the chest and one in the shoulder. . . . Sherrill was hit right under the chin.”
“Took out her spinal cord,” said a crime-scene guy. “Instantaneous. Like she was decapitated.”
Rimes shook his head at the guy and said, “Thank you,” and the guy looked at Lucas’s face and went away.
Rimes said, “The woman, this Kelly Barker, she wasn’t hurt. She said the shooter was a big fat guy with a black beard. We’re gonna get DNA on him, so he’s toast if we can put our hands on him.”
Rimes’s voice was quiet, but intense, a recitation of what he’d learned since he took over the scene. He asked Lucas, “You need to sit down?”
Lucas turned toward Del but he couldn’t find his voice, couldn’t even find any spit in his mouth, not enough moisture to force out a word, and he shook his head and went back through the kitchen and out to the backyard and sat down on the grass.
Del was on his cell phone when he came out a minute later. He clicked off, squatted next to Lucas, and said, “Come on, these guys are pros. They’ll get it done. Let’s get you home.”
“Got to tell her folks,” Lucas said, finding a few words. Tears started streaming down his face. “Somebody’s—”
“Somebody does, but not you,” Del said. “Come on. I’m taking you home.”
LUCAS DIDN’T FIGHT HIM. He sat in the passenger seat, couldn’t stop the tears. Del said, “This is the worst goddamn thing. It’s the worst goddamn thing.”
WEATHER CALLED on Lucas’s cell and asked, “Where are you?”
“Coming home. I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he said.
“Are you driving?”
“No. Del is.”
“Ten minutes,” she said.
WEATHER AND LETTY were in the driveway when they got to Lucas’s home. Del pulled in, and said, “I’ll go downtown and take care of the paper on Berg—I wish we’d never talked to that fool.”
Lucas nodded and climbed out of the truck, and Weather came and took him around the waist and said, “Shrake called, and Del. Lucas, I’m so sorry.”
Lucas nodded and Letty asked, “What’re you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got to think about it. I’m so freaked out I can’t think right now. This was like a freak shot, the guy was spraying the house. He shot the husband three times from four feet and didn’t kill him, but he hits Marcy once from forty feet and she’s gone. Ah, Jesus . . .”
Letty said, “You’ve got to find the guy who did it and take care of him. Personally.”
Weather said, “Letty, let it go.”
Letty said to Weather, “I’m not letting it go.” And to Lucas: “If you don’t settle this, get a hand in it, you’re going to be screwed up for a long time. First the Jones girls and now Marcy. Dad—”
Weather said, “Letty, shut up. Look: just shut up for now. We can talk about it later. Lucas, let’s go sit down.”
“I need to talk to the guys at Minneapolis,” Lucas said. “I need to talk to her partner, find out what happened. I’ve got enough to find this guy, and now we’ve got DNA on him.”
“You’re not going to do any of that tonight,” Weather said. “Come on. I’ve got some hot dogs hidden away. We’ll get something to eat . . . you need to think.”
“All right,” he said. “Gotta think.” He put his arms around the shoulders of both women, and they walked into the house.
