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brown-blond, down on his shoulders, and a beard. He looked like a Harley guy. Big nose. That was just about ...” She rubbed her forehead, working it out, and said, “That must have been just about the time of the robbery.” She looked up: “Jeez, what if that was the guys? The driver looked the same way. I didn’t see him so well, but he had a beard ...”
    Lucas held up a finger, picked up his cell phone, sat on the bed, and punched up a number. A moment later, said, “Yup, it’s me, but I can’t talk because my wife is standing about a foot away.”
    “Hey, Marcy,” Weather called. Marcy Sherrill was a deputy chief with the Minneapolis cops: Titsy.
    Lucas said, “What we need to know is, what time exactly did this whole thing happen? What time did it start, and when did it end?”
    Marcy: “I don’t think this is for the BCA.”
    “Listen, just shut up and tell me, and then I’ll tell you why I want to know,” Lucas said.
    He listened for a moment, turned to Weather and said, “Between five-thirty and five-forty, right in there.”
    Weather said, “Lucas, that was ... I mean, that was exactly the time I got there.”
    Lucas went back to the phone: “You know Weather is on the surgical team that’s separating the twins? Yeah? So she pulled into the parking ramp right then, and saw a van coming out, and the face of a guy in the passenger seat. Said he looked like a lumberjack, blond or brown hair, down on his shoulders. Beard. Yeah, saw him pretty clearly. Saw the driver, too, not so well, but he had a beard. They were moving fast, and a little recklessly. Said the passenger was wearing like a yellow lumberjack coat.”
    “Tan canvas,” Weather said.
    “Tan canvas coat,” Lucas repeated. He listened, then put the phone down and asked, “You get any impression of size?”
    Weather closed her eyes for a minute, then said, “Yes. He was a big guy. Bigger than you. Taller, I think, and heavier.”
    Lucas passed it on, listened again, and said, “All right. How about ... ten o’clock? Is ten good?”
    When he hung up he said, “The robbers were three guys, wearing blue orderly scrubs, but the woman in the pharmacy doesn’t think they were orderlies. They were apparently wearing the scrubs over street clothes. They were wearing heavy boots and ski masks, but the woman thought that at least a couple of them had beards. One of them was a really big guy. We need to talk to Marcy. Probably do a computer sketch, see if they can figure out who the guy was.”
    “Probably nothing, though,” Weather said, as though she regretted telling him about it.
    “Maybe not,” he said. “But hell, you’ve got the day off. The kids are out of the house—let’s go hang out. Talk to Marcy, do lunch. Hit a boutique. I could use a new suit or two for spring.”
    She nodded, quickly, and repeated, “It’s probably nothing.”
     
     
    LYLE MACK SAT in his tiny loading-dock office and thought about it for a minute, then got on the cold phone and called Barakat. He said, “We gotta talk.”
    “Why should I talk to you? My hands are clean,” Barakat said. “You and that bunch of idiots are in trouble. I’m walking away. I know nothing. Why are you calling me? You know the police can follow phone calls—”
    “I ain’t stupid, we all got cold phones. You gotta get one, too.”
    “What?”
    Lyle Mack was patient: “Go down someplace and buy a phone and a card and give them a fake name, if you gotta give them a name,” Lyle Mack said. “You can get them at the grocery store. Some grocery stores. You can go to Best Buy.”
    “I’m telling you, I am out of all this—”
    “Man, you were there. You can’t walk. And I got your goods,” Lyle Mack said.
    “I’ll get them some other time,” Barakat said.
    “Look. When the guys were going out the ramp, some chick was coming in. Black Audi convertible. Blond. She saw one of the guys, and we want to know who she is, just in case. They think she was probably a