Secret Prey (24 page)

Sophia Wiener broke in: ‘‘You don’t have time for a roll?’’

Krause’s eyes clicked to the tray of cinnamon rolls, cooling on the stovetop with the pan of warm frosting next to them.

‘‘Well,’’ he said. ‘‘Maybe one.’’

SEVENTEEN

THE DAYS WERE GETTING SHORTER, TWO OR THREE
minutes of sunlight clipped off each afternoon; and the sky had gone dark by the time Lucas was within cell phone range of the Cities. He called the dispatcher, told her to locate the fingerprint specialist and get her down to the office. A half hour out, the car phone rang and he picked it up: ‘‘Yeah, Davenport.’’

‘‘Lucas, this is Marcy . . . Sherrill.’’ Her voice was tentative, as though he might not know her first name. ‘‘Are you on the way back?’’

‘‘Yeah. I’ll be at the office in a half hour. We maybe found the gun.’’

‘‘What? Where?’’ Her voice suggested that she was on solider ground now, talking about the investigation.

‘‘In a drawer in the gun cabinet. In the cabin.’’

After a moment of silence, Sherrill said, ‘‘Oh brother. I’m glad I’m not the one who missed it.’’

‘‘You oughta see the sheriff: he’s talking manslaughter . . . Anyway what’ve you got going?’’ ‘‘I’d like to stop by your office and talk about it. If you’ve got a minute.’’

‘‘Sure. Where are you?’’

204

‘‘Out in Bloomington,’’ she said. ‘‘At the Megamall.’’

‘‘See you in a while.’’

HARRIET ASHLERSHOWEDUPTWOMINUTES AFTER LUCAS,
wearing an ankle-length wool coat and a frown, and trailed by her husband: ‘‘Dick and I were going to a movie,’’ she said.

‘‘Jeez . . . Is it too late to go?’’

She looked at her watch. ‘‘If we go, we gotta be in the car in twenty minutes.’’

Lucas handed her the cardboard box he’d used to transport the guns: ‘‘A pistol and a fired shell. If there’s anything on the shell, I gotta have it ASAP. If it’s a matter of going over the whole pistol, that could wait until morning.’’

Ashler took the bag and said, ‘‘I’ll call you in ten minutes—you’ll be in your office?’’

‘‘Yeah . . .’’

‘‘We could come back after the movie and take a look at the pistol, if you’re willing to pay the OT.’’

‘‘That’d be good—but tomorrow morning, early, would be okay.’’

‘‘I’ll do it tonight. Dick can hang around. Then I can sleep in tomorrow.’’

‘‘I like fingerprinting,’’ Dick said cheerfully. He was a letter carrier and had a six handicap in golf. ‘‘I’d just as soon watch her fingerprint as go to a movie.’’

‘‘Well, we’re going to the movie,’’ Ashler said.

‘‘Art movie,’’ said Dick, as his wife started off down the dimly lit hall. ‘‘Made by some Jap.’’

‘‘You have my sympathy,’’ said Lucas.

‘‘Coulda been worse: coulda been a Swede,’’ Dick said, looking after his wife. ‘‘Gotta go: I guess I’m just a goddamn culture dog.’’

LUCAS HEADEDDOWNTOHIS OFFICE, FLIPPEDONTHE
lights, pulled off his coat and hung it on the antique government-issue coatrack. Then he walked up and down his ten-foot length of carpet a couple of times, rubbing his
hands, looking at the phone, waiting. Wanted to call someone, but there was no one to call.

Sherrill. Where in the hell was she? If she’d been in Bloomington, she should be here. Or close. He’d left the door open, and he stepped out and looked up and down the hall. Nobody: he could hear a radio playing somewhere, a Leon Redbone piece. He listened for a moment, groping for the name, pulling it from the few muted notes flowing down the hall. Ah: ‘‘She Ain’t Rose.’’

Despite what Sherrill had argued earlier, knowing that McDonald was the killer was a huge advantage. If they could pull together enough bits and pieces on all the killings, they could indict him on several counts of murder, let the jury throw a couple of them out, and nail him on the easiest one. All they needed was one. One first degree murder was thirty years, no parole. McDonald was unlikely to pull the full load. He’d die inside.

So one was enough.

Lucas hummed to himself, caught it: Jesus, he hadn’t been humming to himself in months. And with all the shit happening, he should be . . . He listened to the back of his mind. No static. Not much going on back there. He let himself smile and took another turn around the carpet, looked at his watch.

And the phone rang.

He snatched it up, said, ‘‘Davenport,’’ and at the same time, heard footsteps in the hall.

‘‘This is Harriet Ashler. There’s nothing on the shell. It looks like it was lifted out of the box, maybe with gloves, loaded up, and fired. It’s absolutely clean. Polished, almost.’’

Sherrill appeared in the doorway, saw him talking. He gestured for her to come in as he said, ‘‘Damn it: I was hoping . . . Well, check the gun. I thought maybe he didn’t think about the shell, just like he didn’t think about the other one.’’

‘‘Not this time,’’ Ashler said. Sherrill stepped into Lucas’s office, pulled the door shut, and took off her leather
jacket as Ashler continued: ‘‘I took a look at the pistol, and I think I can see some smudges. As soon as I get back I’ll start processing them. Ogram over in St. Paul sent Mc-Donald’s prints over this afternoon, so I can give you a quick read.’’

‘‘Good, I’ll be at home. Call me whenever.’’

Lucas hung up and said, ‘‘No prints on the shell, but there’s something on the pistol. She’s gonna process it tonight.’’

‘‘He’d have to be suicidal to leave prints on the pistol but not on the shell,’’ Sherrill said. She tossed her coat in a corner, and the motion of the coat in the air stirred up a slight scent, something light, like Chanel No. 5. ‘‘And why’d he carry the pistol back to the cabin? He could’ve pitched it into the woods, and who’d ever find it?’’

‘‘I don’t know why,’’ Lucas said. He leaned back against his desk. ‘‘But why would
anybody
carry a pistol back to the cabin?
Anybody
, no matter who it is?’’

Sherrill shrugged: ‘‘Maybe they got it there, and thought if they put it back, nobody would know.’’

‘‘Leaving a fired shell in the chamber?’’

‘‘That’s a question,’’ she admitted.

Lucas scratched his head and said, ‘‘We’ll ask him, if we can’t figure something out . . . So what’s happening with you?’’

She peered at him, almost as if she were nearsighted, which she wasn’t. ‘‘I’ve got this thing going around in my head and it won’t go away.’’

‘‘Uh-oh,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I’ve had that problem . . .’’

‘‘No-no-no. Nothing like that. I’m not depressed. But, you know that old thing about, ‘Women don’t want sex, women want love’?’’

‘‘What?’’ She was talking fast, and he was suddenly aware of how quiet the building was, how dark the hallway had been outside, and how the two of them were alone in a not very big office.

‘‘Yeah, well maybe I’ve heard something like that.’’

‘‘The fact is, I always liked sex,’’ she said. ‘‘A lot. And
I haven’t had any for a year and a half before Mike was killed, while we were breaking up, and none since he was killed, and right now I just really don’t need love, but I really would sorta . . .’’

As she spoke, she was moving to his left, and he was on his feet moving to her left, in a narrow circle, Lucas edging toward the door. ‘‘Jesus,’’ he said.

‘‘Look, you don’t have to,’’ she said. ‘‘Where’re you going? You’re running for it?’’

She almost started to smile, a sad, tentative smile, but Lucas only saw part of it. He flipped the latch on the door and hit the light at the same time, and in the next halfsecond his hands were all over her. She gasped and went a few inches up in the air, and then they were dancing around, half struggling, mouths locked together, Sherrill’s blouse coming off, and five seconds after that they were on the floor.

AND TEN MINUTES LATER SHERRILL WHISPERED, ‘‘WAS
that loud?’’

‘‘Pretty loud,’’ Lucas whispered back.

‘‘Jesus, I want to do it again.’’ He could only see her face dimly in the light coming through the door’s glass panel. And he
thought: This rug smells weird
. But he
said
, ‘‘My place,’’ and he reached out and pressed the warm palm of his right hand over one of her breasts.

‘‘I’ll follow you,’’ she said.

‘‘No: Come with me. We can be there in ten minutes.’’

‘‘Can’t find my underpants,’’ she said. ‘‘What’d you do with my underpants?’’

‘‘Don’t know . . .’’

She pulled on her jeans and untangled her bra from around her neck, buttoned her blouse as Lucas pulled himself together, half turned away from each other, a small piece of still-necessary privacy. Neither of them wanted the light—when Lucas was dressed, Sherrill opened the door and Lucas found her cotton underpants hooked over the top
of his wastebasket. Lucas stuck them in his pocket: ‘‘Let’s go.’’

‘‘What a fuckin’ terrible idea this was,’’ she said, as they jogged down the hall. ‘‘Screwing your boss.’’ She looked at him. ‘‘You can’t screw your boss.’’

‘‘I’m not your boss,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Keep moving.’’

LUCAS CONCENTRATED ON DRIVING, OUT OF MINNEAPOLIS
past the dome, onto I-94 across the Mississippi and off at Cretin, south to the stoplight at Marshall. The light was a long one and Sherill was suddenly on top of him again, one hand fumbling at his belt while he tore at her blouse and finally freed her breasts, his mouth on her neck and then . . .

‘‘Christ, we’re a movie,’’ she said suddenly. He looked up, past her: a couple of St. Thomas students were walking past, and one of them flashed him the V-for-victory sign.

‘‘Gotta go,’’ Lucas said, as the light went green, and Sherrill subsided, but still half turned in the passenger seat, her hand on his chest. He dodged one red light, got down toward the river, then out on the boulevard heading south. Home in ten minutes, into the garage, then through the kitchen, stumbling with each other.

‘‘Where’s the bedroom?’’

She was turned around, but with an arm over his shoulder, and he picked her up and carried her back, dumped her on the bed and kicked off his shoes.

‘‘Hurry,’’ she said.

AND LATER, SHE SAID, ‘‘MAN, THAT RUG IN YOUR
office sure smelled weird. What’d you do in there, anyway?’’

Lucas sighed and rolled away from her and said, ‘‘This was really a bad idea.’’

‘‘That’s what I said an hour ago.’’

‘‘Yeah, well . . .’’

‘‘What?’’

‘‘So even if it’s a bad idea, I wanna do it some more.’’

‘‘We should maybe wait a few minutes.’’

Lucas laughed and said, ‘‘It might be more than a few minutes.’’

‘‘I think I could cut down the turnaround time.’’

‘‘I’m sure you could,’’ he said. ‘‘But you know what? I’m starving. I’ve got some bologna in the fridge, and some beer, and I think there’s some hamburger buns.’’

‘‘Three of the major food groups,’’ she said. ‘‘We’ll live to be a hundred.’’

‘‘Let’s go.’’

‘‘Show me the shower first.’’

He showed her the shower; the turnaround time was eliminated, and the bologna sandwiches temporarily forgotten.

BUT THEY GOT TO THE SANDWICHES, EVENTUALLY,
spreading mustard over the discs of mystery meat in the light from the refrigerator, and then sat in the dark to eat them with bottles of Rolling Rock.

‘‘I think we oughta keep this quiet,’’ she said finally.

‘‘Yeah, right. We’re in an office full of investigators. You’re gonna walk in and you’re not gonna look at me and Sloan is gonna come up later and he’s gonna say, ‘You’re fuckin’ her, aren’t you?’ ’’

‘‘So romantic. Coming over here and getting fucked.’’

‘‘Hey, you know the talk.’’

She laughed and said, ‘‘Yeah, and it’s not that hard to take from Sloan. He can be a pretty funny guy.’’

‘‘He thinks you’ve got nice headlights.’’

‘‘I do.’’

‘‘What can I say?’’ he said, talking through the bologna sandwich. ‘‘The evidence is on your side.’’

‘‘I better get going,’’ she said. ‘‘My car is downtown . . .’’

‘‘Oh, bullshit,’’ he said. ‘‘You’re staying. I’ll give you a T-shirt.’’

‘‘Lucas . . .’’

‘‘Shut up. You’re staying.’’