Secret Prey (43 page)

And as she put her head close to the other woman’s face,
Audrey lifted her hand, and despite her awkward position, hit Sherrill in the eye with her fist, knocking Sherrill flat on her butt.

‘‘Knock that shit off,’’ one of the uniformed cops yelled at Audrey, stepping over her, and she unballed her fist and turned her head away, her eyes softly closing. Sherrill had crawled away, one hand to her eye. ‘‘Aw, man, that hurts.’’

Lucas looked at it: ‘‘You’re gonna have a mouse. And a hell of a black eye.’’

Audrey mumbled again. They both turned to look at her, eight feet away, flat on her back, and her cobra eyes caught Lucas. And suddenly she smiled, a big, toothy smile with bloody teeth.

Lucas felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. He turned back to Sherrill, who looked up at him and shook her head once: ‘‘Fuckin’ nuts,’’ she said.

THIRTY-FOUR

SHERRILL SAID, ‘‘SO KRAUSE THINKS MAYBE SHE DELIBERATELY
let the lineman see her so we wouldn’t suspect Wilson. And then
she
called to tell us about the lineman, because we were digging at Wilson.’’

‘‘Smart woman,’’ Lucas said.

‘‘Nasty,’’ said James T. Bone, who was just settling into Lucas’s visitor’s chair.

‘‘I gotta go,’’ Sherrill said. She stood on her tiptoes, black eye nearly gone, kissed Lucas on the lips, said, ‘‘See you tonight,’’ and, ‘‘Bye, Mr. Bone.’’

When Sherrill closed the door, Bone looked sleepy-eyed at Lucas and said, ‘‘White fuzzy sweater and chrome revolver in a shoulder holster. My heart almost stopped.’’

‘‘Wearing my ass out,’’ Lucas said comfortably.

‘‘I know how that goes,’’ Bone said.

BONE SAID, ‘‘AUDREY . . . IS SHE GONNAFIGHT IT?’’

‘‘Her attorney’s a friend of mine,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘He says she’s crazy as a loon. Maybe she is. She even denies buying or firing the shotgun, even though we had four witnesses, the receipt in the car, and the gun shop guy identifying her. He says she’s having trouble remembering anything after the death of her husband. A shrink’s looking at her now.’’

‘‘Is she faking?’’

Lucas shrugged. ‘‘I don’t know. She’s smart, that’s pretty clear. But her whole life has been a nightmare. I think it’s possible that she never did know the difference between right and wrong.’’

‘‘And if the court decides she’s nuts?’’

‘‘She’ll go off to the state hospital.’’

‘‘What if she’s not nuts?’’

‘‘Then we have a trial, and we’ve got her.’’

‘‘Huh.’’ Bone looked out the window at the street. The weather had turned gray, and small flecks of snow bounced off the window. Although it was only three in the afternoon, most of the passing cars had their headlights on. A week after the fight in the garage, the world was beginning to settle down again. ‘‘I’d feel a lot better if I knew she was going away for a long time; like forever. I’d hate to see her get out of a hospital in a couple of years.’’

Lucas nodded: ‘‘So would I.’’

BONE HAD THE BANK: OF THE TOP FIVE POLARIS EXECUTIVES
in October, only two had made it to the end of November, Bone and Robles. ‘‘I’ve got my assistant winding up O’Dell’s affairs here. I talked to her father—he’s having trouble dealing with her death.’’

‘‘Death of a child,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Just ’cause they’re grown up, doesn’t make it any easier.’’

‘‘No, I don’t expect it does,’’ Bone said. Then, ‘‘Have you seen Damascus Isley lately?’’

‘‘Not since we had lunch together a while back.’’

‘‘I saw him at the bank. We talked a little basketball . . . He’s on a strange diet, a Big Mac every day with popcorn.’’

‘‘He told me he was thinking about it,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I hope he can stick it out.’’

‘‘I think he will. He was on the diet for one week, he told me, and lost eighteen pounds. He knows that won’t keep up, but when he got on the scale after the first week, he said his wife went out to the bedroom and cried for
fifteen minutes. Outa joy, I guess. He was freaked out. I don’t see any way he’ll relapse.’’

BONE SAID, ‘‘THIS AUDREY MCDONALD THING HAS
torn me up.’’

‘‘Yeah?’’ Lucas had an archaic typewriter tray in his desk, just the right height for feet. He pulled it out and put his feet up.

‘‘Yeah. I was gonna run a major bank someday. But it wouldn’t have come this soon, if Audrey hadn’t blown old Dan Kresge out of his tree stand.’’

‘‘Won’t you be out of a job, if the merger goes through?’’

‘‘Sure. But some problems are cropping up with the merger,’’ Bone said, showing a thin smile. ‘‘The road might not be as smooth as it looked. Even if it happens, once you’re running a place, you can usually go someplace else, and run that. It’s the breakthrough to the top that counts.’’

‘‘Sloan talked to you about your relationship with Marcia Kresge . . . I’d think that might have been a dangerous relationship for somebody trying to get to the top,’’ Lucas said.

‘‘Eh . . . it’s easier in a private company. You don’t have to deal with elections and all your insane bureaucratic rules. I doubt Dan would have cared; he probably would have been amused. Marcia wasn’t any more of a potential problem for me than Miss Fuzzy Sweater is for you. Besides, that’s all done.’’

‘‘All done?’’

‘‘Yeah.’’ Bone seemed mildly embarrassed and turned to look out at the street again. ‘‘You met my assistant, Kerin Baki.’’

‘‘The glacial blonde.’’

‘‘Yeah. When the whole scramble started, after Kresge was killed, she started working to get me the top job. She did everything right: pretty much managed the whole show. And when I asked her what she wanted out of it, she said
she wanted a favor from me. But she wouldn’t tell me what it was until after I got the job.’’

‘‘And you got it.’’

‘‘Yeah. So after things settled down a little, when Audrey McDonald was arrested, I got her in my office and asked, ‘What’s the favor?’ ’’

Baki had been a little uncomfortable when he pressed her, Bone said, but finally sat down and outlined what she wanted. Basically, she was tired of living alone. She wanted to find a man who was as smart as she was, who worked as hard as she did, and had similar interests. That was difficult.

‘‘What she wanted from me,’’ Bone said, as Lucas started smiling, ‘‘is, she wanted me to take her around— just as a friend, as an associate—and introduce her to guys I knew in the banking and investment communities who might be candidates.’’

‘‘Just as a friend,’’ Lucas said.

‘‘Yeah. ‘Mr. Bone,’ she said, ‘I don’t have a chance to meet many people like that, socially, because I’m always here. And I know this sounds a little cold and a little calculating, but I don’t have many more years to go if I want to have children and a normal home life,’ ’’ Bone said, mimicking Baki’s precise soprano. ‘‘And she pushed her glasses back up on her nose, which is about the only thing that’s ever been wrong with her—her glasses slide down.’’

‘‘Yeah,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘She’s, like, vulnerable.’’ ‘‘I said okay,’’ Bone said. ‘‘I could understand that. So I took her around to a couple of places, a couple of outside meetings she wouldn’t normally have gone to, and she made quite an impression on a couple of guys. I got some calls asking about her status . . . I told her about them, and she was pretty interested.’’

‘‘You chump.’’

‘‘You know how the story comes out?’’

Lucas knitted his hands across his chest and said, ‘‘Let me guess. You decided to take her out for a dinner . . .’’

‘‘Dinner meeting.’’

‘‘And then you have to take her home afterwards.’’

‘‘I just went up for a minute; I’d never seen her place.’’

‘‘And you didn’t come out for a while.’’

‘‘Quite a while.’’

‘‘And the glacier melted.’’

‘‘You might say that . . . And she’s told me I’ve seen the last of Marcia Kresge,’’ Bone said. ‘‘She also mentioned a couple of other women that I had no idea she knew about.’’

‘‘What about the kid thing?’’

Bone shrugged. ‘‘I always thought, maybe, you know, with the right woman . . .’’

THE PHONE RANG, AND BONE STOOD UP. ‘‘I GOTTA
go,’’ he said, but Lucas held up a finger: ‘‘Hang on a second.’’ He answered the phone, ‘‘Hello?’’

‘‘Lucas, this is Del.’’ Del was on a cell phone; his voice sounded like he was shouting through a hollow log, with a roar in the background.

‘‘Yeah. What’s going on?’’

‘‘Aw, I’m calling from the plane . . .’’

Engine roar. ‘‘That’s right,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Cancu´n. I forgot.Have a good time.’’

If anybody comes asking for me, tell ’em ten days, would you?’’ Del shouted.

‘‘Sure.’’

‘‘Nobody’s come asking yet?’’

‘‘Not to me,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Should they?’’

‘‘Can’t hear you too good. See you in ten days,’’ Del shouted. And hung up.

LUCAS LOOKED AT THE PHONE, PUZZLED, THEN HUNG
up and said to Bone, ‘‘We play a little ball at the Y on Wednesday nights, bunch a cops, a few lawyers. Sort of a cross between basketball and hockey—you know, no harm, no foul. If Kerin’ll let you, you’re invited.’’

‘‘Yeah, that’d be nice,’’ Bone said. ‘‘Maybe Isley’ll be around in a year or so.’’ They shook hands, and Bone said, ‘‘See you.’’

• • •

HE WENT OUT THE DOOR, BUT TEN SECONDS LATER
was back: ‘‘Uh, there’s some people here to see you,’’ he said.

‘‘What?’’

‘‘Some . . . people,’’ Bone said.

Lucas, frowning, stepped out in the hallway. He wasn’t sure until later of the exact number, which was twenty-four, but he knew at a glance that there were a lot of them.

Old ladies.

Gathered like a flock of curly-haired, white-fleeced sheep, each clutching a purse and what seemed to be a brand-new gym bag. One of them, a sweet-looking grandmotherly woman with a trembling chin, said, ‘‘We’ve come to turn ourselves in.’’

‘‘In?’’ Lucas asked. And Bone said, ‘‘Gotta go.’’ And left.

‘‘We’re the opium junkies,’’ the grandmother said, and the other women nodded. ‘‘Del said our best chance for leniency was to come down and surrender to you.’’

‘‘Sonofabitch,’’ Lucas said. He looked in at his phone as the grandmother recoiled; Del was probably halfway to Mexico.

‘‘I beg your pardon?’’ she said, clutching the gym bag more tightly.

‘‘Nothing. Stay right here,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Don’t move. I’ll be right back.’’

He trotted down to the chief’s office. ‘‘No, Rose Marie’s gone,’’ the secretary said. She seemed to be biting the insides of her cheeks.

‘‘Where?’’

The secretary had to struggle a bit to get it out: ‘‘Cancu-´n.’’

Lucas looked at her, a hard look, and she put her hands to her face. He turned on his heel and headed down toward Violent Crimes. He imagined he heard explosive laughter coming from the chief’s office just before the door closed behind him.

In Violent Crimes, Loring was sitting on an office chair, peeling a green apple with a penknife. ‘‘Seen Frank?’’ Frank Lester was the other deputy chief.

‘‘Nope.’’

‘‘How about Sherrill?’’

‘‘Nope. They left. Together.’’

‘‘Together?’’

‘‘Yeah. They said they were going to Cancu ´n.’’

‘‘You sonofabitch,’’ Lucas said hotly.

‘‘What?’’ Loring asked, surprised. ‘‘What?’’

‘‘You know what.’’

‘‘No, I don’t know what.’’ He really seemed confused. On the other hand, he lied well. ‘‘What?’’

THE HEADS OF INTELLIGENCE AND NARCOTICS WERE
gone. Nobody knew when they’d be back. Sloan and Black were missing, Franklin was gone.

On one of his trips past the old ladies, the grandmother said bravely, ‘‘We brought our things.’’

‘‘Your things?’’

They held up their gym bags. ‘‘Toothpaste and pajamas and so on. For the slammer.’’

‘‘Aw, Jesus Christ,’’ Lucas said.

He finally went back to Loring, got him out in the hall, explained the situation. ‘‘. . . surrendering, and I want you to help with the processing . . .’’

Loring was backing away. ‘‘Fuck that,’’ he said. ‘‘They’re yours.’’

‘‘They’re not mine,’’ Lucas shouted. But Loring was running toward the exit. ‘‘Goddamnit, get your ass back here. Get back here . . .’’

Loring was the last of them.

Lucas walked back toward his office, where the little flock gathered with their purses and the gym bags, awaiting justice. All up and down the hallways, the doors were closed.

Nobody home, except him.

‘‘Is there a problem?’’ Grandma asked.