Broken Prey

part of a plan that went way back before Pope was even killed,” Lucas said. “There was a lot of planning, strategy, going on. Like they were doing theory. The fuckers down at St. John’s—Lighter, Taylor, and Chase—thought about it for a long time.”
    “But we know some shit now . . .”
    “Maybe. Listen, tell the crime-scene guys to pull anything out of the back of that truck that would carry DNA. We’re looking for something besides blood that has Peterson’s DNA. There must be hair, there must be something. Spit?”
     
    ON BOTH THE first and second days, Lucas spoke with the Chicago cops and the Illinois State Police.
    An investigator had interviewed the desk staff at the Hilton: “There’s not much,” he told Lucas. “Nobody recognized the O’Donnell mug, but they said probably a hundred people used that phone last night. There were people checking in all the time; this is a major business-travelers’ hotel. One guy said the mug looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t swear that the guy he saw was O’Donnell. Every maid and every staff member will get a copy of the photo when they check in for work, but the way he’s been jerking you guys around, I’d say it’s a million to one that he’d still be here.”
    “Taxis? Car rentals?”
    “We’re covering them with the mug shots. If the Xerox machine don’t break down, we’ll get them to everybody. Not coming up with anything so far.”
    “Nobody saw him in the airport.”
    “A few people said they saw somebody like him, but he’s sort of a type , you know? The long hair, the earring, sort of an upscale rocker. They’re a dime a dozen.”
    “Yeah.”
    “But what I’m wondering is, Why do we think he stopped at the Hilton, made the call, and then kept going? Maybe he wants us to think he stayed on the ground. How do we know he didn’t hop a ride to the Hilton, make the call, then go right back to O’Hare and fly? He could be in Amsterdam or Hong Kong by now.”
     
    ON THE EVENING of the second day, Channel Three named O’Donnell as a “person of interest.” The story went network: on the night of the second day, CNN was running O’Donnell’s face every fifteen minutes.
    Neil Mitford, the governor’s top political operator, called Lucas on the afternoon of the second day and said, “We had a press conference this afternoon on the compromises in the aid-to-cities package. Somebody asked if we shouldn’t cut our state hospital staff, since we’re apparently hiring psychopaths.”
    “Ah, jeez. Not even the TV people are that dumb.”
    “Of course not. They were plunking the governor’s magic twanger. But we’re starting to get a little bleed-through. So, if you don’t mind, why don’t you just go ahead and pick this guy up and get him out of our hair?”
    “Why don’t you do it?” Lucas suggested. “The headline would say HATCHET MAN CAPTURES AXE MURDERER .”
    “I’m just sayin’,” Mitford said mildly. “I’m not leaning on you, I’m just sayin’: if you’re not doing anything else, pick him up.”
    “You do a swell job of leaning on a guy,” Lucas said.
     
    ALSO ON THE FIRST DAY , Elle arrived early, having ditched her summer seminar, and dug through O’Donnell’s personnel file. When she was finished, she came and sat in Lucas’s office, and said, “I want to interview the staff members down at St. John’s. Also, any family members that we can reach.”
    “I can get you down to St. John’s for sure,” Lucas said. “Let’s do it tomorrow. I’ll see what I can do about family members. What do you think so far?”
    “O’Donnell has the intelligence and the planning capability. In school, he had nearly a four-point from his freshman year straight through to his Ph.D. That takes more than intelligence, it takes a ferocious will. If he ran off the tracks, somehow, he could do this. He is what I expected, except . . . he seems to have been very well liked and respected. That would not be typical. Typically, people with this kind of problem are recognized as being odd, and it shows in their histories.”
    “Okay: so family and friends should tell us something. I’ll see what I can do.”
     
    BOTH THE CO-OP and security hospital people had called O’Donnell’s parents to see if he’d been in touch. His parents were frantic, not knowing what was going on—they’d gotten the impression that their son might have been a victim of the killer. They agreed to talk to Elle at St.