Buried Prey

later.”
    “That’s true,” Wright said. “All right. I can live with that. Let’s go.”
     
     
    HANSON HAD LIVED in a fifties bungalow, on a tree-shaded side street not far from the station. The guy next door was trimming his hedge, and stopped when they got out of their cars—Wright was driving a patrol car—and asked, “No sign of him yet?”
    “Not yet,” Wright said.
    “You see anybody checking around?” Del asked.
    “It’s been quiet,” the neighbor said. “And we been kinda keeping an eye out.”
    Wright had a key. He explained that they used a locksmith to open the door the first time, and found the key on a hook in the kitchen. When Wright opened the door, they could smell the lack of activity: the house felt shut up, and still. And they could smell cigarette smoke.
    “Guy’s still smoking. Must be nuts, his age,” Del said.
    “Gonna kill him, for sure,” Lucas said.
    They walked through the house, moving quickly. Del stopped once to pop open the washer and drier. Both were empty.
    “He’d been home for a few days,” Lucas said.
    In the bathroom, they found a dopp kit with a razor, shaving cream, toothbrush and toothpaste, and miscellaneous—antiseptic cream, SPF-30 face lotion, a tube of Preparation H, nose-hair scissors, Band-Aids. “There’s a clue for you,” Del said. “Did he have another kit up north?”
    “No, he didn’t,” Lucas said. “The bathroom was empty. There was no suitcase, but that doesn’t mean much, if he kept clothes in both places.”
    “Wonder why he didn’t keep a kit in both places?” Wright asked.
    “Because then you’re never sure of what you’ve got,” Lucas said. “I do the same thing with my cabin—I keep clothes there, but I take the dopp kit back and forth. And shoes . . .”
    They found a pair of athletic shoes at the end of the bed. They were scuffed and dirty. “There’s your fishing shoes,” Lucas said.
    Del said, “Speaking as a defense attorney, I can say that you’re building a fairy tale.”
    In the kitchen, they found a carton of Marlboros sitting on the counter, one pack missing. “There you go,” Lucas said. “He was coming back. At six bucks a pack, he wasn’t going to leave those behind.”
    “I’ll buy that,” Del said.
    “I gotta think about it,” Wright said. “But I’m moving your way.”
     
     
    BACK IN THE CAR, Del said, “It looks almost too good.”
    “Let’s take a look at Darrell’s place,” Lucas suggested.
    Darrell Hanson lived in a well-preserved three-story Victorian across the street from Lake Como. A guy in a painter’s white shirt and trousers was standing on a stepladder, painting the eaves a teal green.
    They were parked on a narrow one-way lane, two doors down from Hanson’s house, and Lucas looked around and said, “If you showed up at the right time of day . . . that side door.”
    Del said, “You’re not thinking about bagging the place? Man, that’s a really bad idea. This whole neighborhood is gonna be full of security—we could be on a camera right now.”
    “Come in from the back—”
    “Aw, bullshit. That’d probably be worse .”
    Lucas took a long breath and let it out: “I’d like to bag it. See what I could see. But I’m also thinking that Dwayne Paulson might give us a delayed report, if he thinks we got enough on Hanson.”
    “Maybe we got enough. Maybe. A half-ass photo ID, the white van . . .”
    “When I make application, the photo ID could be ‘probably.’ I could get a ‘probably’ out of Kelly Barker.”
    “That’s sorta . . . borderline, dude.”
    “Don’t get all lawyer on me,” Lucas said. “Look: we know Darrell’s father disappeared from his house, leaving the lights on, his cigarettes out, and all the rest. We know that Hanson’s death was faked, if it was faked, by somebody who knew about the cabin, how to get in and out, and about the motorbike. Had to know about the old man’s habits. Had to know about the dirt bike so they could count on stealing it. So if he was killed, it was probably by somebody who knows him.”
    “And we thought we knew he was a schoolteacher, but it turns out he wasn’t.”
    Lucas went on: “He was the right age—”
    “I agree, he’s probably the one,” Del said. “I’m just saying, a lot of the stuff might not cut much ice with a judge. And why go to Paulson? We could just go to Carsonet.”
    Lucas said, “Because Paulson got divorced about five years ago, and he and Marcy went out for