Buried Prey

coming on at eight.”
    “I’ll call him in the morning,” Lucas said. “I’ll have him check, and if Hanson isn’t there yet, I’ll pull him in, too.”
    “You think we’ll find him tomorrow?”
    “I’m gonna get Sandy checking the big cell phone companies tomorrow,” Lucas said. “If we can find a cell, we’ll get him.”
    He rang off, went to bed, and slept soundly until nine o’clock, which he hadn’t expected. He woke, realized that he felt too good to be up early, looked at the clock, said, “Aw, man,” picked up his cell phone and turned it on, called Jenkins.
    “Just sitting here. Nothing moving.”
    “Give it another hour,” Lucas said. “We’re gonna look at it from a different angle.”
    “Want me to knock on the door, try to sell him a magazine subscription?”
    “No.” Lucas didn’t want to tell him that he knew the house was empty. Then he said, “But let me think about it. I may call you back.”
    He thought about it as he shaved and showered, then called Jenkins and said, “Go up to the door, and if he’s there, tell him you’re investigating the disappearance of his uncle, Brian Hanson. Ask him the usual: last time he saw him, if he seemed depressed. Tell him you’re asking on behalf of the St. Louis County Sheriff ’s Office. I don’t think he’ll be there, but knock on the front door, and then go around and knock on the back door.”
    “The back door . . . ?”
    “Just to make sure you’re not missing him. But that’ll get you right back by the garage. The garage has four windows in the overhead door, and I think there’s a side door—it looks like there should be. If you should glance inside the garage, just as a matter of walking around the house . . . and if you should see a dirt bike inside . . . I’d be really interested if there’s a dirt bike. And if you could see the license tag . . .”
    “I can do that,” Jenkins said. “Call you back in ten.”
    “I’ll be on my way into work,” Lucas said. “I’ll just see you there.”
    He preferred to have the team around when Jenkins reported back.
    More trail, that way.
     
     
    LUCAS ATE a fast nonfat vegetarian breakfast—Trader Joe’s corn flakes with rice milk—and headed into the BCA; made a quick, impulsive stop at a diner, ordered scrambled eggs with link sausage, and a cup of coffee, and it all tasted and smelled so good he thought he might faint. He ate fast, didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty, and knew he’d never tell a soul. And on to the BCA.
    Sandy was waiting, and he gave her the name and the list: cell phone first, motor vehicles, photos, background.
    She went away, and Shrake came in, followed by Del. “What’re we doing?”
    “Hanging out until I can give you stuff to do—errands, nailing it down,” Lucas said. “When we get enough, we’ll go for a warrant. But before we do anything official, I want to know where he is, and be headed in that direction. The word’s gonna start leaking that we’re up to something.”
    Sandy came back: “You were right. That’s his phone number, and he is with Verizon. We need a warrant to find out where his phone is coming from.”
    “A warrant? Or just a subpoena? We don’t want to listen to him, we just want to know where he is.”
    She said, “I didn’t split that hair. I’ve got the name of the guy we need to talk to at Verizon.”
    Lucas said to Del, “Call the guy, try to whittle him down to a subpoena, then talk to the lawyers.”
    Del nodded. Lucas said to Sandy, “Photos, next. Everything you can get in the next five minutes. Start with his driver’s license.”
    She and Del left together, and Jenkins came in with a piece of paper in his hand. “I happened to look in the garage, and there was a dirt bike parked in there. I wrote the tag number on this piece of scrap paper.”
    “That was lucky,” Lucas said. “Be sure you put the scrap paper in the file. Did you run it?”
    “I did. The bike is registered to Brian Hanson.”
    Shrake said, “We got him.”
    “I think so,” Lucas said. “Listen, Sandy’ll have those photos in a minute. I’ve talked to three different women about them, and I want you guys to run them down, have them look at Roger’s face.”
    He gave them phone numbers and addresses for Dorcas Ryan, Lucy Landry, and Kelly Barker. They took the information, and as they left, Lucas said, “Make it as fast as you can. Get the IDs, and get back here.”

    WITH EVERYBODY OCCUPIED, Lucas walked