Buried Prey

look around, pull out the piece, pop him, and go.”
    “All right—but when was the last time you picked up a dead black crack dealer in the alley behind a bunch of houses where all the people are white?” Lucas asked.
    Del held up an index finger. “That’s another reason I like your whole spontaneous, semi-accidental murder theory. It’s possible that our crack-freak killer doesn’t exist. At least, not this one. So we’re looking for the wrong dude. He doesn’t exist. Maybe your dude does.”
    “My dude exists—he snatched the girls,” Lucas said.
    “Unless Scratch did it,” Del said.
    “Scrape.”
    “Yeah, Scrape. The point remains: we are wasting our time, right now,” Del said. “We aren’t gonna hang the Smith murder on a neighborhood guy unless an eyewitness turns up, and even then, we’d probably need to kick a confession out of the guy. Because (a) there’s no link to follow, and (b) nobody gives a shit. There’s no logic to a crack killing. No puzzle you can figure out. Only hunger.”
    “You got me convinced,” Lucas said. “But you gotta keep your eye on the other ball, too.”
    “What ball?”
    “The political ball,” Lucas said. “The ball that requires two white guys to be out roaming around the black community so it looks like somebody cares, when nobody does.”
    “I don’t like that ball,” Del said.
     
     
    AFTER A WHILE, when the lights started going out around the neighborhood, they went home. Lucas thought about the case while waiting for sleep to catch up with him. It was confusing, but in a pleasant way: it was intricate, like a puzzle, like a really magnificent game. You could make a million moves, and prove yourself a complete fool.
    He was still sleeping soundly at eight o’clock the next morning when his phone rang. The comm center was calling to say that some woman was trying to get in touch, and she’d said it might be an emergency. Lucas dialed the number she left, not recognizing it, and the blue-haired Karen Frazier picked up.
    “All right, Scrape’s name is all over the place and the whole street is all freaked out, and I was talking to a guy named Millard and he told me that he saw Scrape last night sneaking along the riverbank across from the falls. On the east side.”
    “Where are you?” Lucas asked.
    “Right there, on Main. I was looking around for him.”
    “For Christ sakes, don’t do that,” Lucas said. “Even if he didn’t do it, he’s still nuts and we took a great big long knife off him. He’s probably got another one by now.”
    “I thought of that. That’s why I’m calling you,” Frazier said. “You think he did it?”
    “I don’t know—there’s some other stuff going on, but there’s some evidence, too. Against him, I mean. So you sit tight: I’m coming over. Give me twenty minutes. I’ll meet you at the end of the bridge there.”
    He’d planned to go back to Stacy, to look for Fell. Instead, he rolled out, brushed his teeth, skipped the shave, was in and out of the shower in one minute, and in two more, was dressed. He thought about calling in, as long as the phone was right there. On the other hand, if he picked up Scrape on his own . . .
    He gave the phone a last look, and with only the slightest of misgivings, was on his way.
     
     
    FRAZIER WAS SITTING on a bench south of the Central Avenue bridge. Lucas pulled in, flipped his “Police” card onto the dash, locked the door, and walked over. She saw him coming and stood up.
    “Everybody’s scared,” she said. “The newspaper had this huge story about letting him go, and how maybe he stabbed some black man. And you guys are hassling everybody. People are running out of town—”
    “We’re still thinking about the girls,” Lucas said. “There’s not much chance anymore, but we gotta try.”
    She looked doubtful: “It seems more like you’re doing it for television, than really looking.”
    “We’re really looking,” Lucas said. “And I haven’t rousted anyone. I’ve been working the Smith killing.”
    She turned away and looked off down the river.
    “Anyway,” Lucas said. “There’s a guy named Millard, right? Where is he?”
    “I don’t want you to talk to Millard, because he’ll put two and two together, and figure out where you got his name.”
    Lucas shook his head: “I gotta know. I’ll cover you. But I gotta talk to him.”
    “I can tell you what he said. He said, Scrape was right under the bridge when he saw him, but