Buried Prey

cell phone when he came out a minute later. He clicked off, squatted next to Lucas, and said, “Come on, these guys are pros. They’ll get it done. Let’s get you home.”
    “Got to tell her folks,” Lucas said, finding a few words. Tears started streaming down his face. “Somebody’s—”
    “Somebody does, but not you,” Del said. “Come on. I’m taking you home.”
     
     
    LUCAS DIDN’T FIGHT HIM. He sat in the passenger seat, couldn’t stop the tears. Del said, “This is the worst goddamn thing. It’s the worst goddamn thing.”
     
     
    WEATHER CALLED on Lucas’s cell and asked, “Where are you?”
    “Coming home. I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he said.
    “Are you driving?”
    “No. Del is.”
    “Ten minutes,” she said.
     
     
    WEATHER AND LETTY were in the driveway when they got to Lucas’s home. Del pulled in, and said, “I’ll go downtown and take care of the paper on Berg—I wish we’d never talked to that fool.”
    Lucas nodded and climbed out of the truck, and Weather came and took him around the waist and said, “Shrake called, and Del. Lucas, I’m so sorry.”
    Lucas nodded and Letty asked, “What’re you going to do?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve got to think about it. I’m so freaked out I can’t think right now. This was like a freak shot, the guy was spraying the house. He shot the husband three times from four feet and didn’t kill him, but he hits Marcy once from forty feet and she’s gone. Ah, Jesus . . .”
    Letty said, “You’ve got to find the guy who did it and take care of him. Personally.”
    Weather said, “Letty, let it go.”
    Letty said to Weather, “I’m not letting it go.” And to Lucas: “If you don’t settle this, get a hand in it, you’re going to be screwed up for a long time. First the Jones girls and now Marcy. Dad—”
    Weather said, “Letty, shut up. Look: just shut up for now. We can talk about it later. Lucas, let’s go sit down.”
    “I need to talk to the guys at Minneapolis,” Lucas said. “I need to talk to her partner, find out what happened. I’ve got enough to find this guy, and now we’ve got DNA on him.”
    “You’re not going to do any of that tonight,” Weather said. “Come on. I’ve got some hot dogs hidden away. We’ll get something to eat . . . you need to think.”
    “All right,” he said. “Gotta think.” He put his arms around the shoulders of both women, and they walked into the house.
     
     
    TIME PASSED; it always does, and the dead don’t come back, and their death becomes more real.
    Lucas sat in his darkened den while Letty and Weather bustled around the kitchen with the housekeeper. He could hear them banging around, like the distant sad/cheery sounds of Christmas to a bum on the street. And he could hear them snarling at each other from time to time.
    Letty and Weather were close, but had radically different worldviews. Weather, as a surgeon, was imbued with the medical profession’s “care” mentality. Letty, their adopted daughter, had grown up in a harsh rural countryside without a father, and with a half-crazed, alcoholic mother: her attitude was, Hit first, and if necessary, hit again. If you made a mistake, you could apologize later. Her mentality was stark: take care of yourself, and your family and friends.
    Weather would argue that the system would take care of Marcy’s killer. That Lucas would only get in trouble if he made it personal. Letty’s attitude was that Lucas would never sleep right if he didn’t hunt the killer down, and finish him.
    Lucas had never loved another woman as he loved Weather—but his attitude was closer to Letty’s. He could feel the murder of Marcy Sherrill sitting like a cold chunk of iron in his heart and gut. It wouldn’t go away; it’d only grow harder and colder.
    The anguish and regret never faded, but the anger came on, and it grew.
    Marcy had meant a lot to him: he’d known her from her first days on the police force, just out of the academy, a dewy young thing working as a decoy in both prostitution and drug investigations. She’d been hot: terrific in a short skirt and high heels, with a soft clinging blouse: Weather habitually referred to her as Titsy.
    She and Lucas ran into each other when Marcy made detective. They hadn’t worked out as sexual partners because, in some ways, they were simply too much alike: competitive, argumentative, manipulative, cynical. Both of them wanted to be on top; so they needed a little