Certain Prey

one’s a freebie.”
    “Fuck your freebie,” Carmel snarled. B LACK FOUND an invitation to a lawyers’ Halloween Ball organized by members of several downtown firms: a photo of four of the women who organized the ball, including Carmel, was on the back of the program, and Louise Clark’s name was on the list of people who’d volunteered to help out.
    “What you should do,” Lucas told Black after he’d seen the photo, “is get in touch with these other women, and ask them about the relationship between Carmel and Clark. How closely did they work together, that kind of thing.”
    “I think Clark was probably a flunky—Xeroxed the invitations, or something.”
    “That’s fine, but ask anyway,” Lucas said. “One of the people-you ask will call Carmel, and tell her you’re asking . . .” T HEN SHERRILL CAME UP with a strong tie, one that surprised everybody: Louise Clark’s phone records showed two calls to Carmel Loan’s unlisted home phone in the week before Clark was killed. Both calls were late at night.
    “I can’t think why they would be talking—why Clark would be calling her. But it’s an amazing tie,” Sherrill said.
    “It’s almost enough by itself,” Lucas said. “You know what? I want you to go over and brace Carmel about this, face-to-face. Tell her it’s part of the Clark investigation, and we just want the question answered . . . no big deal.”
    • • •

    C ARMEL’S FACE WAS the color of her fabulous bloody-red silk scarf: “She never called,” Carmel shouted. “She never called.”
    “Ms. Loan, somebody called—from her house to yours. This isn’t bullshit—this is the list straight from the phone company. I brought a Xerox copy for you.” Sherrill was sitting in front of Carmel’s desk, and she unfolded the Xerox and pushed it the leather desk pad. “. . . and you can call the phone company yourself, if you don’t think this is accurate.”
    Carmel snatched the Xerox copy from the desk, looked at the two underlined phone calls. She shook her head angrily, said, “No. This is . . .” But then she trailed off, and her head swung sideways and down, a pensive look crossing her face.
    “You know what this is?” she asked finally, looking up at Sherrill. “That sonofabitch was calling me from her house. He was sleeping with me three nights a week, and when we weren’t together, he was sneaking over to her place.”
    Sherrill looked doubtful: “Well . . .” She stood up. “If you say so.”
    “That’s what it is,” Carmel shouted, shaking the Xerox copy in Sherrill’s face. L UCAS WAS NOT amused by the story. He shook his head, fiddled with a sport-coat button. “I’m starting to feel sorry for her,” he said. “Almost.”
    “My question is, where are you going with this? I mean, exactly where?” Sherrill asked.
    They were alone in Lucas’s office, streetlight coming on outside the single window; a soft glow lingered in the sky. A perfect summer night, a night for walking around the lakes, Sherrill thought. Lucas said, “You’re the only one who knows about the shell I found in her bedroom closet.”
    “Unless you told somebody else,” Sherrill said.
    “No. It’s just you and me,” Lucas said. He pulled out the typewriter tray on the top corner of his desk, leaned back in his chair and put his feet up. “But something happened to get that shell in there. Somebody dropped a box of shells, somebody ejected a shell and didn’t pick it up, or somebody was punching a bunch of shells into a clip and fumbled them . . . If Carmel sees me find a shell there, and if I find it in just the right circumstances, I think she’d come after it. Either her, or the shooter.”
    “You mean like . . . any shell.”
    “Sure. Any shell. Any twenty-two. Whatever happened to get that shell in the closet, Carmel will know about. If I find a shell in the closet, she’ll know she’s fucked. Especially if she hears about the scratches on the back of Rolo’s hand and our other corroborating evidence, whatever it might be.”
    “What’ll she do?”
    “Suppose I find the shell on a Friday night. Suppose everybody has left her apartment, except me, and I find the shell while I’m taking a last look around. I know where I found the original, so I’ll find this one in exactly the same place. I show it to her, and she claims I planted it, or whatever. And I say, ‘The only shells I have to plant are already fired. If we get a metallurgical match on these