Certain Prey

urgency of the emotion. Tears started at the inner corners of her eyes. Poor Barbara. Poor Hale. A tragedy.
    “Carmel . . . God, I don’t know, I’m so screwed up,” Hale Allen said. “Now the police think maybe I had something to do with it. The murder.”
    “That’s crazy,” Carmel said.
    “Absolutely. They keep asking about how much money I’ll inherit, and Barb’s parents are saying all this crazy stuff . . .”
    “That’s terrible!” He needed help; and he was calling her.
    “Look, what I’m calling to ask is, could you handle this for me? Could you deal with the police? You’re the best I know . . .”
    “Of course,” she said briskly. “Where are you now?”
    “I’m at home. I’m sitting here with all of Barb’s stuff . . . I don’t know what to do.”
    “Sit right there,” Carmel said. “I’ll be there in half an hour. Don’t talk to any more cops. If anyone calls, tell them to talk to me.”
    “Won’t that make them suspicious?” Not the sharpest knife.
    “They already are suspicious, Hale. I know exactly where they’re coming from. It’s stupid, but that’s the way they think. So give them my office number and this number, and do not, do not, talk to them.”
    “Okay.” He sounded better already. “Half an hour?”

    O H, G OD. The thing about Hale Allen, she thought, was his hands. He had these big, competent-looking hands with clean, square nails, and fine dark fuzz on the first joints of his fingers, a hint of the underlying masculinity. He had beautiful, thick hair, and wonderful shoulders, and his brown eyes were so expressive that when he concentrated on her, Carmel felt weak.
    But it was the hands that did it. And did it one afternoon in a nice lawyer bar with lots of plants in copper kettles, and antique dressers used as serving tables. There’d been three or four of them sitting around a table, different firms, no agenda, just gossip. He’d been laughing, with those great white teeth, and he’d looked deep into her a few times, all the way, she felt, to the bottom of her panty hose. But the main thing was, he’d been drinking something light and white, a California chardonnay, maybe, and he kept turning the wineglass in those strong fingers and Carmel had begun to vibrate. They’d been together two dozen times since, but always in social situations, and never too long.
    She thought, though, that he must know, somewhere in his soul. Now with this call . . .
    She took fifteen minutes with her makeup—made it invisible—and after applying the lightest touch of Chanel No. 7, she went down to the parking garage and climbed into the Jaguar.
    She forgot all about her resolution to stay away. Hale Allen needed her.

FOUR

    Lucas felt light: psychologically light . Nothing left to lose.
    He hadn’t spoken seriously with a woman since his breakup with Marcy Sherrill. And he felt good: he’d been working out, shooting some hoops, running through the neighborhood, though he could feel it in his knees if he did more than five miles. Age coming on . . .
    Money in the bank. All bills paid. The job under control, except for the Cultural Commission. Even that had a calming effect on him. Like a boring concert, where the music never changed, the commission gave him three hours a week in which he had to sit still, his brain in neutral, his motor idling. He couldn’t get away with sleeping during the meetings, but he’d managed to catch up on his reading.
    Earlier in the year, before the Forty Days and Forty Nights, he’d felt himself on shaky ground, poised between sanity and another bout of depression. Marcy Sherrill had changed that, at least. He felt as good as he could remember, if somewhat detached, disengaged, floating. His oldest childhood friend, a nun who was also a professor at St.
    Anne’s College, had gone on a summer mission to Guatemala, giving thanks for a successful recovery from a terrible beating; half of his friends were on vacation. Crime, improbably, was down across the board.
    And it was summer: a good one.
    Lucas had been working four days a week, spending the three-day weekends at his cabin in Wisconsin. Five years past, a North Woods neighbor, a flat-nosed guy from Chicago, had stocked a pond with largemouth bass. Now the pond was getting good. Every morning, early morning, Lucas would walk a half-mile over to the Chicago guy’s house, push an old green flat-bottomed johnboat into the water, and throw poppers and streamer flies at the lily