Certain Prey

came and told us not to talk to any more policemen. Ever.”
    “Some policemen came to see you? Do you remember who they were?”
    “One was a man and one was a woman,” the girl said.
    “Do you remember their names? Either one?”
    “Yes.”
    “Could you tell me what they were?” His own small children had taught him patience.
    “One was named Mr. Davenport, and one was named Miss Sherrill.”
    “Jesus Christ,” Officer Friendly said.

NINETEEN

    Sherrill was still asleep when Lucas called. “We maybe got a break,” he said.
    She picked up the intensity in his voice, heard the traffic in the background. He was on a cell phone. She sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes with the heel of her hand. “What happened?”
    “That little kid called in, Heather Davis—she called Officer Friendly, you know the guy, what’s-his-name . . .”
    “Ennis.”
    “Yeah. She says the shooter was at their apartment last night, and warned her mother not to talk to us. She told them if they did talk to us, she’d come back and kill them both.”
    Sherrill hopped out of bed and started for the bathroom, trailed by a twenty-foot coil of white phone wire. “What time was that?”
    “Nine, or a little after. Just dark.”
    “Then it wasn’t Carmel,” Sherrill said. “We got her coming out of her building around eight-thirty, followed her to the Swan, and watched her dance the night away.”
    “You did that? Tracked her?”
    “Yeah, me and Tom. You sound surprised.” She lifted the toilet seat and sat down.
    “I wasn’t sure you were going to, the way we left it yesterday,” Lucas said. “Seemed like a long shot . . .”
    Sherrill lost the rest of what Lucas was saying, suddenly falling off into a mental movie of the previous night. She came back when Lucas asked, “Marcy? Are you still there?”
    “Lucas . . . Goddamnit, I think we might have seen the shooter. Last night. Coming out of Carmel’s building.”
    “What?” He didn’t believe it.
    “Honest to God.” She told him about the redhead who’d left as Hale Allen was going in. In her mind’s eye, she could see the woman brushing past Hale, giving him the onceover, then stepping outside on the walk and looking up and down the street.
    “Could you identify her?”
    She thought about it for less than a second: “I don’t think so. I wasn’t paying attention to her. I mean, there’s a good chance it’s not even her . . . but still, she was a shorter woman, a small woman, but in pretty good shape, like a gymnast; like Baily said. And she had big red hair.”
    “That was her—I’d bet you a hundred bucks it was her,” Lucas said. “We’ve gotta throw a net around the building. And we’ve got to get something on Carmel’s phones. Find somebody who’ll sign a warrant to tap them.”
    “Where are you? Are you at Davis’s house?”
    “No, I’m in my car, heading for the kid’s school. She’s still there—I’ll be there in five.”
    “I’ll get dressed and head out.” T HE INSIDE COP, the tipster, called Carmel just as Lucas and Sherrill were breaking off their conversation:
    “You’re in the clear,” he said. He didn’t bother to identify himself.
    “What happened?”
    “I’m not sure exactly, but the rumor is, this little kid called in, and said that the shooter was back at her house last night and her mother was afraid to talk about it. And the rumor is, you were being tracked, and they know it can’t be you because you were out dancing at some fancy place. I’ll tell you what, Davenport went running out of here like a fullback. I mean, he was runnin’. ”
    “Jesus: they were following me?” She was shocked. She hadn’t felt it. She’d always thought she’d be able to feel it. Maybe because of Hale, his closeness . . .
    “All over you, I guess,” the cop said. “A good thing, because you’re in the clear.”
    “Why didn’t you call me before? When you heard they were putting the tail on me?”
    After a pause, the cop said, “You know I can’t do that.”
    Carmel promised another payment, rang off and dialed Rinker.
    “And it was the kid who called the cops,” Carmel said as she finished relating the cop’s tip.
    “Jesus, I never thought about that,” Rinker said. “She’s so small.”
    “But it works out,” Carmel said, excitedly. “You found out that there really was nothing coming out of them, and even if the cops force the mother to talk this time, what can she give them? And now the cops know I