Chosen Prey

This has got that bad feeling about it.”
    Lucas nodded. “Yeah, it does.”
     
    T HEY WERE HALFWAY there when Del called: “What the hell’s going on?”
    Lucas told him in three sentences, and Del said, “I’ll see you there.”
     
    T HEY PULLED INTO the parking lot in front of Culver’s shop ten minutes after Lucas and Culver spoke on the phone. Lucas hopped out, spotted Culver talking to two elderly women, and walked over, Marshall a step behind. “Is there a landlord? Who has the keys?”
    “There’s a manager, but he goes around between buildings. I’ve got a cell phone.”
    “Call him and see where he’s at,” Lucas said.
    Culver hurried into his shop. Marshall was already pressing his face to the silvered glass on the door. “He’s right, it looks like some stuff is turned over,” he said.
    Lucas pressed his face to the door and cupped his hands around his eyes. One of the quilt frames had been knocked onto the floor. “Goddamnit.” He stepped back, and over to the door of Culver’s place. Culver was walking toward him with a cell phone to his ear. He was saying, “Where’re you at? We need to get in.”
    Lucas asked, “Where?”
    Culver said, “He’s in Hopkins. He can be here in twenty minutes.”
    “Fuck that,” Lucas said. “Have you got something we can break the glass with?”
    “Here,” Marshall said. He reached under his jacket and produced a large-frame .357 Magnum. He pointed the weapon to one side, as though he’d done this before, stood close to the glass, and punched it with the butt of the gun. The punch knocked a dollar-size hole in the glass. He gave it another light whack and a piece of glass broke out. Marshall carefully reached through the hole and flipped the inside lock.
    Lucas led the way in. The frame was on the floor and . . .
    “Step easy,” he said sharply. He pointed at the track of blood.
    “Ah, no, ah, man . . .” Marshall turned to the door, where Culver was standing, and said, “Stay out of here. Keep everybody out.”
    They walked carefully through the blood spots—“Looks like an impact spray,” Lucas muttered—to the door of the living quarters. Lucas put one finger high on the door, muttered “Don’t touch” to Marshall, and pushed it open.
     
    E LLEN B ARSTAD WAS lying by the sink. She was fully clothed and she was dead. No strangulation, this: Her head lay in a puddle of congealed blood, with patches of dried blood around it. The back of her head appeared to be torn off. Lucas said, “All right, let’s get some people on the way.” He glanced at Marshall. Marshall’s eyes were closed and he had one hand pressed against the middle of his face, the heel of his hand under his chin, the fingers pressed against his forehead. “Terry?”
    “Yeah, yeah . . . Goddamnit, Lucas, I think we did this to her.”
    Lucas swallowed once, trying to get rid of the sour taste in his throat, shook his head. Looked down the length of the kitchen and saw a hammer. “Weapon,” he said.
    Marshall took his hands away from his face. “Had to be something like that to do the damage.” He was closer, and stepped over next to it. “It looks like it’s been wiped. I can see streaks, like . . . paper towel.”
    “Let’s get out of here before we fuck something up,” Lucas said. “Get the lab guys going.”
    Del arrived five minutes later and saw them outside, duct-taping a piece of cardboard over the hole in the glass door. They were just finishing as he came up, and he looked from Marshall to Lucas and said, “Don’t tell me.”
    “She’s gone,” Lucas said. Del stepped toward the door and Lucas said, “Watch the blood in the work area. Don’t touch the door going into the back.”
    Del disappeared inside, came back a minute later. His face carried the same expression as Marshall’s.
    “When did he do it?”
    “Looks like last night,” Lucas said. “The blood puddles had started to dry out. Maybe we can get a temperature and tell that way. We taped over the door to try to keep the ambient the same inside.”
    “Christ, he looks like he freaked out,” Del said. “Looks like he chased her from the front door, maybe picked up that hammer off the frame—”
    Lucas interrupted. “Sure it was hers?”
    “Yeah, I’m pretty sure—I saw it sitting there the other day, and the one I saw isn’t there anymore. Picked it up, took a swing, cut her, but she made it into the back.”
    “Hope the motherfucker pushed that