Chosen Prey

who drew them.”
    “I think we can show an ass,” Carey said.
    “The more the better,” Lucas said. “We need a little pop, a little shock. Some talk.”
    “You’ll get talk,” she said. “You can bet your ass on it.”
     
    B ACK AT THE office, Lucas barely had time to get his coat off before the department’s public relations officer called and said that the Channel Three reporter wanted to speak to him. “He says it’s urgent. He’s got a camera with him. You know what it’s about?”
    “I got an idea,” Lucas said. “Send him down.”
    “The movies?” Marcy asked when Lucas hung up.
    “Absolutely,” Lucas said. “You want to take it? I got this goddamned hickey.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah. I’ll just pass him on to you.”
    “Jesus, I gotta . . . I gotta . . . my hair looks like somebody peed on it. I gotta . . .” She dashed out of the office.
    Del came in a step ahead of the camera. Lucas was shocked when the reporter asked about the drawings. “Where do you guys get this shit?” Lucas looked sideways at Del, who said, “Hey, I just met them in the hallway. I never said a word.”
    “I got sources,” the reporter said with a sly smile. “You gonna give us something? We got most of it already.”
    “Sergeant Sherrill’s handling it. We’d decided we might talk to you guys tomorrow. I guess a day early wouldn’t hurt, but the other stations—”
    “Fuck the other stations,” the reporter said. The cameraman was leaning against the wall, and appeared to have gone to sleep. Marcy came back five seconds later. Her hair looked neater and she had some color in her cheeks, either from cold water or slapping herself. And she’d unbuttoned one more button on her blouse; Lucas thought she looked terrific. The cameramen, sensing the presence of an unbuttoned blouse, woke up.
    “What’re we doing?” she asked.
    “Whatever you want to do,” Lucas told her. “You want to go with it?”
    “Say yes,” the reporter said. “We’ll owe you big.”
    “I guess it wouldn’t hurt,” Marcy said, shrugging. “Sure I’ll talk to you.”
     
    “S O WE GOT two favors owed to us on one story,” Marcy said forty minutes later, as they sat in the bay area of the office watching a portable TV. Carey was on the City Hall steps, reporting that the mayor had confirmed that he wouldn’t be running for reelection in the fall. Channel Three had led with a few shots from the drawings as a teaser—police fear killer-artist stalks Minneapolis woman—and then cut to Carey with the exclusive from the mayor’s office. From that report, she segued into the murder story:
    “This major story breaks exclusively on Channel Three just as police officials are huddling on another nightmarish problem: A killer is stalking Twin Cities women, and before he strikes, he apparently lures them into posing nude.”
    Lucas sat up. “That’s not right,” he said to the television.
    “Close enough for TV work,” Del said.
    The drawing of Aronson appeared on the screen, ass included. “Julie Aronson was strangled eighteen months ago by a man who apparently had intimate knowledge of her.”
    “Gonna scare the shit out of the other women,” Marcy said. “I mean, we’re gonna get some attention. I better call them.”
    “That’s what we wanted,” Lucas said. “Attention.” They watched as the Channel Three reporter came up, on tape, with the details, and then Marcy was on, with an explanation.
    “Great blouse button,” Del said, leering at her.
    “Fuck you, it just fell open,” Marcy said, flushing.
    “No, no, don’t say that,” Lucas said. “That’s great technique. If you hadn’t thought of it, I would have suggested it, except I probably wouldn’t have thought of it. But you know, it doesn’t hurt to have a sexy cop talking to TV. Gives you some leverage, God help us all.”
    “Look at the way they framed you. Not just your face, but from the cleavage up,” Del said. “That is really good.”
    “It just occurred to me that there’ve only been two women on the newscast,” Marcy said. “And you’ve slept with both of them, Lucas. Was Carey better than me, or was I better?”
    Del looked at Lucas and said, “Run.”
     
    T HE TWO STORIES on Channel Three pulled all the other TV stations and both newspapers into City Hall. The mayor confirmed that he would not be running and Rose Marie outlined what was known in the Aronson case, correcting the impression that more than one