Chosen Prey

against burglary: “Armed Response Authorized.”
    “Light in the window,” Lucas said.
    “Of course. It’s almost two o’clock,” Del said. “This fuckin’ place.”
    “Not very cold, though,” Lucas said, as they pushed through the front gate and headed for the stairs.
    “Not for Moscow,” Del said. “For any other place, this is cold.”
    A machine was whining inside the house. Lucas rang the doorbell, and they both heard a thump. A man’s eyes appeared in the small window cut in the front door, and a second later, the door opened.
    “Yeah?” The guy in the doorway wore white coveralls and a white paper hat that covered his hair. He was thin, slat-faced, with a two-day stubble.
    “Minneapolis police,” Lucas said. “We’re looking for Morris Ware.”
    “Uh, Mr. Ware isn’t here. We’re the housecleaners.”
    “You’re a Miracle Maid?” Lucas asked.
    “Yeah. That’s what I am.” He sounded like he didn’t believe it himself.
    “Do you know where Ware’d be?” Del asked.
    The man’s eyes flicked to Del, lingered for a moment, and a rime of skepticism appeared. “Do you guys have any ID?”
    Both Lucas and Del nodded automatically and flipped their IDs. “So . . .”
    “I don’t have an address or anything, but I do have a contact number. I think it’s his office,” the man said.
    Lucas and Del waited on the porch while he went to get the number, and Del said, “I’m not sure he believes I’m a cop.”
    “You’re too hard on yourself,” Lucas said.
    The housecleaner returned with the number. Lucas jotted it down and then said, “You don’t have to call him and tell him we were here.”
    “Maybe I should just forget it entirely.”
    “Good policy,” said Del.
     
    L UCAS CALLED THE phone number in, and a minute later got an address back. “It’s off 280, off Broadway somewhere, in those warehouses,” the dispatcher said. “You know where that Dayton’s office furniture place is? Around there somewhere.”
    They took I-35 north, then 280, falling in behind a highway patrol cruiser. The cruiser cut a yellow light at Broadway, while Lucas eased into the turn lane. As they sat at the stoplight, waiting to make a left, a half-dozen teenagers in nylon jogging suits ran in a pack down a hill on the golf course across the highway.
    “That’s what you ought to do, get in shape,” Lucas said.
    “Life’s too short to spend it getting in shape,” Del said. “Besides, it’d ruin my credibility on the street.”
     
    M ORRIS W ARE’S OFFICE was in a long line of low, yellow-painted concrete-block warehouse spaces that mostly held distributors of one kind or another. The address was obscure: They finally spotted it as a signless window between a pressure-hose distributor and something called “Christmas Ink.”
    The warehouse was fronted by a service street with diagonal parking. Lucas pulled in fifty feet past Ware’s, and they both got out. As they did, a woman pulled in at Christmas Ink, walked around to the back of her minivan, and popped the hatch. She was struggling with a cardboard box when Lucas and Del walked up.
    “Let me get that for you,” Lucas said.
    She stepped back and took them in. “Thanks.”
    The woman was in her fifties, with elaborate gold-frosted hair and electric-red lipstick. She wore a hip-length nylon parka and rubber snow boots. She waited until Lucas had the box out, locked the van, and led the way to the door of Christmas Ink.
    Inside, a counter ran from wall to wall, and another woman and two men sat at metal desks in the back peering at computer screens. A bookcase was stuffed with catalogs and directories; one wall was covered with holiday cards, with header signs that said “Memorial Day,” “Mother’s Day,” “Father’s Day,” and “New Sympathy Cards from Leonbrook.” The woman in the parka lifted a countertop gate, went through, said, “You can just leave it on the counter. Thanks again.”
    Lucas put the book on the counter and said, “We’re Minneapolis police.”
    The woman said, “Yes?” and the three people in the back all looked up.
    “We’re looking for a guy named Morris Ware. We’d like to talk to him.”
    One of the men looked at the woman behind the computer screen and said, “Told you.”
    “ ‘Told you’ what?” Del asked.
    The man said, “We don’t want any trouble with our neighbors. . . .”
    Lucas shrugged. “There’s no need for Mr. Ware to know we stopped in here.”
    The