Chosen Prey

that we stay independent, but we send Xeroxes of everything to the task force, if there is a task force. But if there is a task force, it probably won’t get started for a few days, so if we really want to look good . . .”
    “We take the guy before that.”
    “Only a suggestion,” she said.
    “I’ll keep it in mind.”
     
    L UCAS MADE A half-gallon of coffee and poured it into a thermos, got his rain suit off the nail in the garage, and tossed it into the back of the Tahoe. With little hope, he cranked up his IBM and looked at his e-mail—and found a message from a DocJohn. He opened it and brought up a page of scanned X-ray images. He sent the images to his laser printer and two minutes later had eight life-size X-ray images.
     
    T HE WEATHER WAS better: still overcast, but dry. Del was waiting in front of his house. His wife waited with him, and when she saw the Tahoe coming, handed Del a cooler. Del said something to her, and when Lucas pulled into the drive, he sheepishly got into the truck. “No more meat loaf,” Cheryl said to Lucas.
    “I’ll remember,” Lucas said. “Don’t let my meat loaf.”
    “Lucas . . .” A distinct threat hung in her voice.
    “No meat loaf. I swear.”
    “Have Del tell you about his cholesterol.”
    Lucas looked at Del, who seemed to shrink down in his seat, then back to his wife. “We’ll talk about it,” Lucas promised.
    On the way out of town, Lucas asked, “What’s in the cooler?”
    “Bunch of stuff. Mostly cut carrots. Fat-free water crackers.”
    “I like carrots.”
    “That’s fuckin’ great,” Del said. “I’m happy for you.”
    “So are you gonna tell me about your cholesterol?”
    Del shrugged. “It’s been stuck at two fifty-five. The doc wants it down under two hundred, and if I can’t do it by diet, he’s gonna put me on Lapovorin.”
    “Uh-oh. Isn’t that what . . . ?”
    “Yeah. The guy who comes backwards.”
    Long pause. Then Lucas said, “Better than a heart bypass. Or dropping dead of a heart attack.”
    Del said, “Yeah. It kinda scares me, to tell you the truth. The cholesterol does. My mom died of a heart attack when she was fifty-eight.”
    They rode along for a minute, then Lucas said, “So eat carrots.”
    Del cracked a grin. “I’m gonna love getting old.”
     
    A T THE GRAVEYARD site, there were now a half-dozen TV trucks, along with the line of county sheriff’s cars, state cars, a car with federal government tags, Marshall’s Jeep, Lake’s Subaru, and a few more.
    “A simple cop convention yesterday. Now it’s a full-scale cluster-fuck,” Del said.
    “In which nobody knows exactly who’s doing what to whom, or with what.”
    “Or even why.”
    Lake was waiting on the hillside while his assistant carried the radar along the yellow string. Lucas headed that way first. “Any more?”
    “Just the one I told you about this morning, the seventh one. They’ve got some clothing coming up now.”
    Lucas looked around the hill. “Where’s seven?”
    Lake pointed. “Those guys.” He pointed farther along the hill. “And those guys, I think, are working on a tree hole, but it’s big enough and defined enough that we thought we better dig it out.”
    “How much longer?”
    “This is the last sweep. We’ll have some data in a half hour.”
    Lucas and Del walked up the hill to the command tent. McGrady was still at work, but he looked beat. He peered over his glasses at Lucas. “You’re pretty chipper.”
    “Good night’s sleep, pancakes for breakfast, nice conversation with a pretty woman,” Lucas said.
    “Better’n this, huh?”
    Lucas nodded. “You’ve got seven.”
    “Yeah.” McGrady stumbled backward a step and sank into a canvas field chair. “You know what? The first six didn’t bother me that much. The seventh, finding the seventh . . . that kicked my ass.”
    “I got some X-ray printouts for you. We can get the actual films if we need them. This is for the woman from New Richmond. Nancy Vanderpost.”
    Lucas handed McGrady the printouts, and McGrady looked at them for a long moment, then said, “Four.”
    “What?”
    “They could be number four.”
    He walked across the tent to six long cardboard boxes. Inside each box was a stack of clear plastic bags, with the contents of each bag carefully tagged. He rummaged around in the box numbered four and came up with a bag. Inside, Lucas saw several separate bones, including a lower jaw. McGrady looked at the jawbones for