Chosen Prey

here. They got her.”
    Lucas nodded. “All right.”
    “These other strangled chicks . . . were they on the corner?” Davis asked.
    “The idea came up, but it doesn’t look like it,” Lucas said. “This is”—he waved a hand at the dumpster—“out of whack.”
    “And Whitcomb can’t talk.”
     
    T HE NEIGHBOR WAS named Megan Earle. She’d put on her red parka for the trip across town, and walked over to the dumpster with the hood up. “Do I gotta look?”
    “You gotta,” Davis said. “Just a minute, though.” He turned to one of the crime-scene cops and said, “Put one of them empty bags over her. You know.”
    The cop covered the dead woman’s body and neck with an empty plastic garbage bag, nodded, and Earle shuffled over to the dumpster and stood on her tiptoes and looked in. “Oh, God,” she said. She stepped back, looked at Davis, and said, “That’s Suzanne.”
    “Her name’s Suzanne?” Lucas asked.
    “That’s what she told me. I only talked to her once or twice when she was taking garbage out.”
    “You’re sure it’s her.”
    Earle nodded. “It’s her. Oh, God . . .”
    The cop who’d been with her peered into the dumpster, then took a camera out of his pocket and fired it into the dumpster—a Polaroid, Lucas realized when the photo whirred out of the front of the camera.
    Lucas stepped over to Del but didn’t say anything for a moment. Del said finally, “Randy’s too young to have done the first ones.”
    “What if there are two of them, working separately? But then the graveyard doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
    “What if this is just a big fuckin’ coincidence?”
    “Then what about the jewelry?”
    Del scratched his head. “We got all these pieces, but they don’t fit.”
    “Randy can make them fit,” Lucas said.
    “If he will.”
    “He’s looking at a murder rap if he doesn’t. If this girl’s blood is all over his apartment.”
    “Maybe I ought to go baby-sit him. Just sit there until he wakes up,” Del said.
    “Not be a bad idea,” Lucas agreed. “First guy who talks to him probably gonna break the case.”
    They hung around long enough to make sure there was nothing under the body. When it came out clean, and the medical examiner’s people were bundling it away, Davis said, “We’ll do some quick processing, and I imagine we’ll know if we’ve got a blood match by the middle of the morning. Take a while to get people going.”
    “Gimme a call?” Lucas asked.
    “I’ll be off. Allport will know, though.”
    “All right. I’ll call him.”
    “How many murders have you had this year, City of St. Paul?” Del asked.
    “I think this is five,” Davis said.
    “Jeez. We got ten in almost three months,” Del said. “Nobody’s killing anybody anymore. Even ag assault’s way down.”
    “Same here. Drugs are down. Rape’s still cooking along.”
    “Yeah, rape’s a bright spot,” Del agreed.
    “We’re talking about consolidation—moving guys out of violent crimes and hitting property crimes a little harder,” Davis said. “Some of the new plainclothes guys are sweatin’ a transfer back to patrol.”
    “No offense, but I couldn’t go back,” Del said. He shivered. “Patrol, man—I feel for you guys.”
    “Ah, we like it. Not as many assholes.”
    “You mean on the force, or on the street?” Del asked.
    “Whichever,” Davis said, and they all laughed, and Lucas said, “I resemble that remark.”
     
    L UCAS WENT BACK home, unplugged the bedroom phone, closed the door, and fell facedown on the bed. The next time he moved, it was after ten o’clock. He groaned, pushed himself up, shaved, showered, and headed downtown.
    Marshall was talking with Marcy. He saw Lucas and stood up and said, “I heard about the girl in the dumpster. What do you think?”
    “Gotta call St. Paul. They were gonna try to match her blood to the blood at Randy’s—but I’d say the chances are about ninety-five percent that it’s the right woman. Let me call Allport and see if they’ve got anything.”
    Allport had the tests. “She was killed in Whitcomb’s apartment, that’s her blood on the wall,” he said. “It makes me feel a little better about what happened—the docs are pouring on the steroids, but that spine thing is looking worse. They don’t think he’s gonna walk again.”
    “Is he gonna be able to talk?” Lucas asked.
    “Probably not today. They’re keeping him sedated until they get the spine managed.