Easy Prey

keeping up,” she said. “It’s not too serious yet. They’re managing it.”
    “C’mon, Weather. Is this gonna turn into something?”
    She shook her head. “I can’t tell you that, Lucas. She’s young enough and healthy enough that it shouldn’t, and we’re right on top of it . . . but she was hit hard, and her lung took some of it. So . . . we gotta stay on top of it.”
    “That’s all.”
    “Lucas, I don’t know any more,” she said in exasperation. “I just don’t know.”
    “All right.”
    They stood, awkwardly, then she touched his arm and said, “I’ve been seeing this Rodriguez guy on television. That’s you, isn’t it? Your part of the case?”
    “Yeah. He’s the guy. The problem is, how do we get at him? There’s almost nothing at the scene that would help. We’re building a circumstantial case. . . .”
    They walked along, Lucas talking about the case. They’d done this when they were living together, Lucas talking out problem cases. The talking seemed to help, seemed to straighten out his thinking, even when Weather didn’t say much. They fell back into the pattern, Weather prodding him with an occasional “Why do you think that?” or, “Where did you get that?” or, “How does that connect?”
    They turned at the end of the long hall, and Del stepped out of Marcy’s room, looked down at them, and went back inside. On the way back, Weather said, “What’re you doing tonight? Want to go out for pasta?”
    “I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “You know what it gets like. . . . I’m going nuts. But could I call you?”
    “Yeah. I think you can,” she said. She grabbed his ear, pulled his head down, and kissed him on the cheek. “See ya,” she said.

23
    LUCAS ATE ALONE, a quick sliced-beef-and-cucumber sandwich in the kitchen, stood in the shower for a few minutes, soaking, then changed into jeans, a sweatshirt over a golf shirt, a leather jacket, and boots. He thought about taking the Tahoe; it would fit better with the crowd. But Jael really liked the Porsche.
    He took the Porsche, across the Ford Parkway Bridge and up the Mississippi, then west to Jael’s studio. She’d picked out an outfit like his: leather jacket and jeans, cowboy boots, and a turquoise-and-silver necklace. “We look like we’re going to a square dance,” she said.
    “C’mon.” Downstairs, in the studio, she said, “I left my house keys in the back, just a minute . . .” and when she went to get them, one of the ambush cops, sitting on the floor with a PlayStation, looked up and said, “You’re breaking my fuckin’ heart, Davenport.”
    “Hey, we’re going to church.”
    “Yeah,” the cop said, and, “Aw, shit, now I missed the yellow block.”
    Jael came back with her keys and said, “We’re rolling.”
    The cop looked up at Lucas, one eye closed, and Lucas shrugged and followed her out the door.
     
 
OLSON WAS PREACHING at the Christ Triumphant Evangelical Church, a good part of an hour west of Minneapolis in the town of Young America. The church was a long, narrow-faced white clapboard building with a bell tower, in the New England style, with a nearly full gravel parking lot to one side. Lucas parked between a tricked-out Ford F-150 and a Chevy S-10 with a snow blade, in a slot where the Tahoe would have fit perfectly. The Porsche, crouched between them, looked like a cockroach between two refrigerators. And down about ten slots, Lucas noticed, a nondescript city car huddled behind a van.
    Outside the church, a thin pink-faced man in a long black trench coat stood next to a Salvation Army-style kettle, with a sign that read, “Please Donate,” and under that, in small letters, “Suggested donation: $2 per person.”
    Jael said, “I thought Reverend Olson didn’t accept compensation,” and the man standing with the kettle said, “This is for the church, ma’am. Reverend Olson doesn’t even take gas money out.”
    Lucas put a five-dollar bill in the kettle, and the man said, “Thanks very much, folks—you better get inside if you want to get a seat.”
    The church was severely plain inside: white walls, natural-wood floors, a center aisle between two ranks of pews, and a rough wooden cross at the far end. The pews were two-thirds full, with a couple of dozen people still milling around; Lucas and Jael sat near the back. The place was warm, and they took off their coats. In the far left corner of the church, two women from Narcotics chatted quietly