Easy Prey

over to the railing, hangs him over, head down, and lets go. Rodriguez hits headfirst and he’s gone,” Lucas said.
    “I’ll tell you something,” Rose Marie said. “Remember when those people were doing their swan dives over in the county government building? I saw a couple of those. They didn’t go headfirst—they just let themselves fall, and generally landed flat. Rodriguez would have had to made a conscious decision to dive —to land headfirst. That doesn’t feel right. Even people who want to die don’t want their identities erased. Their faces broken up.”
    “I hadn’t thought about that, but you’re right,” Lucas said. Del nodded.
     
 
THEY ALL SAT and thought about it, Rose Marie swinging back and forth in her chair, and finally she asked, “Have you guys figured out the rest of it?”
    “We’ve figured out that we’ll never get him, if that’s what you mean,” Del said.
    Lucas nodded. “We’ve publicly said, or let it be known, that we think there are two killers working: one who killed Lansing and Alie’e, and somebody who’s killing in revenge for those murders. Therefore, the most likely candidate as the Rodriguez killer is that second man, especially since Rodriguez’s name was leaked. But we know it can’t be, because we were watching the guy who’s probably the second man, and he was clear over on the other side of town. And the second man, even if it isn’t Olson, also wouldn’t have known how to lure Rodriguez back to his office, wouldn’t have known that Rodriguez had a twenty-four-hour police escort, wouldn’t have known about the phone taps. All of which would count about zilch with a jury.”
    “And we’d already pretty much pinned the Alie’e and Lansing killings on Rodriguez, and the details were leaking. Even the suicide fits. . . . It’s too late to change our minds,” Del said.
    “If we did change our minds, and we bust Spooner, the defense would put Rodriguez on trial and they’d win,” Rose Marie said. “You’ve got me two-thirds convinced it’s Spooner, but if you were talking to a jury, it’d still be eighty-twenty for Rodriguez. All we’ve got as evidence on Spooner is this long chain of Lucas Davenport suppositions.”
    “Suppositories,” Del amended.
    “That’s not totally true,” Lucas said. “We can put him with both Lansing and Deal. Nobody could put Deal with Rodriguez. If we can put him at the party . . .”
    “It’d be weak but usable, if Rodriguez wasn’t there as an alternative candidate,” Rose Marie said. “You haven’t even suggested why he’d kill Lansing. With Rodriguez, we could suppose it was some kind of criminal falling-out between wholesaler and retailer.”
    Another ten seconds passed in silence, then Rose Marie said, “So what do I tell Olson? He’s coming in here in fifteen minutes, so I can give him the official word on Rodriguez and say that we’re satisfied that Alie’e’s killer is dead. What do I say now?”
    “Bullshit him,” Lucas said. “Tell him that there’s some evidence that Rodriguez was the one, but we’re continuing to examine other possibilities.”
    “He’s gonna want some kind of closure,” Rose Marie said.
    “Fuck closure,” Lucas said. “Nobody gets closure.”
    “With this bunch, nobody deserves it,” Del muttered.
     
 
LUCAS ASKED DEL to check with the Homicide cops who were circulating Spooner’s picture among the known partygoers. “I’ve got to do some paper,” he said. “Maybe when you’re up-to-date with Homicide, you could check with Marcy. Tell her I’ll be over as soon as I can.”
    When Del was gone, Lucas went back to his office, locked the door, looked at his watch, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. Ten minutes later, his eyes popped open. Time to move. He got up, walked back down to Rose Marie’s office, and peeked: door closed. He stepped inside and asked the secretary, “The Olson bunch in there?”
    “Yup. A pretty sad-looking bunch, too.”
    Lucas backed out of the office, got his coat, put it over his arm, and went to the end of the hall, where he could see the chief’s office door but where somebody also might think he was waiting for somebody to come in the front door. Out on the street, the media wagons were piled up; a square-jawed trench-coated reporter was doing a stand-up, with City Hall as background. More airtime for Alie’e.
    A cop named Hampstad wandered by, leered at Lucas, and said, “You hear the one