Easy Prey

to get him alone.”
     
 
A ST. PAUL cop across the street, in the backyard of the house opposite Spooner’s, was yelling something, and two St. Paul plainclothesmen trotted toward him. “Something going on,” Lester said.
    Lucas hung up his phone and got on the radio, called the cops watching Olson. “Tell me when he’s heading back to the motel. The minute he heads that way.”
    “You got it, Chief.”
    Back on the phone, calling the cops who were watching Jael: “Somebody may be coming. Keep her away from the windows, keep her away from the doors. If anything moves, shoot it.”
    He and Lester walked across the street. One of the St. Paul plainclothesmen said, “We got a shell.”
    “What kind?”
    One of the patrol cops who’d found it said, “Forty-four Mag.”
    “He’s shooting a rifle,” Lucas said. “One of those Ruger carbines, I bet. The shell ejected, and this one he couldn’t find.”
    “What does that tell us?” Lester asked.
    “Damned if I know,” Lucas said.
    Lucas called Rose Marie. “I’ve got a problem. I’ve got to come see you.”
    “What happened?”
    “I’ll come see you,” Lucas said.
     
 
ROSE MARIE LIVED in a comfortable neighborhood on the south side of Minneapolis, a fifteen-minute drive from Spooner’s. Lucas didn’t think about what he was going to say, except that whatever it was, he had to cover Lester and the other cops. Rose Marie’s husband was just walking out the door with the family cocker spaniel when Lucas arrived. “As long as it’s not another killing,” he said genially.
    “I hate to wreck your mood,” Lucas told him grimly.
    “Oh, boy. Here in town?”
    “Over in St. Paul.”
    “That’s a little break.”
     
 
ROSE MARIE WAS reading. She dropped the book on the floor when Lucas pushed through the front door and called, “Hello?”
    “Lucas . . . what’s going on?”
    “William Spooner was shot to death. A half hour ago, over in St. Paul.”
    “My God.” She was appalled.
    “It’s worse than that,” he said. He told her the story, made it as flat as he could. She listened without much change of expression, and when he finished, said, “Let me think for a minute.” She took the full minute, then said, “We’re gonna have to talk to the mayor. I can put it off until early afternoon.”
    “Then what?”
    “I don’t know. You’ve saved several people’s butts over the years, but this could be tough. Especially if we can’t make Spooner as the guy who killed Rodriguez and the others.”
    “You don’t sound nearly as pissed off as I thought you’d be,” Lucas said.
    “Well . . .” She shrugged. “I’m not. I know what you were doing. The fact is, Spooner’s name would have leaked sooner or later, just like Rodriguez’s, and just like the muff-diving thing. This way, we controlled it.”
    “I controlled it,” Lucas said. “I think, for damage-control purposes, we ought to keep the emphasis on me. I’d especially hate to see anyone else get hurt.”
    She shook her head. “I think it’s just you and me—if they hang you, they’ll get me for not controlling the department.”
    “Which is bullshit.”
    “It’s politics,” she said. “Anyway, I can put it off until after lunch. You say you want to shake Olson. Go do it. I’ll get the St. Paul chief moving, and serve some warrants on Mrs. Spooner, God help her. If we can get something going by noon, or one o’clock, the mayor’ll think twice before he throws us to the dogs.”
    “If we actually get somebody, if we start a hunt, with an actual name . . .”
    “Then we’ve solved the crimes. Especially if we can make the case against Spooner. Then we’ve solved the crimes, and the whole thing becomes moot.”
    Lucas looked at his watch. “Fifteen hours.”
     
 
HE LEFT ROSE Marie’s house in a better mood than when he arrived, but the leaking of Spooner’s name seemed, in retrospect, unforgivably stupid. On the other hand, if it had worked, it would have seemed brilliant: like Napoleon at Waterloo—beaten by a hairsbreadth, but beaten.
    The cops at the church called. Olson was moving west on 494, headed back toward his motel. Lucas scrambled to get to Del’s, picked him up, and filled him in on the Spooner ploy. “So you’re now one of four people who know what happened,” he said.
    “Should have worked,” Del said.
    “We had a wrong concept in our heads,” Lucas said. “We figured the killer walked up, close range, like he had to