Easy Prey

magazine.”
    “Goddamnit,” Lucas said.
    The sheriff waved at the three guys around the pool table. “You guys, could you step over here for a minute?” When they did, clustering around, he said, “We want to know, did any of you hear about this banker fellow, the suspect in the Alie’e case, from anybody besides Louie? Nobody’s gonna get in trouble, we just need to know how much the name’s gotten around.”
    Two of them admitted passing the name along; two of the three had heard the name in conversation on Saturday or Sunday.
    “So everybody knows,” Lucas said.
    “Everybody,” said a guy in a green shirt. “What happened, anyway? Somebody shoot that asshole?”
    Lucas looked at him. “Exactly. Somebody shot that asshole.”
    “Really?” They wanted details. Lucas shook his head and said, “Man, the question is, is there anybody in town who might pull something like this?”
    A guy in a gold flannel shirt said, “What was he shot with?”
    “A rifle, we think. The shooter was fifty yards out or so and hit him in the chest.”
    “That ain’t much of a shot with a rifle,” a blue flannel shirt said. “I woulda gone for a neck shot.”
    “You always go for a fuckin’ neck shot, and the next time you come back with a deer, I expect to be a grandpa,” Friar said.
    “Wasn’t a .44 Mag, was it?” gold shirt asked.
    Lucas and Del both focused on him. “What?”
    “A .44 Mag?”
    “Yeah. It was,” Lucas said. They all looked at gold shirt. “Who’s got a .44 Mag?”
    Gold shirt swallowed, looked at his friends. “You know who it is? It’s that jack-off Martin Scott.”
    Friar slapped his forehead. “Goddamn, Steve.” He looked at Lucas. “It was Martin Scott.”
    “Who’s that?”
    “He’s the jack-off Coca-Cola truck driver for Howell County,” gold shirt said. “He shoots a .44 Mag, a Ruger, and he’s always had this thing about Alie’e. I mean, bad. He works free for her parents, mowing their yard and shoveling snow and shit, because he thinks that when she comes back, they’ll let him hang out with her.”
    “He says he saw her tits once, when she was out in their pool,” green shirt said. “I called him a lyin’ SOB, I said nobody in Howell County ever saw her tits but the Reverend here, and he never saw them but once. But Martin said he’s seen them.”
    “Only about sixty-six billion people seen them by now,” gold shirt said, then he remembered Olson and swallowed and said, “Jeez, sorry, Tom.”
    “He’s nuts. He thinks he’s in the Coca-Cola army, walks around twenty-four hours a day in his Coke uniform,” said blue shirt.
    “Yeah, but you know what?” green shirt said. “Couldn’t be him.”
    “You’re full a shit. Gotta be him,” Friar said.
    “Nope. Because, guess what?” Green shirt crossed his arms.
    Lucas bit. “What?”
    “Because a whole bunch of those people got shot on Monday. Wasn’t it a Monday?”
    Lucas had to think: it seemed like a thousand years ago. But Marcy was shot on Monday afternoon, and all the others. “Yeah,” he said. “Monday.”
    Green shirt looked at his friends. “Martin works on Mondays.”
    “Oh, yeah,” Friar said.
    “And the chances of that carp-sucker Rand Waters letting him off are slim and none. He’s a slave driver,” green shirt said.
    “I wouldn’t work for him,” said blue shirt. “He’s a mean son of a bitch. I saw him pick up the back end of a Chevy Camaro one day, right down on River Street.”
    “Light car,” gold shirt said.
    “Let’s see you pick one up,” green shirt said. “Your balls would pop like birthday balloons.”
    Lucas jumped in. “So could somebody call this Waters guy, and find out if Scott was here last Monday? That’d settle a lot.”
    “I can call him,” the sheriff said.
    “If he ain’t home, he and his old lady’ll probably be up at the Port,” Friar said.
    Gold shirt bought a round as they clustered around the bar. The sheriff got the bartender’s phone book and made a series of calls from the kitchen. When he came out, he said to Lucas and Del, “We better run out to Martin’s house.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah. He had last Monday off. He told Waters he had to go to the Cities to help the Olsons with Alie’e. He told him if he didn’t get the day off, he’d quit. That’s how serious he was.”
    Lucas looked at Friar. “So where’s this guy live?” Lucas asked.
    “Hard to explain, but we can show you,” Friar said.
    They left the bar in a