Easy Prey

the door. During the worst of the crack years, the scratching would come every week or two. But crack was fading, burning out: She hadn’t had an attempt in a year or more.
    Still.
    She rolled out, knelt as if in prayer, and felt under the edge of the bed. Her fingers picked it up immediately: the cold steel of the barrel. She pulled it out, an old pump Winchester 12-gauge. Moving swiftly through the dark, she went into the bathroom to the barred, frosted-glass window over the tub. The window was double-hung, and the slides were waxed. She unlocked it, slipped it up.
    Down below, a heavyset man in black crouched on the stoop, prying amateurishly at the lock. Bushes flanked the stoop, so he would be invisible from the street, unless somebody looked straight up the walk.
    She spoke softly but clearly: “Hey, you, down there.”
    The figure froze, then half-turned. She could see a crescent of his face in the ambient light from the street, like a sliver of the moon seen through a thin cloud, pale, obscure.
    “I have a shotgun.” She pumped it, the old steel action cycling with the precise chick-chick sound effect heard in a thousand movies. “It’s a twelve-gauge. I’m pointing it at your head.”
    The crescent of face disappeared. The man turned, quick as a thought, and bolted from the porch, down through the bushes, around the corner, and down the street, hands and heavy legs pumping frantically.
    Watching him go, Jael allowed herself the first smile she’d enjoyed in twenty-four hours. But as she slid the window back down and locked it, a vagrant thought crossed her mind.
    He hadn’t looked like a crackhead. Not at all.
    He looked like some kind of redneck.

11
    SUNDAY. THE SECOND day of the Maison case.
    Lucas retrieved the Pioneer Press from his front porch, looked at the large dark headline: “Alie’e Maison Murdered.” And beneath that, the subhead “Strangled in Minneapolis.”
    The headline, he thought, was smaller than the moon-walk, and possibly even smaller than reproductions he’d seen of the Pearl Harbor news flash.
    But not much.
    And he thought: Trick.
     
 
COUNTY ATTORNEY RANDALL Towson was not exactly a friend, but he was a decent guy. He took the phone call at his breakfast table and said, “Tell me we got everything we need.”
    “What?”
    “On the Alie’e Maison killer—who you’re calling to tell me you caught.”
    “I have something much better. Honest to God.” Lucas tried to inject sincerity into his voice. “I’ve found a chance to serve justice.”
    The attorney betrayed a cautious curiosity. “You’re bullshitting me. Sorry, darlin’.”
    “No, no, I’ve found an innocent guy in the prison system. You can get him out. And then you can take the credit, and the grateful taxpayers will undoubtedly return you to office for the—what, fifth time?”
    “Sixth,” Towson said. “What the fuck . . . sorry darlin’—I’m eating breakfast with my granddaughter. What are you talking about?”
    “Del Capslock was at the Alie’e party the other night. He wasn’t there at the time of the murder, but he did meet an old friend of ours.”
    “Who?” Suspicious now.
    “Trick Bentoin.” Silence. Silence for so long that Lucas added, “Trick had gone to Panama to play gin rummy.”
    Then, his voice soft and unshaken, Towson said, “This is a problem.”
    “Yeah.” Lucas nodded, though there was nobody to see it.
    “I’ve clearly identified it as a problem. Tomorrow, when I get to work, I’ll get my best people working on a solution.”
    “That would be good,” Lucas said.
    Another long silence. Then: “Great Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Davenport,” Towson screamed. And meekly added, “Sorry, darlin’.”
     
 
CATRIN.
    What to wear to a Sunday lunch? She was married to a doctor, so she probably had some bucks. She’d be more comfortable with something neat, rather than something out on the edge: Boots and black-leather jackets were out. Lucas dug through his closet, through a stack of dry cleaning, and finally came up with what he hoped would be right—twill pants in a deep khaki, a crisp blue shirt, and a brown suede sport coat. He added dark brown loafers and his dress gun, a P7 in 9mm.
    Checked himself in the mirror; smiled a couple of times. Nah. Better to can the little smile, he thought. Go for sincerity and pleasure at seeing her. . . .
     
 
ON SUNDAYS, CITY Hall was dead quiet. Not today. Lucas went straight for Roux’s office; the secretary’s