Easy Prey

OLSON LAY diagonally across the double bed closest to the door, facedown, fully clothed, his head twisted strangely to the right, away from them. One arm was outstretched; a chromed revolver lay on the floor under his hand. His wife lay on the next bed, rigidly, straight down the middle, shoeless but otherwise clothed. She was faceup, her head on a pillow, a red gunshot wound showing at her temple.
    “Oh, fuck,” Del said from behind Lucas.
    They moved slowly into the room, both of them unconsciously pulling their weapons. The room was actually a small suite, with a sitting area off the main room. The bathroom was in the back. Lucas checked quickly, found it empty, and went back to the main room.
    Del, who’d stayed back, said, “Gun by the bed.”
    Lucas stepped toward Lynn Olson, touched his cheek: cold. He was dead, and had been dead for a while. There was no question about Lil Olson. They could see the spray from the gunshot wound on the far side of her head where the slug had exited. Lucas knelt next to the gun, got his nose an inch away from it: a nine-millimeter. “I don’t think that’s the gun that was used on Plain,” he said. “That was a pretty big crater in the concrete. I don’t think a nine would do that.”
    “And I can’t see the thread. Alie’e goes down, so somebody kills Plain. I can see that: revenge, especially after that photo spread. He’s making a buck off Alie’e’s death, and maybe some nut takes it the wrong way. Same thing with Corbeau: she’s one of the sinners around Alie’e, one of the muff-divers. But the parents. I don’t see the parents.”
    Lucas shook his head. From the hallway, they heard a voice. “Hello?”
    Del went to the door, poked his head out. “Down here.”
     
 
TWO NEW BLOOMINGTON cops arrived a moment later, one in his twenties, the other graying, heavier. “Two dead,” Lucas said. “We’re gonna need the crime lab, big-time, and like right now.”
    The gray-haired one said, “I saw you on TV. On the Alie’e thing. Is this more of that?”
    Lucas nodded. “These are Alie’e parents.”
    The cop exhaled, hooked his thumbs over his belt, took another long look as though memorizing the scene. “Gotta hand it to you,” he said, as though it were Lucas’s doing. “This is some weird shit.” He looked at his younger partner. “Call it in.”
     
 
LUCAS SAID, “I just thought of something. I’m gonna have to . . . I need Lynn Olson’s billfold.”
    “Aw, man, I don’t know,” the older cop said. Crime scenes were not to be messed with.
    “Yeah, I know, but I need it.” Lucas stepped back inside the room, looked around, saw a plastic bag stuffed into an ice bucket, got it, and walked over to Olson’s body. He could see the lump of the wallet in Olson’s back pocket, carefully lifted the pocket flap, gripped the wallet through the plastic bag, and slipped it out. With the wallet inside the bag, he opened it, found the driver’s license in a credit-card slot, and maneuvered it out.
    “Could you call this in?” he asked the older cop. “Ask them to run Lynn Olson, DOB 2-23-44. He lives in Burnt River, Minnesota. We need cars registered to him.”
    Bloomington came back in thirty seconds. Olson had three cars: a new dark-blue Volvo, a two-year-old Ford Explorer, and a green 1968 Pontiac GTO.
    “You guys got it,” Lucas told the Bloomington cops. “We need to look for this car in the parking lot.” And to Del: “Come on.”
    ON THE WAY down the stairs, Del said, “Marcy’s gonna make it.”
    Lucas looked at him. “You didn’t talk to anyone?”
    “No, man. You bummed me out with that bad vibe. But this was the vibe. Not Marcy. You were getting a vibe from this.”
    “Del, you can’t be smokin’ that shit while you’re working.”
    “Yeah, well, watch. She’s good.” He seemed marginally more cheerful.
     
 
THEY FOUND THE Olsons’ car in a minute, the blue Volvo, much like Tom Olson’s car but a decade newer. Lucas walked around to the passenger side, squeezing between the Volvo and a red Chevy Camaro. He saw the bullet hole before he got to the door, reached down and touched it. Hard to mistake, either by sight or feel.
    “That’s Olympic-quality shooting,” Del said. He knelt in the narrow space to look at the hole, while Lucas turned to look back up the parking lot. Three Bloomington squad cars rounded the corner of the hotel, one after another, lights flashing, like a Shriners parade.
    “I better call