Easy Prey

Bone.”
    “Not a bad idea,” Lucas said. “But first . . .” He took out his cell phone, turned it on, and punched in a number.
    Lane answered. “Yo.”
    “This is Lucas. You find him?”
    “I’ve seen him. I took Hendrix along, Hendrix interviewed him after the party. He’s got an office in St. Paul, on the street level down from a Skyway, and we can see him in his office.”
    “You can see him now?”
    “No, but I can see the door he’s gotta come out. I’m with him.”
    “Let’s get some pictures of him—we might want to take them around.”
    “Okay.”
    “And if he gets closer to Minneapolis, call me. I’ll leave the phone on. I’m probably gonna want to look at him this afternoon, wherever he is.”
     
 
MARCY WAS OUT of the operating room and back in the recovery room. Tom Black was standing in the corridor outside the operating suite with a nurse; when Lucas and Del walked in, Black stepped toward them. “She came through it okay. They had a pretty good leak, but they stopped it, and everything else seems to be holding.”
    “But she’s not awake.”
    “They’re keeping her asleep. They want everything tying together before she wakes up and starts moving around.”
    They talked about that for a minute: the way Lucas had been tied down once when he got shot in the throat, and hadn’t been able to move his head for three days; and about the pinking-shears incident, when Del’s hips had been immobilized for two days. Then Del said, “I’m gonna go see this gal over at the BCA. See if the state’s got anything on Rodriguez. What’re you gonna do?”
    Lucas looked at his watch. “I’ve got a date, God help me.”
     
 
CATRIN WAS SITTING in a back booth, facing the door, when Lucas arrived. He smiled when he saw her, and she nodded and then paid a lot of attention to picking up a cup of coffee and taking a sip.
    “Hey.” He slid into the booth on the opposite side and waved at a waitress.
    “I hope I’m not tearing your day apart,” she said. She’d dressed down this time, in jeans and a cornflower blue shirt that didn’t seem to have a button—a subtle, outdoorsy peek-a-boo blouse. “I was watching the Alie’e thing on television, and it seems like people are going crazy.”
    Lucas nodded and tried to keep his eyes on her face. “It’s worse than I’ve ever seen it. We’ve had some bad ones before, but this is nuts.”
    “Are you making any progress? Or can’t you tell me?”
    “If we were making progress, I might not be able to tell you, but since we aren’t, I can tell you. We aren’t.”
    The waitress came by, and they both ordered salads and coffee. Then they spent a couple of minutes in dragging chitchat until Catrin said, “I called you up because you’re the only person I can call up and talk to. I’m in pretty bad shape.”
    “You look . . . terrific. You even look happy.”
    “More like anesthetized,” she said. Then she shook her head. “I shouldn’t be here.”
    “Why not?”
    “I can’t even tell you that. I mean, I would tell you if I knew.”
    “Have a little trouble sleeping? Can’t stop your head going around, big dark dreams keeping you up?”
    She tilted her head to one side and looked at him curiously. “I’m not suffering from depression, if that’s what you’re asking. But you did, huh? I recognize the description.”
    “Yeah.”
    “I had a friend with the problem. We were worried about her. She eventually got straightened out.”
    “Chemicals.”
    “Of course. What’d you do?”
    “I had this superstition about chemicals, so I just . . . waited until it went away. I knew what was going on, and I read about it, and in most cases, it’ll go away. So I waited. I hope to Jesus it doesn’t happen again, but if it does, I’ll do the chemicals. I’m not going through it again.”
    “Good call,” she said. “But my problem . . . it’s the good old midlife crisis, Lucas.”
    “Haven’t really had mine yet,” he said.
    “Knowing you, you probably won’t. Not until you’re about sixty-five, and realize that you’re not married and you don’t have any grandchildren, and then you’ll wonder what happened.”
    “I could have grandchildren,” Lucas said, a little truculently. “I’ve got a kid.”
    “Who you don’t see much.”
    “What are we talking about here?” he asked, suddenly irritated.
    “Maybe I’m dragging you into your midlife crisis with mine,” she said. The waitress came with the salads