Eyes of Prey

about Bekker . . . .”

CHAPTER
28
    Daniel prowled around his office with his hands in his pockets. He’d pulled the shades but hadn’t turned on the lights, and the office was almost dark.
    “Homicide is satisfied,” he said. “You know I don’t clear murder cases on the basis of politics—and there’s every indication that we got him. You got him. Bekker is something else.”
    Lucas was also standing, propped against a windowsill, arms crossed. “If Bekker kills another one and carves her eyes out, then what’ll you do? The goddamned press’ll be down here with pitchforks and torches.”
    Daniel threw up his hands in exasperation. “Look, I know this actress woman and you . . .”
    “Doesn’t have anything to do with it,” Lucas said. His head still felt like a chunk of wood. Cassie did have something to do with it, of course. Revenge wouldn’t be enough, but it would be something. “Druze may have killed her, but Bekker was behind it.”
    “Have you talked to the lab people since you came in?”
    “No . . .”
    “They looked at that jacket in Druze’s closet. There wasblood on the back of it. You can’t see it, because the fabric was black and the blood was soaked in. But it was there, and they’ve done some preliminary tests. The blood is the same type as Stephanie Bekker’s . . . .”
    Lucas nodded. “I think Druze killed Stephanie, all right . . . .”
    “And George. We got a taxi routing from the airport to the Lost River Theater the night George was done.”
    “What about Elizabeth Armistead? I’m not so sure about that one. I asked that night, or the next day, and everybody agreed Druze was at the theater most of the afternoon.”
    Daniel jabbed a forefinger at Lucas: “But maybe not every minute. He could’ve been gone half an hour and that would have been enough. And the woman who saw the guy at Armistead’s said he was in some kind of utility-man getup. That sounds like an actor to me—we’ve got Homicide guys over at the theater right now, going through their wardrobe.”
    “What about the phone call?”
    “Come on, Lucas. That so-called phone call doesn’t make sense no matter how you cut it. And the kid out in Maplewood is pretty sure that Druze is the guy who did the Romm woman.” Daniel took a manila folder from his desk and handed it to Lucas. “They found these in Druze’s apartment.”
    Lucas opened the folder: inside were photographs of Stephanie Bekker and Elizabeth Armistead. The eyes had been cut out. “Where’d they get these?”
    “Druze’s file cabinet. Stuffed in the back.”
    “Bullshit,” said Lucas, shaking his head. “I went through the file cabinet. These weren’t there.”
    “Maybe he carried them with him.”
    “And puts them in the file cabinet before he goes upstairs to blow his brains out?” Lucas said. “Look, take this any way you want: as a continuing homicide investigation or just covering your political ass. We’ve got to stay with Bekker. Wecan tell the press that the case is cleared, but we’ve got to stay on him. We can start by exhuming these kids.”
    “What do we say about that?” Daniel asked. “How do we explain . . .”
    “We don’t say anything. Why should we say anything to anybody? If we can convince the parents to keep quiet . . .”
    Daniel walked around the quiet office, head down, rubbing his hands. Finally he nodded. “Damn, I’d hoped we’d finished with it.”
    “We’re not finished until Bekker falls. You saw the tapes with Sybil, for Christ’s sake . . . .”
    “And you heard what the lawyers said. A dying woman, maybe paranoid, loaded with drugs? C’mon. I believe her, Merriam believes her, Sloan does, so do you—but there’s no way a judge is going to put that in front of a jury.”
    “Dying declaration . . .”
    “Oh, bullshit, Lucas—she didn’t make it while she was dying, for Christ’s sake . . . .”
    “You know what Cassie couldn’t understand about the killings? The eyes. She said Druze would never do the eyes. You know what my friend Elle says about them? The shrink. She says he has to do the eyes. So if Bekker is nuts, and he kills somebody else . . . Jesus, can’t you see it? He’ll do the eyes again, and your balls will be hanging from a pole outside the City Hall door.”
    Daniel pulled on his lip, sighed and nodded. “Go ahead. Talk to the kids’ parents. If they say okay on an exhumation, do it. If they say no, come back