Eyes of Prey

here and we’ll talk. I don’t want to go for a court order.”
     
    Lucas met Anderson in the hallway.
    “You’ve heard?” Anderson asked.
    “What?”
    “The lab guys say that Druze didn’t have much in the wayof nitrites on his hands. He may have had a handkerchief on the gun, but still . . .”
    “So what are they saying?”
    “Maybe he didn’t kill himself. The M.E. says the whole scene is a little weird, the way he did it, the way he must have been standing when he pulled the trigger. Can’t figure out how the gun got underneath him, either. The muzzle was three or four inches from his temple when he pulled the trigger, and with the shock of the bullet and the recoil, he should have gone one way and the gun another. Instead, it beat him to the floor.”
    “The M.E. still working on him?”
    “Oh, yeah. They’ve got samples of everything. I don’t know, it’s getting curiouser.”
     
    Lucas sat in his office, thinking it over, feeling the rats of depression galloping just below the surface of his mind. If he stopped concentrating, they’d be out. He forced his mind into it: Did Druze kill Cassie? Despite the questions, it seemed likely. In most murders, the most obvious answer is correct—and in any crime investigation, there are always anomalies. The gun shouldn’t have beaten Druze’s body to the floor, but maybe it did.
    One of the rats slipped out: If only Cassie had identified him a day earlier and Loverboy had called with a definite identification . . .
    Fuckin’ Loverboy . . .
    Lucas frowned, picked up the phone and called Violent Crimes. Sloan was at home, they said, trying to get some sleep. Lucas called, got him out of bed.
    “Last night, when I was doped up. Did anybody call?”
    “No.”
    “Hmph. What time did we identify Druze for television and release the news that it was part of the series . . . ?”
    “This morning—I mean, they had Druze’s name last night,midnight or so, but just the name. We didn’t release the serial-killing business until this morning.”
    “Huh. Okay, thanks.” He let Sloan go, dialed TV3 and got Carly Bancroft. “This is Lucas. Did you make Druze’s name on the news last night?”
    “No, we had it for the wake-up report,” she said. “I could have used a little help . . . .”
    “I was . . . out of shape,” Lucas said. “What about the other channels? Did they have it?”
    “Not as far as I know. We picked up the news release on morning cop checks. Nobody was bitching about getting beat, and they would have, on something like this. When can you talk to us? You found them, right? What—”
    “I really can’t talk,” Lucas said. “I’ll call you later.”
    He hung up and sat in his chair, rubbing his temples. Loverboy hadn’t called.
     
    Jennifer’s car was in the driveway when he got home. He rolled past it slowly as the garage door went up, and parked and walked out of the garage as she got out of her car.
    “How are you?” she asked. She was wearing a black turtleneck under a cardigan, with gold loop earrings visible under her short-cropped blond hair.
    “What do you want?” His voice was so cold that she stepped back.
    “I wanted to see how you were . . . .”
    “Did Elle put you up to this?” Jennifer had her back to the car door and he loomed over her. His hands were in fists, inside his jacket pockets.
    “She said you were in trouble.”
    “I don’t need your help. The last time I needed your help, I got my head pushed under,” he said. He turned away, walked back into the garage.
    “Lucas . . .”
    His mind was moving like a freight train, all the facts andsuppositions and memories and plans and possibilities flying like boxcars just behind his eyes, unsuppressible. Jennifer. Green eyes. Full lips. Sarah, a bundle, squealing when he tossed her in the air. Jennifer and Sarah together in the delivery room, up at the lake cabin, Jennifer skinny-dipping in the moonlight, Sarah starting to crawl . . .
    He was at a branch, he felt, when ten thousand things were possible, but he couldn’t deal with that, with all the branches . . . .
    “Just . . . go away,” he said.
     
    He tried, but couldn’t sleep. Too many suppositions. Finally, glancing at the clock, he called the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and asked how late the gift shop was open. He had just enough time.
    He hurried, trying not to think. Just keep moving. Don’t worry about the guns. They sit there in the