Eyes of Prey

among the other stations. The press conference had started just after ten o’clock.
    “Any questions?” Frank Lester’s forehead was beaded with sweat. Lester, the deputy chief for investigations, put down the prepared statement and looked unhappily around the room.
    “Lester in the lion’s den,” Sloan muttered to Lucas. He stuck a Camel in the corner of his mouth. “Got a light?”
    Lucas took a book of matches out of his pocket, struck one and held it for Sloan’s cigarette. “If you were Loverboy, would you come in?”
    Sloan shook his head as he exhaled a lungful of blue smoke. “Fuck no. But then, I’m a cop. I know what treacherous assholes we are. I don’t even know if I would’ve mentioned Loverboy in the thing . . . .”
    “About Mrs. Bekker’s . . . friend, have you done any voice analysis on the nine-one-one tapes?” a reporter asked Lester.
    “Well, we’ve got nothing to match them to . . . .”
    “We hear you’re calling him ‘Loverboy.’ . . .”
    “Not me, but I’ve heard that,” Lester said grimly.
    “Could the killer be going for women in the arts?” a reporter called out. She worked for a radio station and carried a microphone that looked like a Ruger Government Model .22-caliber target pistol. The microphone was aimed at a point between Lester’s eyes.
    “We don’t know,” he answered. “Mrs. Bekker would only be peripherally in the arts, I’d say. But it could be—there’s no way to tell. Like I said, we’re not even sure it’s the same perpetrator.”
    “But you said . . .”
    “It probably is . . . .”
    From the front row, a newspaper reporter in a rumpled tan suit: “How many serial killers have we had now? In the last five years?”
    “One a year? I don’t know.”
    “One? There were at least six with the Crows.”
    “I meant one series each year.”
    “Is that how you count them?”
    “I don’t know how you count them,” Lester barked.
    “By series,” a newspaper reporter called.
    “Bullshit.” Television disagreed. “By the killers.”
    From the back of the room, a radio reporter with a large tapedeck: “When do you expect him to hit again?”
    “How’re we gonna know that?” Lester asked, a testy note creeping into his voice. “We told you what we knew.”
    “You’re supposed to be running the investigation,” the reporter snapped back.
    “I am running the investigation, and if you’d ever worked in a market bigger than a phone booth, you’d know we can’t always find these guys overnight in the big city . . . .”
    There was a thread of laughter, and Sloan said dryly, “He’s losing it.”
    “What the f f f . . . What’s that supposed to mean?” the reporter sputtered. The TV cameraman behind him was laughing. TV people ranked radio people, so laughing was all right.
    “What’s ‘fff’ supposed to mean?” Lester asked. He turned away and pointed at a woman wearing glasses the size of compact discs. “You.”
    “What precautions should women in the Twin Cities take?” She had an improbably smooth delivery, with great round O’s, as though she were reading for a play.
    “Don’t let anybody in your house that you’re not sure of,” Lester said, struggling now. “Keep your windows locked . . . .”
    “Who tipped Three, that’s what I want to know,” another reporter shouted from the back of the room. Carly Bancroft yawned, tried not very hard to suppress a grin, then deliberately scratched her ribs.
    When Daniel had scheduled the press conference, he’d expected the police reporters from the dailies and second-stringers from the television stations. With the Armistead killing, everything had changed. He’d passed the press conference to Lester, he said, in an attempt to diminish its importance. It hadn’t worked: media trucks were double-parked in the street, providing direct feeds to the various stations. City Hall secretaries were gawking at the media stars, the media stars were checking their hairsprays, and the TV3 anchorman himself, tan, fit, with a touch of gray at the temples and a tie that matched his eyes, showed up to do some reaction shots against the conference. His station had the beat; he had nothing to do with it, but the glory was his, and his appearance gave weight to the proceedings.
    The conference started angry and got angrier. Lester hadn’t wanted to do it, and every reporter but one had been beaten on it. By the end, the Channel Eight reporter was