Hidden Prey

takes a couple, and they get to talking.
    “She tells him that she used to be rich, that she grew up right in that very neighborhood. She used to go to balls and big parties and she went to a fancy school, and then she inherited about a million bucks. But over the years she had a couple of bad marriages and her husbands took it all, and she didn’t know how to work, and over the years, she kept going down, down, down.
    “And now, here she was, in her old age, pushing a cart around the neighborhood where she used to be rich, asking people for money so she could eat. So the photographer goes back to the newspaper, and tells the story to his editor, this really sad story, and the editor says, ‘Wow, that is really sad. What’d you give her?’ ”
    “And the photographer says, ‘Oh, about f-4.5 at 125.’ ”
     
    L UCAS SMILED and said, “You told that all right.”
    “Ahh, there are guys in the office who really know how . . .” He looked up at a monitor. “They’re in.”
    They folded their newspapers and stuffed them into a trash can. A couple of minutes later, fifteen or twenty passengers wandered in. Half of them were too young, and most of the other half too Minnesotan, too certain of what they were doing, and too worried about their luggage, to be the Russian.
    Lucas was looking at a stout man in a gray suit when Reasons leaned over and asked, “You think it could be the chick?”
    Lucas followed his gaze: Reasons was looking at a fortyish blonde, hair pulled back in a severe bun. Thin, intent, she was wearing a dress, with some makeup; most un-Minnesotan. And the dress, though stylish, had an undefinable foreign something to it—something that went back to the sixties and June Cleaver. She was carrying a nylon briefcase, holding the handle with both hands. She was nice-looking, Lucas thought, and had the same slanting eyes as his wife, who was a Finn. “You think?”
    “She’s the only one looking around, like she’s expecting to be met. She’s checked us out pretty good. She looks kind of Russian.”
    “You oughta know,” Lucas said. With Reasons trailing behind, Lucas walked over and said, “Would you be Nadezhda Kalin?”
    The woman smiled briefly, automatically: “Yes. Officer Davenport?”
    “Lucas Davenport. We were told we were meeting a man.”
    “Well. You’re not.” The smile again came and went. Her English was good, but accented. She had square shoulders and there was a gap between her two front teeth, a diastema; she reminded him a bit of Lauren Hutton. “You should call me Nadya.”
    “I didn’t get it right, did I? The Nadezhda?”
    “Well. I thought, em, that you had perhaps sneezed?” She was amused.
    “Sorry.”
    “No, no.” She smiled and patted him on the arm. “Anyway, I wait for my baggage.”
    “We’ll help you wait,” Lucas said.
    “We’ll even help you say a little prayer,” Reasons added.
    “A prayer?” She looked from Reasons to Lucas.
    “This airline does not always deliver the baggage with the passenger,” Lucas said.
    “Ah. It is the same everywhere.” She laughed and patted Reasons on the chest, and Lucas could see that Reasons liked it.
     
    T HEY WAITED FOR another minute, and nothing happened with the baggage, and Nadya said to Lucas, “We must talk about my, em, em, authority is not the right word, because I have no authority here.” Her eyes were green with flecks of amber around the pupils. “About my . . .”
    She needed help. “Status,” Lucas suggested.
    “Yes. Status.”
    They talked about her status: “As far as the investigation goes, you can see everything we get, and can suggest anything you want, and I’ll probably do it, as long as it’s legal,” Lucas said. “I mean, it’s a free country, but we’d like to get this guy, the killer. He really made a mess on our dock . . .”
    She looked at him oddly—she didn’t quite recoil, but a line appeared in her forehead—and she said, “Thank you very much. I’m sorry for this . . . mess. ”
    “No, no, not your fault. I assume you want him caught?”
    “Well, of course,” she said. “What do you think?”
    Lucas shrugged. “There’s politics going on. That’s what the FBI says. We’re not exactly sure what you guys want.”
    The corners of her mouth dropped: “It’s very simple. We would like justice.”
    “Oh, Jesus,” Reasons said. And he added, out of the side of his mouth, “Gavno. ”
    Her eyebrows went up: “You speak