Hidden Prey

up to your room.”
    Smart enough, Lucas thought. He took the shot: “Listen, miss. We know that Mary Wheaton was killed by mistake. We know there was another woman down there. I mean, we know it was you . We wouldreally like to talk to you. For your own protection. We found the place you were staying . . .”
    She said, frightened, “I’m going to hang up now.”
    “No, no, no, wait, wait, wait. Tell me one thing. Please. Did you—did she—shit, however you want to say it, did somebody recover a computer from the dead man? And what happened to it? It could be critical.”
    Another pause, then: “She gave it to me. She was afraid to sell it in Duluth, because it was full of Russian. So I took it down to Minneapolis and I sold it. I needed money to get back to Los Angeles.”
    “Who did you sell it to?”
    “A man, a young man, a student, maybe, at the university.”
    “What’d you do, just walk around asking people? Did you have a contact?”
    “I had a contact. This is a man who . . . buys things.”
    “Okay. Tell me this, then. Please. I’m really not mean, I’m just anxious, I don’t want you to hang up before I can ask these questions . . .”
    “You sound mean,” she said again. She said, “I’m outa here. I’m going to LA. Don’t bother to look for me.”
    “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Lucas said urgently. “Tell me, this young man, do you have a name? Can you tell me what he looks like?”
    “His name is George. He is blond and he’s good-looking. He has a square jaw and blue eyes and a short haircut; he puts gel in his hair. He was wearing one of those football jackets, you know, the kind that is wool with leather sleeves, red wool with white leather sleeves.”
    “When did you sell the computer? How long has he had it?”
    “Two days . . . I sold it to him the night before last.”
    “Where?”
    “At Moos Tower, the medical building. There’s a cafeteria in the basement. He had a table. There are two or three guys who buy stuff there. Stolen stuff. In Moos Tower.”
    “Can you . . . ?”
    “I’m going to hang up now. I’m afraid you’re tracing this call.”
    “No, no, please . . .”
    But she was gone. And maybe, he thought, to LA, where they’d never find her.
     
    “A H , BOY  . . .”
    Hoping she’d call back, Lucas left the room phone open, got on his cell phone and called the duty man at BCA offices in St. Paul. “The call would have gone into the main desk, and they transferred it up to my room: see if you can pin it down. Where it came from—we need the number.”
    Then he made another call, and a woman answered. “Marcy? Lucas.”
    She was happy to hear from him. “Hey, man, you haven’t called for weeks. What’s going on?”
    Lieutenant Marcy Sherrill was head of the Intelligence Unit for the Minneapolis police, and a protégé. He sketched in quickly what had happened, and said, “So I’ve got a problem. Is there any chance that you could put somebody over at the U, and see if you can figure out who this guy is? I’ll come down and get him, but I need to get something started.”
    “I’ll put somebody over there right now—it’s a little late, there may not be too many people to talk to, but I can have somebody there in twenty minutes.”
    “Thanks, sweetie. How’s the love life?”
    “We gotta talk. Do you know Don Cary?”
    “Yeah—but he was married the last time I checked.” Lucas looked at his watch. Time was running . . .
    “Not anymore,” Marcy said. “His wife, you know, was a computer freak. She said, ‘Fuck Minnesota,’ and took off for California. He wasn’t invited. The divorce was final last week.”
    “You might be moving on him a little too quick.”
    “Actually, he started mooning around here two months ago, and we’ve gone out for a lunch a few times. He was pretty much over her before she left . . . The marriage had been in trouble since about week one. He’d like to have a kid or two.”
    “He’s a pretty good guy, for a lawyer. He plays a mean game of lawyer-league basketball,” Lucas said. “Marcy, we gotta talk, and I gotta run, right now. I gotta.”
    “Keep your ass down; I’ll get back.”
    He hung up, looked at the phone for five seconds, ten seconds, willing a call from the witness woman. Nothing; he tossed his keys up in the air, caught them, and took off, listening for the ring of the telephone until the door banged shut behind him.

     9 
    L UCAS KEPT A