Hidden Prey

She held it next to a new Target lamp. Dried blood. She cut the guy up there in Duluth, the killer guy.
    And she thought: DNA. Serious evidence against somebody, right there in her hand.
    What to do? She was afraid of that cop, Davenport. He’d sounded so damn mean . . .
    She closed the blade on the knife.
    Tomorrow, an office.
    The knife, she’d think about.

     20 
    T HE HOURS AFTER a cop is killed are always a nightmare: telling the family, figuring out what went wrong, deciding if some living person is to blame—and Nadya was taking a hit on the last item.
    She insisted that Reasons had initiated the relationship, telling her that his marriage was essentially over. Her argument was good enough, and detailed enough, that it made the Duluth cops angrier than ever. To have one of their own killed, and thus automatically qualified for sainthood—nobody liked to see a dead cop, but on the other hand, it never hurt the budgetary process if you lost the occasional flatfoot—and to have all of that tarnished by a Russian and maybe even a Commie . . .
    Lucas took some of the heat off in a quick, illegal, and private meeting with the police chief, where everybody agreed that Lucas hadn’t actually been stopped, shot at, or really handcuffed while he was pursuing the killer  . . . that wouldn’t have been good for the budget.
    There was also a general agreement that it wouldn’t be necessary tomention the sexual liaison to the press. Reasons had actually been guarding Nadya when he was murdered—he had given his life to save hers.
    Lucas got back to Weather, late, waking her, telling her what had happened. Nadya had moved to a new room, and Weather said she would call her.
    “I can tell you she ain’t asleep,” Lucas said.
     
    W HILE ALL THAT was going on, so was the chase: Duluth cops went to every pizza place in town, trying to see who might have bought the pizza. They knew it was a fresh one—Nadya said she could smell it, even after the shooting.
    “Must have been a hungry sonofabitch, hanging on to the pizza when you’re chasing him all over the fuckin’ hill,” Kelly said.
    “Weird shit happens,” Lucas said.
    Several pizza places had customers who might have fit the vague description they had of the killer: thin, blond, black jacket or white shirt. None of those had any more details.
    The women at the hotel’s front desk had seen nothing but the back of the pizza-man’s head.
    In any case, nobody found anything: the killer was gone.
     
    I N THE MORNING , Andreno, calling upstate from Virginia, asked, “What the fuck happened down there?”
    Lucas told him, and Andreno said, “Maybe she needs a bodyguard. Somebody with a gun.”
    “You want the job?”
    “It’s either that or go home. The Spivaks are in a bunker.”
    “Come on down and let’s talk,” Lucas said. “I need some theoretical bullshit.”
    “I’m on my way.”
     
    L UCAS TRIED TO go back to sleep, failed, eventually got up, cleaned up, looked at the clock, and realized that Andreno could be there at any minute. He called and Andreno said, “I’m just coming into town. If I don’t get lost, I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
    Lucas called Nadya’s room. She was up, dressed, and sounded like she had a cold.
    “Breakfast,” he said. “Ya gotta eat.”
    “I need advice,” she said. “And I need coffee.”
    “I’ll see you upstairs in two minutes,” Lucas said.
     
    L UCAS TOOK the elevator. It stopped two floors up—she’d changed rooms—and Nadya got on, eyes and nose puffy, and said, “Oh, God.”
    “Yeah.” Lucas was tempted to give her a hug, but he wasn’t a hugger, and she slumped in the corner, staring at the control buttons. At the top, they went into the restaurant, got a booth. The restaurant was already rotating, and they were overlooking the city but turning toward the harbor. They could see two long, low freighters standing offshore, heading into port, and another one, on the horizon, a dwindling lump.
    The waitress came and they ordered coffee and Lucas asked for a waffle and bacon. The waitress left and Nadya said, “Do you think the . . . news . . . of our relationship will be successfully suppressed?”
    Lucas shrugged. “I don’t know. It doesn’t help anybody if it gets out, but police departments are the biggest rumor mills in the world. Everybody in the department knows by now. The police reporter here, the guy we met down at that shack . . . he’s no