Hidden Prey

with a hammerless .38 hanging in a holster under his arm. “What’s happening?”
    “The Hibbing cops got a picture of the old man this morning,” Lucas said. “They phoned it in to St. Paul, and St. Paul e-mailed it to me. I’ve got it in my laptop.”
    “Christ, you’re a computer weenie,” Andreno said. “But I knew that.”
    “Look, here’s where we’re at,” Lucas said. “We know that whoever’s doing the shooting isn’t ninety years old and is probably hooked into these families—unless the shooter is from completely outside.” He looked at Nadya. “Like a shooter out of the embassy.”
    She shook her head: “Absolutely no.”
    “I buy that,” Lucas said to Andreno. “The only reason to go after the Russian Mafia guy, the Russian embassy guy, and Nadya is that these people are trying to protect themselves from everybody. So we’re looking for somebody tied into these families, but young and healthy enough to run away from me. Spivak’s kids would be candidates, except that we know where they were when the killings took place.”
    “Maybe not the daughter . . .”
    “That wasn’t the daughter running from me the other night,” Lucas said. “That was a guy. Anyway: it’s gotta be somebody young enough to run, which means not more than my age. I’m in good shape, for my age, and I wasn’t gaining on him.”
    “So if we look at everybody related, everybody young enough to run away from you . . .”
    “Unless the families have brought somebody in,” Nadya said. “They were spies. They have resources. They would have some hidden money—gold, even. They would have some criminal contacts to perform their duties.”
    “Yeah . . .” They all thought about it for a few seconds. “If they were moving people out of the country through Canada . . . I mean, Canada is notorious for the criminal gangs along the border, preying on Americans,” Lucas said. “They work over here, go back there, and take advantage of the lack of coordination by the cops. If it’s a Canadian killer, we’re probably not going to find him.”
    “But we keep looking,” Andreno said, “Because it probably isn’t.”
     
    N ADYA SHIFTED the subject: “Should I find Jerry’s wife and try to talk with her?”
    Lucas shook his head: “No. Nothing to be said.”
    “Always something to be said,” Nadya argued.
    “Nothing that would do any good,” Lucas said. “Best to finish this case, and go back home.”
    She nodded, but with an air of doubt, and Andreno said, “If you gotta talk to her, I’ll go along. Don’t go sneaking over there. Cops got guns.”
    Nadya nodded again and changed the subject again: “What now? With this picture in your laptop?”
    “We go back up to Virginia,” Lucas said. “We’ll talk to Maisy Reynolds—I called and told her we’re coming—and show her the old man’s picture. The guy I’ve got in the computer looks like her description, but we need her to say yes.”
    “What about the genealogy?” Nadya asked.
    “It fits,” Lucas said. “The Walther family slips right in. One difference: the oldest ones, Burt and Melodie, the ones with the weird birth certificates, are still alive. But their kids—they had a son named Thomas, who was married to a woman named Catherine—are dead. They were killed in a car accident back in the seventies. There was still a third generation, though. Thomas and Catherine had a son named Roger who married a woman named Janet. They’re still around, in Hibbing.”
    “You still want me to trail you?” Andreno asked.
    “Yeah. If Reynolds identifies the old guy as the one who was in Spivak’s bar, we’re gonna go jack him up. Maybe even if she can’t identify him. I’d like you to get to his place before we do, find a spot on the street, and then just watch. See if anything happens after we leave.”
    “What about the youngest one?” Nadya asked. “The old man’s . . . what? Grandson?”
    “Grandson, yes. Roger,” Lucas said. “After we’re done with the old man, we’ll look him up. Him and his wife. He’s our best candidate right now.”
    “Are we breaking the case now?” Nadya asked.
    Lucas looked at Andreno, who did something Italian with his face and shoulders, meaning, “Could be.” He said, “Could be.”
     
    A ND ON THE WAY down in the elevator, Nadya said, “Micky says this woman in Legally Blonde will be appointed to the federal appeals court by the president.”
    Lucas looked at