Invisible Prey

red wine, and then the attorney arrived.
    Lucas knew her, as it happened, Annabelle Ramford, a woman who did a lot of pro bono work for the homeless, but not a lot of criminal law.
    “We meet again,” she said, with a thin smile, shaking his hand.
    “I hope you can help us,” Lucas said. “Miz Anderson needs some advice.”
    Anderson admitted knowing the Widdlers. She looked shocked when Lucas suggested that she’d had a sexual relationship with Leslie Widdler, but admitted it. “You told me you’re gay,” Lucas said.
    “I am. When I had my relationship with Leslie, I didn’t know it,” she said.
    “But your relationship with Leslie continued, didn’t it?”
    She looked at Ramford, who said, “You don’t have to say anything at all, if you don’t wish to.”
    They all looked at Anderson, who said, “What happens if I don’t?”
    “I’ll make a note,” Lucas said. “But we will find out, either from you, with your cooperation, or from other people.”
    “You don’t have to take threats, either,” Ramford said to Anderson.
    “That really wasn’t a threat,” Lucas said, his voice going mild. “It’s the real situation, Annabelle. If we’re not happy when we leave here, we’ll be taking Miz Anderson with us. You could then recommend a criminal attorney and we can all talk tomorrow, at the jail.”
    “No-no-no,” Anderson said. “Look, my relationship with Leslie…continued…to some extent.”
    “To some extent?” Smith asked. “What does that mean?”
    “I was…” She bit her lip, looked away from them, then said, “I was actually more interested in Jane.”
    “In Jane? Did you have a physical relationship with Jane?” Lucas asked.
    “Well…yes. Why would I want to fuck a great big huge fat guy?”
    Lucas had no answer for that; but he had more questions for Jane Widdler.
     
    H E TURNED to the quilts, taking notes as Anderson answered the questions. She believed the quilts were genuine. They’d been spotted by Marilyn Coombs, she said, who took them to the Widdlers for confirmation and evaluation.
    The Widdlers, in turn, had sent them away for laboratory tests, and confirmed with the tests, and other biographical information about Armstrong, that the quilts were genuine. The Widdlers then put together an investment package in which the quilts would be sold to private investors who would donate them to museums, getting both a tax write-off and a reputation for generosity.
    “We have reason to believe that the quilts are faked—that the curses were, in any case. That the primary buyers paid only a fraction of what they said they paid, and took an illegal tax write-off after the donations,” Lucas said.
    “I don’t know about any of that,” Anderson said. “I was the contact between the Widdlers and Mrs. Donaldson. I brought her attention to the quilts, but she made her own decisions and her own deals. I never handled money.”
    “You told me that you didn’t know Mrs. Bucher,” Lucas said.
    She shrugged. “I didn’t. I knew who she was, but I didn’t know her.”
    “And you still…maintain that position?”
    “It’s the truth,” she said.
    “You didn’t go there with Leslie Widdler and kill Mrs. Bucher and her maid?”
    “Of course not! That’s crazy!”
    He asked her about Toms: never heard of him, she said. She’d never been to Des Moines in her life, not even passing through.
    “Were you with Leslie Widdler last night?” Smith asked.
    “No. I was out until about eight, then I was here,” she said.
    “You didn’t speak to him, didn’t ride around with him…”
    “No. No. I didn’t speak to him or see him or anything.”
     
    T HEY PUSHED ALL the other points, but Anderson wouldn’t budge. She hadn’t dealt in antiques with either Leslie or Jane Widdler. She had no knowledge of what happened with the Armstrong quilts, after Donaldson, other than the usual art-world reports, gossip, and hearsay. She could prove, she thought, that on the Friday night that the Buchers were killed, she’d been out late with three other women friends, at a restaurant in downtown Minneapolis, where she’d not only drunk a little too much, but remembered that there’d been a birthday party in an upper loft area of the restaurant that had turned raucous, and that she was sure people would remember.
     
    W HEN THEY were done, Anderson said, “Now I have a question. I have the feeling that Jane Widdler has been telling you things that aren’t true. I mean, if