Invisible Prey

on a Thorne Brothers custom rod.
     
    L UCAS HAD always been interested in newspapers—thought he might have been a reporter if he hadn’t become a cop—and had gotten to the point where he could sense something wrong with a newspaper story. If a story seemed reticent, somehow; deliberately oblique; if the writer did a little tap dance; then, Lucas could say, “Ah, there’s something going on.” The writer knew something he couldn’t report, at least, not yet.
    Lucas, and a lot of other cops, developed the same sense about crimes. A solution was obvious, but wasn’t right. The story was hinky. Of course, cops sometimes had that feeling and it turned out that they were wrong. The obvious was the truth. But usually, when it seemed like something was wrong, something was.
    There’d been a car at the murder scene—if there hadn’t been, then somebody had been running down the street with a sixty-pound printer on his back. So there’d been a car. But if there’d been a car, why wasn’t a lot of the other small stuff taken? Like the TV in the bedroom, a nice thirty-two-inch flat screen. Could have carried it out under one arm.
    Or those video games.
    On the other hand, if the killers were professionals after cash and easy-to-hock jewelry, why hadn’t they found the safe, and at least tried to open it? It wasn’t that well hidden…Why had they spent so much time in the house? Why did they steal that fuckin’ printer?
    The printer bothered him. He put the fishing rod down, pulled his cell phone, was amazed to see he actually had a signal, and called back to the office, to Carol.
    “Listen, what’s that intern’s name? Sandy? Can you get her? Great. Get the call list going: I want to know if anybody in the Metro area found a Hewlett-Packard printer. Have her call the garbage haulers, too. We’re looking for a Hewlett-Packard printer that was tossed in a dumpster. You can get the exact model number from John Smith. And if somebody saw one, ask if there’s anything else that might have come from Bucher’s place, like a DVD player. Yeah. Yeah, tell everybody it’s the Bucher case. Yeah, I know. Get her started, give her some language to explain what we’re doing.”
     
    H E’D NO MORE THAN hung up when he had another thought, fished out the phone, and called Carol again. “Has anyone shown Sandy how to run the computer? Okay. After she does the call list, get her to pull every unsolved murder in the Upper Midwest for the last five years. Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin. Might as well throw in the Dakotas. Don’t do Illinois, there’d be too much static from Chicago. Have her sift them for characteristics similar to the Bucher case. But don’t tell her where I am—don’t tell her about Donaldson. I want to see if she catches it. No, I’m not trying to fuck her over, I just want to know how good a job she did of sifting them. Yeah. Goodbye.”
     
    F EELING AS THOUGH he’d accomplished something, he floated the best part of a mile down the river, and then, with some regret, motored back up the opposite shore to the cop’s house and the dock.
    The river was cool, green, friendly. He could spend a lot of time there, he thought, just floating. Hadn’t seen a single muskie; usually didn’t—which meant that he didn’t smell like fish slime, and wouldn’t have to stop at a McDonald’s to wash up.
    Despite the interruption of the cell-phone call, he had seen a mink, several ducks, a brooding Canada goose, and a nearly empty Fanta orange bottle, floating down the river. He’d hooked it out, emptied it, and carried it up to the truck. Returned the keys to their hiding spot, put away the rod, wrote a thank-you note to the cop, and left it in the mailbox.
    Not a bad way to start the day, he thought, rumbling up the hill to the main road. Took a right and headed into Chippewa.
     
    T HE D ONALDSON MANSION was on the hill on the west side of town. There were other big houses scattered around, but the Donaldson was the biggest. Frazier was already there, leaning against an unmarked car that everyone but a blind man would recognize as a cop car, talking on a cell phone. Lucas parked, got out of the truck, locked it, and walked over.
    Frazier was a short man in his fifties, stout, with iron gray hair cut into a flattop. He was wearing khaki slacks, a red golf shirt, and a blue sport coat. His nose was red, and spidery red veins webbed his cheekbones. He looked like he should be carrying a bowling bag. He