Invisible Prey

checkered-cloth-covered tables, looking toward the Mississippi; ordered hamburgers and Cokes. “Everything is arranged,” Lucas said, when the waitress had gone.
    “Yes. The whole package is locked up in the courthouse. The jury starts meeting at one o’clock, Cole and Conoway will make the first presentation, then they’ll bring in Russell from Child Protection to talk about the original tip. Then you go on, testify about assigning the investigation to me, and you’ll also testify about chain-of-custody on the evidence that came in later, that everything is okay, bureaucratically. Then I go on and testify about the investigation, then we have the tech people coming up, then they get the Barths. After that, they go to dinner. They reconvene at six-thirty, Conoway summarizes, and then they decide whether they need more, or to vote an indictment.”
    “Does Conoway think they’ll vote?”
    “She says they’ll do what she tells them to do, and unless something weird happens, they’re gonna vote,” Flowers said.
    “Okay. You’ve done a good job on this, Virgil.”
    “Nice to work in the Cities again,” Flowers said, “but I gotta get back south. You know Larry White from Jackson County?”
    “Yeah. You’re talking about that body?”
    “Down the riverbank. Yeah. It was the girl. DNA confirms it, they got it back yesterday,” Flowers said. “The thing is, she went to school with Larry’s son and they were friendly. Not dating, but the son knew her pretty well since elementary school, and Larry doesn’t want to investigate it himself. He wants us carrying the load, because…you know, small town.”
    “Any chance his kid actually did it?” Lucas asked.
    “Nah,” Flowers said. “Everybody in town says he’s a good kid, and he’s actually got most of an alibi, and like I said, he wasn’t actually seeing the girl. Didn’t run with her crowd. Larry’s just trying to avoid talk. He’s got the election coming up, and they haven’t got the killer yet…if there is one.”
    “Any ideas? She didn’t get on the riverbank by herself.”
    The waitress came back with the Cokes, and said, with a smile, “I haven’t seen you fellas around before. You lawyers?”
    “God help us,” Flowers said. When she’d gone, Flowers said, “There’s a guy name Floyd. He’s a couple years older than the girl, he’s been out of school for a while. Does seasonal work at the elevator and out at the golf course, sells a little dope. I need to push him. I think he was dealing to the girl, and I think she might have been fooling around with him.”
    “Any dope on the postmortem?”
    “No. She’d been down way too long. When they pulled her off the riverbank, they got most of her clothes and all of the bones except from one foot and a small leg bone, which probably got scattered off by dogs or coyotes or whatever. There’s no sign of violence on the bones. No holes, no breaks, hyoid was intact. I think she might have OD’d.”
    “Can you crack the kid?”
    “That’s my plan…”
     
    T HEY SAT SHOOTING the breeze, talking about cases, talking about fishing. Flowers had a side career going as an outdoor writer, and was notorious for dragging a fishing boat around the state while he was working. Lucas asked, “You go fishing last night?”
    “Hour,” Flowers admitted. “Got a line wet, while I was thinking about the grand jury.”
    “You’re gonna have to decide what you want to do,” Lucas said. “I don’t think you can keep writing and keep working as a cop. Not full-time, anyway.”
    “I’d write, if I could,” Flowers said. “Trouble is, I made fifteen thousand dollars last year, writing. If I went full-time, I could probably make thirty. In other words, I’d starve.”
    “Still…”
    “I know. I think about it,” Flowers said. “All I can do is, keep juggling. You see my piece last month in Outdoor Life ?”
    “I did, you know?” Lucas said. “Not bad, Virgil. In fact, it was pretty damn good. Guys were passing it around the office.”
     
    T HE FIRST SESSION of the grand jury was as routine as Flowers had suggested it would be. Lucas sat in a waiting room until 1:45, got called in. The grand jury was arrayed around a long mahogany-grained table, with two assistant county attorneys managing files. The lead attorney, Susan Conoway, had Lucas sworn in by a clerk, who then left. She led him through his handling of the original tip, to the assignment of Flowers, and through the