Invisible Prey

He waved at the bartender. “’Nother Coke. On the house.” To Sloan, he said, “Whyn’t you turn on some goddamn lights?” And to Lucas, “People have been trying to call you. Your cell phone is turned off.”
    “I feel like such a fool,” Lucas said, groping for the phone. He turned it on and waited for it to come up.
    “That’s what they thought you’d feel like,” Del said. “Anyway, the governor’s calling.”
    Lucas’s eyebrows went up. “What happened?” His phone came up and showed a list of missed calls. Six of them.
    “You know Constance Bucher?” Del asked. “Lived up on Summit?”
    “Sure…” Lucas said. The hair prickled on the back of his neck as he picked up the past tense in lived. “Know of her, never met her.”
    “Somebody beat her to death,” Del said. He frowned, picked at a nit on his jeans jacket, flicked it on the floor. “Her and her maid, both.”
    “Oh, boy.” Lucas slid out of the booth. “When?”
    “Two or three days, is what they’re saying. Most of St. Paul is up there, and the governor called, he wants your young white ass on the scene.”
    Lucas said to Sloan, “It’s been wonderful.”
    “Who is she?” Sloan asked. He wasn’t a St. Paul guy.
    “Constance Bucher—Bucher Natural Resources,” Lucas said. “Lumber, paper mills, land. Remember the Rembrandt that went to the Art Institute?”
    “I remember something about a Rembrandt,” Sloan said doubtfully.
    “Bucher Boulevard?” Del suggested.
    “ That Bucher,” Sloan said. To Lucas: “Good luck. With both cases.”
    “Yeah. You get any ideas about your pal, give me a call. I’m hurtin’,” Lucas said. “And don’t tell Del about it.”
    “You mean about Burt Kline?” Del asked, his eyebrows working.
    “That fuckin’ Flowers,” Lucas said, and he went out the door.

3
    L UCAS WAS DRIVING the Porsche. Once behind the wheel and moving, he punched up the list of missed calls on his telephone. Three of them came from the personal cell phone of Rose Marie Roux, director of the Department of Public Safety, and his real boss; one came from the superintendent of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, his nominal boss; the other two came from one of the governor’s squids. He tapped the phone, and Rose Marie answered after the first ring.
    “Where are you?” she asked without preamble. He was listed in her cell-phone directory.
    “In Minneapolis,” Lucas said. “I’m on my way. She’s what, four doors down from the cathedral?”
    “About that. I’m coming up on it now. About a million St. Paul cops scattered all…Ah! Jesus!”
    “What?”
    She laughed. “Almost hit a TV guy…nothing serious.”
     
    “I HEAR the governor’s calling,” Lucas said.
    “He is. He said, quote, I want Davenport on this like brass on a doorknob, unquote.”
    “He’s been working on his metaphors again,” Lucas said.
    “Yeah. He thinks it gives him the common touch,” she said. “Listen, Lucas, she was really, really rich. A lot of money is about to go somewhere, and there’s the election coming.”
    “I’ll see you in ten minutes,” Lucas said. “You got an attitude from St. Paul?”
    “Not yet. Harrington is here somewhere, I’ll talk to him,” Rose Marie said. “I gotta put the phone down and park…He’ll be happy to see us—he’s trying to get more overtime money from the state.” Harrington was the St. Paul chief.
    “Ten minutes,” Lucas said.
    He was on the west side of Minneapolis. He took Highway 100 north, got on I-394, aimed the nose of the car at the IDS building in the distance, and stepped on the accelerator, flashing past minivans, SUVs, pickups, and fat-assed sedans, down to I-94.
    Feeling all right, whistling a little.
    He’d had a past problem with depression. The depression, he believed, was probably genetic, and he’d shared it with his father and grandfather; a matter of brain chemicals. And though depression was always off the coast, like a fog bank, it had nothing to do with the work. He actually liked the hunt, liked chasing assholes. He’d killed a few of them, and had never felt particularly bad about it. He’d been dinged up along the way, as well, and never thought much about that, either. No post-traumatic stress.
    As for rich old ladies getting killed, well, hell, they were gonna die sooner or later. Sometimes, depending on who it was, a murder would make him angry, or make him sad, and he wouldn’t have wished for it. But if it was going