Mind Prey

all concrete block and small windows too high to see out of.
    Bob Greave sat at a too-short cafeteria table in a too-short chair, drinking a Diet Coke, taking notes on a secretarial pad. He wore a rust-colored Italian-cut suit and a lightweight, beige microfiber raincoat. A thin man in a trench coat sat next to him, in another too-short chair, his bony knees sticking up like Ichabod Crane’s. He looked as though he might twitch.
    Lucas walked through the double doors with Black, Sherrill, and the mole trailing like wet ducklings. “Hey, Bob,” Lucas said.
    “Is that the shoe?” Greave asked, looking at the bag Black was carrying.
    “No, it’s Tom’s,” Lucas said, a half-second before he remembered about Black and had to smother a nervous laugh. Black apparently didn’t notice. The man with the incipient twitch said, “Are you Chief Davenport?”
    Lucas nodded. “Yeah.”
    “Mr. Greave”—the man nodded at the detective—“said I had to stay until you got here. But I don’t have anything else to say. So can I go?”
    “I want to hear the story,” Lucas said.
    Girdler ran through it quickly. He had come to the school to talk to the chairperson about the year’s PTA agenda, and had encountered Mrs. Manette and her daughters just outside the door, in the shelter of the overhang. Mrs. Manette had asked his advice about a particular problem—he was a therapist, as was she—and they chatted for a few moments, and he went inside.
    Halfway down the hall and around a corner, he recalled a magazine citation she’d asked for, and that he couldn’t remember when she’d first asked. He started back, and when he turned the corner, fifty or sixty feet from the door, he saw a man struggling with Manette’s daughter.
    “He pushed her into the van and went around it and drove away,” Girdler said.
    “And you saw the kids in the van?”
    “Mmmm, yes…” he said, his eyes sliding away, and Lucas thought, He’s lying. “They were both on the floor. Mrs. Manette was sitting up, but she had blood on her face.”
    “What were you doing?” Lucas asked.
    “I was running down the hall toward the doors. I thought maybe I could stop them,” Girdler said, and again his eyes slid away. “I got there too late. He was already going out the drive. I’m sure he had a Minnesota license plate, though. Red truck, sliding doors. A younger man, big. Not fat, but muscular. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans.”
    “You didn’t see his face.”
    “Not at all. But he was blond and had long hair, like a rock ’n’ roll person. Hair down to his shoulders.”
    “Huh. And that’s it?”
    Girdler was offended: “I thought it was quite a bit. I mean, I chased after him, but he was gone. Then I ran back and got the women in the office to dial 911. If you didn’t catch him, it’s not my fault.”
    Lucas smiled and said, “I understand there was a kid here. A girl, who saw some of it.”
    Girdler shrugged. “I doubt she saw much. She seemed confused. Maybe not too bright.”
    Lucas turned to Greave, who said, “I got what I could from her. It’s about the same as Mr. Girdler. The kid’s mother was pretty upset.”
    “Great,” Lucas said.
    He hung around for another ten minutes, finishing with Girdler, talking to Greave and the other cops. “Not much, is there?”
    “Just the blood,” Sherrill said. “I guess we already knew there was blood, from Girdler and the kid.”
    “And the red stuff in the parking lot,” said the mole, looking at the napkin he’d used to soak it up. “I bet it’s some kind of semi-water-soluble paint, and he painted the van to disguise it.”
    “Think so?”
    “Everybody says it was red, and this is red. I think it’s a possibility. But I just don’t see…”
    “What?”
    The mole scratched his head. “Why did he do it this way? Why right in the middle of the day, and three-to-one? I wonder if it could be a mistake or some spur-of-the-moment thing by a guy on drugs? But if it was spur-of-the-moment, how would he know to take Mrs. Manette? He must’ve known who she was…unless he just came here because it’s a rich kid’s school and he’d take anybody, and he saw the Lexus.”
    “Then why not just snatch a kid? You don’t want the folks if you’re looking for ransom. You want the parents getting the money for you,” Black said.
    “Sounds goofier’n shit,” Sherrill said, and they all nodded.
    “That could be an answer—she’s a shrink, and maybe the guy used