Mind Prey

psychiatrist.”
    The other woman was paler, older, with a loose, jowly face touched expertly with rouge. She nodded, stepped closer to Manette, and took his arm. “Just come on upstairs, Tower. Even if you can’t sleep, you could lie down…”
    “I don’t go to bed until two o’clock in the morning,” Manette said irritably. “There’s no point in going up now.”
    “But it’s been exhausting,” the woman said. She seemed to be talking about herself, and Lucas realized that she must be Manette’s wife. She spoke to Roux: “Tower’s under a lot of stress, and he’s had health problems.”
    “We wanted him to know that we’re doing everything we can,” Roux said. She looked back at Manette. “I’ve assigned Lucas to oversee the investigation.”
    “Thank you,” Manette said. And to Lucas: “Anything you need, anybody that I know, that you want to talk to, just call. And let me know about that reward, if it would be useful.”
    “George Dunn,” Lucas said.
    “Get him on the phone, will you, Helen?” Manette said to his wife. “I’ll talk to him.”
    “And after that, Tower, I want you to kick back and close your eyes, even if it’s just for half an hour,” Wolfe said. She reached out and touched his hand. “Take some time to think.”
     
    L UCAS DROPPED THE chief at her house, promising to call back at midnight, or when anything broke.
    “Lester’s running the routine,” Roux said as the car idled in her driveway. “I need you to pluck this thing out of the sky, so to speak.”
    “Doesn’t have a plucking feel about it,” Lucas said. “Something complicated is going on.”
    “If you don’t, we’re gonna get plucked,” Roux said. Then: “You want fifteen seconds of politics?”
    “Sure.”
    “This is one of those cases that people will talk about for a generation,” Roux said. “If we find Manette and her kids, we’re gold. We’ll be untouchable. But if we fuck it up…” She let her voice trail away.
    “Let me go pluck,” Lucas said.
     
    G EORGE D UNN’S HOUSE was a modest white ranch, tucked away on a big tree-filled lot on a dead-end street in Edina. Lucas left the Porsche in the driveway and climbed the stone walk to the front door, pushed the doorbell. A thick-faced cop, usually in uniform, now in slacks and a golf shirt, pushed open the door.
    “Chief Davenport…”
    “Hey, Rick,” Lucas said. “They’ve got you watching the phones?”
    “Yeah.” In a lower voice. “And Dunn.”
    “Where is he?”
    “Back in his office—the light back there.” The cop nodded to the left.
    The house was stacked with brown cardboard moving boxes, a dozen of them in the front room, more visible in the kitchen and breakfast area. There was little furniture—a couch and chair in the living room, a round oak table in the breakfast nook. Lucas followed a hall back to the light and found Dunn sitting at a rectangular dining table in what had been meant as a family room. A large-screen TV sat against one wall, the picture on, the sound off. A stereo system was stacked on a pile of three cardboard boxes.
    Dunn was huddled over a pile of paper, with a crooked-neck lamp pulled close to them, his face half-in and half-out of the light. To his left, a half-dozen two-drawer file cabinets were pushed against a wall. Half of them had open drawers. Another stack of cardboard boxes sat on the floor beside the file cabinets. On the far side of the room, three chairs faced each other across a glass coffee table.
    Lucas stepped inside the room and said, “Mr. Dunn.”
    Dunn looked up. “Davenport,” he said. He dropped his pen, pushed back from the table, and stood to shake hands.
    Dunn was a fullback ten years off the playing field: broad shoulders, bullet head, beat-up face. His front teeth were so even, so white and perfect, that they had to be a bridge. He wore a gray cashmere sweater, with the sleeves pushed up, showing a gold Rolex; jeans, and loafers without socks. He shook hands, held the grip for a second, nodded, pointed at a chair, sat down, and said, “Ask.”
    “You want a lawyer?” Lucas asked.
    “I had one. It was a waste of money,” Dunn said.
    Lucas sat down, leaned forward, an elbow on his thigh. “You say you were in your car when your wife was taken. But you don’t have any witnesses and you made no calls that would confirm it.”
    “I made one call to her, while she was on her way over to the school. I told that to the other guys…”
    “But that