Mind Prey

on his chest. “Manette and the kids…Jesus.”
     
    T OWER M ANETTE AGAIN said that Dunn would get everything unless he was convicted of a part in the crime.
    “Do you think he could do it?” Sloan asked.
    “I don’t know about the kids,” Tower said. He took a turn around the carpet, nibbling at a thumbnail. “He always acted like he loved the kids, but basically, George Dunn could do anything. Suppose he hired some cretin who was supposed to…take Andi. And instead, the guy takes all of them because they’re witnesses in this screwed-up kidnapping. George would hardly be in a position to tell you about it.”
    “I don’t think so,” said Helen Manette. Her face was lined with worry, her eyes confused. “I always liked George. More than Tower did, anyway. I think if he was in on this, he’d make sure that the kids weren’t hurt.”
    Manette stopped, turned on a heel, poked a finger at Lucas. “I really think you’re barking up the wrong tree—you should be out looking for crazy people, not trying to figure out who’d benefit.”
    “We’re working every angle we can find,” Lucas said. “We’re working everything.”
    “Are you getting anything? Anything at all?”
    “Some things: we’ve got a picture of the kidnapper,” Lucas said.
    “What? Can I see it?”
    Lucas took the picture out of his pocket. The Manettes looked at it, and both shook their heads at the same time. “Don’t know him,” Tower said.
    “And nobody benefits from her death, except George Dunn…”
    “Well,” Helen Manette said hesitantly. “I hate to…”
    “What?” Sloan asked. “We’ll take anything.”
    “Well…Nancy Wolfe. The key-man insurance isn’t the only thing she’d get. They have a partnership and six associates. If Andi disappeared, she’d get the business, along with the insurance money.”
    “That’s ridiculous,” Tower Manette said. “Nancy’s an old friend of the family. She’s Andi’s oldest friend…”
    “Who dated George Dunn before Andi took him away,” Helen said. “And their business—they’ve done very well.”
    “But Dr. Wolfe says that if Andi was gone, she’d just have to hire another associate,” Sloan said.
    “Sure, she would,” Helen said. “But instead of a partnership, she’d be a sole owner and she’d get a piece of everybody’s action.” The word action tripped easily from Helen Manette’s mouth, out-of-place for a woman in this house; too close to the street. “Nancy Wolfe would…make out.”
     
    “A NOTHER HAPPY COUPLE,” Sloan said on the way to the car. “Helen is a tarantula disguised as Betty Crocker. And Tower looked like somebody was pulling a trotline out of his ass.”
    “Yeah—but that partnership business. Wolfe didn’t exactly tell us everything, did she?”
     
    G EORGE D UNN HAD two offices.
    One was furnished in contemporary cherry furniture, with leather chairs, a deep wine carpet, and original duck-stamp art on the walls. The desk was clear of everything but an appointment pad and a large dark wooden box for cigars.
    The other office, in the back of the building, had a commercial carpet on the floor, fluorescent lighting, a dozen desks and drafting tables with computer terminals, and two women and two men working in shirtsleeves. Dunn sat at a U-shaped desk littered with paper, a telephone to his ear. When he saw Lucas and Sloan, he said a few last words into the phone and dropped it on the hook.
    “Okay, everybody, everybody knows what to do? Tom will run things, Clarice will handle traffic; I’ll be back as soon as we find Andi and the kids.”
    He took Lucas and Sloan down to the green-leather office, where they could talk. “I’ve turned everything over to the guys until this is done with,” he said. “Have you heard anything at all?”
    “We’ve had a couple of odd incidents. We think we have a picture of the kidnapper, but we don’t know his name.”
    Lucas showed the picture to Dunn, who studied it, scratched his forehead. “There was a guy, a carpenter. Goddamn, he looks something like this. He’s got those lips.”
    “What’s his name? Any reason to think…?”
    “Dick, Dick, Dick…” Dunn scratched his forehead again. “Saddle? Seddle. Dick Seddle. He thought he ought to be a foreman, and when he didn’t get a job that opened up, he got pissed and quit. He was mad—but that was last winter. He went around saying he was gonna clean my clock, but nothing ever came of it.”
    “You know