Mind Prey

showed a manager in 3A; his wife sent them down to the basement, where they found him building a box kite.
    Lucas explained the problem, and asked, “Have you got a key?”
    “Sure.” The manager had a thick German accent. He gave the box kite a final tweak, tightened a balsa-wood joint with a c-clamp, and said, “Gum dis vay.” He didn’t mention a warrant.
     
    M C P HERSON WAS WAITING in the hall outside Gloria’s room. “Could you take a cab?” Lucas asked.
    “Well…”
    “Here’s twenty bucks; that’s to cover the cab and buy you dinner,” he said, handing her the bill. “And thanks. If you think of anything…”
    “I’ve got your number,” she nodded.
    The manager let them into Gloria’s apartment. They did a quick walk-through: something was bothering Lucas—he’d seen something, but he didn’t know what. Something his eye had picked up. But when? During the talk with Crosby? No. It was just now…he looked around, couldn’t think of it. Getting old, he thought.
    “Do you know any of her friends?” Lucas asked the manager, with little hope.
    The German went through an elaborate, Frenchlike shrug, and said, “Not me.”
     
    T HEY KNOCKED ON every door in the building, with the manager trailing behind them. Few people were in their apartments, and nobody had seen her. Two patrol cops showed up and Lucas said, “Go with the manager. He has legal access, so you don’t need a search warrant. Check every single apartment. Don’t mess with anything, just check for the girl.” As they were walking away, he called, “Look under the beds,” and one of the cops said, with an edge, “Right, chief.”
    Lucas, scowling, turned and said to Sloan, “Find the best picture you can, get it back to the office, and get it out. Tell Rose Marie to hand it out to the press.”
    “What’re you doing?” Sloan asked.
    Lucas looked around. “I’m gonna tear the place to pieces, see what I can see. Oh. Get somebody to check the phone company, see if she just made a call.”
    “All right. And maybe I ought to get a search warrant.”
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
    Sloan started looking, while Lucas did another walk-through. The apartment had only three rooms—a living room with a kitchenette at one end, a tiny bath, and a small bedroom.
    A battered bureau, probably from the Salvation Army store, was pushed against one wall of the bedroom. Several drawers stood open. He’d glanced in the bedroom during the original interview, and he didn’t remember the drawers being open: so she’d taken some clothes. He lifted her mattress, looked under it. Nothing. He tossed the bureau drawers onto the mattress. Nothing. Rolled her shoes out of a closet, patted down her clothes. Nothing.
    He walked back out to the kitchenette, looked in the refrigerator, pulled out the ice trays. He checked every scrap of paper within reach of the telephone. In ten minutes he had a dozen phone numbers, mostly scrawled on the backs of junk-mail envelopes, a few more on a phone book. He checked the exchanges: none was in Eagan, or Apple Valley, or down that way. He stacked the phone book on the counter with the envelopes, mentioned them to Sloan.
    He went to the bathroom next and peered into the medicine cabinet. There were a dozen brown pill bottles on the top shelf, lined up like chessmen. “She’s got some weird meds,” Lucas called to Sloan. “Let’s find out where she gets them and what they’re for. Get somebody to check the local pharmacies and maybe the U clinic. This looks like serious shit, so she might need some more.”
    “Okay,” Sloan called back. Lucas opened the door to a small linen closet—women hid things in linen closets, refrigerators, and bureau drawers. He found nothing useful.
    Sloan stuck his head in. “She didn’t like cameras,” he said. He showed Lucas a handful of Polaroids and a couple of prints. She was always in black, almost always alone, standing against something. The few other people in the prints were women.
    “So get them all out,” Lucas said briefly. He slammed a drawer shut, and they heard glass breaking inside.
    “All right,” Sloan said. Then: “Chill out, man. We’ll get her, sooner or later. You’re freaking out.”
    “She knows him, goddamnit,” Lucas said. He turned and kicked the bathroom wall, the toe of his shoe breaking through the drywall. They both stood and looked at the hole for a second. Then Lucas said, “She knows who the motherfucker is, and where the