Mortal Prey

years back, there was a double murder—a woman and her divorce attorney were found together in bed, shot to death. Actually, the guy was in bed and the woman was on the floor right beside the bed, and the way it was reconstructed, they’d been screwing. Right in the act. This was at her house. Somebody walked in and shot the attorney twice in the back of the head with a small-caliber weapon. The woman apparently tried to slide out from under and get out, but she was shot in the forehead and then twice in the temple. There was a hideout in the bottom of her dresser, and a bunch of jewelry was taken…worth maybe ten grand? Something like that. The husband was a guy named Levy—I think it was Aaron Levy—but I’ll tell you what: Nobody knew it at the time, but looking back, it sounds exactly like Rinker. Like one of her hits.”
    “Aaron Levy, Andy Levy…could be the same. Or maybe Sellos got it wrong,” Lucas said. “No arrests on the two killings?”
    “Never a smell of one. Levy, this guy—a young guy—was like at some big Jewish convention somewhere, with several thousand witnesses. His wife’s name, I think, was Lucille. Lucy. That’s what I remember. Bender could probably get a file. He’s still tight with the guys in homicide.”
    “See if he can. Ask him if his kid will talk to us,” Lucas said. “Call me back when you know.”
    “Pick me up,” Andreno said.
    “Sure. Call Bender.”
    Lucas dialed the number Sally had given him. She answered with “Yes?”
    “I just talked to a guy who said there was an Aaron Levy, a case nine or ten years ago, whose wife Lucille and her divorce attorney were shot to death in her bed. Execution-style, Rinker-style, small-caliber weapon, close range, head shots. No arrests.”
    “Hang on a minute.”
    He heard her repeating what he’d said, and then Malone came on. “Interesting,” Malone said. “Louis just walked in…. I’m on-line…. Let me get this…Aaron Levy and Lucille? Conventional spellings?”
    “That’s the names I got.”
    He could hear her typing, and then she said, “Here it is. Case still open. Nothing here…let me search.” She hit a few more keys, then said, “Nothing here on Rinker, so nobody attributed it to her. All I get is Aaron—no Andy, no bank job. No job reported here.”
    A male voice in the background said, “That’s him, though. We’ve got a newspaper file from the Post-Dispatch website, a speech for the Chamber of Commerce. He’s listed as Aaron parenthesis Andy parenthesis Levy, vice president at Heartland National Bank. This is five years ago.”
    Then another male voice: “Where is Davenport getting this shit?”
    Malone said, “I’m speeding everything up. We’re putting a screen around Levy right now. We’ve got to talk some tactics here, but I’m going to suggest to Louis that we might go see him. Go see Levy.”
    “Let me know,” Lucas said. They talked for another minute, then he rang off. Five seconds later, before he could put the phone away, another call came in. Andreno.
    “Bender’s going downtown to see if he can get the Levy file. He doesn’t think it’ll be a problem to look at it, but he’ll have to slide around a little to Xerox it. He’ll try to get it.”
    “What about the kid?”
    “He’s calling the kid.”
    “Outstanding.”
    “If it works out. Let me tell you how to get where I am….”
     
    ANDRENO LIVED IN an aging brick house in a narrow street of older brick houses, all shoulder-to-shoulder, with tiny yards and high porches, and pairs of bedroom windows looking out over the porch roofs toward the street; working-class, 1920, maybe, Lucas thought. A movie set for an Italian neighborhood.
    Lucas pulled up in front, and Andreno banged out through the door a few seconds later. Lucas climbed out of the Porsche and said, “Want to run it?”
    “Sure.”
    Lucas tossed him the keys, got in the passenger side, and located the instruments for the other man. Andreno eased away from the curb. “Now we got to drive around in front of all my ex-girlfriends’ houses. That’s gonna take a while.”
    “Never got married?”
    “Got married twice, loved both of them to death, but they didn’t like me much, I guess,” Andreno said. “I can be an asshole.”
    “Any kids?”
    “Two. One with each. They seem to like me all right.”
    “Got one myself, with another one in the oven,” Lucas said.
    “Gotta have kids,” Andreno said. “Otherwise, what’s the