Mortal Prey

Chrysler products that would make your mother cry with shame.” And: “Who’s running things?”
    “I don’t know, I just got here myself,” the cop said.
     
    THE FIRST COP on the scene had been a highway patrol sergeant named Eakins who hadn’t known exactly what was required, and as an old hand, adept at covering his ass, had done exactly the right thing: He’d frozen the scene. Nobody out until the feds said so, nobody near a phone.
    “Don’t make much difference anyhow—everybody’s got a cell phone,” he said.
    “Anybody see her?”
    “Two guys think they might have—they’re in the restaurant eating pie,” Eakins said.
    “All right,” Mallard said. “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
    “Can we let people out?”
    “Yeah. If you’re pretty sure they’re okay. But get IDs, truck tag numbers, just in case. Check the trucks, make sure nobody’s hiding behind the seats. Anybody coming in, we should warn off—if they can move along, let them go. If they’ve got to stop here for some reason, tell them there could be a delay before they can leave.”
    “We can do that,” Eakins said. “Let me show you the pie guys and then I’ll get organized outside.”
     
    THE PIE GUYS looked remarkably alike, big square-faced over-the-road drivers in checked shirts with guts hanging over their tooled-leather belts. The woman they saw was probably Rinker. They’d both had a chance to look her over: nice-looking blonde, they said, trim, short hair. Classy, but looked like a pretty good time. “She was in a hurry,” Blueberry Pie said. “I was kind of watchin’ her out of the corner of my eye. She made a couple of calls, but she was real quick with them—like a businesswoman. That’s what I figured she was. A real-estate lady, checking on calls or something.”
    Apple Pie added that she had a nice ass and thought she might have been heading toward a Ford Explorer when she went out the door. “I didn’t see her get in it, but there weren’t a hell of a lot of cars down there, and when the cops come running in the door, I noticed that the Explorer was gone.”
    “What color?”
    “Umm, dark red. Liver-colored, sorta.”
    “You didn’t…?”
    “Naw. Never looked at the plates. I was too busy looking at her ass.”
    Both pies agreed that Rinker had used the second phone from the end in a bank of phones on the back wall of the convenience store.
    As Lucas and Mallard finished the interview, a black Tahoe pulled up and a half-dozen feds climbed out. Then another Tahoe, and more of them, all in suits. “Looks like a podiatry convention,” Lucas said to Mallard.
    They looked at the phones, which looked like a lot of other phones, and talked to other people who hadn’t seen Rinker, and to people who hadn’t seen her car, and to one guy who was fairly sure that he’d seen “a black feller” getting into the maroon Explorer.
    “That’s good,” Lucas said to Mallard. “Now we’re not sure about the Explorer.”
    Malone arrived, with another batch of feds. They all went to look at the phones again, and a fingerprint technician said, “I’m pretty sure those pie guys were right about the phone. This was the phone she used.”
    “How’s that?” Mallard asked.
    “I don’t think any of the other phones will be this thoroughly wiped,” he said. “Looks like she sprayed it with Windex.”
     
    AN HOUR AFTER they arrived, now convinced that they were wasting their time, Lucas bought a purple-flavored Popsicle, took Malone aside, recited the Rinker conversation as close to word-for-word as he could, through the crumbling bits of faux-grape ice, and said, “I want to talk to Gene. Maybe Clara’s got some other reason for trying to push us away from him.”
    “We’ve got some pretty good guys talking to him,” Malone said.
    “I know, I know. I just want to chat with him. See what he has to say. Look him over.”
    “Can I come?”
    “You can listen if you want, but I’d rather you not be inside with me. I’m looking for a nonfederal vibe.”
    She thought about it for a second, then said, “Okay.”
    “I want to bring another guy to listen. Old-cop type.”
    “Your friend Del?” She’d met Del in Minneapolis.
    “No. A guy from down here. Old buddy, he’s got a good ear. Maybe he could pick up something local, if Gene knows anything local. A hint, a little… anything.” He looked around, finished with the Popsicle. “Where do I throw the sticks?”
    She said, “No.