Naked Prey

Calb’s. Inside, two guys were working on the truck they’d seen before, and it occurred to Lucas that there were too many people for too little truck. He stopped the closest guy. “Is Gene Calb around?”
    The guy shook his head. “Can’t find him. Should be here. We need the keys for the office.”
    “Can’t find him?” Lucas said.
    “No answer at his house. He’s always here first,” the guy said. “Don’t know where he could’ve got to.”
    Lucas and Del went back outside, to the Acura, moving fast. “Please, God, let him be at Logan’s Fancy Meats.”
    They sped back toward town, Lucas pushing the Acura hard. The snow was coming down harder now, the flakes alittle smaller, but driven by a wind from the northwest. Now it looked serious. Two miles out of Broderick, a car a half-mile in front of them, and coming their way, suddenly showed the flaring red lights of a police roof rack. “Goddamn radar,” Lucas said.
    It was Zahn, in his patrol car. Lucas continued past him, then pulled to the shoulder, jumped out, and as Zahn swung around in a circle, waved at him. Zahn pulled up and his window rolled down and he said, “I hate to ask.”
    “Nobody can find Gene Calb,” Lucas said. “He’s not at work, not answering his phone. We’re heading for his house. You know where he lives?”
    “Follow on behind me,” Zahn said.
    They tucked in behind him and rolled down to Armstrong, and Lucas could see him talking on his radio. “Calling the sheriff,” Lucas said.
    A DEPUTY’S CAR was pulling up outside Calb’s house when they arrived. A neighbor across the street stood by his picture window, watching, as they all got out. The deputy asked, “What do you think?”
    “Knock on the door,” Lucas said. They all trooped up to the stoop, pushed the doorbell, heard it ringing inside. When nothing happened, Lucas knocked and pushed the doorbell again. Del went around to the back, looked in the window on the back door, then returned to the front of the house. “Can’t see anything in the kitchen—I think they’re just gone.”
    Zahn walked over to the garage and tried the door. It opened, and he looked inside, then closed the door.
    “Both cars here.”
    “Out for a walk?” Del asked.
    Lucas said, “Let’s go ask that guy.” He nodded acrossthe street, at the neighbor in the picture window. He and Del walked across, and the neighbor met them at the door. He was wearing a blue fleece sweatshirt and had a pipe clamped between large yellow teeth. “Haven’t seen them,” he said. “What’s going on?”
    “When did you see them last?”
    Puff, puff, thought. “I saw Gloria yesterday evening, when she turned on the lights in the living room. That’s about it.”
    “Haven’t seen anybody coming or going?”
    “Nope. What’d they do?”
    “Nothing that we know of,” Lucas said. They looked up and down the street. “They have any friends close by?”
    Puff, puff, more thought. “The Carlsons, up in that stone-front house . . . they’d probably be their best friends. But we’re all pretty friendly around here.”
    “Thanks.”
    As they were walking away, the man said, “That red Corolla in front of the house. I don’t know who that belongs to.” He pointed with his pipe. “It’s been there all night.”
    “Yeah?” They stopped to look inside the Corolla, saw a clipboard and what looked like a daily diary on the passenger seat, and in the back seat, two packing boxes of canned food.
    “That looks like the stuff the church women take around,” Del said. “I saw a Corolla there, too.”
    “Been here all night?” Lucas tried the car door, and the door popped open. He reached across the seat and picked up the diary. Inside the front cover was a hand-written Katina Lewis.
    Lucas showed the diary to Del. “Is that . . . Ruth Lewis? Or somebody else?”
    Del shook his head. “I don’t know. And where is she?”
    They walked back across the street and talked to the deputy and Zahn. The deputy said, “Katina . . . she’s the other one’s sister. She’s going with one of our guys. Loren Singleton. She’s been sleeping over with him, but he’s like a mile from here.”
    “Give him a ring,” Lucas said. To Zahn: “Could you run down to the LEC and talk to the sheriff, and ask him to get a search warrant up here? You’ll have to swear that we were looking for Calb for questioning in connection with a crime . . . which we are.”
    “On my way.”
    “Let’s