Naked Prey

mentioned, but she told them what she “suspected” about the car theft ring.
    All of Calb’s employees were interviewed, except for three who’d departed for parts unknown. All of those interviewed professed to have been mystified by the number of Toyotas they’d been painting. They’d all heard that it was adeal with some insurance company to fix slightly flawed new Toyotas.
    Letty was interviewed and sent down to the Cities with the older woman from the church. She was scheduled for more work on her hand.
    T HE FBI CREW found first Tammy Sorrell’s grave, led there by the Christmas wrap at the edge of the dump cut, and then, later the same day, Annie Burke’s.
    Lucas turned the details over to the crew from Bemidji, and on the third day, left Custer County. An Alberta Clipper was coming through, and he stayed close to the front all the way down, driving through the feathery snow, listening to the FM stations come and go.
    H E ARRIVED HOME to find his wife putting her coat on.
    “Going to Subway. I thought I’d be back before you got here,” Weather said, after kissing him hello.
    “I can go if you want,” Lucas offered.
    “No, I’ll go. Back in fifteen.”
    “Talk to Del today?”
    “Yes. Went over, talked to him, looked at the films. I’m no orthopod, but I think what you heard is right,” Weather said. “The break’s a bad one—some of the bone got blown back into his calf. Twenty years ago, before they got so good with bone grafts, he’d be stuck with a pretty bad limp. Now, it’ll be a while before he’s out jogging, but I don’t think he’ll limp.”
    “Cheryl’s pissed at me,” Lucas said. “That happens. The wife always gets a little pissed at the partner when somebody gets hit.”
    “You feel bad about it?”
    “Some,” Lucas said. “But I don’t know what else I could have done. We thought he was in there killing them.”
    The phone rang, Weather picked it up, listened, said, “Yes, just a second.” She covered the mouthpiece with her hand, said, “It’s Sheriff Anderson from Armstrong,” and, “I’m going to Subway.”
    T HE KID WAS in bed, the housekeeper was in her apartment. Lucas went up and took a quick shower, and got back downstairs just as Weather arrived with the sandwiches. They sat at the kitchen table, eating them and splitting a bag of potato chips. “I thought things would go easier, with the new job,” Weather said. “I think Cheryl thought so, too. Del’s been in some scrapes, but nothing bad since that deal with the pinking shears.”
    “That was more . . . grotesque . . . than really bad,” Lucas said. “I mean, it wasn’t like he couldn’t work for months and months.”
    “S O WHAT’D THIS Anderson character have to say? The sheriff?”
    “About what?”
    “About the autopsy, for one thing. You said they were going to do them today.”
    “Singleton had eight bullet holes in him. Two were mine, two were Zahn’s, and four were Letty’s, from two different guns. She said she shot him, and she had—he had a hole in his chest, but somehow he got the slug out.”
    “Jeez.”
    “Yeah. The two little girls were killed with injections. They’re not sure what the agent was, but when I heard that, it kind of weirded me out. I don’t know what to think aboutthat.” He frowned, contemplated his sandwich, and added, “Katina and Martha West were killed with the same gun used on the Sorrells, but it wasn’t Singleton’s service revolver. He probably ditched it somewhere. His mother said he had another, smaller gun, which sounds right. But the injections . . . that kind of worried me. Doesn’t sound like Singleton.
    “But then, the sheriff tore apart Singleton’s place—actually, it was the guys from Bemidji and a couple of deputies—and they found a load of cash in the basement. More of the kidnapping money. A lot of it’s missing, but they probably just spent it. If the Burke guy wants, he could probably bring an action against the Calb estate and the Cash estate and get some of the money back from the sales of their houses, and so on. I don’t know if it’ll come to much, now—the Cash house, anyway. With Calb out of business, I think Broderick’s probably gonna sink back into the prairie.”
    “Huh.” Weather took an unladylike bite out of her sandwich.
    “D ID YOU SEE Letty today?” Lucas asked.
    “Yes,” Weather said, talking with her mouth full. “They took the cast off to have a look, put another one