Naked Prey

spread and show them to a woman up here who actually talked to him. If she IDs him, we’d be on solid ground asking for the DNA.”
    “That sounds good. I’ll get McCord on it right now. There’ve got to be some publicity shots around. He’s served on committees and so forth. Can we transmit them up to you?”
    “I think so. You’ll have to talk to the local people, I don’t know exactly what the printing facilities are here . . . hang on.” He took the phone down and asked, “Do we have a photo printer of some kind?”
    One of the deputies said, “Sure. We’ve got two or three different kinds. Standard stuff.”
    Back to the phone: “We’re good, sir. When your guys find a photo, send it up here to the sheriff’s department.”
    “We can do that,” Henderson said. “Man, you moved fast—this is exactly what I wanted. That asshole Washington hasn’t even gotten out of Grand Forks yet. He’s supposedly going up to the hanging tree to make a speech.”
    “Sir, we can’t let that happen. It’s really a bleak place—it looks like it was invented for a hanging. The image’ll be so strong that nothing else will make any difference, nothing we say. Maybe we could keep him out of there on the grounds that it’s a crime scene.”
    “Can we blame that on the sheriff, too?”
    “I think it could be worked out, sir.”
    “Is he right there, listening?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Let me talk to him. Say something that would lead to me talking to him.”
    Lucas nodded. “I think you should talk to Sheriff Anderson about that, sir.”
    “Good. Give him the phone.”
    Lucas passed the phone to Anderson, saying, “The governor. He needs to speak with you.”
    Anderson took the phone. “Uh, Governor Henderson . . . ”
    As Anderson talked, Lucas said to the group of deputies, “Is there somebody here who usually handles photo spreads? We’ll need a half-dozen pictures of white men with dark hair, probably in business suits, looking charming. Like a political picture.” He looked around at the pictures on the walls. “Like these. Like that one.” He pointed a finger at a smiling head.
    One of the deputies said, “We got that.”
    The rest of it took an hour and a half. Lucas was in a semi-frenzy, driven by the momentum of the day, and Dickerson arrived, running hot with lights and siren, wanting to be there if it all cracked open. Forty minutes after Lucas talked to the governor, the sheriff’s ID division tookthe transmission of two recent photos of Hale Sorrell, one a formal portrait, the other taken at a press conference after the disappearance of his daughter.
    A deputy put together two different photo spreads: one of dark-haired white men in informal situations, another of dark-haired white men in formal poses. Then he retransmitted all the dummy photos to himself, so they’d be printed on the same paper and have the same general look.
    Hoffman was still on the job at the casino. Small Bear was on the floor, he said, pushing her change cart.
    “Keep her there,” Lucas said. “We’re on the way.”
    L UCAS, D EL, AND Dickerson went with Anderson in a sheriff’s truck, a comfortable GMC Yukon XL with a big heater. At the casino, Hoffman met them at the door. “Small Bear’s upstairs,” he said. “How’re we doing?”
    “Gonna find out,” Lucas said.
    Small Bear was sitting at a table in a conference room, her hands folded in front of her, looking a little frightened. Lucas explained quickly: “We have two sets of photos. We’re gonna show you one set, then ask if you see the man who was here last night, and then we’ll show you the other set. Okay?”
    She nodded. Lucas spread the informal photos in front of her. She looked at them, slowly, slowly, pushing one after another away from her, until finally she was left only with Sorrell’s. “I think this might be him. Not a very good picture.”
    “Okay.” Lucas scooped up the deck of photos, put them back in the brown envelope they came in, opened a second envelope, and took out the formal shots. This time, Small Bear didn’t hesitate.
    “I’m pretty sure this is him,” she said, tapping the photograph of Sorrell.
    They all stood in silence, nobody moving, nothing audible but some breathing, and then Anderson groaned, “Jiminy,” and Lucas turned and looked at Del.
    Del nodded. “Got him.”

8
    M ARGERY S INGLETON LOOKED like a green heron—a sharp-billed stalking bird with a mouth like a rip in a piece of