Naked Prey

afternoon. When she finished the story about finding the bodies, she added that the cameras were coming back the next day for a feature story. “They’re gonna come along and run my traps with me. I had to go out this afternoon and put some traps in, just so I’ll have some ’rats for the feature story tomorrow.”
    “Are they paying you?” Wolf asked.
    “Maybe,” Letty said. She wasn’t sure—she hadn’t thought of that angle.
    “They oughta,” Wolf said. “I mean, you got a product to sell. You could go on Oprah.”
    “You think?” Letty liked Oprah.
    “You can’t tell where this kind of thing will lead. You could be in Hollywood. Stranger things have happened,” Wolf said.
    “I don’t know about Hollywood,” Ruth said. She felt a tickle of concern. “Letty, do you have anybody staying with you out there, with you and your mom? I mean, a policeman?”
    “No . . . You think we should?”
    “Well.” She nibbled at a lip.
    “Okay. Now I’m scared,” Letty said. She’d seen all the cop dramas. The killers always came back. “All I got is that piece-of-shit .22.”
    “The guy isn’t coming back,” Wolf said disdainfully. She’d been cleaning up the grill and she flapped her cleaning rag at Letty. “The guy who did this is a million miles from here. He’s probably on Miami Beach by now.”
    “I hope,” Ruth said. To Wolf: “Egg sandwich with raw onions?”
    “Fried hard? Coming up,” Wolf said. She asked Letty, “Another piece of pie? Short piece?”
    “If you’re buying,” Letty said. She grinned at Ruth. “Got a free piece of pie for the story?”
    “You’ll get a free ride to jail if the state patrol sees that truck parked out back,” Wolf grunted. To Ruth: “She’s driving her mom’s truck again. Little goddamn juvenile delinquent.”
    “Little goddamn juvenile delinquent who’s gonna be on Oprah,” Letty said. She looked at the wall clock. “Four-thirty. I gotta be out of here in ten minutes. They’re telling me that we’ll be on at five.”
    “Movie star,” Wolf cackled, sliding a half-slice of cherry pie down the countertop.
    W HEN R UTH GOT back to the church, she told Katina about Letty, smiling as she recounted the girl’s enthusiasm. Katina wasn’t so amused. “That kid’s all over the place. If she’s talking to the police, I hope she doesn’t talk about us. Or about Gene’s place.”
    “Not really much for her to know,” Ruth said. “Bunch of cars getting fixed.”
    “I suppose. Just the way that she’s always hanging around. I mean, Ruth—we’re criminals. We should act like criminals, at least part of the time.”
    “She’s having a good time. I don’t think she’s a danger to us,” Ruth said. “She’s a kid.”
    “If you say so,” Katina said, letting her skepticism show.
    “Besides—we’ve talked about this—sooner or later, one of us is going to get caught crossing the border. Or somebody will tell some ambitious little creep prosecutor what we’re doing, and they’ll come get all of us. We could go to jail, Katina. It’s a fact of life.”
    Katina shook her head. “I never believed that. If we’re careful. If we’re really, really psychopathically careful, I don’t think we will.”
    T HE DISCUSSION HAD not quite been an argument, and nothing was resolved. Later on, Katina crossed the highway when she saw Singleton pull into Calb’s parking lot. Singleton had a remote that worked the overhead door, and the door went up, and he pulled inside—to get the car out of sight, Katina supposed. There were still two cop cars and a state van at Cash’s house, though it was so cold, all the cops had gone inside the house. Singleton saw Katina coming across the highway and held the door up for her, dropping it when she was inside.
    “Gene’s in the back,” Singleton said.
    Calb was in his cubbyhole, staring at an aging Dell computer. He looked up and said, “Loren,” when Singleton came in, leaned back to look around him and said, “Hey, Katina.”
    “Talk to the state guys yet?” Singleton asked.
    “Two sets of them. This afternoon. One set was okay and they were here for an hour, taking notes. The other setwas just two guys who stood around with their hands in their pockets. Like the fuckin’ gestapo.”
    “Davenport and Capslock,” Singleton said. “Supposed to be heavy hitters. What’d you tell them?”
    “The truth,” Calb said. “I talked to Shawn down in Kansas City before they came in,