Naked Prey

feel there were some serious investigative shortcomings in Custer County, and I’m calling on the federal government to blahblahblahblah . . . ”
    “Bullshit bullshit bullshit,” Del said. “It ain’t workin’.”
    Fifteen minutes after they were off the air, Henderson called. “Anything new?”
    “No. You looked pretty good.”
    “Thanks. We heard Washington is on his way home to Chicago.”
    “God bless him.”
    J ENKINS AND S HRAKE were in the media room, watching the playoff from premium leather–paneled theater seats. Del was prowling the house, checking desks and bureaus and calendars and computer files. Twenty minutes after he began, he handed Lucas a piece of paper: an Iowa title transfer application from a Curtis Frank, of Des Moines, to a Larry Smith, of Oelwein, Iowa, on the purchase of a 1996 Jeep Cherokee, dated three weeks earlier.
    “Check the Oelwein address?” Lucas asked.
    “No, but I will. Bet you a buck it’s fake.”
    T HE ME HAD arrived, and after fussing around, checked the blood puddles and body temps. Sorrell and his wife had certainly been killed sometime after midnight, he said, and after he got some weights and checked the accuracy of the house thermostat and the floor-level temperatures, he said he could probably do better than that.
    “Off the top of my head, I’d say they were killed this morning,” he said. “They’re a little too warm to have lain on the floor all night, and the blood is a little too liquid. But we’ll have to do the numbers before we know for sure.”
    Sheriff Wilson was standing by the door and said, “Here come the feds. Just what we needed.”
    “Who?”
    “Lanny Cole and Jim Green. Pretty good guys, actually.”
    “Mmm. I know Cole, I don’t know Green.”
    Del came back and said, “There’s no such address in Oelwein. It’s fake. There is a Curtis Frank, and he says he sold the truck for cash. I talked to Des Moines homicide cops and they’ll take a picture of Sorrell down to his house for an ID.” He saw the men in suits coming up to the door and said, “Feebs.”
    C OLE, THE FBI agent, shook hands with the sheriff and said, “How ya doing, Brad?” and nodded at Lucas and asked, “They got any more jobs over there at the BCA?”
    “I got a slot for a female investigator,” Lucas said.
    “I can investigate females,” Cole said. “So what happened here?”
    Wilson and Lucas took him through it, Lucas connecting Sorrell with the hangings in Custer County. “I gotta call in on that,” Cole said, squatting next to Sorrell. “We got civil rights guys on the way to take a look at it. You say Hale did it?”
    “Most likely.”
    Cole nodded, and looked at his partner who said, “We knew something was seriously screwed up.”
    “Didn’t know it was that screwed up,” Cole said. He looked down at the body again and said, “Goddamnit, Hale. What’d you do?”
    “You guys want in on this act?” Lucas asked.
    Cole shook his head. “We’re gonna want to know all about it, if you could forward your findings . . . but we’re not going to get directly involved. We just don’t have the manpower, what with discovering Arab terror plots at the Washington County courthouse.”
    Sheriff Wilson looked at Lucas and said, “Doesn’t make any sense for us to do it—it doesn’t sound like the killer’s from around here. So you got it. I’ll call John McCord right now, and ask you in.”
    “Good enough,” Lucas said. “If your guys come up with anything, they can pass it up to me, and I’ll coordinate with Lanny and Jim.” To the feds: “Any problem getting your files on the kidnapping?”
    “I’ll talk to the SAC from here. We should be able to give you the file this afternoon.”
    Back to Wilson: “Can you handle the press down here?”
    “I can do that.”
    “So we’re set.”
    T HE FBI AGENTS visited, nothing more, and at noon they left. A BCA crime scene crew arrived from the Twin Cities, and Lucas eventually joined Del in turning over the house, looking at pieces of paper. They found nothing of interest, but couldn’t get into three of the Sorrells’ four computers.
    The two desk-top machines, one in a library and another in a home office, and a laptop in Sorrell’s briefcase, were password-protected, and would have to be cracked by computer people. A fourth laptop, apparently belonging to Mary Sorrell, was not protected, but contained nothing but letters, a personal calendar, and a few documents