Night Prey

there. Roux just got back. And then this TV3 thing—the chief is hot. Really hot.”
     
     
     
    ROUX WAS FURIOUS. She jabbed her cigarette at Lucas. “Tell me you didn’t have anything to do with it.”
    Lucas shrugged, looked at the others, and sat down. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
    Roux nodded, took a long drag on her cigarette; her office smelled like a bowling alley on league night. Lester sat in a corner with his legs crossed, unhappy. Anderson perched on a chair, peering owlishly at Roux through his thick-lensed glasses. “I didn’t think so,” Roux said. “But we all know who did.”
    “Mmm.” Lucas didn’t want to say it.
    “Don’t want to say it?” Roux asked. “I’ll say it. That fuckin’ Connell.”
    “Twelve minutes,” Anderson said. “Longest story TV3’s ever run. They must have had Connell’s file. They had every name and date nailed down. They dug up some file video on the Mercedes Bey killing. They used stuff they’d have never used back then, when they made it. And the stuff on Wannemaker, Jesus Christ, they had video of the body being hoisted out of the Dumpster, no bag, no nothing, just this big fuckin’ lump of guts with a face hanging off it.”
    “Shot it from the bridge,” Lucas said. “We saw them up there. I didn’t know the lenses were that good, though.”
    “Bey’s still an open file, of course,” Lester said, re-crossing his legs from one side to the other. “No statute of limitations on murder.”
    “Should have thought of that yesterday,” Roux said, getting up to pace the carpet, flicking ashes with every other step. Her hair, never particularly chic, was standing up in spots, like small horns. “They had Bey’s mother on. She’s this fragile old lady in a nursing-home housecoat, a face like parchment. She said we abandoned her daughter to her killers. She looked like shit, she looked like she was dying. They must’ve dumped her out of bed at three in the morning to get the tape.”
    “That video of Connell was pretty weird, if she’s the one who tipped them,” Anderson suggested.
    “Aw, they phonied it up,” Roux said, waving her cigarette hand dismissively. “I did the same goddamned thing when I was sourcing off the appropriations committee. They take you out on the street and have you walk into some building so it looks like surveillance film or file stuff. She did it, all right.” Roux looked at Davenport. “I’ve got the press ten minutes from now.”
    “Good luck.” He smiled, a very thin, unpleasant smile.
    “You were never taken off the case, right?” Her left eyebrow went up and down.
    “Of course not,” Lucas said. “Their source was misinformed. I spent the evening working the case and even developed a lead on a new suspect.”
    “Is that right?” The eyebrow again.
    “More or less,” Lucas said. “Junky Doog may be working at a landfill out in Dakota County.”
    “Huh. I’d call that a critical development,” Roux said, showing an inch of satisfaction. “If you can bring him in today, I’ll personally feed it directly and exclusively to the Strib. And anything else you get. Fuck TV3.”
    “If Connell’s their source, they’ll know you’re lying about not calling off the case,” Lester said.
    “Yeah? So what?” Roux said. “What’re they gonna do, argue? Reveal their source? Fuck ’em.”
    “Is Connell still working with me?” Lucas asked.
    “We’ve got no choice,” Roux snapped. “If we didn’t call off the investigation, then she must still be on it, right? I’ll take care of her later.”
    “She’s got no later,” Lucas said.
    “Jesus,” Roux said, stopping in midpace. “Jesus, I wish you hadn’t said that.”
     
     
     
    THE TV3 STORY had been a mélange of file video, with commentary by a stunning blond reporter with a distinctly erotic overbite. The reporter, street-dressed in expensive grunge, rapped out long, intense accusations based on Connell’s file; behind her, floodlit in the best Addams Family style, was the redbrick slum building where Mercedes Bey had been found slashed to death. She recounted Bey’s and each of the subsequent murders, reading details from the autopsy reports. She said, “With Chief Roux’s controversial decision to sweep the investigation under the rug . . .” and “With the Minneapolis police abandoning the murder investigation for what appear to be political reasons . . .” and “Will Mercedes Bey’s cry for justice be