Night Prey

gonna be much help to you. I don’t know what you and Connell are into, where your heads are at—but I really want to do my own thing. And I already been to a fuckin’ dump today.”
    “We need somebody else current with the case,” Lucas said. “You’re the guy. I want somebody else seeing these people, talking to them.”
    Greave rubbed his hair with both hands, then said, “All right, all right, I’ll go along. But—if we’ve got time, we stop at my apartment, right?”
    Lucas shrugged. “If we’ve got time.”

    CONNELL WAS WAITING on a street corner in Woodbury, under a Quick Wash sign, wearing Puritan black-and-white, still carrying the huge purse. An automotive diagnostic center sprawled down the block.
    “Been here long?” Greave asked. He was still pouting.
    “One minute,” she said. She was strung out, hard energy overlying a deep weariness. She’d been up all night, Lucas thought. Talking to the TV. Dying.
    “Have you talked to St. Paul?” he asked.
    “They’re dead in the water,” Connell said, impatience harsh in her voice. “The cop at the bookstore was one of theirs. He drinks too much, plays around on his wife. A guy over there told me that he and his wife have gotten physical. I guess one of their brawls is pretty famous inside the department—his wife knocked out two of his teeth with an iron, and he was naked chasing her around the backyard with a mop handle, drunk, bleeding all over himself. The neighbors called the cops. They thought she’d shot him. That’s what I hear.”
    “So what do you think?”
    “He’s an asshole, but he’s unlikely,” she said. “He’s an older guy, too heavy, out of shape. He used to smoke Marlboros, but quit ten years ago. The main thing is, St. Paul is covering like mad. They’ve been called out to his house a half-dozen times, but there’s never been a charge.”
    Lucas shook his head, looked at the diagnostic center. “What about this woman?”
    “Mae Heinz. Told me on the phone that she’d seen a guy with a beard. Short. Strong-looking.”
    Lucas led the way inside, a long office full of parts books, tires, cutaway muffler displays, and the usual odor of antifreeze and transmission fluid. Heinz was a cheerful, round-faced woman with pink skin and freckles. She sat wide-eyed behind the counter as Connell sketched in the murder. “I was talking to that woman,” Heinz said. “I remember her asking the question. . . .”
    “But you didn’t see her go out with a man?”
    “She didn’t,” Heinz said. “She went out alone. I remember.”
    “Were there a lot of men there?”
    “Yeah, there were quite a few. There was a guy with a ponytail and a beard and his name was Carl, he asked a lot of questions about pigs and he had dirty fingernails, so I wasn’t too interested. Everybody seemed to know him. There was a computer guy, kind of heavyset blond, I heard him talking to somebody.”
    “Meyer,” Connell said to Lucas. “Talked to him this morning. He’s out.”
    “Kind of cute,” Heinz said, looking at Connell and winking. “If you like the intellectual types.”
    “What about . . . ?”
    “There was a guy who was a cop,” Heinz said.
    “Got him,” Lucas said.
    “Then there were two guys there together, and I thought they might be gay. They stood too close to each other.”
    “Know their names?”
    “No idea,” she said. “But they were very well-dressed. I think they were in architecture or landscaping or something like that, because they were talking to the author about sustainable land use.”
    “And the guy with the beard,” Connell said, prompting her.
    “Yeah. He came in during the talk. And he must’ve left right away, because I didn’t see him later. I sorta looked. Jesus—I could of been dead. I mean, if I’d found him.”
    “Was he tall, short, fat, skinny?”
    “Big guy. Not tall, but thick. Big shoulders. Beard. I don’t like beards, but I liked the shoulders.” She winked at Connell again, and Lucas covered a grin by scratching his face. “But the thing is,” she said to Connell, “you asked about smoking, and he snapped a cigarette into the street. I saw him do it. Snapped a cigarette and then came in the door.”
    Lucas looked at Connell and nodded. Heinz caught it. “Was that him?” she asked excitedly.
    “Would you know him if we showed you a picture of him?” Lucas asked.
    She cocked her head and looked to one side, as though she were running a video through her head.