Night Prey

rifles, and their ID guys got good prints. And they found bolt cutters and a crowbar in his truck, and the tool-marks guy matched them to the marks on a gunshop door out in Wayzata.”
    “So what’s left? On the murder case?”
    “God, I don’t know. But I feel like things are moving.”
    Lucas spent the late evening in the study, going through Anderson’s book on the case—all the paper that anybody had brought in, with the histories that Greave had completed. Weather came to the door in her cotton nightgown and said, “Be extra quiet when you come to bed. I’ve got a heavy one tomorrow.”
    “Yeah.” He looked up from the paper, his hair in disarray, discouraged. “Christ, you know, there’s so much stuff in here, and so much of it’s bullshit. The stuff in this file, you could spend four years investigating and never learn a fuckin’ thing.”
    She smiled and came over and patted his hair back into place, and he wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her close, so he could lean his head between her breasts. There was something animal about this: it felt so good, and so natural. Like momma. “You’ll get him,” she said.
     
     
     
    AN HOUR LATER, he was puzzling over Anderson’s note on the deaf people. Everything sounded right: a guy with a beard, going to the bookstore, in a truck. How in the hell did they screw up the license so bad? He glanced at his watch: one o’clock, too late to call anybody at St. Paul. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Maybe something would bubble to the surface of his mind. . . .

20
    KOOP BROUGHT A sack of Taco Bell soft tacos to the rooftop, tossed the sack on top of the air-conditioner housing, and pulled himself up after it. There was still enough light that Sara Jensen might see him if she looked out her window, so he duckwalked across the housing until he was behind the exhaust vent.
    Putting the tacos aside, he shook the Kowa scope out of its canvas case and surveyed the apartment. Where was the blond guy? Had he come back? His heart was chilly with the fear. . . .
    The drapes from both rooms were open, as usual. Sara Jensen was nowhere in sight. The bathroom door was closed.
    Satisfied for the moment, Koop settled in behind the vent, opening the tacos, gulping them down. He dripped sour cream on his jacket: Shit. He brushed the sour cream with a napkin, but there would be a grease stain. He tossed the napkin off the edge off the housing, then thought, I shouldn’t do that, and made a mental note to pick it up before he left.
    Ten minutes after he arrived, Sara Jensen walked—hurried—out of the bathroom. She was nude, and the thrill of her body ran through him like an electric current, like a hit of speed. He put the scope on her as she sat at her dressing table and began to work on her makeup. He enjoyed seeing this, the careful work under the eyes, the touch-up of the lashes, the sensuous painting of her full lips. He dreamed about her lips. . . .
    And he loved to watch her naked back. She had smoothly molded shoulders, the ripple of her spine from the top of her round ass straight to the nape of her neck. Her skin was fine, clear—one small dark mole on her left shoulder blade, the long, pale neck . . .
    She stood, turned toward him, face intent, her breasts bobbing, the gorgeous pubic patch . . . She dug through her dresser, looking at what? Underwear? She pulled on a pair of underpants, took them off, threw them back, pulled on a much briefer pair, looked at herself in the mirror. Looked again, backed away, pulled the bottom elastic of her pants away from her thighs, let it snap back, turned to look at her butt.
    And Koop began to worry.
    She found a bra to go with the pants, an underwired bra, perhaps: it seemed to push her up. She didn’t really need it, he thought, but it did look good. She turned again, looking at her self, snapped the elastic on her pants leg again.
    Posed.
    She was pleased with herself.
    “What are you doing, Sara?” Koop asked. He tracked her with the scope. “What the fuck are you doing?”
    She disappeared into a closet and came back out with a simple dark dress, either very dark blue or black. She held it to her breasts, looked into the mirror, shook her head at herself, and went back into the closet. She came back out with blue jeans and a white blouse, held them up, put them on, tucked in the shirt. Looked at herself, made a face in the mirror, shook her head, went back into the closet, emerged with