Phantom Prey

supermarket parking lot. She smelled like woman-hair and Chanel. She wiggled her butt once for his benefit, and then gave him an elbow and said, “We’ve got to talk.”
    “Uh-oh.”
    "I saw alyssa today,” Weather said, turning around. She was a Finn, through and through. A surgeon, a small woman with pale watchful eyes who saw herself as Management, and Lucas as Labor; or possibly saw herself as a Carpenter, and Lucas as Raw Lumber. “Actually, I didn’t so much see her, as she came to see me when I was working out. About you.”
    “Ah . . .” He shook his head. “Nothing new on her kid?”
    “Nothing new—but it’s not that. Did you see the story about the murder in Minneapolis, night before last?”
    “The bartender,” Lucas said.
    There’d been two murders in Minnesota that day. Since one of the victims had been young, blond and female, with large, firm breasts, the bartender had gotten short shrift from television, even though his had been the more interesting crime, in Lucas’s opinion, and the blonde had been inconveniently placed in Lake Superior.
    “He was a Goth,” Weather said. “He ran with the same group as Frances. Alyssa says the Minneapolis cops don’t have a clue, but came to talk to her because of the similarity of the killings. She said there was so much blood with Frances—”
    “We’re not sure about that,” Lucas said. He looked in the sack of groceries, saw the white pastry bag, peeked inside. Cinnamon rolls. The small, tasty, piecrust kind. He took one out and popped it in his mouth. “Could have been a little bit of blood, but widely smeared.”
    “But no viscera or skin,” Weather said. “Just blood.”
    “Wouldn’t have much if she were stabbed in the heart through her blouse. The blouse works like a strainer,” he mumbled through the crumbs.
    “Not the case with the bartender,” Weather said. A surgeon, she was familiar with the ways of blood. “I walked over and talked to Feeney. He says the guy was really ripped. Big, heavy knife with a long blade—could have been a hunting knife, but more likely was a butcher knife. Extremely sharp. Went in at the navel, was pulled up and out, and sliced right through the aortal artery. Also dumped out some of the contents of the stomach. The person who did it was strong, and close. To get that kind of a pull, even with a sharp knife, you’d need to be right up against the victim, so you could get the biceps into it. Be like lifting a dumbbell. So Feeney says.”
    Feeney was a Hennepin County assistant medical examiner and worked just down the street from the Hennepin County Medical Center, where Weather did most of her work.
    “So what are we talking about?” Lucas asked.
    “Alyssa would like you to take a look,” Weather said. “So would I.”
    “I took a look,” Lucas said.
    “You read some reports,” Weather said. “I’m talking about a serious look. She didn’t come straight to you, because she knows what you think.”
    “She’s a fuckin’ wack job,” Lucas said.
    “Lucas: she believes in you,” Weather said, taking one of his hands, looking into his eyes, manipulating like crazy. “That you can find her daughter.”
    He pulled away, held his hands up: helpless, hopeless. “Weather: Alyssa believes her daughter was killed because her Pluto was in her House of Donald Duck. Because of the stars and the moon. That we can find her if we hire the appropriate psychic. I can’t talk to the woman. Twenty minutes and I want to strangle her.”
    “Then give her fifteen minutes,” Weather said.
    "Weather . . .”
    “She looks dreadful,” Weather said, pressing. “She loses her husband, she loses her daughter. All she wants is a little help, and all she gets is a bunch of flatfeet.”
    “Minneapolis guys are pretty good,” Lucas said. He popped another cinnamon roll. “They only look like a bunch of flatfeet.”
    “But Minneapolis isn’t working her case,” Weather said. “They only came to see her because of this dead bartender’s connection to Frances—some other Goth told them about the connection.”
    "So . . .”
    “But she says they think it’s a waste of time,” Weather said. “She could tell by the way they asked the questions. And then . . .”
    “What?”
    “She says your investigator thinks she may be involved. With whatever happened to Frances. She says that’s all they can think of. They don’t have any real suspects, so they suspect her, and they stopped looking for