Phantom Prey

High Wire Long hemp rolling papers that might have been there before Willett moved in.
    Willett, in fact, had curled his lip at the suggestion: “Wires? We don’t need no stinkin’ wires,” he said, which had made Lucas laugh despite himself.
    And that was it. The most worrying thing was that Lucas was sure that they’d find some sign of the fifty thousand dollars, but there hadn’t been a thing.
    Willett, aside from the occasional stressed-out joke, was suitably desperate, but wasn’t giving any ground. He didn’t do anything, he didn’t know anything.
    A call came, from a South St. Paul police officer named Janice Loomis-Smith. She said, “Hi, this is Janice Loomis-Smith, down in South St. Paul? I sat next to you at the symposium on tool mark evidence?”
    “Hey, Janice, how are you?” He remembered her as a frizzy-haired piece of leather who’d spent two years in Iraq. Smart. “What’s up?”
    “We got what you call your anomalous situation. We got this dude named Xai Xiong, street racer guy. His car burned up off Concord Street, this Honda Prelude, burned right down to the ground. Apparently arson—somebody filled it up with gasoline, and it blew; I guess you could see the fire for a mile, all the way across the river. Anyway, we tracked it down through VIN, and went and talked to Xiong. He swears that he sold it a month ago. There’s this informal sales lot down off Highway 36 near Stillwater—people park their cars with For Sale signs in them.”
    “I know where that is,” Lucas said patiently. “It’s over where that apple orchard used to be.”
    “Right. Anyway, he said he sold it to a woman who gave him cash, and he signed the papers and she took them and said she’d file them later. She never did—I mean, if he’s telling the truth. Anyway, the reason I’m calling . . .”
    “Yeah,” he said, still patient.
    “. . . Is that he said the woman was the spitting image of this woman whose face has been in the paper. The fairy woman.”
    “Far out,” Lucas said. Though it sounded weak. “Give me his name again.”
    Then jackson, the photographer, called and said, “I got your Ricky Davis guy.”
    “Yeah? Well, I’m sittin’ here with my dick in my hand—might as well drag some pictures around town.”
    “Might want to wash your hands first,” Jackson said.
    Emily wau saw him as he walked into the bank and waved cheerfully. “I saw in the paper that you arrested the good-looking guy,” she said. “Dating him would have been a mistake, huh?”
    “Maybe,” Lucas said. “But maybe not.”
    “You’ve got another picture?”
    “One more—a guy named Ricky Davis.”
    “I don’t remember the name,” she said. Lucas handed her the photograph, and she looked at it for a long time, then her dark brown eyes flicked up at him and she said, “I opened an account for him last fall.”
    Lucas recoiled in surprise, then smiled. “You’re sure.”
    “Yes. I’m sure.” She wandered back to her desk and sat down, elbows on the desktop, fingers massaging her temples for a moment. She looked up and said, “I don’t think he said his name was Ricky, but I can remember a little bit. I had the impression that he’d never opened a bank account before, or maybe it had been a while, though he’s not that old . . . he seemed really unsure about what he was doing. What’s important is—I mean, for you—is that I gave him a lot of literature inside one of these folders.”
    She opened a bottom desk drawer and pulled out a slick-paper folder with a picture of a paddlewheel steamer on it, and “Riverside Banks, the Home-Grown Alternative.”
    Lucas said, “That’s important? Why?”
    “Because he seemed interested in all the financing options . . . farm financing, if I remember correctly,” Wau said. “I bet he kept it. If he kept it, my fingerprints will be all over it, and then we’ll know that he was the one.”
    “You’re a pretty smart cookie,” Lucas said. “Thank you.”
    Lucas thought about it as he drove back into town. Del, he thought, was probably at the apartment. If Siggy came in, he’d be running early—but he was coming, and the watch had gone full-time.
    Lucas went that way.
    Del was sitting at the desk, reading a thin paperback, when Lucas came through the apartment door. He glanced back at Lucas and then said, “Heather is putting stuff in a couple of suitcases.”
    “Huh.”
    “Yeah. Those windows bother me, though. Wide open like that. If