Phantom Prey

“Jim and I are sort of running in parallel,” Lucas said.
    “Okay—well, I can tell you she was stabbed eight times in the stomach and chest.”
    “Ripped open? Or stuck?”
    “Stuck,” Pratt said. “In and out. Short weapon, thin blade. A little tearing, but not like a positive effort to rip. More like the victim was twisting away from the knife. Benson told me that you guys were thinking about a paring knife. The wounds are consistent with that.”
    “But no knife.”
    “No. We walked the ditches with metal detectors, but everything seems to be contained within the plastic sheet. The killer drove along until there were no cars coming, threw her body in the ditch, and drove away. The plastic sheet is the stuff you can get at Lowe’s or Home Depot or anyplace else. And, this could be important, there was some oil in there, that we think came with plastic. It’s not regular oil, it’s transmission fluid.”
    “You got that back from the lab?”
    “No—one of our guys looked at it and sniffed it, but I believe him,” Pratt said. “What I’m thinking is, maybe she was transported, wrapped in the plastic, in a work truck or a pickup, where you might have some tools or other gear. Engine parts. From talking to Benson, I got the impression that the killers were in a hurry to get out of the house. And he checked with Mrs. Austin, and she said they hadn’t had any painting done recently. So I’m thinking that the killers had the plastic with them. So maybe a painter’s truck? Or somebody else who’d have a plastic sheet in their truck. Anyway, if we can find the truck, we might be able to match the transmission fluid. That stuff is sticky, and it’s hard to clean up.”
    “That’s something,” Lucas said, and it was. “Any other debris with it? Leaves, or anything organic, or paint? Carpet fibers? Something we could put with the transmission fluid to triangulate on the truck, when we find it?”
    “Don’t know yet,” Pratt said. “The lab stuff won’t be back for a while—we’re pushing it, but you know: it takes time. We’re going over the plastic sheet with a microscope. I’ll tell you, the transmission fluid was sticky as hell, so if anything else was floating around in the truck, it probably picked it up.”
    “That’s good; that’s good,” Lucas said. “What else?”
    “Well, she had a coat wrapped around her legs and there are no holes in the coat, so she wasn’t wearing it when she got stabbed. I don’t know if that means anything.”
    It did, Lucas thought, going back to his reenactment. It meant that she’d had time to take off her coat in the house, which probably meant that she wasn’t ambushed in the dark. “They were trying to cover up the killing, probably just threw it in,” Lucas said. “But get Mrs. Austin to ID it.”
    “Yup. And there was about a half-roll of paper towels soaked in blood, and you can see where somebody held them, squinched them, and one of our guys thinks we might be able to get something out of there. Prints. I have my doubts.”
    “Sounds unlikely.”
    “You gotta know the guy,” Pratt says. “He watches all the science shows.”
    “Anything else?”
    “If you mean, did she scratch ‘John did it’ on her palm—she didn’t.”
    “Okay. Get me all the paper on it, will you? I’m trying to pile up as much stuff as I can . . . copy everything that you send to Jim.”
    “I’ll do that,” Pratt said. “One more thing. The ME says there’s so much damage that she bled out in a minute or two. So the murder was done in Sunfish. You guys still got the case.”
    Lucas got benson on the phone and asked, “Have you talked to Alyssa Austin this morning?”
    “No, I haven’t. You want me to?”
    “I’ll go. You got any ideas?”
    “I’m just watching you, man—you’re the guy who got shot, so there’s gotta be something there. I’ll take care of the lab stuff.”
    Austin was on the phone when the housekeeper let Lucas in, and her mother was still there, fussing around the kitchen, and gave Lucas a cup of coffee. She said her husband was at the funeral home, making financial arrangements, and that Austin was turning her business over to her Number Two. She still hadn’t been told when Dakota County would release the body, but it could yet be several days, she said.
    When Austin got off the phone, she came to him with a smile and gave him a hug, but she looked pale and thin and dry, and felt that way when she squeezed him: