Phantom Prey

tried to understand it, fumbled in her pocket for a key, felt the dampness of the fresh blood, could smell it, got the key in the ignition and set off.
    Then Fairy surged back, and with it the killing heat, and she hammered the little car down the street and out to I-94, blood on her hands and face, racing down the highway, looking for sanctuary.

14
    The usual scrum of official cars were parked outside Shockley’s house, along with two remote TV crews. Lucas parked off a fire hydrant on a side street, tossed his ID card on the dash, and walked back in the dark, zipping his leather jacket against the cold night air. His leg hurt. Not the fire, anymore, but an ache, as if one of his thigh muscles were clenching into a fist. He ignored it.
    He knew the uniform working the sidewalk, who said, “Hey, man,” and Lucas said, “Hey, Jerry.” The flash from a strobe reached out across the street at them, and Lucas blinked it away and said, “Looks like we got media.”
    “Yeah. They’re asking about the other ones, too. Ford and Carter, like the presidents.”
    “Shit.”
    There was a high-pitched whistle from across the street, the kind a movie New Yorker might use to hail a movie Yellow Cab. Lucas looked that way, and saw the Star Tribune crime reporter, Ruffe Ignace, drifting down the opposite sidewalk, looking at him, his cell phone to his ear.
    Lucas turned away and asked the cop, “Is Harry Anson up there?”
    “Yup. And the usual bunch.”
    On the way up the stairs, his cell phone rang and he took it out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID: Weather. She said, “Ruffe called here one minute ago, and said he saw you going into this woman’s house, and he wants to know if the three stabbings are related to Frances Austin.”
    “Ah, poop. What’d you tell him?”
    “I told him I was going to bed and not to call back,” Weather said.
    “But he’s figured it out.”
    “Yes, he has. And good luck and good night.”
    Anson was leaning on a second-floor banister, overlooking the stair-well, talking to an ME’s investigator. He saw Lucas coming and said, “Help!”
    “What the fuck happened?”
    “Patricia Shockley, stabbed eight or ten times, bled out in place. Probably two hours ago. Found by her roommate . . . Leigh . . .” He flipped a page in his notebook.
    “. . . Price,” Lucas said.
    “Price. Who is now next door.” He pointed down the hall with his pencil.
    Lucas climbed the last couple of steps. “Eight or ten times. So she was killed like Frances Austin. Not like the others.”
    Anson nodded. “Except that the body wasn’t moved. Other than that, and from looking at the Austin photos, I’d say they’re almost exactly alike. Bigger knife this time, but it looks like there was a struggle. Some blood got thrown around. Take a look.”
    The apartment was being processed, and Shockley’s body, still uncovered, lay spread-eagled on the floor six feet from the door. “Ah, Jesus,” Lucas said.
    “This will get in the papers and on television, and people will become extremely upset,” Anson said. He was pretending to be funny, but his voice wasn’t funny, and his eyes weren’t. “‘Why didn’t the police warn the people of the Twin Cities that a serial killer was roaming loose?’ I’m working out the answer in my little notebook.”
    “The answer is, because it wouldn’t do any fuckin’ good,” Lucas said. “We got the fairy’s face out there, looking for help . . .”
    “Not the same.”
    “Ah, fuck it. What have you got?”
    Anson said, “We have a witness who lives here, a Bob George, who looked out his window and saw an unfamiliar woman walking away from the house about the time of the murder. He’d heard a noise, but didn’t know what it was—he thinks now that it might have been a muffled scream. He lives downstairs from here, says he only heard the sound once, and so he didn’t look to see what it was. He’s heard other sounds like it, and wasn’t even sure it was in the house.”
    “Did she look like the fairy? The woman he saw leaving?”
    “No. He couldn’t see much of her, but she appeared to have lighter hair. Anyway, not black, or dark brown,” Anson said. “Something between blond and medium brown, but the lights aren’t so good outside, so he’s not sure. Just an impression.”
    “Body style?” Lucas asked.
    “Hard to tell. He was up here, the angle was bad.”
    “Gotta be the fairy. She’s changing her look.”
    Lucas was pissed and