Rules of Prey

trying to get him moving.”
    “Unpleasant.”
    “Yeah. It just drags things out. I’ve been over here a half-dozen times. I’m tired of it.”
    “Got time for a cup of coffee?” Lucas asked, tilting his head toward the cafeteria.
    “Ah, no, I guess not.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to be in the judge’s chambers in twelve minutes.”
    “I’ll walk you down to my corner,” Lucas said. They fell in together and started toward the tunnel that led to the county courthouse. “Sorry about that weird call last night.”
    “That’s okay. This morning I almost thought it was a dream. Did it help?”
    “Oh, I guess. I was thinking maybe a doctor did it. Maybeall the women had the same doctor or something. You just about eliminated that possibility.”
    “Bet that made you happy,” she said, smiling again.
    “It’s early,” he said. They walked along for a minute and Lucas said, “We might have a problem. Involving you.”
    “Oh?” She was suddenly serious.
    “One of the television stations got a tip about you. A reporter, Jennifer Carey, is in talking to the chief right now. She wants an interview.”
    “Is he going to give her my name?”
    “No. He’s going to put her off, but it can’t hold up. Carey’s got good sources over in St. Paul. Sooner or later, she’ll find out, and she’ll harass the hell out of you.”
    “So what do we do?”
    “We’ve been thinking it might be better to give her an interview and then give the rest of the stations a press conference with you. Get it over with. That way, we can control it. You won’t have people hitting you by surprise.”
    She thought it over, her face downcast.
    “I don’t trust those people. Especially TV.”
    “Carey’s about the best of them,” Lucas said. “She’s a friend of mine, to tell you the truth. I didn’t tell her about you, though. I don’t know where she got the information. Maybe from St. Paul.”
    “Would she really be okay?”
    “She’d probably do the most sensitive job. After it was done, we’d get you out of town for a few days. When everything cooled off, you could slide back in quietly and probably be okay.”
    “Can I think about it?” Carla asked.
    “Sure. The chief will probably call you about it.”
    “If I went out of town, would the city pay? It’s not like I’m rich.”
    “I don’t know. You could ask the chief. Or if you want to, you can stay in my cabin. I’ve got a place on a lake up north, in Wisconsin. It’s a pretty place, quiet, out-of-the-way.”
    “That might be okay,” she said. “Let me think.”
    “Sure.”
    There was a long moment of silence which Lucas broke by asking, “So how long have you been divorced?”
    “Almost three years. He’s a photographer. He’s not a bad guy. He even has some talent, but he doesn’t use it. He doesn’t do anything. He just sits around. Other people work, he sits. One of the reasons I’m so anxious to get the money out of the house is that it was my money.”
    “Ah. Good reason.”
    “I’m looking forward to Aerosmith tonight,” she said, “I mean, if it’s still on.”
    “Sure it’s on,” Lucas said. He stopped at a branching corridor. “I turn here. See you at six?”
    “Yes. And I’ll think about the TV thing.” She walked on, half-turned to wave, and kept going. Nice, he thought as he watched her go.
     
    Mary Rice was not very bright. She sat slumped on a kitchen chair, looking nervously at Lucas and Harrison Sloan, the second detective assigned to talk to her. Sloan had the ingratiating manner of a vacuum-cleaner salesman.
    “It’s very essentially important that we get a complete list from you,” he purred, scooting his chair an inch closer to Rice’s. He looked like a gynecologist on an afternoon soap opera, Lucas decided. “We would like to get a calendar or something, so we could figure out week by week and day by day who your husband saw.”
    “I won’t tell you the man who gave me the gun,” she said, her lower lip quivering.
    “That’s okay. I talked to him last night and that’s all worked out,” Lucas assured her. “We do need to know everybody else.”
    “There aren’t very many. I mean, we never had a lot of friends, and then one or two of them died. When Larry got his cancer, some of the others stopped coming around. Larry had to wear this bag come out of his side, you know . . .”
    “Yeah,” said Lucas, wincing.
    “There’ll still be quite a few people,” said