Secret Prey

girl was coming for me.’’
    ‘‘HE DIED OF A HEART ATTACK,’’ DR. STEPHEN LANDIS said. Landis was a roughneck fifty-five, with sparkling gold-rimmed glasses and heavy boots under his jeans. A stuffed mallard, just taking wing, hung from the wall of the reception room, while a nine-pound walleye was mounted over his desk in his private office. ‘‘He’d been having some problems—cardiac insufficiency—and he wouldn’t stop drinking or smoking. I told him if he didn’t stop, he was gonna have a heart attack. And one day he keeled over. Drink and cigarette in hand.’’
    ‘‘He was smoking when he went?’’ Sherrill said.
    ‘‘Still had the cigarette between his fingers,’’ Landis said.
    ‘‘But you didn’t do an autopsy?’’ Lucas asked.
    Landis shrugged. ‘‘There didn’t seem to be a reason to do one. He’d been sick, it seemed apparent that it was the onset of a heart problem. And then he had a heart attack.’’
    ‘‘Aren’t you required to do an autopsy when the person didn’t die under a doctor’s immediate care?’’ Sherrill asked.
    ‘‘Not then. Back then, not everything was regulated by the legislature yet. You could use your judgment on occasion.’’
    ‘‘Did you ever treat Mrs. Lamb?’’ Lucas asked, injecting a slight chill into his voice.
    Landis’s eyes drifted away from Lucas’s. ‘‘I may have seen her a time or two, but the Lambs moved away, you know . . .’’
    ‘‘Did you ever treat her for injuries that might have been inflicted by her husband?’’
    ‘‘No, I didn’t. Well—you probably heard this from somebody else, or you wouldn’t be asking the question. There were rumors that George used to knock her around. And I had her in one time, and she had some bruises that looked like they might have come from a beating. She said she fell down the stairs. I doubted that, but the bruises were old and . . . I let it go. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but she wasn’t interested in talking about it.’’
    They sat in silence for a moment; then Lucas said, ‘‘No sign of anything but the symptoms of a heart attack.’’
    ‘‘Not that I could see.’’
    ‘‘And you examined the body carefully.’’
    ‘‘I examined it. Briefly.’’
    ‘‘No tissue cultures.’’
    ‘‘No.’’
    ‘‘You never came to suspect that anything unusual might have led to George Lamb’s sudden death.’’
    ‘‘No. He had heart trouble. If anything, I was expecting a heart attack.’’
    Outside, Sherrill said, ‘‘I see what you mean—another case of remarkable memory. Lamb had a cigarette between his fingers when he died.’’
    ‘‘There’s something here,’’ Lucas said, turning to look back at the front of the clinic. ‘‘I have trouble thinking what it might be.’’
    ‘‘Maybe she’s some kind of town philanthropist and gives them money or something, so they protect her,’’
    Sherrill suggested.
    ‘‘Have you seen her? She doesn’t look like she’d give a nickel to a starving man. And if it has been that, somebody would have mentioned it.’’
    ‘‘So what do you want to do?’’
    ‘‘Let’s go check into this motel. Get some dinner.’’
    LUCAS ALWAYS EXPECTED A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF AWKWARDNESS when he and a new woman friend got around a bed, and the room at the Sugar Beet Inn was basically a queen-sized bed, a television set, and bathroom; along with the built-in scent of disinfectant. Sherrill wasn’t quite as inhibited: she pulled off her jacket, tossed it on the chair, jumped on the bed, giving it a bounce, then hopped off to check the TV. ‘‘I wonder if they have dirty movies?’’
    ‘‘Give me a break,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Come on, let’s find a restaurant.’’
    ‘‘Too early. It’s barely five o’clock. I wanna take a shower and get the road off me,’’ she said. ‘‘You wanna take a shower?’’
    ‘‘If we take a shower, we’ll probably wind up on the bed, dealing with sexual issues,’’ he said, injecting a tone of disapproval into his voice. ‘‘We’re here on business.’’
    ‘‘Quit bustin’ my balls, Davenport,’’ she said. She pulled her sweatshirt over her head. ‘‘But if you want to sit out here and wait . . .’’
    ‘‘I suppose we’d save water if we both got in there.’’
    ‘‘And water is precious out here on the prairie.’’
    ‘‘Well, I mean, if it’s for the environment . . .’’
    THE DESK CLERK AT THE SUGAR BEET TOLD THEM TWO restaurants would