Secret Prey

worse than that,’’ Lester said. ‘‘St. Paul’s got a partial print, probably made by McDonald, on a shell from the gun that killed Arris.’’
    ‘‘Not good,’’ said Towson.
    ‘‘No—but all that proves is that McDonald loaded the gun. I’ll also say it seems that when O’Dell was shot in the head, the bullet might have come from the same gun. We can’t prove the gun-slug connection, because the slug, a hollowpoint, came apart in her head, and there was nothing left but fragments. But a spectroscopic analysis of the metal from the slug in O’Dell’s head and from the traces of a slug in the Arris killing suggests both came from the same batch of lead. We also have the gun—taken out of a car owned by McDonald but not driven by him since September—and the clip was full. But all the shells had his prints on them but the last two. The lead from those two came from a different batch, but the lead from the shells in the lower part of the magazine came from the same batch— probably the same batch—as the slugs that killed Arris and O’Dell.’’
    ‘‘You’d drive a jury nuts with this stuff,’’ said the criminal division guy.
    ‘‘There’s another point here. I think I can demonstrate by the recorded times of some cell phone calls that Wilson McDonald couldn’t have killed O’Dell. And if he couldn’t have killed her, then somebody else who knew where the gun was must have. Audrey McDonald. And like I said, I think we can show how it was done.’’
    ‘‘But you can’t definitively prove that was the gun that killed O’Dell.’’
    ‘‘No.’’
    ‘‘That’s a problem,’’ Towson said.
    They all sat in silence for a minute; then Kirk said, ‘‘ Pattern.’’
    Everybody nodded. Dunn said, ‘‘Pattern, plenty of motive, we knock down any sympathy she might get with the killing of her mother . . .’’
    ‘‘Which is more than balanced off by the fact that her mother apparently stood by while her father was fucking her,’’ Kirk said. ‘‘The defense puts a weeping woman on the stand who denies doing anything, but points out that if she did—which she didn’t—it certainly would have been justified, a fourteen-year-old girl getting the ol’ pork trombone from her own father. Matter of fact, if I was the defense attorney, I’d make the mother an accomplice. If Audrey’s as smart as this stuff makes her, she wouldn’t need too much of a hint to come up with something pretty lurid.’’
    ‘‘Which, if we could drive a wedge between Audrey and her sister, we might get the sister to refute . . . Is the sister as wacko as Audrey?’’
    ‘‘No. But there was a complaint filed with Child Protection a couple of days ago that she beat her daughter and gave her dope,’’ Lucas said.
    ‘‘Aw, Jesus.’’
    ‘‘But not justified,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘In fact, I think Audrey filed it.’’
    ‘‘Goddamn this woman.’’
    ‘‘I’m sure he will,’’ Lester said dryly. ‘‘But it’d be nice if we could get a few whacks in first.’’
    Towson leaned over his desk, looking at his deputy and the head of his criminal division: ‘‘I’ll tell you what, boys. We’re faced here with the usual sloppy police work that virtually ties us hand and foot, even as we have to take our cases before drooling liberal judges who don’t wish for anything finer than putting criminals back on the street where they can rape our Cub Scouts. However . . .’’
    ‘‘I wish I’d said that,’’ Lester said.
    ‘‘Part of a speech I’m writing,’’ Towson said. ‘‘ Seriously, Lucas, do you think she’s gonna kill anyone else in the next few days?’’
    ‘‘I don’t know who’d it be,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Me maybe— but I’m careful.’’
    ‘‘You be careful,’’ Towson said. ‘‘She apparently likes guns . . . Now listen. I’m looking through this memo, and I’m convinced. A trial is something else. Give me another few days’ work on this thing. Nail down that stuff about O’Dell. Give me something harder. Work out a really tight timetable, and find a way we can put her there to pull the trigger. And anything else. Even people willing to suggest that she did it. We need more hard evidence: anything would help.’’
    ‘‘What’re you going to do?’’
    ‘‘I’m thinking that we might charge her with everything,’’ Towson said. ‘‘All the murder counts, all the ag assaults. Put all the evidence together, argue the pattern.