Secret Prey

said.
    She disappeared inside and the cop looked over his shoulder at Lucas. Lucas said quietly, ‘‘Keep an eye on her. She’s not what she looks like.’’
    THE MCDONALDS HAD A SMALL CLUTTERED WORKSHOP area in one corner of the basement, nothing more than an old chest of drawers with two two-by-eight-foot sheets of three-quarter-inch plywood screwed together to make the top of a small workbench, and a couple of steel shelving units with plastic boxes for storage.
    Lucas had seen the workshop the first time in the house, after Wilson McDonald was shot. He went straight to it, checked all the tools. No glass cutter. He found a roll of black plastic electricians’ tape, which he bagged, but that seemed unlikely to be the tape they wanted. He walked once around the basement, looking behind the water heater, the furnace, through racks of paint cans and a pile of hoses and miscellaneous gardening equipment: no gallon glass jugs.
    Del was working the kitchen. When Lucas came back up the stairs, he said, ‘‘Got lots of tape. Duct, plastic mending, bunch of it.’’
    ‘‘Good. Bag it up,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Check the wastebaskets and her car, see if you come across any small balls of tape that might be the right length. Two would be good.’’ He went on through the living room, found that the carpet had been removed. Wilson McDonald’s blood hadn’t seeped through to the wooden floor, which looked freshly waxed.
    Sloan had run quickly through the bedroom, not expecting to find much, and had moved on to a large, first-floor guest room which had a walk-in closet the McDonalds used for general storage. This was where Audrey McDonald had gotten the shotgun with which she’d killed her husband. The closet was jammed with motoring, golf, and boating equipment, all of it apparently belonging to Wilson McDonald. The homicide cops investigating the shooting of Wilson McDonald had taken the gun and shells, but hadn’t dug into the back of the closet. Sloan hauled everything out, found nothing of special interest, and then, as an afterthought, was patting down the weather gear, life jackets, golf and hunting jackets.
    Just as Lucas walked in, he felt a heavy lump in the pocket of a golf jacket, and manipulated it out through the layers of cloth. Box of cartridges.
    ‘‘Gimme a bag,’’ he said to Lucas.
    ‘‘What is it?’’
    ‘‘Boo-lets,’’ he said.
    Lucas held the transparent plastic bag and Sloan manipulated the box into it. Lucas turned the box on its side and read: ‘‘.38 Remington. Excellent.’’
    Sloan stood up and said, ‘‘It’d be nice if her prints were on the box.’’
    ‘‘Yeah, but I’m not holding my breath.’’
    One of the uniformed cops stuck his head in the door: ‘‘Del says no glass cutter in the kitchen. No gallon jugs either.’’
    ‘‘Okay . . . check the garage.’’
    At the end of an hour, they still had no glass cutter or gallon jugs, but did have nine rolls of tape and the box of cartridges. Sherrill had been going through the house files again, and had pulled out a stack of Amoco credit card receipts; the McDonalds shared a single account, but the cards had separate numbers. ‘‘If they go back far enough, look for credit card charges in the Duluth area in the days before Ingall disappeared,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘We found an Amex charge in Chicago, the day before, for Wilson . . .’’
    ‘‘They go back that far . . .’’ She started flipping through them.
    A little more than an hour after the search started, McDonald’s attorney showed up. ‘‘What’s going on?’’
    Lucas said, ‘‘Search warrant. Mrs. McDonald has a copy. She’s in the TV room.’’ He pointed him through to the TV room, and Glass asked, ‘‘You really think there’s something going on here?’’
    ‘‘I ain’t doing it for the exercise,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘You’ve got a problem, I think.’’
    Glass wandered off to find McDonald, and the uniformed cop came back from the garage: ‘‘No jugs, no glass cutter.’’
    ‘‘Gonna have to give up on the jugs,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘The glass cutter could be anywhere, if she didn’t throw it away. Anybody look in the silverware drawer?’’
    Del looked at the cop, and they both shook their heads.
    ‘‘Watch this,’’ Lucas said. He pulled open drawers nears the sink, until he found the silverware drawer, then pulled that out all the way and stirred through the contents.
    Nothing. Same with the cooking