Secret Prey

think of you as a friend.’’
    ‘‘Right.’’ She rolled her eyes. ‘‘Actually, I don’t think he was actually looking for friendship when he started squiring me around. He was looking . . .’’ She grinned at him, not a bad smile at all. ‘‘Why am I telling you this?’’
    ‘‘Because of my open face and genuine curiosity?’’
    ‘‘ ’Cause you’re a trained interrogator, that’s why. When I was in college, we called you pigs.’’
    ‘‘When I was in college, I called us pigs,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘So what was he looking for when he started taking you around?’’
    ‘‘Sex,’’ she said, ingenuously. ‘‘Any place, any time . . . Some of the girls around the bank call him the Boner, if you know what I mean.’’
    ‘‘All right,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Listen, the reason I came by . . .’’
    ‘‘Bet nobody would ever call you that,’’ Ollsen said. ‘‘The Boner.’’
    ‘‘Only ’cause I carry a big leather sap in my pocket,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I’d beat the tar out of them.’’
    ‘‘Oh, it’s a sap. And I just thought you were happy to see me.’’
    Lucas held up his hands: ‘‘All right, you win the war of wits.’’ And they both laughed. ‘‘But listen, the real reason I came around: You know about the Kresge killing, of course. We’re investigating it, and I’m wondering how well you know Wilson McDonald?’’
    A sudden wariness appeared in her eyes, and she put a hand to her throat. ‘‘You think Wilson did it?’’
    ‘‘No, we don’t think anything, just yet. But he was one of the four people up there when Kresge . . .’’
    ‘‘Bit the bullet?’’
    ‘‘Exactly the words I was looking for,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Anyway: How well do you know McDonald?’’
    ‘‘My parents knew the family quite well . . .’’
    ‘‘Does Wilson McDonald beat his wife?’’
    ‘‘Ah, Jesus,’’ she said, softly. ‘‘I wondered what Jim told you. What are you going to do, blackmail him with it? Wilson?’’
    ‘‘Domestic violence is not my department,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I’m just trying to get a reading on him, what kind of a guy he is.’’
    Again, she hesitated, and Lucas added, ‘‘This is all informal. There won’t be any record of what you say.’’
    ‘‘But you could subpoena me.’’
    ‘‘If it got to that point, you’d be morally obliged to tell us anyway,’’ Lucas said.
    She thought about that for a moment, then said, ‘‘I was at a pool party last summer—Rush and Louise Freeman, he runs Freeman-Hoag.’’
    ‘‘The advertising agency.’’
    ‘‘Yes. Wilson got drunk. He was getting loud and he went into the pool with his clothes on—Audrey said he fell, but I saw it, and he looked like he was jumping in. Anyway, we got him out, and Audrey walked him around the house out toward their car, and they started arguing. And Louise went over to Rush—I was talking to Rush— and she said something like, ‘Rush, you better go around, they’re starting to argue.’ Something about the way she said it. So Rush went around the house, and I followed, and we both came around the corner just in time to see Wilson hit her right in the head. He just swatted her and knocked her down. Rush ran over and they started arguing, and I thought Wilson was going to fight him. But Audrey got up and said she was all right, and I got between the two guys. And they went off.’’
    ‘‘Nobody called the police?’’ Lucas asked.
    ‘‘No.’’
    ‘‘I thought that was the correct thing to do,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I mean with the lawer-doctor-advertising set. No violence.’’
    She nodded. ‘‘I’ll tell you what, buster. If any guy ever hit me like that, his ass would be in jail ten minutes later. But . . . sometimes things are more complicated. Audrey didn’t want it. She said he was drunk and didn’t mean anything.’’
    ‘‘So that was the end of it.’’
    ‘‘Yes. Then, anyway. I was talking to Louise afterwards, and she said that he’d beaten her up before. A couple of times a year.’’
    ‘‘And she’d know?’’
    ‘‘Yes . . . She’s a little younger. Louise is. She’s Rush’s second wife, used to be his secretary. She knows Audrey’s younger sister pretty well, I don’t know how. The sister told Louise that Wilson beats up Audrey a couple of times a year. Sometimes pretty badly.’’
    ‘‘Do you think Wilson McDonald could have killed Kresge?’’
    ‘‘Yes,’’ she said.