Secret Prey

don’t know,’’ Hanks said. His eyes drifted off to the ceiling. ‘‘Probably . . . well, he could have been heading back to the Kresge cabin. He was sort of going that way, in a roundabout way.’’
    ‘‘Could he have been going anywhere else?’’
    ‘‘Not that I know of.’’
    ‘‘How about this Pilot Lake place?’’
    ‘‘Nope. I was on that corner and he was walking . . .’’ He made a hand gesture, like a time-out signal. ‘‘This way to the access road.’’
    ‘‘Perpendicular,’’ Sherrill suggested.
    ‘‘Yeah. Like that,’’ Hanks said.
    ‘‘You didn’t hear a car start?’’
    ‘‘Nope. But I was quite a way from the house, and I was wearing my hat with earflaps . . . So I probably wouldn’t have.’’
    ‘‘Pink scarf,’’ said Lucas.
    ‘‘Pink scarf,’’ Hanks said.
    ‘‘WHAT’S THE PINK SCARF?’’ SHERRILL ASKED, AFTER they let Hanks go. They were sitting alone in the canteen, eating Twinkies from the coin-op.
    ‘‘Susan O’Dell wears a kaffiyeh as a scarf. It’s pale red and white—she was wearing it when I saw her Saturday.’’
    ‘‘What’s a kaffiyeh?’’
    ‘‘You know, one of those head wraps like Arabs wear,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Like what’s-his-name, the Palestinian guy, always wears.’’
    ‘‘Oh, yeah. Him. But his is black and white.’’
    ‘‘There’s another kind that’s red and white. And it would look pink from a distance, or pink and white.’’
    ‘‘He said pink.’’
    ‘‘O’Dell said she never left her tree before seven-thirty, when she shot her buck,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Then she gutted him and dragged him up to the trail and sat down next to her tree to wait until nine, which was the agreed-on time to take a break. Didn’t go anywhere.’’
    ‘‘I think it’s the car that’s interesting. If there wasn’t a car, it almost had to be one of those guys. Whoever it was had to know the Kresge place pretty well, and there’s no way you could walk in from very far away.’’
    ‘‘Yeah, but he’s pretty shaky on that car stuff,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘O’Dell would have been walking away from her tree stand if she was going in the direction Hanks said she was. She was definitely at her tree when Bone came by to pick her up at nine o’clock.’’
    ‘‘Maybe we push Miz O’Dell,’’ Sherrill said. ‘‘See which way she goes.’’
    ‘‘Not yet,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I want to go back up there, to Kresge’s, look around. And we need to know more about the bank-merger idea—of the three realistic candidates to run the bank, we have accusations against two of them, McDonald and O’Dell. All the accusations came in anonymously, from women. At least, we think the accusation pointing at McDonald came from a woman . . . So the question is, are they legit? Or are they meant to drag O’Dell and McDonald into an investigation that would eliminate them from contenders to run the bank.’’
    ‘‘You mean, by Bone? Or somebody working with Bone?’’
    ‘‘I’d hate to think so,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Because I kinda like the guy. But all of them are smart and tough. And the stakes are pretty big. Bone would be looking for an edge.’’
    ‘‘So we push Bone.’’
    ‘‘Let’s wait before we push anyone. Just a day or two . . . Let me get back up north.’’
    ‘‘Want me to come?’’
    Lucas looked at her as he finished his Twinkie. ‘‘If you want to. If you stay out of my goddamned life while I’m trapped in the car.’’
    She flushed and said, ‘‘I meant what I started out to say, before we got sidetracked. If you still want her, you’ve got to get off your ass and go after her. If you don’t, you’ll just . . . drift away. And you’ll never know for sure that it’s over. If you go after her, you’ll know pretty soon whether there’s any hope.’’
    ‘‘I’ll think about it,’’ he said.
    ‘‘So when are we going up north?’’
    ‘‘Tomorrow,’’ Lucas said, looking at his watch. ‘‘We should have some biographical stuff about the people McDonald supposedly killed: Let’s take a look at that.’’
    THEY WERE SIX BLOCKS FROM POLICE HEADQUARTERS when Sherrill’s telephone chirped. She fumbled it out of her jacket pocket one-handed, said, ‘‘Yeah?’’ and then passed the phone to Lucas. ‘‘Sloan,’’ she said.
    Lucas took the phone: ‘‘What’s going on?’’
    ‘‘I solved the Kresge case,’’ Sloan said laconically. ‘‘I had