Secret Prey

‘‘Any more goddamn clues and we’ll have to get a secretary to keep track of them.’’
    ‘‘Jim Bone,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Huh.’’
    WHEN WEATHER LEFT LUCAS, SHE’D STAYED WITH THE Manettes for a couple of weeks, then had taken over the lease on a small house being vacated by a University Hospitals surgical resident. Lucas had cruised it in city cars a half-dozen times, hoping to get a glimpse of her. He never had, but he knew the house.
    Now he cruised it again, a ranch-style house of stone and clapboard that reminded him of his own house. It looked much the same as it always had, except that the front picture window, which looked out across the flagstone walk, was covered by a piece of unpainted plywood; and the eaves over the window were stained with soot.
    He pulled into the driveway, got out, walked up to the front of the house, and peered through the small windows that flanked the center window. He was looking in at the front room: the place was a jumble of scorched furniture and carpeting, with burned drywall panels hanging down from the ceiling, books scattered across the floor in sodden clumps. He could smell the smoke and the water and the burned fiberglass insulation. No gasoline.
    He stepped back, and as he turned to leave, noticed a woman watching from next door: she wasn’t hiding, and didn’t pretend to be doing anything else. She’d come outside to watch him. He headed toward her, dug out his identification.
    ‘‘Hello. I’m Deputy Chief of Police Lucas Davenport from Minneapolis; I’m a friend of Weather’s.’’
    The frown on her face eased a bit, and she tried on a smile. ‘‘Oh, good. I’ve been trying to keep an eye on the place since last night.’’
    ‘‘Thanks. I, uh, I’m on my way to talk to your police chief out here, and I thought I’d take a look . . . Listen, do you know if anybody saw anything last night? Or heard anything?’’
    ‘‘Nobody in my house heard anything until the fire engines, but Jane Yarrow across the street heard the window break. She said she didn’t know it was a window breaking until later. She just heard something . And then she heard a car door slam, but she didn’t get up until she heard the sirens. And that was about it—nothing like this ever happened here before.’’
    THE CHIEF WAS OUT WHEN LUCAS ARRIVED AT EDINA, but he was routed to a Detective James Brown. Brown was a tall, shambling man with a shock of white hair; he wore a rough tweed sportcoat with suede elbow patches, a blue oxford cloth shirt, and khakis with boat shoes. He looked like a professor of ancient languages.
    ‘‘Not the James Brown?’’ Lucas asked.
    ‘‘Why yes, I am,’’ Brown said modestly. ‘‘This is my disguise: keeps the groupies off.’’
    ‘‘Excellent strategy,’’ Lucas said. He dropped into a chair beside Brown’s desk.
    Brown looked down at a file open on his desk, sighed, and said, ‘‘I understand you have a personal relationship with Weather Karkinnen.’’
    ‘‘Had one; she broke it off,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I can’t prove to you where I was at three o’clock this morning, ’cause I was home in bed, alone. But . . .’’ He shrugged. ‘‘I didn’t do it.’’
    ‘‘And even if you did, that’s a pretty goddamn unbreakable alibi,’’ Brown said.
    Lucas said, ‘‘Hey . . . I didn’t do it.’’
    Brown sighed again and asked, ‘‘The chief told you about the scoring on the bottle?’’
    ‘‘Yeah. He said it looked like a pro job.’’
    ‘‘That’s what the fire guys say. You get a regular bottle, it might bounce, it might not even break. But with the scoring, it explodes when it hits the floor. Very fast, very efficient. What we think is, the bomber came in from the north, idled to a stop in front of the house, got out, leaving the car door open, walked up to the front of the house with the jug, flashed the wick with a cigarette lighter, and heaved it through the window. The whole thing, I timed it, would be ten to fifteen seconds, walking, from the time he got out of the car to the time he got back in. Then he rolled off down the street, around the corner, four blocks down to the highway, and back to Minneapolis. He was on the highway before Ms. Karkinnen even called 911.’’
    ‘‘Who owns the place?’’
    ‘‘A couple named Bartlett—they’re down in Florida. They’d rented it to a doctor for the past eight years, and then to your friend. Strictly an income property for