Secret Prey

couch, and a tiny, tinny voice screamed ‘‘Susan? Susan, what was that? Susan?’’
    A real bad day for Susan O’Dell.

THIRTEEN

    LUCAS STEPPED OUT OF THE ELEVATOR, BRUSHED PAST a couple of uniformed cops in the hallway, stopped in O’Dell’s door and looked down at the body. She was lying flat on her back, her feet toed in, her nose pointed straight up. Her face had been ruined by the two gunshots; a small bloodstain was visible in the carpet below her skull. He could smell the blood.
    ‘‘What the fuck is this?’’ Lucas asked in anger and utter disgust. ‘‘What the fuck is it?’’
    An older plainclothes cop named Swanson was sitting in a ladder-back chair, flipping through an appointment book. ‘‘Same old shit,’’ he said. Swanson had seen maybe six hundred murders in his career. ‘‘Watch your feet, nothing’s been processed.’’
    His partner, who was named Riley, said, ‘‘We got that McDonald woman coming over. She was here just before the shooting.’’
    ‘‘Audrey McDonald? How do we know that?’’ Lucas asked. He was walking around O’Dell, peering down at the body as though a clue might be written on it.
    ‘‘O’Dell was on the phone with a friend from the bank when she was killed. The friend—uh, let me see, Louise Compton—called us, called 911. But anyway, just before
    O’Dell was killed, she told this Compton that Audrey McDonald had just left. We understand you’ve been talking to her. Audrey McDonald.’’
    ‘‘Never laid eyes on her,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Talked to her husband.’’ He squatted next to O’Dell, picked out the powder burns on her face. Small- to medium-caliber pistol, fired from a few inches away, he thought. ‘‘Got a slug?’’
    Swanson pointed a pistol at an entryway wall. ‘‘Right there . . . we’ll get it. And it looks like maybe the second shot was fired when she was already down, so it might be right under her head. Wooden floors.’’
    ‘‘What about this friend? Compton?’’
    ‘‘She’s on her way—ought to be here any minute, actually.’’
    ‘‘Let’s get something over her then,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Cover her up.’’
    ‘‘I’ll get it,’’ Riley said.
    ‘‘What time we got?’’ Lucas asked.
    ‘‘Compton called 911 at eleven-oh-four,’’ Swanson said. ‘‘She say she was on the phone, heard the shots, and when O’Dell didn’t come to the phone after she screamed for a few seconds, she called. So we figure it was a minute or two after eleven o’clock.’’
    ‘‘You know, Sloan and Sherrill have already interviewed everybody involved,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Maybe you ought to get them up here.’’
    ‘‘All right I’ll give ’em a ring.’’
    ‘‘Christ, what a mess,’’ Lucas said, turning away from the body. ‘‘She opens the door and bang. That’s all.’’
    ‘‘That’s about the way we see it . . . We called you because you’re up-to-date on this bank thing—we figured if it’s a goofball knocking off the top guys . . .’’
    ‘‘Doesn’t make sense,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘She’s the wrong one to get shot.’’
    ‘‘Huh?’’
    ‘‘We thought Kresge was shot because he was pushing a merge with a bigger bank. But O’Dell was going after his job on the basis of stopping the merger.’’
    Swanson said, ‘‘Maybe the merger doesn’t have anything to do with it. Maybe they were killed for some bank reason, but nothing to do with the merger.’’
    Lucas said, ‘‘I don’t know.’’
    ‘‘Whatever happened with the firebomb business?’’ Swanson asked.
    ‘‘Nothing. Just fuckin’ nothin’,’’ Lucas said. His mind switched tracks to the firebomb. And Knox, the Caterpillar man, was probably right, he thought. A kid in the neighborhood who liked to watch fires. But not a street action.
    RILEY PULLED A RUBBER SHEET OVER O’DELL’S BODY and stood up and turned. People in the hall. Then Wilson McDonald stepped through the door, jerked to a halt when he saw the figure on the floor, and said, ‘‘My God, is that her?’’ Audrey McDonald followed reluctantly, a foot or two behind, and peeked around her husband at the covered body. She reminded Lucas of a small, brown hen.
    Swanson was just punching off his cell phone: Sloan was on the way. ‘‘Who’re you?’’ Swanson asked.
    ‘‘Wilson and Audrey McDonald . . .’’ McDonald spotted Lucas emerging from the kitchen hallway. Lucas had taken a quick tour of the apartment after