Secret Prey

And nobody knew what jobs would be lost yet. And why would he kill O’Dell, who’d taken a stand against the merger?
    The killing of O’Dell, Lucas decided, had been an insane risk. Neither the McDonalds nor Bone’s group had enough to gain by killing her, to take the risk. If anybody had come along while the killer was going up and down in the elevator, they’d have been cooked . . .
    Lucas frowned, thought about that for a minute, then called Dispatch. ‘‘Is Swanson still at the O’Dell apartment?’’
    ‘‘Yes, I believe so. You want his phone number?’’
    ‘‘Give it to me.’’ He wrote the number at the top of his suspect sheet, then punched it into the phone.
    ‘‘Yeah. Swanson.’’
    ‘‘This is Lucas. Is Louise Compton there yet?’’
    ‘‘Yeah, right here, want to talk to her?’’
    ‘‘Put her on.’’
    ‘‘Hello?’’
    ‘‘Ms. Compton, sorry to bother you . . . Could you tell me the exact words that Ms. O’Dell said to you when the doorbell rang? Did you actually hear the doorbell ring?’’
    ‘‘No, I didn’t hear the bell . . . She just said, ‘There’s somebody at the door,’ and the next thing I heard was the shots.’’ Compton’s voice was breaking up under the stress of the killing, and ranged from hoarse squawks to sudden squeaks; every word was like a nail on a blackboard.
    ‘‘Was she a good friend of yours?’’
    ‘‘No, not socially—she was my boss. Oh, God, I can’t believe . . .’’
    ‘‘You wouldn’t know who she was seeing socially . . . in a sexual sense, I mean.’’
    ‘‘I . . . I don’t think she was seeing anyone. Not at the moment. Not for quite a while. She has a friend over at North, but he’s gay. They sort of squire each other around, when she needs an escort. Or he does.’’
    ‘‘And she said that Audrey McDonald had already left?’’
    ‘‘Yes. She said she put Audrey in the elevator, and ran right back to call me.’’
    ‘‘She put Audrey in the elevator.’’
    ‘‘That’s what she said. And that’s what she usually does—you know, the elevator is right by her door, she steps out to see you off. Like stepping out on the porch to say goodbye to someone.’’
    ‘‘And she always did that?’’
    ‘‘She always did for me.’’
    ‘‘Thank you. Let me talk to Officer Swanson again.’’ Swanson came back and Lucas said, ‘‘So why’d she say, ‘Somebody’s at the door’?’’
    ‘‘I dunno. To get to the other side?’’
    ‘‘I’m serious. Why’d she say that? She’s got a guard downstairs, who calls up before he lets anyone in. Or you can get up from the second floor skyway, but you’ve got to have a key card to run the elevator. At least I think you do. I noticed a key card slot when I was riding up . . .’’
    ‘‘Huh. You’re right. And I would have thought of that too in about five minutes.’’
    ‘‘So it had to be a friend with a key card who was coming over unexpectedly.’’
    ‘‘Or somebody else who lives in the building.’’
    ‘‘You heard what she said about Audrey?’’ Lucas asked.
    ‘‘Yeah, O’Dell put her in the elevator.’’
    ‘‘The elevator dings whenever the door opens, right?’’
    ‘‘So if Audrey had just stood there, and let the doors open again after they closed . . .’’
    ‘‘It would’ve dinged and if O’Dell was out there she probably would’ve seen the doors opening.’’
    ‘‘Goddamnit. See what happens if you get on there and push the door close button, or the door open button, or both at the same time. See if you can get back off the elevator . . .’’
    ‘‘Okay.’’
    ‘‘And check and see if Audrey went out past the guard or what . . . what time she left the place.’’
    ‘‘I already checked. She left at ten fifty-three.’’
    ‘‘And the guard says that’s right?’’
    ‘‘That’s what he says. He checked her out.’’
    ‘‘Shit.’’
    ‘‘Besides, if Audrey’d just made a deal, why’d she kill O’Dell five minutes later?’’
    ‘‘I don’t know,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘There could be a million fuckin’ reasons.’’
    ‘‘I’ll tell you what,’’ Swanson said. ‘‘I bet it’s a fuckin’ boyfriend that we don’t know about. Either somebody in the building she’d been screwing, or somebody at the bank. I vote for a key card.’’
    ‘‘I’ve got the same problem with that as I’ve got with this firebombing of Weather. People start saying it could be random, but