Secret Prey

-looking. They made me feel like a watch salesman.’’
    ‘‘How about American suits?’’ she asked.
    ‘‘Efficient,’’ he said. ‘‘Do the job; don’t feel like much. You always wear an American suit if you don’t want people to notice you.’’
    ‘‘Jeez. A real interest.’’ She was being cop-sarcastic. ‘‘Never would have guessed it. Suits.’’
    He wasn’t having it: ‘‘Yeah, sorta,’’ he said. ‘‘I like to watch the fashion shows on TV, sometimes, late at night.’’
    Now she was amazed. ‘‘Now you’re lying.’’
    ‘‘No, I’m not. Fashion is interesting. You can tell just about everything you need to know about somebody, by looking at their fashion.’’
    ‘‘What about me?’’
    ‘‘Ask me some other time; like three years from now.’’
    ‘‘C’mon, Davenport . . .’’
    ‘‘Nope. I’m not going to tell you,’’ he said. ‘‘Women get nervous when men have insights into their personalities, and we’re too early in this whole thing for me to reveal any.’’
    ‘‘You’ve had some?’’ Her eyebrows went up.
    ‘‘Several, over the years, and more last night,’’ he said. ‘‘Some of them unbearably intimate; I’ll list them for you. Like, three years from now.’’
    ‘‘Jeez,’’ she said. ‘‘What an enormous asshole . . .’’
    LUCAS DUMPED THE CAR AND STRODE INTO CITY Hall, jingling his car keys. Sloan spotted him in the hallway.
    ‘‘What happened to you?’’ Sloan asked.
    ‘‘What? Nothing.’’
    ‘‘You look weird,’’ Sloan said. ‘‘You look . . . happy.’’
    ‘‘Any fuckin’ happier I’d be dancing a jig,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘You talking to McDonald?’’
    ‘‘I was just on the way.’’
    ‘‘I want to watch, if that’s okay.’’
    ‘‘Sure. It’s over on the ward, at Hennepin.’’
    HENNEPIN GENERAL HOSPITAL WAS JUST DOWN THE block and over one; Sloan and Lucas walked over in the brilliant, clear morning light, just a fresh touch of winter in the wind.
    ‘‘Her lawyer says she’ll make a statement,’’ Sloan said, as they crossed the street. ‘‘They’re trying to hurry things along, get a bond hearing this afternoon.’’
    ‘‘They’re talking self-defense?’’
    ‘‘Man, it was self-defense,’’ Sloan said. ‘‘I was just out at the house, there’s blood all over the place. And wait’ll you see her. He chopped the shit out of her head with a golf trophy. She got like forty stitches in her scalp.’’
    ‘‘She sure sold you on it.’’
    ‘‘If it’s a setup, it’s the best one we’re ever going to see. The ME says he’s got her skin under his fingernails, and she’s got big stripes on her legs where he peeled it off. Her legs are a mess, her back and ribs look like she’s been in a gang fight, her face is completely blue with bruises, except where it’s cut. Her old man’s fingerprints are all over the golf trophy. In blood.’’
    ‘‘Okay . . .’’
    ‘‘But just in case,’’ said Sloan, reversing direction, ‘‘we should bump her a little. I was gonna get Loring to do it, because’s he’s such a mean-looking sonofabitch, but I can’t find him. If you’re gonna be around, after we get the statement, could you do it?’’
    ‘‘Yeah, sure.’’
    ‘‘Bump’’ was Sloan’s private code word for frighten. He’d be the nice guy and get all the basic information, but even with a voluntary statement it sometimes helped to shake up the suspect. You could never tell ahead of time just what might fall out . . .
    A tall, white-haired attorney named Jason Glass, known for handling spousal abuse cases, a court reporter, and Sloan gathered around Audrey McDonald’s bed. She was propped half upright, with a saline solution dripping into one arm through an IV. Lucas stepped into the room and looked at her. He hadn’t seen much worse, he thought, where the woman actually survived. He stepped back outside the open door and leaned against the wall to listen.
    Sloan led McDonald through the routine, with interjections by her attorney: Yes, she was making the statement voluntarily. No, she hadn’t been offered anything in return for making the statement. No, she hadn’t been asked to answer police question before her attorney arrived, but yes, she had told police that she’d shot her husband, Wilson McDonald, with a twelve-gauge shotgun.
    As Lucas listened to her recount the sequence of violence, Frank Lester, the other deputy chief,