Shadow Prey

gray and brooding, a lonely northern outpost of the Black Hills. In the foreground, a group of Indians, wearing calico shirts and jeans, were gathered behind one of the elderly medicine men. Most of the men were looking to the left of the camera, toward a group of sheriff’s deputies. Bluebird was there with his gun, one of the few who were looking more or less at the camera.
    “So how do we get back to your friend and see what else is on the negatives?” Lily asked.
    “I’ll talk to the chief tonight,” Lucas said. “We’ll have to meet with some of the people at the paper tomorrow morning. First thing.”
    “Tomorrow?” she snapped, incredulous. “Christ, the guy’s on his way here right now. We’ve got to get going tonight.”
    “That would be . . . difficult,” Lucas said hesitantly.
    “What’s difficult? We get the negs, print them and find somebody who knows my guy’s name.”
    “Look, I know the papers here. They’ll need threemeetings and eight consultations before they’ll make the pictures,” Lucas said. “That won’t get done tonight. There’s no way that we’ll see the negatives.”
    “If we put on enough heat . . .”
    “We’re talking bureaucracy here, okay? We can’t move it faster than it’s willing to move. And if we go tonight, there’s a good chance I’ll burn my friend. The first thing they’ll do is look at their files, and they’ll find their record photo’s gone. I don’t want to do that. I want to get it back in the file.”
    “Jesus Christ, you fuckin’ . . .” She snapped her mouth shut.
    “Shitkickers?”
    “I wasn’t going to say that,” she lied.
    “Bullshit. I’ll tell you what. I’ll get as much done tonight as can get done. All the newspaper people will get called, it’ll all be explained, they can have all their meetings, and we’ll be over there at eight tomorrow morning, looking at prints.”
    Her eyes searched his face for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said finally.
    “Look,” said Lucas, trying to win her over. “Your killer is driving a junker. If he pushed it as hard as he could, he wouldn’t get here until tomorrow night anyway. Not unless he’s got a relief driver and they really hammered it out the whole way.”
    “He was alone in the motel . . . .”
    “So we don’t lose anything,” Lucas said. “And I save my friend’s ass, which is a pretty high priority.”
    “Okay,” Lily said. She nodded, her eyes on his face, then stepped past him toward the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Harmon.”
    “Yeah.” Anderson looked after her as she went through the door. When she was gone, he turned to Lucas, a small smile playing on his face.
    “You got the look,” he said.
    “What’s that?”
    “Like a bunch of people look after they talk to her. Like you been hit on the forehead with a ball-peen hammer,” Anderson said.
    • • •
    Daniel was eating dinner.
    “What happened?” he asked when Lucas identified himself.
    “We came up with a photo from the StarTribune, ” Lucas said. He explained the rest of it.
    “And Lillian thinks he might be the killer?” Daniel asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “Damn, that’s good. We can get some mileage out of this. I’ll talk to the people at the Trib, ” Daniel said. “What do you think about the approach?”
    “Tell them we need the rest of the negatives on that roll and any other rolls they have. Argue that the photos were taken at a public news event, that there is no secret film involved—nothing involving sources, nothing confidential. Tell them if they help catch Andretti’s killer, we’ll give them the story. And they’ll already have the exclusive pictures that solved the assassination.”
    “You don’t think they’ll pull the confidentiality shit?” Daniel asked.
    “I don’t see why they should,” Lucas said. “The pictures weren’t confidential. And we’re talking about serial assassination of major political figures, not some kind of horseshit inciting-to-riot thing.”
    “Okay. I’ll call now.”
    “We need them as early as we can get them.”
    “Nine o’clock. We’ll get them by nine,” Daniel said.
    Lucas hung up and dialed the StarTribune library. He gave his friend a summary of what had happened and arranged to meet her near the paper’s offices.
    “It’s kind of exciting,” she whispered as she leaned over his car. He handed her the manila envelope. “It’s like being a mole, in John le Carré.”
     
    He left her