Shadow Prey

brutal it was on the screen, in real life it was worse. In real life, there was always an empty husk lying there, the spirit departed, the flesh slack, the eyes like ball bearings. And it had to be dealt with. Somebody had to pick up the body, somebody had to mop up the blood. Somebody had to catch the killer.
    Lucas rubbed his eyebrow where the scar crossed it. The scar was the product of a fishing accident. A wire leader had snapped back from a snag and buried itself in his face. The scar was not a disfigurement: the women he knew said it made him look friendlier. The scar was fine; it was his smile that was scary.
    He rubbed his eyebrow and went back to the book. He did not look like a natural reader, sitting on the couch, squinting in the dim light. He had the air of the street about him. His hands, which were covered with a dark fuzz for three inches below his wrists, seemed too large and blocky as he handled the paperback. His nose had been broken, more than once, and a strong neck was rooted in heavy shoulders. His hair was black, just touched with gray.
    He turned the page of the book with one hand and reached under his jacket and adjusted his holster with the other.
    “ ‘Kingfish, what’s the matter?’
    “ ‘Jimmie, my boy, I’ve been shot,’ Huey moaned . . . .”
    Lucas’ handset beeped. He picked it up and thumbed the volume control. A woman’s voice said, “Lieutenant Davenport?”
    “Go ahead.”
    “Lucas, Jim Wentz needs you down at the Indian Center on that guy that got cut. He’s got a witness he wants you to look at.”
    “All right,” Lucas said. “Ten minutes.”
     
    It was a beautiful day, one of the best of a good autumn. A murder would damage it. Murders were usually the result of aggressive stupidity mixed with alcohol and anger. Not always. But almost always. Lucas, given the choice, stayed away from them.
    Outside the bookstore, he stood on the sidewalk for amoment, letting his eyes adjust to the sun and finishing the last bite of the sandwich. When he was done, he threw the sandwich bag into a trash barrel and crossed the street to his car. A panhandler was working the sidewalk, saw Lucas and said, “Watched yer car for ya?” and held out his hand. The panhandler was a regular, a schizophrenic pushed out of the state hospital. He couldn’t function without his meds but wouldn’t take the mind-numbing drugs on his own. Lucas passed him a dollar and dropped into the Porsche.
    Downtown Minneapolis is a workbox of modernist architecture, blocks of glass and chrome and white marble. The aging red wart of City Hall hunkers in the middle of it. Lucas shook his head as he rolled past it, took a left and a right and crossed the interstate. The glitter fell behind, giving way to a ramshackle district of old clapboard houses cut into apartments, junker cars and failing businesses. Indian Country. There were a half-dozen squad cars outside the Indian Center and Lucas dumped the 911 at the curb.
     
    “Three witnesses,” the Homicide detective told him. Wentz had a flat, pallid Scandinavian face. His lower front teeth had been broken off in a fight, and he wore crowns; their silvery bases glittered when he talked. He counted the three witnesses on his fingers, as if he didn’t trust Lucas’ arithmetic.
    “There’s the receptionist,” he said. “She saw him twice and says she can identify him. There’s a neighborhood kid. He was playing basketball and says this guy had blood all over his pants. I believe it. The office looks like a fuckin’ swimming pool.”
    “Can the kid identify him?” Lucas asked.
    “He says he can. He says he looked the guy right in the face. He’s seen him around the neighborhood.”
    “Who’s number three?”
    “Another kid. A junkie. He saw the killer outside the place, talked to him. We think they know each other, but he’s not talking.”
    “Where is he?” Lucas asked.
    “Out in a squad.”
    “How’d you find him?”
    Wentz shrugged. “No problem. The receptionist—the one who found the body—called nine-one-one, then she went over to the window for some fresh air. She was feeling queasy. Anyway, she saw this kid and the killer talking on the sidewalk. When we got here, the kid was up the block. Standing there. Fucked up, maybe. We just put him in the car.”
    Lucas nodded, walked down the hallway and stepped inside the counseling office. Benton lay faceup on the tile floor in a pool of purplish blood. His hands extended