Shadow Prey

Hart.
    “No. And they got this guy. They shot him, anyway. He’s in a trauma room right now. Some cowboy saw the shooting, pulled a rifle out of his pickup and nailed him.”
    “Okay. Well, fuck. Better go see Yellow Hand, first thing. If it is Yellow Hand. I can’t worry about this SoDak thing, not yet.” Lucas stood up and wandered in a circle, stopped by the door. Lily, Daniel and Hart watched him, worried, and he tried to smile. “You guys look like Dorothy, the Lion and the Tin Man. Cheer up.”
    “So what, that makes you the Wizard of Oz?” asked Lily, still worried.
    “I feel more like the Wicked Witch when the house fell on her,” Lucas said. He lifted a hand. “See you.”
    • • •
    Yellow Hand’s body was at the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office, lying faceup on a stainless-steel tray. Lucas hated floaters. They no longer looked human. They looked . . . melted.
    “Yellow Hand?” asked a deputy medical examiner.
    Lucas looked the melted thing in face. Yellow Hand’s eyes were open and bloated and had no pupils; they resembled milk-jug plastic. His features were twisted, some enlarged, some not. But the thing was still recognizable. He turned away. “Yeah. Yellow Hand. He’s got people out in Fort Thompson, that’s in South Dakota. His mother, I think.”
    “We’ll call . . .”
    “Do you have a cause of death yet?” Lucas asked.
    “We took a quick look. He’s got a hole at the base of his skull. Like one of those Chinese executions, one bullet. That’s not official yet: the wound might not have killed him, he might have drowned or something . . . .”
    “But he was shot?”
    “Looks like it . . .”
     
    Sloan arrived with the Porsche as Lucas was getting out of the squad car at his house.
    “What a fuckin’ car,” Sloan said enthusiastically. “A hundred and fifty-five on the interstate, I couldn’t believe it . . . .” He checked Lucas’ face. “Just joking,” he said. “Jesus, you okay? You look like shit.”
    “It’s been a bad day. And not even noon yet,” Lucas said, trying to put some humor in his voice. It came out flat.
    “Was it . . . ?”
    “Yeah. It was Yellow Hand.”
    Sloan gave him the keys and said that Lily would be up to her neck in paperwork. A couple of local stations, and one from New York, were already asking why she had been carrying a pistol in Minneapolis. Daniel was handling it, Sloan said.
    “Well, I gotta go, if I want a ride back in the squad,” Sloan said.
    “Yeah. Thanks for bringing the car.”
    “Take it easy . . . .” Sloan seemed reluctant to leave him, but Lucas turned his back and walked to the house. As he unlocked the front door, he could hear the phone ringing. The answering machine kicked in before he could reach it. Jennifer Carey’s voice said, “It’s ten twenty-eight. We’ve been on the air about the Hood thing. Call me . . .”
    Lucas picked up the phone. “Whoa. You still there?”
    “Lucas? When did you get in?”
    “Just this minute. Hang on a second, I’ve got to shut the front door.”
    When he got back to the phone, Jennifer pounced: “Damn you, Davenport, I’ve been going crazy. I talked to Daniel and he said he didn’t know where you were, but that you were okay.”
    “I’m fine. Well, I’m not fine, I’m feeling a little fucked up. Where are you?”
    “At the station. When I found out what was happening—thanks for not calling, by the way, we got our asses kicked by Eight, and since everybody knows that we go together, they’re looking at me like I’m an alien toad . . . .”
    “Yeah, yeah. Where’s the baby?” Lucas asked.
    “I called Ellen, the college girl. She has her. She can stay as late as I need. She can stay over if she has to.”
    “Can you come over later?”
    “You’re okay?” she asked.
    “Yeah. But I could use some heavy-duty succor.”
    “Things are going crazy here. You heard about Elmer Linstad, out in South Dakota?”
    “Yeah. The attorney general.”
    “Dead as a mackerel. The guy they shot, this Liss guy—”
    “Whoa, whoa, you’re ahead of me now. Who is he?”
    “He’s an Indian guy named John Liss. He’s from right here in the Cities. He’s in the operating room, but the word is, he’s going to make it. They’re talking about putting me on a plane later this afternoon. I’ll be running the crew out there . . .”
    “Okay.” Lucas tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice.
    “ . . . but