Shadow Prey

asked.
    “Not so good. Not a goddamned thing down there.”
    “No shell?”
    “Nope. Not so far. We’ve worked it over pretty good. I think it was all the knife. Hell of a way to go.”
    “Tracks?”
    “Can’t find any,” the Homicide cop said. “Too grassy. That long stuff is like walking on sponges. They must have come off the street, right onto it . . . . You know, Hart had his back to the guy, the cutter. No struggle. Nothing. I wonder if it was somebody he trusted?”
    “Probably held him at gunpoint, like Hood did with Andretti,” Lily said.
    “Yeah, there’s that,” the cop said. He looked down the steep embankment. “But you’d think that he’d have tried to run or jump. One big jump down that hill, he’d be tenor fifteen feet from the shooter . . . but there was no sign of a jump. No place where his feet dug in. No grass stains on his pants. Nothing.”
    “He gave up,” Lily said, looking at Lucas.
     
    A crowd had gathered behind the reporters. Several of the onlookers were Indian, and Lily decided to mingle, hoping that someone else had seen something. While she worked the crowd, Lucas went down the block to a pay phone and called TV3. A receptionist hunted down Jennifer. “A tip,” Lucas said when she came on the line.
    “Is there a price?”
    “Yeah. We’ll get to that later.”
    “So what’s the tip?”
    “You’ve got some guys out by the river, working a homicide?”
    “Yes. Jensen and . . .”
    “It’s Larry Hart. The Indian expert from Welfare that we brought in to help track these assassins.”
    “Holy shit,” she said. Her voice was hushed. “Who else knows?”
    “Nobody, at the moment. Daniel’s calling a press conference, probably in a half-hour or so . . . .”
    “He already did, we’ve got people on the way.”
    “If you go on the air ahead of time, you’ve got to cover me. Don’t give it to that fuckin’ Kennedy, because everybody knows you guys lay off stories on each other.”
    “Okay, okay,” she said, a touch of intensity in her voice. “What else? Cut?”
    “Yeah. Just like the others. Throat cut, bled to death.”
    “When?”
    “We don’t know. This afternoon. Early afternoon, probably. He was found by a couple of kids who were playing along the hill.”
    “Okay. What else? Was he breaking the case? Was he close?”
    “He wasn’t this morning, but maybe he ran into something. We don’t know. Now: Here’s the price.”
    “Yeah?”
    “We think the guy who did it is named Shadow Love.Thirties, Sioux, skinny, tattoos on his arms. Daniel’s going to release the name. Don’t use it until he does, but when he does, pound it. I want Shadow Love’s name on the air every ten seconds. I want you to pound on the idea that he’s killing other Indians. Push Daniel for some photos—they’ve got good photos of him from California, and don’t let them bullshit you on that. Demand the fuckin’ photos. Give them as much airtime as you can. Tell the boss that if you cooperate, I feed you more exclusive stuff.”
    “Hammer Shadow Love,” she said.
    “Hard as you can,” Lucas said.
     
    Lily got nothing from the crowd. When she was done, she asked Lucas to drop her at her room: “I need some sleep, and I need to think. Alone.”
    Lucas nodded. “I could use some time myself.”
    At her door, Lily turned to him. “What the fuck are we going to do, Davenport?” she blurted, her voice low and gravelly.
    “I don’t know,” Lucas said. He reached out and brushed a lock of dark hair away from her cheek, back over her ear. “I just can’t stop with you.”
    “I’m having a little trouble myself,” Lily said. “But I’ve got too much with David to make a break. I don’t think I’d want to break . . .”
    “And I don’t want to lose Jen,” Lucas said. “But I just can’t stop with you. I’d like to take you right now . . . .” He pushed her back into the room, and she had her arms around his neck, and they rocked together for a minute, the heat growing until she pushed him back.
    “Get out of here, God damn it,” she said. “I need some rest.”
    “All right. See you tomorrow?”
    “Mmm. Not too early.”
     
    After dropping Lily off, Lucas drove back through town. Four trucks equipped with microwave dishes were clustered around the door to City Hall, black electronics cables snaking across the sidewalk into the building. On impulse, he pulled into a vacant cops-only parking spot and went inside.
    The