Silken Prey

Carver apart.
    He was also bothered by the sporadic thought: What if Tubbs showed up? In most killings, there was some physical indication that violence had been done. With Tubbs, there was nothing.
    •   •   •
    T HE NEXT MORNING he did what he usually did when he was stuck, and needed to think about it: he went shopping. Nothing was so likely to clear the mind as spending money. He idled over to the Mall of America and poked around the Nordstrom store, looking for a good fall dog-walking jacket.
    He didn’t have a dog, but a good dog-walking jacket was useful for a lot of other things. He had the exact specification: light, water-resistant, knit cuffs and waistband, modern high-tech insulation, warm enough for late fall and early winter days. And, of course, it had to look good.
    He’d drifted from jackets to cashmere socks, especially a pair in an attractive dark raspberry color, when his phone rang: Cochran, from Minneapolis Homicide. Both Dannon and Carver had shown up to give DNA samples, and Lucas had sent the samples to Minneapolis.
    “Turk, tell me we got them,” Lucas said.
    “No, we don’t. We got James Clay,” Cochran said. “We got a cold hit from your DNA bank.”
    James Clay?
“Who the hell is James Clay?”
    “Dickwad from Chicago. Small-time dealer,” Cochran said. “Moved up here five years ago when he got tired of the Chicago cops busting him for dope. We’ve been chasing him around for the same thing. We got him on felony possession of cocaine, got DNA on that case, he went away for a year. Since then, we’ve caught him holding twice, and both times, it was small amounts of marijuana, so he was cut loose.”
    “Jesus Christ, that can’t be right,” Lucas said. “Roman wasn’t killed by any small-time dope dealer.”
    “Sort of looks that way—of course, it’s possible he was paid to do it, though I doubt anyone would hire him,” Cochran said. “I’ll tell you, the dope guys say he’s exactly the kind of punk you’d want for a killing like this. He thinks the house is empty, goes in, she surprises him, he freaks out, whacks her with his gun, then shoots her, with some piece-of-crap .22.”
    “Aw, man . . . Turk . . .”
    Cochran said, “Listen, Lucas: he’s an old gang member, probably done two hundred nickel-dime burglaries, funding his habit, been shot at least once himself. He’ll steal anything that’s not nailed down. If all this election stuff hadn’t been going on, it’d be exactly who you’d have been looking for.”
    “Is Clay still alive?”
    “Far as we know. He was last night. He was hanging out at Smackie’s,” Cochran said.
    “If he was paid to kill Roman, he’d be dead himself, and we wouldn’t be finding the body,” Lucas said. “He sure as hell wouldn’t be hanging around Smackie’s.”
    “Lucas, what it is, is what it is,” Cochran said.
    “You gonna find him?” Lucas asked.
    “Sooner or later. Sooner, if he goes back to Smackie’s.”
    “We need him right now,” Lucas said. “You know Del?”
    “Sure.”
    “Del knows all those guys. If you don’t mind, I’m gonna go get him and look around town.”
    “Hey, that’s fine with me. If you find him first, give me a call—I’ll do the same, if we find him.”
    Lucas walked out to his car, calling Del as he went. Del picked up and Lucas asked, “Where are you?”
    “In my backyard, looking at a tree,” Del said.
    “Why?”
    “We got oak wilt,” Del said. “We’re gonna lose it.”
    “Look, I’m sorry about your tree, but I need help finding a guy. Right now. I’m going to get some paper on him. Meet me at my place.”
    “Half hour?”
    “See you then.”
    •   •   •
    L UCAS WAS TEN MINUTES from his house, driving fast. On the way, he called his office, talked to his secretary, told her to call Turk, get the specifics on James Clay, including any photos, and e-mail them to him. “I’ll be home in ten minutes. I need it then,” he said.
    The house was quiet when he got home. Letty was in school, Sam in preschool, the baby out for a stroll with the housekeeper.
    He went into the study, brought up the computer, checked his e-mail, found a bunch of political letters pleading for money, and a file from his secretary. He opened it, found four photos of James Clay along with Minneapolis arrest records and a compilation of Chicago-area arrests from the National Crime Information Center.
    Clay had somehow managed to make it to thirty-one,