Silken Prey

jabbed a finger at him.
    “Wait a minute! Wait one fuckin’ minute, here, buster,” she said. “Who are you working for? Are you hooked up to Smalls’s campaign?”
    “I’m hooked up to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Ms. Grant,” Lucas said. “We believe that Mr. Tubbs planted the pornography on Senator Smalls’s computer. We believe Mr. Tubbs has been murdered to cover up that crime. There’s only one reason for him to have planted the porn, and that’s to sabotage Senator Smalls’s campaign.”
    “Murdered? Did you say murdered?” The anger faded a bit, overridden by something else. Fear?
    Lucas said, “Yes. He’s disappeared, and we think there’s a reason for it. We think he planted the porn, and then had to be gotten rid of, to cover it up.”
    “Well, I mean we, I mean . . . We didn’t have anything to do with that, if it’s even true.” Now the anger came clawing back: “And you didn’t answer the question. Are you hooked up with Smalls’s campaign? Have you ever worked for him? What are your politics? We are less than a week from Election Day, and you come to me with
this
?
An accusation I can’t refute, because you can’t refute a complete negative? When you put this in the paper and on TV—and you will, won’t you?—it’ll kill me. Sabotage and murder? Are you kidding me?”
    The anger was real and was getting hotter and Grant got to her feet and bent toward him: “Answer the question.”
    She was nearly shouting, and Lucas saw movement at the corner of his eye, and two huge German shepherds ghosted into the room, focused on him.
    He said, “The dogs . . .”
    She half turned to the dogs and said, “Hansel, Gretel,
easy
,” and the dogs’ gazes softened.
    Green, who’d left the room, stepped in and said, “Ms. Grant . . . can I help?”
    Grant said, “No, I’m okay, Alice. Agent Davenport has gotten me a little upset.” She sank back on the couch and said, “Well? What contact have you had with the Smalls campaign? Have you taken any money from him?”
    Lucas was getting angry himself, and strained to contain it: but some leaked into his voice. “No. I’ve spoken to Senator Smalls about who had access to his computer, and I’ve taken information from him. I do not know him, except for the contact involved in this investigation. Personally, I’m a registered Democrat, and my wife has contributed to the campaigns of a number of Democratic candidates, including yours, I believe, though I have not. There’s no politics in this, Ms. Grant. What there is, is a vicious sabotage attempt, which would have reduced Senator Smalls’s reputation to tatters, and very probably a murder. So, if we could get back to the reason I’m here: you say you knew nothing of the pornography, and you didn’t know Bob Tubbs?”
    She seemed to go through a brief internal struggle, then controlled it: “As far as I know, I’ve never met Mr. Tubbs, although it’s possible that he was at some of my campaign events—I know he worked for the party, and there’ve been a lot of people I don’t know at my events. So I may have seen him, though I wouldn’t recognize him. I have not knowingly spoken a single word with him. I’m not heavily engaged with the party—my candidacy is mostly self-generated. And the pornography, I know nothing about it.”
    Green had lingered in the doorway, listening, and one of the dogs moved up to Lucas and put its head on his knees, looking straight in at his groin. Lucas said, “Ms. Grant, you wanna move the dog?”
    “Make you nervous?”
    “Makes me angry,” Lucas said. “If this dog bites me, I shoot it. Then I shoot the other one if I have to, then I throw you on the floor, cuff you, and drag your ass down to the Hennepin County jail and charge you with aggravated assault on a police officer. Then you
will
go to jail.”
    “Gretel won’t bite unless I tell her to,” Grant said. But she said to the dog, “Gretel, back,” and the dog eased away from Lucas.
    Green said, “Ms. Grant, I’ll be in the nook.”
    “Thanks, Alice,” Grant said, and to Lucas, “I don’t like you, and I suspect you don’t like me, but try to be fair. Don’t stick yourself into this campaign. Don’t sabotage me.”
    “I’m not trying—”
    “Whether you’re trying or not, that’s the effect,” Grant said. “Wait a week or ten days, let the election take place, then do your worst. But give me a chance. I’ve worked very hard for