Silken Prey

Grant with the state, which gave him their full names and addresses—they both lived in the same town house complex off I-494 west of the Cities. They didn’t show up in the property tax records, so they were probably renting. He couldn’t get directly at the income tax records, though he had a friend who could; but he hesitated to use her when he didn’t have to, and he didn’t really need to know how much they made. The DMV gave him their birth dates, which was what he really needed.
    With that, he went out to the National Crime Information Center. Carver had once been arrested, at age eighteen, for fighting, apparently while he was still in high school. The charges had been dismissed without prosecution. Dannon came up clean.
    There was almost nothing else, on either of them. Jenkins had been right: he’d need the army records. He picked up the phone and called Kidd.
    “I already owe you for the help with the porn and the Minneapolis connection . . . but I’ve spotted a couple of guys who I’m interested in, and I can’t find anything about them in the records that I can get at. Could you get military records?”
    After a moment, Kidd said, “I hate to mess with the feds.”
    “I can understand that,” Lucas said. “The thing is . . . these two guys are ex–special operations, apparently, and would have the skills to take out somebody like Tubbs. What I’d like to know is, did they have a record of killing in the military? Did they have a criminal history there? Did they get honorable discharges? I’ve got no way of getting that.”
    Kidd said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll take a very conservative, safe approach. If I can get the stuff without a problem, without setting anything off, I’ll do it. I won’t take any risks. But if you use it, how’ll you explain it?”
    “You could dump it to my e-mail, anonymously. I’ll figure out a way to explain it that’ll keep you clear.”
    “I’m already not clear—people already know that I’m involved in this thing,” Kidd said.
    “What if I put in an official request for the records, with the army?” Lucas suggested. “They’ll take it under advisement, but they won’t give them to me. If you could find a way to ship the records out of the army’s database, like there was a slipup . . .”
    “Oh, boy . . .”
    “I’ll start calling the army the first thing in the morning. If you can help me out, that’d be good. If you can’t, you can’t.”
    “Oh, boy . . .”
    “And there’s another thing,” Lucas said. “Something I doubt you could do.”
    “Lucas, my man, you originally just wanted a little help protecting the American Way . . .”
    “I know, I know. But here’s the thing. Taryn Grant’s got this terrific security system. Cameras all over the place, inside and out. At one time, the photography went out to the cloud, saved for a month. In the last couple of days, somebody cut that to forty-eight hours. They did that about forty-eight hours after Tubbs disappeared. I’m wondering, what if Tubbs showed up at Grant’s place, and ran into something with one of these security guys?”
    “You want me to find the recordings?” Kidd asked.
    “If you can.”
    “Do you know which cloud?” Kidd asked. “There are lots of clouds.”
    “I don’t know jack shit,” Lucas admitted.
    “Do you know her cell phone number?”
    “Well . . . yeah, I do know that.”
    “Give it to me,” Kidd said. “It’s a start, if she monitors the system from her phone.”
    •   •   •
    L UCAS WENT HOME.
    Weather and Letty were curious, and Lucas kept them updated on his cases, but he had nothing to tell them. He did describe the meeting with Grant, and Weather said, “She sounds more interesting than I would have expected. Educated.”
    “She is. And she may have gotten a guy murdered.”
    “And she may not have,” Weather said. “Something for you to think about.”
    •   •   •
    L UCAS SPOKE TO the governor later that evening. The attorney general, the governor said, was all over the papers taken from Tubbs’s apartment. “I suggested he investigate them thoroughly, at least until the election was over and done with. That way, he’ll have the full attention of the press. He saw the wisdom of that.”
    “So I don’t have to worry about him being in my hair . . .”
    “At least not for a week,” Henderson said. “What’d you think of Grant?”
    “Smart and tough,” Lucas