Wicked Prey

gone.”
    “What about the photography—the British photography?” Lucas asked. “The pictures might be better than the Photoshop stuff you sent me.”
    “They’re not,” Lily said. “The film was good enough to track him, but it’s kind of grainy black-and-white. I’ve seen it—our Photoshop stuff is better.”
    “Well, we’ll push it,” Lucas said. “I got yanked out of bed by one of the local political hotshots, and he wants this fixed. Quietly.”
    “I don’t care how it’s fixed, as long as Cohn’s clock is fixed at the same time,” she said.
    * * *
     
    CAROL CAME BACK with a list of hotels. “I talked to Jones. He’ll take care of Hennepin County. I’ll e-mail the Cohn photographs to Bloomington, and the sheriffs’ departments in Dakota and Washington County, and across the St. Croix to Hudson and River Falls and Prescott. So, you’ve got St. Paul.”
    “Do we actually have people walking them around, or are we dropping them in a black hole?” Lucas asked.
    “I’ve got commitments,” Carol said. “I’ll call them every hour or so to get reports. Though, there are quite a few cops from the suburbs already here in St. Paul, working the convention.”
    “Hell, it’s one guy walking the papers around . . .”
    “That’s what I told them,” Carol said. “One guy, no problem. Trouble is, everybody’s so short that it is a problem.”
    * * *
    LETTY HAD begged a ride to Channel Three from Weather, and Jennifer Carey was supposed to drive her home—but she had experience with local buses, and decided to head back to St. Paul. When she left, producers and cameramen were coming in, gearing up for convention coverage. Some kind of march was scheduled for St. Paul, and a couple of producers were talking about possible trouble in the streets.
    She left a note for Carey and caught the 94 bus out of Minneapolis, transferred to the 84 at Midway Center, rode south down Snelling, then caught a 74, which took her to a couple blocks from the house. On the trip across the river, she mulled the problem. Randy Whitcomb had been feuding with Lucas for years, and now he was coming after her.
    What did he want? Revenge, most likely. To hurt her, to get at Lucas.
    She’d grown up out in the countryside, and had firsthand knowledge of the kind of focused dislike, hatred, disdain, that might lead to violence. Whitcomb blamed Lucas for a beating that put him in the hospital and in jail, and then for a shooting that crippled him.
    So what kind of revenge would it be? Well, he’d cut up the face of one of his hookers with a beer-can opener; that seemed like a possibility. Maybe he’d torture and kill her—though how he’d go about that, she didn’t know. He was crippled, and during the encounter at the McDonald’s, he didn’t look especially strong in his upper body; nor did the woman with him look especially competent. Rape? Could a crippled person rape somebody? She didn’t know.
    Probably planned to trick her somehow. Or maybe he’d have help. From what she’d read, he didn’t seem to be a likeable sort, a leader, the kind of person who’d inspire any particular loyalty, in something as desperate as the kidnapping and murder of a cop’s kid. Or almost kid, she thought. But, who knows? Maybe he’d met somebody in prison, somebody who also had a grudge against Lucas.
    One thing, though, was clear in her mind—if Lucas heard about this, he’d kill Whitcomb. Not theoretically kill, but actually kill. He’d probably do it in a clever way that would be undetectable, unprovable. But there were always accidents. Lucas himself had told her that: that sometimes, the cleverest of crimes was foiled by an unforeseeable accident.
    He would take the risk, she thought.
    * * *
    LETTY NEEDED A FATHER, and a mother, and when her mother was murdered, Davenport and Weather had been there.
    If there was any way she could prevent Lucas from taking the risk by acting against Whitcomb, she’d do it. She had, in fact, in the ugly denouement of the case where she’d met Lucas, shot a cop—actually, she’d shot the same cop on two different occasions—and had never felt the slightest regret. She’d never had a problem being decisive.
    She slipped the piece of paper out of her backpack, with Whitcomb’s address on it, contemplated it.
    All right, she thought. Take a look.
    * * *
    ELLEN, THE HOUSEKEEPER, was changing sheets when Letty walked through the door; Letty said hello, got a Coke from the