Wicked Prey

seriously, “Yes, he does. He always lies. That’s what he does for a living. He lies.”
    Briar looked down at the sidewalk: “Okay.”
    Letty studied her for a moment, then said, “Look, here comes the van.”
    “I really can’t ride around,” Juliet said, but there was a hint of curiosity in her eyes.
    “You have to work?” Letty asked.
    She looked away: “Yeah.”
    “How much do you get?”
    “Hundred.”
    “A hundred? Always?”
    “Not always, but that’s what Randy wants. Sometimes, if I don’t . . .”
    “I saw the stick,” Letty said. “I was in your house.”
    “What?”
    “I saw the stick,” Letty repeated. The van pulled up, and Lois ran the window down. “What’s up?” she asked, checking out Briar.
    “We’d like to ride around for a few minutes, so I can show Juliet some of the equipment,” Letty said. “And I need to borrow some money.”

10
    LUCAS HAD ONE IDEA, CALLED JONES, the Minneapolis cop, and said, “I need to talk to the victims again. Soon as you can get them together. I hope none of them have checked out.”
    “They’re still here. What’s up?” Lucas told him about the murder of Charles Dee, and outlined the idea, and Jones said, “That could be something. Wilson’s still in the hospital. We can meet there. As far as running around to these hotels—I got nothin’.”
    “That’s ’cause they were in Hudson. How soon can we get these people together?”
    “Soon as you can get here, I guess. That thing about Dee, man—I heard somebody was down, but nobody knew what happened. You sure it’s our guys?”
    “Ninety-five percent,” Lucas said. “Like everything else, though, I couldn’t prove it.”
    “Fucker’s probably walking through Miami International right now, on his way to Brazil.”

    LUCAS ASKED the Hudson chief to keep him updated, said good-bye, and headed west, fast; there was a regatta on the St. Croix, two dozen sailboats beating around in a gentle breeze, and then he was over the bridge and back in Minnesota and on his cell phone, calling Lily Rothenburg at her Manhattan apartment. Her husband answered, said, “Hang on,” and went and got her.
    “What?” she asked.
    “We’ve got a cop down, dead. Cohn did it. Cohn himself, I think,” Lucas said. “He set his room on fire and we’ve got no proof, except that two semi-stoner hotel clerks think they might have recognized him.”
    “Goddamnit.”
    “I put his face everywhere,” Lucas said. “It’d help if you could do the same, out of New York. All the national feeds we can get. If he’s running, we’ve got to make it hard. If he’s still here, maybe we can freeze him, keep him off airplanes, trains, whatever.”
    “I can call some people,” she said. “I can get it on Today , I think, tomorrow morning. Maybe—maybe— Good Morning America . CNN, I’d have to call somebody to call somebody . . .”
    “Much as you can, it’d help,” he said. “ USA Today ?”
    “Don’t know anybody there. Maybe . . . I might be able to get the mayor to call somebody.”
    “Whatever you can do, Lily.”
    * * *
    HE FLASHED PAST the outlying shopping centers, slowed coming into St. Paul, worked back and forth through traffic, heading into Minneapolis. He was crossing the Mississippi when his cell phone jangled. He picked it up, looked at the face of it: Jennifer Carey; which meant that it could be Letty, since she used Carey’s phone at Channel Three.
    He flicked open the phone and said, “Yeah?”
    Jennifer Carey said, “I’ve got something I’ve got to tell you. If you let on that I’m the one who told you, I’ll kill you. I’m serious.”
    “If I have to go to court . . .”
    “It’s personal,” Carey said. “Sort of.”
    “All right. What?”
    “Letty took off this morning before I got here,” Carey said. “So ten minutes ago I was talking to Lois Cline . . . you know Lois?”
    “Vaguely. Looks like a pencil with a paintbrush on her head?”
    “Yes. Lois said that Letty has been out trolling downtown St. Paul, looking for a hooker, who she said was a classmate,” Carey said. “Lois wasn’t really sure if she was telling the truth, but warned her not to mess around with any hookers.”
    “Aw . . .”
    “That’s not the good part, yet. An hour later, Letty flagged her down, and she’s got the girl with her. Sure enough, this other kid’s a hooker,” Carey said. “Letty even got her talking about it. You know, the street. Letty’s idea, apparently,