Wicked Prey

that’s her . . . but that’s not what she looks like. You’d never recognize her from that. She’s actually quite attractive.”
    Lucas said to Barr, “That’s not good.”
    * * *
    THEY WERE sitting in a Fatburger in Marina del Rey, three hours after Lucas arrived, and Lucas looked at his watch, and then at a list Carol, his secretary, had made. He could get on a plane at four o’clock—maybe—and be back in the Cities by 10 P.M. The Bloomington motel was five minutes from the airport . . .
    “You think you could get me on a four-o’clock plane out of LAX?”
    Barr looked at his watch. “We’d have to move right along. I could call a cop out there, have him push you through.”
    Lucas popped the last of the Fatburger. “I’m thinking this: I was hoping to get the house and maybe Knofler, and maybe see something you wouldn’t see, because I’ve got some background. Now, with no house and no suspect, I’m not going to get anything you won’t. The way I see it, they were ready for us: they had a whole exit plan all figured out. She’s probably in Canada by now.”
    “Why Canada?”
    “Well, Canada’s full of criminals, so it’s a good place to hide out,” Lucas explained.
    “I didn’t know that,” Barr said. “Anyway—there’s that motel. In Bloomfield, or whatever it is.”
    “Yeah. Bloomington. Maybe I oughta get back.”
    Barr slurped up the last of his orange soda, looked at his watch, and said, “Let’s go. You got a ticket?”
    * * *
    FROM BARR’S CAR Lucas called Carol, who called Northwest and got the ticket fixed; and he called Del, who said he’d get Shrake and Jenkins and they’d meet him at the motel.
    At the airport, an airport cop was waiting at the ticket counter and pushed him through security, and got him a ride to the gate. The cabin attendant said, “Man, you were pushing it,” and Lucas said, “Glad to be going home, though.”
    They pulled the door shut behind him, and as he settled into his seat his cell rang: the cabin attendant said, “Sir, you’ll have to turn off your phone. We’re ready to roll.”
    Lucas looked at the cell screen, saw that the call was from Los Angeles. He said, “I’m a police officer working a murder case. This will only take a minute and it could be important.”
    She nodded, curious, and Lucas opened the phone and said, “Yeah?” and Barr said, “We found that Lexus.”
    “Ah, jeez, I’m on the plane.”
    “Don’t worry about it,” Barr said. “It was illegally parked on a nice quiet street up in Pasadena, Ninita Parkway. Nice green oak trees over the street, nice houses, nice cars. They noticed it when it exploded and burned right down to the wheels.”
    “Man . . .”
    “Some kind of bomb, probably on a timer,” Barr said. “If a kid had messed with that car, or if a cop had checked it out, they might have been barbecued. So: take care.”
    “You, too. You ever need anything out of the Cities, let me know.”
    * * *
     
    THE THREE and a half hours going back wasn’t as bad as the three and a half hours going out, because, to his own surprise, Lucas dozed off in the quiet cabin. He had a window seat, and declined the meal; dropped back, the seat softened by a pillow from the flight attendant, and closed his eyes. When he woke up, the guy in the next seat, who was poking at a laptop, said, “Wish I could sleep like that.”
    Lucas yawned and said, “How long was I out?”
    “Close to three hours. Sleeping like a baby. We’re coming up on Sioux Falls.”
    Lucas looked out the window, and there it was, lights of the city twinkling in the distance, Minnesota ahead in the dark. He was on the ground in an hour, on his cell phone, walking down the concourse: Del said, about the motel, “It’s pretty small and stinky. I don’t know. It could be something.”
    “I’ll be there in fifteen,” Lucas said.

    THE WAYFARER MOTEL was a crappy place, a long two-story rectangle with car parking on three sides and a chain-link fence and I-494 on the fourth side. Access was through two sets of hallways on each floor, up two sets of stairways. No elevators. The halls smelled of beer and cigarette smoke and disinfectant, with outdoor carpet hard underfoot.
    Lucas hooked up with Del, Jenkins, and Shrake, and they did a stroll around the place, two-and-two, saw nothing of special interest, and met at the office. Two clerks were working the counter: a straw-headed kid, pale and thin, with Grand Theft Auto eyes; and a soft