'God, I wish we'd had time to talk,' Lucas said. 'What do you do now? Do you still paint?'
'No, no, I do some photography, but the painting, I don't know. I just stopped. My husband's a family practice guy. I helped out at the office when we were first getting started'
'I heard about you marrying a doctor. I remembered on the way over here, after you told me this morning. I think Bill Washington said something about you going out with an older guy.'
'Washington. God, I haven't thought about him in years. The last time I saw him, we were all sitting around on a floor in Dinkytown getting high.'
'You're a photographer? Say, you don't know a guy named Amnon Plain, do you? He's hooked up with the Alie'e case.'
'Really? Did he do it?'
'He says not, and he probably didn't but he says he's some kind of fashion photographer, and I thought'
'Jeez, he's more than that. He does fashion photography, got started that way. But he does these most amazing pictures of the prairie. He's like Avedon, he does fashion but he's got this whole other thing.'
'Avedon?'
'You were never an intellectual, were you?' She laughed.
'I was majoring in hockey, for Christ's sakes. Criminal justice.'
'Yeah, well Plain's a photographer. Big time. Pretty big time. I'm nothing like thatI mostly take care of the kids. Or try tothey're getting to the point where they don't want to hear from me. Oh, my God'
'What?'
'I just had a terrible thought,' she said,
'What?'
'One of them's about to go off to the U. She could run into a Lucas Davenport.'
'Hey, how bad could it get?'
But she was laughing. 'I read about you in the newspaper. Sometimes I can't believe that, you know, Iknew you once. You're kinda famous.'
'Yeah. Like they say, world famous in Minneapolis.' Pause. 'So let me buy you lunch,' Lucas said.
A pause on the other end. 'Will you tell me all the inside-cop stuff about Alie'e?'
'If you won't tell anybody else.'
She laughed again, and said, 'When?'
Catrin. As soon as she was off the phone, he wanted to call her again.
And what was he gonna wear tomorrow? Something really cool and expensive, or something tough, coplike? He'd been a hockey jock when they first got together, but she'd confessed then that she wasn't much interested in sportsor jocks, either. He'd talk about taking somebody out on the ice, or he'd come back after the match with a little ding on a cheekbone, a little rub, and she'd be perplexed and disturbed and sometimes even a little amused by his pleasure in the violence
The adrenaline of Catrin's call got to him. He pushed himself out of the chair, took another turn around the office, and finally launched himself out into the hallway. Frank Lester was sitting in his office, leaning back in his leather chair, the door open, cops coming and going. 'Anything new?' Lucas asked.
'Nope. Rose Maries doing another press conference about the lesbo thing.'
'Jesusdon't call them lesbos if you go on TV.'
'Hey, am I an idiot?'
Lucas looked at the ceiling, as if thinking about it, and Lester grinned and said, 'We're indexing everything we're getting from the interviews, running down every single person at the party, but I'll tell you what: The guys are starting to think it's a cat burglar.'
'That'd be tough,' Lucas said. 'If we haven't got anything yet.'
'It'd be damn near impossible, unless somebody turns him in. What's the evidence gonna be? He didn't even get any blood on him, because there wasn't any. We're thinking about putting up a reward.'
'You know about George Shaw?' Lucas asked.
Lester nodded. 'Nothing there.'
'Probably not, but the media seems to have gotten the idea that there is. If you decide to organize a reward, why don't you wait until after the George Shaw angle burns out? A reward would be somethingnew . Keep the goddamn TV off our backs as long as we can.'
'All right.'
'Besides, I'll tell you what,' Lucas said. 'The answer is in the party. There wasn't any cat burglar.'
'Sez who?'
'Sez me. Rose Marie told me this morning that a man killed Alie'e, that it wasn't a lesbo thing, and by God, she was right. It wasn't a cat burglar, either. God just wouldn't like it, if it was all just a coincidence, a one time thing, and the victim just happened to be Alie'e Maison.'
Lester puffed up his cheeks, and then exhaled. Then nodded.
'A cat burglar doesnot crawl though a window and accidentally find a passed-out Alie'e Maison lying there without her underpants,' Lucas said. 'Not in a million fuckin' years.'
Lester grinned again, thinking about it. 'Have to be a profoundly lucky cat burglar.'
Lucas asked, 'Where's Sloan?'
'Still down doing interviews.'
Lucas headed for the stairs. Maybe Sloan was pulling a thread.
He wondered what Catrin would be like. What if she'd turned into this small-town mommy housewife? She hadn't looked like that. At the gas station, she'd looked interesting. He tried to gather back the memory of the morning. She was older, obviously, but then, so was he. She had some lines. A couple of extra pounds? Maybe. Maybe ten? Maybe. But still with the good hair, the good moves. The laugh
He flashed back to his college apartment. He'd lived over a dingy auto-parts shop down University Avenue. He had one room with a fold-out couch and fake Oriental carpet from Goodwill, a bathroom permanently frosted over with either mildew or fungushe was never interested enough to find out whichand a kitchen with a cheap gas stove and a refrigerator that was missing a leg and so listed to the left, and made sloped ice cubes. He also had a tiny bedroom, and in the bedroom was the best piece of furniture in the apartment, a bed he'd brought from home. And a good thing it was that he had the bed, because if he hadn't, Catrin would have broken his back. She liked sex. A lot. She was not promiscuous, just enthusiastic. The two of them had learned a lot together, trying out their chops. There was one cold winter day, but sunny, they'd been in bed late in the morning, the sun coming through the dirty window, splashing across the bed, and Catrin
Flashing back on it, he felt himself stirred.
At the bottom of the stairs he stopped and looked around. What was he doing?
Ah. Sloan.
Sloan was just coming out of the interview room. He carried a piece of paper, and walked a half-step behind a middle-aged man who seemed broken. The man had a bump at the back of his neck, his head pressed forward, his thinning gray hair combed over the top of his balding head. His face was dry, but tear tracks showed down his cheeks.
'Lucas this is Mr. Arthur Lansing. Sandy Lansing was his daughter.'
'I'm sorry, Mr. Lansing,' Lucas said.
'I can't believe she's gone,' he said. 'She was so happy. Her career' He trailed off, then said it again: 'Her career' He looked at Lucas. 'When she was a little girl, her mama and I used to drive over to Como Park and push her though the zoo in a walker. She loved the bears. And the monkeys, she loved the monkeys.'
'I'm sure' Lucas was about to unreel a cliche, but Lansing broke in.
'Do you think you'll catch them?' he asked.
'Yes.'
'I'll betcha it was niggers,' he said.
'There weren't any black people at the party last night.'
Lansing shook a trembling finger at Lucas. 'Maybe. But you watch. I betcha it was niggers. You go upstairs, in the courthouse? I go up there all the time. To watch. All you see in them courtrooms is niggers. I mean, some white trash goes through there, but ninety-nine percent of them is niggers. And most of the white trash got nigger blood.'
