Phantom prey

“But no viscera or skin,” Weather said. “Just blood.”

“Wouldn’t have much if she were stabbed in the heart through her blouse. The blouse works like a strainer,” he mumbled through the crumbs.

“Not the case with the bartender,” Weather said. A surgeon, she was familiar with the ways of blood. “I walked over and talked to Feeney. He says the guy was really ripped. Big, heavy knife with a long blade-could have been a hunting knife, but more likely was a butcher knife. Extremely sharp. Went in at the navel, was pulled up and out, and sliced right through the aortal artery. Also dumped out some of the contents of the stomach. The person who did it was strong, and close. To get that kind of a pull, even with a sharp knife, you’d need to be right up against the victim, so you could get the biceps into it. Be like lifting a dumbbell. So Feeney says.”Feeney was a Hennepin County assistant medical examiner and worked just down the street from the Hennepin County Medical Center, where Weather did most of her work.

“So what are we talking about?” Lucas asked. “Alyssa would like you to take a look,” Weather said. “So would I.”

“I took a look,” Lucas said. “You read some reports,” Weather said. “I’m talking about a serious look. She didn’t come straight to you, because she knows what you think.”

“She’s a fuckin’ wack job,” Lucas said. “Lucas: she believes in you,” Weather said, taking one of his hands, looking into his eyes, manipulating like crazy. “That you can find her daughter.”

He pulled away, held his hands up: helpless, hopeless. “Weather: Alyssa believes her daughter was killed because her Pluto was in her House of Donald Duck. Because of the stars and the moon. That we can find her if we hire the appropriate psychic. I can’t talk to the woman. Twenty minutes and I want to strangle her.”

“Then give her fifteen minutes,” Weather said. “Weather…'

'She looks dreadful,” Weather said, pressing. “She loses her husband, she loses her daughter. All she wants is a little help, and all she gets is a bunch of flatfeet.”

“Minneapolis guys are pretty good,” Lucas said. He popped another cinnamon roll. “They only look like a bunch of flatfeet.”

“But Minneapolis isn’t working her case,” Weather said. “They only came to see her because of this dead bartender’s connection to Frances-some other Goth told them about the connection.”

“So…”

“But she says they think it’s a waste of time,” Weather said. “She could tell by the way they asked the questions. And then…”

“What?'

'She says your investigator thinks she may be involved. With whatever happened to Frances. She says that’s all they can think of. They don’t have any real suspects, so they suspect her, and they stopped looking for the real killer.”

“Another reason you shouldn’t go around casting horoscopes,” Lucas said. “People tend to think you’re nuts.”

“You think she could have done it?” Weather asked. “No.” He thought about it for a moment, then said into the silence, “Hell, I don’t know.” Weather took a cinnamon roll, popped it in her mouth, chewed twice, put her hands on her hips, and said, “Mmm. Mega- fat calories. So: will you see her, or will I have to nag you into it?”

“Aw, for Christ sakes,” Lucas said. “Tomorrow?'

'I’m pretty tied up. Maybe-'

'Lucas. You haven’t done a thing for a month, except sit around and watch Heather Toms take her clothes off,” Weather said. “You always have this slump at the end of the winter. The only way out is work. So find the time.”

“If I go along, could you provide me with a few sexual favors?” He wasn’t really doing much. And he was bummed. Sexual favors would help, and asking for them, as payment, felt agreeably sleazy; and might drain the excess testosterone he’d worked up watching the lovely Mrs. Toms dress and undress.

“Maybe,” she said. “So I’ll talk to her,” Lucas said.“Excellent. I’ll call her and confirm it,” Weather said. “Get away from the cinnamon rolls.”

“At her house,” Lucas said. “I’ll see her at her house.” Weather went to make the call and Lucas popped a third roll. They were about as wide as a fifty- cent piece and three- quarters of an inch thick, a snail of pie dough layered with butter and cinnamon, and baked until they were chewy.

He was modestly pleased with himself. Sexual favors and cinnamon rolls. Like hitting three bells on the Indian slots.

Because, realistically, once Weather had decided that he was going to talk to Austin, there was no way out. If she put her mind to it, she could nag the paint off a garage. But, if he went to Austin’s house, he could always leave. No kicking, no screaming, no weeping, no people down the hall wondering what the hell was going on in Davenport’s office. He could simply leave.

He thought about a fourth cinnamon roll. He was in good shape; he’d been working out. He couldn’t even pinch a half an inch. How many calories could a cinnamon roll have, anyway?

3

The rain continued through the night-the better for the sexual favors, which were hottest in a flickering candlelight, with freshets of water pouring through the gutters and downspouts-but was beginning to ease by the time he’d finished breakfast. He drove into the office, made a series of morning calls, checking on his agents, then made the ten o’clock meeting at the planning center, where the BCA director, Rose Marie Roux, chaired the security committee for the Republican National Convention.

Lucas had reported to Roux for years, first when she was the Minneapolis chief of police, later when she was named the director of the BCA, and he’d followed her over. She’d always been political-a street cop for a couple of years, then an office cop while she went to law school, then a state representative, a state senator, Minneapolis chief, and over to the BCA.

She was smitten by the convention job. Lucas thought she was behaving like a starstruck teenager, hanging out with the guys in black suits and ear bugs, who spoke into their cuff links and cut their hair ranger- style.

Smitten was bad. The security for the convention was going to be inadequate, because the Twin Cities area didn’t have the police resources, and the feds weren’t coming through with enough extra. None of the big shots would get hurt, of course, because they’d be blanketed by gun- toting Secret Service thugs, but the town, in Lucas’s opinion, was toast. Whoever’d had the bright idea of inviting the convention to St. Paul, he thought, should have had his head X- rayed until it smoked.

He slipped out before the meeting was done and before he might be tempted to take out his gun and shoot someone. He went downstairs and called the governor’s chief weasel, up on Capitol Hill, and got three minutes alone with the great man.

The governor was at his desk, with a stack of outstate weekly newspapers by his left hand. The sun was shining through a crack in the clouds, in through the window behind the governor’s head, and bathed him in holy nimbus. Then the cloud- cut closed, and the nimbus went away.

“What?” the governor asked, when Lucas shut the door. “Got a favor to ask.” The governor was a thin man, sleek, his hair lacquered in place, with delicate cheekbones and an aristocratic lip. He’d been reading the real estate ads in one of the weeklies, his stocking feet up on a mahogany file cabinet. The governor was the scion of one of Minnesota’s bigger fortunes, originally considered to be the runt of the litter, and now pretty much running the state and the family. Some said he thought they were the same thing…

His socks, Lucas observed, were a pale lavender with the thinnest of scarlet clocks. The governor cocked an eye at him and asked, “Is this gonna cause me trouble? Whatever it is?”

“Probably the least amount of trouble of anything you’ve done today,” Lucas said, as he dropped into a leather armchair. “If you get assassinated this week, can I have those socks?”

“No. We pass these down through the generations, to the oldest sons.”

“C’mon. Where’d you get them?'