Night Prey

"Okay…"

Lucas filed a complaint with the sheriff's deputy who followed the ambulance in, and Junky was hauled away.

"I'm glad I came with you," Greave said. "Got to see a dump, and a guy cutting himself up like a provolone."

Lucas shook his head and said, "You did pretty good back there. You've got a nice line of bullshit."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Talking to people, you know, that's half of homicide."

"I got the bullshit. It's the other part I ain't got," Greave said gloomily. "Listen, you wa

"No."

"C'mon, man."

"We've got too much going on," Lucas said. "Maybe we'll catch some time later."

"They're wearing me out in homicide," Greave said. "I get these notes. They say, 'Any progress?' Fuck 'em."

Greave went on to homicide to check in, while Lucas walked down to Roux's office and stuck his head in.

"We picked up Junky Doog. He's clear, almost for sure."

He explained, and told her how Junky had mutilated himself. Roux, nibbling her lip, said, "What happens if I feed him to the Strib?"

"Depends on how you do it," Lucas said, leaning against the door, crossing his arms. "If you did it deep off-the-record, gave them just the bare information… it might take some heat off. Or at least get them ru

"Fuck cynical. His prior arrests were here in He

"Most of them, I think. He was committed from here. If you tipped them early enough, they could get across the street and pull his files."

"Even if it's bullshit, it's an exclusive. It's a lead story," Roux said. She rubbed her eyes. "Lucas, I hate to do it. But I'm taking some serious damage now. I figure I've got a couple of weeks of grace. After that, I might not be able to save myself."

Back at his office, a message was waiting on voice mail: "This is Co

Lucas dialed her beeper number, let it beep, and hung up. Junky had been a waste of time, although he might be a bone they could throw the media. Not much of a bone…

With nothing else to do, he began paging through Co

There were several threads that tied all the killings together, but the thread that worried him most was the simplicity of them. The killer picked up a woman, killed her, dumped her. They weren't all found right away-Co

He didn't leave anything behind, either. The actual death scenes might have been in his vehicle-Co

In one case, in Thunder Bay, there may have been some semen on a dress, but the stain, whatever it was, had been destroyed in a failed effort to extract a blood type. A note from a cop said that it might have been salad dressing. DNA testing had not yet been available.

Vaginal and anal examinations had come up negative, but there was oral bruising that suggested that some of the women had been orally raped. Stomach contents were negative, which meant that he didn't ejaculate, ejaculated outside their mouth, or they lived long enough for stomach fluids to destroy the evidence.

Hair was a different problem. Foreign-hair samples had been collected from several of the bodies, but in most cases where hair was collected, several varieties were found. There was no way to tell that any particular hair came from the killer-or, indeed, that any of the hair was his. Co

Closing the file, Lucas got out of his chair and wandered around to stare sightlessly out the window, working it through his head. The man never left anything unique. Hair, so far, was the only possibility: they needed a match, and needed it badly. They had nothing else that would tie a specific man to a specific body. Nothing at all.

The phone rang. "This is Meagan. I've got somebody who remembers the killer…"

CHAPTER

8

Late in the afternoon, sun warm on the city sidewalks. Greave didn't want to go. "Look, I'm not go

"We need somebody else current with the case," Lucas said. "You're the guy. I want somebody else seeing these people, talking to them."

Greave rubbed his hair with both hands, then said, "All right, all right, I'll go along. But-if we've got time, we stop at my apartment, right?"

Lucas shrugged. "If we've got time."

Co

"Been here long?" Greave asked. He was still pouting.

"One minute," she said. She was strung out, hard energy overlying a deep weariness. She'd been up all night, Lucas thought. Talking to the TV. Dying.

"Have you talked to St. Paul?" he asked.

"They're dead in the water," Co

"So what do you think?"

"He's an asshole, but he's unlikely," she said. "He's an older guy, too heavy, out of shape. He used to smoke Marlboros, but quit ten years ago. The main thing is, St. Paul is covering like mad. They've been called out to his house a half-dozen times, but there's never been a charge."

Lucas shook his head, looked at the diagnosis center. "What about this woman?"

"Mae Heinz. Told me on the phone that she'd seen a guy with a beard. Short. Strong-looking."

Lucas led the way inside, a long office full of parts books, tires, cutaway muffler displays, and the usual odor of antifreeze and transmission fluid. Heinz was a cheerful, round-faced woman with pink skin and freckles. She sat wide-eyed behind the counter as Co

"But you didn't see her go out with a man?"

"She didn't," Heinz said. "She went out alone. I remember."

"Were there a lot of men there?"

"Yeah, there were quite a few. There was a guy with a ponytail and a beard and his name was Carl, he asked a lot of questions about pigs and he had dirty fingernails, so I wasn't too interested. Everybody seemed to know him. There was a computer guy, kind of heavyset blond, I heard him talking to somebody."

"Meyer," Co

"Kind of cute," Heinz said, looking at Co