Easy Prey

"And this Pella doesn't know anything about the dope?"

"She said she met Alie'e for the first time last night, and said three words to her. But she looks kinda wired I wouldn't be surprised if she carried a little toot in her purse."

"All we have to do is crack one of them," Lucas said. "Get somebody to rat out her friend."

Lester stopped by: "We grabbed Hanson's computer, but most of what we're getting is bullshit."

"They talked about dope," Lucas said.

"She said it was just rumors."

"She's bullshitting us."

"Of course she is."

Two uniformed cops from St. Paul brought in a huge man named Clark Buchanan, who, improbably, told them that he was a model and, incidentally, a welder.

"Model what?" one of the interrogating cops asked skeptically. "Lunch buckets?"

"You know, clothes and shit," Clark said. "I was the other guy in the Alie'e shoot. She was doing the clothes up front, I was making some sparks in the back."

Clark didn't know anything about drugs at the party. "I had some drinks, that's all I saw."

"Lotta drinks?"

He shrugged. "Maybe a half-dozen. Maybe ten. Vodka martinis. Goddamn. I'll tell you something, guysrich people make good fuckin' vodka martinis." He stayed at the party until one o'clock, then caught a cab and went home. He remembered the name of the cab company and that the driver's name was Art. They asked a few more questions and cut him loose.

Early in the afternoon, Alie'e's parents arrived with a group of friends and talked first to the mayor, and then the mayor walked them over to Roux's office. Roux called Lucas, who went down to her office and stood in the back, with Lester, as the chief explained what was happening with the case.

Both Ly

The friends were dressed in fla

" She was going to be in themovies," Alie'e's mother said, her voice cracking. "We had a project just about set. We were interviewing costars. That was the big step, and now"

Rose Marie was good at dealing with parents: patient, sympathetic. She introduced Lucas and Lester, and outlined how the case would be handled.

Lucas felt a strange disjuncture here: Alie'e's parents, who were probably in their late forties, looked New York, their black-on-black elegant against their blond hair and fair complexions. The words they used were New York, and even their attitude toward Alie'e was New York: all business. Not only was their daughter dead, so was the Alie'e enterprise.

But the sound of the language was small-town Mi

Rose Marie was straightforward. She mentioned the relationship with JaelLil said, "But that was just a lark, girls"and the possibility of drugs. The Olsons' eyes drifted away from Rose Marie's and as Rose Marie was finishing, the door opened, and a heavyset man stepped in, looked around.

He wore jeans, black boots, and a heavy tan Carhartt jacket, with oil stains on one sleeve. His hair was cut like a farmer's, shaggy on top but down to the skin over the ears. Ly

"We were just telling your parents what we're doing," Rose Marie said.

"Do youknow what you're doing?" he asked Rose Marie.

"We handle this kind of"

"You're dealing with a nest of rattlesnakes," Olson said. "The best thing you could do is beat all of them with a stick. They are si

"Tom," Lil said. "Tom, please."

"We're questioning everyone who was with Alie'e in the past day," Rose Marie said. "We're very confident"

Tom Olson shook his head once and looked away from her, at his parents. "So. After twenty-five years of abuse, she comes to this. Dead in Mi

Lester's eyes flicked at Lucas, as Ly

Olson squared off to his father and said, "I'm not going to take it easy. I can still remember when we called her Sharon."

"We need to talk to you," Lester said to Tom Olson.

"To question me? That's fine. But I know almost nothing about what she was doing. I had one letter a month."

"Stillwe'd like to talk."

Olson ignored him, turned to his parents, shook a finger at them. "How many times did I tell you this? How many times did I tell you that you were buying death? You even dress like the devil, in Satan's clothes. Look at you, you spend more money on one shirt than good people spend on a wardrobe. It's a sickness, and it has eaten into you"

He was starting to foam, shaking not just his finger but his entire body. Lucas pushed away from the wall, and Ly

"people living in this nightmare, people encouraging this nightmare, willingly doing the business of the devil "

He'd turned to Rose Marie, who was watching him openmouthed, and for a moment he looked as if he was going over the desk at her. Lucas moved quickly, from behind the desk, saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, man, slow down"

Olson stopped talking, but continued to vibrate, then turned away and stepped to the back of the office and leaned on the door. After a moment, in the silence, he turned, with tears ru

Del was working down a line of junkies and dealers, trying to find the source of the drugs going through SillyHansons apartment the night before. Lucas's other guy, Lane, was working on Alie'e's genealogy.

"I want all of her family, and I want a chart that shows how they're related," he told Lane. "I want all of her ex-husbands"

"Aren't any."

"all of her ex-fiancйs, ex-boyfriends, anyone else who might want to do her. Same with this other chick"

"Lansing."

"Yeah. I want the whole chart."

"Listen, I think if we sorted through the people who were at the party last night, ran them"

Lucas shook his head. "Homicide's halfway through the list. I'll get it tonight or tomorrow, if they don't have a ease by then."

"Or working on the cat-burglar angle. I got some sources down there from when I was on patrol."

"Lanego with the genealogies. Homicide and Property are working the cat-burglar thing. We want stuff that Homicide won't get around to right away. 'Cause if Alie'e getting killed isn't a random thing, if it's not a cat burglar, then it's somebody who knows her well enough to have a motive, and it's gotta be somebody reasonably close."

"But"

Lucas pointed a finger at him. "The fuckin' genealogies."

He spent an hour in Homicide, listening to returning cops talk about what they'd found, what looked good. Not much looked good. Lester came back from his talk with Tom Olson. "He says his parents trained her like a dog. That's his word. Like a show dog. Used to drag her all over the country for beauty competitions and youth talent contests and modeling gigs."