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Lucas shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve got a feeling that everybody’s starting to run in one direction.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to make some calls on the Ruiz interview. Take it easy, huh?”
Lucas talked to an assignment editor at the Pioneer Press:
“Wally? Lucas Davenport.”
“Hey, Lucas, how’s the hammer hangin’?”
“Wonderful expression, Wally. Where’d you hear that?”
“I thought the pigs talked like that. Excuse me, I meant cops. Just trying to be friendly.”
“Right. You got one of your hacks who can meet me on the front porch of the St. Paul cop shop, say about six o’clock?”
“What’s up?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, we got a survivor from a maddog attack and we’re going public.”
“Whoa. Hold on.”
There was a series of muffled exclamations on the other end of the line, then a new voice, female. Denise Ring, the city editor.
“Lucas, this is Denise. Where’d this woman come from?”
“Hey, Denise. How’s the hammer hangin’?”
“What?”
“Wally just asked me how the hammer was hangin’. I thought it was newspaper talk.”
“Fuck you, Lucas. And fuck Wally. What’s with this survivor?”
“We got one. We held back, because we needed to talk to her a lot. But Je
“From you?”
“No. I don’t know where she heard it. St. Paul cops, I think.”
“You’re sleeping with her.”
“Jesus Christ, does everybody read my mail?”
“Everybody knows. I mean, we figured it was just a matter of time. She was the last available woman in town. It was either her or you’d have to start dating out-state.”
“Look, Denise, you want this story or what?”
“Yeah. Don’t get excited.”
“Je
“Six o’clock? Cammeretta will be there. How about art?”
“Send a photographer. Je
“Is that what this press conference is about at nine?”
“Yeah. The survivor’ll be talking in public to the other stations, but you and TV3 and the Strib will have the exclusive stuff from the six-o’clock meeting.”
“Not exclusive for us. Je
“But not as much—”
“And the Strib will be there with us.”
“But I’m sure you’ll do it better.”
“We always do,” Ring said. “Okay. Six o’clock. What’d you say her name was?”
Lucas laughed. “Susan B. Anthony. Wait. Maybe I got that wrong. I’ll know for sure at six.”
“See you then,” Ring said.
Lucas tapped the cut-off button, redialed the Star-Tribune, gave the assignment editor the same story, and then called Carla.
“You’ll be there, right?” She sounded worried.
“Yeah. I’ll come over about five and we’ll talk about what you want to say. Then when it’s time, I’ll walk over to the station and get them. That’ll be about six. It’ll be Je
“Okay. I’m going to do my hair. What else?”
“Wear a plain blouse. Not yellow. Light blue would be good if you’ve got one. Jeans are fine. Stay away from the makeup. Just a touch of lipstick. Je
“I’m Je
“I’m fine. I see you on the news . . .”
Lucas watched them talk as Je
“Okay, listen, guys,” Je
“I’ll want to stay around for your interview,” said the Star-Tribune reporter. The Pioneer Press reporter nodded.
“No problem, but no breaking in.”
Lucas watched as the two newspaper reporters extracted the story from Carla. She relaxed under the friendly attention, becoming almost ebullient as she told how the killer had fled for his life. After fifteen minutes Lucas called for a time-out.
“We’ve got to make the press conference at nine o’clock,” he said to Je
“We’d like to get you to walk through it, just show us where the guy grabbed you, and what happened from there. Use it for the art, the pictures,” said one of the newspaper photographers.
Carla re-created it, starting from the door, a mime of a woman carrying groceries and then suddenly attacked. As she walked about, becoming increasingly animated, the photographers danced around her, their strobes flickering like lightning.
When they were done, Je
“Okay. Is there anything we missed?” asked Je
“I don’t think so,” said Carla.
“We all done, guys?” she asked the other reporters. They both nodded.
“Okay, I’m shutting it down,” Lucas said. “Nobody gets back in for a last word. If you think of anything you must have, get it from your guys at the press conference. Okay? Everybody cool?”
He ushered them out five minutes later.
“What do you think?” he asked Carla after they were gone.
“It was interesting,” she said, her eyes bright.
“Yeah, well, the press conference will be different. Lots of very quick questions, maybe nasty. Don’t mention this interview or the other stations will go crazy. By the time they see TV3, we want you out of sight.”
On the way to the press conference, Carla said, “How long have you known Je
He glanced across at her. “Years. Why?”
“She stood in your space. And you didn’t notice. That usually means . . . intimacy at some level.”
“We’ve been friends for a long time,” Lucas said neutrally.
“Have you slept with her?”
“We don’t know each other well enough to talk about that kind of thing,” he said.
“Sounds like a big yes to me,” she said.
“Jesus.”
“Hmm.”
The press conference was short, loud, and finally nasty. The chief spoke after Carla.
“Do you have any suspects?” one reporter shouted.
“We are checking all leads—”
“That means no,” the reporter shouted.
“No, it doesn’t,” Daniel said. Lucas winced.
“Then you do have a suspect,” a woman called.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You want to tell us what you’re saying? In short words?”
An hour after the press conference, whipping north along I-35 in Lucas’ Porsche, Carla was still hyper.
“So you’ll have tapes of Je
“Yeah, the recorder’s set. You can look at them when you get back.”
“It sure went downhill after the chief called that guy a jerk,” Carla said.
Lucas laughed. “I loved it. The guy was a jerk. But it chilled out Daniel, too. That’s good. He’ll be more careful.”
“And you’re not going to tell me about the suspect?”
“Nope.”
It was a three-hour drive to Lucas’ cabin. They stopped at a general store to stock up on groceries and Lucas chatted with the owner for a minute about fishing. “Two large last week,” the owner said.