Buried Prey

There was hardly anyone in the building, and they walked down a couple of dark hallways toward the light coming out of a single office; Lucas could hear the police radios as they came up.

The radios were in a small room down the hall, and the blind man who monitored them said, as they went by, “Hello again, Catherine,” and she said, “Yup, it’s me,” and they went on into the library. She closed and locked the door behind her, though if there were any reporters left in the building, the guy in the monitoring room could buzz them through.

They got the pizza inside and they messed around for a couple minutes, squeezing and petting, then she buttoned her bra and they settled behind the counter to eat the pizza. Catherine asked, “What have you been up to?”

“This has gotta come from an anonymous source,” Lucas said, around a pepperoni and mushroom.

“I’ve already gotten you in the paper about six times. . . .”

“No, no. This time, I don’t want to be in the paper,” Lucas said. “In fact, you can’t mention my name. Maybe you could feed it through the radio guy?”

“What is it?”

He told her how he’d been put in plainclothes to look for the girls, how he’d been switched to the Smith investigation, and how the two investigations might become one—how there was at least a possibility that Smith had been killed by the same person who took the girls.

“You figured this out? Wow,” she said. Her eyes were large. “Wait a minute, I just clipped the story. . . .”

She went through a file of stories clipped from the next day’s paper, and said, “Here . . .” She scanned it, and then looked up: “There’s not a single word about a suspect. About this street guy.”

“We’ve been holding it tight. But here’s the thing: instead of giving it all to the reporter, have them ask the question: Did you arrest a bum, a transient, and then let him go? Are you looking for him? Do you have a photo? And ask if the Smith murder was involved.”

“What do you get out of this?”

Lucas grinned at her: “Friendship?”

She blushed and said, “I could use a little friendship. But I’ve got to finish clipping.”

LUCAS WATCHED her clip the rest of the papers, stuffing the day’s stories in little green envelopes, and thought about the stuff he’d given her, and smiled to himself. A few questions about Scrape would crank up the pressure, might bring in some tips about where he was and how he got loose after his arrest, and keep Lucas on the job.

He really didn’t want to go back to the patrol car. Not after the taste he’d had; and he wanted to stay in front of Daniel as long as he could.

As Catherine finished the clipping, Lucas went into the vault, an inner room of the newspaper library, and pulled a tied bundle of papers off a shelf. Some historic issue about Hubert Humphrey, judging from the headlines. Well, fuck a bunch of Hubert Humphrey. He spread the papers out on the floor, an inch or so thick.

When he came back out, she said, “What were you doing?”

“Hubert Humphrey’s suffered a tragedy,” he said. “Only a trained librarian could put it right.”

She came to look in the vault, turned to him and said, “This is a disgrace.”

AN HOUR LATER, on their way out of the building, Catherine leaned in the door of the radio room and said, “Roy . . . listen, I was talking to a guy—”

“The guy with you?”

“No, no. This is just a friend,” she said.

The radio guy said, “Hi, friend.”

Lucas: “Hi.”

Catherine said, “Anyway, this guy says there was a ruckus down in his neighborhood tonight, right around midnight. There were some cops there—”

“Got that. The fight down at the Mill?”

“No. Listen, here’s the thing. My guy says somebody should ask the cops if it’s true that they arrested a transient in the case of the Jones girls, and then let him go, and now are trying to get him back. And they should ask if it’s true that the killing of the black kid the other day, Bobby’s story, if that guy was killed by the same transient who took the girls, at the same time.”

“The cops think a transient killed Smith, and kidnapped the girls?” The blind guy was skeptical.

“That’s what my guy heard. They were searching that alley where Smith got killed, at midnight, and they weren’t looking for evidence about Smith—they were looking for evidence about the girls. And he says they found some. They say Smith might have tried to interfere in the kidnapping. He might be a hero, not some dead dope dealer.”

“Pretty heavy-duty if it’s true,” the blind guy said.

“Thought you might get some cred if you pass it along,” Catherine said.

“I’ll do that. Thanks, Kate.”

They went down the back stairs, and Lucas walked her to her car in the parking lot across from the front of the building. She said, “You never come to my place. I think you’re afraid it might turn into a relationship.”

“That’s completely wrong,” he said. “With my hours . . .”

“You’re not going anywhere now,” she said. “So follow me.”

“Kate . . .”

But she was already rolling.