Phantom Prey

17

The next morning, instead of pushing the Austin file, Lucas sat in Rose Marie Roux’s office in the Public Safety building and they shouted at each other about the Republican convention. Roux was working on a matrix of all possible outcomes of the street demonstrations, from minor disturbances to full- blown call- out- the-National-Guard riots- not to determine staffing levels, but to propose differing political postures for the governor and his pals, depending on what happened.

“If we really had a disaster, there’d be some fallout for us, too,” she said, solemn as a priest. “Wouldn’t just be St. Paul.”

“If there’s a disaster, another Seattle ’ninety nine, there’ll be fallout for everybody,” Lucas said. “Forty thousand demonstrators showed up in Seattle and that was for the World Trade Organization. How many people know what the WTO is? And we’re gonna get the Republican Party and the most unpopular president since Richard Nixon.”

“The biggest horse’s ass since Richard Nixon."

"I can’t stand it when you guys say that,” Lucas said, his voice rising. “Somebody says, ‘The black bloc is coming, the anarchists, we’re gonna have a riot,’ and one of you political guys says, ‘The president is a horse’s ass,’ like that’s an answer. Do you think it makes any difference to Gepetto’s, if some goddamn ratshit anarchist throws a firebomb through the dining room window, if the president’s a horse’s ass? Don’t tell me about him being a horse’s ass, ’cause I don’t give a shit. Tell me how you’re gonna keep the firebomb from going through the window.”

“A giant horse’s ass, a horse’s ass of biblical proportions.” Rose Marie was goading him, and he knew it, and that infuriated him even more.

“… And that’s what Gepetto wants to know, too. He’s full every night, he’s turning tables as fast as he can push food at people. He doesn’t give a shit whether the Republicans come to town. What he wants is police protection…”

“… You’re shouting again…"

"… and when Gepetto asks, ‘How’re you going to protect me?’ all you guys got is, ‘The president’s a horse’s ass.’ That’s a really great answer.”

“There is no Gepetto,” Rose Marie said. “The place is owned by Tommy Reed.”

“I know who it’s owned by. Does that make any difference? Do you-”

His cell phone went off, and he pulled it out and looked at the screen: Dakota County sheriff’s department: “Yeah? Davenport.”

“This is Dick Pratt down in Dakota. A guy walked in the door early this morning with Frances Austin’s purse,” Pratt said. “No cash, but all of her ID is there. Credit cards, driver’s license. He remembered the story, drove it in. He found it in the ditch a couple miles north of the body.”

“Anything good?"

"Maybe,” Pratt said. “You got a guy named Frank connected to her? Heard that name?"

"Uhhh… yeah. Somewhere."

"Figure out where. There was a letter in her purse, handwritten, we think it’s her handwriting, with a felt- tip pen. Water got to it, in the ditch. The paper’s falling apart and a lot of the note is one big ink stain-but we can read the top part of it. Addressed to Frank, it looks like she was breaking off a relationship.”

“That’s good,” Lucas said, standing up, focusing now. “That could be critical. We were told that she didn’t have a boyfriend. You’re sure it’s her handwriting?”

“Pretty sure. There was another thing in there, a list, and the handwriting looks the same to me. We’ll have a handwriting guy give us an opinion. But who else’s would it be? That kind of a letter?”

“Goddamnit."

"And you got a Frank?” Pratt asked. “Someplace in the notes. I’ll find it. The letter’s in really bad shape?"

"Yeah. Our guys got it flat, and got it dry, but it was in the water too long. Even the part we can read is smeared. ‘Frank,’ is pretty clear, though. It looks like she folded it and refolded it about a million times, like she hadn’t sent it. Like she was thinking about it.”

“I’d like to come down and take a look,” Lucas said. “If you want, I can have our guys take a high- res photo of it and e-mail it to you. You could have it in two minutes, save you a trip."

"Let’s do it,” Lucas said. He rang off and Rose Marie asked, “Catch a break?"

"Maybe. I’ve got to get back to the office."

"Nice screaming at you,” she said.

Halfway back to his office, Lucas realized where he’d heard the name Frank. He was so startled by the realization that he pulled the car over and dug out the notebook, to check. Yes: Martina Trenoff made him write the name down. Frank Willett was a trainer at one of Alyssa’s clubs and, she’d said, one of Alyssa’s lovers. Karate, she’d said. Model, bicycle racer, rock climber, surfer, one of those guys who you can’t figure out how they made a living.

The rest of the way back to the office was a fantasy, a story that Lucas made up as he drove: a guy with no money, fucking both an heiress and the heiress’s daughter, who was, come to think of it, also an heiress.

But the mother, in addition to being a little goofy and believing in astrology and probably tea leaves, also had a tougher, business side. In addition, she’d had a number of lovers, and might not have been interested in a long- term relationship with somebody like a bicycle racer/ model/surfer guy.

She might like fucking him, okay, but long- term, she’d want somebody with status in the community, somebody with… good shoes. She’d mentioned the artist, Kidd-a perfect match for her. As an artist, he’d certainly be goofy enough, and hell, he was in museums. That’s what she’d want, not some guy who walked around thinking about his next pair of sunglasses.

The daughter, on the other hand, young, inexperienced, not all that great- looking, might be a bit more influenced by a guy with big muscles and a surfer’s outlook.

And if the guy were looking for money… From there, that one thing, that relationship, all kinds of other things might have fallen out. She tells him she’s going to break it off: they argue in the kitchen, there’s some pushing, she reaches for a knife, he takes it away from her and sticks her. Wonder what kind of truck he’d have, whether there’d be transmission fluid in the truck bed? No doubt in Lucas’s mind that the guy would have a truck, if he was a surfer, a bike- racer, a rock climber, all that.

Or, how about this: the daughter finds out that he’s fucking both her and her mother: goes to Mom with the story, there’s an argument that turns violent, one of them yanks out the knife in a fit of passion, or jealousy, or even self- defense and… zut.

“Finally,” he said aloud. The whole Frank thing made everything clear: this was no big cosmic mystery, it was just some of the same old bullshit. An argument about sex and love, some hysteria, and a murder.

Why were the others killed? Because they knew about the relationship? Was Frank there the night of the chicken dance?

He thought about Austin for a moment. Not Austin, he decided. She was tough, but unless she was totally nuts, there was no way that she could have produced all the tears that came with Frances’s death-and he’d seen her face when they told her that the body had been found. Until that moment, Lucas thought, she’d had some hope that Frances might still be alive.

Not Austin. At the BCA office, he ran halfway up the stairs, until his bad leg bit back at him, and he nearly fell. Limping into the office, he nodded at Carol, who asked, “What’s happening?” and came to stand in the door while he punched up the computer.

“Got a break, maybe,” he said. “Found Frances Austin’s purse, got a breakup note out of it. Breaking up with a guy named Frank.”

“ Old- fashioned name, Frank,” Carol said. “Don’t see many Franks anymore. If they’d gotten married, it would have been Mr. Francis and Mrs. Frances Austin.”

Lucas was listening to her prattle and he pulled up the e- mail, then frowned and looked up and asked, “What’d you say?”She shrugged. “Nothing. I was just going on."

"You said Frances and Francis-are they spelled the same?"

"No, but I don’t know which is which."

"I bet no one else does, either,” Lucas said. He ran his hands through his hair, said, “Holy shit. Holy shit. Go get me Dan Jackson, on the run, and tell him to bring that big fuckin’ camera. Holy shit, the Frances Austin who went to the bank could have been a man.”

He took a moment to explain, walking around his desk, then, as Carol went to call the photographer, went back and pulled up the photo of the breakup note. As Pratt had said, the note was badly smeared, but the salutation was clear enough:

Dear Frank, I’ve put off writing this letter for a long time [smudge] heart I didn’t want to believe what I heard. There’s no point in [longer smudge] hear from you again, really. I also don’t want [smudge]

From there, it was a black stain; maybe the feds could make something out of it, but felt- tips don’t make much of a physical indentation on paper, her handwriting was small, and the stains were dark. Still, it was possible that a lab could recover the original.

Not that he needed it to push the investigation. What they had was, for now, good enough.

Lucas frowned: but where would the fairy fit in this scenario? He thought about it for a moment, and then let it go. If they nailed down Willett, he thought, the fairy would come clear. She was probably another of his lovers-maybe the one who put Willett up to stealing the fifty thousand.

“Carol!” She popped back in the office: “Dan’s on his way."

"We need to get everything on paper that we can about Willett

Run everything you can think of. If we come up with previous addresses, out- of- state, we’re gonna want to get their stuff…”

Jackson, the photographer, came in a moment later, and Carol called, “We’ve only got one Frank Willett locally-it’s Frank, not Francis, on his driver’s license.”

“Where’s that Willett work? We need an address,” Lucas said. “I’ll get into the employment security, hang on…” Jackson, stepping around Carol, asked, “Another rush job?"

"I think we’ve got something this time,” Lucas said. Carol called, “It’s him, he works for A. Austin LLC in Minnetonka

He lives in St. Louis Park.” And she pulled up his driver’ s- license photo: Willett had long black hair, carefully arranged on his shoulders, an oval face, square white teeth. He looked good, and he knew it, even in a license photograph.

“Ooo,” Carol said. Lucas squinted at the picture, trying to make him as the man in the alley. Couldn’t do it; the long hair was distracting. The guy in the alley seemed to have short curly hair, he thought. But if Willett had cut it… or maybe even if he’d been wearing a ponytail on the night of the shooting… it wasn’t impossible, but he couldn’t ID him from the photo.

Lucas had Carol call Minnetonka and ask for Willett. When the receptionist transferred the call, Carol hung up.

“I’m going out there,” Lucas said. “Want to ride along in the van?” Jackson asked. “I’ll meet you over there,” Lucas said. “I don’t want to get stuck if you have to wait awhile; but I’ll come and sit for an hour or two.”

Minnetonka was on the far western edge of the metro area, and from the BCA office, took a solid forty- five minutes, west on I- 94 and I- 394, winding around in the maze of streets at the end of it. Lucas had Jackson on the cell phone, and they cruised the spa, Waterwood, from opposite directions, then hooked up at a strip mall and Lucas transferred into the back of the van.

The GMC had been taken away from a dope dealer. It had nice captain’s chairs in the back, tinted windows, a dresser with a mirror, and, if the chairs were moved, space for a narrow memory- foam mattress, which had been stripped out.

Jackson took it back to Waterwood, parked across the street, eased into the back of the van and took the other captain’s chair. “Magazines in the chiffonier, diet Coke and raspberry- flavored water in the fridge,” he said. “I got the rest of the subscription to Sirius, long as you don’t play any country and western.”

Lucas settled for a bottle of water and a classic rock channel, checked the magazines: Blind Spot, PhotoPro, PDN, a couple of Shutterbugs, Men’s Journal, a Playboy, and an aging Esquire with a picture of Charlize Theron on the cover, as the world’s sexiest woman.

“You think she’s the sexiest woman?” Jackson asked, about Charlize Theron.

“There is no such thing,” Lucas said. “That’d be like the best baseball game. You can argue about it a long time, but you’ll never agree.”

“I think she’s the sexiest,” Jackson said. “Angelina Jolie?"

"She’s good, she’s good,” Jackson admitted. “Michelle Pfeiffer?"

"Ah, Jesus, now you’ve got me confused,” Jackson said. “I like the blondies…” So they talked about sex and tried not to drink too much water, because they’d have to pee, and Jackson had a sack of black- corn chips and some nacho sauce in a plastic cup, and they ate some of that, but not too much, because then one of them might develop gas, and then they talked about the truck for a while, and whether there was any real difference between a GMC and a Chevrolet, and they watched women coming and going, and Jackson said, “I wouldn’t mind seeing her with her clothes off,” and Lucas asked him if he’d ever shot any nudes. Jackson said he dreamed about it, but his wife would kill him, so he didn’t.

“You got any nude pictures of your wife?” Lucas asked. Jackson bit on the oldest baits in history: “No, uh, you know, I…"

"Want to buy some?” They were still laughing about that when Frank Willett came out the door with an old lady. Willett was six feet tall, Lucas thought, narrow shoulders, no hips at all, probably weighed a hundred and sixty pounds, and all of it was muscle: like a snake. He was wearing sweats with a hood folded back on his shoulders, gym shoes, and a black ball cap; round, steel- rimmed glasses; and he dangled a gear bag from his left hand.

Jackson started whaling on the camera the moment they came out the door. The outside walks were made of flagstone, and Willett and the old lady chattered along as they ambled toward the street, and then took a right toward the parking lot. Lucas said to Jackson, “Short hair,” but when they turned, he spotted a short ponytail sticking out the back of Willett’s ball cap. “Shit. Ponytail.”

“Hair’s black, though, like you wanted,” Jackson grunted. “ Suck- ass license photo, it could have been any color.”

In the parking lot, Willett patted the old lady on the shoulder and walked across to his car, a gray Land Rover LR3. “Get the plates,” Lucas said to Jackson.

Jackson did, but said, “Just as easy to look them up."

"The guy’s a personal trainer,” Lucas said. “Where does he get money for a Land Rover? It might not be his.” Jackson was shooting: “Well, there’s ways…"

"And I know one of them,” Lucas said. “You take fifty thousand dollars off Frances Austin.”

When they were gone, Lucas said, “Let’s get these back and get some prints. Need them quick.”

“You can have them in two minutes, if you want,” Jackson said. “Yeah?” Jackson pulled open the bottom drawer of the chiffonier, took out a Canon photo printer about the size of a carton of milk, and plugged in his memory card. Lucas picked out four photos on the small LCD screen, and Jackson printed them as 5x7 glossies.

“Christ, this place is like a photographer’s dream,” Lucas said, as the photos pooped out of the tiny printer.

“And when some asshole tries to take it away from me, I’m counting on you to back me up,” Jackson said.

“Absolutely,” Lucas said.

The run across town was delayed by construction, and Lucas, pissing on his own shoes for choosing the wrong route, took an hour to get to the Riverside State Bank in Maplewood. As he was pulling into the parking lot, he took a call from Carol:

“Not only does our man have a history, there’s an outstanding warrant from San Francisco,” she said. “He never showed up for a court date on a sale- sized pot bust, so he is fair game. We can bag his tight little ass anytime we want.”

“How much did he have?” Lucas asked. “How do you know he has a tight ass?”

“Six ounces. And Dan got back and showed me some of his shots."

"Well, shit, that’s not much of a sale."

"The information out there claims he was providing it to meditation clients to smooth them out,” she said. “He was teaching in a program called Action Zen, where you’d jump out of an airplane or climb a cliff, and then smooth out on dope.”

“Sounds weird,” Lucas said. “Sounds fun,” Carol said. “But the important thing, like I said, is that he’s fair game.”

Emily wau, the banker, looked at the photographs for three minutes, shuffled them around on her desk in different configurations, then said, “No.”

“No?"

"I think I would have remembered this one, for sure,” she said. “Is he married?"

"Jeez, Emily, give me a break. I’m not a dating service,” Lucas said. “Maybe you should be- you’re not doing that well as a cop,” she said, but she smiled when she said it.

Lucas thought about it for a few minutes, as he drove away from the bank, then put in a call to Alyssa Austin. “I need to talk to you about Frank Willett.”

There was a moment of silence, then, “ Uh- oh."

"Where are you at?"

"In St. Paul. I can be home in fifteen minutes. If we have to talk about him, I’d rather do it at home, than here.” Somebody was sitting across her desk, Lucas thought. “Half hour,” he said. On the way down, he called the number he had for McGuire and Robinson, the couple who were setting up the website. Robinson answered, and he identified himself and said, “Did you ever meet a friend of Frances named Frank Willett?”

“Uh… maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Yeah. We went out to a place in Stillwater, last summer, a restaurant down on the water."

"The Dock,” Lucas said. “Yes, that’s it,” Robinson said. “Anyway, she was there with a guy, and she might have said his name was Frank. I don’t know what their relationship was-they seemed kind of standoffy, but you know, funny like. Like maybe they were unhappy about us seeing them together.”

“Denise, you didn’t mention this when we talked."

"I didn’t even remember it until you asked me about Frank,” she said. “And I’m not sure the guy was named Frank-we didn’t eat with them; they were at a table for two, we just said hi, and we moved along.”

“You remember what the guy looked like?” Lucas asked. “Pretty good- looking. Like a ballet dancer, or something. Thin, big hands."

"Hair color?” Lucas asked. “Black; with a ponytail. Two- day stubble. And he had a diamond earring."

"Of course he did,” Lucas said. “Yes; of course he did,” she said. “What’s this all about?"

"We’re taking a look at him,” Lucas said. “Now, I’m very serious about this. And you tell McGuire, too. If you see this guy again, you get away from him. Especially if you see him on the street, and he comes over to you.”

“You think?"

"We can’t take the chance,” Lucas said. “So if you see him…” He could hear the shiver in her voice: “Get away.”

Austin was wearing a black velour sweat suit and pink dance shoes. She held the door open, closed it behind him, and said, “So somewhere along the line, you ran into Frank. I’ve been thinking about it, who you could have talked to, and I’m worried that one of my employees tipped you off.”

“Why should that worry you?” Lucas asked. “Because I wouldn’t take that kind of disloyalty,” she snapped. “If you heard it from one of my people, I’m going to have to root her out.” Lucas was shaking his head. “Relax. It’s not one of your employees.”She nodded: “Then it was Martina, that bitch. I thought Hunter might have figured something out. We were at an event at the Walker, and who should come wandering by, but Frank. I told him to get away from me, but I saw Hunter notice, you know, looking at me and then at Frank, and I was afraid he’d figured it out. And he told her.”

“You should have told me,” Lucas said. “For Christ’s sakes, your daughter was murdered.”

“The relationship was over for six months before Frances was killed,” she said, and she started to tear up. “There was no connection. Frank is not a bad guy.”

“California wants him on a dope warrant,” Lucas said. “What?"

"Not that big a deal, really-but he does have a warrant out,” Lucas said. “If he gets stopped on a traffic ticket, and they run him, that could pop up.”

“Oh, shit,” she said. They had trailed into the living room, and she plopped on a couch. And she shouted, “Helen!”

The housekeeper scurried out of the kitchen. “Squeeze a couple of oranges for me, will you? Maybe an orange smoothie. Lucas? You want a smoothie?"

"That sounds fine,” Lucas said. When the housekeeper was gone, he said, “I gotta tell you about something, and the way you’re talking, I’m not sure you knew about it.”

“About what?"

"About Frank and Frances."

"What about Frank and Frances?” Her hand went to her throat, and she half- laughed, but with shock in her eyes, denying it, and said, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“We think there was something going on there. The Dakota County cops came up with her purse-a guy found it and turned it in. There was a letter…” He took the folded print out of his pocket and handed it to her.

She looked at it for a long time, more than a minute, then shook her head and said, “Well. Not much here.”

“But it looks to me-"

"Me, too. It’s her handwriting, no doubt about it,” Austin said. “Do you have any idea when the relationship might have started?"

"It would have to be after he and I broke it off."

"Why? Why afterwards.” She looked at him, blankly, for a moment, then half-smiled: “Because he would not have had the energy to be sleeping with her, too. I, uh, needed a lot of attention.”

“Okay. So when did you break off?"

"April, the middle of April, right around tax time,” Austin said. “I had a lot to do, he started getting a little testy when I put him off… and finally I told him that we should end it. And I did. We did. Agreed to.”

“Sounds like you did,” Lucas said. “Maybe,” she conceded. “And he would have gotten to know Frances through you?” Lucas asked. “Well, through the spa in Minneapolis, Riverwood. It’s right over in St. Anthony Main."

"By the A1,” Lucas suggested. “Oh, God! I never thought of that. I mean, it’s several blocks, but it’s an easy walk.” She turned her face away from him for a moment, thinking, and then back: “But so what? I mean, what would that mean?”

“I don’t know. But tell me about how they probably met,” Lucas said.

“Well. She was going to the university, off and on, had an apartment over there, and the Riverwood location was the closest one, so she took a locker and would work out over there,” Austin said. “Frank works at several of the sites, usually one morning or one afternoon a week, doing tai chi, yoga, Pilates, meditation, whatever the members want.”

“Did she know that you were seeing Frank?"

"Not as far as I know. But I’m sure a couple of members could have figured it out and let her know. I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that precipitated this letter.”

“She apparently hadn’t sent it,” Lucas said. “It was still in her purse. So they were going on at the time.”

“You think that he might have come here?"

"What if she thought you were still sleeping with him? When she was? He denies it, she comes here to confront you, they argue… I mean, his job is at stake,” Lucas said. “Another thing-that fifty thousand dollars? You may not have noticed it, but your employee is driving a Land Rover. Do you pay him that well?”

Now she blushed, the pale pink tint creeping up her neck to her cheeks. “Actually… Look, I wasn’t paying him to sleep with me. But I have lots of money, and he was driving around in this old Jeep Cherokee with holes in the floor. I was afraid he was going to gas himself.”

“You bought him the Land Rover?"

"I helped him with it, yes,” she said.

“Shit. I thought it could be the fifty thousand. That would have tied things up just perfectly,” Lucas said.

She looked out at the lake, her eyes narrowing, her lips tightening, and she said, “I cannot believe that asshole.”

“And he was gone, your affair was done, before Hunter was killed?”

Her face jerked back toward him. “You don’t think…?"

"There’s nothing to suggest it. But there are a lot of dead people.” She shook her head. “I’ll tell you something: Frank knows nothing about mechanical things. I don’t see him sabotaging an airplane in such a complicated way that Hunter could fly it all over the place, and then up to Canada, and then have it fail at that one moment when it couldn’t, without crashing.”

“If it failed anytime up in the air…” Lucas began. “No. If it had failed at five thousand feet, he could have landed it anywhere with water. They even used to practice it-coming in without using the engine.”

Lucas shuddered: he did not like airplanes. “You mean, just turn it off?”

“No, it was on, but they’d land without using it, just gliding in. From five thousand feet, in a Beaver, you can glide for miles.”

“Huh.” She ticked a finger at him: “The fifty thousand. If he was a drug dealer in California, even if he was small- time-especially if he was small- time-fifty thousand dollars might have meant a lot to him. I mean, what if she just wanted her money back? Found out about him?”

Lucas nodded: “That’s something. I’ll look into it. Now, the Land Rover: he’s had it for at least a year?”She thought, then nodded. “Maybe thirteen months now."

"So he would have been driving it when Frances was murdered,” Lucas said. “Yes."

"Okay… Okay, that’s another thing we can check on."

"So what are you going to do?” she asked. “I’ll nail down everything I can, then I’m going to pick him up on the California warrant, and I’m going to squeeze him."

"You want me to wait until then, before I fire his ass?” A smile flickered on his face. “If you don’t mind.”

Some of the air had gone out of the tire, but Willett still looked good, Lucas thought, as he headed back downtown. Anytime a young woman was murdered, with some indication of passion around it, a boyfriend would be a prime suspect.

If the boyfriend had slept first with the mother, then with the daughter, if he looked to lose the possibility of a marriage to a lot of money, if he was a hustler as Willett apparently was, if he was keeping it all a secret, and kept it a secret even after his girlfriend was murdered… and that Francis/Frances coincidence might have given him the idea of pulling Frances’s money out of the bank. They must have talked about their name similarity.

There was even a possibility that the old movie clichй, the mistaken identity, had been at work-that Willett had come to the house intending to kill Alyssa Austin, and killed Frances instead.

Willett was just too good: half the cops that Lucas knew would simply say, “He did it.”

Just a matter of finding the proof.

Lucas and Del sat watching Heather Toms until she packed it up and went to bed.

“I feel like a slimeball,” Lucas said. “So don’t watch,” Del said. Across the street, Heather, with her back turned, popped her brassiere, took it off, then turned to the window to pull her sleeping T- shirt over her head.

“Has it ever occurred to you that a lot of what we do for a living would be against the law, if we weren’t cops?” Lucas asked.

“You mean like stalking people, being Peeping Toms, doing dope deals with them?”

“Yeah."

"Maybe we just don’t have the guts to be crooks,” Del suggested

“Don’t have the instinct for the big score; we like life insurance and health insurance and pensions too much.” Heather kissed the baby good night and turned off the bedroom lights, and Del put the glasses down.

“That’s not it,” Lucas said. “There’s lots of ways we’re not like crooks. For one thing, we got better hours and make more money. Still…”

“Stop worrying,” Del said. “Okay."

"You ready?” Del asked. “Let’s do it.”

Willett lived in a small house in St. Louis Park, an inner- ring suburb west of Minneapolis. There was an attached garage, which meant they wouldn’t be able to get at the car. But he also had an evening tai chi class at the Maplewood location; they cruised it, spotted the Land Rover in the back parking lot, with a half- dozen other cars scattered around. The class was twenty minutes under way when they took the first look.

“You’re sure this is going to work?” Lucas asked. “The guy who programmed the key says it’ll work perfect,” Del said. “If the car alarm goes off…"

"Not a chance,” Del said. They found the closest parking space, left the borrowed BCA Mustang, and walked on down the street, checking windows, porches, side streets. The night was cold and close, with a touch of sleet in the air; not many people outside.

They cut across the spa’s parking lot and came up to the Land Rover. Del punched the remote key, the truck lights flashed, and Del said, “Should be open.”

Lucas tried the back door; locked. “Punch it twice, maybe…” Del punched it again and the lights flashed twice and Lucas felt and heard the lock pop. Lucas took a flashlight out of his pocket, took a last look around, and turned it on. The back of the truck was neat as a pin, with a long plastic storage box on one side, and a couple of plastic milk crates on the other. No trace of oil, of any kind, on the carpeted floor, no painter’s plastic sheets or any painting equipment.

Lucas leaned inside and pulled the latch of the storage box, looked inside. Camping equipment: sleeping bag in a stuff sack, stove kit, nylon pop-up bivy bag, pots and pans in a nylon bag, a bundle of socks, a big Ziploc bag stuffed with fabric, with the word “thermal” written on the outside of the bag with a Sharpie-long underwear. One of the plastic crates held a variety of rubber- soled shoes that might have been climbing shoes; the other held two pairs of hiking boots.

Del had gone in the side door, to look through the various front end storage bins: “Anything?”

“Nothing that shouldn’t be here,” Del said. “He’s tidy. He’s organized.”

Lucas took a long look around, said, “Let’s go,” and they shut the doors quietly and walked away.

“Got to give it to you-the key worked perfectly,” Lucas said. “Except for the fact that we got nothing,” Del said. “Except for that.”