Free Secret Prey by John Sandford Page B

Sloan said. ‘‘He says he might have. He doesn’t deny it. But we can’t come up with any physical evidence, and he was so fucked up at the time, he can’t remember anything. And I’m wondering, if he was so fucked up—and he was, he had enough chemicals in him to start a factory—what’d he do with his clothes? They had to have blood all over them.’’
    ‘‘You’ve got nothing physical? No hair or semen . . .’’
    ‘‘No semen. And he had no blood on him, under his nails or in his hair. And the problem is, she was killed on the bed and he slept there every night and half the day. So he’s all over the place . . . but so what? He’s gonna be. And I’m really worried about the clothes. He says he’s not missing any, and I think he might be telling the truth. He doesn’t have all that much to begin with. Couple pairs of jeans, couple T-shirts, a coat, some sneaks.’’
    ‘‘Huh. Check the drains in the bathroom? Maybe he was naked . . .’’
    Sloan nodded: ‘‘Yeah. The lab looked at it. No blood.’’
    ‘‘Okay. So I’ll take the McDonald thing,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I’ll talk to Sherrill about it.’’
    ‘‘She’ll go along,’’ Sloan said. He said it with a tone .
    ‘‘Yeah?’’
    ‘‘She’s got the great headlights,’’ Sloan said.
    ‘‘Not exactly a key criterion for a police investigation.’’
    ‘‘Yeah, but . . .’’
    ‘‘You’ve been married too long; all you can think about is strange tits and adultery complaints,’’ Lucas said.
    ‘‘Not true. Sometimes I think about strange asses . . . Seriously, I heard them talking about you—some of the women. The idea was, don’t rush him, let him get a little distance away from Weather.’’
    ‘‘Fuck ’em,’’ Lucas said, pushing away from Sloan’s desk. ‘‘I’ll take McDonald. I’d like to see the interviews you did Saturday . . .’’
    ‘‘Krause tape-recorded them, he’s getting a transcript made. Probably today. He said he’d shoot a copy down as soon as it’s ready.’’
    ‘‘All right,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Ship it over.’’
    ‘‘And you’ll talk to Headlights? I mean, Sherrill?’’
    Lucas grinned. ‘‘Yeah. If you see her, tell her I’m looking for her; I’ll be around later in the day.’’

FIVE

    DAMASCUS ISLEY WAS A VERY SMART FAT MAN WITH A taste for two-thousand-dollar English bespoke suits that almost disguised his size. Lucas spotted him at a back table at the Bell Jar, hovering over a chicken breast salad that had been served in what looked like a kitchen sink. Lucas told the mai^tre d’, ‘‘I’m with the fat guy,’’ and was nodded past the velvet rope.
    ‘‘Lucas,’’ Isley said. He made a helpless gesture with his hands, which meant, I’m too fat to get up . ‘‘Are you coming to the reunion? Gina asked me to ask.’’
    Lucas shook his head, and took a chair across from Isley, who was sitting on the booth seat. ‘‘I don’t think so. I’ve busted too many of them.’’
    ‘‘Mary Big Jo’s gonna be there,’’ Isley said.
    ‘‘Fuck Mary Big Jo.’’
    ‘‘I certainly did,’’ Isley said cheerfully. ‘‘Made all the more glorious by your abject failure to do the same.’’
    Lucas grinned: ‘‘No accounting for taste,’’ he said. Isley was six-five, a bit taller than Lucas. He’d once been a rope instead of a mountain, a basketball forward when six-five was a big man; Lucas had been hockey, and they’d chased several of the same women through high school and college.
    A waitress stepped up behind Lucas, slipped a menu in front of him, and said, ‘‘Cocktail, sir?’’
    ‘‘Ah no, I just want . . .’’ He thought for a second, then said, ‘‘Hell, give me a martini. Beefeater, up, two olives.’’
    ‘‘I could give you three olives, if you need more vegetables in your diet,’’ the waitress said.
    ‘‘All right, three,’’ Lucas said; she was pretty in a dark-Irish way.
    The waitress went to get the