Free Shadow Prey by John Sandford Page B

met him. I know the family name, but I'm from Standing Rock. I never went over to Fort Thompson except once, for a powwow. The place is out of the way of everything."
    Lucas looked at him and nodded. "What were you doing in Los Angeles?"
    "Just went there to look around, you know. Look at movie stars." He shrugged.
    "All right," Lucas said after a moment. He looked down at Yellow Hand. There wouldn't be much more. "You two just sit here for a minute, okay?"
    Lucas stepped over to the tattooed man's bed. On the floor on the far side, out of sight from the door, was a willow stick with a small red rag tied around the tip in a bundle, what looked like a crumpled bus ticket, and a money clip. Inside the clip were a South Dakota driver's license and a photograph pressed between two pieces of plastic. Lucas bent over and scooped it up.
    "What you doin' with my stuff, man?" the tattooed man said. He was on his feet again, vibrating.
    "Nothing. Just looking," Lucas said. "Is this what I think it is?"
    "It's a prayer stick, from an old ceremony down on the river. I carry it for luck."
    "Okay." Lucas had seen one once before. He carefully laid it on the mattress. The bus ticket was out of Los Angeles, dated three days earlier. It might have been an arranged alibi, but didn't feel that way. The SoDak license carried a fuzzy photo of the tattooed man in a white T-shirt. The white eyes glistened like ball bearings, like the eyes of Jesse James in nineteenth-century photographs. Lucas checked the name. "Shadow Love?" he said. "That's a beautiful name."
    "Thank you," said the tattooed man. His smile clicked on like a flashlight beam.
    Lucas looked at the fading color snapshot. A middle-aged woman in a shapeless dress stood by a rope clothesline. The line was strung between a tree and the corner of a white clapboard house. There was a board fence in the background, and in the distance, a factory chimney. A city, maybe Minneapolis. The woman was laughing, holding up a pair of jeans that had frozen board-stiff. The trees in the background were bare, but the woman was standing on green grass. Early spring or late fall, Lucas thought.
    "This your mom?" he asked.
    "Yeah. So what?"
    "So nothing," Lucas said. "A guy who carries a picture of his mom, he can't be all bad."
    After the Point, Lucas gave up and headed back toward City Hall, stopping once at a public telephone outside the StarTribune.
    "Library," she said. She was small and wistful, falling into her forties. Nobody at the paper paid her any attention.
    "You alone?" he asked.
    "Yes." He could feel her catch her breath.
    "Could you call something up for me?"
    "Go ahead," she said.
    "Last week of July, first week of August. There was a confrontation between bikers and Indians out in South Dakota."
    "Do you have a key word?" she asked.
    "Try 'Bear Butte.' " Lucas spelled it for her. There was a moment's silence.
    "Three hits," she said.
    "Did you use any art?" There was another moment of silence.
    "Yes," she said. "August first. Three columns, page three."
    "Yours or AP?"
    "Ours." She named the photographer.
    "What are the chances of getting a print?"
    "I'd have to lift it from the files," she said, in a hushed voice.
    "Could you?"
    Another few seconds passed. "Where are you?"
    "Right down at the corner, in my car."
    "It'll be a minute."
    Sloan was leaving City Hall when Lucas arrived.
    "Winter coming," he said as they stopped on the sidewalk.
    "Still warm," said Lucas.
    "Yeah, but it's already getting dark," Sloan said, looking up the street. Cars were creeping out toward the interstate, their lights on.
    "Did you get anything today? After I left you?"
    "Naw." Then the other man brightened. "I did get a look at that woman cop from New York."
    Lucas grinned. "She's worth looking at?"
    "Oh, yeah. She's got a lip, you know? She's got this little overbite and she's got this kind of soft look about her like, I don't know, like she'd moan or something...."
    "Jesus, Sloan..."
    "Wait'11 you take a