Easy Prey Read Online Free PDF Page B

stoop.
    â€œBeautiful morning,” he said.
    â€œFuckin’ A,” said the cop.
    â€œIf I get a ticket . . .”
    â€œYou won’t get a ticket.”
    Lucas went up the steps. A sloppy, overweight homicide cop, wearing an insulated nylon baseball jacket over a white shirt and necktie, was waiting on the porch. His face was tired, but he smiled in relief when he saw Lucas. “Man, I’m glad you’re here.”
    â€œSo what happened?” Lucas asked. Two more uniformed cops were standing just inside the door, looking out at them.
    â€œYou ain’t gonna believe it.” The fat cop’s name was Swanson.
    â€œAlie’e Maison got killed,” Lucas said. “I believe it. Where’s the body?”
    â€œIt’s worse than that,” Swanson said. “We tried to call you again, but you were out of touch.”
    Lucas stopped. “What happened?”
    â€œWhen’re you gonna start turning on your cell phone?” Swanson was reluctant.
    â€œIf I turn on my cell phone, people call on it,” Lucas said. “So what happened?”
    â€œWe were just doing the routine, checking the house, opening doors. You know.” They both knew. Lucas had been on more murder scenes than he could remember, and Swanson had been to more than Lucas had; he’d been a homicide cop when Lucas was still in uniform.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œWe found another body,” Swanson said. “Stuffed in a closet. Another woman.”
    Lucas looked at him for a long moment, then shook his head. “That’s a lot worse.”
    â€œYeah. I thought so.” Bad as it was, it was something new. They’d both been to multiple murders, but never to one where the cops had already gotten the coffee hot, sent somebody out for donuts, started the routine, then opened a closet door and had another body drop out like a dislodged sock monkey.
    â€œWhy’d it take so long to find her?” Lucas asked.
    â€œShe was in a closet, the door was locked. Nobody unlocked it right away.”
    â€œJesus, I hope the papers don’t get that,” Lucas said. “Or maybe we ought to give it to them. You know, our way.”
    â€œThis woman who lives here, Hanson—she was there when we found the second one, and she’s gonna talk about it. She lives for the media. You know what she told me when I was talking to her about it?”
    Lucas shook his head.
    â€œShe said her only good black dresses were too short for this. For the murders. She sees this as a photo op and she’s already figuring out her wardrobe for the cameras.”
    â€œAll right.” That happens.
    â€œThere’s one other thing.” Swanson glanced down at the uniformed cops. Lucas got the idea, and they both turned sideways, and Swanson dropped his breath. “Hanson says there was a strange guy wandering through the place. About the time Maison disappeared out of the crowd. Hanson thinks he did it. She didn’t know him, but he was talking to everybody. She said he was like a street guy. Too thin, yellow teeth, and he was wearing this T-shirt that read, ‘I’m with Stupid,’ and had this arrow that pointed down at his dick. And he had this weird dog-shit-brown sport coat.”
    Lucas stared at Swanson for a moment, then said, “Huh.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought,” Swanson said. “You want to call him?”
    â€œYeah, I’ll call him. Let me look at the scene first.”
    Â 
 
HANSON’S HOME WAS elegant but sterile. Lucas recalled another case, a couple of months before, when he’d entered an apartment and found the same high-style sterility. Like a picture on the cover of Architectural Digest : Pretty, but not lived-in. Eggshell walls with contemporary graphics—wrenches and hammers and gestures and angst—and then, around the corner, the interjected English country scene, in oil colors, with cows, spotted