Certain prey

'I'm not objecting so much from any kind of definable, rational viewpoint; I'm saying that I feel a little different about this,' Rinker said. 'I even worry about the effect it will have on you…'

'Don't worry about that.' Carmel took the car to the curb, killed the engine.

'Are you in or out?'

'I'm in,' Rinker said.

Lucas arrived at Hennepin Medical Center to find Sherrill standing with a group of cops on the sidewalk by the emergency entrance. When she saw the Porsche,

Sherrill broke away from the group and walked into the headlights just as Lucas shut them off. 'He's dead,' she said, as Lucas got out of the car.

'Damnit. I was afraid this would happen some day,' Lucas said in a low voice.

'Butry was an asshole and not too bright. It's a bad combination.'

'Yeah, well, he was a cop.'

'Yeah. They got a line on the shooters?'

'They're gone. Desk clerk said there were three skateboarders, kids, outside the station who might've seen something, but they took off right after the shooting.

We're looking, but we ain't finding.'

'What about Carmel?'

'She's locked up in her building. I'll head back there as soon as I'm sure there's nothing I can do with this thing.'

'Probably no point,' Lucas said. 'It's so late now… What about Butry? Who's his next of kin?'

'Haven't found anybody yet,' Sherrill said. 'His folks are dead, no brothers or sisters, far as we know. Never married… hell, there might not be anybody'

'Must be somebody.'

'I hope so,' Sherrill said. 'If there turned out to be nobody… That'd be the worst thing I ever heard of.'

Chapter Twenty-Two

Carmel and Rinker stood on the porch steps, each of them holding a phone book, and leaned sideways to peer at the curtained windows. The windows were dark, and nothing was moving. Nobody home. As stupid as it was, it was something they hadn't counted on. Plan B was going down.

'She's gotta be around,' Carmel complained. 'I called her office today, and she picked up the phone.'

'She's probably off visiting her mother or something,' Rinker said. They were both a little deflated, and wandered back down the dark sidewalk toward the car, carrying the phone books.

'Visiting.' Carmel stopped in her tracks. 'Yeah, I bet she's visiting…

C'mon.'

'Where?' Rinker was puzzled.

'Up to Hale's place.'

'But I thought we were going to take Clark first. If we don't take her, there's no point in…'

'I think she's at Hale's place. I'll bet you a dollar.'

'Hale's?'

'Yeah. Hale's.' ? E**

At Hale's, Carmel cruised past, slowly. The back window, Hale's bedroom, showed just the faintest glow on the window shade. 'She's there. He's got this votive candle…'

'What an asshole,' Rinker said. 'I'm mean, you're talking about marrying him?

And he's still sleeping with his ex-girlfriend?'

'Sneaking,' Carmel said. 'Can't say he's not sexually active.'

Carmel continued around the block, and pulled to the curb fifty yards up the street from Allen's house, where they could see the back window. She punched up her car phone, and on the second ring, a light came on in the bedroom. A moment later, Hale Allen picked up.

'I think I can get out of here, darling,' Carmel cooed. 'I've got to stop at my apartment for a minute, then I'll be over.'

'Maybe I should come to your place…' Hale said.

'No, no, I'm already in the car. See you.' And she hung up.

Five minutes later, Louise Clark squirted out of the house like a wet watermelon seed. She jogged down the sidewalk and climbed into a silver Toyota Corolla.

'Really makes me angry,' Carmel said. 'Really, really…'

'I can't believe it,' Rinker said. 'It's like a complete emotional betrayal.

You're tough enough to take it, but other women? They could be totally emotionally crushed by something like this.'

In another ten minutes, they were back at Clark's house, walking up the sidewalk again, Carmel carrying the phone books. Clark had just gone inside, and the lights were coming on. Rinker caught Carmel's arm and whispered, 'Let me go first. If she sees you…'

At the door, Carmel stepped to the side and Rinker pulled open the storm door, propped it back with her foot, took a breath, dropped her gun hand to her side, and knocked urgently on the door with her other hand. They heard Clark walking toward the door, and a voice through the wood paneclass="underline" 'Who is it?'

'Clara Rinker, from down the block,' Rinker said. 'I think you've got a little fire.'

'A fire?'

'A little fire, by the corner of your house, there's smoke…'

The door opened, tentatively; no chain. Rinker stiff-armed it, hard, and it banged open, past the startled, mouth-open face of Louise Clark. The gun was up and Rinker was inside, pushing her, followed by Carmel. Louise cried, 'Carmel, what are you doing? Carmel…'

Carmel said, 'You're fucking my boyfriend. That's gotta stop.' She caught the sleeve of Clark's blouse, and pulled her toward the back of the house. Rinker kept the gun in her eyes.

'Carmel, Carmel…'

'You're fucking my boyfriend,' Carmel said. They could see the bathroom down a short hall, a door open in the hall to one side. Carmel flipped a light: the bedroom. 'Lay down on the bed, and keep your mouth shut,' Carmel said. 'Just keep your mouth shut.'

'You're going to kill me,' Clark said, sinking on the mattress. 'You killed those other people.'

'Don't be ridiculous, we're just gonna talk to you about Hale,' Carmel said.

'We're gonna get a few things straight.'

They got her down on the bed, face-up; got her down on the pillow. Then Carmel walked around the bed and said, 'Look at me,' and when Clark looked at her,

Rinker, who'd been kneeling on the floor with the gun, reached forward, put the barrel of the gun against Clark's temple, and pulled the trigger.

The bullet shattered Clark's skull, continuing through her head and into the wall on the other side. A red cone of blood, on the pillow, pointed back to

Clark's head like a crimson arrow; the expelled shell landed next to her ear.

The gun was a neat ladies'. 380, with a neat ladies' silencer. As Rinker had explained to Carmel, a. 22 didn't always kill with one shot, even from two inches, and a second shot would be awkward if the victim was supposed to be a suicide…

'Good,' Carmel said, looking down at the body. 'You can see exactly how it happened. The rest of it probably won't be necessary, because they were back there fucking, but let's do it anyway.'

Getting Clark out of her clothing without smearing anything was the hard part; she'd soiled her underpants, so they left them on, found a pink negligee in her chest of drawers, and pulled that over her head and let her drop back on the bed.

'Ah, God, we forgot the pubic hair,' Carmel said.

'Yuck.'

Rinker lifted Clark's negligee and Carmel slid one hand into her pants, gave a tug, and came back with a half-dozen pubic hairs, which she folded into a piece of notebook paper.

'The coke,' Rinker said. 'And the gun.'

'Yeah.' Carmel had had a bit of coke on hand, had rounded up a few more grams during the week. She put it all into a amber medicine bottle and dropped it into the bedstand drawer. Rinker took one of the silenced. 22s out of her carry girdle. They hid it in a winter boot, in the closet.

'That's it?' Rinker asked.

'I think so,' Carmel said. 'Except for the nitrites.'

'Okay,' Rinker said. 'Just set the phone books up over there.'

She fit Clark's hand to the gun, aimed it at the phone books, and pulled the trigger. The slug hit the front phone book with a whackl, and they fell over.