“What they did was, or what it looks like, is that they nailed him to a tree, and then took their time cutting him up. We got the tree, signs of blood on the bark, no weapon, we got a few tracks, but we got nothing definitive, what might be a pair of Nike athletic shoes, and a boot mark. There was a campfire right there, and fresh, we think it’s related, but no way to tell for sure. There was some partly burned trash in the fire, food wrappers, we’re processing those for fingerprints, but like I said, we’re not sure it’s related.”
“When you say he was cut up, do you mean, dismembered?”
“No. Slashed. Long cuts running all down his body. Looks like he was castrated, but we’re not sure about that, because that part of the body and the stomach area was worked over pretty good by the coyotes. His hands and arms were in good enough shape to take prints . . . that’s how we got the quick ID. He was arrested in Johnson City, Texas, for burglary, three years ago, fingerprinted. We got a hit in the first ten minutes. We can still see the spike holes in his wrists, below the heels of his hands.”
“Pretty crude,” Lucas said. “Listen, there was a woman killed out in L.A. . . .”
He told Clemmens about the Kitty Place murder. “I’m worried because both you and the L.A. guy used the word ‘slashed.’ I’d like to see the autopsy photos of the wounds, and have the L.A. homicide guys take a look.”
“We’ll get them to you,” Clemmens said. “You’re the guy involved in that Black Hole case last year, right? The guy who got that female cop back?”
“Yeah, that was me,” Lucas said.
“Hell of a thing,” Clemmens said.
? ? ?
LUCAS CALLED HALL in L.A., told him about the find in South Dakota. “I’m going to hook you up with the homicide guys,” Hall said. “This is something.”
An L.A. homicide detective named Rick Robinson called Lucas back a few minutes later and Lucas gave him the story. “They’re doing the autopsy later today. We should be able to get the raw digital photos right away—the South Dakota guy said he’d make it a priority. If you want to call him, I’ve got a number, he could send them directly to you.”
“Need to see ’em,” Robinson said. “Sounds like the same thing somebody did to Kitty Place—long slashes across her body. She wasn’t crucified or anything, though.”
After he got off the line with Robinson, Lucas called Letty to tell her what had happened. His daughter was not a typical teenager: she’d seen violent death, up close and personal; she could handle the news about Henry.
Letty: “Why did somebody say they’d seen Henry up in Duluth? It sounds to me like they were setting her up. They’re afraid that she’ll talk about Henry. Dad, we’ve gotta get up there.”
“I can go up there,” Lucas said. “You can stay here.”
“Dad, I’m not going to mess with you—but you sort of need me,” Letty said. “I’ve met some of these people and I can talk to them when you’d just scare them. They don’t like people like you.”
Lucas said, “If I put you on a bus home, you stay on the bus. I don’t want you running around the countryside—”
“I’ll come home. I will. I’ll come home when you say so.”
? ? ?
THEY DROVE UP to Duluth that afternoon, in Lucas’s truck. Lucas called ahead, to a friend on the Duluth police force, and was told that they should check out Leif Erikson Park on the lake.
Lucas got directions, and they rolled into town a few minutes before three o’clock, on a day that had been hot in the Cities. In Duluth, an east wind off Lake Superior had kept things cool. They found a meter on East Superior Street, cut through a parking lot, and took a footbridge into the park.
A few dozen people were scattered around the grassy lakefront, throwing Frisbees, looking at the lake, or doing nothing at all. They didn’t see anybody who looked like a traveler, but they did see a uniformed cop, and they went that way, and Lucas pulled out his ID.
“I never heard them called travelers, but we got some,” the cop said. He waved off to the north. “They got a spot up there, I don’t know, maybe ten minutes up the Lakewalk. There’s a little beach up there. They sit around under the trees talking, mostly. Might smoke a little dope.”
Lucas thanked him and they went that way. Lucas had dressed down for the trip, in jeans and a golf shirt and a light nylon jacket to cover the gun, but still, Letty said, he looked like a cop.
“And you look like a snotty college kid,” Lucas said.
“Do not.”
“Where’d those jeans come from? Neiman Marcus? I think I saw some Neiman Marcus on your Amex.”
“Did not.”
“Neiman fuckin’ Marcus. La-de-fuckin’-da.”
“Shut up.”
? ? ?
A HALF A DOZEN TRAVELERS were sitting in a lakeside copse. Two benches looked out over the lake toward the Wisconsin shore, where a green-and-rust-colored freighter was maneuvering in toward the docks. A couple of the travelers were smoking cigarettes—Lucas couldn’t smell any weed—and two of them had tough-looking, medium-sized dogs that showed pit bull in the eyes.
They really didn’t look like street people, Lucas thought, although they obviously lived outdoors. They had big functional packs, wide-brimmed hats, wore heavy hiking boots, and a couple of them had six-foot-long walking sticks. Their ages ranged from the late teens to the mid-forties. Two were women, four were men. What they really looked like, he thought, were dusty long-distance walkers.
Which they were.
They all stirred restlessly when Lucas and Letty cut toward them, like leaves rippling in a light wind. Town people tended to stay away, unless they were cops, and the big guy looked like a cop.
When they came up, Lucas said, “We need to talk to you guys. I’m a state police officer and this is my daughter. We’re looking for a friend of ours, a traveler, who might be in serious trouble.”