the muscle taken out of her lower back. And we found some unburnt fat in the grill with human DNA.”
“What?”
“He’s a fuckin’ cannibal, man,” Rae said. “Don’t go telling anybody, it hasn’t leaked out yet.”
“Huh. Any idea where he’s gone?”
“No. But get your slow white ass down here before the musical chairs stop. We need a chair if we’re gonna do this,” Rae said.
“Bob’s in?”
“He’s standing right here next to me and he’s already been emailing back and forth with Washington. He wanted me to call because, you know, I’m better-looking, and he knows that’s important to you.”
“Let me make some calls tomorrow morning,” Lucas said. “Who’s the agent in charge at the scene?”
“A guy named Tremanty. I gotta tell you, he’s cute.”
“Spell it.”
“C-U-T-E.” She laughed, said, “I slay myself,” and then spelled out the name: “T-r-e-m-a-n-t-y.”
Lucas told her he’d get back before noon the next day. When she’d rung off, Lucas went back to the table, and Flowers asked, “What was all that about?”
“That killer guy down in Louisiana? You know, where they’re digging up the bodies? Turns out he ate some of the victims,” Lucas said, ignoring Rae’s warning about leaks.
Shrake: “Say what?”
“Barbecued them.”
Jenkins: “Do they know what kind of rub he used?”
“Not yet, apparently,” Lucas said.
Flowers: “They want you to buy in?”
“That’s what they say.”
Flowers: “From what I read, he sounds like he’s on the dark side of deranged. Don’t get shot.”
Sloan asked, “Are we gonna sit here and bullshit or are we gonna play cards?”
Jenkins: “Asked the man who’s losing his shirt.”
“We all lose our shirts when that fuckin’ Flowers is in the game,” Shrake said.
Flowers: “I have been lucky, I guess. I can’t apologize.”
The other four all said “Right . . .” at the same time, and Jenkins added, “Deal, dickweed.”
* * *
—
LUCAS DAVENPORT was a tall man, broad-shouldered, with dark hair speckled with gray, blue eyes, and a smile that could turn mean. He was fifty-two and a dedicated clothes horse, which was why he was wearing a suit to play poker in the back of a bar.
When the game broke up at midnight, he and Flowers chatted for a while in the parking lot about Flowers’s upcoming fatherhood. “I gotta tell you, I’m about as excited as I ever get, but my mother is totally out of control,” Flowers said. “I think my folks had given up on having grandchildren. Now I think my mom wants to move in with us.”
“No, no, no, no . . .”
“Nah, that ain’t gonna happen,” Flowers said.
“There was some talk that you might leave the BCA and run for sheriff down there,” Lucas said, leaning his butt against the back corner panel of his Porsche 911.
“That’s not something I have to decide right away—the current guy’s got almost four more years, but he’s sorta recruiting me to run when he retires,” Virgil said. “There’d be some advantages—I’d be home all the time . . .”
“I got two words for you,” Lucas said. “‘Health insurance.’ Your state insurance is terrific, and with twins, you’ll need it. When my kids were small, they were down at the clinic once a week. Elementary school is a germ farm: the kids get everything known to mankind. Look before you leap . . .”
They went on for a while, and Lucas finally patted Flowers on the back and said, “The best advice I got is, Virgie, is stop worrying and enjoy it. Kids are wonderful, even when they’re not.”
“Thank you.”
* * *
—
WHEN HE GOT HOME, Lucas’s wife, Weather, was asleep. Lucas tried tiptoeing around the bedroom, but she woke up and asked, “Talk to Virgil?”
“Yeah. He’s all over the place about the kids,” Lucas said. “We gotta get them up here this summer. More than once. Maybe you can calm him down. He asked me the difference between Huggies and Pampers and wanted me to recommend one, for Christ’s sakes.”
“How about next week?”
“Ah, Rae called. She might have a job I want to look at,” Lucas said.
“Louisiana?” Weather asked.
“Yeah.”
“Talk in the morning,” she said.
* * *
—
LUCAS HAD an office in Minneapolis, but didn’t work out of Minneapolis. He worked out of Washington, D.C., and reported to a bureaucrat named Russell Forte. The relationship was purely notional.
Because of the political arrangement that had brought Lucas to the U.S. Marshals Service—he was a deputy U.S. Marshal—he was free to pick his own cases. There was a caveat: if a Washington politician called for help, he was bound at least to listen. The arrangement