Easy Prey by John Sandford Page B

England in December, for three weeks, and Lansing was going to get her a rate at a hotel. She said Lansing wrote her name on her wrist to remember to set it up.”
    â€œThis holds water?”
    Swanson shrugged. “Does with me, I guess. Pella said a decent hotel in London is gonna cost her two hundred a night, but with Lansing’s connection, she can get the same room for one and a quarter. That’s something like fifteen hundred bucks in savings.”
    â€œAnd this Pella doesn’t know anything about the dope?”
    â€œShe said she met Alie’e for the first time last night, and said three words to her. But she looks kinda wired. . . . I wouldn’t be surprised if she carried a little toot in her purse.”
    â€œAll we have to do is crack one of them,” Lucas said. “Get somebody to rat out her friend.”
    Lester stopped by: “We grabbed Hanson’s computer, but most of what we’re getting is bullshit.”
    â€œThey talked about dope,” Lucas said.
    â€œShe said it was just rumors.”
    â€œShe’s bullshitting us.”
    â€œOf course she is.”
    TWO UNIFORMED COPS from St. Paul brought in a huge man named Clark Buchanan, who, improbably, told them that he was a model and, incidentally, a welder.
    â€œModel what?” one of the interrogating cops asked skeptically. “Lunch buckets?”
    â€œYou know, clothes and shit,” Clark said. “I was the other guy in the Alie’e shoot. She was doing the clothes up front, I was making some sparks in the back.”
    Clark didn’t know anything about drugs at the party. “I had some drinks, that’s all I saw.”
    â€œLotta drinks?”
    He shrugged. “Maybe a half-dozen. Maybe ten. Vodka martinis. Goddamn. I’ll tell you something, guys—rich people make good fuckin’ vodka martinis.” He stayed at the party until one o’clock, then caught a cab and went home. He remembered the name of the cab company and that the driver’s name was Art. They asked a few more questions and cut him loose.
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EARLY IN THE afternoon, Alie’e’s parents arrived with a group of friends and talked first to the mayor, and then the mayor walked them over to Roux’s office. Roux called Lucas, who went down to her office and stood in the back, with Lester, as the chief explained what was happening with the case.
    Both Lynn and Lil Olson were dressed from head to toe in black, Lynn in a black-on-black suit that may have come from Manhattan, and Lil in a black lace dress that dropped over a black silken sheath; she also wore a black hat with a net that fell off the front rim over her eyes; her eyebrows matched the hat, severe dark lines, but her hair was a careful, layered honey-over-white blond, like her daughter’s. Her eyes, when Lucas could see them, were rimmed with red. Alie’e got her looks from her father, Lucas thought—the cheekbones, the complexion, the green eyes. Lynn Olson was a natural blonde, but his hair was going white. In the black suit, he looked like a famous artist.
    The friends were dressed in flannel and jeans and corduroy; they were purely Minnesota.
    â€œShe was going to be in the movies ,” Alie’e’s mother said, her voice cracking. “We had a project just about set. We were interviewing costars. That was the big step, and now . . .”
    Rose Marie was good at dealing with parents: patient, sympathetic. She introduced Lucas and Lester, and outlined how the case would be handled.
    Lucas felt a strange disjuncture here: Alie’e’s parents, who were probably in their late forties, looked New York, their black-on-black elegant against their blond hair and fair complexions. The words they used were New York, and even their attitude toward Alie’e was New York: all business. Not only was their daughter dead, so was the Alie’e enterprise.
    But the sound of the language was