Shadow Prey

by John Sandford

  “Who?”

  “Rose E. Love. I had them look up the gravesite in the cemetery office.”

  Lucas and Lily, pulled along by Anderson’s interest, followed him a hundred yards to a gravesite under the boughs of an aging oak, a dozen feet from the wrought-iron fence surrounding the cemetery.

  “Nice spot,” Anderson said, looking up into the spreading oak tree with its hand-size leaves still clinging to the branches.

  “Yeah.” The grave had been kept up spotlessly; on the oblong pink granite stone was inscribed ROSE E. LOVE, in large letters, and below that MOTHER, in smaller script. Lucas looked around. “The grave looks a lot better than the other ones around here. You don’t think maybe Shadow Love stops by and works on it?”

  Anderson shook his head. “Naw. The cemeteries don’t allow that. They’d get all kinds of shit going on. Me and my old lady bought our plots, you know, a couple of years back. They had all these care plans you could sign up for. Give them two thousand bucks now and they’ll take care of your grave in perpetuity. It’s called Plan Perpetual. You can put it right in your will.”

  “That’s a little steep, isn’t it?” Lily asked. “Two thousand bucks?”

  “Well, I mean, it’s forever,” Anderson said. “When the next ice age comes through, they’ll have a guy out here with a heater . . . .”

  “Still a little steep.”

  “If you can’t afford it all at once, you can pay by the year. You know, like seventy-five, a hundred bucks.”

  “Gives me the creeps thinking about it,” Lucas said.

  “He doesn’t plan to die,” Lily confided to Anderson.

  “I hate to tell you this,” Anderson said as they wandered away from Rose Love’s grave, “but there comes a time in every man’s life . . .”

  Lucas thought of a question for Anderson. As he opened his mouth to speak, the cold steel of a gun barrel touched him behind the ear. He jerked to a halt, staggered, closed his eyes, slapped his neck and let out a deep breath.

  “Lucas?” asked Lily. She had stopped and was looking up at him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he said after a moment. “I was just daydreaming.”

  “Jesus, I thought you had a heart attack or something.” Anderson was looking at him curiously, but Lucas shook his head and took Lily’s arm. Anderson broke off just before they got to the fence, and headed across the slope toward the cemetery road. Lily and Lucas strolled out of the cemetery through a side exit, away from the remnants of the somber crowd.

  The question was lost.

  “What do you want to do?” Lily asked.

  “I think I might go back out on my regular net,” Lucas said. He had been thinking about his lie of the day before, and decided that talking to his regulars might be a good idea.

  “Okay. You can drop me at the hotel,” Lily said. “I’m going to sit around and read Anderson’s notebooks for a while. Maybe go for a run before dinner.”

  “I told you. There’s nothing in it—Anderson’s stuff,” Lucas said. “We won’t find them on paper. If the Crows are lying low, we need somebody to talk to us.”

  “Yeah. But somewhere, there’s something. A name. Something. Maybe somebody from their prison days . . .”

  The day was chilly, but the bright sunlight felt fine on Lily’s face. She walked with her head tilted back as they crossed the street, taking in the rays, and Lucas’ heart thumped as he walked behind her, marveling.

  Shadow Love was parked a block away, watching them.

  CHAPTER

  24

  Shadow Love stole a Volvo station wagon from the reserved floor of an all-day parking ramp. He drove it to the cemetery and waited a half-block from the hillside where they’d bury Hart.

  The wait was a short one: Hart’s funeral moved like clockwork. The funeral cortege came in from the other side of the graveyard, but Davenport and the New York woman came in from his side. They all gathered on the hillside and prayed, and Shadow Love watched, slipping back to the warm moment when he slashed Hart, feeling the power of the knife . . . . The knife was in his pocket, and he touched it, tingling. No gun had ever affected him the same way, nor had the knife, before the Hart killing.

  Blood made the stone holy. . . .

  When the funeral ended, Davenport and the New York cop walked away from the crowd with another man, down the hill toward his mother’s grave. When they stopped, Shadow Love’s forehead wrinkled: They were at his mother’s grave. What for? What did they want?

  Then they split up. The other man wandered away, and Davenport and the woman continued on until they crossed through the wrought-iron fence onto the sidewalk. The woman tilted her head back, smiling, the sunlight playing across her face. Davenport caught her arm as they got to the car and bumped his hip against hers. Lovers.

  He would have trouble staying with the Porsche, Shadow Love thought, if Davenport stayed on city streets. He couldn’t get too close. But Davenport went straight to I- 35W and headed north. Shadow stayed several cars back as Davenport drove into the Loop, made one left and dropped the woman in front of her hotel.

  As Shadow Love waited at the curb, Davenport pulled out of the hotel’s circular driveway, crossed two lanes of traffic and headed straight back toward him. Shadow Love turned in his seat and looked out the passenger window until Davenport was past. Following him would be impossible. Davenport would see the U-turn close behind him, and the tomato-red Volvo was not inconspicuous. The woman, on the other hand . . .

  Lily.

  Shadow Love touched the stone knife, felt it yearning for drink . . . .

  Shadow Love had worked intermittently as a cab driver, and he knew the Minneapolis hotels. This was a tough one: it was small, mostly suites, and played to a wealthy clientele. Security would be good.

  Shadow Love left the car at the curb, walked to the hotel entrance, and carefully stepped into the lobby and looked around. No sign of the woman. She had already gone up. Three bellhops were leaning on the registration desk, talking to the woman behind it. If he went farther inside, he’d be noticed . . . .

  A flower shop caught his eye. It had an exterior entrance, but it also had a doorway that led directly into the hotel lobby. He thought for a moment, then checked his billfold. Forty-eight dollars and change. He went back outside and walked to the flower shop.

  “One red rose? How romantic,” the woman said, her eyebrows arching, a skeptical note in her voice. The hotel was expensive. Shadow Love was not the kind of man who would have a lover inside.

  “Not my romance,” Shadow grunted, picking up her skepticism. “I just dropped her off in the cab. Her old man give me ten extra bucks for the rose.”

  “Ah.” The woman’s face broke into a smile. Everything was right in the world. “For ten dollars you could buy two roses . . . .”

  “He said one and keep the change,” Shadow Love said grumpily. He had forty-eight dollars between himself and the street, and this flower shop was selling roses at five dollars a pop. “Her name is Rothenburg. I don’t know how you spell it. Her old man said you could get the room.”

  “Sure.” The woman wrapped a single red rose in green tissue paper and said, “Is the card to be signed?”

  “Yeah. ‘Love, Lucas.’ ”

  “That’s nice.” The woman picked up the phone, rapped in four numbers and said, “This is Helen. You got a Rothenburg? Don’t know the spelling. Yeah . . . Four-oh-eight? Thanks.”

  “We’ll send it right up,” the woman said as she gave Shadow Love his change.

  Room 408. “Thanks,” he said.

  He left the shop and went outside. It was late afternoon, getting cooler. He looked both ways, then walked away from the car toward Loring Park and took a long turn around the pond, thinking. The woman was good with a gun. He couldn’t fuck up. If he waited awhile, then went straight in to the elevators, as though he belonged there, he might get up. Then again, maybe not—but if they stopped him, they wouldn’t do more than throw him out. He dug
in a pocket, took out a Slim Jim sausage and chewed on it.

  If he got up, what then? If he knocked on her door and she opened it, bang. But what if the chain was on? He had no faith in the idea of shooting through the door. The pistol was a .380, good enough for close work, but it wouldn’t punch through a steel fire-liner. Not for sure. She’d recognize him. And she was a killer. If he missed, she’d be all over him. It’d be hell just getting out of the hotel . . . .

  Have to think.

  He was still working it out when he got back to the car. A Federal Express truck stopped across the street and the driver hopped out. Shadow Love, his mind far away, automatically tracked him as he went into the lobby of an office building and began emptying the local package box. A moment later, when the driver came out with his load of packages, Shadow Love skipped out of the car and walked into the lobby.

  The Federal Express box had an open rack of packaging envelopes and address slips, with ballpoint pens on chains.

  Lily Rothenburg, Police Officer, he wrote. Room 408 . . .

  He still didn’t know how he’d get in her door. Sometimes you had to pray for luck. When he got back on the sidewalk, it was dark . . . .

  The rose was totally unexpected: the last thing she would have expected, but it thrilled her. David sent flowers; Davenport did not. That he should . . .

  Lily put it in a water glass and set it on top of the television set, looked at it, adjusted it and sat down with Anderson’s computer printouts. In two minutes, she knew she couldn’t read.

  Davenport, God damn it. What’s this rose shit? She took a turn around the room, caught her image in a mirror. That’s the silliest smile I’ve seen on you since you were a teenager.

  She couldn’t work. She glanced at a copy of People, put it aside and walked around the room again, stopping to sniff at the rose.

  She was in a feeling mood, she decided. A hot bath . . .

  Shadow Love went straight through the lobby with the Federal Express package in his hand, slightly in front of his body, so the bellhops could see the colors. He stopped at the elevators, poked 4 and resolutely did not look at the desk and the bellhops. The elevator chimed, the doors opened . . . he was in, and alone.

  He gripped the knife, feeling its holy weight, then touched his belly, feeling the gun there. But the knife was the thing.

  The doors opened on the fourth floor and he stepped out, still holding the package in front of him. Room 408. He turned right and heard a vacuum cleaner behind him. He stopped. Luck.

  He turned back, went around the corner and found a maid with a vacuum cleaner. There was nobody else in the hallway.

  “Got a package,” he grunted. “Where’s four-oh-eight?”

  “Down there,” the maid said, flipping a thumb down the hall behind her. She was a short woman, slender, early twenties; already worn out.

  “Okay,” Shadow said. He slipped a hand under his jacket, looked around once to make sure they were alone, pulled the gun and pointed it at the woman’s head.

  “Oh, no . . .” she said, backing away, her hands out toward him.

  “Down to the room. And get your keys out . . . .” The woman continued backing away, Shadow matching her pace for pace, the muzzle of the gun never leaving her face. “The keys,” he said.

  She groped in her apron pocket and produced a ring with a dozen keys.

  “Open four-oh-eight . . . but let me knock first.” He thrust the package at her, his voice rising, an edge of madness to it. “If she answers, tell her you’ve got a package. Let her see it. If you try to warn her, if you do anything to spook her, bitch cunt, I’ll blow your motherfuckin’ brains out . . . .”

  The thought that the maid might betray him gripped Shadow Love’s stomach, and the black spot popped into his line of vision, obscuring her face. He forced it down, down, concentrating: Not this one; not yet.

  The maid was terrified. She clutched at the package, holding it to her chest.

  “Here,” she squeaked.

  The black spot was still there, smaller, floating like a mote in God’s eye, but he could read the number on the door: 408. Shadow reached out and knocked, quietly. No answer. The killing rush was coming now, like cocaine, even better . . . . He knocked again. No answer.

  “Open it,” he said. He pressed the gun against the woman’s forehead. “If there’s a noise, I’ll fuckin’ kill you, bitch. I’ll blow your fuckin’ brains all over the hall.”

  The woman slipped the key into the lock. There was a tiny metallic click and she flinched, and Shadow Love tapped her with the barrel. “No more,” he whispered. “Open it.”

  She turned the key. There was another click and the door eased open.

  Lily got out of the bathtub, steam rolling off her body; she felt languid and soft from the bath oils. She heard the knock and stopped toweling. It wasn’t a maid’s knock. It was too soft, too . . . furtive. She frowned, took a step toward the bathroom door, looked through the bedroom to the outer sitting room; it was dark. A lamp was on in the bedroom, as were the lights in the bathroom. There was another knock, a pause, then a click. Somebody coming in.

  Lily looked around for her purse, with the gun in the concealed holster: outer room. Shit. She reached back, hit the bathroom light switch and started for the lamp.

  Shadow Love pushed the maid forward. The door opened and the woman went through. There was little light, apparently coming from a bathroom . . . . No. There’s another room. Fuckin’ rich bitch has a suite . . . . The light suddenly went out, and they were in darkness, Shadow Love and the maid silhouetted against the light from the hallway.

  Lily killed the lamp as the door opened. She felt a tiny surge of relief when she saw the small woman and the familiar colors on the package. She reached again for the wall switch, then saw the man behind the woman and what looked like a gun.

  “Freeze, motherfucker,” she screamed at the dark figures, dropping automatically into her Weaver stance, her hands empty. But the movement, in the dark, might be convincing . . . .

  The scream startled him. Shadow Love sensed the cop woman dropping into a shooter’s stance, and swept the maid’s feet from under her and went down on top of her. He could feel the woman moving sideways in the minimal light in the room, and he pivoted and kicked the outer door shut. The dark was complete.

  “Got a woman, here, a maid,” Shadow Love called. He pointed the gun toward where he thought the other door was, although he was disoriented and felt he might be off. But if she fired at him, he’d get her in the muzzle blast. “Come out and talk; I just want to talk about the Indians, about the Crows. I’ve worked with the police.”

  Bullshit. Shadow Love. Must be.

  “Bullshit. You move, motherfucker, and I’ll spread you around like spaghetti sauce.”

  Lily, nude, crawled across the bedroom floor in the dark, her hands sweeping from side to side, looking for a weapon. Anything. Nothing. Nothing. Back toward the bathroom, creeping in silence, waiting for the killing light . . . Into the bathroom. Groping. Up the walls. A towel rack. She tugged on it. It held. She put her full weight on it, bouncing frantically, and suddenly, explosively, it came free. She went flat again, frozen, waiting for the light, but nothing came. She went back to the floor and, with the towel bar in her hand, crawled out the bathroom door toward the front room.

  There was a sudden, terrific clatter. Shadow Love started, put his face next to the maid’s and whispered, “Move, bitch, and I’ll slit your fuckin’ throat.” He could feel the woman trembling in her thin maid’s uniform. “And I got the gun; if you go for the door, I’ll shoot you.”

  He left her then, and crawled toward the spot where he thought the inner door was, feeling his way across the carpet in the dark.

  What was the noise? What was she doing? Why hadn’t she risked a light? She wouldn’t be any worse off . . . .

  The problem was, the first one to turn on a light would be most exposed . . . .

  “I’m not here to hurt anybody,” he cal
led.

  His voice was a shock: he was so close. Two feet away, three. And now she could smell him: his breath. He’d been eating something spicy, sausage maybe, and his warm breath trickled toward her over the carpet. Could he smell the bath oils on her? She thought she might be a yard from the door, and he was coming through. She rolled to one side, a slow, inching, agonizing movement, holding the towel bar between her breasts.

  Where was she? Why wasn’t she answering? She could be standing over him, pointing a .45 at his skull, tightening on the trigger. The injustice of his death gripped him, and for a full beat, two beats, he waited for the crashing blow that would kill him. There was nothing. He reached ahead in the dark, feeling the baseboard on the wall ahead, sliding his hand to the right, finding the corner and the doorway. The bathroom . . . that noise she made, that sounded like it came out of a bathroom, the hollow-sharp sound you get from tile walls . . . What was she doing in there? Moving a few inches at a time, he crossed through the doorway, low-crawling toward the bathroom. Nothing from her. Nothing. Maybe she’s not armed . . . .

  “Don’t got no gun, bitch. That’s it. Well, I’m putting my gun away, you know? You know why? ‘Cause I’m getting my knife out. Cut open Larry Hart with it, you know? You know what I did then? After I cut him? You know?”

  Where is she? Where is the bitch? He strained into the darkness. Got to scare her, got to make her move.

  “I sucked the blood, that’s what I did,” Shadow Love called. “All hot. Better’n deer’s blood. Sweeter . . . Bet yours’ll be sweeter yet . . .”

  Where the fuck is she?

  There was a change in the darkness next to her, a movement through it. Shadow Love, on the floor next to her, not more than two feet away, low-crawling toward the bathroom. She couldn’t see him, but she could sense him there, moving in the dark. Moving as slowly as he was, she pulled her feet under her and quietly stood up, her hand sliding up the woodwork along the edge of the door. She could no longer sense him—standing, she was quite literally too far away—but she figured he had to be through the door.