Invisible prey ld-17

by John Sandford

  “No, outside, but he knew Toms because he'd cut Toms's lawn when he was a teenager.

  Toms had a big garden and he didn't like the way the lawn services cut it, because they weren't careful enough, so he hired this guy when he was a teenager. So the guy knew the house.”

  “There had to be more than that.”

  “Well, the guy admitted that he might have done it. He had cuts on his face that might have been from Toms defending himself…” She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing: “But the interesting thing is, the stuff that was stolen was all stuff that could be sold on the street, including some jewelry and some electronics, but none of it was ever found.”

  “Huh.”

  “An investigator for the public defender's office told the Register that the case was fabricated by the police because they were under pressure to get somebody, and here was this guy,” Sandy said.

  “Maybe he did it,” Lucas said.

  “And maybe he didn't,” Sandy said.

  Lucas sat back in his chair and stared at her for a moment, until she flinched, and he realized that he was making her even more nervous. “Okay. This is good stuff, Sandy. Now. Do you have a driver's license?”

  “Of course. My car is sorta iffy.”

  “I'll get you a state car. Could you run down to Des Moines today and Xerox the trial file? I don't think the cops would be too happy about our looking at the raw stuff, but we can get the trial file. If you have to, you could bag out in a Des Moines hotel. I'll get Carol to get you a state credit card.”

  “I could do that,” she said. She scooched forward on the chair, her eyes brightening.

  “God, do you think this man might have gone to prison for something he didn't do?”

  “It happens-and this sounds pretty good,” Lucas said. “This sounds like Bucher and Donaldson and Coombs…”

  “Who?”

  “Ah, a lady named Coombs, here in the Cities. Anyway. Let's go talk to Carol. Man, looking at solved cases. That was terrific. That was a terrific idea.”

  Later, as Lucas left the office, Carol said, “You really got Sandy wound up. She'd jump out of an airplane for you.”

  “It'll wear off,” Lucas said.

  “Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't,” Carol said.

  Amity Anderson probably would not have jumped out of an airplane for him, Lucas decided after meeting her, but she might be willing to push him.

  He saw her unlocking the front door of her house, carrying a purse and what looked like a shopping bag, as he walked up the hill toward her. She looked down the hill at him, a glance, and disappeared inside.

  She lived in a cheerful postwar Cape Cod-style house, with yellow-painted clapboard siding, white trim, and a brick chimney in the middle of the roof. The yard was small, but intensely cultivated, with perennials pushing out of flower beds along the fences at the side of the house, and bright annuals in two beds on either side of the narrow concrete walk that led to the front door. A lopsided one-car garage sat off to the side, and back.

  Lucas knocked, and a moment later, she answered. She was a midsized woman, probably five-six, Lucas thought, and in her early to middle thirties. Her dark hair was tied in a severe, schoolmarmish bun, without style; she wore a dark brown jacket over a beige blouse, with a tweedy skirt and practical brown shoes. Olive-complected, she had dark brown eyes, overgrown eyebrows, and three small frown wrinkles that ran vertically toward her forehead from the bridge of her short nose. She looked at him through the screen door; her face had a sullen aspect, but a full lower lip hinted at a concealed sensuality. “Do you have any identification?”

  He showed her his ID. She let him in, and said, “I have to go back to the bathroom.

  I'll be just a minute.”

  The inside of the house was as cheery as the outside, with rugs and quilts and fabric hangings on the brightly painted plaster walls and the spotless hardwood floors.

  A bag sat on the floor, next to her purse. Not a shopping bag, but a gym bag, with three sets of handball gloves tied to the outside, stiff with dried sweat. A serious, sweating handball player…

  A toilet flushed, distantly, down a back hallway, and a moment later Anderson came out, tugging down the back of her skirt. “What can I do for you, Mr. Davenport?”

  “You worked for Claire Donaldson when she was killed,” Lucas said. “The most specific thing I need to know is, was anything taken from the house? Aside from the obvious? Any high-value antiques, jewelry, paintings, that sort of thing?”

  She pointed him at a sofa, then perched on an overstuffed chair, her knees primly tight. “That was a long time ago. Has something new come up?”

  Lucas had no reason not to tell her: “I'm looking at connections between the Donaldson murder and the murder of Constance Bucher and her maid. You may have read about it or seen it on television…” Anderson's hand went to her cheek. “Of course. They're very similar, aren't they? In some ways? Do you think they're connected?”

  “I don't know,” Lucas said. “We can't seem to find a common motive, other than the obvious one of robbery.”

  “Oh. Robbery. Well, I'm sure the police told you she usually had some money around,” Anderson said. “But not enough to kill somebody for. I mean, unless you were a crazy junkie or something, and this was in Chippewa Falls.”

  “I was thinking of antiques, paintings…”

  She shook her head. “Nothing like that was taken. I was in charge of keeping inventory.

  I gave a list of everything to the police and to Claire's sister and brother-in-law.”

  “I've seen that,” Lucas said. “So you don't know of anything specific that seemed to be missing, and was valuable.”

  “No, I don't. I assume the Booths told you that I was probably involved, that I gave a key to one of my many boyfriends, that I went to Chicago as an alibi, and the boyfriend then came over and killed Claire?”

  “They…” He shrugged.

  “I know,” she said, waving a hand dismissively.

  “So you would categorize that as 'Not true,'“ Lucas suggested with a grin.

  She laughed, more of an unhappy bark: “Of course it's not true. Those people…

  But I will tell you, the Booths didn't have as much money as people think. I know that, from talking to Claire. I mean, they had enough to go to the country club and pay their bills, and go to Palm Springs in the winter, but I happen to know that they rented in Palm Springs. A condo. They were very tight with money and they were very happy to get Claire's-and they got all of it. She had no other living relatives.”

  “You sound unhappy about that,” Lucas said. “Were you expecting something?”

  “No. Claire and I had a businesslike arrangement. I was a secretary and I helped with the antiques, which was my main interest. We were friendly, but we had no real emotional connection. She was the boss, I was the employee. She didn't pay much, and I was always looking for another job.”

  They looked at each other for a moment, then Lucas said, “I suppose you've been pretty well worked over by the sheriff's investigators. They found no boyfriends, no missing keys…”

  “Officer Davenport. Not to put too fine a point on it, I'm gay.”

  “Ah.” He hadn't gotten that vibe. Getting old.

  “At that moment, I had no personal friend. Chippewa is not a garden spot for lesbians.

  And I wasn't even sure I was gay.”

  “Okay.” He slapped his knees, ready to get up. “Does the name Jacob Toms mean anything to you? Ever heard of him? From Des Moines?”

  “No, I don't think so. I've never been to Des Moines. Is he another…?”

  “We don't know,” Lucas said. “How about a woman named Marilyn Coombs. From here in St. Paul?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “God. I've heard of the name. Recently.”

  “She was killed a couple of days ago,” Lucas said.

  Anderson's mouth actually dropped: “Oh… You mean there are three? Or four? I must've heard Coombs's
name on television. Four people?”

  “Five, maybe, including Mrs. Bucher's maid,” Lucas said.

  “That's… crazy,” Anderson said. “Insane. For what?”

  “We're trying to figure that out,” Lucas said. “About the Booths. Do you think they were capable of killing Mrs. Donaldson? Or of planning it?”

  “Margaret was genuinely horrified. I don't doubt that,” Anderson said, her eyes lifting toward the ceiling, as she thought about it. “Glad to get the money, but horrified by what happened. Landford wasn't horrified. He was just glad to get the money.”

  Then she smiled for the first time and looked back at Lucas. “Thinking that Landford… no. He wouldn't do it himself, because he might get blood on his sleeve. Thinking that he might know somebody who'd do it for him, you know, a killer-that's even more ridiculous. You have to know them. Deep in their hearts, way down in their souls, the Booths are twits.”

  He smiled back at her and stood up. She was right about the twits.

  “One last question, just popped into my head. Did you know Connie Bucher? At all? Through antiques, or whatever?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “One of my jobs at the foundation is roping in potential donors, especially those who are old and infirm and have buckets of cash, but she was well tended by other people. She was surrounded, really. I bet she got twenty calls a week from 'friends,' who were really calling about money. Anyway, I never met her. I would never have had a chance to clip her money, under any circumstances, but I would have liked to have seen her antiques.”

  “ 'Clip her money' “ Lucas repeated.

  “Trade talk,” she said.

  Lucas's cell phone rang.

  He dug it out of his pocket, looked at the screen, and said to Anderson, “Excuse me. I have to take this…”

  He stepped away from her, toward the front door, turning a shoulder in the unconscious pretend-privacy that cell-phone users adopt. In his ear, Flowers said, “I'm at the Barths with Susan Conoway- have you talked to her, she's from Dakota County?”

  “No. I talked to somebody. Lyle Pender?”

  “Okay, that's somebody else. Anyway, Susan was assigned to prep the Barths, but Kathy's heard that she can take the Fifth, if she thinks she might have committed a crime.

  Or might be accused of one. So now she says she doesn't want to talk to Susan, and Susan's got a date that she doesn't want to miss. The whole fuckin' thing is about to go up in smoke. I could use some weight over here.”

  “Damnit. What does Barth's lawyer say?”

  “He's not here. Kathy's nervous-I don't think this is coming from her lawyer,” Flowers said. “It might be coming from somewhere else.”

  “I'm sure Kline wouldn't have… Ah, Jesus. You think Burt Jr. might have talked to her?”

  “Maybe. The thought occurred to me, that fat fuck,” Flowers said. “If he has, I'll put his ass in jail. I told Kathy that the grand jury could give her immunity and that she'd have to testify, or go to jail. Nobody told her that. But if she decides to take the Fifth, it's gonna mess up the schedule and it could create some complications.

  If Cole started getting cold feet, or Kline's buddies in the legislature got involved… We need to get this done.”

  “Why doesn't Conoway talk to her?” Lucas asked.

  “Says she can't. Says the Barths have an attorney, and without the other attorney here, she's not comfortable examining a reluctant witness. That's not exactly what she said, but that's what she means.”

  “Listen: It'll take me at least ten or fifteen minutes to get there. I have to walk home, I'm six or seven minutes away from my car,” Lucas said. “What is Jesse saying? Is she letting Kathy do the talking, or can you split them, or what?”

  “They were both sitting on the couch. It's all about the money, man.”

  Lucas groaned. “I don't know why the Klines are holding on like this. You'd think they'd try to deal. Suborning a witness… they'd have to be crazy. How could they think they'd get away with it?”

  Flowers said, “Burt's a fuckin' state legislator, Lucas.”

  “I know, but I'm always the optimist.”

  “Right,” Flowers said. “Ten minutes?”

  Lucas glanced at Anderson, who at that moment tipped her wrist to look at her watch.

  “I need a minute or two to finish here, then walk home, so… give me fifteen.”

  He rang off and stepped back into the living room, took a card from his pocket, and handed it to Anderson. “I've got to run. Thanks for your time. If you think of anything…

  About Donaldson, about Bucher, about possible ties between them, I'd like to hear it.”

  She took the card, said, “I'll call. I've got what we call a grip-and-grin, trying to soak up some money. So I've got to hurry myself.”

  “Seems like everything is about money,” Lucas said.

  “More and more,” Anderson said. “To tell you the truth, I find it more and more distasteful.”

  Lucas hurried home, waved at a neighbor, stuck his head into the kitchen, blurted, “Got something going, I'll tell you when I get back,” to Weather, and took off; Weather called after him, “When?” He shouted back, “Half an hour. If it's longer, I'll call.”

  There was some traffic, but the Barths lived only three miles away, and he knew every street and alley. By chopping off a little traffic, and taking some garbage-can routes, he made it in the fifteen minutes he'd promised Flowers.

  Flowers was leaning in a doorway chatting with a solid dishwater-blond woman with a big leather bag hanging from her shoulder: Conoway Lucas had never met her, but when he saw her, he remembered her, from a lecture she gave at a child-abuse convention sponsored by the BCA.

  A small-town cop, working with volunteer help and some sheriff's deputies who lived in the area, and a freelance social therapist, had busted a day-care center's owner, her son, and two care providers and charged them with crimes ranging from rape to blasphemy. Conoway, assigned as a prosecutor, had shredded the case. She'd demonstrated that the day-care center operators were innocent, and had shown that if the children had been victimized by anyone, it had been the cops and the therapist, who were involved in what amounted to an anti-pederasty cult. She hadn't endeared herself to the locals, but she had her admirers, including Lucas.

  Lucas came up the walk, noticed that the yellow-white dog was gone, the stake sitting at an angle in the yard. He wondered if the dog had broken loose.

  Conoway looked tired; like she needed to wash her hair. She saw Lucas coming, through the screen door, cocked an eyebrow, said something to Flowers, and Flowers stepped over and pushed open the door.

  “You know Susan Conoway…”

  Conoway smiled and shook hands, and Lucas said, “We haven't met, but I admired your work in the Rake Town case.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “The admiration isn't universal.”

  Lucas looked at Flowers: “What do you need?”

  Flowers said, “We just need you-somebody-to talk to the Barths in a polite, nonlegal way, that would convince them to cooperate fully with Ms. Conoway, who has a hot date tonight with somebody who couldn't possibly deserve her attentions.”

  Lucas said, “Huh.”

  Conoway said, “Actually he does deserve my attentions. If they're not going to talk, I'm outa here.”

  “Give me a minute,” Lucas said. “I've got to work myself into a temper tantrum.”

  Kathy and Jesse Barth were perched side by side on a green corduroy sofa, Kathy with a Miller Lite and a cigarette and Jesse with Diet Pepsi. Lucas stepped into the room, closed the door, and said, “Kathy, if Ms. Conoway leaves, and this thing doesn't go down tomorrow, you'll have messed up your life. Big-time. You'll wind up in the women's prison and your daughter will wind up in a juvie home. It pisses me off, because I hate to see that happen to a kid. Especially when her mom does it to her.”

  Kathy Barth was cool: “We've got a lawyer.”

  Lucas jabbed a finger at her, put on his ha
rdest face: “Every asshole in Stillwater had a lawyer. Every single fuckin' one of them.” She opened her mouth to say something, but Lucas waved her down, bullying her. “Have you talked to your lawyer about this?”

  “Doesn't answer his cell. But we figured, what difference do a few hours make?”

  “I'll tell you what difference it makes-it means somebody either got to you, or tried to get to you,” Lucas said. “You can't sell your testimony, Kathy. That's a felony.

  That's mandatory jail time.”

  Jesse shifted on her seat, and Kathy glanced at her, then looked back at Lucas. “Burt owes us.” She didn't whine, she just said it.

  “So sue him,” Lucas said. “Kline broke a state law and he has to pay for it. Pay the state. If you interfere with the state getting justice, then you're committing a crime. Judges don't fool around with people who mess with witnesses, or witnesses who sell their testimony. They get the max, and they don't get time off for good behavior. You don't fuck with the courts, Kathy, and that's what you're doing.”

  Jesse said, “Mom, I don't want to go to jail.”

  “He's bullshitting us, hon,” Kathy said, looking at Lucas with skepticism; but unsure of herself.

  Lucas turned to Jesse and shook his head. “If your mom goes down this road, you've got to take care of yourself. I can't even explain how stupid and dangerous this is. You won't get any money and you'll be in jail. If your lawyer were here, he'd tell you that. But if Conoway leaves-she's got a date tonight-she's going to pull the plug on your testimony tomorrow, then she's going to turn off her cell phone, and then you are truly fucked. You've got about one minute to decide. Then she's gonna walk.”

  “She can't do that…” Kathy said.

  “Horseshit,” Lucas said. “She's already after-hours, working on her own time. She's got a right to a life. This isn't the biggest deal of her career, it's not even the biggest deal of her week. She doesn't have to put up with some crap where somebody is trying sell her daughter's ass to a pederast.

  She's gonna walk.”

  “I'm not trying to sell anybody…” Kathy said.

  “I'll talk to her,” Jesse blurted. To her mother: “I'm gonna talk to her, Mom. I don't care if we don't get any money from Burt. I'm not going to jail.”