Rules of Prey

by John Sandford

  The bookie and the grocer nodded. The other nun and the student chewed pizza. Elle, who had been fingering the long string of rosary beads that swung by her side, said, "Maybe you could bring him in to you."

  Lucas looked at her. "How?"

  "I don't know. He fixates on people and we know the type. But if you put out a female decoy, how would you know he'd even see her? That's the problem. If you could get a decoy next to him, maybe you could pull him into an attack that you're watching."

  "You've got a nasty mind, Sister," the bookie said.

  "It's a nasty problem," she answered. "But..."

  "What?" The lawyer was looking at her with a small smile on his face.

  "Interesting," she said.

  CHAPTER

  10

  "Daniel's hunting for you." Anderson looked harassed, teasing his thinning blond hair as he stepped through Lucas' office doorway. Lucas had just arrived and stood rattling his keys in his fist.

  "Something break?"

  "We might go for a warrant."

  "On Smithe?"

  "Yeah. Sloan spent the night going through his garbage. Found some wrappers from rubbers that use the same kind of lubricant they found in the women. And they found a bunch of invitations to art shows. The betting is, he knows this Ruiz chick."

  "I'll talk to the chief."

  ***

  "Where have you been?" Daniel asked.

  "My cabin. I ditched Ruiz up there," Lucas said.

  Daniel snapped his fingers, remembering. "That's right. Dammit. I didn't know she was going with you. How come your cabin?"

  Lucas shrugged. "She would only give the interview if we could get her away afterward. This seemed simpler than trying to get the city to keep her in a hotel."

  Daniel's eyes narrowed; then he gave Lucas a tiny nod. "So what is it, three hours up there?"

  "Yeah."

  "Okay. We're going to turn you back around. We want you to show her a photo spread, see if she can pick out Smithe. Take the chopper up."

  "Anderson said you're going for a warrant," Lucas said.

  "Maybe. Once we knew what we were looking for, we had Sloan go through the garbage scrap by scrap. Sure enough, he found some wrappers from those Share rubbers. So we got him with Rice, we know he's been at the same art shows as Ruiz, and he very well might have seen Lewis. Then this punk chick, she hung out at the clubs off Hennepin, mixing it up with the gays on the streets, he could have bumped into her there. And we got the lubricant, and the opportunity to meet them here in the courthouse. And he's gay. Depending on what you get, we could go for it. We've got Laushaus ready to sign whatever we need."

  "We could find twenty guys who fit the same pattern."

  "What's your problem with this, Davenport?" Daniel asked in exasperation. "You've taken guys down on one-tenth of what we got."

  "Sure. But I knew I was right. This time we might be wrong. All we've got is the easy stuff, and nothing else. I think he's a workout freak; Ruiz said the attacker was soft. This guy's a native Minnesotan; Ruiz said he has a southwestern accent. Ruiz says the guy wears Nike Air shoes; he didn't have any Nike Airs in his closet. Eight pairs of shoes, but no Nike Airs."

  "There's the rubber."

  "That's the only thing, and that's not definitive."

  "He knows guns."

  "Not handguns. There wasn't a handgun in the place."

  "Listen, just get up there with the pictures," Daniel said. "They've got a package for you down at the lab."

  "Will you make the call on the warrant? Or you going to let homicide do it?"

  "I've been pretty deep in this," Daniel said. "I wouldn't want to shove the responsibility off on somebody else."

  "Let homicide make the call," Lucas urged. "They'll do what you want, but you'll be able to change your mind if there's a problem. And something else. Maybe you ought to suggest that they keep the warrant in their pocket. Ask the guy to come in, get him a lawyer, tell him that you have the warrant, and then if he can come up with anything that cools the case, you just pitch the warrant and shake his hand."

  "He might not go for that."

  "Man, I'm getting real bad vibes from this thing."

  "We got people being killed," Daniel said. "What if we're right and we just let it go and he gets another one?"

  "Put a heavier net around him. If he tries, we've got him."

  "What if he waits for three weeks? Have you seen the television? It's like the Ayatollah and the hostages. 'Day Fifteen of the Maddog's Reign of Terror.' That'll be next."

  "Goddammit, chief..."

  Daniel waved him off. "I'll think about it. You get up there and show the mugs to Ruiz. Call back and tell us what she says."

  ***

  Lucas tried to call Carla from the station and from the airport, but there was no answer.

  "Get her?" asked the pilot.

  "No. I'll find her when we get up there."

  The chopper cut the travel time to the cabin to less than an hour, sweeping across the high-colored hardwood forests and the transition zone into the deep green of the North Woods. The pilot dropped the aircraft beside a road intersection three hundred yards out from the cabin, and he and Lucas walked in with the manila envelopes full of photos. Carla was waiting by the back porch.

  "I was out in the boat and I heard the helicopter. I couldn't think of anybody else that it might be for. What happened?" She looked curiously from one to the other.

  "We want you to look at some pictures," Lucas said as they went inside. He gestured at the pilot. "This is Tony Rubella. He's the helicopter pilot but he's also a cop. I'm going to record the interview."

  Lucas put his tape recorder on the table, said a few test words, ran the cassette back, and listened until he was satisfied that it was working. Then he started it again and read in the time, date, and place.

  "Conducting the interview is Lucas Davenport, lieutenant, Minneapolis Police Department, with Officer Anthony Rubella, Minneapolis Police Department. Interviewee is Miss Carla Ruiz of St. Paul. Carla Ruiz is well-known to Officer Davenport as the victim of an attack in her residence by a man believed to have committed a series of murders in the city of Minneapolis. We will show Ruiz a photo array of twelve men and ask if she recognizes any of them."

  Lucas dumped a dozen photographs on the table, all of young men, all shot on the street, all vaguely similar in appearance, size, and dress. Eleven of them were cops or police-department clerical personnel. The twelfth was Smithe. Lucas arranged them in a single row and Carla leaned over them and studied the faces.

  "I know this guy for sure," she said, tapping one of the cop photos. "He's a cop. He works off-duty as a security guy at that grocery store at the bottom of Nicollet."

  "Okay," Lucas said for the recorder. "Miss Ruiz has identified one photo as a man she knows and she says she believes he is a police officer. Our data indicate that he is a police officer. I am asking Miss Ruiz to turn the photograph over, to mark it with the capital letter A, and to sign her name and put the date below it. Miss Ruiz, will you do that now?"

  Carla signed the photo and went back to the display. "This guy looks familiar," she said, tapping the photo of Smithe. "I've seen him on the art scene, you know, openings, parties, that sort of thing. I don't know why, but I've got it in my head that he's gay. I think I might have been introduced to him."

  "Okay. Are you sure about him?"

  "Pretty sure."

  "Okay. Miss Ruiz has just identified the photograph of Jimmy Smithe. I will ask Miss Ruiz to mark that photograph on the back with a capital letter B and sign her name and the date."

  Carla signed the second photo and Lucas asked her to look at the photo spread again.

  "I don't see anybody else," she said finally.

  "I am now showing Miss Ruiz seven additional photographs of Jimmy Smithe and asking her if she confirms her identification of him in the random spread."

  Carla looked at the second group of photos and nodded.

 
"Yes. I know him."

  "Miss Ruiz has confirmed that she knows the suspect, Jimmy Smithe. She has also added details, such as she believes him to be homosexual and that he frequents art galleries and that she may have been introduced to him. Miss Ruiz, does anything else come to mind about Mr. Smithe?"

  "No, no, I really don't know him. I remember him because he's handsome and I got the impression that he's intelligent."

  "Okay. Anything else?"

  "No."

  "Okay. That concludes the interview. Thank you, Miss Ruiz." He punched the button on the tape, ran it back, listened to it, then took the cassette out of the recorder, put it back in its protective box, and slipped it into his pocket.

  "Now what?" Carla asked.

  "I've got to use the phone," Lucas said. He went straight through to the chief.

  "Davenport? What?"

  "She knows him," Lucas said. "Picked him out with no problem."

  "We're going to take him."

  "Listen. Do it my way?"

  "I don't know if we can, Lucas. The media's got a smell of it."

  "Who?"

  "Don Kennedy from TV3."

  "Shit." Kennedy and Jennifer were professional bed-mates. "Okay. I'll be back in an hour and a half. When are you taking him?"

  "We were waiting for your call. We've got a couple guys here and we'll get the surveillance people. He's working at his desk over in the county building. We're just going to walk over and get him."

  "Who made the call? To make the bust?"

  There was a pause. Then, "Lester."

  "Outstanding. Stay with that."

  Daniel hung up and Lucas turned to Rubella. "Get the chopper cranked up. We've got to get back in a hurry."

  When Rubella was gone, he took Carla's hands.

  "They've got a case against this guy, but I don't like it. I think they're making a mistake. So just sit tight, okay? Watch the evening news. I'll call every night. I'll try to get back up here in a couple of days, if things cool down."

  "Okay," she said. "Be careful." He kissed her on the lips and jogged down the dusty track after Rubella.

  ***

  The flight back to the Cities and the drive from the airport took two hours. Anderson was sitting at his desk, his feet up, staring distractedly at a wall calendar when Lucas arrived.

  "Where've you got him?" Lucas asked.

  "Down in interrogation."

  "His lawyer in there?"

  "Yeah. That could be a problem."

  "Why's that?"

  "'Cause it's that asshole McCarthy," Anderson said.

  "God damn." Lucas ran his hands through his hair. "The usual bull?"

  "Yeah. The little dickhead."

  "I'm going down there."

  "Chief's down there."

  ***

  "We're not getting anything out of him." Daniel was leaning on the wall outside the interrogation room. "That prick McCarthy won't let him say a word."

  "He smells a good one," Lucas said. "If this goes to trial and he gets Smithe off, he can quit the county and make some real money in private practice."

  "So what're you going to do?" Daniel asked.

  "I'm going to be a good guy. A real good guy. And I'm going to get mad and read off McCarthy."

  "Not too much. You could jeopardize what we got."

  "Just plant a seed of doubt."

  Daniel shrugged. "You can try."

  Lucas took off his jacket, loosened his tie and mussed his hair, took a deep breath, and went through the door at a jog. The interrogators, the lawyer, and Smithe were seated around a table and looked up, startled.

  "Jesus. Sorry. I was afraid I'd miss you," Lucas said. He looked down at McCarthy. "Hello, Del. You handling this one, I guess?"

  "Does the pope shit in the woods?" McCarthy was a short man in a lumpy brown suit. His dishwater-blond hair swelled out of his head in an Afro, and muttonchops swept down the sides of his square face. "Is a bear a Catholic?"

  "Right." Lucas looked at the interrogators. "I've been cleared by Daniel. You mind if I ask a few?"

  "Go ahead, we ain't gettin' anywhere," said the senior cop, swirling an oily slick of cold coffee in a Styrofoam cup.

  Lucas nodded and turned to Smithe. "I'll tell you up front. I was one of the people who questioned the survivor of the third attack. I don't think you did it."

  "Is this the good-guy routine, Davenport?" asked McCarthy, tipping his chair back and grinning in amusement.

  "No. It's not." He pointed a finger at Smithe. "That was the first thing I wanted to tell you. The second thing is, I'm going to talk for a while. At some point, McCarthy here might tell you to stop listening. You better not-"

  "Now, wait a minute," McCarthy said, bringing the chair legs down with a bang.

  Lucas overrode him. "-because how can it hurt just to listen, if you're not admitting anything? And your lawyer's priorities are not necessarily the same as yours."

  McCarthy stood up. "That's it. I'm calling it off."

  "I want to hear him," Smithe said suddenly.

  "I'm advising you-"

  "I want to hear him," Smithe said. He tipped his head at McCarthy while watching Lucas. "Why aren't his priorities the same as mine?"

  "I don't want to impeach the counselor's personal ethics," Lucas said, "but if this goes to trial, it'll be one of the big trials of the decade. We just don't have serial killers here in Minnesota. If he gets you off, he'll have made his name. You, on the other hand, will be completely destroyed, no matter what happens. It's too bad, but that's the way it works. You've been around a courthouse long enough to know what I'm talking about."

  "That's enough," said McCarthy. "You're prejudicing the case."

  "No I'm not. I'm just prejudicing your job in it. And I won't mention that again. I'm just-"

  McCarthy stepped between Lucas and Smithe, his back to Lucas, and leaned toward Smithe. "Listen. If you don't want me to represent you, that's fine. But I'm telling you as your lawyer, right now, you don't want to talk-"

  "I want to listen. That's all," Smithe said. "You can sit here and listen with me or you can take a hike and I'll get another attorney."

  McCarthy stood back and shook his head. "I warned you."

  Lucas moved around to where Smithe could see him again.

  "If you've got an alibi, especially a good alibi, for any of the times of the killings, you better bring it out now," Lucas said urgently. "That's my message. If you've got an alibi, you could let us go to trial and maybe humiliate us, but you'd have a hard time working again. There'd always be a question. And there'd always be a record. You get stopped by a highway patrolman in New York and he calls in to the National Crime Information Center, he'll get back a sheet that says you were once arrested for serial murder. And then there's the other possibility."

  "What?"

  "That you'll be convicted even if you're innocent. There's always a chance that even with a good alibi, the jury'd find you guilty. It happens. You know it. The jury figures, what the hell, if he wasn't guilty, the cops wouldn't have arrested him. McCarthy here can tell you that."

  Smithe tipped his head toward McCarthy again. "He told me that as soon as I started dealing in alibis, you'd have guys out on the street trying to knock them down.'

  Lucas leaned on the interrogation table. "He's absolutely right. We would. And if we can't, I guarantee you'd be back on the street and nothing happens. Nothing. You haven't been booked yet. You never would be. Right now, we've got a good enough case to pick you up, maybe take it to trial. I don't know what these guys have been telling you, but I can tell you that we can put you with two of the victims and a third guy who is critical to the case, and there's some physical evidence. But a good alibi would knock the stuffing out of it."

  Smithe went pale. "There can't be. Physical evidence. I mean..."

  "You don't know what it is," Lucas said. "But we have it. Now. I suggest you and Mr. McCarthy go whisper in the hallway for a couple of minutes and come back."r />
  "Yeah, we'll do that," McCarthy said.

  They were back in five minutes.

  "We're done talking," McCarthy announced, looking satisfied with himself.

  Lucas looked at Smithe. "You're making a bad mistake."