[Prey 11] - Easy Prey

by John Sandford

  "All right, all right… I get a little puckered up sometimes."

  "Will you put some guys with him?"

  "Yup. I'll do it now."

  "One more thing, if you don't mind," Lucas said. "I talked to Spooner about coming in today with his attorney—I don't want to do that now. Tell him that after Rodriguez's death, we're reassessing the case and it may not be necessary for him to come in at all."

  "I can do that."

  "I'd do it, but I don't want to talk to him," Lucas said. "We don't want to lie to him at this point."

  After leaving Homicide, Lucas walked over to the hospital. Del was just leaving. "Took her back into intensive care," he said; he looked a little frightened. "Pneumonia's getting on top of her."

  "Can she talk?" Lucas asked.

  "She's asleep. They say it's controllable, but she looks worse to me than she did yesterday."

  "Ah, man. Let me see…" Del went back inside with him. A nurse led them in, but Marcy was asleep, as Del said. Back outside, Lucas led the way to Weather's office. Nobody home. "What do you do around here to find out what's going on?"

  "Black left ten minutes ago, to get something to eat—he said they're still optimistic."

  "What does he think?"

  "He's not a doctor," Del said.

  "I know, but what does he think?"

  "He thinks she's getting into trouble," Del said.

  They went back down to intensive care and stood outside and looked at her. After a while, they walked back to City Hall.

  Lucas's door had a "See me ASAP" note on it from Loring. Lucas and Del walked down to Homicide and found Loring taking a statement from a pale blond man dressed all in black. In a different age, he might have been an undertaker.

  "What's going on?" Lucas asked.

  "There you are," Loring said. "This is John Dukeljin, he was at the party at Sallance Hanson's. He picked William Spooner out of a photo spread, says he was at the party."

  "Oooh," Lucas said. "That's excellent."

  "Almost sure," Dukeljin said. "He was leaving, we were coming back. I saw him coming down the front walk—Silly has that low-voltage lighting all along there, we could see him quite clearly—and I pointed him out to my friend. But he got to the end of the walk before we did, and he went the other way."

  "Why did you point him out to your friend? Was there something about him?" Lucas asked.

  "I thought he might be gay," Dukeljin said.

  "Mr. Dukeljin and his friend are gay," Loring said.

  "Why… ?"

  "He was carrying a bag. Carrying a bag is way over with, for men. But usually, if you see a man carrying one, you know, unselfconsciously… it's something to think about."

  Lucas looked at Loring. "Sometimes you show a tiny flicker of intelligence."

  "You're just jealous," Loring said.

  "What?" Del asked.

  "We never found Sandy Lansing's purse," Loring said. "If we had, we probably would have made her as a dealer."

  Lucas looked at Dukeljin. "Do you think your friend would recognize Spooner?"

  "I haven't been able to get in touch. He's out on a project—he's an engineer—but I pointed this fellow out. I'm sure he'll remember that. And the bag, you know, because it's so over with. I don't know if he'll exactly remember the face."

  "Where's this project?" Lucas asked.

  "In Rochester, something to do with the Mayo Clinic… He'll be back tonight," Dukeljin said.

  Lester came in while they were talking, and said, "Loring told you."

  "Yup."

  "Pain in the ass, Lucas. It'd be better for everyone if it was Rodriguez. Close the books and walk away."

  "Can't do that."

  "Yeah, I know," Lester said. "I just talked to Rose Marie, and she said the Spooner ID was your third prediction; she's a believer. So I've got four guys all night with Spooner. And we're tracking Olson."

  "Something's got to pop soon: there's just too much pressure building. If anything happens, have them call me."

  Weather called. "I understand you were checking on Marcy Sherrill and stopped up."

  "Yeah. We're pretty worried," Lucas said.

  "I talked to the people in Medicine, and they still think she'll be okay. They got on it right away. She's in intensive care so they can keep a closer eye on her."

  "Tom Black is probably hanging around there. Could you tell him that? He's really sweating it," Lucas said.

  "Sure. I'll walk down there now."

  "And I want to get together. I need to talk with you," Lucas said. "But you know what it's like…"

  "I heard about the Rodriguez fellow. Doesn't that solve a lot of problems?"

  "No. Not really. I'll tell you about it. Could we get lunch tomorrow?"

  "Sure. It might be a little late. I've got two jobs tomorrow, and the second one's scheduled for ten o'clock."

  "That's okay. I'll try to get over there… Listen, just call me anytime. I'll keep my cell phone on, and I'll run over whenever you're ready."

  At the end the day, Lucas stopped back to look in on Marcy; no change. He walked back to the parking ramp, got his car, and headed south to Jael Corbeau's studio. She'd been making pots; a couple of new cops were sitting around in her studio, watching. When Lucas walked, in she looked up and said, "Dinnertime?"

  "Talked me into it," he said.

  One of the cops said, "That's the goddamnedest thing I've ever seen. You oughta see her make pots. It's, like, weird."

  "Interesting," Jael said.

  "If I got interested in that," the cop asked, "is there someplace I can take lessons?"

  "Yeah, about a hundred," she said. "This is one of the big ceramics places in the country."

  "It's so goddamned neat," he said.

  The other cop raised his eyebrows and shook his head. "Playing with mud."

  Jael looked at him and said, "Playing with mud can be fun." And she dragged the tip of her tongue over her upper lip.

  "Oh, God, take me now, I'm ready to go," the cop said, and Jael laughed and said to Lucas, "Ten minutes to clean up."

  They ate at a fast-food place on Ford Parkway, a few blocks from Lucas's house. "We could go see a movie," Lucas suggested.

  "Why don't we go for a hike? Walk up the river path."

  "Pretty cold."

  "It'd feel good. I'm stuck in that house. I'm not staying in much longer," Jael said. "Another couple of days, and then I'm leaving for New York. Let him find me if he can."

  They dropped the Porsche at Lucas's house and walked a mile up River Road, talking about the day Lucas told her his doubts about Rodriguez, and the possibility that somebody else was involved. She told him about talking with the cops as she shifted through her day, and the one cop who might actually be interested in ceramics.

  "Or interested in your ass," Lucas said.

  "I can tell the difference. You can tell the way a person's face lights up when he sees a pot being thrown," she said. "He really thought it was neat. He was amazed."

  "Well… maybe he'll get into it."

  "You're not the porter type," she said.

  "No, but I like the potter types."

  "You certainly demonstrated—"

  "That's not what I meant," he said with a little impatience. "I like people who can do things. Craftsmen. Good carpenters. Good bricklayers. Good reporters. Good cops. It's all sort of the same."

  They walked out to Cretin, turned south, back toward Lucas's house. "Weird name for a street," she said.

  "Named after a bishop," he said. "I've got a friend who went to school in Normal, Illinois, and another guy who went to Cretin, the high school in St. Paul. They've always had this idea that they ought to get 'Cretin' and 'Normal' T-shirts, and hang out."

  "That would be funny for about one second," she said. "After that it would get annoying."

  Back at the house, Lucas shut the door behind them and Jael said, "Now I feel hot, after all that cold air."

  "Want a beer? I got a movi
e the other day, Streets of Fire, looks neat in a cheesy way."

  "All right."

  Lucas went and got two beers, and when he came out she had the DVD case and was dropping the disk in the DVD player. Lucas punched up the TV with the remote, handed her one of the beer bottles, and dropped onto the couch. The movie came up and Jael took a hit on the beer, then set it on the coffee table and peeled off her sweatshirt. She was wearing a plaid shirt under that, and under that, a bra. She dropped them all on the floor, then peeled off her jeans and underpants, and picked up the beer.

  "Maybe we could have some sex while we're watching the movie," she said.

  "If you play your cards right," Lucas said, manipulating the remote. "Move over to the left, you're blocking the screen."

  "I'll block the screen," she said. She straddled one of his legs and started tugging at his belt buckle. "I'll block the damn screen."

  Chapter 26

  « ^ »

  Saturda.y. Day eight.

  He took Jael back home at two o'clock. Then, restless and awake, a little moody from the sex, he took I-394 west to the 494—694 belt-line, decided at the last minute to go north, and drove the 694 north, then east across the north side of the Metro area, then south again, and back into St. Paul on I-94. The trip took most of an hour, and he used the time to think about Jael, and Weather, and Catrin.

  He felt a strong tie to Weather; he couldn't help it. If she called in the morning and said, "To hell with it, let's get married next week," he'd probably say yes. On the other hand, she was making some preliminary moves toward what might be a reconciliation, and he was sleeping—well, not sleeping—with Jael. He was risking the Weather tie with a woman who wouldn't be around long. He knew Jael would be moving on, and Jael knew he knew it; and when he wasn't looking at her, he hardly thought about her, at least on a conscious level.

  But his car kept steering itself to her doorstep, and he kept winding up in a bed or on a couch or on the floor with her. And he liked it. Most of that was Jael herself; She was not self-conscious about sex.

  and not particularly concerned that Lucas enjoy himself. She was getting her own, and letting Lucas take care of himself, which he did. And he liked that. This was serious casual sex.

  So now he was going to lunch with Weather; the lunch had the feel of a crisis meeting. If nothing happened tomorrow, it was likely nothing would happen at all. A moment was occurring. He could pick it up or let it go, and he really wanted to pick it up, but maybe if he could just get another week of rolling around with Jael… Maybe two weeks?

  He thought of the legendary quote from St. Augustine that so beguiled his high school classmates who were headed for a seminary: "Please, Lord, make me pure… but not yet."

  Then there was Catrin, a problem that might be more serious than Jael. She pulled on him. And he couldn't help thinking that if it didn't work with Weather, it might yet work with Catrin. He was curious about her; liked her a lot twenty years before, might have gotten serious about her twenty years ago. And, as he thought about it, he wondered if one reason that he'd never married was the relationship he'd had with her so long ago: She had somehow immunized him against marriage. That that had been a moment, and on that moment, he'd passed.

  He pushed the Porsche down the ramp onto I-94, let it wind, kicked it out of the chute and past a Firebird like the Pontiac was parked, and decided that his brain was getting tired of italics. Had to make a decision.

  But if he could just get another week… or two… out of Jael, could he be happy? Did he even want to be?

  "Fuck it," he said aloud. But he didn't mean it. He was hanging a little over 125 on a nearly empty interstate when he passed Snelling Avenue. Thirty seconds later, he flashed past a highway patrolman going the other way, on the other side of the highway. He saw the flashers come up and grinned, took the Porsche up the ramp at Cretin-Vandalia, and turned left toward home. The guy had no chance.

  At ten o'clock the next morning, a cop called to say that Olson was moving. "We don't know what he's doing. He got out on the interstate and he's done a couple of laps around the St. Paul side. He stopped once at White Bear Avenue to get gas."

  "How close has he gotten to Highland Park?"

  "He took 35E from 94 to 494, so he went right past Spooner's exit at Randolph or at Seventh. If he'd gotten off at either one, we would have been screaming our heads off—but he's just driving."

  "Keep calling me," Lucas said.

  Weather called while he was in the shower. "I've got a problem," she said.

  "No lunch?" he asked, dripping water on the hallway floor.

  She could hear the disappointment. "I'm sorry, but this… thing… just came up and I've got to deal with it."

  "Doesn't sound medical," Lucas said.

  "Its not. Lucas, I'm being… damnit, we need to sit down and talk this out. I have not had a sexual relationship since we split up."

  "Why face a disappointment any sooner—"

  "Will you shut up? Will you just shut the fuck up for a minute?" she said.

  "All right," he said.

  "I have not had a sexual relationship, but there was this doctor…"

  "The Frenchman?"

  "You know about this?" she asked.

  "I know you were going out with some Frenchman."

  "Not going out with. I went out with him three times. Or four times. Or maybe, I don't know, five or six times. We never really stopped or anything. I was busy or he was busy and it sort of drifted, and then he had to go back to Paris for a while."

  "He came back."

  "Yeah. He called last night and he wanted to have lunch today," she said. "He was pretty insistent, even when I said I was pretty busy… I think I've got to go talk to him."

  "And …?"

  "I'm ultimately not interested in Frenchmen," she said.

  "Well, Jesus, Weather, why don't you just tell him to blow it out his froggy ass?"

  "I don't think that would exactly be a diplomatic way to handle it…"

  "You aren't the fuckin' State Department." He let himself get a little angry about it.

  "… and I've got to work with him. He's an important guy around here."

  They talked for another minute or two, and he let himself get a little angrier—and at the bottom of it, was satisfied that she was impressed by the anger. Then he went back to the shower, finished cleaning up, and got dressed. All right. He picked up the phone and dialed Jael.

  She answered on the third ring, and he said, "Your problem is, you're too Victorian."

  "That's my problem, all right," she said lazily. "Hang on…" He could hear her yell, "It's okay, it's for me," and then she was back.

  "Have you had breakfast?"

  "I'm barely awake. It's not even ten-thirty," she said.

  "I'll come get you if you want."

  "Can't. I've got a half-dozen people coming at noon. We're working out a joint show, and we've got way too many people. We're trying to figure out how to screw some of them. You're welcome to come over, but you wouldn't like the people, and I don't want any of them thrown out any windows."

  "Goddamnit. I can't find anyone to talk to this morning," he said.

  "And tonight, my dad's getting in. We're all going over to the airport to pick him up. So…"

  "No dinner. No midnight snack."

  "You ever tried phone sex?" she asked.

  "Tried once, but it doesn't work. I feel like a silly jerk-off."

  "That's sort of inevitable," she said.

  "On the other hand, I'm good at giving it. I wouldn't want to use the word brilliant, but then, I'm a modest kind of guy."

  "Really? That's interesting," she said. "I mean, how would you start it?"

  "Are you still in bed?"

  "Yeah."

  "What are you wearing?" he asked.

  "A flannel nightshirt and underpants and socks," she said.

  "Socks? Jesus. That makes it a little harder," Lucas said.

  "Come on, Davenport."
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  "All right. You know that fake Indian dreamcatcher you've got hanging over your sink?"

  "Yeah… ?"

  "Go get it," he said.

  "Go get it? What for?"

  "Listen, are you going to do this, or not?"

  "Well… I just wanted to know…"

  "You're gonna need that hawk feather," he said.

  After a moment, she said, "Hang on."

  "Wait a minute! You still there?"

  She came back. "Yes?"

  "Didn't I see one of those Lady Remington leg shavers in the bathroom?"

  "Yes?"

  "Bring that too," Lucas said.

  "I'll tell you right now, I'm not shaving anything," she said.

  "You don't use those things to shave," Lucas said. "You use them to shave? You naive little waif, you."

  "I'll be right back," she said.

  The City Hall was quiet; there were fewer TV trucks at the curb, and the Homicide office was mostly empty. Del called on the cell phone and said, "Hot damn, you've turned it on."

  "Yeah. What's going on?"

  "Nothing. I was just calling to ask."

  "All right. I'm turning this fucking thing off."

  "No—don't do that. Listen, I'm gonna take off with the old lady this afternoon. Go see an aunt of hers, and then maybe go look at some carpet."

  "You're doing carpet?"

  "Yeah, maybe for the family room."

  "All right. Well. See you later."

  He wound up in his office with all the paper on the case; he found nothing new, but strengthened his sense that Spooner was at the bottom of it. Then Lester called, and said that the gay friend of John Dukeljin, who had identified Spooner as being at the party, and carrying a shoulder bag, remembered seeing a man with a bag but couldn't pick Spooner out of a photo spread.

  "Par for the course," Lucas said. "You find anybody else?"

  "Two other people think they saw him. But the guy is sort of a nebbish, and the light was bad, they had those strobe things you dance to… So that's what we sot."

  Rose Marie called and said, "Here's a mystery for you. Why would the head of the state highway patrol call me up at home and say, 'Tell that fuckin' Davenport to knock it the fuck off?"