Eyes of Prey ld-3

by John Sandford

  "I hope caffeine is okay," he said. Bekker's voice was flat, uninflected, as though he daily drank coffee with a cop who suspected him of murder. He must know…

  "Fine." Lucas looked around the kitchen as Bekker filled the cups with tap water, stuck them in a microwave and punched the control buttons. The kitchen was as carefully crafted as the rest of the house, with folksy, turn-of-the-century wallpaper, dark, perfectly matched wood, and touches of flagstone. While the rest of the house felt decorated, Lucas thought, the kitchen felt lived in.

  Bekker turned back to Lucas as the microwave began to hum. "I know nothing at all about cooking," Bekker said. "A little about wine, perhaps."

  "You're handling your wife's death pretty well," Lucas said. He stepped up to a small framed photograph. Four women in long dark dresses and white aprons, standing around a butter churn. Old. "Are these, what, ancestors?"

  "Stephanie's great-grandmother and some friends. Sit down, Mr. Davenport," Bekker said, nodding at a breakfast bar with stools. The microwave beeped, and he took out the cups, the coffee steaming hot, carried them to the bar and sat down opposite Lucas. "You were saying?"

  "Your wife's death…"

  "I'll miss her, but to be honest, I didn't love my wife very much. I'd never hurt her-I know what the police think, Stephanie's idiot cousin-but the fact is, neither of us was much of a factor in the other's life. I suspected she was having an affair: I simply didn't care. I've had female friends of my own…" He looked for reaction in Lucas' face. There was none. The cop accepted the infidelity as routine… maybe.

  "And that didn't bother her? Your other friends." Lucas sipped at the coffee. Scalding.

  "I don't believe so. She knew, of course, her friends would have seen to that. But she never spoke to me about it. And she was the type who would have, if she cared…" Bekker blew on his coffee. He was wearing a tweed jacket and whipcord pants, very English.

  "So why not a divorce?" Lucas asked.

  "Why should we? We got along reasonably well, and we had this"-he gestured at the house-"which we couldn't maintain if we split up. And there are other advantages for two people living together. You share maintenance chores, run errands for each other, one can take care of business when the other one is gone… There wasn't any passion, but we were quite well adapted to each other's habits. I'm not much interested in marriage, at my age. I have my work. She couldn't have children; her fallopian tubes were hopelessly tangled, and by the time in vitro came around, she was no longer thinking about children. I never wanted any, so there wasn't even that possibility." He stopped and seemed to reflect, took a sip of the scalding coffee. "I suppose other people wouldn't understand the way we were living, but it was convenient and comfortable."

  "Hmp." Lucas sipped his own coffee and looked the other man straight in the eyes. Bekker gazed placidly back, not flinching, and Lucas knew then that he was lying, at least about part of it. Nobody looked that guiltless without deliberate effort. "I suppose a prosecutor could argue that since you had no interest in each other, and it made no difference to you whether she lived or died, her death would be very… convenient. Instead of having half of this"-his gesture mimicked Bekker's-"you'd have all of it."

  "He could… if he were particularly stupid or particularly vicious," Bekker said. He flashed a smile at Lucas, a thin rim of white teeth. "I invited you for coffee because of the people you've killed, Mr. Davenport. I thought you'd likely know about death and murder. That would give us much in common. I study death as a scientist. I've studied murder, both the victims and the killers. There are several men who consider themselves my friends out at Stillwater prison, serving life sentences. From my research I've drawn two conclusions. First: Murder is stupid. In most cases, it will out, as somebody British once said. If you're going to commit murder, the worst thing you can do is plan it and commit it in league with another person. Conflicts arise, the investigators play one against another… I know how it works. No. Murder is stupid. Murder plotted with someone else is idiotic. Divorce, on the other hand, is merely annoying. A tragedy for some couples, perhaps, but if two people genuinely don't love each other, it's mostly routine legal procedure."

  Bekker shrugged and went at the coffee. When he extended his perfect pink lips to the cup, he looked like a leech, Lucas thought.

  "What's the second thing you know about murder? You said there were two things," Lucas asked.

  "Ah. Yes." Bekker smiled again, pleased that Lucas was paying attention. "To plan and carry out a cold-blooded murder-well, only a madman could do it. Anyone remotely normal could not. Serial killers, hit men, men who plot and kill their wives: all crazy."

  Lucas nodded. "I agree."

  "I'm glad you do," Bekker said simply. "And I'm not crazy."

  "Is that the real reason you invited me in? To tell me you're not nuts?"

  Bekker nodded ruefully and said, "Yes, I guess it is. Because I thought you might understand the totality of what I'm saying. Even if I had wanted to kill Stephanie-and I didn't-I wouldn't have. I'm simply too smart and too sane." He reached forward and touched Lucas on the arm, and Lucas thought: The sucker is trying to seduce me. He wants me to like him… "Your fellow officers have been all over the neighborhood, quite deliberately creating an impression. I can feel it in my neighbors. I'm sure Stephanie's crazy cousin, the dope addict, has told you that I had her killed to get this house, but if you ask her friends, you'll find that I never had much interest in it. The house or the furnishings…"

  "You could sell it-"

  "I was coming to that," Bekker interrupted. He made a brushing motion with his free hand, as though batting away gnats. "I'm not much interested in the house or its furnishings, but I'm not totally unappreciative, either. It is a very comfortable place to live. Success in academia is largely political, you know, and the house is a wonderful backdrop for social gatherings. For impressing those who must be impressed. I would keep it, but… I'm afraid Stephanie's crazy cousin may succeed in driving me out. If all my neighbors believe I killed her, remaining here would be intolerable. You might tell that to Del, when you see him. That if I sell, it will be only because he drove me out."

  "I will," Lucas nodded. "And if the other officers are creating problems for you… I have some pull at headquarters. I'll back them off."

  "Really?" Bekker seemed surprised. "Would you?"

  "Sure. I don't know whether you were involved in your wife's killing, but there's no reason you should be illegally harassed. I'll look into it."

  "That'd be wonderful," Bekker said. Gratitude saturated his voice, but a spark of contempt flared in his eyes. "I'm glad I asked you in: I had an intuition that you'd understand…"

  They sat in silence for a moment, then Lucas said, "She was killed here in the kitchen. Your wife."

  "Oh, yes… I suppose she was," Bekker said, looking around vaguely.

  Wrong reaction, asshole. Bekker had to know where she was killed. He must have thought about it, looked at the spot, carried the image in his head: anyone would, innocent or guilty, crazy or sane. And that business about a divorce being simply annoying. If you believe that, you're stupider than I think you are… Lucas waited, expecting more, but Bekker pushed off the barstool and dumped the last of his coffee into the kitchen sink.

  "The men you killed, Lucas. Do you think they went anywhere?" His tone was casual.

  "What do you mean?" Lucas asked. "You mean, like, to heaven?"

  "Or hell." Bekker turned to study him. His voice was no longer casual.

  "No. I don't think they went anywhere," Lucas said, shaking his head. "I used to be a Catholic, and when I first started police work, I worried about that. I saw a lot of people dead or dying for no apparent reason… not people I killed, just people. Little kids who'd drowned, people dying in auto accidents and with heart attacks and strokes. I saw a lineman burn to death, up on a pole, little bits and pieces, and nobody could help… I watched them go, screaming and crying and sometimes just lying there with their t
ongue stuck out, heaving, with all the screaming and hollering from friends and relatives… and I never saw anyone looking beyond. I think, Michael, I think they just blink out. That's all. I think they go where the words on a computer screen go, when you turn it off. One minute they exist, maybe they're even profound, maybe the result of a great deal of work. The next… Whiff. Gone."

  "Gone," Bekker repeated. His white eyebrows went up. "Nothing left?"

  "Nothing but a shell, and that rots."

  "Hah." Bekker turned away, suddenly shaken. "Very sad. Well. I have to get to bed. I have work tomorrow."

  Lucas stood, drank the last of his coffee and left the cup on the bar. "I wonder if I could ask something. I'm sure other cops have been all over the house. Could I take a look at the room where Stephanie and her friend were… spending time?"

  "You mean her bedroom," Bekker said wryly. "I don't see why not. Like you said, the carpets are virtually worn-out from the impact of all the flat feet… no offense."

  Lucas laughed in spite of himself, then followed Bekker up the long staircase. "I'm down there," Bekker said, when they reached the top. He gestured to the left, but turned to the right. Halfway down the hall, he pushed a door open, reached inside, clicked on a light, stepped back and said, "Here we are."

  Stephanie Bekker had slept in an old-fashioned double bed with a rough-cut French frame. The quilt, blankets and sheets were in a heap at the foot of the bed, lying across the frame and partially covering an antique steamer trunk. A dozen magazines on home decorating, antiques and art were piled on the trunk. Near the head of the bed, a Princess phone sat on a bedstand, along with a clock, two more magazines and a Stephen King novel.

  A door opened to the left. Lucas stuck his head inside and found a compact but complete bathroom, with a vanity, toilet, tub and shower. A ruby-colored bath towel hung from one of two towel racks. There were traces of fingerprint powder on the vanity, toilet handle, shower handles and towel racks. Lucas turned back into the bedroom, noticed another towel on the red-toned Oriental carpet.

  "Just like… the night…" Bekker said. "The laboratory people said they'd call and tell me when I can clean up. Do you have any idea when that might be?"

  "Have they filmed it?"

  "I think so…"

  "I'll check that, too," Lucas said. He looked at Bekker across the bedroom, measuring him, and asked, "You didn't do it?"

  Bekker looked at him now. "No," he said levelly, with the same straightforward, unflinching gaze.

  "Well. Nice meeting you," Lucas said.

  Outside, the night had turned colder, sliding into frost. The cold air was welcome on his face after the heat of the house. Lucas strolled up the sidewalk, took a right to the alley, looked around and walked down the alley until he was behind Bekker's house. The killer had probably come in this way.

  At the side of the house, a light came on, a long narrow shaft gleaming bright at the edge of a curtain. Struck by a sudden impulse, Lucas pushed the gate in the hurricane fence along the backyard. Locked. He glanced around, then vaulted the fence and walked carefully through the dark backyard, feeling with his feet as much as his eyes, wary of loose garbage can lids and invisible clotheslines…

  At the side of the house, he moved by inches to the lighted window, put his back to the outside wall, then slowly rotated his head until he could see through the crack.

  Bekker was in the study, nude, lurching from one end to the other, chewing convulsively, his face twisted into a mask of pain, terror or religious ecstasy, his eyes turned so far up into his skull that only the whites were visible. He shuddered, twisted, threw out his arms, then collapsed into a leather chair, his mouth half open. For a minute, then two, he didn't move, and Lucas thought he might have had a heart attack or stroke. Then he moved, his arms and legs uncoiling, smoothing themselves into an upright attitude, like that of a king on a throne. Laughing. Bekker was laughing, a mechanical "Ha-ha-ha-ha" choking out of his throat. And still his eyes were looking inward, at God.

  Lucas dreamed of Bekker's face. Had to be drugs. Had to be. In the dream he kept arguing that point, that it was drugs; but no drugs were found, and Bekker, lightly restrained by two faceless cops in blue uniforms, would swoop up and screech, I'm high on Jesus…

  The dream was one of those where Lucas knew he was dreaming but couldn't get out. When the alarm went off, just after one in the afternoon, it was a positive relief. He rolled out, cleaned up and was about to pour a cup of coffee when Del banged on the door.

  "You're up," Del said, when Lucas answered.

  "Come on in. What's going on?"

  "Got some calls on the tip line. Nothing much." He shook a no-nicotine, no-tar cigarette out of a crumpled pack and lit it with a Zippo as they walked through the house to the kitchen. "And Sloan talked to a woman named Beulah Miller this morning-another one of Stephanie Bekker's friends. He asked about the psychologist, and she said, 'Maybe.' "

  "But the shrink denies it…"

  "So does his wife," Del said. He settled at the kitchen table, and when Lucas held up a pot of coffee, he nodded. "Sloan went back and got her alone. She said he'd had an affair, years ago, and she knew about five minutes after it started. There haven't been any since. And she said that after Sloan went away after the first visit, she went straight back to her husband and asked him. He denied it. Still denies it. And she believes him."

  "Has she got a job of her own?" Lucas asked, handing him a cup of hot coffee.

  "Sloan thought of that," Del said. "And she does-she's a lobbyist for the Taxpayers' Forum and a couple of other conservative interest groups. She's got a law degree, Sloan says, and she probably makes a pretty good buck."

  "So she doesn't need a meal ticket."

  "Guess not. Anyway, she suspected that Stephanie was having an affair. They never talked about it, but there were some pretty heavy hints. And she says she thinks they never talked about it because she probably knew the guy, and maybe the guy's wife, and Stephanie didn't know how she'd react. Like she was afraid Miller'd freak out or something."

  "So she says it's not her husband, but probably somebody they know…"

  "Yeah."

  "Did Sloan get a list of possibilities?"

  "Naturally. Twenty-two names. But she said some of them were pretty remote possibilities. Sloan's looking at the most likely ones today, the rest of them tomorrow… but he got something else you might be interested in."

  Lucas raised his eyebrows. "What?"

  "Bekker apparently had an affair sometime back, two or three years ago. A nurse. Common talk around the hospital. Sloan got her name and address, went over to see her. She told him to get lost. He pulled the badge, but you know Sloan, he likes people a little too much…"

  "Huh. You think…?"

  "What I think is, you'd be the perfect guy to talk to her," Del said.

  "Why not you?"

  "I'd like to come along, but I don't look right to do it by myself," Del said, shaking his long black hair. "I look a little too much like Charlie Manson. People don't let me in the door, even, unless they're assholes. But you-when you put on one of those gray suits, you look like the fuckin' Law."

  Cheryl Clark didn't want to let them in.

  "This is about a murder, Miss Clark," Lucas said, cool and official, his ID in her face. "You can talk to us, and the chances are about ninety percent that we'll walk away. Or you can refuse to talk, and we'll take you downtown and let you call a lawyer, and we'll talk to you that way."

  "I don't have to talk."

  "Yes you do. You don't have the right to refuse to talk. You have the right not to incriminate yourself. If you think you're going to incriminate yourself, then we'll go downtown, you can call a lawyer, we'll get you a grant of immunity from prosecution-and then we'll talk. Or you'll go to jail for contempt of court," Lucas said. His voice warmed up a couple of notches. "Look, we don't want to be jerks-if you haven't done anything criminal, I'm telling you, it'd be a lot easier just to have an informal
chat right now."

  "I really don't have anything to say," she protested. Her eyes skittered past Lucas to Del, who waited at the foot of the stoop, looking at a motorcycle.

  "We'd like to ask anyway," Lucas said.

  "Well… all right. Come in. But I might not answer," she said.

  Her apartment was tidy but impersonal, almost like a motel room. A television was the most prominent piece of furniture, dominating one wall, facing a couch. The couch was covered with a thick green baize that might have been taken off a pool table. A sliding door led to a tiny balcony, with a view toward the Mississippi River valley.

  "Is that your boyfriend's Sportster outside?" Del asked, friendly.

  "It's mine," Clark said shortly.

  "You ride? Far out," Del said. "And you smoke a lot of dope?" He stood in front of the balcony doors, looking out at the river. He was wearing a long-sleeved paisley shirt under a jean jacket, and dirty black jeans with a silver-studded black biker's belt.

  "I don't…" Clark, dressed in her white nurse's uniform, sat rigidly on her couch. Her eyes, sunk deep in her pale face, were underlined by black smudges. She looked at Lucas. "You said…"

  "Don't bullshit us," Del said, but in a friendly voice. "Please. I don't give a fuck about the dope, just don't bullshit us. You could get a goddamn contact high off these things." He flicked the curtains with his fingers.

  "I don't…" she started, then shrugged and said, "… smoke a lot."

  "Don't worry about it," Lucas said to her. He sat on the couch himself, half turned toward Clark. "You had a relationship with Michael Bekker."

  "I told the first officer. It was almost nothing." Her hands fluttered at her chest.

  "He's under investigation in the murder of his wife. We're not accusing him, but we're looking at him," Lucas said. "You seem like an intelligent person. What we need from you is… an assessment."

  "Are you asking me…?"

  "Could he kill his wife?"

  She looked at him for a moment, then broke her gaze away. "Yes."

  "Was he violent with you?"