John Sandford - Prey 10 - Certain Prey

by Certain Prey

  'Come look. You'll like it.'

  'Too early,' Lucas said again. But he went to look.

  A St. Paul homicide cop named LeMaster showed him the body on the bed, chain around the neck, ankles and hands, pants pulled down around the thighs: 'One of the neighborhood junkies found him. About two hours ago - he came by looking for a wake-me-up.The dead guy used to be a big-time dealer.'

  'No more?'

  'LeMaster shook his head: 'He got his nose in it. Lately, he's been down to selling eight-balls.'

  'Ain't that the way of the world,' Lucas said. 'One day it's kilos, the next day, it's one toot at a time.' He kept his hands in his pockets as he squatted next to the bed: 'Bunch of.22s in the head.'

  'Yup. Could be your Barbara Allen killer. Or could be somebody who read about it in the paper and liked the sound of it.'

  'Lucas nodded and stood up, scratched his nose and looked at the still-damp pools of blood around the body's feet and knees. 'What's all the blood from? And what's his name?'

  'Rolando D'Aquila was his name; everybody called him Rolo. And the blood comes from some drill holes in his kneecaps and his heels. And his leg was bleeding from what might be a gunshot wound...'

  'Drill holes in his heels?'

  'Yeah - look at this.'The drill was lying on the floor at the end of the bed, three inches of stainless-steel drill bit sticking out of the chuck. Dried blood mottled the steel bit.

  'Jesus Christ,' Lucas said. He looked back at the body. 'They drilled him?'

  'Looks like. Gotta get his pants and socks off to know for sure, and the ME's guy hasn't been here yet... but that's what it looks like.'

  'Bet that hurt,' Lucas said, looking at Rolo's face. His face looked compressed, leathery, like a shrunken head Lucas had seen on television. He looked hurt.

  'See the pieces of duct tape on the floor? You can still see what look like chew marks on some of it. They probably taped up his mouth while they drilled him.'

  'And the house was all torn up, so they were probably looking for something,' Lucas said. 'Like cocaine.'

  'Yeah, but, boy - the gunshots in the head, all together like that, just like in the Allen case. None of the neighbors heard anything - and there are a lot of windows open these hot nights. Just like nobody heard anything with Allen. And the way they tortured him, it all looks professional. They had the tape and the chains and the padlocks and the drill - they knew what they were gonna do before they got here. It looks professional; like Allen.'

  'You keep saying they,' Lucas said.

  'I can't figure out how one guy could get him on the bed and get him all locked up like that. Had to be awkward. The way I see it, there had to be one to hold a gun on him, and at least one more to do the chains.'

  'Get the slugs to the lab - they need to do a metallurgical analysis. If they're like the slugs in the Allen shooting, they'll be so bent up that they're just about useless for trying to match by the land marks.'

  'We'll push it through,' LeMaster cop said. 'If they're the same...'

  'Gonna be trouble,' Lucas said.

  Sherrill was thumbing through a mens' magazine when Lucas picked his way through the trashed living room. 'What do you think?' he asked.

  'I think this magazine is gay,' she said. 'It's basically a gear catalog, overlaid with pictures of guys who are

  gay-'

  'You can tell from a picture?'

  'Sure. Look at this guy.' She showed him a photo of a slender, shirtless, sweat-covered biker with a shock of dark hair falling carefully over his moody black eyes. 'He's either gay, or he wants you to think he is. They're all like that. Mountain climbers, canoeists... and look at the clothes. You see a guy walking along the street dressed like this and you say...'

  'I coulda looked like that when I was a kid,' Lucas said.

  She made a face, rolled her eyes up: 'Lucas, believe me, you did not look like this. He looks like he's been hurt by somebody. They all look like they've been hurt by somebody. Look at the bruised lips. You, on the other hand, always look like you just got back from hurting somebody else. Like a woman.'

  'Thanks,' he said.

  'No charge.'

  'I just don't think you can make that judgment based on a picture...'

  She looked at him closely, then smiled and said, 'Ah. I get it. You've been reading the Wholeness Report, or the Wellness Thing, or whatever it is. The Otherness Report. You gotta stop reading that shit, it's putting holes in your brain.'

  'Yeah, it's... I don't know. But listen, what do you think about this?' He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. 'Copycat? Coincidence? I haven't been that much on top of it.'

  'Not a copycat, I don't think. We didn't give the details to the papers - we didn't tell them it was a.22, we didn't tell them that the shots were all grouped like that, we didn't tell them how close it was. You see the same tattooing on the scalp. And it was cold.'

  'Nobody colder'n a wholesaler who's trying to make a point,' Lucas said. 'Maybe he held out on somebody, was trying to get back into the big deals.'

  'Sure, but it's not just the coldness. It's all the other stuff that goes with it. It just doesn't seem like a copycat.'

  'Could be a coincidence,' Lucas said, then admitted, 'But it'd be a pretty amazing coincidence.'

  'You know the rule on coincidences.'

  'Yeah: It's probably a coincidence unless it can't be.'

  'You gonna jump in, now?' She grinned at him. 'Come on. We haven't worked together since old

  Audrey McDonald tried to take us off.'

  'We have spoken a few times, though.'

  'Is that what you call it?' She was teasing him.

  'I'm thinking of getting in, if you and Black don't mind,' Lucas said. 'The Otherness Commission is driving me nuts. This would give me an excuse...'

  'Glad to have you,' Sherrill said. 'That's why I invited you over.'

  'The first thing we gotta do,' Lucas said, 'Is we gotta get that lawyer in - Allen - and bust his balls a little. Does he know Rolando whatever-his-name is? Does he use cocaine? Has he ever?'

  'His attorney'll be on us like a chicken on a June bug.'

  'Like a what?'

  'A chicken on a June bug,' Sherrill said.

  'Jesus, I'd almost forgotten about talking to you, 'Lucas said. 'Anyway, don't worry about Carmel. I can handle Carmel.'

  'The question,' Carmel said, as Rinker bent over a display case at Neiman Marcus, and peered at the Hermes scarves, 'Is whether whoever has it will look at it, and if he looks at it, if he'll come to me, or go to the cops.'

  A sales clerk was drifting toward them and Rinker said, 'Whoever it is, I'll bet the name is in his address book.'

  'Unless he knew him so well that he didn't have to write down a number,' Carmel said.

  The clerk asked, 'Can I help you, ladies?' Rinker tapped the case: 'Let me look at the gold-and-black one, please. With the eggs.'

  They spent five minutes looking at scarves, and then Rinker took the gold-and-black one, and paid with a Neiman credit card. 'You shop at Neiman's often enough to have a credit card?' Carmel asked, while the clerk went to wrap the scarf.

  'I hit one of the stores once or twice a year, spend a few hundred,' Rinker said. 'The name on the card's not really mine, but I have all the rest of the ID to back it up, and I keep the card active and always pay it on time. Just in case. I've got a couple of Visas and Mastercards the same way. Just in case.'

  'Just in case?'

  'In case I ever have to run for it.'

  'I never thought of doing that,' Carmel said. 'Running.'

  'I'd run before I'd stand and fight. If a cop ever got close enough to look at me, I'd be screwed anyway.'

  'Do you think / could run?'

  Rinker looked at her carefully, and after a minute, nodded: 'Physically, it wouldn't be a problem. The question is whether you could handle it psychologically.'

  The clerk came back with the wrapped scarf and the credit card: 'Thanks very much, Mrs. Blake.'
/>
  'Thank you,' Rinker said. She tucked the card away in her purse.

  'Physically, I'd be okay? But psychologically...' Carmel was interested.

  'Sure. You've got a hot image. Bright clothes, blonde hair, good makeup and perfume, great shoes.' Rinker took a step back and took a long look. 'If you dressed way down - got some stuff from a secondhand shop, you know, stuff that didn't go together that well, some kind of scuzzy dark plaid, drab. And if you grew out your hair, and colored it some middle-brown color, and slumped your shoulders and shuffled, maybe got some breast prosthetics so you'd have big floopy boobs...'

  'My God,' Carmel said, starting to laugh. But Rinker was serious. 'If you did that, your best friends wouldn't recognize you from two feet. You could get a cleaning lady job at your law firm, and nobody would know you. But I don't know if you could stand it. I think you like attention; you need it.' 'Maybe,' Carmel said. 'Maybe everybody does.' 'I don't. I don't want people to look at me. That's one reason why I'm good at what I do.'

  'I really don't understand that,' Carmel said. 'I was a nude dancer for three-and-a-half years, from the time I was sixteen until I was twenty. You get pretty goddamned tired of people staring at you. You want privacy.'

  Carmel was fascinated now. 'You were a...' Her beeper went off, a discreet low Japanese tone from her purse. 'Uh-oh.'

  She glanced at the beeper, dropped it back in her

  purse, took out a cell phone and dialed. 'Maybe a problem,' she said. 'My secretary only uses the beeper if there's some pressure.' And to the phone: 'Marcia -you beeped me? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay. Give me the number. Okay.'

  She clicked off and said, 'Cop called. He wants to talk to one of my clients.'

  'Doesn't it make you nervous, talking to cops all the time?'

  'Why should it?' Carmel asked. 'I'm not guilty of anything, I'm just doing my job.'

  'We've gotta spend some time looking for the tape, we can't go running around...'

  'Actually, my client's name is Hale Allen,' Carmel said.

  Rinker frowned: 'Any relation to Barbara Allen?'

  'Her husband.'

  'Jesus.' Rinker was impressed. 'How'd that happen?'

  'He's a friend of mine and I'm a good attorney. Actually, I'm one of the best criminal attorneys in the state. The cops think he might've done it.'

  'So you're on the inside,' Rinker said.

  'Somewhat.' Carmel smiled down at Rinker. 'Makes it kind of interesting.'

  'Certainly could be useful,' Rinker said. 'Is that why you took the job?'

  'Not exactly,' Carmel said. Then her smile disappeared: 'But this cop who's calling - he wasn't working the case before. He's a deputy chief of police, Lucas Davenport. A political appointee. He used to be a

  regular cop, but he was canned for brutality or something. They brought him back because he's smart. He's a mean bastard, but really smart.' 'Well, hell, as long as he thinks her husband did

  it...'

  'But it means we've got to get that goddamn tape,' Carmel said. 'If Davenport ever got a whiff of that... I'll tell you what, Pam, he's the one guy in the world who could run you down. The one guy.'

  'As long as you're on the inside, he shouldn't be a problem,' Rinker shrugged. 'And if he gets to be a problem, we take him.'

  Carmel gave her a long look, and Rinker asked, 'What?'

  'You don't know him,' Carmel said.

  'Look, if a guy doesn't know it's coming, and if you spend some time watching him, and thinking about it - you can take him.You can'

  Carmel came swinging down the hall to Homicide, spotted Lucas coming from the other direction, carrying a large clip-bound report. 'Davenport, goddamn it, have you been stepping on my client's rights again?'

  'How are you, Carmel?' Lucas asked.

  'What's the big book?'

  'Ah, the Perfection Commission.'

  'Oh, my God. I tried to read about it in the Star-Tribune. I felt like I'd been anesthetized.' Carmel presented a cheek, and Lucas pecked it. He took one

  of her hands, lifted it and stepped back so he could look her over, and said, 'You look absolutely... wonderful.'

  'Thanks. How come we've never slept together? You've chased every other woman in town.'

  'I only chase... no, that's not right.'

  'What?'

  'I was gonna say I only chase women who don't scare me,' Lucas said. 'But they all wind up scaring me.'

  'I heard you were dating Little Miss Titsy, the cop, but you broke up.'

  'That would be Sgt. Sherrill?'

  'What happened? She have a bigger gun?'

  'Carmel, Carmel...' Lucas held the door for her. Carmel stepped through, and saw Hale Allen at the far end of the room, leaning against a green filing-cabinet, deep in conversation with Marcy Sherrill. Marcy was standing a couple of inches too close to him, and was looking up into his eyes with rapt attention.

  'Uh-oh,' Carmel said.

  'By the way,' Lucas said, in a tone low enough that Carmel had to turn to catch what he said. 'I'm told your client is dumber'n a barrel of hair.'

  'But, God, he's gorgeous,' she said. She ostentatiously bit her lower lip, sighed, and started toward Allen and Sherrill. Moving like a leopard, Lucas thought.

  They needed to cover some old ground, Lucas told Allen, because he was new to the case. He hoped it wouldn't be inconvenient. 'I understand your wife has been released by the county...'

  'Yes, finally,' Allen said.

  'That took way too long,' Carmel added. 'I don't understand why they had to do twenty different kinds of chemistry when the woman's been shot seven times in the brain.'

  'Routine,' Lucas said.

  'Bullshit routine,' Carmel said, now in attorney mode. 'You should give a little thought to what it does to the grieving survivors. You're revictimizing the victims.'

  'All right, all right,' Lucas said. 'This will only take a couple of minutes.'

  'Where's the other guy? Black?' Carmel asked.

  'Doing something else,' Lucas said. He looked at Allen. 'Tell me about your relationship with your wife...'

  'Ah, Jesus,' Carmel said.

  Ten minutes later, Lucas leaned toward Allen and asked, 'How well did you know Rolando D' Aquila?'

  Allen looked puzzled. 'Rolando who?'

  'D'Aquila. Also known as Rolo, I understand.'

  'I don't know anybody by that name,' Allen said.

  'Never bought a little toot from him?' Lucas asked.

  'No, I never.' He shook his head. 'Toot?'

  When Lucas mentioned D'Aquila's name, Carmel slipped back a step, and ran the numbers. They'd

  found the body, obviously. If they looked up D'Aquila's history - and they would get around to that, if they hadn't already - they'd find her name. They might wonder why she hadn't mentioned it.

  'Why are you interested in this Rolando D'Aquila?' she asked Lucas.

  'He was murdered last night,' Lucas said. 'He was killed the same way Mrs. Allen was - the method was identical.' He looked back at Allen: 'So you never represented him, or one of his friends, either in a criminal court or in a civil legal matter?'

  'No, no, not that I remember. I've represented thousands of people in real-estate closings, so maybe, but I don't remember any Rolando...'

  'Get off his case,' Carmel snapped. 'He's never represented Rolando D'Aquila in anything.'

  'How do you know?' Lucas asked.

  'Because Rolo only had one attorney.' Everybody was looking at her now, and she nodded. 'Me.'

  After the interview with Allen, as they got coffee from the coffee machine, Lucas said, 'You were strangely quiet. That always makes me a nervous.'

  'I was gonna be the good cop, if you were gonna be the bad,' Sherrill said.

  'I agree; he is very good-looking,' Lucas said.

  Sherrill laughed and then said, 'He's got these really amazing brown eyes. They're like perfect little puppy eyes.'

  'He's about as bright as a perfect little puppy, too,'

  'Lucas
said. 'And he's sleeping with his secretary.'

  'A secretary, not his secretary. Besides, he had a cold marriage, as I understand it,' Sherrill said. 'And I think his intelligence might lie in other areas than...'

  'Than what?'

  'Than like in, uh, being smart.'