Sudden Prey

by John Sandford

  The mayor looked from Lucas to Roux. ``Do it,'' he said, nodding. ``Emphasize the fairness thing, and how he'd be setting the record straight on his combat buddy.''

  And to Lucas: ``You gotta keep your ass down and out of sight.''

  ``I'm trying,'' Lucas said.

  HOMICIDE HAD BEEN TURNED INTO A WAR PLANS room: file cabinets and desks pushed into corners, two tables shoved together with a six-foot plastic map of the Twin Cities spread across it. Sherrill was there, wearing her.357 in a belt clip.

  ``You okay?'' Lucas asked.

  ``Yeah. We got the arrangements going on Mike. I'm all cried out.''

  ``We got one of them,'' Lucas said.

  ``Not the one I want, not yet,'' Sherrill said, shaking her head. ``We got Kupicek's guy. I want the third man, the one we don't know yet.''

  Anderson wandered in, spotted Lucas, and stepped over: ``I got a lot of new paper, if you want it.''

  They talked about the paper for fifteen minutes, what the Tennessee cops were doing, the Wisconsin cops, about the death of Elmore Darling. ``We've got more pictures of Sandra Darling, we'll put those out. But I don't know. I don't know if she's with this LaChaise, or we're gonna find her dead in a ditch somewhere.''

  ``She's with him,'' Sherrill said.

  ``Why do you think that?'' Lucas asked.

  ``I don't know. I just think she's with them. If they were going to kill them, why not kill both of them? I bet she'sscrewing LaChaise. Or maybe the second guy. I bet she helped set up the funeral home thing with the second guy...''

  ``Bonnie and Clyde,'' Lucas said.

  ``More like Dumber and Dumbest,'' said Sherrill.

  LACHAISE, MARTIN AND SANDY DARLING WERE RIVETED by the images on the television. The pictures came up from a winter street, with a woman in a long wool coat and fur hat talking into a microphone.

  ``... rushed the wounded officer to the hospital, but he died seconds after arrival. As that was going on, Chief Davenport and Lieutenant Selle were seen laughing as they stood over the body of the attacker...''

  Her voice rolled on over a videotape, taken from a high angle, a uniformed cop and a guy in street clothes, standing over what looked like a pile of clothes in the street. Had to be Butters. And the cops were laughing, no doubt about it.

  ``... police were refusing to disclose the identity of the officer or officers who actually shot Butters, saying that information would be available after LaChaise and his gang members are caught, but nobody has denied that Deputy Chief Lucas Davenport took part in the gunfight and was himself wounded. At the moment, a police spokeswoman said, the threat to the officers' families will not allow full disclosure...''

  ``Look at the fuckers,'' LaChaise said.

  Martin frowned as the tape of Davenport and Selle was run again. The picture seemed wrong. ``They don't look too happy,'' he said.

  ``They're laughing,'' LaChaise shouted at him. ``They're laughing.''

  LaChaise paced in front of the TV, snarling at it, beating his hands together, palms open, the angry claps snapping intothe room. He went to the window shades, looked down at the street, listening, then stalked back to the television.

  ``That cop who was laughing. They said it was Davenport, right? The guy on our list?''

  As if to answer his question, the television reporter said, ``The chain of events started last night, when Chief Davenport put a surveillance team on the home of his daughter by TV3 correspondent Jennifer Carey, who now lives with TV3 executive vice-president Richard Small...''

  She went through the story, ending with the tape loop of Davenport and Selle laughing over Butters's body.

  ``We're gonna mow those fuckers down,'' LaChaise brayed at Martin.

  Martin said, ``Dick, we gotta take care. We can't go off half-cocked, if we want to get anything done.''

  LaChaise stalked around the apartment, kicking walls, then looked at Sandy: ``Why'n the fuck don't you do something useful? Go cook something.''

  She got up, wordlessly, and went to the kitchen and started looking through the cupboards. She found canned food, but not much else. She dumped a couple of cans of Dinty Moore beef stew in a pot, put it on the stove and started a pot of coffee.

  ``If we're gonna stay here for more than a couple of hours, we'll need food,'' Sandy said, as she brought the stew out to the living room. The men were on the couch, still watching the television. As they ate, a TV3 television reporter was delivering a eulogy on the dead cop. He was cut off in midsentence. An anchorman came up, quivering with the urgency of his message.

  ``In Wisconsin, Dunn County sheriff's deputies raided the home of Dick LaChaise's sister-in-law and her husband, Sandy and Elmore Darling. According to first reports, ElmoreDarling was found shot to death in the kitchen of the couple's rural home, and his wife, Sandy, is missing.''

  A five-year-old snapshot of Sandy Darling filled the screen. Sandy screamed, ``Elmore.''

  LaChaise grinned. ``You put on a few pounds,'' he said, pointing at the picture.

  She had her hands to her face: ``They killed Elmore.'' She looked from Martin to LaChaise. ``My God. They said Elmore's dead. They killed Elmore. Elmore's dead.''

  ``Could be bullshit,'' Martin said, his voice even, almost uninterested. ``They maybe got him in jail. Don't want anybody to know.''

  ``I don't think so,'' LaChaise said. The TV anchor was going on, then Martin said, ``Guess not.''

  ``No, no...'' Sandy said, riveted to the screen.

  ``You didn't much like him anyway,'' LaChaise said.

  Tears started down her cheeks: ``I didn't want him dead. He wasn't supposed to die.''

  LaChaise shrugged. ``Shit happens.''

  Martin: ``I wonder if the cops killed him?'' His voice was flat, with no real emotion; he was only curious.

  LaChaise thought for a minute, then said, ``Must've. Who else would do it?''

  He looked at Sandy, who backed away from the TV and collapsed in a chair. ``Nobody was gonna kill Elmore,'' she said. And after a minute, ``Who'd kill Elmore?''

  STADIC WAS WALKING DOWN THE HALL TO HIS APARTMENT, shell-shocked, his mind running at two hundred miles an hour. He was digging for his keys when the cell phone chirped at him. He pulled it out of his pocket. ``Yeah.''

  LaChaise, without preamble, asked, ``What happened to Butters? And Elmore?''

  ``Jesus Christ, where are you?'' Stadic said, his voice hushed. ``You know what's going on?''

  ``We're at a friend's,'' LaChaise said. ``We seen it all on TV. Who killed Butters?''

  ``Davenport, of course. I told you...''

  ``We thought it might be him. What happened to Elmore?''

  ``I don't know about that. I thought you did it, when I heard.''

  ``We didn't do it,'' LaChaise said. He pulled his lip. ``Maybe the Wisconsin cops.''

  ``Or the guys from Michigan,'' Stadic suggested. ``There're a couple of Michigan guys running around over there. They are very pissed about this Sand guy, you cuttin' his throat.''

  ``Yeah, well, that's what you get for working in the fuckin' joint,'' LaChaise said. ``Try to find out who did it.''

  ``Okay,'' Stadic said. ``But listen-the wives up in the hotel-... I hear they're getting antsy. They want out. Davenport's girlfriend is going back to the University of Minnesota hospital.''

  ``What's her name? We never got any insurance on her.''

  `` 'Cause they're not married and you didn't say what you wanted the information for. Her name is Weather Karkinnen and she's a doctor over there. In surgery.''

  ``Who else? Who's leaving the hotel?''

  ``Jennifer Carey, the TV news reporter. She's the mother of Davenport's daughter... She's going back to work, but there'll be guards all over her and they've got locked security doors and stuff. She'd be hard to get at.''

  ``All right. Find out about Elmore, if you can.''

  LaChaise hung up, pulled at his lip again, thinking. After a minute, Sandy said, ``What?''

  ``Davenport killed Butters... and the women are
gettin'unhappy about being locked up. They may be going back to work.''

  ``Probably got guards all over the place,'' Martin said. ``Tell you what: let's get Harp's car, and go on out to a supermarket and buy some food. Maybe dump the truck: hate to see it go, but I think we better.''

  Sandy was sitting in the chair, folding into herself, not hearing any of it.

  Elmore was dead.

  The guilt was almost too much to bear.

  THIRTEEN

  WEATHER KARKINNEN LAY ON THE HOTEL BED AND fumed: the television had gone into a news loop. The anchorpeople leaned into the cameras with the usual end-of-the-world intensity, but had nothing new to say. Weather looked at her watch: two o'clock.

  Lucas had said he'd drop by at noon, then called to cancel. He told her about the laughing incident, which she hadn't yet seen when he called, but saw later. The television stations were showing it every twenty minutes or so, and it had been picked up by the national news channels.

  Lucas said the laughter had been hysterical, or on that order. She only half-believed it. She'd lived with him long enough to feel the satisfaction he got from confrontation, and the deadlier the confrontation, the better. A death wish, maybe; sometimes when he talked about his world, she could barely recognize it as the same place she lived. They would drive across town, and she'd see good houses and nice gardens and kids on bikes. He'd see whores and dopers and pedophiles and retired cat burglars.

  At first, it had been interesting. Later, she wondered how he could put up with it, the constant stench of the perverse, the lunatic, the out-of-control. Even later, she understood that he sought it out...

  She looked at her watch again: two-oh-three. Screw it. She wasn't going to sit around anymore. This LaChaise might be extraordinarily bad, but he could hardly have an intelligence system that would tell him where she was-if he even knew to look for her, which she doubted.

  And even if he did know where to look for her, once she was in a crowd, she'd be just one of a million and a half women wrapped in heavy winter coats, faces obscured by scarves. Then nobody could find her-not the FBI, not the Minneapolis cops, nobody-much less some backwoods gunman.

  ``All right,'' she said. She looked at her watch a third time. She'd had to delay a surgery scheduled that morning, but there was a staff meeting at four, and she could make that. And she could set up for tomorrow. The operation in the morning wasn't much-remove some cancerous skin, and patch the wound with a graft-but it would get her going again.

  She found her sweater, pulled it over her head, and was checking her purse for money when the knock came at the door. She opened it, and instantly recognized the blonde in the hall, and the small girl with her.

  The blonde smiled: ``Hi. I'm Jennifer Carey...''

  ``I know who you are,'' Weather said, smiling back. `` Lucas has talked about you. Come in. And hi, Sarah.'' She and Sarah were old friends.

  Jennifer was tall, lanky, a surfer girl with degrees in economics and journalism. She noticed Weather's sweater: ``Breaking out?''

  ``Definitely. I can't stand it here anymore,'' Weather said. ``I'm going crazy.''

  ``I'll give you a ride, if you want one,'' Jennifer said. `` Unless you've got a car.''

  ``Lucas brought me in, I'd like a ride. I understand you're working outside.''

  ``Yeah. Sloan's wife is here, she's taking care of Sarah for me. But there's no point in letting Lucas have all the fun, chasing around with his gun.''

  ``Daddy shot a man,'' Sarah said solemnly, looking up at Weather.

  Weather sat on the bed so her eyes were level with Sarah's. ``I don't think so, honey. I talked to him a couple of hours ago, and he said another policeman did the shooting.''

  ``On TV, they said he did,'' Sarah said. Her wide eyes were the same mild blue as Lucas's eyes.

  Weather said, ``Well, I think they might be wrong on this one thing.''

  Jennifer, moving moodily across the room, dropped into a desk chair: ``I understand you and Lucas are getting married. Pretty soon.''

  ``That's the plan,'' Weather said.

  ``Good luck,'' Jennifer said. She was looking out the window at the street. ``I... well, we talked about it, years ago. It wouldn't have worked, though. I hope it works with you guys. He's a good guy under the macho bullshit, and I would like to see him happy.''

  ``That's interesting,'' Weather said. ``Do you think that might be a problem? Happiness?''

  Jennifer shook her head and turned back to Weather: ``He has a very dark streak, a Catholic dark streak. And his job... I don't know how he stands it. I know what he does, because I've covered it, but I've got some distance. I mean,I see burned-out newspeople all the time, and they are several steps back from what Lucas does.''

  Weather nodded, and drifted toward the window herself. The sky and the day had the cold midwinter pre-storm look, a brooding somberness. ``I know what you're saying-I was just lying here thinking about it,'' she said. ``I can feel it in him. I can feel it in Del, too, almost as bad. I can feel it in Sloan, but with Sloan, it's mostly a job. With Lucas it's like... his existence.'' ``That's the Catholic thing,'' Jennifer said. ``It can be frightening. It's like, when he confronts a monster, he solves the problem by becoming a bigger monster... and after he wins, he changes back to Lucas the good guy.'' Then she blushed: ``God, I shouldn't be talking this way to a guy's fiance 'e. I'm sorry.'' ``No, no, no,'' Weather said. ``I need it. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm getting into here.'' She looked at Sarah: ``I would like a child before it's too late... just like this one.''

  Sarah said, ``I'm gonna be a TV reporter.''

  Jennifer said, ``Over my dead body. You should be a surgeon, like Dr. Karkinnen.''

  ``Did you cover the robbery at the credit union, where the women were killed?'' Weather asked Jennifer.

  ``I didn't cover it, but I talked to all the people who did. I do mostly longer-term stories. We're working on a story now about police intelligence units.''

  ``What do you think? Some people have said it was an execution.''

  ``No, it wasn't. I'll buy the argument that nobody made them do it. But you know Lucas. He has a tendency to arrange things so they come out his way.'' She stopped again: ``Jeez, I really sound like... I don't know, like I'm trying to scrag the guy.''

  ``That's okay-I know what you mean,'' Weather said. She picked up her coat, hat and mittens and smiled at Jennifer. ``Ready to make the break?''

  LUCAS WAS INFURIATED WHEN HE HEARD THAT Weather had left the hotel, and Jennifer had taken her out.

  He tried to call the university, but was told Weather was in a meeting and couldn't be disturbed. He got Jennifer at TV3, shouted at her and she hung up. He called back, got her again, asked about Sarah.

  ``She's with Sloan's wife,'' Jennifer said. ``She's fine. She's watching HBO and eating pizza.''

  ``Listen, I want Weather back in that fuckin' hotel...''

  ``Hey, Lucas? You don't own her. If you call her with this attitude, you're gonna get the same answer from her as you're getting from me. Fuck you. Go away.''

  And she hung up.

  LACHAISE SAID, ``LISTEN: THEY'RE GONNA GET YOUR prints out of the house. Then they'll have all three of our faces. We've got to move before that happens.''

  Martin said, ``They won't have any new pictures of me... but maybe we should change what we look like.''

  ``Like what?''

  Martin shrugged. ``I don't know-you got that beard, and they show it on the tube as long. Maybe if you trimmed it, and cut it, and dyed your hair gray. Hell, with gray hair, we'd both look older than the hills.''

  LaChaise looked back toward the master bedroom: Sandy was in there, making up the beds, singing to herself while she did it. Not a happy song. A song like she was losing it, a song to herself, a singsong.

  ``Sandy could do it,'' LaChaise said.

  ``I think it'd be a good move,'' Martin said. ``We could get out and scout around.''

  ``Then let's do it.'' LaChaise nodded. ``I want to get going ag
ain. Find this Weather. And Davenport himself. And the cops. Let's go after the cops.''

  SANDY AGREED THAT SHE COULD CHANGE THEIR HAIR color. She had a flatness about her that provoked LaChaise: ``What's wrong with you?''

  ``When we got into this, Elmore said that in two or three days we'd all be dead. He wanted to go to the cops, and I talked him out of it.''

  Martin and LaChaise looked at each other, and then La-Chaise said, ``Why? Why'd you talk him out of it?''