Easy Prey ld-11

by John Sandford

  "We'll get some paper going on him," Lucas said. "If he's been paid off by Rodriguez, he might have an income-tax problem."

  Towson said to Long, "Talk to the IRS."

  Lester summarized the case against Tom Olson. "He had motive, he had opportunity, he had access to a car that we now know for sure was used in the Marcy Sherrill shooting"

  "How do you know that?" Long asked.

  "We took the slug out of the car door. It didn't penetrate the passenger compartment, it wound up inside a plastic handle inside the door. It came from Marcy's revolver."

  Long nodded. "Okay."

  "But you haven't found the. 44 that was used on Marcy," Lucas said.

  "No."

  "That's a problem," Del said.

  "Yup. Especially since he's been here, and not back in Fargo, ever since the shooting. We went through his motel room, and his car, after his parents were killed. No gun. The gun that was used to kill his parents belonged to his father: It was his father's car gun."

  "Where'd you get that?" Lucas asked.

  "Olson told us. His father kept it under the front-seat cushion. We ran the serial numbers, traced it to a gun store up in Burnt River. Lynn Olson bought it six years ago."

  "You think he did his parents?" Towson asked.

  "We've got this whole theory" Lester explained the multiple-personality concept, and explained the trap they'd set for Olson.

  "The trap better work," Towson said, "Because the multiple-personality theory sounds like bullshit."

  A secretary stuck her head in and said, "Lucas, you've got a call from the White House."

  The group all looked at him, and Lucas said, "What?"

  "The guy said he's with the White House. He didn't sound like he was joking."

  "You better take it," Rose Marie said.

  Lucas took it on the secretary's desk. Mallard said, "I bet that impressed everybody. The switchboard lady told me you were in a meeting in the chief's office."

  "It certainly impressed the shit out me," Lucas said. "What's happening?"

  "Your boy Rodriguez started selling out his accounts Monday morning. It'll be a couple of days before he gets the checks, but he's got a quarter million in the mail."

  "Goddamn," Lucas said.

  "I've only got one thing from Miami. Rodriguez set up the Miami company nine years ago. The attorney's name is Haynes, and as far as the guys in the Miami office know, he's straightsmall time, private office, business-oriented guy. Does real estate, that kind of stuff."

  "Mallard, you're a good egg," Lucas said.

  "Ho ho, very funny," Mallard said. "By the way, you remember Malone?"

  "Of course. How is she?"

  "She's fox-trotting with somebody else," Mallard said.

  "Uh-oh. Gonna be number five?"

  "Could happen. Anyway, we'll grind some more on Rodriguez, but I thought you'd want to know he was collecting cash."

  "That's one more thing," Towson said when Lucas told them about Mallards call. "And it's a good one. We've got to slow him down, though."

  "So what do we do?" Rose Marie asked.

  "Some lawyer shit," Del said, looking at Towson.

  "The IRS," Towson said. "Tell them about the dopemaybe they can do something about the money he's got coming."

  Rose Marie said, "So we push on Rodriguez, and we keep baiting Olson. Everybody agree?"

  Everybody nodded.

  "Best we got," Lester said.

  Chapter 21

  Del took a call from Narcotics and headed that way. Lucas borrowed a uniformed cop from the patrol division, put him in plainclothes, and sent him to relieve Lane.

  On the phone to Lane, he said, "When he gets there, I want you to brief him, then go on over to the county attorney's office, talk to Tim Long, and look at all that loan paperwork on Spooner. Spooner's critical: If he knows anything at all about Rodriguez, then he probably knows about everything. If we crack him, we may have enough."

  "How much paper?" Lane asked.

  "About a ton," Lucas said.

  "Goddamnit, Lucas, how come I'm always the one stuck with paper?"

  " 'Cause you can read; I'm not so sure about the other guys. So get your ass over here. Also, an FBI computer file just came in on Rodriguez and his money. I'll print it out and leave it with Lester. Take it with you, see if there's anything that, you know"

  "What?"

  "Shit, I don't know. Correlates, or something."

  When he was done with Lane, he got out the phone book, got the number for Browns, dialed, and asked for India. She came on the phone a minute later. Lucas identified himself and asked, "Are you gonna be around for a few minutes?"

  "Until six."

  "I want to stop by," he said.

  When he got off the phone, Lucas walked down to Homicide with the printed-out FBI file, left it with Lester. "Did you guys print those pictures of Rodriguez?"

  "Uh, yeah I think they're down in ID. They handled it."

  Lucas went down to the Identification division. The photo guy's name was Harold McNeil, a former uniform cop who got tired of cold squad cars and got the photo job by lying. Photography he said, was a longtime hobby, although he didn't know a small-format camera from a yak. He read a book calledLearn Photography in a Weekend, fooled around with the department's cameras, and after a week or so, was better than the last guy, and kept the job.

  He had two good shots of Rodriguez: a full-frontal head shot, and one side view.

  "Got some heads I can use in a spread?" Lucas asked.

  "Yup." McNeil turned around, opened the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet, and took out a handful of photos. They found sets, front and back, of a half-dozen guys. Lucas stuck them in his pocket.

  "I'll bring them back," he promised.

  "That's what everybody says. Nobody ever does," McNeil said.

  Lucas got his coat and walked across town to Brown's; the cold air felt good; the walking felt good. India was behind the desk and smiled when she saw him coming.

  "Did you ever see any of these guys with Sandy Lansing?" Lucas pushed the stack of photos at her. "There are two photos of each guy."

  India took her time looking at them. Another woman came along and asked, "What's going on?"

  Lucas said, "Police. We're trying to see if we can find somebody Sandy Lansing might have gone out with."

  "I've seen her with a guy a few times," the other woman said.

  She stood at India's elbow, and they went through the photos together, India slowly shaking her head. "I don't think so," she said finally. "This guy but I don't think it was him."

  The other woman said, "I don't think so, either. Sorta like that, though. If you put him in a suit."

  "It's not him. This guy looks a little rough," India said.

  "You're right," the other woman said. She looked at Lucas. "I don't think I've ever seen any of them."

  Lucas looked at the one photo they'd talked about. A honey-haired white guy, round-faced, but without Rodriguez's heft. He and Rodriguez looked nothing alike.

  "Thanks," he said.

  Strikeout.

  Back at the office, Lucas had a note to call Tim Long at the county attorneys office. He did. "You can't count on getting anything from the IRS," Long said. "I talked to a guy over there, and they said if we get anything that looks like hidden income, to send them a copy of what we get. But they've had too much trouble with citizen complaints to go after a guy who they've never had a problem with. He was audited a couple of years ago, in a random audit, and everything worked out to the penny."

  "Which it would, if he's faking his cash flow with drug money."

  "Yeah, well, the IRS guy said, 'You catch 'em, we fry 'em.' But they ain't gonna hang up his investment money and have a congressman screaming at them. Not when they've got a whole file that says the guy is clean."

  Another strikeout.

  Rose Marie said, "Olson isn't moving. He's not doing anything."

  "You're talking to him, aren'
t you? In the family briefing?"

  "Yeah." She looked up at the office clock. "We're gonna do it again in about fifteen minutes."

  "Why don't you tell him, in utter confidence, that we've got a candidate for the guy who actually killed his sister. If he's nuts, and anything is going to get him stirred up, that should do it."

  "Lucas"

  "Don't give him the name," Lucas said. "Tell him you can't do that, but there's a possibility that we'll know something in a couple of days. The idea is to get him cranked, get him back in the mood, if he's the one doing the killings."

  "I don't know"

  "Another benefit is, it'd keep him from pissing on us in the press."

  After leaving Rose Marie, Lucas walked over to see Marcy. Tom Black was sitting next to her bed, and her head was turned toward him. When Lucas walked in, Black said, "She comes and she goes. She's asleep right now."

  Lucas got another chair and carried it over to Marcy's bed. Two beds down, an old man with a shock of white hair, a desiccated face, and a thin, hawk nose, tried to breathe; worked at it.

  "What do you think of this Olson guy?" Black asked.

  "He's maybe crazy," Lucas said.

  "You think, uh, he'll be doing a trip down to the state hospital?"

  "Hard call. A guy executes his parents, it's pretty easy to say he's nuts."

  "Yeah, well" Black exhaled, and looked down at the tile floor.

  "What?" Lucas asked.

  "I'd hate to see the fucker get away with what he did to Marcy," Black said. "No goddamn justice in the world if you can blow her up and get away with it."

  Lucas looked at him for a moment. Black was Marcy's best friend on the force. And he was gay, so they didn't have the sex problem that tended to come up around herthat had come up with Lucas. "Listen, Thomas my friend, if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, stop thinking it."

  "You haven't thought about it?"

  "No, I haven't. You get some guy you can't stop, a pederast or a serial rapist and you just can't get at him then I might do some thinking, but I sure as hell wouldn't mention it to anyone. Toanyone. And I wouldn't pop somebody for shooting a cop. You know? Cops get shot; that's part of the job. Marcy knew it could happenhell, it already happened to her, once. It's not like she's an innocent little lamb."

  "But if he gets away"

  "Jesus, Torn, give it some time. We'll get him. I'll tell you what, I think maybe it's fifty percent Olson, maybe fifty percent somebody else. You can't go popping a guy on fifty-fifty chance."

  "It's got me fucked up, dude," Black said.

  "I know."

  Marcy woke up a couple of minutes later, recognized both of them, croaked, "I could use a beer."

  "I got one, but I already used it once," Black said. "If we could find a bottle someplace"

  She smiled. She looked almost okay, Lucas thought. "How're you feeling?"

  "Like I got hit pretty hard."

  "You did, you dumb shit. You ain't the goddamn Secret Service, and Jael ain't the President," Lucas said.

  She closed her eyes for a minute, seemed to drift off, then snapped back. "How's Jael?"

  "We've got her covered twenty-four hours a day," Lucas said. "Franklin taught her how to cook nachos."

  "I feel hollow," she said. She licked her dry lips. "I don't hurt."

  Black stood up. "You want me to get the nurse?"

  "No, no I just feel hollow."

  Del shuffled in, said hello, squatted next to the bed, and looked at Marcy. After a minute, he grunted and said, "You're doing okay. I'm gonna stop coming over here every five minutes. You want some magazines?"

  "Not for a few days yet," she said, her voice going weak. She turned her head back straight, closed her eyes, and took a couple of breaths. Lucas thought she'd gone back to sleep again. Then she turned back and looked for Lucas, her eyes going in and out of focus. "Did you meet that old friend?"

  He nodded. "Yes."

  "You're careful?"

  "We can talk about it next week."

  "You're teasing me"

  "She's going through her midlife," Lucas said. "I don't know if anybody can help her."

  Marcy said, "Mmmm."

  "Great. Office gossip in intensive care," Black said.

  Marcy asked, "What else is there?" and closed her eyes again. This time she did sleep. After two minutes, Del stood up, looked at Lucas, put a finger to his lips, and tipped his head toward the door.

  Lucas whispered, "We're going You take it easy," to Black, and followed Del to the door. Outside, Del said, "You remember that Logan guy? The other dealer that Outer gave us, along with Bee?"

  "Yeah, we never had time"

  "Dope hit him three hours agothat's the call I got. They got almost a kilo of coke and a couple of sacks of meth. We're doing a little dance with him. Gave him a stack of photos and told him if he could put two of them together, he might have something to deal with. He chose Rodriguez and Lansing."

  "Did you talk to Tim Long about it?" Lucas asked.

  "Not yet."

  "Get with him, figure out a plea, and run it past Logan's attorney. We'll want a statement as quick as we can get it. Today," Lucas said.

  "That's pretty quick, with a lawyer involved."

  "I know. You gotta tell his attorney that there's a short-term expiration date on the offer. Right now, Logan can give us something new. If we find another connection, we don't need his client. If that happens, Logan goes to Stillwater and does the whole enchilada."

  "I'm outa here," Del said.

  Lucas looked at his watch and headed back to the office, stopped again to talk to Rose Marie.

  "What happened with Olson? You tell him?"

  She nodded. "That we've got a candidate."

  "And I'm going to push Rodriguez, see if we can get him to panic," Lucas said.

  "Why?"

  " 'Cause the only case we're going to get against him will be circumstantial. The stuff is starting to pile up, but if we can get him to do something irrational, like dump a bunch of money and run for it, if we can bust him with a plane ticket to Venezuela or something that'd look good to a jury."

  "All right. We need some public action for the movie people anyway. Ever since Alie'e's funeral was put off, they've been pissed. What are you gonna do?"

  "That depends on Rodriguez. He knows that we're onto him. We'll watch him the rest of today. TomorrowI don't know. Maybe I'll go over and talk to him. Maybe bust him for the cameras, haul his ass over here, then turn him loose again. Shake him."

  "Let me know."

  Lucas went back to his office, sat in his chair, put his feet up on a desk drawer and thought about it, and, ten minutes later, walked down to Homicide and found Lester.

  "When you guys cleaned out Sandy Lansing's house, did you get any photos? Albums, anything like that?"

  "A few dozen photosnothing real recent. Family stuff," Lester said. "We didn't find a camera in the place. Wellthere was an old Polaroid in the bedroom closet, but it was so old I don't think you could get film for it anymore."

  "How about video?"

  "She had a VCR and a few tapes, but the tapes were all movies, and some low-rent commercial porn. No video camera."

  "What she do in her life? Everybody's got a camera."

  "She went to parties," Lester said. "And bars. As close as we can tell, that's it. She went out every night of her life. She worked out at a fitness place three times a week. She had about six CDs and a compact stereo that probably cost her two hundred dollars, a medium-sized Sony TV, and the basic cable package. That was about it."

  "We need to tie her tighter to Rodriguez."

  "Gonna have to do it from the other end," Lester said. "This girl was a little strange. As far as I can tell, she didn't have any interests except going out. A million dresses, fifty pairs of shoes, a big collection of costume jewelry. Larry Martin checked the workout club and found out that they use these magnetic cards to check you in. She went Monday, Wednesday, and Fr
iday, and all she did was a forty-five minute class designed to keep your butt looking good. So she wasn't even interested in working out. Wasn't interested in music, not interested in TV, had about six books."

  "And no pictures."

  "Not many," Lester said.

  "Did you look at the porn?"

  "No, but Larry did. She wasn't in it. Other than that, it was just standard jerk-off stuff out of California. Hot tubs and swimming pools and blow jobs."

  "Huh. Ever wonder why we live in Minnesota?"

  "So we don't have to put up with that scum," Lester said.

  "What a poop," Lucas said. He stood up and stretched.

  "Scratching for anything, huh?"

  "At this point"

  Just after dark, with rush-hour building outside the door, Lucas started thinking about dinner; then took a call from the cop sent to watch Rodriguez.

  "This is really exciting stuff," the cop said. "Wish I was plainclothes and got to stand in Skyways all the time."

  "You calling to thank me, or what?"

  "Some dude pulled into Rodriguez's office, he's got a briefcase bigger than my dick, and they sat down and started looking at paper. This dude is pushing all kinds of paper across the desk. I can't tell you anything about it, because all I can see is their shirtsleeves. So, after about an hour, the guy puts all the paper back in the briefcase and comes out, and Rodriguez pulls up his computer and I figure he isn't going anyplace, and maybe I ought to check this other dude"

  "And you went after the second guy and Rodriguez skipped on you," Lucas finished.

  "Fuck no. I'm looking at him right now. Rodriguez, I mean. Anyway, I followed the other guy into the parking ramp and he gets into a car that's got magnetic signs on the doors. Coffey Realty. I got the phone number off the door and the tag number off the car, and then I ran back to make sure Rodriguez wasn't going away Anyway, Rodriguez is still here, and he was dealing heavy with a guy from a real estate company."

  "All right. You done good. I owe you a donut or something."

  "Twodonuts. With them little sprinkles. You want these numbers?"

  Lucas looked up the tag number for the dealer's car, and got a name and an address. When he called Coffey Realty and asked for Kirk Smalley, Smalley was in, and working. "I need to talk to you," Lucas said after identifying himself. "I can be there before five o'clock."