Easy Prey ld-11

by John Sandford

  Lucas went back to his office, found two notes. One said, "Call Jael." The other, "Call Catrin."

  He called Jael, who said, "The dozen long-stemmed roses you sent to my house haven't arrived yet."

  "I'm sorry, I thought uh well, I mean, I thoughtyou were supposed to send them tome. I've been waiting," Lucas said.

  "God, he's such a wit," Jael said. "I need a man with wit maybe. So anything going on? Can I get out of here?"

  "Not yet." He told her quickly about the leak in the department. "It'll be on the news."

  "What're you doing tonight?" she asked. "I mean, this isn't another proposition. I'd like to rejoice in the blood of the lamb."

  "What?" He was confused.

  "This guy who's trying to kill mehe's preaching at some church tonight," Jael said. "I'd like to see him. One of your guys here did, and its supposed to be something else."

  "Man, I don't know," Lucas said. "That might not be such a good idea."

  "C'mon, don't be a stick-in-the-mud," she said. "Besides, you can bring a gun. And I'm going nuts. Lets get the sports car, lets go see him."

  "I'll call you. Things are going on over here. If I can get away maybe."

  He called Catrin; she was on a cell phone, and answered in her car. "Let me pull over to the side," she said. Her voice was showing stress; he thought she might have been crying.

  "What happened?" But she'd put the phone down.

  A moment later, she came back. "Well I told him that I thought we had some problems, and that I was thinking of going away, that I thought I might want to be by myself for a while. You know what he said?"

  "I don't"

  "He said, 'Well, whatever you think you have to do. Let me know.' It was like I wasn't sure I could make it to lunch."

  "Catrin, I really can't advise you, I just don't know"

  "He just walked away from me," Catrin said. "Now I wonder if he isn't having an affair or something. It was like he was waiting for me to say something."

  "If the guy has any sensitivity at all, if he knows you at all, then he knew something was coming," Lucas said. "It's like waiting for the ax to fall. When it does, there isn't much to say. You know about everything that anybody might say"

  "Lucas, what are you talking about? We were married for more than twenty years."

  "When we were talking at lunch when you asked if you were just screwed I mean, look at your old man. If he argues with you, he's being domineering and he's not letting you lead your own life. If he doesn't argue with you, but is absolutely supportive, tells you to do whatever you want, then he's being patronizing and you feel like your life is a hobby, because he's got all the money and you're going to London for plays, and all that. And if he lets you go, he doesn't care. SoI mean, when you talk about being screwed, he's about as screwed as you can get. Whatever he does is wrong."

  "It sounds like you're on his side," she said. There was an undertone of disbelief.

  "Absolutely not. Look, half of my friends have been divorced, and most of the other half are fucked up. I'm fucked up. I've been through this Jesus. I'm on your side, Catrin, because we're old friends. If I was your husbands friend, I'd be on his side, because nobody's right or wrong. And in that case, you've just got to go with your friends."

  "Well, I talked to one of my girlfriends down hereactually, I had lunch with three of them, my best friend and a couple that I've always been friends withand I knew by the way one of them was acting she's on Jack's side."

  "That's gonna happen," Lucas said. "And some old friends of Jack's will be on your side. That'll surprise you, too. You said you belong to a golf club?"

  "Yes."

  "What's gonna amaze you is, a couple of his male friends are going to put the moves on you."

  "The loose woman"

  "Not just trying to get laidI mean, some of them willbut some of them will have been looking at you for a long time, and liking you."

  "Lucas"

  "Hey, it's gonna happen. If you walk"

  "I don't think I've got any choice now," she said.

  "Listen, what you're telling me have you thought about telling Jack? Scream at him a little bit? Throw a little crockery? I mean, do you still love him?"

  After a long silence, she said, "I don't think so."

  "Aw, jeez."

  "What happened was, his reaction made me angry," she said. "So angry. But I feel like I don't know. I'm a little excited in a dirty way. Like I just broke out of jail."

  "Aw, man."

  "You keep saying 'aw, jeez.' What's that supposed to mean?"

  "You're hurting a lot worse than you know, but you're going to find out," he said. "So's Jack. I can't hardly stand to think about it."

  "Well. Maybe. But I'm getting out."

  He couldn't think of anything to say. Thinking about her, sitting on the side of a road, talking about the end of her marriage on a cell phone to somebody she hadn't seen in twenty-five years.

  "So congratulate me," she said. Now she did start crying.

  "Awww jeez."

  Rose Marie came down. "The media's got Rodriguez surrounded. His lawyer just called the county What happened to you?"

  "I was talking to an old friend. Her marriage is breaking up," Lucas said.

  "Did you have anything to do with it?"

  "No. Not directly. I mean, I'm not fooling around with her. Maybe I could have said something that would have changed things I don't know. She's just an old friend."

  "Huh." Rose Marie might have been skeptical. "You can't take care of everybody, Lucas. They don't even want you to."

  "She needs a little help," Lucas said.

  "I've got no advice," Rose Marie said. "Now: Rodriguez is gonna sue us, of course. And Tom Olson has called twice in the past half hour, asking about Rodriguez, but I'm not in. I've got to come up with a story."

  "When's he coming in? You've got a briefing?"

  "Yes. In a half hour. I'd like you to be there," she said.

  "Sure. I don't know what I can say."

  "If he tries to throttle me, you could hit him over the head."

  They were still talking when the phone-tap monitor called: "We got some stuff on Rodriguez's blind phone. Three calls in a hurry."

  "Where?"

  "The first one, to Miami, to an unlisted number. I mean, we've got the number, but when we tried to check on it, the directory supervisor said she needed to see some paper before she can give us a name."

  "Another blind phone, I bet."

  "I think so. Anyway, he told whoever answered not to send Jerry up, that he had a problem. We think it might have been a delivery. Hell, I know it was a delivery. I've heard the same thing two hundred times, in almost the same words," the cop said. "Nothing specific mentioned, like it would be if it was legitimate. Just 'You know that delivery we talked about, with Jerry? Better hold off, I've got some problems up here.'"

  "Good. Give me the Miami phone number," Lucas said. He scribbled the number on a pad. "I've got a guy with the FBI who might be able to help."

  "Great. Then there was another call, this one to a real estate guy. He asked the guy to look into selling the apartments, and suggest that a Reet might want to buy them. I don't know the name."

  "It's R-E-I-T, real estate investment trust," Lucas said. "It could be a way to get out in a hurry."

  "Well, the guy he talked to he was hot to handle it. You want the name?"

  "Yeah." Lucas wrote down the name.

  "And the third thing is he called another dope guy. He said, 'I've got to shut down my business for a while. Tell everybody I'm sorry.'

  "The other guy said, 'What's the problem?'

  "Rodriguez said, 'Just a problem. The cops think I had something to do with that Alie'e thing. They're messing with me.'

  "And the guy said, 'Where're you calling from?'

  "And Rodriguez said, 'I got a good phone.'

  "And the other guy said, 'I'd throw it in the river, if I was you. If they think you were involved with Alie'
e, they're gonna tap you three ways from Sunday.'

  "And Rodriguez said, 'Well, tell everybody. I'll call you back when it's over.'

  "And that was it."

  "We need that number, and times and transcripts," Lucas said. He jotted down the number, and when he got off, he looked at Rose Marie and said, "It's piling up."

  When Rose Marie was gone, he called Mallard and gave him the Miami number, and called Del and gave him the local number. Del called back fifteen minutes later and said, "That number is out to another blind phone, but Narcotics knows it. They picked it up on a pen register a couple of months ago, a guy named Herb Scott. That's all they know, a number and a name in the computer. Want them to look a little closer?"

  "Absolutely. Put him on the list. If nothing happens by tomorrow night, we're gonna sweep them all, and see if we can shake anything loose."

  Mallard called back a few minutes after Del. "That number goes with a guy who lists his address in a place called Gables-By-The-Sea. I guess it's a ritzy neighborhood. I've got a guy checking with the locals."

  "Thanks."

  Piling it up.

  For a moment, he thought about running down the new real estate dealer, but decided against it: That might make the phone tap obvious, and the phone might still be valuable.

  Sloan called. "Come on down to Homicide. There's something you got to see."

  Lucas walked down, and found a half-dozen cops laughing around a small-screen TV. "What?"

  "That's Rodriguez's apartment," Sloan said.

  "Penthouse," somebody said.

  A wavering picture was focused on a window surrounded by reddish concrete. Then, moving in slow motion, Rodriguez appeared in the window and pulled the curtain across it. When he was out of sight, the loop started again: the window, Rodriguez, the curtain.

  "Guilty, guilty, guilty," a cop said.

  And somebody else, with a little edge of sarcasm: "If he wasn't guilty, why would he pull the curtain?"

  And a third guy: "If it was me, I'd be pointing a rifle out the window."

  "They'd love that."

  "Yeah, until a little bullet hole appeared on the forehead of one of them blonde c"

  A woman with a gun said, "Watch it."

  "cameramen."

  Olson came by, trailing the Bentons, the Packards, and Lester Moore, the newspaper editor. "Who is this Rodriguez?" Olson demanded. "Everybody's saying he did it."

  Rose Marie said, "He's a suspect. Lucas"

  Lucas said, "We think he's a drug dealeractually, we're sure he is. And we have at least two sources who say that he was running Sandy Lansing. That is, Sandy Lansing was the street dealer for drugs brought in by Rodriguez."

  "Rodriguez was the wholesaler?"

  "More like the local franchise owner, and Lansing was one of his employees."

  "Amazing,"Olson said. "Franchises and employees. Did he pay her Social Security?"

  Moore broke in: "Can you get him?"

  "Not yet," Lucas said. "Maybe on drugs. We have no direct connection to the murder, but we can put him at the party, we can connect him with Lansing, we have him denying that he knew her, we can probably show that they dealt drugs together. We can project it as a drug argument that went bad. He killed Lansing, maybe even accidentally, by cracking her head against a doorjamb. Alie'e comes out of the bedroom just at that point, and he kills her, to get rid of a witness."

  Olson stood up slowly, peered at the Bentons and then at Moore. "You mean she was killed as a bystander? That all this happened because she was at the wrong place?"

  "That's a possibility," Lucas said.

  Olson said, "I don't believe it. This is not a casual killing. All these people dead. It can't just be chance. It can't be."

  "We don't really know that it is," Rose Marie interjected. "Lucas is just outlining one possible theory."

  "My good God," Olson said. He put his hands on the side of his head, as he had the day he found his parents, and pulled the hair straight out, as he had that day, just before his collapse.

  Lucas stood up, stepped toward him, took his arm. "Easy."

  "I can't, I can't"

  "Sit down."

  Olson stumbled, and Lucas guided him around to the chair. Olson looked around the room, at the faces all pointed toward him, and said, "This cannot stand. This cannot."

  When he was gone, Frank Lester said, "If that doesn't get him cranked, I don't know what will."

  Lane came back. "Took all goddamn day, but the bank examiner conies in on our side. She says the loans are funky."

  "That's the technical expression: funky."

  "Exactly. But there's a problem," Lane said. "I created it. I made the fundamental investigatory error: I asked one too many questions. NoI asked two too many."

  "I've told you about that," Lucas said.

  "Yeah. So I've got this bank examinerwho's got nice legs, by the way, even if she wasn't a big rock 'n' rollerand I say, 'What would you do if you'd caught him doing this? During a bank examination.' And she says, 'We'd tell him that the loan was weak, and depending on the status of their other loans, we might require action.' And I say, 'That's it?' And she says, 'What'd you think we were gonna do? Shoot him?' "

  "So then I make the next mistake. I ask another question."

  "You already had two questions."

  "Naw, that was like question one and one-a. Now I'm at question two. I ask, 'How many commercial loans are there in Minnesota? Gotta be hundreds of thousands, huh?' And she says, 'Well, many tens of thousands, anyway' And I askthis is question two-b'How many are this bad?' I figured she'd say something like, we get one or two a year. You know what she said?"

  "I'm afraid to know," Lucas said.

  "Bevery afraid," Lane said. "She said, 'There might be a few thousand.' "

  Lucas said, "Goddamnit."

  "Yeah. Our hold on Spooner just got slipperier. On the other handI thought of this on the way over here"

  "What?"

  "Spooner doesn't know it," Lane said.

  "You're a sneaky fuck," Lucas said. "It's a quality I admire in a cop."

  As the earlier darkness settled in and the lights came up, Del came by with an ice cream cone and said, "I'm gonna go see Marcy. Wanna come?"

  "Yeah, let me get my coat."

  On the way over, Lucas told Del about Catrin. Del listened, finished the cone in the cold night, and then said, "She's probably gonna want to jump in bed with you. To prove to herself that she's still desirable and that she's as good as she was in the old days."

  "What am I gonna do?"

  "Well, I don't think jumping her is gonna be the answer." He looked at Lucas. "Or is it?"

  "No. I mean man, she's really nice, but she's really fucked up."

  "So give her a really understanding talk about how sheis fucked upyou might want to find a different phraseand that she shouldn't do anything until she's gotten herself straight again."

  "That doesn't sound like something Catrin would go for," Lucas said.

  "How do you meet these women, anyway? They're all so fuckin' tangled up."

  "I don't know. It's a special talent."

  "What you need is some chick that comes up and says, 'Wanna see my Harley?' And you say, 'Is it a Sportster?' And she says, 'It's whatever you want it to be.' "

  "I've often wondered if you had a fantasy life," Lucas said. "I guess that question's answered."

  "Yeah, well, if I were you, I'd go home and think about this Catrin chick for a long time. Especially if she's still a friend." They walked along for half a block, and then Del added, "There is one bright side to the problem."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. It's your problem, and not mine."

  Marcy was sitting up, awake, but she looked distant, her eyes a little too bright. "The docs are worried that she might have a touch of pneumonia," Black said. "They say it shouldn't be serious but they've got to deal with it."

  Lucas squatted to look straight into her face. "How're you feeling?"

&
nbsp; "A little warm."

  "Still hurt?"

  "Always hurt."

  "Goddamnit." He stood up. "There's gotto be better drugs."

  "Yeah, but they fuck up my head. I'd rather have a little pain," Marcy said. "How's the case? I understand this Rodriguez guy is out in the open."

  They talked about Rodriguez, and she stayed awake, but she didn't look as good as she had, Lucas thought. She looked like she had the flu. After chatting for a while, he told the others he was going to get a Coke, and wandered out of the room. As soon as he was out, he headed for the desk and asked, "Is Weather Karkinnen?"

  The nurse looked past him: Weather was headed down the hall toward them. He walked toward her and said, "You've heard about Marcy? This pneumonia thing?"

  "Yeah, I've been keeping up," she said. "It's not too serious yet. They're managing it."

  "C'mon, Weather. Is this gonna turn into something?"

  She shook her head. "I can't tell you that, Lucas. She's young enough and healthy enough that it shouldn't, and we're right on top of it but she was hit hard, and her lung took some of it. So we gotta stay on top of it."

  "That's all."

  "Lucas, I don't know any more," she said in exasperation. "I just don't know."

  "All right."

  They stood, awkwardly, then she touched his arm and said, "I've been seeing this Rodriguez guy on television. That's you, isn't it? Your part of the case?"

  "Yeah. He's the guy. the problem is, how do we get at him? There's almost nothing at the scene that would help. We're building a circumstantial case"

  They walked along, Lucas talking about the case. They'd done this when they were living together, Lucas talking out problem cases.

  The talking seemed to help, seemed to straighten out his thinking, even when Weather didn't say much. They fell back into the pattern, Weather prodding him with an occasional Why do you think that? or, Where did you get that? or, How does that connect?

  They turned at the end of the long hall, and Del stepped out of Marcy's room, looked down at them, and went back inside. On the way back, Weather said, "What're you doing tonight? Want to go out for pasta?"

  "I can't," he said, shaking his head. "You know what it gets like I'm going nuts. But could I call you?"

  "Yeah. I think you can," she said. She grabbed his ear, pulled his head down, and kissed him on the cheek. "See ya," she said.