Prey 7 - Mind Prey

by John Sandford

  Del's voice, softer: "We can get you a deal. You'll do five years. Now, we know one of the girls is dead, and that's thirty years inside. No parole. You'd be an old… what's the word?"

  "Crone," Lucas said.

  "… crone when you get out," Del said, his voice still soft, still reasonable.

  "I want my husband, I want him in here," Helen Manette wailed. She spent much of the time weeping uncontrollably, and questions were difficult to press.

  Franklin finally got down on his knees, thrust his face to within an inch of hers, and said, "Listen, bitch, if you don't shut up, I'm gonna slap the shit out of you. You got that? You shut the fuck up, or I'm gonna stomp a mudhole in your white ass, and I'll fuckin' enjoy doing it. Your pal is gonna slice Miz Manette and her daughter into fuckin' dog food, and I want to know how to stop him, and you're gonna tell me."

  "I want my husband…"

  "Your husband doesn't give a shit about you," Franklin shouted. "He wants his daughter. He wants his granddaughters. But he's not gonna get his granddaughters, he's not gonna get both of them anyway, 'cause you and your pal killed one of them, didn't you?"

  "Hey, c'mon, take it easy, take it easy," Sloan said, gently shoving Franklin out of the way. "You're gonna have a heart attack, man. Let me talk to her."

  Sloan was sweating, though the room was cool. "Now listen, Miz Manette, we know there are all kinds of stresses in a person's life, and sometimes we do things we regret. Now we know that your husband is sleeping with Nancy Wolfe, and we know that you know. And we know that if Tower Manette left you, there just wouldn't be that much to share, would there? Now…"

  Franklin looked at Lucas and shook his head, and Lucas made a keep rolling sign with his hands.

  Franklin nodded and pushed and said to Sloan, "Hey, cut the psychological bullshit, Sloan; you know the bitch did it. Give me two minutes alone with her, and I'll get it out." He squatted, his face close to Helen Manette's, and he turned the partial plate with his tongue. "Two minutes would do it," he said.

  He chuckled, a long gravelly roll, and Lucas winced.

  Wolfe looked at Lucas and pleaded: "Get me out of here, just get me out of here. Please, get me out."

  "I could help you, but you've got to help us," Lucas said. "We could use anything. A phone number would be great. An address. How did you get to know him? A little history…"

  "I don't know him," she said hoarsely.

  "Let me explain," Loring said, circling her. Del stood behind her, very close, so she could feel his pants leg near the back of her head. "We know that you're fucking Tower Manette. We know that Tower Manette's money is going to his daughter. Now, if you shoot Tower's old lady out of the saddle, and you were getting close, and if there was no daughter around, you'd get a bundle, right?"

  "That's crazy," she blurted.

  "And even if you don't get Tower, you'd get the key-man insurance from the shrink business, right? That's a bundle all by itself. You could buy a fleet of Porsches with that money alone."

  "That…" she started, but Loring stuck a warning finger in her face.

  "Shut the fuck up. I'm not done," he said. "Now we know that you were going out with George Dunn before Andi Manette took him away, and we've been having this argument: could that have triggered this off? Is it all because of George Dunn? Are you fucking Andi Manette's father to get back at Andi Manette because you can't fuck her husband? There's a pretty big kettle of psychological stew right there, huh? What'd old Desmond Freud have to say about that, huh?"

  She went cool: "I want a lawyer. I promise you, if you don't get me a lawyer, none of you will ever again work as police officers. I'm willing to overlook…"

  The door opened behind them, and Sloan stuck his head in: "Lucas. You better come in here." And to Loring and Del, he said, "Go easy."

  Helen Manette was slumped in the plastic chair; she'd stopped weeping and was chewing on a fingernail. She had snapped: she had a foxy look on her face, a dealer's look.

  Lucas said, "What?" and Sloan said, "Miz Manette, tell Chief Davenport what you just told us."

  "I don't know anybody like this Mail person," Helen Manette said. "But I know a boy, a renter in one of my apartments."

  "Oh, shit," Lucas said. He turned away, put a hand to his face.

  Sloan said, "Lucas? What?"

  "The goddamn building directory card in Crosby's building. We both looked at it, and it had that blue bird on it, just like in Andi Manette's office building." He looked at Manette. "That's your management company, isn't it?"

  "That's our logo, a royal blue bird, yes," she nodded brightly.

  "Remember that? We saw it the first day. I didn't put it together, but I knew there was something…"

  He squatted, looked into Helen Manette's watery eyes. "So you knew Mail from the apartment building."

  "I didn't know who he was. He seemed like a nice boy."

  "Then why did you call him?" Sloan asked.

  "I didn't—he called me," she said. "He said he heard what was going on, and he wanted to say he was sorry and we… talked."

  Lucas knew she was lying, but right now didn't care. "You have his phone number?"

  Still bright: "Why, yes, I believe I do. Somewhere. If it's the same boy. He looks the same."

  "Can you get it for us?"

  "I believe I could, if I could go back home…"

  Lucas said, "We'll get you back." He looked at Franklin. "Take Loring, put her in a squad, get her down there, full lights and sirens. I want it in six fuckin' minutes."

  "You got it," Franklin said.

  Lucas took his arm, pulled him to the side: "And you and Loring stay on top of her. Anything it takes."

  On the way down to the room where Wolfe was being questioned, Lucas said to Sloan, "You're not supposed to be out with a gun. Stay here with Wolfe. Help her out. Be nice to her. Apologize. Explain what we were doing, and why. Get her home. If she wants a lawyer, help her out. But suggest that she talk with me before she does anything."

  "What're you gonna tell her?"

  "I'm gonna beg her to let it go," Lucas said, grinning.

  "I don't think it's gonna work, man," Sloan said.

  He stuck his head in the interview room, where Del and Loring were leaning against a wall, Loring smoking again. Wolfe was sitting straight in her chair, dry-eyed, expectant. Lucas said, "You two guys—let's go." And to Wolfe: "You're okay. You're free to go. Detective Sloan will help you."

  Sherrill was coming in the door as Del and Lucas ran up the stairs to the front of the building: "I heard on the radio," she said. She was wearing jeans, boots, a plaid shirt, and her ball cap.

  "Gotta go," Lucas called back as they passed her.

  "I'm coming," she said, and she followed them out the door.

  "I don't think…" Lucas said.

  Sherrill interrupted: "Bullshit. I'm going." Then: "Where're we going?"

  They ran together across the street to the plaza in front of the Hennepin County Government Center. A helicopter sat in the middle of the plaza, blades turning, and a TV crew was shooting film of it. When the cameraman saw the three running cops, he turned, and the camera followed them to the chopper.

  "Let's go," Lucas said to the pilot.

  "Where?"

  "Down toward Eagan. Fast as you can."

  CHAPTER 33

  « ^ »

  The chopper took off head-down, Lucas's stomach clutching as the black-visored pilot poured on the power and threw the machine out of the loop. They crossed I-94, rising over the tumult of the early rush hour, then projected out over the Mississippi and down the valley, past a tow with a barge, past a solitary powerboat running full-out on twin outboards, and past Lucas's house on Mississippi River Drive. Del tapped him on the shoulder and pointed down, past the pilot, and Lucas pushed up against the safety belt and saw his house, in strobelike flashes between the brilliant autumn maples, and Weather's car slowly backing out of the driveway. He felt the cut in the palm of his hand, looked
down, and found the ring. Weather: Jesus. He strained to see her, but the car was out of sight, lost in the trees.

  "I'll take us right down to the I-35 intersection with Highway 55. We'll orbit there until we get better directions," the pilot said. "I got maps."

  She handed Lucas a spiral-bound book of Metro area maps, and Lucas held it between his legs. Del, in back, said, "What if this is some kind of dead-drop, like the computer shop?"

  Lucas shook his head. "Then they're gone, Manette and the kids." He looked at his watch. "We may be too late now. We're an hour and fifteen minutes from when he called me. He could make it down there in forty-five minutes, except for the traffic tangles. We gotta hope that he takes her on one last time."

  The pilot looked at him. "You gotta hope he takes her on… you mean, rapes her?"

  "Yeah, that's what he's been doing," Lucas said. "It's better than death."

  "Ah, my God," the pilot said. She turned away from him, and sent the chopper in a sickening swoop toward a twisted intersection below. "That's it, there. Look at that mess. Jeez, what happened?"

  Below them, traffic was tied up in all directions, and blue lights winked through the worst jam Lucas had ever seen. "They're doing it, they're tying it up," he said, and he had to laugh, once, a short bark. "They'll be two hours getting that loose again. Maybe we got a chance. Maybe we got a chance."

  Lucas found the map for the intersection as they orbited, once, twice, then again, like a bee in a bottle; and Del explained the interrogation scene to Sherrill.

  "So where in the heck is Franklin?" Sherrill asked.

  "Five minutes to the Manettes' house," Lucas said. "He oughta be calling."

  "What's gonna happen to this guy?" the pilot asked.

  "Gonna chain him in the basement of the state hospital," Lucas said. "Throw him a cheeseburger once a week."

  "Better to shoot him," she said.

  Lucas said, "Shhh," and they went around again.

  Sherrill, huddled in the back, was greener than Lucas. "If Franklin doesn't call quick, I'm gonna blow a corn dog all over our pilot."

  "Don't do that," the pilot said. Then: "I'll try to smooth things out."

  Sherrill said, "C'mon, Franklin, you asshole, call."

  And Franklin came then, patched through from Dispatch: "Lucas, we got it. His name is LaDoux. He's just north of Farmington, about a mile off Pilot Knob Road on Native American Trail. I got the address here."

  Lucas found the map as Franklin read out the address, and the pilot poured it on, heading south.

  And Franklin asked, "What about Miz Manette? I mean, this one?"

  "Take her back downtown, get her a lawyer," Lucas said.

  Del, from the backseat, shouted, "And read her rights to her."

  Sherrill, marginally more cheerful, also shouting: "Yeah, we want it to be on the up-and-up."

  Lucas, ignoring them, was talking to Dispatch. "Can you get us closer? These street numbers don't mean anything up here."

  "Yeah, we're looking for the mailman on that route, and we've alerted Dakota County, but they don't have a lot of assets down there."

  "I know, I can see them all from here," Lucas said. Down below, roof racks were lighting up the major intersections for miles, and he could see cops on the streets, peering into southbound cars. "But get some going south, if you can."

  "Strangest thing I ever saw," Del said from the back as Lucas signed off the radio. Del, who liked high places, had his face pressed against his window. "A man-made traffic jam. God, look at those guys. I'd hate to be down there, though."

  "Is that Pilot Knob there?" the pilot asked, pointing at a street with a gloved hand. "Or is that Cedar?"

  "I don't know," Lucas said, turning the map. He hated flying, didn't like the exposed front on the helicopter: he would have preferred something solid, like sheet steel. "Where's due south?" The pilot pointed and he turned the map. "Okay, there should be a golf course."

  "There's a golf course," the pilot said, pointing to her right. "But… there's another one."

  "There should be a lake, a crescent-shaped lake," Lucas said.

  "Okay, there's a lake."

  "Okay, yeah, that's it—there's the little lake by the big one. So that's gotta be Pilot Knob right there."

  They churned south, following the road, past another golf course, out into the countryside, corn going brown, a green-and-yellow John Deere rolling through a half-cut field of alfalfa.

  Dispatch called back. "Lucas, we got the mailman, here he is…" There was a pause, and then a man's distant voice. "Hello?"

  Lucas identified himself. "Did the dispatcher tell you what we need?"

  The mailman said, "Yes. You want the fifth house from the corner, on the south side of the road. It's about three-quarters of a mile from the corner, sits up on a slope with a gravel driveway. White house—needs paint, though—and it's got a porch and a screen door and a couple old tumble-down buildings out back. There's a shutter off on the front; one window's only got one shutter. The mailbox is silver and there's an orange Pioneer Press delivery box on the same post under the mailbox."

  "Got that," Lucas said. A swamp flicked past, a thousand feet down. "Thanks."

  "Listen, you still there?"

  "Yeah."

  "One of the guys here has a TV going, and I just saw the picture. You got the right guy. That's him, all right. He's not around there much, but I saw him a couple times."

  "Got that," Lucas said.

  In the backseat, Del said, "Hot dog," and slipped his pistol out from under his jacket and punched out the clip.

  Sherrill said, "Don't say that."

  "What?"

  "The dog thing," Sherrill said, and she swallowed, and started fumbling for her gun.

  "Hold on, I'll have you on the ground in two minutes," the pilot said. She'd been looking at the map, where Lucas's fingers pinched the road. "So we're looking for a loop, like a suburb or something, and then it's three miles on."

  "There's the loop coming up," Lucas said, pointing at a cluster of houses, with tiny trees sprouting in the expansive front yards. They all looked the same, variations of beige with simple, peaked roofs, like properties on a Monopoly board.

  "Okay. Then that must be the road, right there," the pilot said. Up ahead, Native American Trail was a beige thread in a blanket of green. "There's somebody heading down there…"

  A red car was throwing up a cloud of gravel dust as they closed on the road. "One-two-three-four-five, Jesus, I think he's heading in there, he's slowing down, he's turning," Lucas said.

  "Wrong drive, wrong drive. The fifth house is over there, down further," the pilot said, pointing.

  "I don't know," Lucas said. "Look, he's in a hurry, he's moving."

  The pilot groped at her feet and handed Lucas a pair of battered 8 x 50 marine binoculars. "You call it: whatever you want to do."

  They were coming in fast, but they were still a half-mile out; Lucas put the heavy binoculars on the house, picked out the mailbox and the brilliant orange paperbox on the post below it. To the right, the red car had topped a hill, and as Lucas watched, a man got out of the car, turned his pale face toward them; black hair, tall; the white face, at the distance, a featureless wedge. But a wedge that felt right.

  The man darted into the ramshackle house in the cornfield; he carried something—a shotgun? He was too far away to be certain. "That's him," Lucas said, half-shouting. "Put us on him, put us on him."

  "What are we doing?" Sherrill shouted from the back. She had a revolver out, and a speed loader in her other hand. Below them to the front and right, three Dakota County sheriffs cars were pounding up Pilot Knob Road from the south. Lucas waved Sherrill off and got on the radio: "Tell the sheriff's guys it's the first road west of the house. Not the house, it's a track, goes across a ditch just west of the house… tell them to look for the chopper, where we're going in. We've got him in the house, we see him in the house."

  "What're we doing?" Sherrill yelled agai
n. "Are we going in? Are we going in?"

  "Gotta try," Lucas said over his shoulder. "He's goofier than shit, and he might have some land of long gun with him. Didn't he take a shotgun off White?"

  "Shotgun," Del said.

  "Yeah, so take it easy. But Christ, if he kills them now, we're thirty seconds late; and he's goofier'n shit, man, goofier'n shit."

  The pilot said, "Hold on," and then, smiling beneath the black visor, dropped them out of the sky.

  CHAPTER 34

  « ^ »

  Mail drove north, cut I-694, the outer beltline around the Cities, took it east and then south, across I-94, where the highway changed numbers and became I-494. He was driving the old woman's car on remote control, his head thumping with the call to Davenport, the treachery of the cops, the humiliation of the duck shit, the nose-ring blonde at Davenport's computer company.

  Had Davenport used the blonde to suck him in? Had he figured him that well? He relived the attack on the cop, the satisfying whack of the spade; the hit on the old lady, last seen crumpled on her kitchen floor, one leg under a chair, a broken plate on the floor by her head, a piece of buttered toast in the middle of her back; Gloria floated through his mind, her neck crooked with the nylon rope around her, her feet swinging like a pendulum overhead as he laid the river rocks into the booby trap.

  And the parts of Andi Manette: tits, legs, face, ass, back. The way she talked, the way she curled away from him, fearing him.

  He almost ran into the truck ahead. He cut left and saw the traffic jam. Cars, trucks, backed up a half-mile away from the river bridge. Blue cop-lights flashing along the road.

  He sat in the traffic jam for five minutes, steaming, the bright movies in his brain now reduced to shadows. Up ahead, a Jeep cut onto the shoulder of the road. Mail edged over to watch: the Jeep rolled slowly along the shoulder, then cut across to an exit heading north on Highway 61. Mail followed. He didn't want to go back north, but he could make a U-turn, head back south. Must be a hell of an accident; there were cops all over the place.