Hidden Prey ld-15

by John Sandford

  She saw the state cop, Davenport, and tried to flag him down. She was sure that he'd seen and heard her, but he ignored her. As the police did their work, the crowd outside the house continued to grow, now fed by rumors coming out of the police department-that the Walthers were Russian spies, and that there were other spies in the community.

  When she heard that, and with no luck talking to police at the scene, she went back home and found a message from Kurt Maisler, Burt Walther's attorney. She called him back, and he told her of Burt's phone call.

  "What do I do?"

  "Just sit tight. I understand the FBI is taking over. They'll want to talk with you, and you might want to ask for representation."

  "A lawyer? I haven't done anything. I can't afford one."

  "If you can't afford one, they have to appoint one for you. But I'd have a lawyer if any of this, uh, is true, these rumors about Burt."

  Maisler said that the exposure of a spy ring would draw the media like flies, and after a long series of public screw-ups, the FBI was frightened to death of more bad publicity. On the rare occasion when they actually found a bad guy, they tended to tear him to bits, Maisler said. "You've got to be prepared."

  She hired him. She took a check for fifty dollars to his office, promised to call him if the FBI approached her. She went back to Burt and Melodie's house, not knowing what else she could do, and found Carl waiting for her.

  Carl had heard about the murder-suicide at a service station, while he was buying gas for his old Chevy. He'd hurried downtown, found the store closed, went home, found the house empty, and continued on to Grandpa's house. The cops wouldn't let him within a block, so he ditched the car and walked in through alleys and backyards, joining a group of sixty or seventy people across the street. A few of them patted him on the back, a few edged away, and a couple pointed him out for the three TV cameras on the scene.

  A moment later, his mother arrived and she ran over to him and gave him a hug, and he said, "They said Grandpa and Grandma…"

  "It's true," she said. She held on to him but looked toward the house: "They won't let us in. I'll call Roy Hopper direct, to see what's going on, but I think we should go back home."

  "They're taking pictures of us," he said. He nodded, and she turned toward the TV cameras.

  "I think we should go back…"

  The phone was ringing when they got back home. TV, she thought-but it was a friend named Lucy Parks, who worked at a rug-and-tile store down the street, and who had been one grade ahead of Janet in school. "I heard what happened. Is there anything I can do?"

  "No, I don't know what to do myself-this is crazy."

  "Everybody's talking about the spy business. Do you think Burt was really a spy? And Roger?"

  "Burt. I don't know about Burt. But Roger-you've met Roger. That wasn't a disguise. You think he was a mastermind?"

  Parks laughed. "If it was a disguise, he was a mastermind. Well, tell you what, honey, it's gonna be interesting. You need anything, give me a call."

  Three more old friends called, and all of them offered support. She was a little amazed, because if this had been a TV story, the whole town would have turned on her; the yard would have been full of people with ropes and pitchforks.

  Then the TV people arrived, trucks parking in the street, and people began banging on her door and taking pictures of her when she answered, so she stopped answering and called Maisler.

  "I'll be right there," he said. He arrived ten minutes later, talked to all the media people, then knocked, and Jan let him in. "I've told them to stay off the lawn, and I called Roy Hopper direct and asked him to send a car over here. He said he would."

  "Thanks." She was grateful, but wondered if his clock was running; he seemed to be enjoying himself too much to charge for it.

  "If you want, I can make a statement to these people, unless you want to. They won't go away until they have something."

  "If you could do it…"

  He was happy to.

  She was trying so hard to stay on top of the problem that she didn't notice how quiet Carl had been. When she did notice, she went back to his bedroom and knocked. No answer. "Carl?" She turned the knob and peeked in. He was sprawled on his bed, faceup, forearm over his eyes. "Are you okay? Honey?"

  "Go away."

  "Are you okay? You've got to come out and talk."

  "Later. I just want to lie here for a while."

  "You've been lying there for an hour. You should come out and eat something. I'll make some soup and sandwiches…"

  "I'll be out in a while," he snapped.

  "I'll call you when the soup's ready."

  Her horror of the moment, and her astonishment, were real, for the most part. But there was a part of her, a small kernel at the edge of her mind, that had known that Burt was a spy, that there were other spies connected to him, and that Roger had, when he was young, done some spy things. Had been involved.

  She hadn't known when she married him-hadn't known for a few years, after Carl was born, but small parts and pieces of it started to come out when Roger began drinking. He would talk to relieve stress-and then say he couldn't talk about why he was stressed. He began hinting of bigger forces, of untellable but important issues.

  She thought of it simply as self-aggrandizement in the face of a life that had started sloping downhill after his junior year in college, when it became obvious that he wouldn't be the big hockey star at UMD.

  But more pieces kept coming out, and then one night, thoroughly in the bag, he simply told her: we're a family of spies. She hadn't really believed him, and had gone to Burt, and Burt had simply sat in his chair, smiling at her, and Melodie had twinkled, and they'd said, "That was all a long time ago. Best not to think about it anymore."

  She'd bought that-even when it turned out that it probably hadn't been so long ago…

  Roger had continued to drink, the divorce had followed, and Burt and Melodie had come to her rescue. The previous owner of the frame shop was about to give it up and suggested that Jan, who was working the counter and enjoyed it, might want to buy the place. "It makes just about enough to support a family of two," he said. "If you work your butt off."

  Burt helped with a down payment, and for the next ten years, all through elementary and junior high school, Burt and Melodie provided Carl's day care. She'd get him off in the morning, and they'd pick him up in the afternoon, be ready with snacks and dinners on nights when she had to work late. They'd take him to after-school activities, keep him busy.

  They were, she thought, as much Carl's parents as she was; and that was why, she realized, Carl was lying on his bed like a log. The boy was in serious shock, the kind of shock you experience when a parent dies…

  She hurried with the soup and sandwich.

  The next few hours were a jumble.

  The television never left. Maisler was all over the place, and not just local television, but on Fox, CNN, the major networks. She was afraid to leave the house, and instead, parked in front of the TV, nervously eating anything she could find. Other families were being interviewed, the talking heads said: the Spivaks, the Svobodas, the Witolds.

  The FBI called, and made arrangements for an interview, tomorrow, first thing.

  Grandma's and Grandpa's bodies were taken away from the house-she saw it all on TV, the bodies coming out on gurneys, in black bags-and the police didn't know when they would be released for burial.

  The house was sealed, Roy Hopper told her. Nobody in, nobody out.

  She took so many calls, talked to so many people, that she lost track of time. When she noticed that it was eleven o'clock, she realized that she hadn't talked to Carl for an hour or more. She went back to Carl's bedroom. "You've almost worn that bed out," she said.

  "Yeah."

  "I don't think you should go to school tomorrow," she said. "I think we can forget that."

  "I'm going. If I don't go, it's like we're guilty of something."

  "The TV people, Carl, I
think it'd be-"

  "I'm going," he said, stubbornly. "I can take it."

  "We'll talk about it in the morning," she said.

  He pushed himself up on his elbows. "Are you going to reopen the store?"

  "I don't know. We've got to eat, so… we'll see."

  "If you can open the store, I can go back to school."

  She kissed him on the forehead. "You've been a good boy, Carl."

  Chapter 30

  ‹l› ‹l› ‹l›

  They were on the outskirts of Duluth when the call came in. Lucas took the car to the side of the street and stopped as he answered the phone: "Lucas Davenport."

  "This is the person who called you at your hotel in Duluth. I have some more information."

  "You're a little late. We broke things out this afternoon. We haven't got him yet, but we know who he is-"

  "No, no. You mean this Roger person? You're chasing the wrong man. The man who killed the Russian-he's a boy, really-I saw him on television tonight. He was outside the house, the spies' house, where they committed suicide."

  "The house?"

  "Yes. Outside the house. If you get the video they had on Channel Three tonight, he's the blond boy who is hugging the blond woman. He conies into the camera scene and she gives him a hug. He's wearing a dark jacket, but it's open, he had a T-shirt underneath. He's handsome."

  Nadya whispered, "What?"

  Lucas shook his head at her, then said, "Look, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to come in. You can't just tell me…"

  "I'm not coming in. But I will tell you two things. The first thing is-"

  "I don't think that'll work," Lucas said, interrupting.

  "Then the killer will get away with it, because I'm not coming in. Two things, and then I've got to run, because I'm afraid you're tracing this. First, when he tried to shoot me, I cut him on the arm with my knife. Left arm. He should still show the cut, because he bled a lot and I think I slashed him pretty good. Second, I've sent you the knife in the mail. It's still got some blood on the blade and in the grooves, and it's his blood. That should get you somewhere. I mailed it this evening at the main post office, right after the five-o'clock news, so you should get it tomorrow. I sent it to your name at the criminal apprehension office."

  "I don't-"

  "Good-bye." Click.

  "Goddamnit," Lucas said.

  "What?" Nadya and Andreno asked simultaneously.

  Lucas dropped them at their hotel. Nadya said that she would cancel her flight: she would be there until they found the killer. Lucas said that wouldn't be necessary, but she insisted.

  Andreno offered to cancel his flight, but had a problem-his ticket was nonrefundable, and it would cost six hundred bucks to cancel and get another.

  "Take off," Lucas said. "If this is something, we pick up the kid. If it isn't, we don't. It's all over but the shoutin'."

  "Well, shit, I feel like I'm running out on you," Andreno said uncertainly.

  "There's not much to do," Lucas said. "If we go after him, which is still a big if, it might not be for a couple of days. We'll have to take local cops with us, and if I'm there, and Nadya… it's already overkill."

  "All right. I'll take off. If you need me to cancel, call me on the cell phone."

  "I think we're good," Lucas said.

  Lucas went home. He hurried through the dark, pushing ninety the whole way, his flasher on top of the car. The Public Safety Department cleared him through the two highway patrol troopers still working I-35. On the way, he made phone calls:

  He called Rose Marie Roux, to update her. "I'm going to need to talk to a lawyer. Tonight, if possible. See if you can get one to call me. I need to know how to handle this, if it turns out to be true." He called Del: "You working early tomorrow?"

  "Three to eleven. I think I cracked the McDonald's thing."

  "Three to eleven? Meet me at my office at seven o'clock. I'm gonna want you to handle something for me. Take an hour or two."

  "See you then."

  He took a call from John McCord, the BCA superintendent. "Why do you need a lawyer?" McCord asked. "What'd you do?"

  "I haven't done anything, yet. But I gotta figure out a maneuver, and I need a guy."

  "I can't get you one tonight-I tried, but he's not answering his phone. Rose Marie said you're on the way back, so I'll get him to your office the first thing. What time?"

  "Eight? Seven thirty or eight?"

  A moment of silence. Then, "Have you ever gotten here at eight in your life?"

  "Just get the fuckin' lawyer, John."

  He called Jennifer Carey, an ex-girlfriend who worked at Channel Three. She was also the mother of his first daughter. He called her at home.

  "What's up?" she asked. "You still in Duluth? I saw some tape on you."

  "That's what I'm calling about. I'm going through Hinckley right now, headed your way. I gotta see some of your film, the stuff you showed on the five o'clock. It's kind of urgent."

  "Come on in," she said. "I'll go down and get it."

  He slowed down when he got into the heavier traffic, followed I-35 through the northern suburbs, and turned west on I-95 into Minneapolis.

  At Channel Three, Carey let him in the back door, so he wouldn't have to go through the ID-and-name-tag routine, kissed him on the cheek, and took him to her office. She had the clip on tape, and ran it.

  "We put some time into this, almost two minutes," she said. Much of the clip consisted of old pictures of Burt and Melodie Walther, apparently collected from friends and neighbors, along with film of people gathered outside the Walther home.

  "… neighbors and a few family members gathered across the street as Hibbing police and agents of the state's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension processed the crime scene in this modest Iron Range neighborhood where Burt Walther reportedly claims a Soviet spy ring has been operating since World War Two…"

  The tape lingered on a blond woman whom Lucas recognized as Janet Walther. A few seconds after the camera picked her up, a blond boy stepped into the scene, and she grabbed him and hugged him.

  Her son? When she'd spoken of her son, she'd left Lucas with the mental picture of a child, of an elementary-age kid. This boy was high-school age, tall, slender, in good shape. Handsome, as the laptop lady said. This kid, Lucas thought, might have run him up and down those hills.

  "Is this a story?" Carey asked, from the chair beside him, as Lucas leaned toward her monitor. She had excellent instincts.

  "Of course. A really good one, too," he said. "I'd hold on to this tape, if I were you."

  "What is it?"

  "You are absolutely gorgeous when you're pregnant," Lucas said. "How many is this? Four? It really agrees with you."

  "Lucas…"

  "Could you run the tape one more time?"

  He got home at eleven thirty, found Weather and the housekeeper, Ellen, in the kitchen, eating cheese crackers and drinking beer.

  "I knew you guys hit the bottle when I was gone," he said, dragging his bag in from the garage. "How's Sam?"

  "Sam's fine," Weather said. "Throw your dirty clothes in the wash, don't leave them on the floor."

  He threw dirty clothes in the wash, caught up on the family news, told them that he might have to go back to Range in the morning.

  "I thought it was all done," Weather said. "Channel Seven said that they're 'bracing for a tidal wave of federal officers.' That's a direct quote."

  "I'm not quite done," Lucas said. "Had something come up…"

  He explained as he stuck his head in the refrigerator. Lettuce and grapes. Cheese. A couple of bottles of beer. He picked up a carton of one-percent milk, opened it, tried to sneak a gulp or two, behind the cover of the open refrigerator door.

  "I can make you an egg sandwich or an omelet," Weather offered. "Or we have some instant oatmeal… Hey! Are you drinking out of the carton?"

  A short, restless night. He got up with Weather, in the early red light of dawn, dressed, ate cinnamon-and
-spice instant oatmeal, kissed a noisy Sam, and headed downtown.

  Del was waiting at the office. "What's going on?"

  "We're going to the post office to see if we can find a package with a knife in it."

  He explained as they headed downtown in the Acura. "What I need from you is, I need you to walk the knife around to everybody. We need to get it photographed, we need to get it to the lab, we need to get the Woodwork going-we need to make sure that there even is some blood on it. I gotta head back north as soon as I talk to the lawyer. I really do need to know if there is blood on the knife before I get up there."

  "So I'll walk it around," Del said. They were headed into downtown St. Paul, snarled in the early-morning rush. "I figured out the McDonald's thing, but we'll need some surveillance cameras. And some auditors. Even then, it's gonna be weird."

  "Tell me." And Lucas thought, Should I really rush this thing on the kid? Maybe I should wait-but what if the kid disappears? Or somebody executes him? Or he kills himself?

  Del was saying, "There's this guy named Slattery who delivers bulk goods to the Bruins' warehouse-the food. The warehouse is the central supply center for the stores in their chain. But this guy is also delivering for other stores in the area.

  "Then there's a guy named Jones who works in the warehouse. As the truck is unloaded, he zaps the cartons with a product-code reader and manually counts the cartons and enters the manual count in a computer. So then we have two records of the stuff coming in-the product code list and the hand count. But the thing is, they go through the same guy…"

  "Jones," Lucas said. Could the old man have been crazy enough to use his own great-grandson as an executioner? A high-school kid?

  "Yeah. Jones. You listening?" Del looked at him suspiciously.

  "I'm listening."

  "I know that hamburger theft isn't one of your major interests, but I've been bustin' my balls…"

  "I'm listening," Lucas said. "Really." And if it really was Roger, why didn't he take his fuckin' raincoat! Lucas wondered. It was raining like a sonofabitch.

  Del continued. "What happens, I think, is that Jones reads a box with his hand reader, but the box stays on the truck. He also adds the box to the hand count. So the box just seems to vanish."