Secret Prey ld-9

by John Sandford

  "So Audrey shoots her, checks her to make sure she’s dead, runs back down the stairs, carefully pulling the tape off the locks… and goes home."

  "Fuckin’ cold, man," Sloan said.

  "Sheiscold. I wonder if she was cold enough to wash the sticky stuff off the doors when she pulled off the tape? She’d need acetone, or something," Lucas said.

  They were both staring at the fire door. Sloan reached out to the doorknob, pulled the door open, bent forward to look at the lock tongue, then knelt. Lucas squatted beside him.

  "Looks like sticky stuff," Sloan said. He tapped his index finger next to what looked like gray tape residue.

  "Wonder how many movers have gone in and out, using tape?"

  "Up this high? None. That’s why the elevator’s so big. And I think this stuff would wear away, if the door was opened and closed on it enough. So it’s probably fairly new."

  "Let’s get Crime Scene over here," Lucas said, standing up. "And let’s get a search warrant ready, see if we can find some tape at her place that matches this sticky stuff-if the lab guys can make a match like that."

  On the way back down in the elevator, Sloan said, "It’s a reach."

  "She’s a reach. She looks like Old Mother Hubbard and she’s really the Wicked Witch of the West."

  The Hennepin County attorney, Randall Towson; his chief deputy, Donald Dunn; and Richard Kirk, head of the criminal division, met with Lucas and Frank Lester, deputy chief and head of the investigative division.

  "You’re telling us she’s a serial killer," Towson said.

  "Everything points to it," Lucas said. "I’m not sure we could prove it to a jury."

  "Make the argument."

  "You’ve all seen the memo. The major point is this: We have too many unusual deaths. First, her parents. She benefited directly from the death of her mother-a fifteenthousand-dollar life insurance policy that her sister apparently didn’t share in. She probably got insurance from the death of her father-her mother was weak, and Audrey seemed to be running things, even then, as a kid. We also have four obvious and unquestioned murders: George Arris, shot in the back of the head in St. Paul; Daniel Kresge, who you all know was shot while deer hunting last week; Wilson McDonald, who she admits shooting to death; and Susan O’Dell, who was shot to death in her apartment. Audrey McDonald was the last person known to have been with O’Dell."

  "I’d think that would almost be exculpatory, from what I get from your memo," Kirk said. "She could prove that she was out of the building before the killing happened."

  "Things have changed in the last hour, since I wrote the memo," Lucas said. "Detective Sloan and I have worked out a way she might have done it. There might even be the possibility of some physical evidence…"

  "How…"

  He explained quickly about the duct tape, then said, "Let me finish this other thought. In addition to her parents and the four outright murders, we also have four mysterious deaths: Andy Ingall disappeared and has never been found after a supposed boating accident; eleven-year-old Tom McKinney was killed while riding his bicycle; and Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon Baird were burned to death in their cabin. We also have two aggravated assaults in the past two weeks. One was on my former fianc?e, Weather Karkinnen; her house was firebombed, you’ve probably read about it. Normally, I wouldn’t suggest that there was a tie, but I would here. You can read the full reasoning in the memo- Audrey has a history of attacking people to distract, as well as to eliminate, and I believe that’s what she did here. We even have some evidence for this."

  "And it is…"

  "When Mr. and Mrs. Baird were burned to death, investigators found the remnants of a glass jug in their front room, and the glass had been scored to make sure the bottle broke on impact," Lucas said. "That feels like a pro job- but it happens that when my fianc?e was firebombed, remnants of the bottle used in that bombing showed the same kind of scoring."

  "Jesus Christ," Towson said.

  "Then, last week, another friend of mine was attacked, Sister Mary Joseph, from St. Anne’s College. As it happens, Audrey McDonald knew her. And presumably knew where she lived, and attacked her for the same reason she attacked Weather. To get me off her back."

  "And you can show that she benefited from all of these," Dunn said.

  "She benefited financially from the killings of her father and mother-in addition to the money, she may have killed her father because he was sexually and probably physically abusing her, and she got rid of him. All the other deaths were done to push her husband’s career: when you put them down in outline form, you’ll find that he benefited from each of the other deaths… Look at page three of the memo, there’s a chart."

  "What about her husband?"

  "I think her husband was killed because we were getting too close, and he was a rather notorious coward. If he knew about the killings, he might have ratted her out, if there was pressure. Also, she inherits, if she’s found not guilty of murdering him. Running through his files after he was killed, we figured he could be worth about seven, eight million."

  "I see one problem," Towson’s deputy said, snapping the paper with his finger. "If I remember right, you guys had elected Wilson McDonald for the Kresge killing.

  Looking at this, I ask myself, couldn’t McDonald have done all of these? We know he was a brutal asshole. Look what he did to his own wife."

  "It’s worse than that," Lester said. "St. Paul’s got a partial print, probably made by McDonald, on a shell from the gun that killed Arris."

  "Not good," said Towson.

  "No-but all that proves is that McDonald loaded the gun. I’ll also say it seems that when O’Dell was shot in the head, the bullet might have come from the same gun. We can’t prove the gun-slug connection, because the slug, a hollowpoint, came apart in her head, and there was nothing left but fragments. But a spectroscopic analysis of the metal from the slug in O’Dell’s head and from the traces of a slug in the Arris killing suggests both came from the same batch of lead. We also have the gun-taken out of a car owned by McDonald but not driven by him since September-and the clip was full. But all the shells had his prints on them but the last two. The lead from those two came from a different batch, but the lead from the shells in the lower part of the magazine came from the same batch-probably the same batch-as the slugs that killed Arris and O’Dell."

  "You’d drive a jury nuts with this stuff," said the criminal division guy.

  "There’s another point here. I think I can demonstrate by the recorded times of some cell phone calls that Wilson McDonald couldn’t have killed O’Dell. And if he couldn’t have killed her, then somebody else who knew where the gun was must have. Audrey McDonald. And like I said, I think we can show how it was done."

  "But you can’t definitively prove that was the gun that killed O’Dell."

  "No."

  "That’s a problem," Towson said.

  They all sat in silence for a minute; then Kirk said, " Pattern."

  Everybody nodded. Dunn said, "Pattern, plenty of motive, we knock down any sympathy she might get with the killing of her mother…"

  "Which is more than balanced off by the fact that her mother apparently stood by while her father was fucking her," Kirk said. "The defense puts a weeping woman on the stand who denies doing anything, but points out that if she did-which she didn’t-it certainly would have been justified, a fourteen-year-old girl getting the ol’ pork trombone from her own father. Matter of fact, if I was the defense attorney, I’d make the mother an accomplice. If Audrey’s as smart as this stuff makes her, she wouldn’t need too much of a hint to come up with something pretty lurid."

  "Which, if we could drive a wedge between Audrey and her sister, we might get the sister to refute… Is the sister as wacko as Audrey?"

  "No. But there was a complaint filed with Child Protection a couple of days ago that she beat her daughter and gave her dope," Lucas said.

  "Aw, Jesus."

  "But not justified," Lucas said. "In fact, I
think Audrey filed it."

  "Goddamn this woman."

  "I’m sure he will," Lester said dryly. "But it’d be nice if we could get a few whacks in first."

  Towson leaned over his desk, looking at his deputy and the head of his criminal division: "I’ll tell you what, boys. We’re faced here with the usual sloppy police work that virtually ties us hand and foot, even as we have to take our cases before drooling liberal judges who don’t wish for anything finer than putting criminals back on the street where they can rape our Cub Scouts. However…"

  "I wish I’d said that," Lester said.

  "Part of a speech I’m writing," Towson said. " Seriously, Lucas, do you think she’s gonna kill anyone else in the next few days?"

  "I don’t know who’d it be," Lucas said. "Me maybe- but I’m careful."

  "You be careful," Towson said. "She apparently likes guns… Now listen. I’m looking through this memo, and I’m convinced. A trial is something else. Give me another few days’ work on this thing. Nail down that stuff about O’Dell. Give me something harder. Work out a really tight timetable, and find a way we can put her there to pull the trigger. And anything else. Even people willing to suggest that she did it. We need more hard evidence: anything would help."

  "What’re you going to do?"

  "I’m thinking that we might charge her with everything," Towson said. "All the murder counts, all the ag assaults. Put all the evidence together, argue the pattern. Then, probably, we’ll lose most of them. But we’ll have a chance of getting her for killing her husband, if we can make it part of the pattern. Because she’s admitted it. The jury might let her go on the other ones, for lack of specific evidence, but we might get her on at least second degree, and maybe first, on her husband."

  "She was pretty beat up," Lucas said. "They took pictures."

  "We can handle that, if we can make the other things clear enough. If we get her on just second degree on her husband, and then whisper sweet nothings to the judge, he could blow off the guidelines, depart upward on the sentence, and put her away for twenty."

  They all looked at each other; then Kirk said, "Right now, Lucas, I’d say it’s sixty-forty against. It’d be nice if you could come up with something a little stronger. Give us another twenty percent, or so."

  "It’d be nice," Towson said.

  "I’ll hit her tonight with a search warrant on the duct tape, maybe look for a glass cutter," Lucas said.

  "Talk to us," Towson said. "We want to know every move from here on out."

  TWENTY-NINE

  Audrey McDonald was packing Wilson’s suits into cardboard boxes, after carefully noting labels, estimated cost-which she’d have to confirm with the tailor- and condition, all toward a tax deduction. The accountant had recommended a donation to Goodwill.

  She didn’t like the idea of Goodwill, but she did like the idea of the tax deduction. Still, she was muttering to herself as she did it. Shaking her head. Wilson had spent a fortune on clothing, and now she’d get only a fraction of it back. Nothing for the underwear. Perfectly good boxer shorts, and some bum was going to get them.

  "So reckless," she muttered. "Just didn’t care. Just didn’t care what you spent on this. Look at this. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen pairs of undershorts. Why would you need all those undershorts? You could have gotten by with three pairs, or five pairs. Sixteen pairs of undershorts. Look at this. This is silk. Silk undershorts?"

  She was counting them again when the headlights swung into the driveway, glowing through the bedroom drapes. Helen? She hadn’t called. She always called before she came. But who else? She went to the window and looked down.

  Lucas and Sherrill waited as Sloan pulled into the driveway with Del in the passenger seat; a squad car followed a few seconds behind Sloan, with two uniformed cops. Lights shone from several windows in the house, both upstairs and down, and Lucas handed the warrant papers to one of the uniformed cops, who walked up the stoop, rang the doorbell, and knocked.

  "All glass cutters, all packages of tape, all one-gallon glass jugs, all guns, cartridges and/or cartridge parts, to include gunpowder, primers, brass, and bullets, all credit card records or billing statements involving gasoline purchases," he read, in the light coming through the window in the door. There was no answer, so he rang again, then opened the storm door and pounded. Still no answer.

  "What do you want to do?" he asked.

  "We’re going in," Lucas said. "Let’s not break anything yet. Let’s check the garage doors."

  The front door rattled and the cop at the door stepped back. A moment later, Audrey McDonald stuck her head out. "What?" she croaked. She looked worse than she’d looked in court: the bruises on her face were a sickly bluish yellow, with small reddish splotches. She still wore the bandages on her head, and her visible hair looked like broom straw.

  "I’m sorry, ma’am," the cop said. "We have a search warrant for your house, for certain items."

  He handed her the papers, and she took them, peered at them querulously. "A search warrant? Can you wait until I call my lawyer?"

  "No ma’am. You’re welcome to call your attorney, of course, but the warrant is served and we’ll have to come in."

  Her eyes drifted past the cop to Lucas, who’d begun to feel sorry for the woman: but when her eyes landed on him, they hardened into small black diamonds, like a cobra’s, and he leaned back, though he was ten feet from her. "Okay," she muttered, breaking her eyes away. "But do I have to do anything? I feel awfully bad."

  "You just go sit down, and we’ll do all of it," the cop said.

  She disappeared inside and the cop looked over his shoulder at Lucas. Lucas said quietly, "Keep an eye on her. She’s not what she looks like."

  The McDonalds had a small cluttered workshop area in one corner of the basement, nothing more than an old chest of drawers with two two-by-eight-foot sheets of three-quarter-inch plywood screwed together to make the top of a small workbench, and a couple of steel shelving units with plastic boxes for storage.

  Lucas had seen the workshop the first time in the house, after Wilson McDonald was shot. He went straight to it, checked all the tools. No glass cutter. He found a roll of black plastic electricians’ tape, which he bagged, but that seemed unlikely to be the tape they wanted. He walked once around the basement, looking behind the water heater, the furnace, through racks of paint cans and a pile of hoses and miscellaneous gardening equipment: no gallon glass jugs.

  Del was working the kitchen. When Lucas came back up the stairs, he said, "Got lots of tape. Duct, plastic mending, bunch of it."

  "Good. Bag it up," Lucas said. "Check the wastebaskets and her car, see if you come across any small balls of tape that might be the right length. Two would be good." He went on through the living room, found that the carpet had been removed. Wilson McDonald’s blood hadn’t seeped through to the wooden floor, which looked freshly waxed.

  Sloan had run quickly through the bedroom, not expecting to find much, and had moved on to a large, first-floor guest room which had a walk-in closet the McDonalds used for general storage. This was where Audrey McDonald had gotten the shotgun with which she’d killed her husband. The closet was jammed with motoring, golf, and boating equipment, all of it apparently belonging to Wilson McDonald. The homicide cops investigating the shooting of Wilson McDonald had taken the gun and shells, but hadn’t dug into the back of the closet. Sloan hauled everything out, found nothing of special interest, and then, as an afterthought, was patting down the weather gear, life jackets, golf and hunting jackets.

  Just as Lucas walked in, he felt a heavy lump in the pocket of a golf jacket, and manipulated it out through the layers of cloth. Box of cartridges.

  "Gimme a bag," he said to Lucas.

  "What is it?"

  "Boo-lets," he said.

  Lucas held the transparent plastic bag and Sloan manipulated the box into it. Lucas turned the box on its side and read: ".38 Remington. Excellent."

  Sloan stood up and said, "It�
�d be nice if her prints were on the box."

  "Yeah, but I’m not holding my breath."

  One of the uniformed cops stuck his head in the door: "Del says no glass cutter in the kitchen. No gallon jugs either."

  "Okay… check the garage."

  At the end of an hour, they still had no glass cutter or gallon jugs, but did have nine rolls of tape and the box of cartridges. Sherrill had been going through the house files again, and had pulled out a stack of Amoco credit card receipts; the McDonalds shared a single account, but the cards had separate numbers. "If they go back far enough, look for credit card charges in the Duluth area in the days before Ingall disappeared," Lucas said. "We found an Amex charge in Chicago, the day before, for Wilson…"

  "They go back that far…" She started flipping through them.

  A little more than an hour after the search started, McDonald’s attorney showed up. "What’s going on?"

  Lucas said, "Search warrant. Mrs. McDonald has a copy. She’s in the TV room." He pointed him through to the TV room, and Glass asked, "You really think there’s something going on here?"

  "I ain’t doing it for the exercise," Lucas said. "You’ve got a problem, I think."

  Glass wandered off to find McDonald, and the uniformed cop came back from the garage: "No jugs, no glass cutter."

  "Gonna have to give up on the jugs," Lucas said. "The glass cutter could be anywhere, if she didn’t throw it away. Anybody look in the silverware drawer?"

  Del looked at the cop, and they both shook their heads.

  "Watch this," Lucas said. He pulled open drawers nears the sink, until he found the silverware drawer, then pulled that out all the way and stirred through the contents.

  Nothing. Same with the cooking utensils drawer. Nothing.

  "Fuck it," he said, pushing the drawers shut.

  "The guy is a genius," the uniformed cop said to Del, who nodded.

  Sherrill came out of the back, carrying an Amoco billing statement. "Got something," she said.