Chosen Prey ld-12

by John Sandford

Lucas shook his head apologetically. "I'm sorry, we just heard… actually, we heard that you were the recipient of some of her favors, but that you'd had to pay."

  "You heard this?" Lapp asked, his voice rising. "About me? How could you hear this about me? What'd you hear? Who told you this?"

  "I can't tell you where the information came from, we just got it from one of our intelligence guys… she said that Julie was selling, ummm, oral sex at a hundred bucks a time."

  "Blow jobs?" Lapp whispered hoarsely. He looked from Lucas to Del, unbelieving, then at the two painters, and he said to the painters, "You know who they were talking to? That fuckin' Haack."

  The baseball cap nodded judiciously and said, "Yup. Bet it was."

  "Who's Haack?" Del asked. He looked at Lucas, then back at Lapp.

  "Gerry fuckin' Haack," Lapp said. "He saw me in here a couple times with her-this must've been last year, right after he got out of jail-and the last time he said something about me getting a blow job from her. I told him to shut his mouth or I'd pull his fuckin' nose off."

  "He's got a thing about blow jobs," the football-shirt said. "Always hearin' that this chick gives head or somebody was caught gettin' some head."

  Lucas scratched his forehead. "Ah, shit."

  Del asked Lapp, "What do you know about art?"

  "Art who?" Lapp asked with apparent beetle-browed sincerity, and when Del started to laugh, said, "What?"

  "Did you actually date Aronson?" Lucas asked.

  "Hell no. I knew her way back when," Lapp said. He shook a brown cigarillo out of a cardboard box and lit it with a Zippo. He blew a stream of smoke and said, "We went to kindergarten together and the same schools up to eighth grade, and then they moved away. She came in here with a couple of other friends from the neighborhood, and that's when I saw her again. But we were doing nothing. Nothing. I'm happily married." The baseball cap guy snorted, and Lapp turned and looked up and said, "Fuck you, Dick, this is serious."

  "Was she dating anybody that you knew of?" Lucas asked.

  "Is this the first time you guys… I mean, how come you don't know this shit already? She disappeared more'n a year ago."

  "We never knew about the St. Paul connection," Lucas said. "We were just checking out a random tip."

  "Well, she said she was going out with an artist guy-is that the art you meant?-I think maybe over where she worked or something. I think they were… in bed."

  "Why do you think that?"

  "Because he was taking these pills. She told me this, we were laughing about it." He looked at the baseball cap. "What do you call them? That new cholesterol drug? Lapovorin? Is that it? Anyway, she said he'd told her that the pills had weird sexual side effects. They made you come backwards."

  "Come backwards?" Del asked. He seemed fascinated by the concept. "How can you come backwards?"

  "Beats the shit out of me," Lapp said, leaking more brown smoke from the cigarillo. "But that's what she said. He said that he had to quit the pills, because instead of coming, he went."

  Nobody laughed; this could be a serious problem. "What else did she say about him?" Lucas said, leaning forward. "Names or where he lived-"

  "Nothing. He was older than she was. This was like two weeks before she disappeared."

  "That's all? She was dating an artist and he was older than her."

  "Actually, I might have seen the guy…"

  Lucas and Del looked at each other, and then Lucas said, "Where?"

  "I was coming out of Spalonini over in Minneapolis. I went in there for lunch? There's this diner across the street."

  "The Cheese-It. She worked there part-time," Del said.

  "Yeah. I saw her coming out of there with a guy and she had her arm under his. Tough-looking guy, but kind of artistlike. You know, he had a buzzcut and a three-day beard, had this long dark wool coat all the way down to his ankles. Maybe an earring, I think. They walked on up the street."

  "Would you recognize him if you saw him again?" Lucas asked.

  Lapp thought for a minute, then said, "Nah. I just saw him for one second, from the side, and then from the back. I remember he was a cocky-looking sonofabitch. You know who he looked like? This stuck in my head. He looked like Bruce Willis in this movie where Willis was playing a boxer? Uh, something Fiction?"

  "Pulp Fiction,"Del said.

  "Yeah, that's it. He looked like Willis in that movie, kind of fucked up, big shoulders. Dark like that, but a buzzcut."

  "But you couldn't pick him out?"

  "If you had a lineup with Dick and George, here," Lapp said, waving at the Vikings guy and the baseball cap, "and a buzzcut who looked sorta like Bruce Willis, then I could pick him out. If you had six buzzcuts, then I couldn't."

  "Goddamn good memory anyway," Del said. His voice may have carried a vibration of skepticism.

  Lapp shrugged. "Just between you and me… maybe I did have a little thing about her. Nothing serious. Then she went away… I just remembered. I remember remembering, if you know what I mean."

  "How come you didn't call this in? We could've used the help," Del said.

  Lapp shook his head. "I didn't think it would be important. I mean, I heard about it when you were looking for her, but it seemed like she just might've, you know, split."

  "And there's his old lady," the baseball cap said, nodding at Lapp. "If he told you, he'd have to tell her."

  They talked a few more minutes, and Lucas took Lapp's address and telephone number. Outside, on the sidewalk, Del said, "Lapp is right. Unless we get lucky with those lists, we ain't got shit."

  "He's an artist and he's got a buzzcut and he takes Lapovorin. We can check pharmacies and make more lists."

  "Buzzcuts are the fashion right now, and Minneapolis's got more artists than rats and every second guy on the street takes Lapovorin."

  "But it's something. I can see him in my mind's eye now."

  "Then you oughta stop down to one of them photo booths and have a picture taken before you forget," Del said. He yawned, looked up and down the street at the wind-whipped snowflakes slanting through the streetlights like shading in a cartoon. He slapped Lucas on the back and said, "See you in the morning. We'll look up some artists, or some fuckin' thing."

  5

  SHE 'D MADE SOME kind of cheese dish with garlic. Qatar liked garlic when he was eating it, but an hour later, after another rugged round of sex, he could smell it in his own sweat, and in Barstad's sweat mingled with his; he touched his stomach and found it cool and wet.

  The sexual education of Ellen Barstad might not be the lark that he'd assumed it would be, Qatar thought. He was in her bathroom again, washing. His penis had gone past the tingling stage: It hurt. This was their fourth time together, if the first unsuccessful bedding was counted. He was beginning to feel the pressure.

  The second time together, they had watched a pornographic movie and then tried some of the more modestly deviant practices. The third time, they had moved on. Nothing truly advanced, Qatar thought, though it was as advanced as he'd ever managed.

  This time, Barstad's wrists were tied to the head of the bed with two of his old, too-wide neckties. "James," she called. She was waiting.

  "Good God," he said under his breath. He knew the tone. His face seemed a little pale, a little drawn, in the bathroom mirror. He didn't have another one in him, he thought. He turned the water off and went back to the bedroom. Barstad lay flat on the bed, her legs spread slightly, her arms over her head; her eyes were half closed, her face slack. The woman seemed to have no limit.

  "Could I get a drink of water before the next one?" she asked.

  "My dear, I don't think there will be a next one, not today," he said. "I feel like I've been pushed through a wringer."

  A wrinkle appeared on her forehead. "What's a wringer?"

  "You know, for wet clothes."

  "What?"

  She'd never heard of a wringer, Qatar thought. Too young. He looked down along her body: It was perfect. Everything that he
had always thought he'd wanted.

  Except.

  He was beginning to suspect that what he'd always wanted wasn't sex; that his particular streak of insanity-he called it that, was comfortable with the word-needed resistance, maybe even a little disgust. An hour earlier, he'd been looking down at the spinal groove in the back of her neck. His hands had ached for her neck. He'd almost done her then-would have, if he'd had the rope. The next time, he'd bring it.

  Over the next couple of days, before they got together again, he would think about it, he would see if the killing passion returned. And maybe the thing with Aronson's body would blow over. She was long dead; there could be no clues-they hadn't found anything else…

  ELLEN BARSTAD WATCHED him thinking about her. Maybe she was pushing too hard-but once she got into it, she found it hard to stop. There were so many… her girlfriend called them "pickles." Little interesting variations, like crazy quilting: You do this and then you do that. Qatar, on the other hand, was basically like all the men she'd known: He just wanted to bang away, and then nap until he could get up again, and then bang away some more. She wanted to try this and then that and then the other thing, to see how it all felt. Was there anything wrong with that? She thought not.

  Qatar was being a prig about the whole thing. Maybe, she thought, it was time to find somebody younger. Actually, if she could find somebody completely unformed, maybe a seventeen-year-old, somebody who'd actually be grateful… After all, this wasn't that difficult, was it? All of it was in the books.

  "So you're going home?" Barstad asked.

  "Yes. I'm really busy. I've been here for two hours."

  "I thought we were going to do the Ping-Pong paddles again today."

  He had to laugh. "Slipped my mind," he said. Then: "It's all right to slow down, Ellen. We're not on a time clock."

  "I suppose," she said, disappointment in her voice. She rubbed her feet together. "You sure you don't want a little suck?"

  "Ellen…" He really did hurt; but how often do you get this kind of offer? Sometimes, he thought, you've got to go with common sense. "Okay. But you must take it easy."

  WHEN HE GOT home two hours later, thoroughly used, he turned on the television and went into the kitchen for some Froot Loops. He was eating and reading a two-week-old copy of The New Yorker when he heard the television announcer talking about drawings and murder and that the images might not be appropriate to children.

  He knew what they were, even without looking or listening. He didn't want to believe it; he pushed to his feet so abruptly that milk sloshed out of the bowl onto the magazine.

  In the living room, he caught the sight of one of his drawings in the fraction of a second before the cameras cut away, like the quick flash of a queen of hearts in a riffled deck of cards. The reporter was saying something, but he couldn't seem to make out the words. Then the camera cut away from the reporter, and one after another, a set of his images flashed on the screen, finally ending with a drawing of Aronson.

  "… police looking for the artist who drew these sexually charged images…"

  He stood unbelieving, aghast. He'd never let Aronson take home any of the images. He'd shown her this one-it was sexy, but not pornographic-to impress her with his skills. He remembered throwing it aside in his office. He didn't remember seeing it again.

  "She took it," he said aloud, to the television. "She stole it from me. It wasn't hers! It was mine!"

  He would go to prison, he thought. Nobody would ever understand. He watched until the drawings went away, and the reporter-a slender blonde, he thought, who might be interesting-moved on to politics.

  "Prison," he said. An announcement. His career in ruins. They'd lead him out of the building in chains: He could see it in his mind's eye, long rows of mocking former colleagues and their harridan wives, in a gantlet, and he'd walk down between them enduring their smirks and superior smiles. They would put him in denim shirts and jeans, with a number on his shirt, and he would be locked in a cell with some redneck who'd rape him.

  He thought of suicide-really, the only way out. Jumping, he thought. The feeling of flying, and then nothing at all. But he was afraid of heights. He didn't even like to stand too close to a window.

  A gun. Tighten the finger, and nothing… But that'd be really messy, and would destroy the side of his head. Too much. Hanging himself, that was out: He'd suffer. He could imagine the pain, clawing at the rope at the last minute, trying to pull himself up… No.

  Pills. Pills were a possibility if he had time to accumulate some. He could go to Randy. Randy could get as much as he needed, barbiturates. That'd be the way to go. Simply sleep, never to awake.

  A tear rolled down his cheek as he thought about his mother's distress when his body was found. He dropped into the easy chair by the TV and closed his eyes, imagining it. And was suddenly touched by anger: The bitch wouldn't miss him. She'd sell all his furniture, and the wine, and the carpets. She'd cash his life insurance, pathetic as it was, and she'd keep it all. He could see it plainly, as a vision: the inventory of his belonging, the clothes going into the trash-into the trash!-the furniture carried away on trucks and even pickups.

  Anger swelled in his heart, and he pushed himself out of the chair and paced back to the kitchen, sobbed. Pounded a fist into the other palm, then stuffed his knuckles into his mouth and bit until he felt the skin break. She'd take it as a victory: She'd outlasted him.

  Well, fuck her. Fuck her. He shouted it at the walls: "FUCK HER."

  So what to do? He sat down again, stared at the box of Froot Loops. He'd enjoyed making his drawings and he'd known right from the start that he'd be in trouble if he were found out. So he'd been secretive. He still had some of the images stored on the computer at school, but he could get rid of them.

  He sighed, and calmed himself. Things weren't completely out of control. Not yet. He'd have to get busy, get cleaned up, just in case.

  His mind skipped back to his mother: bitch. He couldn't believe her pleasure at his suicide. Couldn't believe it. There wasn't any doubt about it: The clarity of his vision carried the unmistakable scent of the truth. They hadn't had much to say to each other for five years, but she could show him enough loyalty to regret his passing.

  More tears gathered at the corners of his eyes. Nobody loved him. Not even Barstad-she just wanted the sex.

  "I'm alone," he said. His hand hurt, and he looked down at his knuckles. They were bleeding, badly; how had that happened? He was bewildered by the blood and pain, but he could also feel the anger gathering. "I'm all alone."

  6

  THE SKY WAS churning, but it was neither snowing nor raining when Lucas made it down to City Hall. He'd had too much coffee, and he stopped at the men's room; Lester, the deputy chief for investigations, was facing into a urinal when Lucas stepped inside and parked next to him. "What do you think about the mayor?" Lester asked.

  "Gonna be some changes," Lucas said.

  "Don't see any way that Rose Marie'll be reappointed," Lester said gloomily. "I'll probably get stuck out in the weeds somewhere."

  "So quit, get a state job, and double-dip. Two pensions are better than one."

  "I sort of like it here." Lester shook a couple of times, zipped up and walked over to a sink, and turned on the water. "What are you going to do? Stay on?"

  "That'd be tough," Lucas said. "A little depends on who gets the top job."

  "I'll tell you what, there's a lot of calculation going on today," Lester said. "People standing around talking. The bullshit machine is running overtime."

  "Always happens," Lucas said, zipping up and moving to the next sink. "How many chiefs you been through?"

  "Nine," Lester said. "Rose Marie was the ninth. But it was a lot easier to make the change on the first four or five, when I was sitting in a squad with a flashlight and a doughnut."

  DEL AND MARCY were waiting in the new office. "Swanson and Lane are over at the Cheese-It, trying to find somebody who might have seen Aronson wit
h Bruce Willis," Marcy said. She handed Lucas a photograph of the actor. "We downloaded a picture of Willis from the net, and we're gonna have it redrawn, and sort of generalized, with the long black coat. Put it out in the papers."

  Lucas snapped the photo with his fingertip and said, "That's good. Get it going. How about the lists?"

  "We got Anderson to set up a computerized sorting program. We type in lists for each woman and push a button and it finds matches. So far, we don't have any. But we do have something else."

  "What?"

  "We have nine women calling in-count 'em, nine-saying they got these drawings in the mail."

  "Nine?"

  "Over three years. Five of them saved the drawings. I've got a couple of squads running around right now, picking up the drawings, and four of the women are coming in this afternoon to talk to me and Black. We're probably gonna have to go out for the others. They can't get away from their jobs so easy."

  "If we got nine, then there are probably twenty more," Lucas said.

  "We're also getting a little more media space than we thought. There hasn't been much good crime news lately, so CNN and Fox picked up on the drawings from the local stations last night, and they're showing them every fifteen minutes all day."

  "So I can go home and take a nap?"

  "No. You and Del are going to six ad agencies. Gonna look in the art department for buzzcut guys with long dark coats. Also, you got a call from a Terry Marshall-he's a sheriff's deputy from over in Menomonie, in Wisconsin. Dunn County. He's hot to talk. And a guy named Gerry Haack who wants you to call back right away."

  Del said, "I've got the list of ad agencies. We can walk to them."

  "Let me make the calls, and we'll go," Lucas said.

  HE CALLED HAACK first. "What?"

  "You told those guys who I was," Haack screamed. The scream was followed by two rattling whack s, as though Haack had banged the receiver against a wooden wall. "They're gonna kill me. I'm gonna lose my job."

  "I didn't tell them anything," Lucas said bluntly. "I asked if Aronson was on the corner, and they said no. Then they asked who told me that, and when I wouldn't say, they guessed. And guess who they thought of first?"