Chosen Prey ld-12

by John Sandford

  She straightened. "You're kidding me," she breathed. "Oh, man."

  "A violent guy-if he's the right guy," Lucas said.

  "Well, let's get him," Barstad said enthusiastically. "I can bring him over here. We can work out something for me to say, either leading him on or just putting it right to him."

  Lucas nodded. "We can work on it," he said. "We appreciate this."

  She said, "Those women the gravedigger killed. They said he likes a type. I thought about it, because…" She looked down at herself.

  Del said, "Yeah. You're the type. Exactly."

  They talked a while longer, about the possibilities of bugging the apartment. "If it worked… we're really looking for every scrap we can find, so it would be very helpful," Lucas told her. "We don't want you to get in over your head."

  "But this guy is some kind of maniac," Barstad said. "You've got to catch him. If this is the way to do it… I can help. It sounds… neat."

  Del shrugged, looked at Lucas, and said, "I think it's worth a try."

  They agreed to try, as quickly as it could be done. Lucas suggested that until they could work the trap, Barstad stay out of her apartment and out of touch with Qatar. "Maybe call him right now and tell him you have to go somewhere-Chicago-to see about a quilt show. Tell him you'll be back tomorrow."

  She agreed, and while Lucas and Del looked, she called Qatar's house, got an answering machine, and left the message. "Listen, I really, really need to get together tomorrow, though. Could you come over tomorrow after your one o'clock class? Then maybe we can go wine shopping. I got out some more money-might as well do it right…" She hung up.

  "That was fine. And now, get out," Lucas said. "Get some clothes together-we'll take you with us and find you a place to stay."

  "What about this place?" she asked. "When are you going to bug it?"

  "If we decide to go ahead, probably this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Otherwise, we'll just keep you out of sight until we pick him up. Don't want to take any chances with you," Lucas said.

  "I work at a bookstore in the evenings. Could you call them and fix things?"

  "Yeah. We can take care of it."

  She got a bag, took ten minutes to pack it, and they left together in the city car. On the way back, Lucas called Marcy, who set up a room in the Radisson Hotel. They checked her in, warned her about going out, and left her.

  "That's the goddamn ditziest woman I've met since forever," Del said on the way out of the hotel. "What are the chances that she's gonna stay in that room?"

  "She says Qatar doesn't like to go out, so… I don't know. She oughta be okay," Lucas said. They rode in silence for a minute or two, and then Lucas added, "I hope."

  "Maybe we ought to put somebody with her."

  "I'll talk to Marcy. Maybe tonight… She is a little loose in the hinges, isn't she?"

  WHEN THEY GOT back to the office, Lucas asked Marcy, "Hear anything from Lane?"

  "He said Qatar's got a class. He'll try to spot him, then figure out a photograph. If he can't get him at the school, he'll try to get him at his house."

  "He can't be seen," Lucas said.

  "I told him that. He knows," she said. "Towson called. He wants to talk to you. And Weather called."

  "Towson's got a problem?" Randall Towson was the county attorney.

  "I told him everything," she said. "He's a little worried about going with an identification by Randy. Randy's pretty impeachable, he says."

  "Sure, but we've got the hard evidence: We found the earrings in his apartment," Lucas said.

  "Call him," Marcy said.

  "I will-but I need you to check out a surveillance deal…" He told her about Barstad and her apartment, and the possibility of using Barstad as bait in a trap.

  "All right, I'll get on it. I better talk to her first, find some place we can do the monitoring from."

  Lucas looked around. "Where's Marshall?"

  "He went home. He'll be back, but he had some stuff to do."

  "Okay. And I'll call Towson." As he was dialing, he could see Marcy moving around the office. She was moving well, the pain receding from her face, although on occasion she would ease herself past a piece of furniture or up a step, still feeling the damage to her side and rib cage. But maybe the artist was good for her, Lucas thought. She'd been cheerful for the past couple of days, the first time he'd seen that in a while.

  RANDALL TOWSON WASN'T a bad county attorney, as county attorneys went; still, he had his own priorities, like reelection. He did not enjoy losing court cases that were heavily covered by the movie people, who might imply that he'd let a multiple murderer slip through his incompetent fingers. With evidence, he always wanted more.

  "Look," he said, "Marcy laid it out pretty well, and I appreciate the circumstantial stuff and the supportive evidence like his college record. But at this point, if you don't get Whitcomb you don't get Qatar. And Whitcomb is not reliable. When he figures out that he could be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, he might be pretty unhappy with our side. And what's Qatar ever done to him?"

  "I know. We're working on one more thing," Lucas said. He described the relationship between Barstad and Qatar. "She's cooperating. We're gonna wire her apartment, and if we get him talking, maybe we won't need Randy as much."

  "Good. The more the better," Towson said. "You still want to get Whitcomb, but this Barstad-if we can get him on tape, and Whitcomb comes through, he's toast."

  "If he doesn't say anything?"

  "Well, shit… Wait for Whitcomb, and if Whitcomb comes through, take Qatar. Once we get him and we get into his house, get at his computer and all his other stuff, there's a chance we'll find more."

  "That's what I was thinking," Lucas said.

  " 'Cause there'd be one thing worse than losing the trial-and that's having him kill somebody else while we're jacking around."

  "Especially if the TV people found out about it."

  "That's what I was thinking," said Towson.

  WEATHER HAD CALLED to see if they were going out for dinner. Lucas said, "Things are happening. I'll get back if I can, but you better not count on it."

  "There. You sound as cheerful as you have all winter," she said.

  "Yeah, well… it's getting intricate." He liked intricate. They talked for a few more minutes, and then he saw Marcy hold up a finger, and he said, "I gotta go. Titsy calls."

  "Then you gotta go."

  Marcy moved quickly on the surveillance. "We've got Jim Gibson free. He's going up to the Radisson to get Barstad's keys, and then he's gonna go over and look at her apartment right now. Barstad says there's a place next door called Culver Processing Sales that's a good possibility as a place that we can hide out. I just talked to the owner, it's a Dave Culver, and he says he wants to talk to the guy in charge-you-before he says yes."

  "I'll get a bite and then I'll run back up there," Lucas said. "Is Gibson on the way?"

  "Pretty soon."

  Lucas walked across to the cafeteria, got a tapioca pudding and a cup of coffee, glanced at the morning papers, and then headed out again. At Barstad's, he saw Gibson standing in the parking lot behind his van; when he swung past to park, he saw Barstad using her keys to open the door. "Goddamnit." What was she doing here?

  "She told me she was supposed to come along," Gibson said when Lucas got out and asked him. "Is that wrong?"

  "It would be if Qatar swung by for an afternooner," Lucas said.

  Inside, Barstad said, "I needed to come back anyway. I forgot some stuff-I refuse to wash my hair with hotel shampoo. You never know what's in it."

  "We need to keep you out of sight."

  "James is teaching," she said. "He'd never come all the way here without calling, so…" She shrugged, then smiled and said, "C'mon. I'll introduce you to Dave Culver. He's a nice guy."

  "What does he do?"

  "Sells big meat cutters and grinders and so on to restaurants."

  Culver was a heavyset man in his late fifties wi
th a square dark face with a Stalinesque mustache. He was in the back of his business, ripping cardboard boxes, when they pushed through the front door. A buzzer went off in the back, and Barstad shouted, "Hey, Dave, it's me. And the cops."

  They were standing in a small reception room, with three easy chairs and a coffee table. The coffee table had three deer-hunting magazines, a four-wheeler magazine, a battered copy of The New Yorker, and sales literature for automated meat cutters.

  Culver came out of the back, said "Hi, sweetie" to Barstad and "Dave Culver" to Lucas. Lucas shook his hand and introduced himself, and outlined what they hoped to do.

  "Is Miss Crazy Quilt gonna get her ass in trouble?" Culver asked.

  "That's why we need to be close," Lucas said. "We don't think he'll pull anything, but just in case…"

  "All right," Culver said. "My only other problem is, I don't want to be dealing with some gang or something that's gonna be coming by here afterward and tear up the place. I've got a quarter-million bucks' worth of new equipment in the back."

  "It's one guy," Lucas said. "He's not connected to anyone. If we take him off, he won't be out of Stillwater for thirty years minimum."

  Culver nodded. "So, use the place. You got any friends in the restaurant business, give them my card."

  CULVER'S SHOP WAS divided into three: a front reception area with the coffee table, only a few feet deep; two offices behind the reception area; and a big warehouse area behind that. Gibson looked at it, measured it, walked over to Barstad's, did some more measuring, and wound up in one of the middle offices. "I can go right through the wall here, and here, no permanent damage," he told Culver. "Is that okay?"

  "Fine with me… Get some of my stuff out of your way."

  "How good will the sound be?" Lucas asked.

  "Should be great," Gibson said. "When I get done miking the place a goddamn cockroach couldn't sneak through on its hands and knees. We won't need any transmitters-we can hard-wire everything. Digital sound. You want a camera?"

  "I don't know. Is there a problem with a camera?" Lucas asked.

  "It's a little more intrusive," Gibson said. "I think we could fix it so he couldn't see it-in the big room, anyway; there's no good place in the bedroom or the bathroom-but there's always the chance that he'll spot it. If the camera can see him, he can see it. The lens, anyway."

  "See what you can do," Lucas said.

  "There's also a privacy question," Gibson said.

  Barstad was there, and said, "What's that?"

  "If you are… luring him… and if you've slept together, then he may expect some physical contact. Sound is one thing, pictures are something else."

  She shook her head. "Go ahead. I'm not body-shy."

  They both looked at her. Lucas shook his head and said to Gibson, "Whatever you can do."

  When they were done, and the equipment had tested out, Lucas looked at his watch and said, "We're all done for the day. Jim, if you'd drop Ellen off at the hotel on the way back, I'd appreciate it. We all gotta be back here, in place, at noon tomorrow. Ellen, you and I can talk about your approach to Qatar when we're back here tomorrow-think of some possible things you might say, and I'll think of some, and we'll work it out tomorrow. Okay? Everybody know what we're doing?"

  Everybody knew.

  LANE CALLED LATER, about Qatar: "I missed the sonofabitch-there're just too many doors here, and I don't know where the hell he's gotten to. He's not home. But I've seen him, I know who he is, and I'll wait outside his house. If he comes in too late, I'll get here early tomorrow. I'll get him tomorrow for sure."

  "Soon as you can, man."

  "I know, I know."

  24

  MARCY CALLED LUCAS at eight-thirty and caught him still in bed. He picked up the phone and said, "What?"

  "The docs had a talk with Randy late yesterday afternoon," she said. "They told him he might not walk again and all the rest of it. He freaked out. I called over there today, to this Robert Lansing guy, to set up a rush-rush deal to get the photos over there when Lane gets them… and Lansing says it's all off for now. He said Randy won't talk to anyone-he won't even talk to Lansing. He screams at everybody who comes in the room. He ripped out all his IVs-the nurses had to tie him into the bed."

  "Jesus."

  "Well, you know, if it was one of us…"

  "Yeah." If it was him, Lucas thought, he might sooner or later stick a gun in his mouth. "What about Lane? Do we have anything to work with?"

  "Not yet. We're still on hold. He got Qatar in the parking lot, but just couldn't get around in front of him enough. The whole problem is getting in front of him. He's gonna sit on the car all day, and get him coming in."

  "Goddamnit, Marcy. Tell him to push it," Lucas said.

  "Even if he takes a chance on being seen?"

  "No, no, no… He can't be seen. That'd mess up everything."

  "Then you gotta be patient, Lucas," she said.

  "No, I don't. I'm the fuckin' boss."

  QATAR WAS SITTING at his desk, trying to get through a deck of photographic slides he used in lecture. He didn't like to use more than twenty per class-they couldn't be absorbed, he felt, and forced him to rush the analyses; when all was said and done, he was a decent teacher-and they had to be arranged in a certain aesthetic order. He hated to have light, bright slides immediately before or after dark-colored slides. That was like serving heavy, strong-flavored food with light, delicate wine; you couldn't appreciate either one.

  Beyond that, as a buzz in the back of his mind, lingered the fear created by the growing media spectacle of the gravedigger. The state forensics team was still working on his hillside, and there were daily alarms, later retracted, of more bodies. And speculations about the ogre who could have killed so many women. Two of the stations had paid retired FBI agents to profile the killer; the profiles were generally similar, with one of the agents specifying a "fastidious dresser" who would be as meticulous in his personal habits as he was in his graveyard.

  All of this was humming in the background of his slide-sort, when the phone rang. He picked it up, thinking, Ellen, and it was.

  "I'm back," she said. She seemed uncharacteristically breathless. "Did you get my message?"

  "Yes. This afternoon would be fine. How much do you have for the wine?"

  "A thousand. I sold a huge star quilt, the rippling light. I thought with a thousand, I could get a really good start."

  "A fine start," Qatar said. "I'll bring my book and we can work through the list before we go."

  "Listen… I don't want to give anything away, but… have you ever heard of sexual asphyxiation?"

  "What?"

  "I saw it in a movie last night. Some art film. A guy hanged himself-not completely, but enough to choke off the air-and when the police asked him about it, he said you have the most wonderful orgasms."

  "Well… I've heard of it, but it sounds painful. I understands it's often done with silk neckties, but I think it might be dangerous. I mean, brain damage."

  "Oh. But, if you were really careful…"

  "Ellen, I don't know. Let's wait until I get over. We don't want to go too far."

  "Okay. I'll see you this afternoon." Again, a little breathless. She must've been busy. "But, James… think about it."

  He couldn't stop thinking about it. He kept thinking about it as he finished sorting, and developed an erection so intense that it was almost painful. He might have done something about it immediately, but for his class. And during his class…

  One of the young virgins in his Matrix of Romanticism class was nearly perfect: blank, clueless blue eyes, fine slender body, punky blond hair. She would be perfect, he thought, except for her incessant gum-chewing, and the constant presence of an earphone in one ear. She even tried to listen to music during his class, until he questioned it. She unplugged, annoyed, and told him that she was only listening to background music for his lecture and the art. She always tried to find something appropriate.

  Lik
e what? he asked. Beethoven?

  "Enigma," she said. "The Screen Behind the Mirror."

  "Please…"

  But today she was sitting there with her virginal legs stretched out in front of her, and a little into the aisle, nicely encased in nylon; and she wore a thin white sweater like a fifties movie star.

  He thought of sexual asphyxiation and tried to talk about Gйricault's The Raft of the Medusa, and also keep his sports jacket appropriately draped as the erection came and went. He could imagine this blank-eye blonde on a bed, the long, groove of her spinal column leading up her back to her neck, her head arches in orgasm and the rope in his hand…

  By the time he left for Ellen Barstad's studio, he was in a hurry, his worries about the gravedigger investigation pushed to the back of his mind. He needed to see her now.

  In his hip pocket, he carried his rope.

  LANE CALLED: "LUCAS, I got him coming out of the building, heading to the car. Good shots. I'm gonna take it over to a one-hour place-I oughta have big prints by the time you get out of there."

  "Good, but have you talked to Marcy? We're a little hung up on Randy," Lucas said.

  "Yeah, I talked to her. They haven't worked anything out yet, but having the pictures can't hurt."

  "Okay. You just do the pictures. You say he's out of the place?"

  "He is, and he's moving your direction. He's in a hurry."

  Lucas, Del, Marshall, and Gibson were huddled in the middle office with two TV monitors, both hooked to the same camera and each with its own tape deck; a couple of Bose speakers; two tape recorders; and four separate cell phones.

  Lucas picked up his phone and called Barstad next door. "Ellen, he's coming. Now, if it doesn't work, if it gets uncomfortable, throw his ass out. If he won't go, yell for help. Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine," she said. "Don't worry, Lucas. I'm going to hang up now…" And she did.

  "Crazy chick," Gibson said.

  They couldn't see her: She was in the bedroom, and there had been no place for a monitor. Even if there had been, Lucas was worried by the privacy problem: A camera pointing at the bed didn't seem right, though Barstad hadn't seemed bothered by the concept. They'd finally decided that the room was simply too small and sparsely furnished. Qatar had been there several times, Barstad said; they didn't want to change the style just to hide the camera. The only camera was hidden behind the grille of a return-air vent at the front door, from where it could sweep the room.