Chosen Prey ld-12

by John Sandford

  Gibson could change the sound from one mike to the next with a simple slide switch. The microphones were sensitive enough that they could hear Barstad moving around, could hear the refrigerator open, could hear her flush the toilet.

  "One more mike, we could hear her pee," Gibson said.

  "That's what we want to put in front of a jury," Del said. "Our witness taking a leak."

  Marshall disapproved. "I worry about this girl. She thinks she knows what she's getting into, but she doesn't. She ain't a hell of a lot more than a child."

  "She says he doesn't carry a gun, he doesn't carry a knife. If he goes to get a knife, she'll scream her head off and we'll be there in twelve seconds."

  The twelve seconds wasn't a guess. They'd timed it.

  "That's a long goddamn time if somebody is cutting your throat or hitting you on the head with a ballpeen hammer," Marshall said.

  "Yeah, well… So I'm worried too. This is what we've got, and I think we're ninety-seven percent okay," Lucas said.

  DEL HAD MOVED out to the front while Lucas and Marshall argued; Qatar drove a green and silver Outback, and from the silvered window, Del could see the entire parking lot. The waiting grew uncomfortable as they listened to Barstad moving around in her apartment. Then Del said, "He's here."

  Lucas was speed-dialing Barstad. She picked up, and he said, "He's here. You know how to call us."

  "I know. I'm ready." She was gone.

  "He's out of the car," Del said. He stepped away from the window and headed back toward the office. "Here we go."

  "Oh, shit-look at this," Gibson said. He was staring at the monitor. They'd heard Barstad step away to the bedroom after she hung up the phone, and now, five seconds later, she was back-and she wasn't wearing a stitch. She was walking toward the door and the camera.

  "Jesus," Lucas said.

  Del picked up the tone and bent around the monitor to look. "She must have goose bumps the size of watermelons," he said. "You know

  … she's… jeez. She's not bad. All natural."

  She glanced up at the camera as she got to the door, and Lucas thought she might have been smiling. "Fuckin' crazy goddamn…"

  BARSTAD OPENED THE door and said, "Come in quick. It's a little cool."

  "Mmm," he said. He fitted a hand around her hip and they kissed, long and carefully. As they broke apart, he said, "You look nice. The cold is nice for your nipples." He reached out and gently pinched one, and the slight pain caused her to breathe in, sharply, quickly. She said, "James, I really need something here."

  "So do I," he said. He had the cord in his pocket, but for now, forgotten. She had taken his hand and was pulling him back toward the bedroom.

  "Wait," she said. "The bedroom's so dark." She went to the wall, where a futon unfolded over a couch rack. "Help me," she said.

  Together they pulled the futon off the rack and threw it on the floor, and she began tearing at his clothing. He was saying, "Wait, wait wait…" as she pulled at his shirt and then at his belt. He was staggering around with his pants down around his ankles when she caught him in her mouth, and he started to laugh and tried to push her away and finally collapsed on the futon.

  "GOD HELP ME," Gibson said. "Look at this."

  "This could be a problem," Lucas said. "This could be a problem. Christ, the defense attorneys will put this on and they'll impeach the shit out of her."

  "I don't know," Del said. "She's so up front about it. Maybe she'll just tell them she likes… Oh, Jesus."

  "Maybe she likes it, but on television?"

  Marshall backed out of the office. "This is over the edge."

  "The guy's kinda hung," Gibson said.

  "You think so?" Del asked. "I was gonna say he was a little small."

  As sex always does, it ended, with Barstad and Qatar lying on the futon. The camera wasn't good enough to tell, but the cops imagined that both of them were covered with sweat and out of breath; they thought that because everybody in the monitoring room was sweating and out of breath. Lucas could smell them all.

  BARSTAD, NEARLY RECOVERED, said, "James. You were ready. What have you been doing? You were really excellent."

  Qatar smiled at her, but his ears tingled: There was a false note there, a kind of patronizing overtone. He'd never heard it before. He said, "Thank you. You can get me… seriously turned on."

  "Do you like slapping me?" she asked. There it was again, that tone.

  "If you like it," he said. "I think I like the Ping-Pong paddles better."

  She made a little moue. "That just made my bottom hurt, and I didn't get to see it."

  "But I got to see it," he said. "And it more than made your bottom hurt."

  "We're past that," she said. "Moving on."

  "Moving on sooner or later," he said. He stood up. "I'm going to run back to the bathroom. Back in a sec."

  FROM CULVER'S OFFICE, they could hear him in the bathroom, the water running in the sink. On the television monitor, Barstad lay with her back to them, but once or twice peeked over her shoulder in the direction of the camera.

  "She's really getting off on this," Del said.

  "So am I," said Gibson. "I wonder what her date calendar looks like."

  "Ya oughta keep your goddamn mouth shut," Marshall snapped at Gibson. Lucas said, "Hey," and Marshall said, "Goddamnit, Lucas, she's the spitting image of Laura. If I'd known this-"

  Gibson interrupted. "Here he comes."

  QATAR WALKED BACK toward the camera, much diminished now. He was carrying a blanket from the bedroom, and when he dropped beside her, put it over his shoulders and around hers. "Did you ever talk to that woman again? The lesbian thing?"

  "Not yet. There's no point, if you don't want to go along."

  "All right." He was satisfied-clear on the lesbian front. He could hear the rope in his pants pocket, calling to them. "You know, I can see why somebody like you might be interested. But I…" He sighed and stopped.

  "Tough day?" she asked.

  "Oh… with Mom gone… I mean, with the medical examiner and everybody looking at her. They're saying that the cause of death is undetermined, which I don't know-it means they might think it's not natural."

  "James," she said, "when we left the medical examiner's the other day… we went shopping and that kind of freaked me out. I mean, it seemed almost like you'd forgotten her somehow."

  "What?" His forehead wrinkled. "Ellen, that's just what I do when I'm upset. You know I like to shop, and I was just very upset and

  I…"

  His words were coming faster and faster, and finally she held up her hand and said, "Okay, I'm sorry." She wrapped her arms around her knees. "I just, I don't know. I've been reading about this gravedigger guy, and he seems so… cruel. I thought you seemed a little cruel."

  He heard the false note again. He was a historian and a critic, and he could pick up a false note as quickly as anyone. He said, "You're comparing me to this gravedigger person?"

  "No, no. I just want people not to be cruel." Then she smiled at him and her hand wandered to his groin. "Well, maybe a little cruel sometimes," she said. "Have you been thinking about my call?"

  His mind was clicking over now: She was interrogating him. But was she doing it on her own, or was there somebody with her? Could somebody hear them? For Christ's sakes, could somebody see them? He didn't dare look. He said, "I thought this afternoon, because of my mother… something gentle. Something that takes a long time."

  She seemed disappointed, and that was, in his mind, confirmation. Something was going on, and he didn't know what it was. "Why don't we do something excessively oral?" He slipped his fingers between her legs. "I haven't been in here yet."

  "HE SORTA WALKED away from that question," Del said.

  "Doesn't look like she'll be asking any more for a while," said Gibson.

  "Goddamnit," Marshall said to Gibson. "Somebody ought to kick your ass for you."

  "Take it easy, pal," Gibson said. "When we get finished with this, yo
u wanna take it outside, I'll go with you."

  "Nobody's taking it outside," Lucas said. To Gibson he said, "Another comment about Barstad and you'll be directing traffic at a construction site." And to Marshall: "You keep your problems to yourself or I'll ship your ass back to Dunn County." And to both of them: "Everybody know where I'm coming from?"

  LATER, WHEN THEY finished with a second round, Barstad asked, "What do you think of the gravedigger?"

  "Well, I guess I think what everybody thinks," he said. "He's a crazy man. He needs care."

  "I think they just ought to take him out and dump him in a hole somewhere, and cover it up and not tell anybody where he is," she declared. "That would teach him."

  "That would," he said. "You're right." Qatar stood up and gathered his clothes. "Everything's getting wrinkled," he said fussily. "Let me go hang them up."

  "The rack in the bedroom," she said lazily. "Hurry back."

  "You are far too young for me, m'dear," he said.

  Qatar was in a panic. She'd mentioned asphyxiation sex twice; she'd mentioned the gravedigger three times-she was interrogating him, he thought, but then…

  Was it possible that it was all a symptom of her craziness, with her whole sexual experimentation regime? Was it possible that the gravedigger turned her on? That all of this was innocent?

  Then why the false notes? And they were false, clanging like a leaden bell. And now some of her smiles seemed false, and her sexual commentary too dramatic.

  The biggest problem, he thought, was that he'd stupidly brought his rope. If there were police around, if they were watching him, they would hang him with it. He didn't know the details of DNA, but he had a general idea of how it worked. And the rope looked dense: It must have soaked up blood-there had been blood almost every time-and skin, and who knows what else.

  In the bedroom, he looked around quickly, but there seemed no place to hide anything. He carefully hung his clothes on the rack, then took the rope out of his pants pocket, coiled it tightly, and stepped out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. She had a large rack of towels, washcloths, and other bathroom equipment on a stainless-steel kitchen rack, pushed against one wall. He turned on the water, then slipped the rope under the bottom pile of towels. He washed himself, dried, and went back to the front room.

  A camera? Who knew? It might even excite him if he knew…

  She was waiting and asked, "What next? You don't want to try the necktie thing?"

  "Some other time," he said. "It really makes me nervous, thinking about it."

  Again the shadow of disappointment-but exactly how was she disappointed? Because a conspiracy was failing, or because she wanted a loop around her neck?

  "James, you can be such a pill," she said.

  A little after three o'clock, Qatar left.

  "I thought we were gonna go wine shopping," Barstad complained. "I got some money out, I got a book on it-"

  "Ellen, you have absolutely destroyed me. I couldn't go wine shopping today without risking a stroke. Next time, we'll go wine shopping before we start the sex. Honestly, you're a little bit… over the top."

  "A pill," she said. "You really can be."

  "NOTHING HERE," DEL said, as they watched him leave.

  Marshall said, "But I think that little girl could use treatment."

  Lucas said to Gibson, "I want the tapes-I'll take them with me. I don't want any copies made, I don't want any editing. I'll tell you guys, we're all playing with our jobs on this. If it turns out that Qatar is innocent, and he believes we set him up to make this tape… our gooses could be cooked."

  "Hey, I just did what you told me," Gibson said.

  "I know. But you'd be cooked anyway. That's why I'm taking the tapes. They're going in a safe, and if we don't need them in this case, I'll burn the sonsofbitches." He shook his head. "Little Miss Muffin may have fucked us up."

  THEY STOOD BY the silvered window and watched Qatar walk across the parking lot and get into his car. He seemed a little beaten, and Lucas almost sympathized with him: Barstad was definitely, distinctly, too much. Lucas collected the tapes, and said to Del and Marshall, "We're back to Randy."

  25

  LUCAS BROUGHT IN the intelligence cops to watch Qatar. Since Qatar didn't know he was being watched, only one man was assigned at a time: one man to watch the car, get him to work, monitor the classroom, and his travels during the day. "If he gets erratic, we'll get you help," Lucas told the first guy up. "Basically, at this point, it's baby-sitting."

  The baby-sitter took Qatar through the night and then to work; a new guy picked him up at work, took him out of his office to a classroom, out to lunch, shopping, a visit to a funeral home, back to his office.

  Lucas stayed in touch all day, but focused on the problem with Randy. He finally decided the best way to handle it was with Marcy. "He relates to women. He may relate to your getting shot."

  "You want me to show him the bullet hole?"

  She didn't have a bullet hole; she had a scar that looked like the star shape made when a pebble falls in mud, with a string leading out of it, which was the surgeon's entry cut. She was being tough, and Lucas recognized it: "If you think it'll help. You've got to read him."

  Lucas applied some pressure on Randy's attorney by calling the public defender and explaining the deal. The PD went to Lansing and told him to take it, and to talk to Randy about it. The bureaucratic hassling took all of the morning and a piece of the afternoon, and finally an assistant county attorney got back to Lucas.

  "We've been talking with the Ramsey county attorney and the Ramsey PD, and this is the deal: If Whitcomb can positively identify the picture, and give us details surrounding his contacts with the suspect…"

  "Qatar."

  "Yeah, Qatar. If he can do that, Ramsey'll reduce the ag assault to simple assault and drop the drug charge down to misdemeanor possession-and he takes a six-month to two-year sentence, which he spends in the hospital, because that's how long the docs think rehab will take. In other words, he takes an easy fall and we pay for medical."

  "We'd have to pay it anyway, one way or another," Lucas said. "So the deal is done?"

  "Everybody's agreed but Randy. The idea is, you show up with the pictures and see if you can get him to move."

  "I'm sending Marcy Sherrill in to talk to him. He has a personal problem with me."

  "Whatever you think. We need him if we're gonna have a chance with Qatar."

  LUCAS AND MARCY drove to Regions together, and talked about approaches. "He's a pimp," Lucas said. "You oughta show a little street balls, like a hooker, but basically back off when he comes on to you. Gonna have to play him."

  "That's the bullshit I don't like," she said. "That's why I never was a good decoy. I always wanted to go straight for the throat."

  "Aim a little lower this time," Lucas said. "If you can get a grip on his dick, we can put Qatar away this afternoon."

  Lansing was waiting outside Randy's hospital room. Lansing looked at Marcy and asked Lucas, "Who's this?"

  "Why don't you ask me? I'm standing right here," Marcy said.

  Lansing stepped back. "All right. Who're you?"

  "I'm a Minneapolis police sergeant and I'm a little fuckin' cranky this afternoon, so if you don't want me to pull your nose off, I'd suggest you be polite. I'm the one who talks to Whitcomb."

  Lansing looked at Lucas, who shrugged. " I'malways polite with her."

  Lansing nodded abruptly, as if he'd had enough of the Minneapolis police show. "All right. I'll tell Mr. Whitcomb why we're here, and then you can make your pitch. It's all fine with us, if he goes for it-but he's pretty angry."

  "I can relate," Marcy said.

  Lucas waited in the hall, holding the door open just enough to hear. Lansing started the introductions, and Randy said, "Get her out of here. Get her the fuck out of here."

  He sounded like he was trying to scream, but his voice was a cross between a whisper and a croak, as though he'd been shouting in whisper
s all day.

  Marcy said, "I know what you're feeling, Randy. I got shot myself last year. I'm still in rehab."

  "Tell somebody who cares, you fuckin' cunt," Randy croaked. "I wish they'd hit you in the fuckin' head."

  Lansing said, "Randy, you've got to listen to this. This is a deal that's the best you could hope for, this is-"

  "Fuck you. You're fired. I want another attorney. I got no fuckin' legs… You hear this?" Lucas heard a whacking sound and peeked through the door. Randy was flat on his back but flailing at his legs with one free hand. "Nothing here, nothing here…"

  Lansing tried to grab his arm, said, "C'mon, stop it, Randy, gotta stop, you're hurting yourself."

  A nurse burst past Lucas and into the room and shouted, "What's going on here? What's going on?"

  Randy subsided, looked at the nurse, and said weakly, "Get them the fuck outa here. Get them the fuck out."

  "NEVER HAD A chance," Marcy said, as they left the hospital. "Never let me get going."

  "He was a little excited," Lucas said.

  "Ah, man. I felt sorry for the guy," Marcy said. "Makes me think… I got lucky last year. A couple inches to the left, and I'm just like that."

  "Nah." Lucas shook his head.

  "Sure I would've been."

  "Nah. A couple inches to the left with that rifle, and you would've been deader'n a mackerel," he said.

  She stopped. "I'm not riding back with you if you're gonna pout about this."

  "Who's pouting?" He looked back at the hospital. "Miserable little shit."

  AFTER QATAR LEFT Barstad's apartment, he'd driven home and buried himself in his bed, sick with apprehension. But nothing had happened. Was it simply paranoia?

  He relived every moment of the afternoon's sexual seizure with Barstad-it had been more like a seizure than play, he thought-and as he worked through it, eyes closed, in the silence of his bedroom.