Phantom prey ld-18

by John Sandford

  The gun was there-a.38, with hollow- point bullets. When concealed carry became legal in Minnesota, Hunter had been one of the first to qualify for a permit. Then he carried for a while-the.38, a Beretta 9mm, a.45, and then it all just got too heavy, and he started leaving the guns at home.

  He took the.38 with him, though, when he and his biker buddies rode out to Sturgis-they actually cheated, and shipped the bikes to Bismarck in the back of a couple of Chevy vans, driven by wives sworn to secrecy, and rode into Sturgis from there, greasy jeans and leather chaps and dirty boots and four- day beards, aging Brandos right out of the executive suite. The.38, he told her, was a necessity should there be trouble: “Nobody knows that I’ve got it,” he said with a grin, over breakfast. “Nobody knows where it came from. If I gotta use it, I can ditch it and be clear.”

  She’d said, “For Christ sakes, Hunter, you’re a mechanical engineer, you don’t shoot people. Leave the gun at home-it doesn’t make you look like a gunman, it makes you look like an idiot.”

  That had annoyed him, and he hadn’t spoken to her for a day or two; and he’d taken the gun.

  She lifted the gun out of the drawer, hefted it, put the muzzle to her temple, closed her eyes, started to squeeze, and Loren said, “Don’t do that. Alyssa, please. The gun could go off, you might not even kill yourself, you could leave yourself with half a brain. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “Don’t hurt me,” Fairy pleaded. Alyssa chuckled, and took the gun down, and now put the muzzle in her mouth-but it tasted bad, and she took it back out. “I’ve got to think about this,” she said. “One shot, at night, and the Davenport problem is gone,” Loren said. “We don’t even have to hurry-just watch his place. If everything isn’t perfect, we pass.”

  “Maybe he goes to bed at eight o’clock every night,” Alyssa suggested.

  “I don’t think so-he’s talked about working late. Weather says they’re mismatched that way. She gets up early every morning, he stays up late.”

  Alyssa turned off the stereo, carried the gun back to her bedroom and laid it on the nightstand next to the clock, where the green light of the clock, seen from her pillow, broke over the cylinder. Revolvers, she remembered from her lesson, were the simplest gun to use. No safeties-point and shoot.

  And if they were cocked first, the trigger was a hair- pull. A breath would slam the hammer down, and the bullet would be on its way.

  She lay back on the pillow, thinking. Put the gun back in her mouth. Or shoot Davenport.

  After a while, they all went to sleep.

  26

  Lucas got up early, feeling lethargic, after a bad night’s sleep. In looking back over the pattern of killings-not counting the murder of Frances Austin-it still appeared to him that they had to be connected. Had to be connected to the Fairy, whether the Fairy had used the knife, or not.

  He knew the Fairy was small, dark, and apparently in good physical condition. Some of the people who’d seen her had described her as young, but one woman said she wasn’t as young as she looked-while a guy in the same conversation had said something to the effect that whatever her age, she had a young ass.

  If, Lucas thought, you were looking for someone a bit crazy-perhaps even schizophrenic-with a powerful revenge motive, a somewhat older face but younger ass, you had Alyssa Austin.

  But Fairy was dark, while Austin was blond. That would not, Lucas thought, be an insuperable barrier for a woman whose career was built on providing youthful images to other woman, through her spas.

  A wig, some eyebrow pencil, youthful dress, a careful avoidance of prolonged contact with other people-it could be done.

  And, in the murder of Patricia Shockley, there’d been the question of why she would let an unknown woman, who looked like the Fairy, whom she’d been warned against… why she would allow her in the apartment? What if the unknown woman had shown up as the blond, unthreatening mother of Shockley’s own murdered friend?

  A long train of suppositions; not enough for an arrest. How about the burned car? Might that lead to her? Something that would pin her down? The only living person who’d seen the Fairy for more than a couple of minutes was the Xiong guy, if indeed he’d seen the Fairy at all.

  He was moving by eight, cleaned up, grumbled at the housekeeper and Sam, who’d already had breakfast, skimmed the papers. Neither one had anything on the arrest of Ricky and Helen, because, he knew, neither paper spent much time tracking the cops anymore. If the paper’s main cop guy had gone home for the day, you could murder the queen of England, and the papers wouldn’t know about it for eighteen hours.

  He made it to the office a few minutes after nine o’clock, and immediately went down to see Jackson, the photographer-Jackson wasn’t in, but had been in, was probably wandering around the building someplace, Lucas was told. Lucas grumbled more about that, as he sat and waited, and finally had the bright idea of calling Jackson on his cell phone-and it turned out the photographer was three offices down the hall.

  “Be there in a second,” he said, and he was.

  “How long would it take you to Photoshop those pictures of Alyssa Austin, and turn her into a brunette?”

  “Depends on how precisely accurate you want it to be,” Jackson said. “I’ve got a half- dozen shots. If you want all half dozen, and you want good but not perfect… half an hour. From right now to prints on your desk.”

  “Get it done,” Lucas said. “See you in half an hour.”

  While he was waiting for the photos, Lucas called Shrake, who was back at the Heather- watch apartment. “I was gonna call, but I didn’t think you’d be up yet,” Shrake said. “A weird thing happened- a guy showed up, looked like an asshole, talked to Heather, looked around the apartment. I’d seen him earlier on the street, walking around. Heather seemed to know him; didn’t have a problem letting him in.”

  “They were friendly?"

  "No, not especially. He just came in, hands in his pockets. Leather coat, black leather gloves. Looked around, mostly, and she just stood there. Then he left.”

  “Siggy’s security,” Lucas said. “That thought occurred to me,” Shrake said. “He gave off that feeling, like one of those Secret Service guys, checking the place out."

  "Stay in touch,” Lucas said. “Look-what about overtime? I’d like to get Jenkins back in here, but he’s not due until late afternoon. Then I’m supposed to be off, but I’d like to stay. I’d do it for free, but overtime would be nice.”

  “I’ll fix the overtime,” Lucas said. “Call him in.”

  Jackson showed up at ten o’clock and slid a half-dozen high resolution glossy prints across Lucas’s desk. Lucas picked them up. He’d seen the photos of Austin as a blonde, and the brunette hair, in the new photos, had transformed her. “Tricky part was her eyebrows, they might look a little fakey,” Jackson said.

  “Look perfect to me,” Lucas said. “I heard about the arrests last night,” Jackson said. “That picture of Davis help out?"

  "That cracked it,” Lucas said. “Everything came after that.” Jackson looked pleased. “I told them that the new gear was worth the money."

  "If these turn out to be something,” Lucas said, holding up the photos of Austin, “I’ll talk to Rose Marie about making that van a permanent item on your equipment list.”

  “Ah, man- that’d be great,” Jackson said.

  Xai Xiong, the man who may, or may not, have sold the burned car to the Fairy, worked at a computer rehab place on University Avenue, fixing what could be fixed, putting in new hard drives. You could, he told Lucas, buy a good- as- new used Dell for $150.

  “How long did you talk to the woman about your car?” Lucas asked.

  Xiong was a small man with a brush cut and a pale burn mark on one cheek. He was maybe thirty. “Fifteen minutes? Twenty minutes? She didn’t know nothing about cars.”

  “How’d you hook up with her?” Lucas asked. “I had the phone number in the window of the car, and she called

  I said I ne
eded nine thousand dollars, and she said that was okay, if the car ran good. I told her the car ran perfect and even had good rubber on it. The seats were sorta screwed, we welded them down, but I told her a lady would probably fit pretty good. So she said she was interested, and we met out there, and we drove the car a couple miles up the frontage road to this Purina place, and then back, and she said she’d take it.”

  “Paid cash."

  "Yup. Nine thousand dollars in hundred- dollar bills. Fresh in a bank envelope from Wells Fargo. Had me sign the papers, said she’d put them through, and that’s the last I heard from her. The cops tell me she never did put the papers through.”

  “Was nine thousand dollars a fair price?” Xiong’s eyes drifted and he smiled. “That’s what I was asking,” he said. “So maybe… she could have negotiated."

  "Some,” he admitted. “She never did. She just paid up.” She was rich, Lucas thought. As Frank Willett had said, the cost of a car was nothing. If Lucas could find a nine- thousand- dollar cash withdrawal from Austin’s account, at the right date, that would be a big plus. Lucas took the pack of photos out of his jacket pocket, slipped them out of the envelope. He handed them to Xiong and asked, “Does this look like her?”

  Xiong shuffled through them quickly, cocking his head back and forth, then handed them to Lucas and said, “That is her.”

  “You’re sure?"

  "Yeah, man-that’s her,” he said.

  So he had Austin as the Fairy, but no connection between the car and the crimes-and if the car had burned to the ground, there wouldn’t be one.

  And what did she use the car for, anyway? To get back and forth from the killing ground, so that if anyone saw her, they couldn’t say the killer had been driving a Benz or a Jag? Possibly. Probably.

  Xiong’s testimony would be challenged in court. Lucas would have to tie Austin/Fairy more tightly to the car, and to the Goth scene, before they could start pushing her directly.

  He dipped in his notebook for names: a number of people had seen her. If he could get one or two more to make a positive ID… If he could figure out where she’d kept the car, and he could positively tie her to it, that would make good Xiong’s identification…

  A bell dinged in the back of his mind. Where was the car burned? He called South St. Paul, was told that Janice Loomis- Smith, the cop who’d called him about it, was off. He told the guy on the phone what he was looking for, and the guy said, “Just down south of 494, on Concord, on the east side of the road. Why?”

  “Where’s the South St. Paul airport? Isn’t that down there, somewhere?”

  “It’s right up the hill. Six blocks, maybe. Why?"

  "Making connections,” Lucas said. “Thanks.” And that’s where the Austins had an airplane hangar, but no airplane.

  He looked at his watch: noon, and he was hungry, and not too far from home. The refrigerator was full of healthy stuff-salads, tofu, yogurts, turkey breast. He stopped at Baker’s Square Restaurant and had the French Dip without the dip, hold the fries, and a piece of raspberry pie as a replacement for the fries that were rightfully his.

  He was finishing the pie when Shrake called from the Heather watch. “Maybe you better get over here.”

  “What’s up?"

  "Heather just took a call. She listened for five seconds, then she hung up, and right now she’s sitting on the couch, with her arms crossed, looking at the door.”

  “Call SWAT. Tell them to stage up,” Lucas said. “No goddamn lights or sirens. Let’s get it on. I’m down on Ford parkway, I gotta get my vest, it’s in my truck. I’ll be there in ten.”

  He threw fifteen dollars at the cashier, said, “Use the rest for a tip,” and ran to the car, pulled it around, headed up Mt. Curve and then over to Mississippi River Boulevard, running stop signs, punched up the garage door, ran up to the truck, grabbed the duffel bag with his vest, ran back to the Porsche and was out the driveway in four minutes. Eight minutes later, having parked around a full block, he was climbing the stairs to the apartment, hauling along the duffel bag.

  Del was there, looking like a hippie except for his bulletproof vest, worn loose around his shoulders. Shrake and Jenkins hadn’t yet armored up, Kevlar helmets sitting on the table like lost turtles, vests on the floor. Shrake said, “St. Paul says the SWAT will be at the church in four or five minutes. They were all briefed yesterday afternoon, they were ready, so if this isn’t just a fuck- up, we oughta be good.”

  “… in four or five minutes,” Lucas said, standing on his tiptoes, back in the dark, trying to see the street. “Nobody out there. Looks like fuckin’ High Noon.”

  “I’m gonna feel like an asshole if nothing happens,” Shrake said. “Calling everybody in.”

  “You are an asshole,” Jenkins said. “I want you to know, Jenkins made me do it,” Shrake told Lucas. “I mean, if this doesn’t work out."

  "Anybody coming, anybody going?” Lucas asked.“Two cars, two minutes before you got here. Nobody in the apartment. Heather just sits there.”

  “Well, something’s happening,” Lucas said.

  Ten minutes. Lucas went to the bathroom to pee, came back out, said, “Somebody took all the paper towels.”

  “Here’s something,” Del said. “She’s up.” Heather went to the door, opened it. A man was there in a dark blue peacoat and sunglasses, and she threw her arms around his neck, pulling herself up to his throat. He bent to kiss her, and two other guys crowded in behind him, and Shrake said, “Let’s go, let’s go…”

  The guy walked past Heather, looked around, then moved up to the windows and pulled the shades. Lucas said to Del, “Put the glasses on him if he comes up to the window again. I don’t think that’s Siggy. He doesn’t walk like Siggy.”

  “Then who in the hell was she kissing?” Shrake asked. The guy pulled the shades on the second window, and Del said, “Shit, he looks like Siggy, but I think you’re right. He’s a dummy."

  "Gimme the glasses,” Jenkins said. “I know the fucker pretty good.” The guy appeared in the last window on the left, the kitchen, and pulled the shade, and Jenkins, peering through the 12x36 image stabilized binoculars, said, “Goddamnit. He does look like Siggy. And goddamnit, they’re pulling our weenies. That’s not him.”

  “You’re sure?"

  "Yeah-you know how? His earlobes are wrong,” Jenkins said

  “Siggy plays with his earring. He did it all the way through the bail hearing, kept playing with that diamond, big as a lemon drop, and he’s got these great big fat fleshy earlobes. This guy’s got no earlobes at all, and his mouth isn’t quite right. Jesus, he looks like him. He’s got the haircut, but that ain’t him.”

  Lucas looked at Shrake: “Talk to the SWAT. This is just more security… he’s coming in.”

  “How’re we going to see him with the shades down?” Jenkins asked.

  “The shades aren’t down in the bedroom,” Lucas said. “Siggy’s a horny bastard, he’s gonna nail her the minute he comes through the door. Unless they pull the shades down.”

  “Unless he’s been getting some tail down in Miami,” Jenkins said. “They got some primo stuff down there.”

  “He’s a family man,” Shrake said. “Even if he’s been getting it three times a day, he’ll try to prove to her he didn’t. I know what the guy’s like.”

  Del said, “But what if that tummy bump isn’t his work? Then what?”

  Five minutes.

  Del said, “One of the guys was peeking at us, out of the kitchen window. He’s got glasses.”

  “Can’t see in, we’re okay,” Shrake said. When they took the apartment, they’d covered the windows with a thin gray 3M film. From the other side of the street, it looked like you could see in, but you couldn’t.

  Five minutes.

  Jenkins said, “They’re in the street. One of them is coming right at the drugstore.”

  “You know what? He’s going to ask about us,” Del said.“How many of them know about us?” Lucas asked. “Phil and
Ann. They’re the only ones,” Del said. He had his phone in his hand, and he was speed- dialing. A moment later, he said, “Phil? This is Del. There’s a guy coming in the door. He’ll ask you who lives up here. Let somebody else answer-get out the back or something. Get Ann out of the way, too. He’s wearing a leather jacket, he’s just coming up to the door, now. Just get out of sight… don’t try to fake him out, he’ll read your face.”

  Two minutes.

  Phil called, Del listened. To Lucas: “The guy just left, he talked to Nancy, the pharmacist, she told him nobody lives here right now. Phil said it looked like he was headed around back, to the door.”

  “Snap-latch, should be locked,” Lucas said. They went quiet, listening. Nobody came up the stairs.

  Two minutes: they saw the guy come back around the end of the drugstore, and head across the street. He was talking on a cell phone.

  “Get ready,” Lucas said.

  Six minutes.

  Siggy showed up, but they didn’t know it. They found out later that he was in a raggedy ass Chevrolet that turned down into the parking garage entrance, and disappeared.

  Jenkins wondered, “Why didn’t she go to him?"

  "Kid,” Lucas suggested.

  “Leave the kid with Mom. Meet in a hotel across town. She comes in at a preset time, his security is all set up, they see if anybody comes in behind her.”

  “Maybe you ought to suggest that for next time,” Shrake said. “He doesn’t believe we’d still be here,” Lucas said. “It’s been too long."

  "He knows we just busted Antsy."

  "But that was Antsy’s fault,” Lucas said. “He doesn’t believe-"

  "Wait- wait,” Del said, urgently, and they all looked at the remaining open window, and Heather was there laughing, in the arms of a big man who reached out and pulled the blind, and they were already tumbling toward the bed when the blind came down, and Jenkins said, “Hello, Siggy.”