Night Prey

by John Sandford

  "We're running your knife through the crime lab," Connell said.

  "It looks like it might have some blood gummed up in the hinges."

  "Well, shit," Hillerod said, and he looked uncomfortable for a moment as he thought about what she'd said. "If there's blood, it's animal blood. That's a hunting knife."

  "This ain't exactly deer season," Lucas said.

  "If there's any goddamned blood on that knife, it's deer bloodþor you put it there just to get me," Hillerod said heatedly. "You fuckin' cops think you can get away with anything."

  Capella's voice rode over his client's. "My client remembers the bookstore in Madison."

  "That's a long time to remember," Bich marveled. "Several years, if I've got it right."

  remember cause it's the only bookstore I ever been in," Hillerod snarled.

  Capella kept talking. "... and he's got a witness of good reputation who spent that whole night with him down in Madison, and he's sure she'll remember it independently of anything we talk about here.

  Without any prompting from me or Joe. I will state that we have not been in touch with her, and that Joe's confident that she'll remember."

  "You've got a name?" Lucas asked.

  "You can have the name and the circumstances in which they met," the lawyer said. "The fact is, he picked her up at the bookstore."

  didn't have nothing to do with the guns," Hillerod said sullenly.

  "We're not talking about that," his lawyer said quickly. He patted Hillerod on the knee. "That's not part of the deal."

  "We know the killer smokes Marlboros," Lucas said, leaning toward Hillerod. "You smoke Marlboros, right?"

  "No, no, I usually smoke Merits, I'm trying to quit," Hillerod said.

  just got the Marlboros that once."

  "Your man is lying to us," Lucas said to Capella. "We know he's smoked Marlboros for years."

  Capella said, "He says Merits... I gotta believe him."

  "Merits taste like shit," Bich said. "Why'd you smoke Merits? Is that all you smoke?"

  "Well, I'm trying to quit," Hillerod said, not meeting their eyes.

  smoke some Marlboros, but I didn't kill anybody. I smoke some Ventures, too."

  The Marlboro bluS hadn't worked. "We want to know about the bookstore," Connell said.

  "In Madison?" Hillerod's eyes defocused for a moment, and then he said, "How'd you know about that, anyway?"

  "We've got a witness," Connell said. "You left with a woman."

  "That's right," Hillerod said. Then he said, "She's gotta be the one who told you."

  "She's not," Lucas said. "Our witness... well, it's a woman, but it's not your friend. If you've got a friend. But we want to know about the other woman. The one who turned up dead the next day."

  "Wasn't me," Hillerod said. "The woman I left with, she's still alive.

  And she must've told you that I couldn't have done it, cause I was with her."

  "What's her name?" asked Connell.

  Hillerod scratched his face, glaring at her, but Connell looked levelly back, as though she were an entomologist examining a notparticularly-interesting beetle. "Abby Weed," he said finally.

  "Where does she live?"

  Hillerod shrugged. "I don't know the address, just how to get there.

  But you can get her at the university." "Honest to God," Lucas said.

  After a minute, he said, "He wanted your phone number."

  "Did you give it to him?"

  Lucas said, "I didn't know what to do, Meagan. I didn't know whether to tell him you were sick, or what. So I... yeah, I gave it to him.

  "You didn't tell him I was sick?"

  "No. I didn't."

  They drove on for another minute, in silence, and then Connell began to weep. Eyes open, head up, big hands square on the wheel, she began sobbing, breath tearing from her chest, tears streaming down her face.

  Lucas started to say something, looking for words, but she just shook her head and drove on.

  !

  Evan Hart stood with one hand in his pocket, his voice low, concerned.

  His back was to the balcony, so he was framed in the dark square, he wore a blue suit with a conservative striped shirt, and carried a square Scotch glass in his left hand. He'd taken his necktie off and thrust it in his pocket. Sara could see just the point of it sticking out from under the flap of his coat pocket. "Have you talked to the police?"

  She shook her head. "I don't know what I'd tell them." She crossed her arms over her chest, rubbed her triceps with her hands, as though she were cold. "It's like having a ghost," she said. "I feel somebody, but I've never seen anything. I had the burglary, and since then...

  nothing. They'd say it's paranoiaþparanoia brought on by the burglary.

  And I hate being patronized."

  "They'd be right about the paranoia. You can't be a good trader if you're not paranoid," Hart said. He sipped the Johnnie Walker Black.

  " Cause somebody is out to get you," she said, finishing the old Wall Street joke. She drifted across the front room toward him. She also had a glass, vodka martini, three olives. She looked out across the balcony, over the building across the street, toward the park. "To tell the truth, I am a little scared. A woman was killed just across the street, and the guy with her is still in a coma. This was just a few days ago, a couple of days after my burglary. They haven't caught anybody yetþthey say it was gang kids. I've never seen any gang kids here. It was supposed to be safe. I used to walk around the lake in the evenings, but I've stopped." Hart's face was serious again. He reached out and brushed her arm with two fingertips, just a light touch. "Maybe you should think about moving out of here."

  "I've got a lease," Sara said, away from the balcony, toward him.

  "And the apartment is really handy to work. And it should be safe. It is safe. I've changed the locks, I've got a steel door. I don't know...."

  Hart stepped over to the balcony, looked out, his back toward her.

  She wondered if she made him nervous. "It's a pretty neighborhood.

  And I guess no place is really perfectly safe. Not anymore."

  There was a moment of silence, and then she asked, "Do I make you nervous?"

  He turned, a weak, slowly dying smile on his face. "Yeah, a little."

  "Why?"

  He shrugged. "I like you too much. You're very attractive... I don't know, I'm just not very good at this."

  "It is awkward," she said. "Look, why don't you come over and sit down, and I'll put my head on your shoulder, and we'll go from there."

  He shrugged again. "All right." He put down his glass, crossed the room, sat quickly, put his arm around her shoulder, and she let her head sink onto his chest.

  "Now, is this bad?" she asked, and suddenly broke into a giggle.

  "No, this isn't bad at all," Evan said. He sounded nervous, but he felt committed, and when she lifted her head to smile at him, he kissed her.

  She felt good. She made a hundred and thirty thousand dollars a year, took vacations in Paris and Mexico and Monaco, she was the toughest woman she knew.

  But a chest felt... excellent. She snuggled into it.

  Koop grabbed the edge of the air-conditioner housing, pulled himself up, and saw Jensen on the couch with a man, saw her turn her face up and the man kiss her.

  "Oh, fuck me," he said aloud. "Oh, fuck me," and he felt his world shake.

  The guy across the street put his hand on Jensen's waist, then moved it up a few inches, under her breast. Koop thought he recognized the guy, then realized he'd seen somebody like him on television, an old movie.

  Henry Fonda, that was it, Henry Fonda, when he was young.

  "Motherfucker...."

  Koop stood up without thinking, hand holding the scope, the living room couch jumping toward him. Their faces were locked together and the guy was definitely copping a feel. Remembering himself, Koop dropped to a crouch, felt the heat climbing into his face. He looked down and hammered his fist into the steel ho
using, and for the first time sinceþwhen? never-felt something that might have been emotional pain.

  How could she do this? This wasn't right, she was his....

  He looked back toward Sara's apartment. They were talking now, backed off a little. Then she tipped her head onto his shoulder, and that was almost worse than the kiss. Koop put the scope on them, and watched so hard that his head began to hurt. Christ, he hoped they didn't fuck.

  Please, don't do it. Please.

  They kissed again, and this time the guy's hand cupped Jensen's breast, held it. Koop, in agony, rolled over on his shoulder and looked away, decided not to look back until he counted to a hundred. Maybe it would go away. He counted one, two, three, four, five and got to thirty-eight before he couldn't stand it, and flipped over.

  The guy was standing.

  She'd said something to him, a pulse of elation streaked through his soul. She must've. She was getting ready to throw him out, by God.

  Why else would he have stopped, Christ, he had her on the couch. He had her in hand, for Christ's sake. Then the guy picked up a glass and looked at her, said something, and she threw back her head and laughed.

  No. That didn't look good.

  Then she was on her feet, walking toward him. Slipped two fingers between the buttons of his shirt, said somethingþKoop would have mortgaged his life for the ability to lip-readþthen stood on tiptoe and kissed him again, quickly this time, and walked away, picked up a newspaper, and waved it at him, said something else.

  They talked for another five minutes, both standing now, circling each other. Sara Jensen kept touching him. Her touch was like fire to Koop.

  When she touched the guy, Koop could feel it on his arm, in his chest.

  Then the guy moved toward the door. He was leaving. Both still smiling.

  At the door she stepped into him, her face up, and Koop rolled over again, refusing to watch, counting: one, two, three, four, five.

  Only got to fifteen, counting fast, before he turned back.

  She was still in his arms, and he'd pressed her to the door. Jesus.

  Gotta take him. Gotta take him now.

  The impulse was like a hammer. He'd gut the cocksucker right in the driveway. He was messing with Koop's woman....

  But Koop lingered, unwilling to leave until the guy was out the door.

  They finally broke apart, and Koop, in a half-crouch, waited for him to go. Jensen was holding his hand. Didn't want him to go. Tugged at him.

  "Cocksucker..." he thought, and realized he'd spoken aloud.

  Said it again: "Cocksucker, cut your fuckin' heart out, man, cut your fuckin'.

  .."

  And the roof access door opened. A shaft of light, shocking, blinding, snapped across the roof and climbed the air-conditioner housing.

  Koop went flat, tense, ready to fight, ready to run.

  Voices crossed each other, ten feet away. There was a sharp rattle and a bang as the door was pushed open, then closed of its own weight.

  Cops.

  "Gotta be quick." Not cops. A woman's voice.

  Man's voice. "It's gonna be quick, I can promise that, you got me so hot I can't hold it."

  Woman's voice: "What if Kari looks for the pad?"

  "She won't, she's got no interest in camping... c'mon, let's go behind the air-conditioner thing. C'mon."

  The woman giggled and Koop heard them rattling across the graveled roof, and the sound of a plastic mat being unrolled on the gravel.

  Koop looked sideways, past the duct toward Jensen's building. She was kissing the guy good-bye again, standing on her tiptoes in the open door, his hand below her waist, almost on her ass.

  Below him, eight feet away, the man was saying, "Let me get these, let me get these... Oh, Jesus, these look great...."

  And the woman: "Boy, what if Kari and Bob could see us now...

  Oh, God..."

  Across the street, Jensen was pushing the door shut. She leaned back against it, her head cocked back, an odd, loose look on her face, not quite a smile.

  The woman: "Don't rip it, don't rip it...."

  The man: "God, you're wet, you're a hot little bitch...."

  Jesus...

  Koop, blind with fury, his heart pounding like a triphammer, lay quiet as a mouse, but getting angrier and angrier. He thought about jumping down, of taking the two of them.

  He rejected the idea as quickly as it had come. A woman had already died at this building, and a man was in a coma. If another two died, the cops would know something was happening here. He'd never get back up.

  Besides, all he had was his knife. He might not get them bothþand he couldn't see the guy. If the guy was big, tough, it might take a while, make a lot of noise.

  Koop bit his lip, listening to the lovemaking. The woman tended to screech, but the screeching sounded fake. The guy said, "Don't scratch*" and she said, "I can't help myself," and KOOD thought, And Sara Jensen's lover was getting away. Better to let him go.

  ..

  goddamnit.

  He turned his head back to Jensen's apartment. Jensen went into the bathroom and shut the door. He knew from watching her that when she did that, she'd be inside for a while. Koop eased himself over onto his back and looked up at the stars, listened to the couple on the roof below him. Goddamnit.

  Man's voice: "Let me do it this way, c'mon...."

  The woman: "God, if Bob knew what I was doing..." Greave had his feet up on his desk, talking on the phone, when Lucas arrived in the morning. Anderson drifted over and said, "A homicide guy in Madison interviewed somebody named Abby Weed. He says she confirmed that she met Joe Hillerod in a bookstore. She doesn't remember the date, but she remembered the discussion, and it was the right one. She said she spent the night with him, and she was unhappy about being questioned."

  "Damnit," Lucas said. He said it without heat. Hillerod hadn't felt right, and he hadn't expected much. "Have you seen Meagan Connell?"

  Anderson shook his head, but Greave, still on the phone, held up a finger, said a few more words, then covered the mouthpiece with his palm. "She called in, said she was sick. She'll be in later," he said.

  He went back to the phone.

  Sick. Connell had been plummeting into depression when Lucas left her the night before. He hadn't wanted to leaveþhe'd suggested that she come home with him, spend the night in a guest room, but she'd said she was fine.

  shouldn't have mentioned Beneteau asking about you," Lucas said.

  She caught his arm. "Lucas, you did right. It's one of the nicer things that's happened to me in the last year." But her eyes had been ineffably sad, and he'd had to turn away.

  I Greave dropped the receiver on the hook and sighed. "How far did you get on the sex histories?" Lucas asked.

  "Not very far." Greave looked away. "To tell you the truth, I hardly got started. I thought I might have something on my apartment."

  "Goddamnit, Bob, forget the fuckin' apartment," Lucas said, his voice harsh. "We need these historiesþand we need as many people thinking about the case as we can get."

  Greave stood up, shook himself like a dog. He was a little shorter than Lucas, his features a little finer. "Lucas, I can't. I try, but I just can't. It's like a nightmare. I swear to God, I was eating an ice cream cone last night and I started wondering if they poisoned her ice cream."

  Lucas just looked at him, and Greave shook his head after a minute and said, "They didn't, of course."

  And they both said, simultaneously, "No toxicology."

  Jan Reed found Lucas in his office. She had great eyes, he thought.

  Italian eyes. You could fall into them, no problem. He had a quick male mini-vision: Reed on the bed, pillow under her shoulders, head back, a half inch from orgasm. She looks up at the final instant, eyes opening, her awareness of him the sexiest thing in the universe..

  "Nothing," he said, flustered. "Not a thing."

  "But what about the people you grabbed in that raid over in Wisconsin?"

>   There was a pinprick of amusement in her eyes. She knew the effect she had on him.

  And she knew about the raid. "An unrelated case, but a good story," Lucas lied. He babbled: "It's a group of people called the Seedsþthere used to be a motorcycle gang called the Bad Seeds, from up in northwest Wisconsin, and they evolved into a criminal organization. Cops call it the Hayseed Mafia. Anyway, these are the guys who were hitting the suburban gun stores. We got a lot of the guns back."