Certain Prey

by John Sandford

  The phone rang again, before she had a chance to turn away.

  'Carmel?' And for the second time that day, her heart was in her throat.

  'Yes?'

  'This is Hale.' Then, like she might not be able to sort out her Hales, he added, 'Allen.'

  'Hale. My God, I heard about Barbara. How terrible.' She leaned into the telephone, vibrating with the urgency of the emotion. Tears started at the inner corners of her eyes. Poor Barbara. Poor Hale. A tragedy.

  'Carmel... God, I don't know, I'm so screwed up,' Hale Allen said. 'Now the police think maybe I had something to do with it. The murder.'

  'That's crazy,' Carmel said.

  'Absolutely. They keep asking about how much money I'll inherit, and Barb's parents are saying all this crazy stuff...'

  'That's terrible!' He needed help; and he was calling her.

  'Look, what I'm calling to ask is, could you handle this for me? Could you deal with the police? You're the best I know...'

  'Of course,' she said briskly. 'Where are you now?'

  'I'm at home. I'm sitting here with all of Barb's stuff... I don't know what to do.'

  'Sit right there,' Carmel said. 'I'll be there in half an hour. Don't talk to any more cops. If anyone calls, tell them to talk to me.'

  'Won't that make them suspicious?' Not the sharpest knife.

  'They already are suspicious, Hale. I know exactly where they're coming from. It's stupid, but that's the way they think. So give them my office number and this number, and do not, do not, talk to them.'

  'Okay.' He sounded better already. 'Half an hour?'

  Oh, God. The thing about Hale Allen, she thought, was his hands. He had these big, competent-looking hands with clean, square nails, and fine dark fuzz on the first joints of his fingers, a hint of the underlying masculinity. He had beautiful, thick hair, and wonderful shoulders, and his brown eyes were so expressive that when he concentrated on her, Carmel felt weak.

  But it was the hands that did it. And did it one afternoon in a nice lawyer bar with lots of plants in copper kettles, and antique dressers used as serving tables. There'd been three or four of them sitting around a table, different firms, no agenda, just gossip. He'd been laughing, with those great white teeth, and he'd looked deep into her a few times, all the way, she felt, to the bottom of her panty hose. But the main thing was, he'd been drinking something light and white, a California Chardonnay, maybe, and he kept turning the wine glass in those strong fingers and Carmel had begun to vibrate. They'd been together two dozen times since, but always in social situations, and never too long.

  She thought, though, that he must know,

  somewhere in his soul. Now with this call...

  She took fifteen minutes with her makeup - making it invisible - and after applying the lightest touch of Chanel No. 7, she went down to the parking garage and climbed into the Jaguar.

  She forgot all about her resolution to stay away.

  Hale Allen needed her.

  Chapter Four

  Lucas felt light: psychologically light. Nothing left to lose.

  He hadn't spoken seriously with a woman since his break-up with Marcy Sherrill. And he felt good: he'd been working out, shooting some hoops, running through the neighborhood, though he could feel it in his knees if he did more than five miles. Age coming on...

  Money in the bank. All bills paid. The job under control, except for the Cultural Commission. Even that had a calming effect on him. Like a boring concert, where the music never changed, the commission gave him three hours a week in which he had to sit still, his brain in neutral, his motor idling. He couldn't get away with sleeping during the meetings, but he'd managed to catch up on his reading.

  Earlier in the year, before the Forty Days and Forty Nights, he'd felt himself on shaky ground, poised between sanity and another bout of depression. Marcy Sherrill had changed that, at least. He felt as good as he could remember, if somewhat detached, disengaged, floating. His oldest childhood friend, a nun who was also a professor at St. Anne's College, had

  gone on a summer mission to Guatemala, giving thanks for a successful recovery from a terrible beating; half of his friends were on vacation. Crime, improbably, was down across the board.

  And it was summer: a good one.

  Lucas had been working four days a week, spending the three-day weekends at his cabin in Wisconsin. Five years past, a Northwoods neighbor, a flat-nosed guy from Chicago, had stocked a pond with large-mouth bass. Now the pond was getting good. Every morning, early morning, Lucas would walk a half-mile over to the Chicago guy's house, push an old green flat-bottomed John boat into the water, and throw poppers and streamer flies at the lily pads until the sun got high. The weight of the world dissolved in the mirror flashes of the smooth black water, the smell of the summer pollen, hot in the sun - the sun on his shoulders Eand the stillness of the woods.

  Barbara Allen had been killed on a Thursday. Lucas tucked the memory of her sightless, upside-down body into a large mental file stuffed with similar images, and closed the file. On Thursday night, he left for the cabin. He missed Friday's paper, but saw a Pioneer Press in a Hayward store window on Saturday morning: The main Page One story was headlined, 'Husband Questioned In Heiress Slaying.'

  On Sunday, the Star-Tribune's front-page piece started under a headline that said, 'Allen Murder Baffles Police' while the Pioneer Press went with 'Allen

  Murder Puzzles Cops.' Lucas said to himself, 'Uh-oh.'

  On Monday morning, he walked, whistling, into City Hall and bumped into Sherrill and Black. 'You were gonna keep me updated,' he said.

  'That's right,' Black said, as they clustered in the hall. 'We were. Here's your update: we ain't got dick.'

  'That's not entirely true,' Sherrill said, with an edge of impatience. 'There's a really really good chance that Hale Allen did it. Paid for it.'

  'Well, good,' Lucas said, jingling his office keys. This was somebody else's job. 'Ship his ass out to Stillwater. I'll call ahead and reserve a cell.'

  'I'm serious,' Sherrill said. 'We looked at him all weekend and we found out three things. One, the first thing he did after we talked to him is, he called Carmel Loan.'

  'Ouch,' Lucas said. He knew Carmel. If you were a cop pushing a marginal case, or a difficult one, you didn't want Carmel on the other side.

  'Which doesn't make him guilty of anything but common sense,' Black observed mildly.

  'Second,' Sherrill said, 'He's gonna inherit something like thirty or forty million dollars, tax free. So much that we can't even find out how much it is. Her parents say the marriage was in trouble and that divorce was a possibility.'

  'Nothing solid on the divorce?' Lucas asked. 'The way you said that...'

  'Nothing solid,' Sherrill said grudgingly.

  'The thing is, if Hale Allen is convicted of killing his wife, he can't inherit. The money would probably go to her parents, who don't need it, but would definitely like it,' Black said. 'Can't ever be too rich or too thin, as the Duchess of Windsor once told me, in a personal communication.'

  'The money didn't come from them in the first place?' Lucas asked.

  Black shook his head. 'Nope. The great-grandparents were timber barons here and land speculators in Florida. The money comes down through a whole bunch of trusts. It's hers. Her parents got theirs the same way. Hasn't one of them worked a day in their lives.'

  'Third?' Lucas asked, looking at Sherrill. He added, 'The first two weren't so good.'

  Sherrill said, 'Three, he's fuckin' a secretary in his firm. He's been doing it for a couple of years, and push was coming to shove. She was gonna go see the old lady, and tell her about the affair. Allen was stalling, but the hammer was comin' down.'

  Lucas looked at Black. 'Now that's something.'

  Black shrugged. 'Yeah. That's something.'

  'Though they usually kill the girlfriend, not the wife,' Lucas said, going back to Sherrill.

  Sherrill shrugged it off. 'Not always.'

&n
bsp; 'You look at the girlfriend?'

  'Yeah. She was working when Barbara Allen was hit. Taking shorthand in a conference about some guy's will. She's got about six hundred and fifty dollars

  in her bank account, so we figure she probably didn't hire a pro.'

  'Maybe she saw a movie,' Lucas said.

  'Or read one of those Murder for Dummies books,' said Black.

  'What about Allen?You hit him with the girlfriend?' Lucas asked.

  'Not yet,' Sherrill said. She looked at her watch. 'We're gonna do it in about ten minutes.'

  'By the way,' Black added, 'We should also update you on the Feebs.'

  'The Feebs? Are they in this?' Lucas' eyebrows went up.

  'Maybe. They want a meet, so we're walking over this afternoon,' Black said. 'Got some guy in from Washington.'

  'The nation's capital,' Sherrill said.

  'You wanna come?' Black asked. 'We could use some of that deputy-chief bullshit. That special shine.'

  'They love you so much anyway,' Sherrill concluded.

  'Give me a call,' Lucas said. 'I'll be around all afternoon.'

  Carmel Loan, wearing bloody-red lipstick, arrived at City Hall to find Hale Allen sitting in the homicide office, across a grey metal desk from Black and Sherrill. The homicide office looked like a movie set for a small-town newspaper.

  'Why are we here?' she asked, taking charge. She

  dropped her purse on Black's desk, pushing aside some of his papers; a calculated move - she was the important one here. 'I thought we covered everything on Friday. And when are you going to release Mrs. Allen? We need to make arrangements.'

  'We'll release her as soon as the chemistry gets back, which should be this afternoon or tomorrow,' Black said. 'We're rushing it.'

  'You know the sensitivity of the issue,' Carmel said, leaning into him. She had an effect on most men. Black was a not-quite-out-of-the-closet gay, and the effect was blunted.

  'Of course,' Black said, with equanimity. 'We're doing everything we can.'

  'So why're we here?' Carmel pulled a chair over from another desk, sat solidly in the middle of it, turned to Allen before Black or Sherrill could answer, and asked, 'How're you feeling?'

  He shrugged. 'Not so good. I can't catch my breath. We need to get something going on the funeral.' He was absolutely gorgeous, Carmel thought. The weariness around his eyes added a depth he hadn't seemed to possess before; a certain fascinating sadness.

  'So,' she said, turning to Sherrill. 'What?'

  Sherrill leaned across the desk and asked Allen, 'Do you plan to marry Louise Clark?'

  Allen sat back as though he'd been slapped. Carmel took one look at him, instantly understood the question, fought down a surge of insane anger, and

  blurted, 'Whoa. No more questions. Hale - out in the hall.'

  When they were gone, Sherrill looked at Black and grinned: 'He didn't tell her.'

  Carmel literally saw red, as though blood clots had drifted over her pupils. In the corridor outside Homicide, she grabbed Hale Allen by his coat lapel and shoved him against the wall. She was not a large woman, but she pushed hard, and Allen's shoulder blades were pressed against the stone.

  'What the fuck are they telling me?' she hissed. 'Who is Louise Clark?'

  'She's a secretary,' Allen mumbled. 'I've been... sleeping with her, I guess.'

  'You guess?' Carmel demanded. 'You don't know for sure?'

  'Yeah, I know, I should have told you,' Allen said. 'But I didn't think anybody would find out.'

  'Jesus H. Christ, how dumb are you? How dumb? What else didn't you tell me? Are you fuckin' anybody else?'

  'No, no, no, God, I hate that word. Fucking.'

  Carmel closed her eyes for a moment: she couldn't believe this. She could believe that he was sleeping with another woman. She just couldn't believe that an actual lawyer could be this damn dumb.

  'You have a law degree?' she asked, opening her eyes. 'From an actual college?'

  'Carmel, I don't...'

  'Ah, shut up,' she said. She turned away, took a couple of steps, then swung around to face him. 'I oughta quit. If I weren't a friend of yours and Barbara's, I would quit.'

  'I'm sorry,' Allen stuttered. 'I've told you everything else, honest to God.'

  Carmel let out a breath. 'All right. I can yell at you later. And I will. Now tell me about this Louise Clark. Are you gonna marry her?'

  Allen shook his head: 'No, no, it was never like that. It was physical... She's really... into sex. She's a goddamn sex machine - what can I tell you? She kept hitting on me and finally one day we had a closing on a motel over in Little Canada and one of the rooms was unlocked...'

  'Ah, man...' Carmel pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead.

  'What?'

  'You've heard the word motive, right? It's a legal term, often used by lawyers?'

  'I didn't know Barbara was gonna get murdered, for Christ's sake,' Allen said, his voice rising. A little angry now, flushing, tousled hair falling down over his forehead.

  'All right, all right. Is it done with this woman?'

  'If you say so,' Allen said.

  'I say so,' Carmel said. 'But I've gotta talk to her.'

  'All right. I'll call her.'

  'We'll have to talk to the cops about it, sooner or later, but not right now. Maybe tomorrow'

  'How do we avoid it?'

  'Gotta work 'em,' Carmel said. She chewed at her thumbnail, tasted blood, spit and chewed some more.

  Carmel walked back into the Homicide office with Allen trailing behind. Black and Sherrill were still sitting at the desk, Black with his feet up. Before Carmel could open her mouth, Sherrill asked, 'Wanna hear a horse-walks-into-a-bar joke?'

  'Sure,' Carmel said.

  'Horse walks into a bar, sits down, and in this sad voice, says, "Give me a bourbon, straight up." The bartender gets the drink, slides the glass across the bar and asks, "Hey fella - why the long face?" '

  Carmel showed an eighth-inch of smile and said, her voice flat, 'That's fuckin' hilarious.'

  'I don't get it,' said Allen, looking worried.

  'Sit down,' Carmel said.To Black and Sherrill: 'My client tells me that he has had a sexual relationship with Louise Clark. He hadn't told me earlier because he assumed it wasn't relevant. He's right: it's not relevant. On the other hand, we can see how you might think it is. I've got to talk to him some more, and also to Louise Clark. If you don't leak any of this to the papers, we'll come back tomorrow and answer your questions. If you do leak it, then screw ya: we're done cooperating.'

  'So come back,' Black said. 'Nobody's gonna hear about this from us.'

  'Ten o'clock tomorrow morning,' Carmel said. 'I

  assume you've already talked to Louise Clark and suggested that she not talk to anybody about it. Including me.'

  Sherrill nodded: 'Of course.'

  'Of course,' Carmel said.

  Sherrill called Lucas a little after three o'clock: 'We're going over to the bureau office, if you want to come.'

  'Let's go,' Lucas said. He tossed the Equality Report on the floor. 'Let me get my jacket.'

  The sunlight was blinding; another good day, Lucas thought, as he slipped on his sun glasses. A great day up north - a day to stretch out on a swimming float, listen to a ball game on a tinny transistor radio and let the world take care of itself.

  '... thought she was gonna kill him,' Sherrill was saying.

  Lucas caught up with the conversation. 'So Carmel didn't know?'

  'No. She wasn't faking it, either. When we hit her with it, her eyes actually bulged? Sherrill said happily. 'I didn't see what happened out in the hall, but when they came back in, he looked like a sheep that'd been shorn.'

  'Huh... any vibe off the affair? Was he hiding it?'

  Sherrill shrugged, but Black shook his head: 'I didn't get a goddamn thing. He looked surprised -like, surprised we'd even ask. He didn't look scared, he didn't look like he was covering...'

  The hea
vily armed male white-shirt-and-tie receptionist rang them through into the FBI's inter sanctum, where they found a lightly sweating assistant agent-in-charge waiting in a conference room with a man who looked like an economics professor, a little harassed, a little unkempt, the lenses on his glasses a little too thick; on the other hand, he had a thick neck. He smiled pleasantly at Lucas, looked closely at Sherrill, and nodded at Black.

  'I'm Louis Mallard,' he said, pronouncing it Louie. 'Mallard like the duck. You know Bill.' Bill Benson, the assistant AIC, nodded, said, 'Hey, Lucas.'