Certain Prey

by John Sandford

  'Heather called you?'

  'Yes. It's important that I talk to her right away.'

  'I should call her mother...'

  'Her mother may be in some danger, which is why I have to talk to her right away.' He let a little cop show through his polite smile. 'If you could take me to her?'

  'Well, I...' She spasmodically shuffled some papers on her desk, cleared her throat and said, 'She's down in Mrs. Roman's room.'

  Heather sat in Mrs. Roman's office with Lucas, and told the story: Lucas took her over it twice, and when they finished, had no doubt that she was telling precisely the truth. Sherrill arrived just before they finished with the second runthrough, and Davis arrived two minutes later. She was panic-stricken.

  'What are you doing?' she screamed. 'What are you doing with my daughter?You have no right to talk to my daughter...'

  'Yes, we do,' Lucas said, as gently as he could. But it didn't come off well, and Davis grabbed Heather's arm and would have been out the door if Sherrill hadn't been blocking it.

  'You can't leave,' Sherrill said.

  Heather began to cry, and said, 'I only told them...'

  'I'll call a lawyer,' Davis shrilled.

  'You can call anyone you want to, but life would be simpler for all of us, including you, if we talked about this for a few minutes,' Lucas said.

  'She's going to kill us, she said she would kill us...'

  'She's not going to hurt anyone,' Lucas said.

  'You weren't there,' Davis snapped. 'She said she was going to kill us, and she meant it. Frankly, I'm not nearly as impressed with you and your cops as I am with her.'

  'We will put you where she can't find you...'

  'She's with the Mafia,' Davis screamed. 'They can find anybody.'

  Lucas shook his head and Sherrill said, 'Listen, quiet down. Whatever's happened, has already happened. We need to ask you a few questions, and then we need to arrange things so you're absolutely safe.'

  'That's impossible now,' Davis said. The anger was still closer to the surface than the fear, but now the fear was bubbling up, too.

  'No, it's not, not at all. We have experts in it,' Sherrill said. 'You know why you don't hear about the

  Mafia killing cops? Because they're afraid to. Just think about that...'

  When Davis had calmed down - not before a few nasty moments with Mrs. Gartin, who made an ill-timed appearance with a box of ginger snaps - they took her through Rinker's assault. Heather sat on her mother's knee during the talk, and Davis even showed a small tremulous smile when told about how her daughter called Officer Friendly.

  One solid piece of information came out: 'I could see the ends of her hair, and I'd swear that it was a wig. There was just something un-hair-like about it. And I could see her hands, and I saw her face when she first came to the door, and she just wasn't that real fair complexion that redheads have.'

  'But you couldn't describe her face?'

  'No, you know, she had this box, and I looked at the box...'

  'Do you still have the box?'

  'No, I... threw it away,' she said. 'It's in the dumpster behind the apartment. It's a FedEx box.'

  'Was she wearing gloves?'

  'Oh, yeah. I can remember that. They were disposable plastic gloves, like dentists use. Oh, yeah.' The gloves impressed her: a professional killer, after all.

  When they were finished, Lucas said, 'I can't see you being called as a witness. Your information helps us a lot, in some ways, but it's not something that we'd use in court.'

  'I won't testify,' Davis said. 'I mean, I won't'

  'So let's talk about what you want to do now,' Sherrill said.

  What Davis wanted to do was to pretend that nothing had happened. 'Could she know about this? That we talked to you?'

  'Uh, word leaks out of police stations from time to time,' Lucas said carefully, thinking about Carmel's sources. 'Is there any possibility that you could take off for a couple of weeks, or a month?'

  'I've got a job I've got to go to at the U,' she said. 'I gotta eat...'

  'I can fix that,' Lucas said. 'I can probably fix a paid leave, and if I can't, we can find some money in city funds to make up what you lose. Do you have some folks...?'

  Davis shook her head. 'I don't want to go there. You know what? If you can do it? I've got a laptop, I could do a lot of work on my thesis if I could get somewhere quiet, just Heather and me. When I was still with Howard, we stayed at these townhouses up on the North Shore, they were really nice...'

  'We can do that,' said Lucas. He turned to Sherrill: 'Call Bretano down in Sex. Get her going on this.' He turned back to Davis. 'We'll hook you up with Alice Bretano. She works with abused mothers and kids and knows about hiding them and getting money and so on... she'll take care of the whole thing.'

  'And you're sure they won't find us?' Davis asked doubtfully.

  'They won't even bother to look,' Lucas said. 'There's just no percentage in it.'

  When she didn't appear convinced, Lucas said, 'Let me tell you about the Mafia. They're a bunch of guys who are willing to hurt people for money, and they hustle dope and prostitutes and they loan-shark and all of that. But they're just a bunch of guys. They don't have any big intelligence service and they don't back each other up like they say they do... they're just sort of aaa...' His eyes went to Heather, who was looking up at him with big eyes. '... jerks. But I won't lie to you: this one woman, the one you saw last night, is somebody to be afraid of. But we're gonna get her. And we're not going to give her any reason to hurt you. If she didn't hurt you last night, she's not going to.'

  Sherrill called Bretano in Sex, explained the problem, and Bretano said she'd handle the whole thing; she could be at the school in ten minutes.

  Outside, while they waited, leaning against Lucas' Porsche, Sherrill asked, 'Now what?'

  'We got two things out of that, for sure: we know she's a redhead, or at least wearing a red wig, and that she's a small woman in good shape, which means that you probably saw her last night. So now we crank everything up. We put a twenty-four-hour watch on Carmel's building, and if we get her inside, we take her - this woman.'

  'On what?'

  'On nothing. On bullshit. On assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, anything. But I want her picked up and identified. Nailed down. I want to know where she comes from. I want mug shots of her, so we can paper the country with them if she gets out, and then runs. That means you're gonna be living outside Carmel's building. We maybe see if we can find a place, an apartment or an empty office, where you can watch from.'

  'I'm out of the investigation?' Sherrill asked.

  'A little bit out - but if we nail this woman quick, you're gonna be the one to do it.'

  'What're you gonna do?'

  'First thing, I'm gonna get some guys and I'm gonna knock on every door for two blocks around Davis' apartment. There are people on the streets there at night. Somebody must've seen this woman, whoever she is.'

  Lucas got a half-dozen uniformed cops walking the neighborhood. He hated the job himself, and wasn't good at it. The good ones had open Irish or Scandinavian faces, young guys who looked like they might slap you on the back, women who might enjoy the odd bit of gossip. Empathizers.

  Lucas and Bretano had brought Davis and her daughter back to the apartment, and waited while they packed. When they left, Davis gave the keys to Lucas: 'Use the phone or the toilet, if you have to. I'll pick them up when we get back.' Having the cops

  around had restored some confidence - but she still wanted to get out of town, and in a hurry.

  Lucas used the apartment as a temporary headquarters, while the uniformed cops worked the neighborhood, moving back and forth, visiting and revisiting homes, waiting for people to get home from work, sorting bullshit from egg cremes. A little after three o'clock, a cop named Lane wandered into the apartment, carrying a Pepsi, and sat down in a kitchen chair. Lucas was at the kitchen table, just getting off the phone.

  'What?' he
asked.

  Lane leaned back, took a hit on the Pepsi: 'I've been trying to get a break into plainclothes for more'n a fucking year now, and I can't get it done.'

  'I thought I saw you in plainclothes...'

  'Yeah, yeah, that was just the drug guys looking for a fresh face. After a few weeks, my face wasn't fresh, and I was back sitting in a squad. What I'm saying is, you gotta help get me outa this fuckin' uniform.'

  Lucas shrugged: 'I don't know you very well, you know? I don't know what you'd bring to the job especially...'

  'I was the guy who found that.380 in the McDonald case last fall, you remember? I mean, there was luck involved, but I'm a lucky guy. I pushed it, and we rang the bell.'

  Lucas nodded. 'I remember. And being a lucky guy is pretty critical...'

  'I know. But I keep getting this bullshit about being good on the streets, and all that. How they don't want to lose me off patrol. But I don't want to be on patrol, and they're gonna lose me anyway, if they don't move me. I'll go someplace else...'

  'This is the only place to work in the state,' Lucas said. Then he tried to put him off. 'Anyway, you know, let me ask around...'

  Lane cracked a grin. 'I really didn't come in here to make a speech about getting off patrol, but I thought I'd take the opportunity, especially since I look so good right now.'

  Lucas' eyebrows went up. 'Oh, yeah?'

  'Yeah. I was down the street, at 1414, there's a Mrs. Rann, Gloria Rann. She got home at about nine-fifteen last night. She knows because she caught the bus at University and Cretin when she got off work at nine, and it takes ten minutes to get home, and she was hurrying because she had a show she wanted to watch at nine-thirty. She just had time to put the garbage out before the show started. She sees a small athletic woman getting into what she thinks might have been a green car parked on the street, right on the curb at her house. She couldn't see the woman's face, but she thought she might be a college kid, because she looked athletic and because the neighborhood has a lot of college kids around. And... she had big hair.'

  Lucas leaned forward: 'That'd be right.'

  Lane said, 'Yeah. She fits the profile you gave us.

  Anyway, I ask Mrs. Rann if she'd ever seen the car before, and she said, 'No, it wasn't from around here.' And I say, 'How do you know that?' And she says, because when she was walking home from the bus, it was still a little light, and she looked at the car because it was parked right in front of her house.'

  He paused for dramatic effect and Lucas said, 'What'

  'It had an Avis sticker on it. It was a rental car.'

  'Sonofabitch,' Lucas said.

  He took Lane with him to the airport, tracked down the Avis manager, who was out at the return area, and brought him back to the main office.The manager didn't need a search warrant. He said, 'Let me run a list for you. But I can tell you right now, it's gonna be eighty to ninety percent guys. Probably won't be more than ten or fifteen women.'

  'Mid-sized green car, athletic-looking woman, small,' Lane said. 'Maybe a redhead.'

  The manager's hands were hovering over the computer keyboard, but he stopped, turned to Lane and frowned. 'Small and athletic redhead? Nice, uh, figure?'

  'That's what we understand,' Lucas said.

  'Could it have been a champagne Dodge? Instead of green? Because I swear to God, a woman who looks like that returned a champagne Dodge up at the check-in, not more than fifteen minutes ago. She's gotta be in the airport.'

  Lucas snapped: 'Where do I find the head guy for airport security?'

  A fat young man named Herter had handled the return and remembered the woman well; Lucas and Lane spent two hours trolling Herter and the manager through the airport gates, looking for Rinker's face. Nothing. A lot of small athletic women, a few of them redheads, but no killer.

  The check-in record showed the car in, without damage and a full tank of gas, twenty minutes before Lucas and Lane arrived at the Avis desk. Herter said the woman had headed for the main terminal, but had been carrying only a small bag, like an overnight case. There were no security cameras that might have recorded her face, at least, not on the immediate route into the terminal.

  'She might still be here in town,' Lucas told Lane and Tom Black, who'd come out to help with the hunt. 'The FBI thinks she drives to wherever she's going. It would make sense for her to drop her car in the airport garage, where there are thousands of cars going in and out all day, and then renting a car to do the hit with. Then, if there's any problem, she can ditch the car and there won't be any record attached to it.'

  'We should know about the record any time,' Black said. 'The Nebraska cops are running down the address.'

  'If it's her, they're not gonna find anything,' Lucas

  said. 'But I'll tell you what: we've got to get to the Mastercard acceptance people who clear charges, and they've got to tell us instantly if she makes any more charges...' He looked at Lane: 'You think you could set that up?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Then go do it; and get out of the uniform before you start talking to people.'

  'All right.' He took off, running.

  Black said, 'The crime-scene guys gotta be done by now...'

  'If it's her, there won't be anything.'

  And the crime-scene guy said; 'I wouldn't hold my breath on these prints. I mean, we got prints off the passenger side and outa the back seat, but we got nothing from the steering wheel, from the outside door handle, from the inside handle, from the radio knobs, from the seat... they'd all been wiped. Wiped clean, by somebody who worked at it.'

  'Goddamnit,' Lucas said. Five minutes later, a detective from Lincoln, Nebraska, called and said, 'There's a street like that, and there's an address like that, and there's even a woman with that name, but she's forty-eight years old, she's got nine ferrets that she never leaves, she's got black hair and I'd say she goes about two-ten on the bathroom scales. She says she's never been to Minneapolis and never rented a car, and she's got a Visa and a Sears card and a gas card but no Mastercard.'

  'The shooter's outa here,' Lucas said to Black, after he got off the line with the Nebraska cop. 'She might still be in the Cities, or on her way home, but we're wasting our time out here.'

  'Except we got a decent picture of her,' Black said. 'We've got two guys who saw her close up, and not all that long ago. We'll have a composite photo of her in an hour.'

  'There's that,' Lucas said. He held up his thumb and forefinger, a half-inch apart. 'But goddamn: we were this close. This close.'

  'So now what?'

  'So now we paper the town with her picture. If she's still here, maybe we can shake her out.'

  Chapter Twenty

  Carmel called Rinker at the hotel, and said, without preface or identification, 'Get out of there now. Your picture's on TV.'

  'What?' Rinker's heart started thumping, and she looked wildly around the room, looking for clothes, looking for anything with prints, ready to sprint.

  'Davenport's got a composite photograph of you, and it's on TV. They're going to show it again on Channel Three in about one minute.'

  'Hang on'.

  Rinker picked up the TV remote and brought up Channel Three. A talking head, a serious brunette who looked like a former Miss America, was saying, '... an Avis rental car at the airport. Two Avis personnel, whose identities are being withheld, provided police with a composite photograph, shown here. If you have seen this woman...'

  Rinker looked at the picture for a moment, then told Carmel. 'That doesn't look like me.'

  'To you it might not look like you, but to me it does - in a general way,' Carmel replied. 'And they'll be taking it around to hotels and motels and every-

  thing else, asking for anybody who fits the general description.'

  Rinker nodded at the phone. 'All right, I'm outa here in fifteen minutes.'

  'Go on down to Iowa,' Carmel said. 'Des Moines. They don't get the Cities TV stations there, and you can be back here in three hours, if you need to be. Give me
a call on this phone when you get there, give me a number.'

  'What're we going to do?'

  'We have to go to Plan B. Somehow, he's onto us. I don't know how, but he's working something.'

  'Ah, man, can you handle it?'

  'I can handle it,' Carmel said grimly. 'Now get out of there.'

  'I'm gone.'

  Two detectives, Swanson and Franklin, responded to a tip from a bellhop at the Regency-White, and took the composite photograph to the manager, who shook his head. 'I don't know the lady, but I only see a fraction of the people who come through.'