Certain Prey

by John Sandford

  'We got a call, there's a cop down, shot, we're going,' Sherrill said. And to Black, behind the wheel: 'Go-go-go...' and Black was already going.

  Carmel said, 'Listen, Pam...'

  'It's Clara,' Rinker said. 'My name is really Clara. Rinker.'

  'Clara?' Carmel tasted the name for a second. 'I like that. Clara. Better than Pam.'

  'Anyway, you were saying...'

  'You are looking at this from die wrong point of view. People have always been allowed to kill in self-defense, and my dear, this is exactly what we're doing. We're trying to defend ourselves: Davenport has put us in tiiis position, and we really don't have much option. So what I'm saying, is this: I don't understand how you could kill for money, and not feel bad about it, and now you can feel bad about killing in self defense.'

  'I think it's because I know these people, or, anyway, I know about them,' Rinker said. 'They're not dirtbags who deserve it. They're just people who are in the way.'

  'No, no, no, they're not in the way; they're simply essential to us. We could not kill them, but that would leave us exposed. I'll tell you what; if you want, I'll do all the shooting...'

  'Who actually does the shooting is hardly the point, if we both cooperate in setting up the killing.'

  They weren't exactly arguing: they were exploring, Carmel thought. Rinker - Clara - was feeling some qualms, while Carmel felt none at all. They were working together through the grey ethical areas of murder...

  'This is the place - the brick house, with the white shutters,' Carmel said, pointing across the dashboard as diey rolled past the house. 'We've gotta decide now: I don't want you coming in unless, you know, at some level you believe that you know, that what we're doing is necessary. We're not doing it out of madness, we're doing it out of forced necessity.'

  'I'm not objecting so much from any kind of definable, rational viewpoint; I'm saying that I feel a little different about this,' Rinker said. 'I even worry about the effect it will have on you...'

  'Don't worry about that.' Carmel took the car to the curb, killed the engine. 'Are you in or out?'

  'I'm in,' Rinker said.

  Lucas arrived at Hennepin Medical Center to find Sherrill standing with a group of cops on the sidewalk by the emergency entrance. When she saw the Porsche, Sherrill broke away from the group and walked into the headlights just as Lucas shut them off. 'He's dead,' she said, as Lucas got out of the car.

  'Damnit. I was afraid this would happen some day,' Lucas said in a low voice. 'Butry was an asshole and not too bright. It's a bad combination.'

  'Yeah, well, he was a cop.'

  'Yeah. They got a line on the shooters?'

  'They're gone. Desk clerk said there were three skateboarders, kids, outside the station who might've seen something, but they took off right after the shooting. We're looking, but we ain't finding.'

  'What about Carmel?'

  'She's locked up in her building. I'll head back there as soon as I'm sure there's nothing I can do with this thing.'

  'Probably no point,' Lucas said. 'It's so late now... What about Butry? Who's his next of kin?'

  'Haven't found anybody yet,' Sherrill said. 'His folks are dead, no brothers or sisters, far as we know. Never married... hell, there might not be anybody'

  'Must be somebody.'

  'I hope so,' Sherrill said. 'If there turned out to be nobody... That'd be the worst thing I ever heard of.'

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Carmel and Rinker stood on the porch steps, each of them holding a phone book, and leaned sideways to peer at the curtained windows. The windows were dark, and nothing was moving. Nobody home. As stupid as it was, it was something they hadn't counted on. Plan B was going down.

  'She's gotta be around,' Carmel complained. 'I called her office today, and she picked up the phone.'

  'She's probably off visiting her mother or something,' Rinker said. They were both a little deflated, and wandered back down the dark sidewalk toward the car, carrying the phone books.

  'Visiting.' Carmel stopped in her tracks. 'Yeah, I bet she's visiting... C'mon.'

  'Where?' Rinker was puzzled.

  'Up to Hale's place.'

  'But I thought we were going to take Clark first. If we don't take her, there's no point in...'

  'I think she's at Hale's place. I'll bet you a dollar.'

  'Hale's?'

  'Yeah. Hale's.'

  E * *

  At Hale's, Carmel cruised past, slowly. The back window, Hale's bedroom, showed just the faintest glow on the window shade. 'She's there. He's got this votive candle...'

  'What an asshole,' Rinker said. 'I'm mean, you're talking about marrying him? And he's still sleeping with his ex-girlfriend?'

  'Sneaking,' Carmel said. 'Can't say he's not sexually active.'

  Carmel continued around the block, and pulled to the curb fifty yards up the street from Allen's house, where they could see the back window. She punched up her car phone, and on the second ring, a light came on in the bedroom. A moment later, Hale Allen picked up.

  'I think I can get out of here, darling,' Carmel cooed. 'I've got to stop at my apartment for a minute, then I'll be over.'

  'Maybe I should come to your place...' Hale said.

  'No, no, I'm already in the car. See you.' And she hung up.

  Five minutes later, Louise Clark squirted out of the house like a wet watermelon seed. She jogged down the sidewalk and climbed into a silver Toyota Corolla.

  'Really makes me angry,' Carmel said. 'Really, really...'

  'I can't believe it,' Rinker said. 'It's like a complete emotional betrayal. You're tough enough to take it, but other women? They could be totally emotionally

  crushed by something like this.'

  In another ten minutes, they were back at Clark's house, walking up the sidewalk again, Carmel carrying the phone books. Clark had just gone inside, and the lights were coming on. Rinker caught Carmel's arm and whispered, 'Let me go first. If she sees you...'

  At the door, Carmel stepped to the side and Rinker pulled open the storm door, propped it back with her foot, took a breath, dropped her gun hand to her side, and knocked urgently on the door with her other hand. They heard Clark walking toward the door, and a voice through the wood panel: 'Who is it?'

  'Clara Rinker, from down the block,' Rinker said. 'I think you've got a little fire.'

  'A fire?'

  'A little fire, by the corner of your house, there's smoke...'

  The door opened, tentatively; no chain. Rinker stiff-armed it, hard, and it banged open, past the startled, mouth-open face of Louise Clark. The gun was up and Rinker was inside, pushing her, followed by Carmel. Louise cried, 'Carmel, what are you doing? Carmel...'

  Carmel said, 'You're fucking my boyfriend. That's gotta stop.' She caught the sleeve of Clark's blouse, and pulled her toward the back of the house. Rinker kept the gun in her eyes.

  'Carmel, Carmel...'

  'You're fucking my boyfriend,' Carmel said. They could see the bathroom down a short hall, a door

  open in the hall to one side. Carmel flipped a light: the bedroom. 'Lay down on the bed, and keep your mouth shut,' Carmel said. 'Just keep your mouth shut.'

  'You're going to kill me,' Clark said, sinking on the mattress. 'You killed those other people.'

  'Don't be ridiculous, we're just gonna talk to you about Hale,' Carmel said. 'We're gonna get a few things straight.'

  They got her down on the bed, face-up; got her down on the pillow. Then Carmel walked around the bed and said, 'Look at me,' and when Clark looked at her, Rinker, who'd been kneeling on the floor with the gun, reached forward, put the barrel of the gun against Clark's temple, and pulled the trigger.

  The bullet shattered Clark's skull, continuing through her head and into the wall on the other side. A red cone of blood, on the pillow, pointed back to Clark's head like a crimson arrow; the expelled shell landed next to her ear. The gun was a neat ladies'.380, with a neat ladies' silencer. As Rinker had explaine
d to Carmel, a.22 didn't always kill with one shot, even from two inches, and a second shot would be awkward if the victim was supposed to be a suicide...

  'Good,' Carmel said, looking down at the body. 'You can see exactly how it happened. The rest of it probably won't be necessary, because they were back there fucking, but let's do it anyway.'

  Getting Clark out of her clothing without smearing

  anything was the hard part; she'd soiled her underpants, so they left them on, found a pink negligee in her chest of drawers, and pulled that over her head and let her drop back on the bed.

  'Ah, God, we forgot the pubic hair,' Carmel said.

  'Yuck.'

  Rinker lifted Clark's negligee and Carmel slid one hand into her pants, gave a tug, and came back with a half-dozen pubic hairs, which she folded into a piece of notebook paper.

  'The coke,' Rinker said. 'And the gun.'

  'Yeah.' Carmel had had a bit of coke on hand, had rounded up a few more grams during the week. She put it all into a amber medicine bottle and dropped it into the bedstand drawer. Rinker took one of the silenced.22s out of her carry-girdle. They hid it in a winter boot, in the closet.

  'That's it?' Rinker asked.

  'I think so,' Carmel said. 'Except for the nitrites.'

  'Okay,' Rinker said. 'Just set the phone books up over there.'

  She fit Clark's hand to the gun, aimed it at the phone books, and pulled the trigger. The slug hit the front phone book with a whackl, and they fell over. The slug hadn't made it through the first one. 'Get the phone books, and let's go,' Rinker said, as she picked up the empty shell.

  Ten minutes later, they were back at Allen's place.

  'We can't go back now,' Rinker said. 'If we go back now, nothing will make any sense.'

  'I don't have any intention of going back,' Carmel said.

  'I sorta thought, when we got right down to it...'

  'You sorta thought right. But you've got to have priorities,' Carmel said. 'That's one of the first things we were taught in law school: prioritize. Besides, he was getting on my nerves even before this Louise Clark thing. You ever been with a man who lays in bed at night and picks the calluses on his feet?'

  'No... And tell you the truth, that seems kind of minor.'

  'Not if you've got a ten o'clock appearance the next day and there's all kinds of pressure and you need sleep more than anything, and he's over there, pick, pick, pick... And he tries to sneak it in, so I won't hear it, so I wait... God!'

  'How do you want to do it?'

  'I'll just do it,' Carmel said. 'There's nothing else to do at this end. No arrangements of anything.'

  'I'll go around the block,' Rinker said. 'Hurry.'

  Carmel got out, walked down the block to Allen's. He met her in a bathrobe, at the door, with a big grin. 'God, you got off,' he said. 'That's great.'

  'Gotta make a call,' she said. She called the office law library, the answering machine, dropped the receiver on the table, said, 'C'mere,' and walked around him back to the bedroom.

  'What?' He looked at the phone, puzzled, then went after her.

  He was six or seven steps behind her. At the bedroom door, she slowed, let him catch up, turned with the gun, bringing it up. His warm brown puppy-dog eyes had no chance to show fear or anything else. She pulled the trigger and the gun went whack! And Hale Allen, as dead as his former wife, started falling backward. Carmel fired three more times as he fell, and afterward stepped up beside him, pointed the gun down at his forehead and fired twice more: whack, whack. And again into his heart: whack.

  'Goddamnit, Hale,' she said, as she walked back into the bedroom; 'You were my one true love.' Her photo smiled at her from the bedstand as she opened the folded piece of notebook paper, and let the odd strands of Clark's pubic hair fall on the sheet. On the way out, she hung up the phone, then looked back at Hale Allen's motionless body.

  'You prick,' she snarled. 'Screw around on me...'

  She kicked him in the chest, and then again, in the face, and then in the arm; and, breathing hard, went to the door. On the street, Rinker was coming around for the first time. Carmel stepped out and Rinker pulled over. 'That was quick,' Rinker said, as Carmel got in the car.

  'No point in messing around,' Carmel said. 'Let's move.'

  'Did you say good-bye?'

  'I didn't say anything,' Carmel said. 'I did the phone thing, got him walking, and shot him in the head.'

  'Huh.' Rinker continued on for a block, then said, 'You know something?'

  'What?'

  'We're good at this. If I'd met you ten years ago, I bet we could have set things up so that all of my outside jobs pointed somewhere else.'

  'Not too late for that,' Carmel said. 'When you get to wherever you're going, you get established, set up a couple new IDs, cool off for a while... and then come talk.'

  'It doesn't bother you? At all?'

  'Actually, I kind of like it,' Carmel said. 'It's something different, you know? You get out of the office. You see lawyers on television, running around the courthouse, but ninety percent of my time is sitting in front of a computer. This is a little exercise, if nothing else.'

  Back at Clark's, Rinker carefully pulled the clip, pressed an extra shell into the bottom of the clip, using a piece of toilet paper to keep her prints off of it, then reloaded the cartridges in the same order that they'd come out. They left the gun next to Clark's hand on the bed, but pointed away. 'I saw a suicide once, one of my clients,' Carmel said. 'The gun was like that.'

  'Then that's good,' Rinker said. She took a last look around. 'We're done.'

  On the sidewalk outside, Carmel looked up at the sky

  and said, 'I'm gonna miss you. Do you think you could get the New York Times wherever you're going?'

  'I'm sure I could.'

  'Okay. Then listen: I'll leave a message for Pamela Stone in the New York Times personal column on Halloween, and the days around there. It'll just say something like, "Pamela: Zihautanejo Hilton, November 24-30." Or wherever. That's where I'll be, if you feel safe and still want to do Mexico.'

  'I'll look for it,' Rinker said.

  'Listen, are you gonna need the other gun?'

  'No, probably not. I've got a couple more stashed.'

  'Could I have the one you've got?'

  'Sure, but it could be dangerous. If you were caught with it.'

  'I'll hide it out,' Carmel said. 'But if anything else comes up...'

  'All right.' As they got back in the car, Rinker slipped the gun out of her girdle, pulled the clip, jacked the shell out of the chamber, pushed it back into the clip and handed the pistol to Carmel. 'There you go. Be careful.'

  'I will be... Are you gone then?'

  'Yeah. I gotta move: I'll be out of the country in a week. And I've got to make a few stops. I've got money stashed all over the place.'

  Back at the parking ramp, Rinker and Carmel shook hands: good friends, who'd been through a lot together. 'If I don't see you again, I'll remember you,' Carmel said.

  'See you in Mexico, Halloween,' Rinker said. 'Hey - and don't forget to check that phone tape, and erase it, if there's anything on it.'

  'Top of my list,' Carmel said.

  She walked back through the building, let herself into the office suite, unplugged the answering machine, and listened to her messages. The call from Hale's house had something on it, but she doubted that anyone could tell what it was. She was taking no chances, though. She replaced the phone tape with a new one, stripped the tape out of the cartridge, and burned it. The little fire left a nasty odor in the office and she opened an outside window, to air it.

  She could see three or four cars parked up and down the street. At least a couple of them, she thought, were loaded with cops.

  With the answered phone call, and the watching cops, she had the perfect alibi. She should wait a few minutes, cool out, and get back home, she thought.

  And maybe have a good cry. Although she didn't feel much like crying; she was more exci
ted than saddened.

  Man, that was something else.

  He was right there and Whack! Whack! Whack!

  Alive, then dead. Something else.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Allen's body was found by his secretary, who first called Carmel to find out if she'd seen him.