Certain Prey

by John Sandford

  'That's helpful.'

  'The picture sort of fills out, though. She's a sociopath, I think, but not a psychopath. She never showed that much enthusiasm for her work, she just did it very effectively. She had to take SAT tests to get into Wichita State, and she did okay: quite well on verbal skills, less good on math. About 700-550, which is pretty exceptional when you understand that she ran away from home in the ninth grade.'

  'I knew she was smart,' Lucas said. 'She got out of here so cleanly that I expect she's got a hidey-hole somewhere. Digging her out could be tough, especially with those horseshit photos we've got so far. Say: I think I know from somewhere that the SAT people require photo IDs for their tests.'

  'I don't know,' Malone said. 'But we'll check.'

  'If that's blood you found on the ground behind the dumpster, and it comes from more than one person, then she's still out there. Otherwise, I don't know. It's hard to think that she's dead and gone. Outa reach.'

  'Worse things have happened,' Malone said. 'At least the killing would stop, until they find somebody else. But I know what you mean; it'd be good to have her.'

  'She got any foreign languages?' Lucas asked.

  'Spanish,' Malone confirmed. 'She's in her fourth year of college Spanish, got A's all the way through. One of our guys talked to her Spanish instructor, who said that if she goes South, across the border, she'll be speaking it like a native in six months. Said she was already pretty good, and had a good ear for the accent.'

  'I wouldn't be surprised if she's already down there,' Lucas said. 'Goddamnit: we were an inch short about five times in a row.'

  'What about the woman in Minneapolis - Garmel Loan?' Malone asked. She ate her cheese sandwich in

  small, tidy bites, pausing every second or third bite to dab her mouth with a napkin; she looked like a history professor, Lucas thought, but an oddly sexy one. Maybe that somehow explained how she'd been married four times, but none of the marriages lasted. Maybe her husbands-to-be expected a nice, reserved history professor, and got an animal instead; or, maybe, it was the other way around.

  'I need to lay in my bed and think about Carmel,' Lucas said. 'Maybe I could z-out in the back of the car this evening, going back home. But let me ask you this: given what we have right now, how convincing a case could you make against Clara Rinker?'

  Malone rolled her eyes up, and to one side, thinking. After a moment, still silent, she scratched the back of her neck, and wiggled in her seat. Finally, she said, 'We could probably get her. Sooner or later; give us enough trials, we could get her.'

  'But it sure isn't open-and-shut.'

  'Not quite,' Malone said. 'We'll probably get some prints, sooner or later. Find something she forgot about. But even if we put them with the prints you got off that bar of soap, all we'd do was prove that she was in Minneapolis. We have a mountain of evidence, we just don't have any direct tie. But I think the mountain would get her. Given the right jury.'

  'So the same evidence could be applied to somebody else - it's not impossible that Clara's the wrong person,' Lucas said.

  'Well, it's pretty improbable.'

  'But...'

  '... not impossible,' she agreed.

  'You've got a lawyer with your group, don't you? Besides you?'

  'Couple of them,' Malone said.

  'Would it be possible to send one up to Minneapolis - the smartest one - with the whole Rinker file, and get with one of our assistant country attorneys and make a case against Louise Clark? That she was the shooter? I mean, we found the gun, we found all kinds of evidence that she committed at least one murder; I'd like to see what other evidence we could put together from other cases. If there is any.'

  Malone was puzzled: 'But you said that was a put-up job. Why would you want to make that case?'

  'Because, just between you, me, and the doorpost, I know damn well that Carmel Loan helped set up these killings. I don't know exactly why, although sex might have had something to do with it - or it might not have. Maybe it was money, or just for fun. But she's in it, up to her neck. And I can tie Carmel to Clark. If I can make a case that Clark is the shooter, and I can tie Carmel to her, maybe I could talk a jury into sending Carmel away.'

  'Oh, man, I don't know - that doesn't sound overly ethical.'

  'I ain't a fuckin' lawyer I'm just a humble cop,' Lucas said. 'So I don't know about ethics. But could you send a lawyer up? We can work out the details -the ethics - later.'

  She was peering at him over the diner table, and said, 'I'm not sure I want to know the details.'

  'But you'll send somebody up?'

  'I guess.' She had one small crumb of toast sitting on the left corner of her mouth, and Lucas picked up her napkin and dabbed it off for her.

  'You had a crumb,' he said.

  She shrugged and met his eyes. 'The story of my life...'

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Sherrill agreed with Malone. 'That is the goofiest thing I've ever heard.'

  Black disagreed: 'How about the Tracy Triplets and the thing with the gourd? You said that was the goofiest thing you'd ever heard. That you'd never see that peak again.'

  Sherrill's eyes stayed with Lucas, but she spoke to Black. 'Okay, this is the second goofiest thing I've ever heard. The Tracy Triplets are still first, but only because of the midget. If it wasn't for the midget, this would be goofier.'

  Lucas wasn't smiling. 'This is not goofy. You're starting to piss me off.'

  Sherrill was waving her arms. 'Lucas, how'n the hell can you convict an innocent dead woman of something she didn't do?' -

  'Shouldn't be too tough,' Lucas said. 'We do it a few times a year with innocent live people. How hard could it be to do it with a dead one? She certainly won't care. And we will get Carmel.'

  'Jesus, man, I don't know,' Black said. 'This ain't a game.'

  'I know. But maybe we'll break something loose.

  So what I want, is I want everybody out working on connections between Louise Clark and Carmel. They were about the same age - did they ever go to the same school? Did they ever hang out at the same place? They must've known each other, so let's make them into friends. Let's put together some ideas that'll tighten up the story on Clark, something we could take her to court on...'

  'If she were alive,' Black said.

  'Yeah. If she was alive.'

  'This won't work if Carmel doesn't hear about it. We want her to react,' Lucas said. A half-dozen detectives were crowded into Lucas' office: Sherrill, Black, Sloan, a guy from drugs, two from sex. Lucas wanted people he'd worked with and could trust. 'We know she's got at least a couple of sources inside the department, so we want you to blab. Gossip. Homicide is tying Carmel Loan to Louise Clark, and through her, to the killings.'

  'Why don't you call some of your pals at TV3?' Black asked.

  'I'd rather have them ask me about it,' Lucas said. 'I don't want it to be an obvious plant. Rumors are better than actual stories. In fact, if the newsies hear about it, I'll probably deny it.'

  'Refuse to comment,' Sherrill said. 'That always makes their little weenies hard.'

  Carmel heard about it almost immediately. 'They're what?'

  'They're tying you to Louise Clark. If they can tie you to her, you could be in trouble.'

  'But I didn't do anything,' she said with asperity.

  'Yeah, well, whatever. Listen, things are getting a little warm around here. I'm getting out of the information business for a while, okay?'

  'You mean, "Don't call,'" Carmel said.

  'I'm not trying to be an asshole, but they're pulling out all the stops. They've got a half-dozen guys working on it. Davenport told somebody that they'll have you inside by the end of the week.'

  'That's absurd.'

  'I thought you'd want to know... so I'm signing off, okay? This last one's a freebie.'

  'Fuck your freebie,' Carmel snarled.

  Black found an invitation to a lawyer's Halloween Ball organized by members of several downtown firms. A ph
oto of four of the women who organized the ball, including Carmel, was on the back of the program, and Louise Clark's name was in the list of people who'd volunteered to help out.

  'What you should do,' Lucas told Black, after he'd seen the photo, 'Is get in touch with these other women, and ask them about the relationship between Carmel and Clark. How closely did they work together? That kind of thing.'

  'I think Clark was probably a flunky - Xeroxed the invitations, or something.'

  'That's fine, but ask anyway,' Lucas said. 'One of

  the people you ask will call Carmel, and tell her you're asking...'

  Then Sherrill came up with a strong tie, one that surprised everybody: Louise Clark's phone records showed two calls to Carmel Loan's unlisted home phone in the week before Clark was killed. Both calls were late at night.

  'I can't think why they would be talking - why Clark would be calling her. But it's an amazing tie,' Sherrill said.

  'It's almost enough by itself,' Lucas said. 'You know what? I want you to go over and brace Carmel about this, face-to-face. Tell her it's part of the Clark investigation, and we just want the question answered... no big deal.'

  Carmel's face was the color of her fabulous bloody-red silk scarf: 'She never called,' Carmel shouted. 'She never called.'

  'Ms. Loan, somebody called - from her house to yours. This isn't bullshit - this is the list straight from the phone company. I brought a Xerox copy for you.' Sherrill was sitting in front of Carmel's desk, and she unfolded the Xerox and pushed across the leather desk pad. '... and you can call the phone company yourself, if you don't think this is accurate.'

  Carmel snatched the Xerox copy from the desk, looked at the two underlined phone calls. She shook her head angrily, said, 'No. This is...' But then she

  trailed off, and her head swung sideways and down, a pensive look crossing her face.

  'You know what this is?' she asked finally, looking up at Sherrill. 'That sonofabitch was calling me from her house. He was sleeping with me three nights a week, and when we weren't together, he was sneaking over to her place.'

  Sherrill looked doubtful: 'Well...' She stood up. 'If you say so.'

  'That's what it is,' Carmel shouted, shaking the Xerox copy in Sherrill's face.

  Lucas was not amused by the story. He shook his head, fiddled with a sport-coat button. 'I'm starting to feel sorry for her,' he said. 'Almost.'

  'My question is, where are you going with this? I mean, exactly where?' Sherrill asked.

  They were alone in Lucas' office, streetlights coming on outside the single window; a soft glow lingered in the sky. A perfect summer night, a night for walking around the lakes, Sherrill thought. Lucas said, 'You're the only one who knows about the shell I found in her bedroom closet.'

  'Unless you told somebody else,' Sherrill said.

  'No. It's just you and me,' Lucas said. He pulled out the typewriter tray on the top corner of his desk, leaned back in his chair and put his feet up. 'But something happened to get that shell in there. Somebody dropped a box of shells, somebody ejected a shell and didn't pick it up, or somebody was

  punching a bunch of shells into a clip and fumbled them... If Carmel sees me find a shell there, and if I find it in just the right circumstances, I think she'd come after it. Either her, or the shooter.'

  'You mean like... any shell.'

  'Sure. Any shell. Any.22. Whatever happened to get that shell in the closet, Carmel will know about. If I find a shell in the closet, she'll know she's fucked. Especially if she hears about the scratches on the back of Rolo's hand and our other corroborating evidence, whatever it might be.'

  'What'll she do?'

  'Suppose I find the shell on a Friday night. Suppose everybody has left her apartment, except me, and I find the shell while I'm taking a last look around. I know where I found the original, so I'll find this one in exactly the same place. I show it to her, and she claims I planted it, or whatever. And I say, "The only shells I have to plant are already fired. If we get a metallurgical match on these slugs and some of the killer slugs, Carmel, you're all done." And then I tell her I know she's involved... from the phone messages, or something.'

  'And...'

  'And I say, "We'll let you know first thing Monday morning." Then I put the shell in a baggie, and I leave. I go home. Drive slow, give her a chance to catch me. And we put a net around the house, and I hang around...'

  Sherrill frowned. 'You think she'd come after it?'

  'If she knows that it'll match. And she probably knows that. If we give her the whole weekend to stew about it.'

  'Boy. The whole thing smells a little like entrapment.'

  'Look, you and I know she's involved,' Lucas said. 'If she comes after me, then we've got her. If you try to entrap somebody, and their response is to shoot you... I mean, you can't defend yourself against entrapment with attempted murder. And, in fact, we can outline some of this to the other guys - tell them that we're trying to lure the killer in. That we'd never use the fake shell. That way, we avoid the entrapment charge.'

  'But we won't tell them that there once was a real shell.'

  'No...'

  'It's getting trickier by the minute.'

  'Mmmm. Be nice if we could find a few more things to tie Clark to Carmel...'

  'Well, hell, we're inventing the shell, and the whole relationship, we could invent a few ties, too,' Sherrill said. 'Like... suppose we find out where she took a vacation, and we leak the word that Clark took a vacation there at the same time. There's no way for Carmel to know that she didn't.'

  'I hope this is getting through to her,' Lucas said. 'I hope her leak in the department's still good.'

  'We need to write a script,' Sherrill suggested. 'When we get the warrant for her apartment, we could

  drop all of these little nuggets. You could say something, I could drop something, Sloan...'

  Lucas nodded, looked at his watch. 'Good idea -think of some stuff. And I'll think of some. But right now, I've got to go to the Reality Commission, we're talking about non-certifiable minorities tonight.' He thumped the Report which sat on one side of his desk. He was on page four hundred and thirty.

  'Non-certifiable... what is that?'

  'Well, you know: minorities that don't fit into racial, handicapped, sexual-determinant, age-determinant, religious, ethnic, or national-origin groups.'

  'Jeez, I would have thought that covered everything.'

  'Oh, no. There was a case in Wisconsin of a white, Episcopalian male in his early thirties, non-handicapped, heterosexual, English heritage...'

  'A perfect WASP...'

  'Wouldn't even pee in the shower,' Lucas said. 'Anyway, he was a member of one of the animal-protection groups, and his co-workers tormented him by displaying photographs of pork chops and link sausages in the workplace, and they'd talk about going to McDonald's for cheeseburgers. He got 8750,000 from the city of Madison for emotional imperialism.'

  'Well - Madison.'

  'That explains a lot of it, of course,' Lucas said, nodding. 'But apparently we need a policy. You know, covering non-religious ethical minorities.' Then he closed his eyes, rubbed them with a thumb and

  forefinger. 'Jesus Christ, what'd I just say?'

  Carmel could feel the rage building. She knew what the cops were doing. They were building a 'just in case' case - hoping to build a good enough story that a jury would put her away, just in case she was the killer.

  Somehow, she thought, Davenport had fastened on her as the killer. And, she had to admit, it had never occurred to her that in eliminating any possibility that she could be tied to Rinker, she'd thoughtlessly incriminated somebody to whom she could be tied. And there was no way for her to explain that Clark wasn't the killer. How could she know?

  Carmel had tried forty-four murder cases in her career, winning twenty-one of them. That was considered an excellent average, since most involved a man found standing over his dead wife with a handgun, and when asked why he did it, had told the co
ps, 'She was gettin' on my ass, you know?'

  Three of the cases she'd lost still haunted her, because she shouldn't, in her opinion, have lost them. She'd broken the state's case, she'd thought, and after-verdict interviews with the jurors had suggested that she'd lost only because the jurors wanted to believe the cops. They hadn't had the evidence, but they'd convicted because the cops suggested they should.

  That could happen to her...

  Fuckin' Davenport...

  Worse, the word was getting out. She might be