Phantom prey

19

LUCAS SPENT THE morning arranging surveillance on Frank Willett, a loose one- man tag until they could decide whether or not to pick him up. He’d called Austin early and had gotten Willett’s work schedule. He was teaching tai chi at one spa and had Pilates classes at two others.

“I’ve been thinking about Frank,” Austin said. “He seems too gentle to kill anyone. But I can’t let this go. I’ve got to check and make sure he’s not selling dope in my places.”

“Just take it easy for a couple of days, huh?” Lucas asked. “A couple days won’t make any difference. We’ll make some kind of decision by then.”

She said she’d think about it.

AND HE HAD bureaucratic stuff to do, with the Republican convention security committee. After the committee meeting, he stopped at United Hospital to check on a friend who’d had an early- morning angiogram, and had gotten a couple of stents in his heart. After that, dropped down to the United cafeteria for a slice of pepperoni pizza and a bottle of diet Coke, and tried not to think about stents.

Coming up the ramp from the hospital’s subterranean first floor, his cell phone rang: Carol. “You’ve been out of service,” she said. “Can’t get anything in the hospital,” he said. “What’s up?"

"A cop is calling from San Francisco on Willett,” she said. “He said he’d be there for another hour-that’s a half hour now. I got a number.”

LUTHER WANE sounded like a cheerful man, though he had a gravelly smoker’s cough. Between hacks, he said, “I talked to the prosecutor and they don’t want him. I mean, they’d take him, if it was free, but they don’t want to pay to send somebody out there to get him.”

“That sorta sucks,” Lucas said. “Yeah, well, they’ll probably have to dismiss anyway. Even if they don’t, he won’t get any time. We got too many people in jail and the budget’s all shot in the ass, and a skinny case on a small- time dealer that’s six years old… they figure it’d cost us ten grand to come get him and they don’t want to pay.”

“But if he jumped bail…” Lucas said. It seemed ridiculous. “That’s another problem,” Wane said. “He was bailed out with a court date to come. But the prosecutor in the case got killed and the paper got lost, and we can’t prove that he was ever notified of his court date. And his lawyer at that time, a court- appointed guy, moved to New Mexico and is running an ashram or some shit, and… you see what I mean? Too much horseshit and not enough money.”

“Yeah. Doesn’t help me, though,” Lucas said. “You know what I’d do?"

"What?"

"I’d bust him anyway, if I was ready,” Wane said. “On the California warrant. It’s still good. Then you notify us, and it takes a while for the paper to get through the mill, and then some time to get back to you… You could have him inside for probably ten days or two weeks if you picked your weekends right. Bust him on a Friday, notify on a Monday, takes four or five days out here, we decline to prosecute the following Tuesday or Wednesday… and we can probably drag our feet a little.”

“I might do that,” Lucas said. “We only wanted a shot at squeezing him, anyway.”

“So if I get some paper from you, I’ll know what you’re doing."

"Good enough,” Lucas said. “The prosecutor-he wasn’t stabbed or anything, was he?” Wane laughed. “No. We got one of those two- story McDonald’s here, you know? He takes his Big Mac and his fries upstairs to eat and read his newspaper, and when he finishes, he heads for the stairs, still reading the New York Times, trips and falls down the stairs and breaks his neck. He’s dead on the scene.”

“Jesus,” Lucas said. “Anybody get sued?” Wane laughed a little longer, the laughs interspersed with hacks

“He had an estranged wife. She testified that he’d come over twice a week and spend forty-five minutes trying to work through the estrangement. Doggy- style, for the most part, the rumor is. Anyway, she was still his wife, technically, and she sued for loss of companionship and got three- point- four million from McDonald’s. Then she married the guy’s boss. Heh- heh.”

“If there’s an afterlife, he’s probably got a serious case of the red ass,” Lucas said.

“If there’s an afterlife, he’s got more problems than that,” Wane said. “Nasty little bullet- headed know- it- all fuck.”

LUCAS WAS BACK at the office and took a call from Sandy, the researcher: “I’ve got a Loren who might be interesting.” When Lucas didn’t immediately respond, she said, “You know-you had me looking up Lorens?”

“Oh, yeah. That didn’t come to much,” Lucas said. “You still want this guy?” she asked. “What’s he look like?"

"He fits the general description. Dark hair, anyway. The key thing is, he went to the university at the same time as Frances, and it’s likely, but not for sure, until I can check some more, that they were in some of the same classes.”

“Jeez,” Lucas said. “That might be something. Shoot it over here.” The photo popped up a couple minutes later in his e- mail. He looked at it, called Jackson, the photographer, and asked if he could get a print. “Forward it to me,” Jackson said. “By the time you get down here, I’ll have it.”

Lucas forwarded Sandy’s e- mail, got a diet Coke from the machine, and walked downstairs to Jackson’s cubbyhole. Jackson said, “I’m doing a little work on it.” He had the photo on a computer screen and was touching it up. “A little Photoshop.”

A minute or so later, he tapped a couple of keys, got up a response box, clicked his mouse, and the printer churned out a glossy print. “Another piece-of-shit photograph-I wonder why nobody makes an effort to get decent ID shots? They should at least look human.”

“Maybe you should start a campaign,” Lucas said. He looked at the photo. Could it be the man in the alley? Could be.

He called Austin, who was at home. “I’m ten minutes away-I want to run down and show you a photograph,” he said. “Of who?"

"I’d rather have you respond to it sort of… spontaneously.”

AT THE AUSTINS’, a man in a jean jacket, jeans, and cowboy boots was putting a cardboard carton in the back of a pickup, where a half dozen more cartons were already stacked. Austin was at the door, and when Lucas came up, she waved at the pickup driver, who was backing the truck out, and said to Lucas, “Finally pulled the trigger on Frances’s clothes. Sent them off to Goodwill.”

“That’s got to be harsh,” he said. “Had to be done. She’s gone,” she said. And, “Come in.” He stepped inside and said, “Just need a minute.” He had the photo in a manila envelope, slipped it out and handed it to her. She looked at it, and her face turned white and she blurted, “Oh, my God. It’s Loren Doyle."

"This is the guy? The Loren?” Lucas asked. “Oh my God.” Her hand was at her throat. She pushed the photo back at him and said, “That’s the guy, but I just remembered, when you handed it to me… I mean, I never knew him well, just saw him that once, but now I know why I remembered him.”

Lucas spread his hands: “What?"

"He’s dead,” she said. “He was killed in an awful boat accident on the Mississippi, right below downtown St. Paul. He was in one of those jet boats with a couple of other guys and they hit a barge. I think there were three people and they all got killed.”

“Ah, jeez, I remember that,” Lucas said. “But that was…"

"Way before Frances. I remember now. He was in one of her classes, they were on a project together, a case study for a business class. About General Electric or General Mills or General Motors. And then she told me he was killed. They weren’t close, but we were both shocked. You know how people are when it’s somebody you just met and was alive and everything?”

“Damnit,” Lucas said. He looked at the photo. “I thought we were on to something.” He looked at her, still white. “Are you okay?”

“It gave me such a start,” she said. “Like he came back from the grave.”

LUCAS WAS BACK on the road two minutes later, driving away with the uneasy sense that something had just gotten by him. Was it possible that Loren wasn’t dead? That Austin was lying about it? But it seemed improbable- it’d be too easy to check. He thought about it, then called Sandy: “I’ve got something else for you. I need it ASAP. This Loren guy…”

He was almost back at the office when he took a call from Cheryl Weiner, the agent watching Frank Willett. “Lucas, this guy is getting ready to run,” she said. “He just brought a duffel out to his truck and he seems to be in a sweat. He was supposed to be doing a Pilates class and he skipped it… Okay, here he comes again. He’s got skis.”

“Stick with him,” Lucas said. “I’m on the way.” He was halfway to Minneapolis when she called back: “He’s in his truck, he’s backing out, you want me to block him? Want me to grab him?”

“No, no, no… we don’t know what he’s up to, if he’s got a gun. If he’s our guy, he’s killed four people, he might feel like his back’s against the wall. Just tag him. We’ll get some help.”

She tagged him, staying back. He showed no sign of looking behind him, in his haste to get out, she said. She took him up to I- 94 and then north, as Lucas closed in from behind. He called Carol, got piped to the highway patrol district office, and asked for help. Two patrol cars were nearby and available, one north of Willett, and one south. The one on the south blew past Lucas, and Lucas, still on with the patrol’s district office, warned them that he was going to fall in behind, and he did.

The car coming down from the north got off, waited for Willett and Weiner to pass, and then fell in behind. When the south car caught up, the two patrolmen moved on him: fell in behind, with lights and sirens, pulled him over, blocked front and back. Lucas and Weiner came in behind, waited for a lull in the traffic, and got out.

Willett didn’t resist and was cuffed by the time they were out. He was dressed in loose nylon pants and a sweatshirt. His brown hair was undone and fell almost to his shoulders.

“What?” he asked Lucas. “We’re arresting you on a California warrant for possession of marijuana, and on suspicion of murder in the death of Frances Elaine Austin,” Lucas said. “You have the right to remain silent…”

Willett’s face tightened up: “What? Frances? What’re you talking about, man?”

“… the right to have an attorney present during questioning…"

"Man! What are you talking about?” Willett yanked his arms against the highway patrolman, who jerked him backward away from Lucas.

“… cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand this, Mr. Willett?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about Frances? I didn’t have anything to do with Frances,” he said.

“Let’s get him off the highway,” Lucas said to one of the patrolmen. “If one of you guys can haul his butt down to Ramsey, maybe the other guy could help us pull the car apart."

"Pull my car… wait a minute."

"Why’d you decide to run?” Lucas asked. “Somebody tell you about us?” Willett’s eyes strayed away, then came back and he shrugged

“Well-yeah. But I don’t know who it was. Some chick. A client, I guess. She heard a rumor about the dope thing, said she’d hate to see me in trouble. Called me on my cell.”

“How many people have your cell phone number?"

"About a million,” he said. “All my clients. You know, Frances-I didn’t have anything to do with Frances, but I think I better have a lawyer. I’m gonna need one, aren’t I?”

“You got any money?” Lucas asked. “A thousand, maybe."

"We’ll get you one,” Lucas said. The truck had nothing but clothing and outdoor gear. The highway patrolman would arrange for a tow, and Lucas thanked Weiner and said goodbye, and called Carol. “We need to get a search warrant for Willett’s place and a couple crime- scene guys to go through it.”

“Probably be a few hours,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow?"

"That’s okay; I’m going back down to talk to Austin again,” he said. Another dead half hour, going back across town. Austin came to the door, a small frown on her face. “Something more?"

"Who did you tell about us watching Frank Willett?” She posed for a moment, then said, “Gina Nassif in Human Resources. Oh, shit. What happened?"

"Somebody called Willett and he made a run for it,” Lucas said. “That should tell you something,” she said. “Maybe he didn’t want to go back to California,” Lucas said. “Anyway, I asked you-”

“I had to talk to Gina. If we have an employee handing out drugs, I could lose my shirt. I asked her to be discreet, but…”

“What?"

"She tends to gossip a little bit,” Austin said. “Ahhh… You couldn’t wait for a couple of days?” She pushed a lip out. “I’m sorry if it messed something up.” Didn’t sound sorry, Lucas thought. Late afternoon, traffic building: Lucas decided to stop at the drugstore apartment and watch Heather Toms for a while, then head home for dinner. Let Willett stew overnight, search his place first thing in the morning.

The apartment was empty when he got there: Del had been around, leaving behind a foam coffee cup, empty except for a wad of paper. Lucas turned on the boom box, dropped in a Norah Jones disk from a stack of disks on the floor, kicked back in the desk chair and picked up the glasses. Nobody visible in the apartment across the street, but he could see the light of the television flickering on the wall.

He called Weather and she said they’d have center- cut pork chops, sweet potatoes, and corn bread. He said he’d be home at six.

He sat and thought about Willett, and Alyssa Austin, and the others in the Austin case: he’d missed something that day, something about Austin, maybe, and it was right there, almost close enough to touch.

Thought about it, went to the refrigerator, found that somebody had drunk three of the six diet Cokes he’d put inside, took one, twisted off the top, then did a half- dozen toe touches, stretching his bad leg. Damn thing still hurt, but more of an ache, now, than the rippling hot pain that he’d had earlier.

As he did one of the stretches, Heather Toms stood up, just visible at the edge of one of the window frames, pointed a remote at an out- of- sight TV, clicked the TV off. A couple of minutes later, she went to the door, and her mother wheeled in.

Heather was looking pretty good, Lucas thought. She went into the bedroom and dug through her closet, tried on a couple pairs of shoes, and then walked back to the living room, disappeared, reappeared in a dark raincoat, said something to her mother, and headed for the door. Going out. Someplace where she’d wear heels.

Lucas looked at his watch: five o’clock. He had a little time.

WHISTLING AS HE went, he locked the apartment and hurried down the stairs, to the end of the block, and slipped into the Porsche. Heather appeared a moment later, up from the underground parking ramp, in her red Lexus SC 430. Not a hard car to follow, and he stayed back as she turned north on Snelling Avenue, then east on Randolph, and south on I- 35. They tracked south and then west of I- 494 to the Mall of America. She parked in a ramp at the west end of the complex, looked at her watch, then wandered down into Nordstrom.

Lucas stayed well back; a narrow- eyed saleswoman started tracking him as he cruised the women’s clothing, and finally she came over and asked, sharply, as though she were sure she couldn’t, “Can I help you find something, sir?”

He took out his ID: “I’m a police officer. I’m working. Go away and don’t look at me.”

She looked at the ID and then said, “Okay,” and walked away.

HEATHER WAS LOOKING at her watch again-it was 5:25 on Lucas’s watch-and headed for the store exit that led into the main mall. He followed her, still way back along the north wing of the first floor. At the center exit, she stopped at a bank of telephones and looked at her watch again. Now it was 5:28.

Sonofabitch, Siggy Toms is calling her at 5:30, Lucas thought. He got on his cell and called Carol, but Carol was gone. Called the duty guy and told him to set up a phone trace, he’d have the number and the time coming. Then, he thought, a phone rang, because Heather turned and picked it up.

Her face didn’t look that happy when she was talking. Not a lover’s face, he thought, although given her other love interest, maybe Siggy was a problem, rather than a solution.

At that moment, a tall man, thin as a rail, wearing a battered white cowboy hat, a pearl- button shirt, and jeans worn nearly white with weather, stepped out of a store with a shopping bag, looked down toward Lucas, looked the other way, and wandered off.

Something about him, Lucas thought. Where had he seen the guy? What the hell was it? Was he hooked to Heather Toms somehow? But the man went on past Heather without looking at her, bow- legged and clunky in his boots…

Thirty feet away, Heather was talking, her face and body animated; an argument? After a minute or so, she hung up, smiled, as if she’d accomplished something, and walked back toward Lucas. Lucas stepped inside a junk store-a store full of useless shit-and watched her walk past, and let her go.

The man with the cowboy hat was gone. Don’t know what that was all about, the cowboy, he thought. Something though. And Siggy, he thought, as he walked down to check the phone, was coming.

AT THE DINNER TABLE, over the sweet potatoes and pork chops, he told Weather about it. “… calling from a pay phone in Chattanooga. That’s a long day’s drive out of Miami-I bet he’s on the way.”

“I’d hate to see the baby at risk,” she said. “If Siggy comes, do you have to take him at the apartment? With Heather there?”

“We’ll take him when we see him,” Lucas said. “He is a bad guy."

"I’d like to be there,” Letty said. “Be a good story for the station."

"You are not going to be there,” Weather said. Letty had a half- assed high- school internship at Channel Three, through one of Lucas’s former lovers, the mother of his other daughter. She asked him, “What do you think?”

Lucas said, “Over my dead body."

"Jeez Louise…"

"When Siggy comes in, we won’t be fooling around,” Lucas said

“He’s been gone a year and more. He thinks he can sneak in here, and back out-he’s probably got some cash stashed here, that he couldn’t get at. But when we take him, he’s gonna know that he won’t get back out a second time. He’ll be inside for twenty or thirty, and the feds might tack more onto that. He’s not gonna be in a mood for any pissing around.”

“Boy,” Letty said. “I’d give my left nut to be there."

"Forget it,” Lucas said, not rising to the “nut” bait. “You can let the SWAT guys take him,” Weather said to Lucas

“You’ve been shot enough this year."

"Got that right,” Lucas said.