Certain prey

Chapter Twenty-Six

All the paperwork was done by noon Friday. Lucas took Sherrill, Sloan and

Franklin to lunch, after leaving word for the rest of the search team to meet at his office at three o'clock. Sherrill, Sloan and Franklin knew about the warrant, as did Black, who'd gone to St. Paul to get photos of Rolando

D'Aquila's self-inflicted scratches.

'Why don't we just go?' Sherrill asked, as they settled into a booth at the Grey

Kitten. A waitress hustled over, dropped four menus on the red-checkered vinyl table-cloth, and moved on.

'Because I want it later in the day,' Lucas said, when the waitress was gone. 'I want people starting to go home. I want the process harder for her to stop. And maybe she'll be a little more tired this way. She went to work when? Seven this morning?'

Another cop drifted by, a uniform guy on his day off. He was wearing grass stained shorts and a t-shirt with a moose on the front. He smiled at Sherrill:

'Hey, Marcy.'

'Hey, Tobe,' Marcy said. 'You look a little scuffed up.' He looked down at his shorts, nodded and said, 'Softball.'

'Good, good,' she said, and her eyes drifted back to Franklin. After a moment,

Tobe said, 'Well, see ya,' and drifted away. Lucas glanced at Sherrill, who smiled, well-pleased.

'She got there at seven o'clock,' said Franklin, who'd been working with the surveillance crew. 'First light in her apartment was five-forty-five.'

'So we go into the office at three o'clock, and put a man on her apartment door at the same time,' Lucas said. 'We stay at her office until about five, and then we move the act over to the apartment. I want both the office and the apartment taken apart. Everything in the computers, all records showing phone calls, money spent, safe-deposit numbers, everything.'

'We'll need a new warrant to get into the safe-deposit boxes,' Sloan said.

'By that time – Monday – we'll either be done with her, or completely fucked,'

Lucas said. 'Although we ought to get the warrant anyway. If there's something in one of those boxes, it'll put a little more pressure on her.'

'You really think she'll come after you?' Franklin asked. He didn't know about the cartridge that Lucas had found; he knew only that Lucas would drop one, and pretend to find it.

Lucas shrugged. 'I think she'll do something. If we do this right, she oughta feel pretty cornered by the time we're done – and the only way out of the corner will be to get that shell back.'

The waitress came back and they ordered. And when the waitress was gone, Franklin asked, 'Has anybody here ever been on one of these things, when everything went just like you thought it would?'

They all thought about it for a few seconds, then Lucas shook his head, and

Sherrill said, 'Never happen.'

At three, the surveillance team put Carmel at her office. Lucas sent two men to camp out at her apartment door – 'Nobody goes in without my say-so. And if there's anybody inside when you get there, they don't leave until I see them' – and led the rest of the group in a ragged line three blocks across downtown to

Carmel's office. Another two drove over, in a van, to carry any items seized as part of the search.

Carmel was in the office of another partner when Lucas presented the search warrant to the secretary, and started feeding men into Carmel's office. Lawyers started coming out of adjoining offices and one of them yelled, 'Hey, what are you assholes doing?'

'A search,' Sherrill said, facing off.

'You got a warrant?'

'We've served it,' Sherrill said.

'You're assholes,' the lawyer shouted, and then another one started to boo, and five seconds later, the office was a raucous cacophony of boos, catcalls and hisses. A few seconds later, Carmel pushed her way through the crowd and faced off with Sherrill.

'Out of the fuckin' way,' she said.

'I'll let you in, but you are not to touch anything or interfere in any way,' Sherrill said. 'If you do, I'll throw you out.'

'Yeah?' Carmel pushed closer to her. They were chest-to-chest, not quite touching.

'Yeah,' Sherrill said. She didn't budge. 'And if you touch me, I'll knock you on your ass, and haul you downtown on an assault charge.'

Carmel almost faltered. 'Never stick,' she said.

'Tell that to your teeth when you're digging them out of the back of your throat,' Sherrill said. She waited another beat, then stepped aside. 'Don't touch, don't interfere.'

Carmel stepped past her, and a few of the lawyers in the hall started cheering,

'Go, Carmel.' Inside her office, Carmel spotted Lucas, who was standing, hands in pocket, watching a computer technician slip copy software into the floppy slot on Carmel's computer.

'What is this?' she hissed.

'We're searching your office, looking for any information or physical articles concerning your involvement in the murders of Hale Allen and others. When things are under control here, we're moving over to your apartment.'

'My apartment?' Her hand went to her throat.

'Your apartment. Right now, it's sealed. You can be present when we enter it, if you wish.'

After a long moment of astonished silence, Carmel said, 'You're nuts.'

'No, but I'm afraid you are,' Lucas said. 'We've got quite a bit of the picture with you and Louise Clark.'

'I have nothing to do with Louise Clark. Nothing. You can ask.. .'

'You just went to Zihuatanejo, at the same time by accident?'

'What?' Carmel sputtered. 'I never saw her in Zihuatanejo. I'd never go there with a… a… secretary. I went there by myself.'

Lucas now took a long moment to look her over. Then, half-turning away, he said,

'Sure.'

One of the vice guys found Louise Clark's name in Carmel's Rolodex, lifted it out, put it in an evidence bag. Another found a long paper record of the

D'Aquila drug trial, and bagged that, too. The lawyers in the hallway began chanting 'Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,' and one of the senior partners came down and tried to quiet them. They didn't quiet. The chanting got louder, and the partner grinned slightly, shrugged and went upstairs; the approval as explicit as they'd ever get from that particular partner. Two minutes later, another group of lawyers arrived, from another firm in the building, and joined the chanting.

Carmel was shouting over tibe noise. 'You think I killed Hale? We were gonna get married. I was here the night he was killed. Look in our phone records, asshole, you'll find that he called me, we talked for ten minutes… Hey asshole, I'm talking to you…'

And outside, the lawyers began chanting, 'Asshole, asshole, asshole…'

Sherrill was getting angry, but Lucas touched her shoulder and grinned: 'Haven't had this much fun since we beat up that shitkicker in Oxford.'

And Carmel screamed, 'What are you laughing about, asshole?'

And Lucas let it out, a long, rolling laugh. Outside, the lawyers were chanting, scratching at the glass windows to Carmel's outer office, watching him laugh and laugh…

At five o'clock, leaving three detectives at the office to look through the last of the records, Lucas moved the act to Carmel's apartment. Carmel followed in her bloody-red Jag, which had been searched while it was parked in the office ramp. Lucas and four others were in the elevator when it arrived at the fifth floor, where Carmel's parking space was.

Carmel got on with a man who she'd introduced at the office as Dane Carlton, her personal attorney. Lucas knew him to nod to, a tall, slender, grey-haired man with a cool demeanor and icy blue eyes behind plain gold-rimmed glasses. He was wearing a blue suit with a white shirt and wine-colored tie.

To Lucas, Carmel said, 'Fuck you.'

Lucas sighed, looked at Carlton. 'You should tell your client to watch her mouth.'

'I'm her attorney, not her guardian,' Carlton said bluntly.

'And he's gonna rip you a new asshole when we're done with this,' Carmel said.

Lucas looked at Carlton. 'That right?'

Carlton, with the tiniest movement of his head, said, 'Yes.'

When Carlton and Carmel got out at Carmel's floor, Sherrill, looking after him, put her mouth close to Lucas' ear and whispered, 'I get the feeling he could do it.'

Lucas said, 'I know him. He could.'

The search team was methodical and undiscrimi-nating. They were looking for guns, cartridges, records, notes, letters – anything that would tie Carmel to any of the people who were murdered. They found a half-dozen notes and e-mails written to Hale Allen, most of them simply setting up dates.

Franklin, wearing white plastic gloves, gave one of them to Lucas: 'Fuck around on me, and I'll kill you,' Lucas read aloud.

Carlton glanced at Carmel, who rolled her eyes. But she was angry, and getting angrier, Lucas thought. He dropped the D'Aquila scratches on her the first time he got an opening, which came when Carmel started screaming again.

'You're messing up my goddamn clothes, those clothes are worth more fucking money than the city can pay… Dane, we gotta recover for this, they're wrecking that suit.'

Carlton said, 'We will, Carmel.' He turned to Lucas: 'Chief Davenport, why don't we end this charade? There's no evidence that Carmel had anything to do with any of these killings. You're simply fishing – and we will eventually find out why.

It appears to be a personal crusade against one of the most highly regarded criminal attorneys in the state. Have you lost a case to Carmel? What is there in your past…?'

'I don't have anything against Carmel/ Lucas said, injecting a little steel into his voice, 'I always kind of admired her. She's a tough attorney. I stopped admiring her when Rolando D'Aquila used his fingernails to carve Carmel's name into the back of his hand while he was being tortured and then executed.'

Carlton showed a thin smile: 'That is… one of the more amazing things I've ever heard.'

'You'll be even more amazed when you see the scratches. Or gouges – doing it had to be almost as painful as getting the holes drilled in his knees. And he didn't just carve her initials. He carved her name: C. Loan. Quarter-inch grooves in the back of his hand…'

Carlton glanced at Carmel, who'd frozen in place when she heard D'Aquila's name.

'I just don't believe it,' Carlton said finally.

'Well, we've got D'Aquila's body on ice in St. Paul, along with the blood that dried on his hands and arms while he was carving her name out. So you all can go over and look at it. I'm sure you'll find your own pathologist to examine the body…'

Carmel started to interject something, but Carlton waved her down, and turned to

Lucas with a slightly warmer tone of voice. Lucas knew what he was doing: he was looking for information, anything that might someday help a defense. 'We will challenge it, of course; because whatever might be carved on Mr.

D'Aquila's hand, it isn't Carmel's name.'

'You can say that without seeing it?' Lucas' eyebrows went up.

'Of course. Because it can't be Carmel's name.' 'Okay,' Lucas said, mildly. 'If that's your story.' 'It is, and we're sticking to it,' Carlton said.

The search continued. Sloan, one of the more mild-mannered of the homicide cops, mentioned to Carmel, in passing, that they knew about her connection with Clark at law school. Lucas, outside the bedroom when Sloan and Carmel were talking, heard Carmel spluttering, 'She was a secretary, for Christ's sake.'

And Sloan answered, 'C'mon, Carmel, we know she took that legal writing course the same time you did.'

'If she did, I didn't know about it.'

'Ah, c'mon,' Sloan said. 'You guys go way back. You even did that Halloween Ball together. It's right on the program.'

'Jesus… you guys.' But she was scared, now. More angry than scared, but scared nevertheless.

At six o'clock, with Carlton glancing at his watch every two minutes, the search team began breaking up. A crime-scene crew had been brought in to take samples from Carmel's bed, the guestroom bed, and to dust the guestroom for fingerprints. They began packing their gear, and Sloan told Lucas he was heading home. Then two more detectives checked out, and Carlton asked Lucas, 'I assume you're not planning anything else dramatic? No new papers to serve…'

Lucas shook his head: 'No. We're about done. I'm gonna take one last cruise through the place…'

Carlton went to Carmel and said, 'I'm chairing a bar meeting at seven o'clock.

Will you be all right here?'

'Sure. It's all over.'

And Sherrill, her voice low, asked Lucas, 'Got the shell?'

'Yeah. Take off as soon as Carlton's out of here.'

'I'll be across the street with Sloan. Franklin and Del are headed for your house.'

Carlton left, Sherrill looked at her watch: 'You want me to stay?' she asked

Lucas. 'I'm kind of in a rush.'

'Take off,' Lucas said. 'I'll say good-bye to Carmel, make sure nobody left anything behind.'

Carmel shouted at Sherrill, as she left, 'Good riddance to all of ya. Fuck ya.

Fuck ya…'

Sherrill flashed her the finger, over her shoulder, and Carmel's eyes widened and she took a step after Sherrill, and Lucas stepped between them and said,

'Hey, hey…' Then, to Sherrill, 'Knock it off, okay?' At the same time, he winked at her.

'Yeah, yeah…' And she was gone, too, and Lucas and Carmel were left alone in the fabulous apartment.