Easy Prey

Chapter 14

Derrick Deal lived in a town house in Roseville, eight miles northeast of the Minneapolis loop and off Highway 36. The town house, a split-entry end unit with a tuck-under garage, was one of twenty arranged around a pond full of Canada geese.

Lucas knocked on the door, waited, and got the hollow response that an empty house gives. The garage door was locked, so he walked around back. There were windows on the side of the garage and the back door, and he peered inside, but couldn't see much: a corner of the kitchen table from the back door, and on the table, what looked like a stack of bills and a checkbook. The garage was empty. He walked back around to the front, noticed that the mail slot was open just a crack; he pushed it the rest of the way, and could see mail on the floor. More than one day's worth, he thought. No newspapers, though.

He knocked again, then went next door and knocked. No answer from there, either. If you lived in a town house, you worked. Maybe check back in the evening.

As he was leaving, Lucas cranked up his cell phone, called Dispatch and asked that they find Deal's license tag, and put it out.

"Lucas, the chief has been trying to get in touch with you," the dispatcher said. "There's a meeting going on well, it's gonna start in ten minutes, in her office. She wants you to come."

"Ten minutes," he said. "I might be a couple minutes late. Tell her."

As he ran the Porsche out onto the interstate, he glanced back toward the town houses. Maybe, he thought, Deal had gone to the same place as Trick Bentoin, wherever that was. But he didn't think so. Deal's disappearance was a shadow across the day.

A huge detective named Franklin was climbing the stairs toward the City Hall's main level when Lucas caught up with him. "What's going on?"

"Just gettin' a Coke and an apple," Franklin said. "Something going on?"

"Meeting," Lucas said. "I was afraid another body had fallen out of a closet somewhere."

"Probably has. But not here, as far as I know," Franklin said.

Lucas went on ahead. The chief's secretary nodded at the closed office door and said, "We've got a crowd. Alie'e's family and some friends. You're supposed to go right in."

Rose Marie was barricaded behind her desk. To her left, Dick Milton, the department PR guy, perched on the edge of a folding chair, his jaws tight. Eight people were arrayed in visitors' chairs in front of the desk: Alie'e's parents; Tom Olson, unshaven, apparently in the same clothes he'd worn at the last visit; and three other men and two women Lucas didn't recognize.

"Lucas, come in, we're just getting started." Rose Marie glanced at one of the men Lucas didn't know and added, "I guess we're trying to get some ground rules going here. Everybody, this is Lucas Davenport, a deputy chief, who often works as a kind of, mmm, key man in these kinds of investigations. Lucas, you know Mr. and Mrs. Olson; and this is Mr. and Mrs. Benton, and Mr. and Mrs. Packard, the Olsons' best friends from Burnt River, who're down to help out; and Lester Moore, the editor of the Burnt River newspaper."

Moore was a gangly man with reddish hair and green watery eyes. He wore wash pants that were an inch too short, and showed a rind of pale skin between the top of his white socks and the cuff of the green pants. "I'm the ground rules problem," he said affably.

"The problem," Rose Marie said, "is that Mr. Moore is also one of the Olsons' good friends." The Olsons both nodded at once, as did the Bentons and the Packards. "They want him here. But if we give him the confidential family briefing that is not available to all the press"

"So will you use what we tell you in confidence?" Lucas asked.

Moore shook his head. "Of course not. I'm here as a friend, not as a reporter. We have our reporter down here right now, and she'll do our coverage."

Milton piped up. "Suppose you think your reporter is reading something wrong, because of privileged information you happen to have."

"We'll go with her story," Moore said. "The people of Burnt River have the right to the informationbut not necessarily at this exact minute."

Rose Marie looked at Lucas, who shrugged. "So, you trust him or not. I'd say, go ahead and trust him now, and stop if something comes out."

After thinking about it for a second, Rose Marie nodded. "All right. Mr. Moore stays with the understanding that what is said in this room, stays in this room."

As Rose Marie briefed the group on what had been done in the past twenty-four hours, and filled them in on the murder of Amnon Plain, Lucas watched Tom Olson. Olson sat squarely and solidly in his chair, his chin down almost to his chest, staring fixedly at Rose Marie as she spoke. He really wasn't porky, Lucas thought, although an observer at a distance might think soespecially since pork was almost the default body shape for men in the upper Midwest. But Olson looked hard; he was barrel-shaped and square-faced, but you could see the bones in his cheeks and at his wrists. Helooked like a farm mechanic: somebody used to pushing around machines, and maybe throwing bales.

The Bentons and Packards, on the other hand, had the pale, round blandness of prosperous Minnesota small-town people. They were not quite blond, but not quite brunette, either. They all spoke softly in rounded Scandinavian vowels, with perfect grammar, and finished each others sentences. They were, Lucas thought, like two pairs of sugar cookies out of the same nonsexist male-female cookie cutter.

Tom Olson was the one to speak when Rose Marie finished. "So what you just said is, you didn't find out anything. There's no new information."

"That's not at all what I said," Rose Marie snapped. "There was a lot of negative informationwe eliminated a lot of possibilities. I will tell you, Mr. Olson, and Chief Davenport will tell you the same thing, that if you don't find the killer standing over the victim and arrest him on the spot, then the elimination of possibilities is one of the most important things we do. Wewill find the killer. We know it's going to take time"

"Oh, horseshit," Olson said.

His mother looked at him and said, "Thomas."

The older Olson cleared his throat and said, "The funeral is the day after tomorrow, if you can release Alie'e to us. The ME said he thought that was likely."

"It's done, or will be in the next few minutes," Rose Marie said.

Olson continued, "When the funeral's over, Lil and I are coming back, with Tom, and the Bentons, and the Packards, when Charlie doesn't have to work, and we'd like to stay for a week or two and hope you catch this guy, but we'd like to stay and see what you do."

"That's no problem at all. We can meet every day to keep you up to date."

"Is Amnon Plain's murder related directly to Alie'e?" Lester Moore asked.

"We don't know," Rose Marie said. "We have to treat it as though it is."

Lucas jumped in. "I was at Plain's apartment. Whoever killed him, planned it. There was nothing impulsive about it. The other murder had an ad hoc quality they feel different."

"Two separate killers?" Tom Olson said.

"Possibly. They may be relatedthey may even have been done by the same personbut I personally think Plain was killed by another person."

"When you say 'person,' are you being politically correct or are you not sure whether the killer was a male or female?" Lester Moore asked.

"I'm being politically correct," Lucas said. "We had a series of very cold, execution-style murders done by a woman, just this past summer. But that's very rare. I think the killer's male. He may even have been seen."

"Well, I hope you find him," the elder Olson said. He looked at his wife and son and said, "Let's go get Alie'e."

When the door closed, Lucas, Rose Marie, and Milton sat in silence for a few seconds, then Rose Marie asked, "Did you see them on television?"

"No."

"It's like people get media training somewhere," Rose Marie said. "In here, Mrs. Olson sits in her chair like a turtle on a rock, but when you see her on TV, she's the perfect mom. She's as good as most of the professionals you see on the news shows. Every hair in place, except the ones that shouldn't be. She's perfectly distraught. She personifies exactly what a distraught mothershould be like. And the kid"

"I wouldn't want to meethim in a dark alley if he was pissed at me," Milton said. "He's supposed to be some kind of holy guy, but he said, 'horseshit.' "

"Horses shit even around holy people," Lucas said.

"Besides," added Rose Marie, "he was clinically correct. That was a load of horseshit. Lester Moore picked up on it, too. There were no secrets, because we don't have any." She brooded about that for moment, then said, "I think I've heard his name, Lester Moore. Maybe when I was up on the Hill?"

Milton shook his head. "It's a famous name."

"Really?" Rose Marie was curious.

"A guy named Lester Moore was killed in some place like Tombstone, or Dodge City, and was buried on Boot Hill. His epitapth said something like, 'Here lies Lester Moore, Two Shots From a. 44, No Les, No More.' "

"Really?"

"Really."

Rose Marie said to Lucas, "We've had some time, now. Now they're gonna start cooking us, the press is. When the funeral's over with, they're all gonna come back here, and we better have something besides horseshit."

Lucas had three messages: one from Catrin that said, "Please call before three," one from Del, and a last one from Sherrill. He called Sherrill first. She answered the cell phone, then said, "I'll call you back in fifteen seconds." In fifteen seconds, his phone rang, and Sherrill said, "I think you better come down here and talk with Jael."

"Why?"

"Some kind of father-figure thing, I think, and all the scars you guys got," she said, and she sounded serious. "She wants to talkactually, I think she wants to confess something to you."

"She"

"No, no, she didn't kill anyone," Sherrill said.

"Then why doesn't she confess it to you? You got scars."

"Because she's not interested in me. With you, she's thinking it over. Women would much rather confess to a guy they're thinking about sleeping with, because they thinkthat way, they might have some control over him."

"Ah."

"So when can you come down?"

"Pretty goddamn quick, but I've got a couple of calls to make. See you in twenty minutes."

Lane stuck his head in as Lucas was hanging up. "I'm heading out to Fargo."

"Why?" Lucas punched in Del's number.

"Because I was looking at Tom Olson's alibi for the night Alie'e was killed. It's loose, and I need to talk to a guy out there. And I've got all the genealogical shit you could ever ask for."

Del's phone started ringing, and Lucas asked, "When will you be back?"

"Tonight, late, or midmorning tomorrow."

Del said, "Hello?" and Lucas lifted a hand to Lane. "Take off." Del asked, "What?" and Lucas said, "I was talking to Lane So what's happening with the deal, and the warrants?"

"The warrants on Bee and Logan are in the works. Manny Lanscolm is taking Outer's statement right now. We could move in an hour."

"Call me," Lucas said. "Make sure that the warrants specify computer files and disks."

He dialed Catrin's number. The phone rang twice, and Catrin picked it up.

"I'd like to talk again," she said. Her voice was low, tight, anxious. "I know you're busy with the Alie'e thing but could we meet in St. Paul, somewhere, tomorrow?"

"Sure, I guess." He gave her the name of a restaurant near St. Anne's, told her how to find it. "It's got those old-fashioned high plastic booths," he said. "We can talk."

Jael. He was looking forward to seeing her again.

Sherrill met him at the door and said, "She's back in her studio. As long as you're here, I'm gonna run out and get a cheeseburger."

"All right."

Jael Corbeau was sitting on a wooden stool, wearing a clay-spattered apron over jeans and a loose flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled over her elbows. She was turning a cream-colored juglet in her hands. She looked up when Lucas came in. Her eyes were rimmed in red, her nose red and a little swollen; she was still striking. "This thing is three thousand years old," she said. "Look how nice it is."

She handed him the juglet; it was the size of a hand grenade, with a soft, porous surface. "Where'd you get it?"

"My mother gave it to me, because of my name. Amnon got one, too. They come from Israel, the north part of the country, the Galilee."

"I don't know Israel." He handed the juglet back. "You wanted to talk?"

"Where's Marcy?"

"Since I was here, she went to get a bite," Lucas said.

"Okay. So why don't we walk?" Jael said. "I wouldn't mind getting out for a while. Did you bring your gun?"

The last question came with a small hint of humor in her eyes, and Lucas nodded. "Not only that, but it's got a hair trigger."

"Now I feel completely safe," she said. But as they stepped outside, she said, "Do you really think somebody might be trying to hurt me?"

"I don't know, but there's no point in taking a chance."

"I'm not sure I'd be missed that much."

"Maybe not, but if you were killed, the media would trash us. That's what we're trying to avoid."

She smiled now. "NowI feel safe. You've got a selfish motive for keeping me alive."

"Damn right."

They walked along for a while in the cold air, and then Jael asked, "What's the thinking on Sandy Lansing?"

"Well, she's kind of a mystery," Lucas said. "She wasn't a hotel executive, and she had no family money, but she had great clothes, a nice apartment, drove a Porsche, and apparently snorted a massive amount of cocaine, which is not free of charge. We're trying to figure out where the money came from. We thought maybe it was sex, that she was taking care of rich people at Brown's, but that seems unlikely now."

Jael stopped and looked up at him, her face sober. "Its weird, you know, all the people at that party."

"What?"

"Oh, just the way they all made the same excuses: there was no dope, they didn't see any, they didn't know about any. All so worried about their reputations, just like me. And really, in my world, a little dope is no big deal."

"Maybe in the back of their minds, they're worried about something a little more stark, like jail," Lucas said. "Rich people don't like jail. They don't function well in that environment."

"But they didn't tell you about Sandy. And I didn't tell you about Sandy We were all busy thinking about Alie'e, what a tragedy it was, and just keeping your mouth shut about a little dope"

"What about Sandy?" But now he knew.

"She was the dealer," Jael said. "Half the people at the party bought dope from heranything you wanted, she could get. She was discreet, she had to know you before she would sell to you, you had to have a recommendation but she could get it."

"Did you ever buy from her?"

"A little heroin, once or twice. Just little touches of it," she said.

"Jesus Christ, Jael, that stuff is poison."

"But it feels so nice. It smooths you out." Lucas shook his head angrily and stalked off down the sidewalk. She watched him go, then hurried after him. "What?"

"That's so fuckin' stupid, what you just said. It makes my goddamned head hurt." Then he stopped, and faced her. "Will you come in and amend your statement, and say that Sandy Lansing was a dealer?"

"Would I go to jail?"

"No. There's nothing illegal about knowing that somebody deals-Bring your lawyer, so you get all the words right. But it's important that we get it on paper, so we can use the paper to pry information out of other people. I knew something was going on with Lansing, but it was so hard to look in her direction, when everybody was screaming about Alie'e. Did Alie'e get that shit from her?"

"Yeah. Actually, I wasn't there, but I think Sandy had a kit in her purse, and I think she's the one who popped Alie'e. You didn't find a syringe"

"No. Nothing like that. Nothing but the tracks."

"You didn't find Sandys purse?"

"No."

"Well, she had one. Pretty biga lot bigger than fashionable. She had some stuff in it."

"Okay," Lucas said.

"I'll come make another statement, but I won't turn in any of my friends. Or anybody else, for that matter."

"Goddamnit."

"I won't."

"Then you just might be covering for a killer," Lucas said impatiently.

"It's more important to me to protect my friends than to catch the killer. Catching the guy won't bring Alie'e or Sandy back. If I turn in my friends well, I won't do that."

"Listen, how about if I put a name on you, and you tell me Look, here's what I want to know. We're ninety-nine percent sure that Sallance Hanson knew that there were drugs all over the place."

"I won't"

"We're not on the record here. It's just you and me. But I don't want to go off on Hanson if she's really naive. But she can't be that naive, can she?"

Jael kept her mouth shut. Lucas said, "So tell me, can she be that naive? You don't have to accuse her of anything, but tell me that: Is Sallance Hanson naive?"

"You're getting me twisted around."

"Is she naive?"

Jael turned and started back toward her house, her arms wrapped around her body, as if the cold air had suddenly gotten to her. Over her shoulder, she threw one word: "No."

Lucas followed after her, said, "Tell me one more thingsomething that won't hurt anyone anymore. Did your brother buy from Sandy Lansing? Did he know her?"

She slowed, and let him catch up. "I don't know if he knew who she was, or what she did. Maybe. Somebody might have told him. But he didn't like dope. He'd get pissed when I used it."

"He said he used it when he was young."

"Yeah. He was precocious. He usedeverything when he was a kid," Jael said. "Then he went to New York and he met Mapplethorpe just before he died, and knowing Mapplethorpe did something to Plain's brain."

"Mapplethorpe. You mean the photographer?"

"Yes, completely decadent. Plain used to go on rants, about how Mapplethorpe had this good talent that never came to anything, because he killed himself."

"Suicide?"

"No, he died of AIDS, but he was notorious for putting anything and everything into his body, and into anybody's else's body. Anyway, Plain got to see the end of that whole thing, and he stopped using." She snapped her fingers. "Just like that. He was going to live forever."

"So Lansing. He didn't know her," Lucas said.

"Maybe knew her, didn't buy from her."

"Okay." That's what Plain had told them.

"Does any of this help?" Jael asked.

"Yeah. We couldn't get any traction. We couldn't figure out why anybody would kill either of these women, or your brother, for that matter. Dope was always a possibility, but if Sandy Lansing was dealing, then it becomes a serious possibility."

As they got back to her house, Lucas asked casually, "Are you still using?"

"Oh, you know, sometimes. Just a little pop."

"It'll kill you, Jael." He liked her name; it rolled smoothly off the tongue. "You gotta stop."

"I need to get smoothed out sometimes," Jael said.

"Smoke a little grass. Stay away from the heroin."

"Not the same," she said. But she was amused again. "I should have been recording this: a cop telling me to smoke a little grass."

"Grass'll kill you, too," Lucas said. "But not until you're eighty."

At the house, they sat on the stoop and talked, Lucas trying to tug the conversation back to the party, looking for another name, another hint. "Look, I'm not going to tell you any more names," she said. "If I thought it would really help, I wouldbut it won't."

A city car pulled to the curb, and Sherrill got out. "Sherrill likes you a lot," Jael said. He could feel her watching his face.

"I like her a lot," Lucas said. He half turned. "Sherrill and I have a little history. That's all over. We weren't good for each other."

"She talks tough," Jael said.

"Sheis tough."

"Tough as you?"

Sherrill was coming up to them. Lucas said, "Maybe."

Sherrill said, "How's it going?"

Her eyes slid from Lucas to Jael, and Jael stood up and said, "Fine. I better go call my lawyer, though."

"What, did he whack you around or something?"

"We're notthat friendly yet," Jael said.

She went inside, and when she was out of earshot, Sherrill asked, "What happened?"

"She says Sandy Lansing was the dealer. She says Lansing could get anything you wantnot like she was a housewife with a neighborhood connection."

"You think somebody killed Lansing for dope?"

"Mmm I don't know about that. But III bet it's tied in somehow," Lucas said. "Somebody owed her too much, and was afraid of what was gonna happen. Or blackmail. Maybe she was trying to squeeze one of her clients and he didn't like it. Who knows, maybe she had a competitor in the crowd."

"This is good," Sherrill said. "But you can't stop thinking about Alie'e. If Lansing was killed because she saw something with Alie'e, then there could be a whole 'nother thing going on that we don't see yet."

"I know. That bothers me. But I can't see any connection between Lansing and Amnon Plain, or Lansing and Jael. Plain has to be hooked into Alie'e, or we're completely off the track."

"If it's Olson what, we're talking some kind of revenge trip for what happened to his sister? Taking out the sinners who led her into the pathways of evil."

"Sounds like a TV show."

"Everything in this case sounds like a TV show," Sherrill said.

"You think we ought to start tracking him? Olson?"

"We oughta think about it," Sherrill said. "We got fifteen guys working on this case, and most of them are standing around bullshitting with each other."

"I'll talk to Lester," Lucas said. He looked back at the house. "You'll take Jael down for the statement?"

"Yeah. I'm gonna take off at five, though. Tom Black is gonna pick up at five."

"Good. Keep her covered."

"Pretty interesting, isn't she?"

Lucas leaned forward, dropped his voice. "You know what I'd like to do? Get about three of them, you know, on a king-size bed. Some really funky blond lesbians stacked up around me, this big Davenport-lesbo sandwich"

She put her hand on his chest and pushed. "So sad, these erotic fantasies in aging men. Three blondes in bed with Lucas, all that relish and one little weenie."

They were laughing together when Jael came out. "He can't do it until three. We're supposed to meet him at his office, and we can walk over to City Hall." She looked at Lucas. "He didn't want me to do it. I told him I wanted to."

Lucas said goodbye and headed back downtown. Del was waiting, ready to go kick doors. "We got a statement from Outer, but his lawyer about had a hernia. He said the deal was a violation of everything sacred in the law."

"What'd Outer say?"

"Not much. But we got him cold on the dope, so we're good. And I've got warrants for Logans home, and Bee's home and offices."

"Where's the first one?"

"North Oaks. Bee's home." Del read out the address.

"See you there in twenty minutes," Lucas said. He still needed whatever information Bee and Logan had. Lansing may have been Alie'e's dealer, but she had also been the other victim.

James Bee lived in a stone-fronted ranch-style house much like Lucas's own, with frontage on a small, dark lake. Lucas arrived as Del's city car, a Minneapolis squad, and a Ramsey County sheriff's squad were turning up the long black-topped driveway. Lucas followed them in through a scattering of big oaks, their dead leaves gone a hard stiff brown color.

A narcotics cop named Larry Cohen got out of the passenger side of Del's car, the warrants in hand. The Minneapolis cops got with the sheriff's deputies and headed for the door, while Del dropped back, waiting for Lucas. "This is a long goddamn way around."

"Yeah, but if we can nail him down I'll bet he knows his competitors."

The door was answered by a thin blond woman in black spandex tights and a T-shirt advertising the Twin Cities Marathon. Lucas could hear her screeching at the cops, and then one of the sheriff's deputies broke away and started running around the side of the house, one of the Minneapolis cops six feet behind him.

The other Minneapolis cop was pushing inside, his gun drawn now, while the sheriff's deputy drew his gun and moved up next to a picture window and peeked through. Over his shoulder he yelled, "We got a runner."

Lucas and Del trotted toward the house, drawing their weapons. Inside, the Minneapolis cop had the blonde lying on the floor, facedown. She was screaming, "There's nobody else, for God's sakes, there's nobody else."

They took the house slowly, five minutes to work through it. When Lucas came back up the basement stairs, his pistol reholstered, he found the woman sitting on the couch, her hands cuffed behind her. The second sheriff's deputy was standing over her.

"We got him," the deputy said. "There was no way he was gonna run away from Rick."

"He runs in marathons," the blonde said.

"So does Rick," the deputy said.

Del came out of the back of the house and said, "We're all clear. Office in the back."

Lucas followed him to the office. A paper Rolodex sat on the back of the desk, and Del started going through it while Lucas cranked up the computer. The phone rang, and Lucas picked it up and said hello.

"Hey is this Jim?"

"He's out back," Lucas said. "Can I have him call you?"

"Yeah. Tell him to call Lonnie? Is this Steve?"

"Naw, this is Lucas."

"Okay, whatever. I need to talk to him pretty quick."

"You got a number?"

"He's got it."

"Just in case?"

"Yeah, okay"

Lucas copied down the phone number and said, "We'll get back to you."

"Thanks."

"Very nice," Del said. He was looking at the Rolodex. "He's gotta have two hundred names in here."

"But nobody from the party list."

"Not so far. But you know what? I'll bet you a buck that we find at least one. If he's dealing high-end. There were a lot of high-end dopers there."

The phone rang again, and a woman's voice said, "Lucas?"

The name startled him; he didn't pick up on it right away. "Yeah?"

"This is Rose Marie," the woman said.

"Jesus, I thought I was talking to a fuckin' psychic or something"

She broke in. "Listen. I hate thisbut Sherrill's been shot."

Lucas didn't understand for a minute. "What? What?"

Del looked at him, straightened.

"Sherrill's been shot. She's on her way to Hennepin."

"Aw, Jesus Christ, is she bad?"

"She's bad. She's bad."

"I'm going."

He threw the phone back at the receiver and started running, and Del shouted, "What?"

Lucas shouted back, "Sherrill's been shot. You stay here, take this."

"Fuck that, Larry can take it." He was right behind Lucas, and together they ran through the front room, and Lucas shouted at Cohen, who was talking to the blonde, "Larry, you gotta take it, Sherrill's been shot, we're going, you know what to do"

On the sidewalk, the sheriff's deputy, wet up to his hips, was pulling a handcuffed man up the lawn, a short, slender man with a dude's haircut and a small tight mouth; the dude was soaked from head to foot. The deputy said, "Fell in the fuckin' lake."

But Lucas and Del ran past him and piled into Lucas's Porsche and they were gone, streaking through the slow streets of North Oaks past a soccer field and south toward Minneapolis.