Eyes of Prey

CHAPTER 9

The evening dragged; the feeling that he was waiting stayed with him.

He thought of calling Jennifer, to ask for an extra visit with their daughter. He reached for the phone once, twice, but never made the call. He wanted to see Sarah, but even more, he wanted to settle with Jennifer. Somehow. End it, or start working toward reconciliation. And that, he thought, was not a process begun with a spur-of-the-moment phone call. Not with Jennifer.

Instead of calling, he sat in front of the television and watched a bad cop movie on Showtime. He switched it off a few minutes before the torturously achieved climax: both the cops and the crooks were cardboard, and he didn't care what happened to any of them. After the late news, he went back to the workroom and began plodding through the game.

Bekker stuck in the back of his head. The investigation was dying. He could sense the waning interest in the other cops. They knew the odds against the case: without eyewitnesses or a clear suspect who had both motive and opportunity, there was almost no chance of an arrest, much less a conviction. Lucas knew of at least two men who had killed their wives and gotten away with it, and a woman who'd killed a lover. There was nothing fancy about any of the murders. No exotic weapons, no tricky alibis, no hired killers. The men had used clubs: a grease gun and an aluminum camera tripod. The woman had used a wooden-handled utility knife from Chicago Cutlery.

I just found her/him like that, they told the answering cops. When the cops read them their rights, all three asked for lawyers. After that, there wasn't anything to go on. The pure, unvarnished and almost unbreakable two-dude defense: Some other dude did it.

Lucas stared at the wall behind the desk. I need this fuckin' case. If the Bekker investigation failed, if the spark of interest diminished and died, he feared, he might slip back into the black hole of the winter's depression. Before the depression, he'd thought of mental illnesses as something suffered by people who were weak, without the will to suppress the problem, or somehow genetically impaired. No more. The depression was as real as a tiger in the jungle, looking for meat. If you let your guard down…

Bekker's beautiful face came up in his mind's eye, like a color slide projected on a screen. Bekker.

At twenty minutes after eleven, the phone rang. He looked at it for a moment, with a ripple of tension. Jennifer? He picked it up.

"Lucas?" Daniel's voice, hoarse, unhappy.

"What happened?"

"The sonofabitch did another one," Daniel rasped. "The guy who killed the Bekker woman. Call Dispatch for the address and get your ass over there."

A little spark of elation? A touch of relief? Lucas hammered the Porsche through the night, across the Mississippi, west to the lakes, blowing leftover winter leaves over the sidewalks, turning the heads of midnight walkers. He had no trouble finding the address: every light in the little house was on and the doors were open to the night. Groups of neighbors stood on the sidewalk, looking down toward the death house; occasionally one would cross the street to a new group, a new set of rumors, walking rapidly as though his speed alone would prove to watching cops that he was on a mission of urgency.

Elizabeth Armistead was lying faceup on her living room carpet. A bloodstain marked the carpet under the back of her head, like a black halo. One arm was twisted beneath her, the other was flung out, palm up, the fingers slightly crooked. Her face, from the nose up, had been destroyed. In place of her eyes was a finger-deep pit, filled with blood and mangled flesh. Another wound cut across her upper lip, ripping it, exposing white broken teeth. Her dress was pulled up high enough to show her underpants, which appeared to be undisturbed. The room smelled like a wet penny, the odor of fresh blood.

"Same guy?" Lucas asked, looking down at her.

"Gotta be. I caught the first one, too, and this one's a goddamn carbon copy," said a bright-eyed medical examiner's investigator.

"Anything obvious?" Lucas asked, looking around. The house seemed undisturbed.

"No. No broken fingernails, and they're clean. There doesn't seem to have been a fight, and there's no doubt she was killed right here-there are some blood splatters over there by the table. I didn't look myself, but the other guys say there's no sign of a door or window being forced."

"Doesn't look like rape…"

"No. And there aren't any signs of semen outside the body."

A Homicide detective stepped up beside Lucas and said, "C'mere and look at the weapon."

"I saw it when I came in," Lucas said. "The hammer?"

"Yeah, but Jack just noticed something."

They went out in the hallway, where the hammer, wrapped in plastic, was being delicately handled by another cop.

"What?" asked Lucas.

"Look at the head and the claw. Not the blood, the hammer," the second cop said.

Lucas looked, saw nothing. "I don't see anything."

"Just like the fuckin' dog that didn't bark," the cop said with satisfaction. He held the hammer up to a lamp, reflecting light from the shiny hammerhead into Lucas' eyes. "The first time you use a hammer, drive a nail or pull one, you start putting little nicks in it. Look at this. Smooth as a baby's ass. The goddamn thing has never been used. I bet the guy brought it with him, to kill her."

"Are you sure it was his? Not hers?"

The cop shrugged. "The woman's got about six tools-some screwdrivers, a crescent wrench and a hammer. One pack of nails and some picture hangers. They're still in the kitchen drawer. She wasn't a do-it-yourselfer. Why would she have two hammers? And a big heavy one like this? And how'd the guy just happen to get his hands on the second one?"

A bright light swept the front of the house and Lucas half turned.

"TV's here," said the first cop. He stepped away toward the front door.

"Tell everybody to keep their mouths shut. Daniel'll issue a statement in the morning," Lucas said. He turned back to the cop with the hammer.

"So he brought it with him," Lucas said.

"I'd say so."

Lucas thought about it, frowned, then clapped the cop on the shoulder. "I don't know what it means, but it's a good catch," he said. "If it's new, maybe we could check and see where they sell this Estwing brand…"

"We're doing that tomorrow…"

"So what do we know about her?" Lucas asked, pointing a thumb back toward the living room.

Armistead was an actress, the hammer-toting cop told Lucas. When she hadn't shown up for a performance, a friend had come to check on her, found the body and called the police. To judge from the body temperature, still higher than the rather cool ambient temperature of the house, she'd been dead perhaps four hours when the medical examiner's investigator had arrived, a few minutes after eleven. There was no sign of a burglary.

"Where's the friend?" Lucas asked.

"Back in the bedroom, with Swanson," the cop said, nodding toward the rear of the house. Lucas wandered back, looking the place over, trying to get a picture of the woman's life-style. The place was decorated with taste, he decided, but without money. The paintings on the walls were originals, but rough, the kind an actress might get from artist friends. The carpets on the floor were worn Orientals. He thought about the rugs at Bekker's house, and stooped to feel the one he was standing on. It felt thin and slippery. Some kind of machine-woven synthetic. Not much of a tie…

The bedroom door was open, and when Lucas poked his head in, he found Swanson sitting in a side chair, rubbing the lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses with a Kleenex. A woman was lying faceup on the bed, one foot on the floor. The other foot had made a muddy mark on the yellow bedspread, but she hadn't noticed. Lucas knocked on the jamb and stepped inside as Swanson looked up.

"Davenport," the Homicide cop said. He put his glasses back on and fiddled with them for a second until they were comfortable. Then he sighed and said, "It's a fuckin' bummer."

"Same guy?"

"Yeah. Don't you think?"

"I guess." Lucas looked at the woman. "You found the body?"

She was redheaded, middle thirties, Lucas thought, and pretty, most of the time. Tonight she was haggard, her eyes swollen from crying, her nose red and running. She didn't bother to sit up, but she reached up to her forehead and pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. They looked dark, almost black. "Yes. I came over after the show."

"Why?"

"We were worried. Everybody was," she said, sniffing.

"Elizabeth would go on with a broken leg. When she didn't show up and didn't call, we thought maybe she'd been in an accident or something. If I didn't find her here, I was going to call the hospitals. I rang the doorbell, and then looked through the window in the door and saw her lying there… The door was locked, so I ran over to a neighbor's to call the cops." A wrinkle creased her forehead and she cocked her head forward and said, "You're the cop who killed the Indian."

"Mmmnn."

"Is your daughter okay? I heard on the TV…"

"She's fine," Lucas said.

"Jesus, that must have been something." The woman sat up, a quick muscular motion, done without effort. Now her eyes were jade green, and he noticed that one of her front teeth was just slightly crooked. "Are you going after this guy? The killer?"

"I'm helping," Lucas said.

"I hope you get him and I hope you kill the sonofabitch," the woman said, her teeth bared and her eyes opening wide. She had high cheekbones and a slightly bony nose, the craggy variety of Celt.

"I'd like to get him," Lucas said. "When was the last time anybody saw Armistead… Elizabeth?"

"This afternoon. There was a rehearsal until about three o'clock," the woman said. She stroked the side of her cheek with her fingertips as she remembered, staring sightlessly at the bedspread. "After that, she went home. One of the ticket ladies tried to call her an hour or so before the play was supposed to start, but there wasn't any answer. That's the last I know."

"Why'd they call? Was she already late?"

"No, somebody wanted in on a freebee, and she'd have to approve it. But she didn't answer."

"Bucky and Karl are down at the theater, talking to people," Swanson said.

"Did you check Bekker?" Lucas asked.

"No. I will tomorrow, after we've got this nailed down. I'll have him do a minute-by-minute recount of where he was tonight."

"Isn't Bekker the name of that woman who was killed?" asked the woman on the bed, looking between them.

"Her husband," Lucas said shortly. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Lasch… Cassie."

"You're an actress?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"Full-time?"

"I get the smaller parts," she said ruefully, shaking out her red hair. It was kinky and bounced around her shoulders. "But I work full-time."

"Was Armistead dating anyone?" Swanson asked.

"Not really… What does Bekker have to do with this? Is he a suspect?" She was focusing on Lucas.

"Sure. You always check the husband when a wife gets murdered," Lucas said.

"So you don't really think he did this?"

"He was in San Francisco when his wife was killed," Lucas said. "This one is so much like it, it almost has to be the same guy."

"Oh." She was disappointed and bit her lower lip. She wanted the killer, Lucas realized, and if she had her way about it, she would have him dead.

"If you think of anything, give me a call," Lucas said. Their eyes locked up for a second, a quick two-way assessment. He handed her a business card and she said, "I will." Lucas turned away, glanced back once to see her looking after him and drifted out toward the living room.

The cop with the hammer was talking to a uniform, who had a middle-aged woman in tow. The woman, wearing a pink quilted housecoat and white sneakers, was edging toward the archway that opened into the living room. The cop blocked her with a hip and asked, "So what'd he look like?"

"Like I said, he looked like a plumber. He was carrying a toolbox or something, and I says to Ray, that's my husband, Ray Ellis, Mr. and Mrs., 'Uh-oh,' I says, 'it looks like that Armistead woman's got troubles with her plumbing, I hope it's not the main again.' They dug up the main here in this street, the city has, twice since we been here, and we only got here in 'seventy-one, you'd think they'd be able to get that right…" She took another crab step toward the arch, trying to get a look.

"You didn't like Ms. Armistead?" Lucas asked, coming up to them.

The woman took a half-step back, losing ground. A flash of irritation crossed her face as she realized it. "Why'd you think that?" she asked. A defensive whine crept into her voice. She'd heard this kind of question asked on L.A. Law, usually just before somebody got it in the neck.

"You called her 'that Armistead woman.'…"

"Well, she said she was an actress and I said to Ray…"

"Your husband…"

"Yeah, I said, 'Ray, she don't look like no actress to me.' I mean, I know what an actress looks like, right? And she didn't look like no actress, in fact, I'd say she was plain. I said to Ray, 'She says she's an actress, I wonder what she's really involved in.' " She squinted slyly.

"You think she might be involved with something else?" asked the cop with the hammer.

"If you ask me… Say, is that the murder weapon?" The woman's eyes widened as she realized that the cop was holding a hammer wrapped in a plastic bag.

"Before you get to that," Lucas interrupted impatiently, "the man you saw at the door… why'd he look like a plumber?"

" 'Cause of the way he was dressed," she said, unable to tear her eyes away from the hammer until the cop dropped it to his side. She looked up at Lucas again. "I couldn't see him real good, but he was wearing one of those coveralls, dark-like, and a hat with a bill on it. Like plumbers wear."

"You didn't see his face?"

"Nope. When I saw him, he was on her porch, with his back to me. I saw his back, saw he had a hat."

"Did you see a truck?"

She frowned. "No, now that you mention it. I don't know where he come from, but there weren't no cars on the street, just Miz Armistead's Omni, which I always notice because Ray had one almost like it, when he was married to his first wife, silver, except it was a Plymouth Horizon."

"Did you see him leave?"

"Nope. I was washing up the dishes."

"All right. Thanks," Lucas said. Nothing. She'd probably seen the killer, but it wouldn't help. Unless…

"One more question. Did the guy have plumber's tools or any kind of tools, anything you could see… or did he just feel like a plumber?"

"Well…" She didn't understand the question. "He just looked like a plumber. You see him on the sidewalk, you say, 'There goes a plumber.' "

So he might have been a plumber. Or he might have been an actor…

Lucas stepped away, to the arch into the living room. One of the lab cops was videotaping the body and the living room, his lights bleaching out Armistead's already paper-white face. Lucas watched for a moment, then walked outside. The uniform had stretched crime-scene tape around the house and its hedge, and a half-dozen TV cameras were parked just off the curb. He heard his name ripple among the reporters, and the floodlights started flicking on as he walked down the porch steps to the street.

"Davenport…" The reporters moved in like sharks, but Lucas shook his head.

"I can't talk about it, guys," he said, waving them away.

"Tell us why you're here," a woman called. She was older for a television reporter, probably in her early forties, about to fall off the edge of the media world. "Gambling, dope? What?"

"Hey, Katie, I really want to leave it to the Homicide people…"

"Anything to do with those guys selling guns…?"

Lucas grinned, shook his head and pushed through to his car. If he stayed to talk, somebody would remember that he was working on the Bekker case and would add it up.

As he drove away, he tried to add it up himself. If the first murder was hired by Bekker, what did the second one mean? There had to be a connection-the techniques were identical-but it was hard to believe that Bekker could be involved. Swanson and the other investigators had been leaning on him: if he had some relationship with this woman, past or present, he'd hardly risk killing her. Not unless he was stupid as well as crazy. And nobody said he was stupid.

Lucas stopped for a red light, one foot on the clutch, the other on the gas pedal, idly revving the engine. The first killing had the earmarks of an accidental encounter. A doper goes into a house in a rich neighborhood, looking for anything he can convert to crack. He unexpectedly bumps into the woman, kills her in a frenzy, runs. If it hadn't been for Bekker's reputation with his relatives, if Sloan hadn't made the call to Bekker's former Army commanding officer, the killing might already have been written off as dope-related…

But this second killing looked as though it were planned: the hammer, newly bought and then left behind. Nothing missing from the house. Not like a doper. A doper would have grabbed something. Nothing missing from Bekker's house, either…

Lucas shook his head, realizing the red light had turned green, then yellow. He was about to pop the clutch to run the yellow, when a black Nissan Maxima, coming up fast from behind, slid a fender in front of him and stopped. Lucas jabbed the Porsche's brake pedal, and the car bucked and died.

"Motherfucker," he said, and pulled the door latch-handle. The other driver was faster. As Lucas pushed open the door, a tall blonde hopped out of the Nissan and walked through Lucas' headlights, a tight smile on her face. TV3. She'd been around for a couple of years and Lucas had seen her on the Crows case.

"God damn it, Carly…"

"Stuff it, Lucas," the woman said. "I know how you worked with Jennifer and a couple other people. I want on the list. What happened back there?"

"Hey…"

"Look, my fuckin' contract is up in two months, and we're talking, me and the station," she said. "I'm asking sixty and it's like, Maybe yes, maybe no, what've you done for us lately? I need something: you're it." She posed, ankles crossed, fist on her hip.

"What's in it for me?" Lucas asked.

"You want somebody inside Three? You got it."

Lucas looked at her for a moment, then nodded. "I trust you just once," he said, holding up an index finger. "You burn me, you never come back."

"Fine. And it's the same with me. You ever burn me, or even get close, and I'll deny everything and sue your ass," the blonde said. They were both in the street, face to face. A black Trans Am slowed as it passed around them, and the passenger window rolled down. A kid with carefully coiffed hair and a hammered forehead looked out and said, "What's happening?"

"Cop," Lucas said. "Keep moving."

"We're cool," the kid said, then pulled his head inside, and the car accelerated away.

"So what happened?" Carly asked, glancing after the Trans Am, then turning back to Lucas.

"You know about the Bekker killing?"

"Sure."

"This one's identical. A woman named Elizabeth Armistead with the Lost River Theater, she's an actress…"

"Oh shit, I know her… I mean I've seen her. There's no doubt that it was the same guy?" The woman put a long red thumbnail in her mouth and bit it.

"Not much…"

"How was she killed?"

"Clawhammer. Hit her on the back of the head, then smashed out her eyes, just like with Stephanie Bekker." The traffic light was running through its sequence again, and the woman's hair glowed green, then gold as the yellow came on.

"Jesus Christ. What are the chances that the other stations'll have it by the morning shows?"

"I told the people back there to put a lid on everything, pending a release from the chief," Lucas said. "You should have it exclusively, if some uniform hasn't leaked it already…"

"Nobody's talking back there," she said. "Okay, Lucas, I appreciate it. Anything you need from the station, let me know. My ass is in your hands."

"I wish," Lucas said with a grin. The blonde grinned back, and as the stoplight turned red, Lucas added, "There's not much more I can tell you about the murder."

"I don't need more," she said as she turned back toward her car. "I mean, why fuck up a great story with a bunch of facts?"

She left Lucas standing in the street, her car careening around in an illegal U-turn, simultaneously running the red light. Lucas laughed and got back in the Porsche. He had something going, for the first time in months. He was operating again.

And he thought: A copycat? The idea didn't hold up; the murderer's technique with Armistead was too similar to the Bekker killing. There hadn't been enough information in the press to tell a copycat exactly what to do. The killings had to be the same guy. The guy in coveralls, the coveralls a way to get inside?

He was edging toward a conclusion: They had another psycho on their hands. But if the guy was a psycho, why had he taken a weapon to Armistead's, but not to Bekker's? He'd killed Stephanie Bekker with a bottle he'd picked up in the kitchen. The Bekker scene made sense as a spur-of-the-moment killing by an intruder, a junkie who killed and got scared and ran. The Armistead scene did not. Yet both by the same guy.

And neither woman was sexually assaulted. Sex, in some way, was usually involved in serial killings…

If Bekker had hired the first killing done, was it possible that he'd set off a maniac?

No. That's not how it worked.

Lucas had worked two serial killers. In both cases, the media had speculated on the effect of publicity on the mind of the killer: Did talking about killers make more killers? Did violent movies or pornography desensitize men and make them able to kill? Lucas didn't think so. A serial killer was a human pressure-cooker, made by abuse, by history, by brain chemistry. You don't get pressure like that from something as peripheral as TV. A serial killer wasn't a firecracker to be lit by somebody else…

Tangled. And interesting. Without realizing it, Lucas began whistling, almost silently, under his breath.