Hidden prey

Chapter 31

A chunky man in a suede sport coat was looking at an NFL schedule poster outside Lucas's office; Chuck Miles, one of the state's more competent attorneys.

"Chuck: good to see you. Come on in."

Lucas took him into his office, sat him down, and explained the situation.

"… so we have a witness who is providing us with material evidence, but we don't know who she is. How do we prove we just didn't make it all up?" Lucas asked.

"Okay. We can get an affidavit from you now, about what you know about the woman. What the witnesses up north said, about the hut she lived in, about when she called you, both times. What she said. About the computer and how that paid off. About where she called from, what she says about cutting this kid, about the knife. We specify in the affidavit that you have not looked at the kid to see if he was cut, nor have you taken any DNA from him. Then, we go look at him. If he's been cut in the right area, on the left arm, and if the DNA from the knife is his, we might get the whole thing into court, especially since we've got independent corroborating evidence of this woman's existence, in the shack. Plus, the witness from Catholic Charities who has actually seen her."

"But you're not sure we'll get it in. Into court."

Miles shook his head: "No. There are options, different approaches, possibilities. Some of it depends on what judge we get… But I can't guarantee anything. I can guarantee that there'll be an appeal, no matter what happens."

"How about if we use the knife to push him into a plea? Say, cooperation on the spy ring, plus a plea of guilty to something, with our agreement that there might have been an element of self-defense in the killing. And, say, we don't fuck with his mother, as long as she's not shown to be directly involved."

"Now that's something we might pull off," Miles said, brightening. "If we could offer him no more than a few years in the youthful offender lockup, until he was twenty-one, or twenty-five, plus cooperation… I can see a defense attorney buying that."

"Of course, we might be giving a multiple murderer four years in prison, then turning him loose to do it again."

"Life in the big city," Miles said.

The affidavit took an hour, Lucas dictating to a secretary with Miles looking over her shoulder, and asking questions. After getting the legal angles worked through, Lucas called Harmon with the FBI, and found him in Washington. "Getting people together. We've got the Duluth guys up there holding everything down. We're sending in a counterespionage team to do the cleanup."

"You sound a little more cheerful."

"Yeah, well… against the odds, it became something."

"About the kid…"

"If it's the kid, we could probably crack him. Our interrogators could. That's if he knows something. He's the age where they're easy to manipulate," Harmon said.

"But you don't want in on the criminal investigation? I mean like, today?"

"You're going so well… keep going. I'll tell the local guys you're coming back."

Del called from the lab:

"Yellow-handled switchblade in a plastic bag. The package was addressed with a computer-printed address label. She made the label with a piece of typing paper Scotch taped to the package, and the evidence guy here says we're not going to get anything on her off the package, and he's willing to bet we're not going to get anything on her off the knife, either. She was pretty careful."

"How about the blood?"

"It's blood, all right. All gummy down in the grooves. We'll have it typed before you get up there, and we'll see if the kid has a blood type on record. You going right now?"

"Yup."

"Call you on the way."

"Hey, Del?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really fascinated by that McDonald's stuff."

"Fuck you, pal."

More calls. He arranged for a search warrant and called Dannie Carson, a BCA investigator who had been working in Brainerd on an old case involving the killing of a hooker, and asked her to meet him in Hibbing. "We're gonna get some DNA evidence and look at a kid for murder," he said.

He called the Hibbing police chief, explained about the phone call from the laptop woman, the knife, the search warrant, and the need for somebody to take a DNA sample.

"You sure it's Carl? He always seemed like a pretty good kid to me," Hopper said in a worried tone.

"He was over there, giving her a hug. He looked like her. If it's not her kid, it's somebody she knows pretty well."

"Of course, it could all be bullshit, this call from the woman."

"Yeah, it could be. But I don't think so. The knife will tell us, the DNA. If you got a DNA guy handy…"

"We use the pathologist over at the hospital. Be on your ticket, though. He isn't cheap."

"Tell him today at two o'clock. And we'd like you to send a car along with us."

And Lucas called Nadya: "Be ready to go."

Now things were running: Lucas was out of the building, heading north again. Listening to Tom Petty and Mary Jane's Last Dance, Lynyrd Skynyrd, That Smell. Cop songs. Closing-in music. Fast up I-35, fast through a hundred and fifty miles of aspen and birch and cattails and pine trees and small lakes with boats… cutting into Duluth, the big lake opening out below him, snatching Nadya off the blacktop at her hotel, heading north up into the Range…

"I think this is amazing," Nadya said, when he picked her up.

"I think so, too," Lucas said. "But it feels right."

Dannie Carson was a large woman, not fat, but big as a door: wide shouldered, wide hipped, like a female tackle. She was also intensely personable, and one of the best interrogators Lucas had ever met. Sympathy gushed out of her, and not many suspects could resist it.

She met him at the Hibbing police station: "What're we doing?"

"Pick up the kid, bring him here, get him a lawyer. Look at his arm. If he shows any kind of scar, we arrest him on suspicion of murder and do the DNA test. Short and sweet."

Hopper, the chief, said, "Is this the end of it?"

"Can't tell. Still don't know what happened to Roger."

"Well, things are really pretty screwed up around here-Janet Walther's pretty popular, and this guy up in Virginia…"

"Spivak."

"Yeah, the TV is saying the case against him is really thin and that he was even assaulted by the Russians, much less helping them."

"I'm gonna let the FBI worry about all of that," Lucas said. "I'm just gonna worry about the kid."

"The kid's in school," Hopper said. "I checked. I didn't let on why, and told the principal to keep my call under her hat."

"What is this hat?" Nadya asked.

At two o'clock, they headed for Janet Walther's frame shop in a three-car parade-the chief, followed by Lucas, Nadya, and Dannie Carson in Lucas's Acura, and a squad car with two cops. Walther was alone in her shop, and angry when she saw Lucas; Hopper took off his hat when they walked inside, and Nadya followed quietly behind.

"What do you want now?" Walther demanded.

"We've got a search warrant for your son," Lucas said. "A warrant to search his person for bodily injuries, and to take a blood sample for DNA studies. We came to invite you to come with us. If you don't wish to come with us, we'll leave a police officer with you, to make sure you don't try to warn Carl that we're coming."

"Carl? Carl's a child!"

"Well, he's not quite a child. You keep saying a child, but he's old enough to drive. He does drive. I've seen his driver's license and the registration for a car."

"What-" She began, and then her eyes suddenly flinched to the side, and Lucas thought she'd remembered something.

"What?"

"You said bodily injuries…"

"Does he have a knife cut on his arm, Mrs. Walther?"

"What do you think he did? What do you think…?"

So he did, Lucas thought. He turned to the chief and nodded, and the chief nodded back. "We think he killed the Russian man in Duluth, and maybe the police officer. Possibly under the direction of Burt Walther."

"That's crazy…" But the fear shone from her eyes.

"Do you wish to come?" Lucas asked formally. The kid was toast, so he would be as formal as possible from now on. "We could also see that a public defender, a defense attorney, is waiting at the police station when we get there."

"At the police station…" Her eyes flooded with tears, and she covered her face with both hands. "At the police station…"

She rode with Hopper to the high school, a huge old building famous for its art deco auditorium. They all went trooping inside, down a long hall to the office. The principal met them, went back to her desk, looked at a piece of paper and said, "He's in gym class."

The principal led them to the gym, where a teacher pointed them outside. They found a group of kids standing around, in gym shorts and sweatshirts, flags hanging from the sides of their shorts, all staring at the line of cops. The gym teacher said, "He said he was sick. He went back inside."

"When was this?" Lucas asked.

"Ten minutes ago."

Lucas looked out at the street, turned to Dannie: "Shit. He saw us coming. He's running. I hope he's running."

Hopper looked at the school, a looming brick pile with kids visible in the windows. "You don't think he could… oh, shit," and he started running toward the school, his two cops trailing behind.

"What, what?" Janet Walther screamed after them.

Lucas trotted after Hopper, Dannie Carson, jogging alongside, Nadya hurrying to keep up.

Nadya: "You think he's in the school? With a gun?"

"I hope not. I hope he just took off. But I don't know. We can't take a chance… I'm trying to think, I'm just trying to think…" He looked up. "The place is just so goddamn big."