Rules of Prey

CHAPTER 9

Jennifer Carey was staring at him in the dark again.

"What?" he asked.

"What, what?"

"You're staring at me."

"How do you know I'm staring? You're looking the other way," she said.

"I can feel it." Lucas lifted his head until he could see her. She was sitting up, looking down at him. The thin autumn blanket had fallen around her hips and the flickering candle gave her skin a warm pink glow.

"I'm thirty-three," she said.

"Oh, God," he groaned into his pillow.

"I'm taking a leave of absence from reporting. I'll work half-time, producing. Do some free-lance writing."

"You can starve that way," Lucas said.

"I've got money saved." Her voice was level, almost somber. "I've been working since I was twenty-one. I've got that fund from my folks. And I'll still be half-time with the station. I'll be okay."

"What's this about?"

"It's about the old biological clock," she said. "I've decided to have a baby."

Lucas didn't say anything, didn't move. She grinned. "Ah, the nervous bachelor, already scouting escape routes."

There was another long moment of silence. "That's not it," he said finally. "It's just kind of sudden. I mean, I really like you. Are you bailing out? Should I be asking who the lucky guy is?"

"Nope. See, I figured you might not be interested in cooperating with my little plan. On the other hand, from my point of view, it's not that often you meet a guy who is intelligent, physically acceptable, heterosexual, and available. I decided I'd have to take things in my own hands, if you know what I mean."

Lucas was on his back staring at the ceiling. Looking down at him, she saw his stomach muscles tighten, and his chest lifted off the bed as though he were levitating, his head coming up, eyes wide.

"Jennifer…"

"Yeah. I'm pregnant."

He flopped back on the pillow.

"Oh."

She laughed. "You can be one of the funniest men I know."

"Why is that?"

"I tried to figure out what you'd say when I told you. I thought of everything except 'Oh.'"

He sat up again, his face deeply serious. "We ought to get married. Like tomorrow. I can fix the blood tests-"

She laughed again. "Yo. Davenport. Wake up. I'm not getting married."

"What?"

"Just a few minutes ago you said you liked me, not loved me. For one thing. Besides, I don't want to marry you."

"Jennifer…"

"Listen, Lucas. I'm touched by the offer. I wasn't sure you'd make it. And you'd make a wonderful father. But you'd make an awful husband and I couldn't put up with that."

"Jennifer…"

"I thought it out."

"What about me, goddammit?" he said. He threw off the blanket and knelt over her, his heavy fists in tight balls, and she dropped flat, suddenly, for the first time afraid of him. "It's my kid too. Right? I mean, it is mine?"

"Yes."

"And I don't want my kid being a little fuckin' bastard."

"So what are you going to do, beat me into marriage?"

He looked down at his balled fists and suddenly relaxed. "No, of course not," he said softly. He flopped down beside her.

"Look. I'm going to have the kid," she said. "If you don't want anyone to know he's yours, that's okay. If you don't mind, I'd love to have you around to help. I'll be here in the Cities. I assume you will be too."

"Yeah."

"So we'll really be together."

"No. Not sharing a bed every night. Look, I'm going to tell you. I'm going to spend the next nine months-"

"Seven months."

"-seven months trying to convince you to marry me. If you won't, what would you say about moving in here?"

"Lucas, this house is a men's club. You've got everything but spittoons."

"Listen, I'll tell you what…"

"Lucas, we've got months to figure out the exact arrangements. And right now I feel kind of horny again. Something about your reaction. It was much nicer than I expected."

A few minutes later she said, "Lucas, you're not paying attention."

And a few minutes after that she gave up. "It's like trying to make love with a rope. A short rope. No offense."

He didn't laugh. He said, "Jesus Christ, I'm going to have a kid." And then he reached over and placed a hand on her stomach. "I've always wanted a kid. Maybe two or three." He looked at her. "You don't think it could be twins, do you?"

The next morning, Jennifer was peering at herself in the mirror over the bathroom sink and Lucas stopped by the door and looked at her.

"Doesn't show," he said.

"In a month it will," she said. She turned her face to him. "I want the interview with that Chicana chick."

"The chief-"

"I don't care about the chief. I got some more background on her, and I'll go with what I've got unless you set something up. Tonight, tomorrow."

"I'll check."

She looked back in the mirror and stuck her tongue out. "This is going to be weird," she said.

The shower was running when Lucas finished dressing. He hurried in to the kitchen telephone, found Carla's phone number in his pocket directory, and dialed. The shower stopped just as the phone was answered.

"Carla? This is Lucas."

"Yes, hi. What's going on?"

"We're getting some fierce pressure for an interview with you. The woman from TV3, Jennifer Carey, has a leak somewhere. She knows some things about you and it's only a matter of time before somebody tracks you down. It might be better if we went ahead and gave her an interview while we can control things a bit."

There was a moment of silence.

"Okay. If you think so."

"It'll be in the afternoon or early evening. I'll get back to you."

"Should I pack a suitcase?"

"Oh… yeah. You want me to go to the chief for a hotel, or you want to try the cabin?"

"How about the cabin? I like the lakes."

"Pack a bag. We'll go up tonight."

Lucas hung up and redialed, calling Daniel on his direct line.

"Linda? I need to talk to the chief."

"He's pretty busy, Lucas. Let me ask."

"Jennifer Carey says she's going with the story about the survivor."

"Hang on."

Jennifer walked down the hall, rubbing her wet hair with a bath towel, and got a bagel out of the refrigerator.

Lucas covered the phone's mouthpiece with the palm of his hand. "Something's happening," he said.

She stopped chewing. "What?"

"I don't know."

Jennifer pulled out a kitchen chair and lowered herself into it as Linda came back on the line. "I'm switching you in," the secretary said.

Daniel was on a second later. "Lucas? I was about to call. You better get down here."

"What's happening?"

"Sloan interviewed this Rice woman about the gun?"

"Yeah, I was there for some of it."

"She mentioned a welfare guy. Sloan put that with your idea that he picks his victims in the courthouse and did some checking. This welfare guy fits a lot of the profile. He's gay. He's in the right age and size slot. And listen to this: he's into art. Sloan was greasing one of the women from the welfare office, got her talking about Smithe, and she was saying what a waste this guy is. Big, good-looking, but she said she went to an opening and saw him there with his boyfriend. Sloan checked with the Ruiz woman. She was at the opening. It was a week before she was hit."

"Damn." Lucas thought for a moment. "I don't know."

"What?"

"Hang on a second. Jennifer Carey is sitting here." Lucas put his hand over the mouthpiece again. "Go on back to the bathroom and shut the door."

"Hey…"

"Don't give me any trouble, Jennifer, please? This is a private conversation. We'll have to work out some rules, but right now…"

"All right." She stood and flounced out of the room and down the hall, and he heard the door close behind her.

He took his hand off the mouthpiece.

"I sent her back to the bathroom. She's pissed… There, the door closed. I'll tell you what, chief, it seems awfully easy. The guy is too smart to be caught that quick. And a week is a pretty short time to check her out."

"Sure, but we only caught him through a freak accident. He didn't plan to lose the gun."

"Then why didn't the brass have prints on them? He used gloves to load the son of a bitch."

"Sure, but I bet he didn't know where the gun came from-that we could trace it. And he is gay. All the shrinks say he will be."

Lucas thought about it. "That's a point," he admitted. "Okay. It sounds like he's worth a check."

"We don't want to fuck up. I think we're going to want you to… develop some intelligence on him."

"Okay." Daniel wanted him to bag the guy's house. "Listen, Carey wants to talk with Ruiz. I think I should set it up. It'll keep her off this other thing."

"What does Ruiz think?"

"She seems to be willing. Or I could talk her into it. We could set it up just the way we talked about. That'd keep all the newsies busy while we work on Smithe."

"Do it. And get down here. We're going to meet at ten."

"Come on out," he hollered. He stepped into the hallway and noticed the bathroom door was open. He walked swiftly to the bedroom and pushed the door open. Jennifer was screwing the mouthpiece back on the phone.

"I needed one more minute," she said. It wasn't an apology.

"Goddammit, Jennifer," Lucas said in exasperation.

"I don't take orders about news stuff. Not from cops," she said, tightening the mouthpiece and replacing it on the receiver.

"We gotta work something out," he said, hands on his hips. "What'd you hear?"

"You've got a suspect. He's gay. That's all. And about Ruiz."

"You can't use it."

"Don't tell me-"

"You might think that listening on my private line is something that a real hard news broad would do, but your lawyers wouldn't think it's so cute. Or the station, after they thought about it. The state news council might have a few words about it too. And to tell you the truth, I kind of think this gay guy might not be the right one. If he's not, and you constructively identify him, he'll be the new owner of the station after the libel suit."

"I'll think about it."

"Jennifer, if we're going to have a kid together, we can't play mind games anymore. I've got to trust you. On the cases I'm working on, you only use what I say is okay."

"I don't make that kind of deal."

"You better start or we're going to have trouble. We'll both be sitting around afraid to talk to each other. Besides, it only applies to the cases I'm working on."

She thought it over. "We'll figure something out," she said noncommittally. "I won't cover for you. If I come up with a tip from another source, I'll use it."

"Okay."

"It won't be so much of a problem when I start producing," Jennifer said. "I'll be concentrating on longer-range stuff. Not police stuff."

"That'd be better for both of us. But what about this thing? Will you hold off for now?"

"What about this Ruiz woman?"

"I already called her, while you were in the shower. She says she'll do it. We should be able to set something up for tonight. You heard Daniel, he says to go ahead."

Jennifer thought it over and finally nodded. "Okay. Deal. I'll hold off on the suspect as long as you promise that I get the first break. If there's a break."

"I promise you'll share it."

"God damn, Lucas…"

"Jennifer…"

"This is going to be hard," she said. "Okay. For now. I'll give you notice if I think I have to change my mind."

He nodded. "I'll call Ruiz again and set up a specific time."

"The guy's name is Jimmy Smithe," Anderson told him as they walked down the hall to the meeting room. "I pulled his personnel file out of the computers and ran it against the psychological profile the shrinks put together and the information we developed. There are some matches."

"How about misses?" Lucas asked. "Does he come from the Southwest?"

"No. As far as I can tell, he was born and raised here in Minnesota, went to the University of Michigan, worked in Detroit for a while, spent some time in New York, and came back here to take a job in welfare."

"You run his sheet?"

"Nothing serious. When he was seventeen the Stillwater cops gave him a ticket for possession of a small amount of marijuana."

"What's his rep with welfare?"

"Sloan says it's pretty good. Smithe is gay, all right, doesn't hide it, but he doesn't flaunt it either. He's smart. He gets along with other people in his department, including the guys. He's up for a promotion to supervisor."

"I don't know, man. He doesn't sound tight enough."

"He's there physically. And we can put him with two people."

When Lucas and Anderson arrived, Daniel was talking to the other eight cops in the room.

"I don't want the word to get out of this group," he said. "We've got to take a close look at this guy without anybody knowing."

He poked a heavy finger at Sloan.

"You hit the neighborhood. Tell them it's a security investigation for a job offer with the department. If we need to back it up, I'll come up with some bullshit about a liaison officer between police and the gay community on AIDS and other problems. What the police can do to help, sensitivity training, all that. They ought to buy it."

"Okay." Sloan nodded.

"Actually, that's not a bad idea," Lucas said.

"We've got enough gays of our own without going outside," Daniel said. He poked a finger at Anderson. "Find out everything you can and cross-check it with the other victims. We've got him with Ruiz. See if we can match up somewhere else.

"Now, you guys," he said to the other six detectives, "are going to watch every move he makes. Two guys all the time, round the clock. Overtime, no problem. You see an eighty-year-old society lady getting gang-banged, you call it in and forget it. You never take your eyes off this motherfucker. You got that? Smithe is the only priority. And I want fifteen-minute checks on location. Call it into Anderson during the day, the duty officer at night."

"My husband's going to love this," one of the women cops muttered.

"Fuck your husband," said Daniel.

"I'd like to," said the cop, "but people keep putting me on nights."

When the meeting broke, he asked Lucas to stay behind.

"You got the Ruiz thing fixed?"

"Yeah. I talked to her just before I came in. We'll do it tonight, at her place. Six o'clock. She's willing, if it'll help, and it'll cool out Carey."

"I hope your dick isn't getting you in trouble with that woman."

"It's under control," Lucas said. "I'll tip the papers and the TV people that you'll be calling a press conference. And I'll talk to the papers about doing their interviews at the same time Carey does hers. We'll be back over here for the press conference at nine. Afterward, I'm going to head up to my cabin for a couple of days. I've got some time coming."

"Jesus, this isn't such a good time for a vacation."

"I've got things covered. I'll leave my number with the shift commander if you need me."

"Okay, but tonight prep Ruiz for making some kind of appeal for cooperation, will you? You know the stuff." Daniel leaned back in his chair, put one foot on his desk, looked at his wall of photographs, and changed the subject. "You know what we need."

"Yeah."

"I'll tell Anderson to give you location checks. We already know he lives alone. It's a little house down by Lake Harriet."

"Not far from where Lewis worked. The real-estate woman."

"We thought of that," Daniel said. "He didn't buy the house from her agency, though."

"Look. Don't get too far out front on this thing, okay? I mean you personally," Lucas said. "If there's a leak to the press, tell them that you're looking at a guy, but you think it's thin."

"You don't believe it?"

"I've got a bad feeling."

"Can you get something going this afternoon? That might tell us something."

"I'll give it a shot."

Nobody said anything about a bag job.

From his office, Lucas called the newspapers and television stations and tipped friends that Daniel would be calling a press conference. He talked separately to assignment editors from both papers and suggested that they keep a soft-touch reporter around late, that there'd be a good next-day story breaking around six o'clock.

That done, he got Smithe's address and phone number from Anderson and found the house on a city map. He knew the neighborhood. He thought about it for a minute, pursing his lips, then opened the bottom drawer of his desk, reached far into the back, and found the lock rake. It was battery-operated, roughly the same shape but only half the size of an electric drill, with two prongs sticking out where the drill bit would have been. One prong was bent, the other straight. Lucas unscrewed the butt cap, reversed the batteries into working position, and squeezed the trigger. The picks rattled for a second and he released the pressure and sighed.

Smithe's house was tan stucco with a postage-stamp lawn. Fifteen-foot-tall junipers flanked the concrete steps that led to the front door. There were only occasional people on the quiet streets around the house. Lucas cruised by twice, then drove out to a street phone.

" Anderson."

"This is Davenport. Where's Smithe?"

"Just had a call. He's at his desk."

"Thanks."

Next he dialed Smithe's number and let it ring. After the thirtieth ring he took a pair of wire cutters from the glove compartment, looked around, nipped off the receiver, and dropped it on the floor of the car. If the receiver was gone, there was little chance that a passerby would manually disconnect the phone.

The Porsche was too noticeable to park outside Smithe's house. Lucas dropped it a block away and walked down the street, the pick in his jacket pocket. A kid was pedaling a bike along the street and Lucas slowed and let him pass. At Smithe's house he turned in and walked straight up to the steps without looking around.

He could hear the phone ringing from the porch. The lock was an original, from a door that was probably installed in the fifties. The pick took it out in less than a minute. Lucas pushed the door open with his knuckles and stuck his head inside.

"Here, boy," he called. He whistled. Nothing. He stepped inside and pushed the door shut.

The house was still and smelled faintly of some chemical. What? Wood polish? Wax. Lucas cruised quickly through the ground floor on a preliminary survey, stopping only to lift the ringing phone, silencing it.

The living room was sparsely but tastefully furnished with an overstuffed couch-and-chair set and a teardrop glass coffee table from the fifties. The kitchen was a pleasant, sunny room with yellow tiles and a half-dozen plants perched on the counter near the window. There was a bathroom with a cast-iron tub, a small bedroom with a double bed pushed into a corner, an empty chest of drawers, and a desk and chair, apparently used as an office and a guest bedroom. He checked the drawers in the desk and found bills, financial statements, and copies of income-tax returns.

The master bedroom had been converted into a media room, with a set of five-foot-tall speakers and a twenty-seven-inch television facing a long, comfortable couch. One wall of the media room was lined with photos. Smithe stood next to a smiling older couple that Lucas assumed were his parents. Another photo showed him with two other men, all showing a strong family resemblance, probably his brothers; they were dressed in high-school wrestling uniforms, flexing their biceps for the camera. There was a picture of Smithe throwing hay off a rack with his father. Smithe with a diploma. Smithe with a male friend on the streets of New York, arms wrapped around each other's waists.

Where's the bedroom? Lucas went down the hall, found the stairs going up. The bedroom ran the whole length of the house and featured a king-size bed still rumpled from the night before. Jeans, underwear, and other pieces of clothing were scattered around on chairs. A bookcase held a few books, mostly science fiction, and a small selection of gay skin magazines. Lucas looked at the chest of drawers. Keys, cologne, a money clip with the insignia of Ducks Unlimited, a small jewelry box, a photo of Smithe with another man, both bare from the waist up, arms around each other's shoulders.

Lucas pulled open the top drawer. Prophylactics. Two boxes, one of lubricated, the other nonlubricated, both boxes about half-empty. He took one of the lubricated variety and dropped it in his pocket. Ran through the rest of the drawers: a bundle of letters from a man named Rich, fastened together with a rubber band. Lucas looked at two: chatty letters from an ex-lover. No threats, no recriminations.

Checked the closet. Athletic shoes, five pairs. Adidas, Adidas, Adidas, Adidas, and Adidas. No Nike Airs. Down the stairs, into the bathroom. The medicine chest had four bottles of prescription drugs: two penicillin, one of them expired, a weak painkiller, a tiny bottle of ophthalmological ointment.

Through the kitchen, the basement stairs, and down. Basement unfinished. A gun rack with three shotguns. The back room: weights. A full set, with an elaborate weight bench. Pictures of weight lifters in full grease, pumped and flexed. A handmade exercise chart, with checks next to the days of the week when each exercise was completed. He didn't miss often.

Back out to the main room. A chest of drawers. More guns? Lucas ran through it, nothing but tools. Up the stairs, through the living room. Two nice drawings, both in charcoal, nudes of long sinuous women. Glanced at the watch: in nine minutes now.

Into the office. Pulled out drawers. Financial records, letters. Nothing interesting. Brought up IBM computer. Loaded Word Perfect. Loaded files disks. Letters, business correspondence. Smithe worked at home. Nothing like a diary.

Last check. Looked at the photos in the media room again. Happy, Lucas thought. That was what he looked like.

Checked watch. Seventeen minutes. And out.

He stopped at Daniel's office.

"What?" Daniel looked harassed.

Lucas dipped into his pocket, took out the packaged ring of the prophylactic, tossed it on the desk. Daniel looked down without touching it, then back up.

"'Share,'" he read from the pack. He looked up at Lucas. "The notebooks have a list that the lab made up, the rubbers that use the kind of lubricant they found in the women."

"Yeah."

"This one on it?"

"Yeah."

"God damn. We got anything we can make a warrant with?"

"It'd be thin."

Daniel reached out and pushed an intercom button.

"Linda, get Detective Sloan for me. Detective Anderson down in homicide should be able to reach him. I want to talk to him right away."

He took his finger off the button and looked at Lucas. "Any problems out there?"

"No."

"I don't want you on TV for the next few days. Stay out of sight at this press conference just in case somebody saw you on the street."

"Okay. But I got in clean."

"Christ, if this is the guy, we're going to look good. Out in Los Angeles they can chase these guys for years, and some of them they never catch." Daniel ran his fingers through his hair. "It's gotta be him."

"Don't think like that," Lucas said urgently. "Think cool. When we pick somebody up, the media's going to go berserk. If it's not him, you'll be dangling from a tree limb. By your balls. Especially with the gay politics around here."

"All right, all right," Daniel said unhappily. He swung one hand in the air as though brushing away gnats. The phone rang and he snatched it up.

"Yeah. We've been waiting." He looked at Lucas and mouthed "Sloan." "Did you ever check that list of houses Lewis sold?… Yeah. How many?… What about dates?… Huh. Okay. Stay with that, pick up any more you can find. Talk to her boyfriend, see what bars they went to, any that we might cross with Smithe… Yeah. We might be going for a warrant… What?… Wait a minute."

Daniel looked up at Lucas.

"Sloan says the garbage pickup is tomorrow. He wants to know if he should grab the garbage if Smithe brings any out."

"Good idea. It's not protected; we don't need a warrant. If we find anything in it, that could build the warrant for us."

Daniel nodded and went back to the phone. "Grab the garbage, okay. And good work… Yeah." He slammed the phone back on the hook.

"Lewis sold a house the next block over. Seven weeks before she was killed."

"Oh, boy, I don't know-"

"Wait, listen. Sloan's been talking to people out there. Smithe is a jogger and he jogs down that same block almost every summer evening. Right past the house she sold."

"That's weak."

"Lucas, if we get one more thing, anything, I'm going in for a warrant. We've got Laushaus on the bench, he'd give us a warrant to search the governor's underwear. With the governor in it."

"It's not getting the warrant I'm worried about. I'm worried about the reaction."

"I'll handle it. We'll be careful."

Lucas shook his head. "I don't know. I've got a feeling that everybody's starting to run in one direction." He glanced at his watch. "I've got to make some calls on the Ruiz interview. Take it easy, huh?"

Lucas talked to an assignment editor at the Pioneer Press:

"Wally? Lucas Davenport."

"Hey, Lucas, how's the hammer hangin'?"

"Wonderful expression, Wally. Where'd you hear that?"

"I thought the pigs talked like that. Excuse me, I meant cops. Just trying to be friendly."

"Right. You got one of your hacks who can meet me on the front porch of the St. Paul cop shop, say about six o'clock?"

"What's up?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, we got a survivor from a maddog attack and we're going public."

"Whoa. Hold on."

There was a series of muffled exclamations on the other end of the line, then a new voice, female. Denise Ring, the city editor.

"Lucas, this is Denise. Where'd this woman come from?"

"Hey, Denise. How's the hammer hangin'?"

"What?"

"Wally just asked me how the hammer was hangin'. I thought it was newspaper talk."

"Fuck you, Lucas. And fuck Wally. What's with this survivor?"

"We got one. We held back, because we needed to talk to her a lot. But Jennifer Carey found out about it-"

"From you?"

"No. I don't know where she heard it. St. Paul cops, I think."

"You're sleeping with her."

"Jesus Christ, does everybody read my mail?"

"Everybody knows. I mean, we figured it was just a matter of time. She was the last available woman in town. It was either her or you'd have to start dating out-state."

"Look, Denise, you want this story or what?"

"Yeah. Don't get excited."

"Jennifer said she was going public, whether we cooperated or not, so we talked to the survivor and she said she'd be willing to make an appeal. Jennifer wanted it exclusive, but Daniel said no. Said to call you and the Star-Tribune, so that's what I'm doing."

"Six o'clock? Cammeretta will be there. How about art?"

"Send a photographer. Jennifer will have a camera."

"Is that what this press conference is about at nine?"

"Yeah. The survivor'll be talking in public to the other stations, but you and TV3 and the Strib will have the exclusive stuff from the six-o'clock meeting."

"Not exclusive for us. Jennifer will have it first."

"But not as much-"

"And the Strib will be there with us."

"But I'm sure you'll do it better."

"We always do," Ring said. "Okay. Six o'clock. What'd you say her name was?"

Lucas laughed. "Susan B. Anthony. Wait. Maybe I got that wrong. I'll know for sure at six."

"See you then," Ring said.

Lucas tapped the cut-off button, redialed the Star-Tribune, gave the assignment editor the same story, and then called Carla.

"You'll be there, right?" She sounded worried.

"Yeah. I'll come over about five and we'll talk about what you want to say. Then when it's time, I'll walk over to the station and get them. That'll be about six. It'll be Jennifer Carey from TV3, a cameraman, two newspaper reporters, and two newspaper photographers. I know all of them and they're pretty good people. We'll break it off about seven. Then we'll go out for something to eat and come over here to Minneapolis for the press conference. We can talk about that on the way over."

"Okay. I'm going to do my hair. What else?"

"Wear a plain blouse. Not yellow. Light blue would be good if you've got one. Jeans are fine. Stay away from the makeup. Just a touch of lipstick. Jennifer's pretty good. You'll do fine."

"I'm Jennifer Carey. How are you?"

"I'm fine. I see you on the news…"

Lucas watched them talk as Jennifer's cameraman, the two newspaper reporters, and the two photographers looked curiously around the studio. Jennifer was watching Carla's face closely, gauging her reactions, smiling, encouraging her to talk.

"Okay, listen, guys," Jennifer said finally, turning to the newspaper people. "Why don't we do it this way. I need camera time, so why don't we have Carla tell her story for you guys and we'll film that, and you can get your pictures. That'll let Carla get what she wants to say in mind. Then we'll do our interview."

"I'll want to stay around for your interview," said the Star-Tribune reporter. The Pioneer Press reporter nodded.

"No problem, but no breaking in."

Lucas watched as the two newspaper reporters extracted the story from Carla. She relaxed under the friendly attention, becoming almost ebullient as she told how the killer had fled for his life. After fifteen minutes Lucas called for a time-out.

"We've got to make the press conference at nine o'clock," he said to Jennifer. "You better get started."

"We'd like to get you to walk through it, just show us where the guy grabbed you, and what happened from there. Use it for the art, the pictures," said one of the newspaper photographers.

Carla re-created it, starting from the door, a mime of a woman carrying groceries and then suddenly attacked. As she walked about, becoming increasingly animated, the photographers danced around her, their strobes flickering like lightning.

When they were done, Jennifer led her through it again, acting the part of the attacker. When that was done, the two women sat and chatted, the cameraman taking frontal and reverse shots of both, with facial close-ups.

"Okay. Is there anything we missed?" asked Jennifer. She glanced at her watch.

"I don't think so," said Carla.

"We all done, guys?" she asked the other reporters. They both nodded.

"Okay, I'm shutting it down," Lucas said. "Nobody gets back in for a last word. If you think of anything you must have, get it from your guys at the press conference. Okay? Everybody cool?"

He ushered them out five minutes later.

"What do you think?" he asked Carla after they were gone.

"It was interesting," she said, her eyes bright.

"Yeah, well, the press conference will be different. Lots of very quick questions, maybe nasty. Don't mention this interview or the other stations will go crazy. By the time they see TV3, we want you out of sight."

On the way to the press conference, Carla said, "How long have you known Jennifer Carey?"

He glanced across at her. "Years. Why?"

"She stood in your space. And you didn't notice. That usually means… intimacy at some level."

"We've been friends for a long time," Lucas said neutrally.

"Have you slept with her?"

"We don't know each other well enough to talk about that kind of thing," he said.

"Sounds like a big yes to me," she said.

"Jesus."

"Hmm."

The press conference was short, loud, and finally nasty. The chief spoke after Carla.

"Do you have any suspects?" one reporter shouted.

"We are checking all leads-"

"That means no," the reporter shouted.

"No, it doesn't," Daniel said. Lucas winced.

"Then you do have a suspect," a woman called.

"I didn't say that."

"You want to tell us what you're saying? In short words?"

An hour after the press conference, whipping north along I- 35 in Lucas' Porsche, Carla was still hyper.

"So you'll have tapes of Jennifer's interview?"

"Yeah, the recorder's set. You can look at them when you get back."

"It sure went downhill after the chief called that guy a jerk," Carla said.

Lucas laughed. "I loved it. The guy was a jerk. But it chilled out Daniel, too. That's good. He'll be more careful."

"And you're not going to tell me about the suspect?"

"Nope."

It was a three-hour drive to Lucas' cabin. They stopped at a general store to stock up on groceries and Lucas chatted with the owner for a minute about fishing. "Two large last week," the owner said.

"How big?"

"Henning, the doctor, the row-troller? He got one forty-eight and a half inches off the big island in those weeds. He figured thirty-two pounds. Then some guy on the other side of the lake, tourist from Chicago, I think he was fishing out of Wilson 's, took a twenty-eight-pounder."

"Henning release it?"

"Yeah. He says he's not keeping anything unless there's a chance it'll go forty."

"Could be a long wait. There aren't that many guys in the North Woods with a forty-pound musky on the wall."

"It's beautiful," Carla said, looking out at the lake.

"Doesn't hurt to have the moon out there. It's almost embarrassing. It looks like a beer ad."

"It's beautiful," she repeated. She turned back into the cabin.

"Which bedroom should I take?" He pointed her back to the corner.

"The big one. Might as well take it, since I won't be here. There's a bike in the garage, it's a half-mile out to the general store, three miles into town. There's a boat down at the dock. You ever run an outboard?"

"Sure. I used to go north with my husband every summer. One thing he could do was fish."

"There are a half-dozen rods in a rack on the porch and a couple of tackle boxes under the glider, if you want to try some fishing. If you go off the point out there, around the edges of the weed bed, you'll pick up some northern."

"Okay. You going back right now?"

"In a little while. I'll stick the food in the refrigerator and then I'm going to have a beer and sit out on the porch for a while."

"I'm going to get changed, take a shower," Carla said.

Lucas sat on the glider and kept it gently swinging, his feet flexing against the low window ledge below the screen. The nights were getting cool and there was just enough wind to bring in the scent and the sound of the pines. A raccoon crossed through the yard light of a neighboring cabin, heading back toward the garbage cans. From the other way, a few lots down the lake, a woman laughed and there was a splash. From the cabin behind him, the shower stopped running. A few minutes later, Carla came out on the porch.

"You want another beer?"

"Mmm. Yeah. One more."

"I'm going to have one."

She was wearing a pink cotton robe and rubber shower shoes. She brought back a Schmidt and handed it to him, sat next to him on the glider, and curled her legs beneath her. Her hair was wet and the drops of water glistened like diamonds in the indirect light from the windows.

"A little cool now," she said. "You ever come up here in winter?"

"I come up here every chance I get. I come up in the winter and ski, cross-country. There are trails all over the place. You can ski for miles."

"Sounds great."

"You're invited," Lucas said promptly.

As they talked he could feel the warmth coming off her, from the shower.

"Are you getting cold?"

"Not yet. Maybe in a few minutes. Right now it feels fresh." She turned and leaned backward, her head on his shoulder. "It doesn't seem like a cop ought to have a place like this. I mean, a drug-and-vice guy with a Porsche."

"Doctor's orders. I got so I was doing nothing but work," he said. He eased an arm behind her shoulder. "I'd be on the street all day and sometimes half the night, then I'd go home and work on my games. I'd get so cranked I couldn't sleep even when I was so tired I couldn't walk. So I went in to see the doc. I thought I ought to get some legal downers and he said what I really needed was a place not to work. I never work up here. I mean, never money-work. I chop wood, fix the garage, work on the dock, all that. But I don't money-work."

"Guess what?" Carla said.

"What?"

"I don't have a goddamn thing on under this robe." She giggled a beer giggle.

"Jeez. Absolutely buck naked, huh?"

"Yep. I figured, why not?"

"So can I consider this an official pass?"

"Would you rather not?"

"No, no, no no no." He leaned forward and kissed her on the jaw just below her ear. "I was desperately figuring my chances. I'd been such a nice guy all along, it seemed sort of crass to suddenly start hustling."

"That's why I decided to come on to you," she said. "Because you weren't rushing me like some guys."

Much later in the night, she said, "I've got to sleep. I'm really starting to feel the day."

"Just one thing," he said in the dark. "When we went through that routine up in your apartment the first time I interviewed you, you said the guy who jumped you felt softer than me. You still think that?"

She was silent for a moment, then said, "Yes. I have this distinct impression that he was a little… not porky, but fleshy. Like there was fat under there and that he wasn't terribly muscular. I mean, he was a lot stronger than I am, but I only weigh a little over a hundred pounds. I don't think he's a tough guy."

"Shit."

"Does that mean something?"

"Maybe. I'm afraid it might."

Early the next morning Lucas walked out to his car, fished under the seat, and retrieved a Charter Arms.38 special revolver in a black nylon holster and two boxes of shells. He carried them back to the house.

"What's that?" Carla asked when he brought it in.

"A pistol. You thought you might need one."

"Hmm." Carla closed one eye and squinted at him with the other. "You brought it up with you, but didn't bring it out last night. That suggests you expected to stay over."

"A subject which does not merit further exploration," Lucas declared with a grin. "Get your shoes on. We've got to take a hike."

They went into the woods across the road from Lucas' cabin, followed a narrow jump-across stream that eventually became a long damp spot, then turned into a gully that led into the base of a steep hill. They came out on a grassy plateau facing a sandy cutbank.

"We'll shoot into the cutbank," Lucas said. "We'll start at ten feet and move back to twenty."

"Why so close?"

"Because if you're any further away, you ought to run or yell for help. Shooting is for close-up desperation," Lucas said. He looked around and nodded toward a downed log. "Let's go talk about it for a minute."

They sat on the log and Lucas pulled the pistol apart, demonstrated the function of each piece and how to load and unload it. He was clicking the brass shells into the cylinder when they heard a chattering overhead. Lucas looked up and saw the red squirrel.

"Okay," he whispered. "Now, watch this."

He pivoted slowly on the log and lifted the weapon toward the squirrel.

"What are you going to do?"

"Show you what a thirty-eight will do to real meat," Lucas said, his eyes fixed on the squirrel. The animal was half-hidden behind a thick limb on a red pine but occasionally exposed its entire body.

"Why? Why are you going to kill it?" Carla's eyes were wide, her face pale.

"You just don't know what a bullet will do until you see it. Gotta stick your fingers in the wounds. Like Doubting Thomas, you know?"

"Hey, don't," she commanded. "Come on, Lucas."

Lucas pointed the weapon at the squirrel, both eyes open, waiting.

"Hit the little sucker right between the eyes, never feel a thing…"

"Lucas…" Her voice was up and she clutched at his gun arm, dragging it down. She was horrified.

"You look horrified."

"Jesus Christ, the squirrel didn't do anything…"

"You feel scared?"

She dropped her arm and turned cold. "Is this some kind of lesson?"

"Yeah," Lucas said, turning away from the squirrel. "Hold on to that feeling you had. You felt that way for a squirrel. Now think about unloading a thirty-eight into a human being."

"Jesus, Lucas…"

"You hit a guy in the chest, not through the heart, but just in the chest and you'll blow up his lungs and he'll lie there snorting out this bright red blood with little bubbles in it and usually his eyes look like they're made out of wax and sometimes he rocks back and forth and he's dying and there's not a thing that anybody can do about it, except maybe God-"

"I don't want the gun," she said suddenly.

Lucas held the weapon up in front of his face. "They're awful things," he said. "But there's one thing that's even more awful."

"What's that?"

"When you're the squirrel."

He gave her the basics of close-in shooting, firing at crude man-size figures drawn in the sand of the cutbank. After thirty rounds she began hitting the figures regularly. At fifty, she developed a flinch and began to spray shots.

"You're jerking the gun," Lucas told her.

She fired again, jerking the gun. "No I'm not."

"I can see it."

"I can't."

Lucas swung the cylinder out, emptied it, put three shells in random chambers, and handed the pistol back to her.

"Shoot another round."

She fired another shot, jerking the weapon, missing.

"Again."

This time the hammer hit an empty chamber and there was no shot, but she jerked the pistol out of line.

"That's called a flinch," Lucas said.

They worked for another hour, stopping every few minutes to talk about safety, about concealment of the gun in her studio, about combat shooting.

"It takes a lot to make a really good shot," Lucas told her as she looked at the weapon in her hand. "We're not trying to teach you that. What you've got to do is learn to hit that target reliably at ten feet and at twenty feet. That shouldn't be a problem. If you ever get in a situation where you need to shoot somebody, point the gun and keep pulling the trigger until it stops shooting. Forget about rules or excessive violence or any of that. Just keep pulling."

They fired ninety-five of the hundred rounds before Lucas called a halt and handed her the weapon, loaded with the last five rounds.

"So now you'll have a loaded gun around the house," he said, handing it to her. "You carry it back, put it where you think best. You'll find that it's kind of a burden. It's the knowledge that there's a piece of Death in the house."

"I'll need more practice," she said simply, hefting the pistol.

"I've got another three hundred rounds in the car. Come out here every day, shoot twenty-five to fifty rounds. Check yourself for flinching. Get used to it."

"Now that I've got it, it makes me more nervous than I thought it would," Carla said as they walked back to the cabin. "But at the same time…"

"What?"

"It feels kind of good in my hand," she said. "It's like a paintbrush or something."

"Guns are great tools," Lucas said. "Incredibly efficient. Very precise. They're a pleasure to use, like a Leica or a Porsche. A pleasure in their own right. It's too bad that to fulfill their purpose, you've got to kill somebody."

"That's a nice thought," Carla said.

Lucas shrugged. "Samurai swords are the same way. They're works of art that are complete only when they're killing. It's nothing new in the world."

As they crossed the road back to the cabin, she asked, "You've got to go?"

"Yeah. I've got a game."

"I don't understand that," she said. "The games."

"Neither do I," Lucas said, laughing.

He took his time driving back to the Twin Cities, enjoying the countryside, resolutely not thinking about the maddog. He arrived after six, checked Anderson's office, found that he had gone home for the evening.

"Sloan's still out somewhere," the shift commander said. "But nobody's told me to look for anything special."

Lucas left, changed clothes at home, stopped at a Grand Avenue restaurant in St. Paul, ate, and loafed over to St. Anne's.

"Ah, here's Longstreet, slow as usual," Elle said. Even as General Robert E. Lee she wore her full habit, crisp and dark in the lights of the game room. A second nun, who wore conventional street dress and played the role of General George Pickett, was flipping through a stack of movement sheets. The attorney, Major General George Gordon Meade, commander in chief of the Union armies, and the bookie, cavalry commander General John Buford, were studying their position on the map. A university student, who played General John Reynolds in the game, was punching data into the computer. He looked up and nodded when Lucas came in. The grocer, Jeb Stuart, had not yet arrived.

"Talking game-wise," the bookie said to Lucas, "you've got to do something about Stuart. Maybe take him out as a playable character. He keeps getting loose, and when he gets word to Lee, it changes everything."

Lucas relaxed and started arguing. He was in his place. The grocer arrived ten minutes later, apologizing for his tardiness, and they started. The battle went badly for the Union. Stuart was getting scouts back to the main force, so Lee knew the bluecoats were coming. He concentrated on Gettysburg more quickly than had happened in historical fact, and Pickett's division-marching first instead of last-brushed aside Buford's cavalry, pressed through the town, and captured Gulp's Hill and the north end of Cemetery Ridge.

They left it there. Late that evening, as they sat around the table talking over the day's moves, the attorney brought up the maddog.

"What's happening with this guy?" he asked.

"You looking for a client?" asked Lucas.

"Not unless he's got some major bucks," the attorney said. "This is the kind of case that will stink up the whole state. But it's interesting. It could be a hard case for you to make, actually, unless you catch him in the act. But the guy who gets him off… he's going to smell like a buzzard."

"Some of the people playing this game have noticed a buzzardlike odor," the grocer said. He was feeling expansive. He was rehabilitating old J.E.B. Stuart, making him a hero again.

The lawyer rolled his eyes. "So what's happening?" he asked Lucas. "You gonna catch him?"

"Not much progress," Lucas said, peeling a chunk of cold pizza out of a greasy box. "What do you do with a fruitcake? There's no way to track him. His mind doesn't work like an ordinary crook's. He's not doing it for money. He's not doing it for dope, or revenge, or impulsively. He's doing it for pleasure. He's taking his time. It might not be quite at random-we've found a few patterns-but for practical purposes, they don't help much. Like the fact that he attacks dark-haired women. That's maybe only thirty or forty percent of the women in the Cities, which sounds pretty good until you think about it. When you think about it, you realize that even if you eliminate the old women and the children, you're talking about, what, a quarter-million dark-haired possibilities?"

The bookie and the grocer nodded. The other nun and the student chewed pizza. Elle, who had been fingering the long string of rosary beads that swung by her side, said, "Maybe you could bring him in to you."

Lucas looked at her. "How?"

"I don't know. He fixates on people and we know the type. But if you put out a female decoy, how would you know he'd even see her? That's the problem. If you could get a decoy next to him, maybe you could pull him into an attack that you're watching."

"You've got a nasty mind, Sister," the bookie said.

"It's a nasty problem," she answered. "But…"

"What?" The lawyer was looking at her with a small smile on his face.

"Interesting," she said.