Rules of Prey

CHAPTER 10

"Daniel's hunting for you." Anderson looked harassed, teasing his thinning blond hair as he stepped through Lucas' office doorway. Lucas had just arrived and stood rattling his keys in his fist.

"Something break?"

"We might go for a warrant."

"On Smithe?"

"Yeah. Sloan spent the night going through his garbage. Found some wrappers from rubbers that use the same kind of lubricant they found in the women. And they found a bunch of invitations to art shows. The betting is, he knows this Ruiz chick."

"I'll talk to the chief."

"Where have you been?" Daniel asked.

"My cabin. I ditched Ruiz up there," Lucas said.

Daniel snapped his fingers, remembering. "That's right. Dammit. I didn't know she was going with you. How come your cabin?"

Lucas shrugged. "She would only give the interview if we could get her away afterward. This seemed simpler than trying to get the city to keep her in a hotel."

Daniel's eyes narrowed; then he gave Lucas a tiny nod. "So what is it, three hours up there?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. We're going to turn you back around. We want you to show her a photo spread, see if she can pick out Smithe. Take the chopper up."

"Anderson said you're going for a warrant," Lucas said.

"Maybe. Once we knew what we were looking for, we had Sloan go through the garbage scrap by scrap. Sure enough, he found some wrappers from those Share rubbers. So we got him with Rice, we know he's been at the same art shows as Ruiz, and he very well might have seen Lewis. Then this punk chick, she hung out at the clubs off Hennepin, mixing it up with the gays on the streets, he could have bumped into her there. And we got the lubricant, and the opportunity to meet them here in the courthouse. And he's gay. Depending on what you get, we could go for it. We've got Laushaus ready to sign whatever we need."

"We could find twenty guys who fit the same pattern."

"What's your problem with this, Davenport?" Daniel asked in exasperation. "You've taken guys down on one-tenth of what we got."

"Sure. But I knew I was right. This time we might be wrong. All we've got is the easy stuff, and nothing else. I think he's a workout freak; Ruiz said the attacker was soft. This guy's a native Minnesotan; Ruiz said he has a southwestern accent. Ruiz says the guy wears Nike Air shoes; he didn't have any Nike Airs in his closet. Eight pairs of shoes, but no Nike Airs."

"There's the rubber."

"That's the only thing, and that's not definitive."

"He knows guns."

"Not handguns. There wasn't a handgun in the place."

"Listen, just get up there with the pictures," Daniel said. "They've got a package for you down at the lab."

"Will you make the call on the warrant? Or you going to let homicide do it?"

"I've been pretty deep in this," Daniel said. "I wouldn't want to shove the responsibility off on somebody else."

"Let homicide make the call," Lucas urged. "They'll do what you want, but you'll be able to change your mind if there's a problem. And something else. Maybe you ought to suggest that they keep the warrant in their pocket. Ask the guy to come in, get him a lawyer, tell him that you have the warrant, and then if he can come up with anything that cools the case, you just pitch the warrant and shake his hand."

"He might not go for that."

"Man, I'm getting real bad vibes from this thing."

"We got people being killed," Daniel said. "What if we're right and we just let it go and he gets another one?"

"Put a heavier net around him. If he tries, we've got him."

"What if he waits for three weeks? Have you seen the television? It's like the Ayatollah and the hostages. 'Day Fifteen of the Maddog's Reign of Terror.' That'll be next."

"Goddammit, chief…"

Daniel waved him off. "I'll think about it. You get up there and show the mugs to Ruiz. Call back and tell us what she says."

Lucas tried to call Carla from the station and from the airport, but there was no answer.

"Get her?" asked the pilot.

"No. I'll find her when we get up there."

The chopper cut the travel time to the cabin to less than an hour, sweeping across the high-colored hardwood forests and the transition zone into the deep green of the North Woods. The pilot dropped the aircraft beside a road intersection three hundred yards out from the cabin, and he and Lucas walked in with the manila envelopes full of photos. Carla was waiting by the back porch.

"I was out in the boat and I heard the helicopter. I couldn't think of anybody else that it might be for. What happened?" She looked curiously from one to the other.

"We want you to look at some pictures," Lucas said as they went inside. He gestured at the pilot. "This is Tony Rubella. He's the helicopter pilot but he's also a cop. I'm going to record the interview."

Lucas put his tape recorder on the table, said a few test words, ran the cassette back, and listened until he was satisfied that it was working. Then he started it again and read in the time, date, and place.

"Conducting the interview is Lucas Davenport, lieutenant, Minneapolis Police Department, with Officer Anthony Rubella, Minneapolis Police Department. Interviewee is Miss Carla Ruiz of St. Paul. Carla Ruiz is well-known to Officer Davenport as the victim of an attack in her residence by a man believed to have committed a series of murders in the city of Minneapolis. We will show Ruiz a photo array of twelve men and ask if she recognizes any of them."

Lucas dumped a dozen photographs on the table, all of young men, all shot on the street, all vaguely similar in appearance, size, and dress. Eleven of them were cops or police-department clerical personnel. The twelfth was Smithe. Lucas arranged them in a single row and Carla leaned over them and studied the faces.

"I know this guy for sure," she said, tapping one of the cop photos. "He's a cop. He works off-duty as a security guy at that grocery store at the bottom of Nicollet."

"Okay," Lucas said for the recorder. "Miss Ruiz has identified one photo as a man she knows and she says she believes he is a police officer. Our data indicate that he is a police officer. I am asking Miss Ruiz to turn the photograph over, to mark it with the capital letter A, and to sign her name and put the date below it. Miss Ruiz, will you do that now?"

Carla signed the photo and went back to the display. "This guy looks familiar," she said, tapping the photo of Smithe. "I've seen him on the art scene, you know, openings, parties, that sort of thing. I don't know why, but I've got it in my head that he's gay. I think I might have been introduced to him."

"Okay. Are you sure about him?"

"Pretty sure."

"Okay. Miss Ruiz has just identified the photograph of Jimmy Smithe. I will ask Miss Ruiz to mark that photograph on the back with a capital letter B and sign her name and the date."

Carla signed the second photo and Lucas asked her to look at the photo spread again.

"I don't see anybody else," she said finally.

"I am now showing Miss Ruiz seven additional photographs of Jimmy Smithe and asking her if she confirms her identification of him in the random spread."

Carla looked at the second group of photos and nodded.

"Yes. I know him."

"Miss Ruiz has confirmed that she knows the suspect, Jimmy Smithe. She has also added details, such as she believes him to be homosexual and that he frequents art galleries and that she may have been introduced to him. Miss Ruiz, does anything else come to mind about Mr. Smithe?"

"No, no, I really don't know him. I remember him because he's handsome and I got the impression that he's intelligent."

"Okay. Anything else?"

"No."

"Okay. That concludes the interview. Thank you, Miss Ruiz." He punched the button on the tape, ran it back, listened to it, then took the cassette out of the recorder, put it back in its protective box, and slipped it into his pocket.

"Now what?" Carla asked.

"I've got to use the phone," Lucas said. He went straight through to the chief.

"Davenport? What?"

"She knows him," Lucas said. "Picked him out with no problem."

"We're going to take him."

"Listen. Do it my way?"

"I don't know if we can, Lucas. The media's got a smell of it."

"Who?"

"Don Kennedy from TV3."

"Shit." Kennedy and Jennifer were professional bed-mates. "Okay. I'll be back in an hour and a half. When are you taking him?"

"We were waiting for your call. We've got a couple guys here and we'll get the surveillance people. He's working at his desk over in the county building. We're just going to walk over and get him."

"Who made the call? To make the bust?"

There was a pause. Then, "Lester."

"Outstanding. Stay with that."

Daniel hung up and Lucas turned to Rubella. "Get the chopper cranked up. We've got to get back in a hurry."

When Rubella was gone, he took Carla's hands.

"They've got a case against this guy, but I don't like it. I think they're making a mistake. So just sit tight, okay? Watch the evening news. I'll call every night. I'll try to get back up here in a couple of days, if things cool down."

"Okay," she said. "Be careful." He kissed her on the lips and jogged down the dusty track after Rubella.

The flight back to the Cities and the drive from the airport took two hours. Anderson was sitting at his desk, his feet up, staring distractedly at a wall calendar when Lucas arrived.

"Where've you got him?" Lucas asked.

"Down in interrogation."

"His lawyer in there?"

"Yeah. That could be a problem."

"Why's that?"

"'Cause it's that asshole McCarthy," Anderson said.

"God damn." Lucas ran his hands through his hair. "The usual bull?"

"Yeah. The little dickhead."

"I'm going down there."

"Chief's down there."

"We're not getting anything out of him." Daniel was leaning on the wall outside the interrogation room. "That prick McCarthy won't let him say a word."

"He smells a good one," Lucas said. "If this goes to trial and he gets Smithe off, he can quit the county and make some real money in private practice."

"So what're you going to do?" Daniel asked.

"I'm going to be a good guy. A real good guy. And I'm going to get mad and read off McCarthy."

"Not too much. You could jeopardize what we got."

"Just plant a seed of doubt."

Daniel shrugged. "You can try."

Lucas took off his jacket, loosened his tie and mussed his hair, took a deep breath, and went through the door at a jog. The interrogators, the lawyer, and Smithe were seated around a table and looked up, startled.

"Jesus. Sorry. I was afraid I'd miss you," Lucas said. He looked down at McCarthy. "Hello, Del. You handling this one, I guess?"

"Does the pope shit in the woods?" McCarthy was a short man in a lumpy brown suit. His dishwater-blond hair swelled out of his head in an Afro, and muttonchops swept down the sides of his square face. "Is a bear a Catholic?"

"Right." Lucas looked at the interrogators. "I've been cleared by Daniel. You mind if I ask a few?"

"Go ahead, we ain't gettin' anywhere," said the senior cop, swirling an oily slick of cold coffee in a Styrofoam cup.

Lucas nodded and turned to Smithe. "I'll tell you up front. I was one of the people who questioned the survivor of the third attack. I don't think you did it."

"Is this the good-guy routine, Davenport?" asked McCarthy, tipping his chair back and grinning in amusement.

"No. It's not." He pointed a finger at Smithe. "That was the first thing I wanted to tell you. The second thing is, I'm going to talk for a while. At some point, McCarthy here might tell you to stop listening. You better not-"

"Now, wait a minute," McCarthy said, bringing the chair legs down with a bang.

Lucas overrode him. "-because how can it hurt just to listen, if you're not admitting anything? And your lawyer's priorities are not necessarily the same as yours."

McCarthy stood up. "That's it. I'm calling it off."

"I want to hear him," Smithe said suddenly.

"I'm advising you-"

"I want to hear him," Smithe said. He tipped his head at McCarthy while watching Lucas. "Why aren't his priorities the same as mine?"

"I don't want to impeach the counselor's personal ethics," Lucas said, "but if this goes to trial, it'll be one of the big trials of the decade. We just don't have serial killers here in Minnesota. If he gets you off, he'll have made his name. You, on the other hand, will be completely destroyed, no matter what happens. It's too bad, but that's the way it works. You've been around a courthouse long enough to know what I'm talking about."

"That's enough," said McCarthy. "You're prejudicing the case."

"No I'm not. I'm just prejudicing your job in it. And I won't mention that again. I'm just-"

McCarthy stepped between Lucas and Smithe, his back to Lucas, and leaned toward Smithe. "Listen. If you don't want me to represent you, that's fine. But I'm telling you as your lawyer, right now, you don't want to talk-"

"I want to listen. That's all," Smithe said. "You can sit here and listen with me or you can take a hike and I'll get another attorney."

McCarthy stood back and shook his head. "I warned you."

Lucas moved around to where Smithe could see him again.

"If you've got an alibi, especially a good alibi, for any of the times of the killings, you better bring it out now," Lucas said urgently. "That's my message. If you've got an alibi, you could let us go to trial and maybe humiliate us, but you'd have a hard time working again. There'd always be a question. And there'd always be a record. You get stopped by a highway patrolman in New York and he calls in to the National Crime Information Center, he'll get back a sheet that says you were once arrested for serial murder. And then there's the other possibility."

"What?"

"That you'll be convicted even if you're innocent. There's always a chance that even with a good alibi, the jury'd find you guilty. It happens. You know it. The jury figures, what the hell, if he wasn't guilty, the cops wouldn't have arrested him. McCarthy here can tell you that."

Smithe tipped his head toward McCarthy again. "He told me that as soon as I started dealing in alibis, you'd have guys out on the street trying to knock them down.'

Lucas leaned on the interrogation table. "He's absolutely right. We would. And if we can't, I guarantee you'd be back on the street and nothing happens. Nothing. You haven't been booked yet. You never would be. Right now, we've got a good enough case to pick you up, maybe take it to trial. I don't know what these guys have been telling you, but I can tell you that we can put you with two of the victims and a third guy who is critical to the case, and there's some physical evidence. But a good alibi would knock the stuffing out of it."

Smithe went pale. "There can't be. Physical evidence. I mean…"

"You don't know what it is," Lucas said. "But we have it. Now. I suggest you and Mr. McCarthy go whisper in the hallway for a couple of minutes and come back."

"Yeah, we'll do that," McCarthy said.

They were back in five minutes.

"We're done talking," McCarthy announced, looking satisfied with himself.

Lucas looked at Smithe. "You're making a bad mistake."

"He said-" Smithe started, but McCarthy grabbed him by the arm and shook his head no.

"You're playing the weak sister," McCarthy said to Lucas. "From what you've said, there're only two possibilities: You've got no case and you're desperate to make one. In which case you won't book him. Or you've got a case, in which case you'll book him no matter what we say and use what he says against him."

"McCarthy, a fellow out in the hall called you a dickhead," Lucas said wearily. "He was right. You can't even see the third possibility, which is why we're all sweating bullets."

"Which is?"

"Which is we got a good case that feels bad to a few of us. We just want to know. We've got pretty close to exact times on two of the attacks, real close on a third. If Mr. Smithe was out of town, if he was talking to clients, if he was in the office all day, he'd be in the clear. How can it hurt to tell us now, before we book-"

"You're just afraid to book because of what will happen if you're wrong."

"Goddamn right. The department will look like shit. And Smithe, not incidentally, will take it right in the shorts, no offense."

"Now, what the fuck does that mean?"

"He knows I'm gay," Smithe said.

"That's a prejudicial remark if I ever-"

"Fuck it," said one of the interrogators. "I don't want to hear any more."

He stalked out of the room and a minute later Daniel stepped in.

"No deal?" he asked Lucas.

Lucas shrugged.

"No deal," said McCarthy.

"Take him upstairs and book him," Daniel told the remaining interrogator.

"Wait a minute," said Smithe.

"Book him," Daniel snarled. He stormed out of the room.

"Good work, McCarthy, you just built your client a cross," Lucas said.

McCarthy showed his teeth in what wasn't quite a smile. "Go piss up a rope," he said. They left in a group-Smithe, McCarthy, and the interrogation cop. As they went, the cop turned to Lucas.

"You know the difference between a skunk dead on the highway and a lawyer dead on the highway?"

"No, what?"

McCarthy turned his head.

"There's skid marks in front of the skunk," the cop said. Lucas laughed and McCarthy bared his teeth again.

"Look at them down there, like lice on a dog," Anderson said gloomily, exploring his gums with a ragged plastic toothpick. On the street below, television cameramen, reporters, and technicians were swarming around the remote-broadcast trucks parked outside City Hall.

"Yeah. Looks like Lester is going to have a full house," Lucas said. Jennifer's head bobbed through the swarm, headed toward the entry below them. "Got to run," Lucas said.

He caught her just inside the entrance, dragged her protesting through the halls to his office, pushed her into the desk chair, and closed the door.

"You tipped Kennedy about the gay. You told me you wouldn't."

"I didn't tip him, Lucas, honest to Christ."

"Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit," Lucas stormed. "You guys have washed each other's hands before, I've seen you do it. As soon as Daniel told me that Kennedy had the tip, I knew it was from you."

"So what are you going to do about it, Lucas? Huh?" She was angry now. "This is what I do for a living. It's not a fuckin' hobby."

"Great goddamn way to make a living." "Better than renting yourself out as a stormtrooper." Lucas put his fists on his hips and leaned close to her face. She didn't back off even a fraction of an inch. "You know what you did to get a break on a story? You pushed the department into booking an innocent man, which will probably kill the guy. He's in the welfare department surrounded by women and they'll never trust him again, no matter what anybody says. He's a suspect, all right, but I don't think he did it. I was trying to get them to go easy, but your fuckin' tip pushed them into picking him up."

"If they don't think he did it, they shouldn't pick him up."

Lucas slapped himself on the forehead. "Jesus. You think all the questions are easy? Smithe might be guilty. He might not be guilty. I might be wrong about him, and if I am and if I talked the department into letting him go, he might go right back on the street and butcher some other woman. But I might be right and we're destroying the guy, while the real killer is planning to rip somebody else. All we needed was a little time, and you snooped on a private conversation out of my house."

"And?"

Lucas turned cool. "I've got to make some basic decisions about whether to talk to you at all."

"I didn't really need to hear that phone call at your place," Jennifer said. "I would have gotten it anyway. I've got sources here you wouldn't believe. I don't need you, Lucas. I might just tell you to go fuck yourself."

"I'll take the risk. I can't put up with spying. I am considering-considering-calling a lawyer and having him call your general manager to tell him how you got the information and threatening to file suit against the station for theft of proprietary information."

"Lucas-"

"Get out of here."

"Lucas…" She suddenly burst into tears and Lucas backed a few steps away.

"I'm sorry," he said, miserably. "I just can't… Jennifer… stop that, goddammit."

"God, I'm a wreck, my makeup. I can't do this press conference… God… can I use your phone?" She poked at her face with a tissue. "I want to call the station, tell them to let Kathy Lettice take it. God, I'm such a mess…"

"Jesus, stop crying, use the phone," Lucas said desperately.

Still sniffling, she picked up the phone and dialed. When it was answered, her voice suddenly cleared. "Don? Jen. The guy's name is Smithe and he works for welfare-"

"Goddammit, Jennifer!" Lucas shouted. He grabbed the phone, twisted it out of her hand, and slammed it on the hook.

"I cry good, don't I?" she asked with a grin, and she was out the door.

"Davenport, Davenport," Daniel moaned. He gripped handfuls of hair on the side of his head as he watched Jennifer finish the broadcast.

"… called by some the smartest man in the department, told me personally that he did not believe that Smithe is guilty of the spectacular murders and that he fears the premature arrest could destroy Smithe's burgeoning career with the welfare department…"

"Burgeoning career? TV people shouldn't be allowed to use big words," Lucas muttered.

"So now what?" Daniel asked angrily. "How in the hell could you do this?"

"I didn't know I was," Lucas said mildly. "I thought we were having a personal conversation."

"I told you that your dick was going to get you in trouble with that woman," Daniel said. "What the hell am I going to tell Lester? He's been out there in front of the cameras making his case and you're talking to this puss behind his back. You cut his legs out from under him. He'll be after your head."

"Tell him you're suspending me. What's bad? Two weeks? Then I'll appeal to the civil-service board. Even if the board okays the suspension, it'll be months from now. We should be able to put it off until this thing is settled, one way or another."

"Okay. That might do it." Daniel nodded and then laughed unpleasantly, shaking his head. "Christ, I'm glad that wasn't me getting grilled. You better get out of here before Lester arrives or we'll be busting him for assault."

At two o'clock in the morning the telephone rang. Lucas looked up from the drawing table where he was working on Everwhen, reached over, and picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Still mad?" Jennifer asked.

"You bitch. Daniel's suspending me. I'm giving interviews to everybody except you guys, you can go suck-"

"Nasty, nasty-"

He slammed the receiver back on the hook. A moment later the phone rang again. He watched it like a cobra, then picked it up, unable to resist.

"I'm coming over," she said, and hung up. Lucas reached for it, to call her, to tell her not to come, but stopped with his hand on the receiver.

Jennifer wore a black leather jacket, jeans, black boots, and driving gloves. Her Japanese two-seater squatted in the driveway like red-metal muscle. Lucas opened the inner door and nodded at her through the glass of the storm door.

"Can I come in?" she asked. She was wearing gold-wire-rimmed glasses instead of her contacts. Her eyes looked large and liquid behind the lenses.

"Sure," he said awkwardly, fumbling with the latch. "You look like a heavy-metal queen."

"Thanks loads."

"That was a compliment."

She glanced at him, looking for sarcasm, found none, peeled off the jacket, and drifted toward the couch in the living room.

"You want a coffee?" Lucas asked as he closed the door.

"No, thanks."

"Beer?"

"No, I'm fine. Go ahead, if you want."

"Maybe a beer." When he got back, Jennifer was leaning back on a love seat, her knee up on the adjacent seat. Lucas sat on the couch opposite her, looking at her over a marble-topped coffee table.

"So what?" he said, gesturing with the beer bottle.

"I'm very tired," she said simply.

"Of the story? The maddog? Me?"

"Life, I think," Jennifer said sadly. "The baby was maybe an attempt to get back."

"Jesus."

"That little scene with you today… God, I don't know. I try to put a good face on it, you know? Gotta be quick, gotta be tough, gotta smile when the heavy stuff comes down. Can't let anybody push you. Sometimes I feel like… you remember that little Chevrolet I had, that little Nova, that I wrecked, before I bought the Z?"

"Yeah?"

"That's how my chest feels sometimes. All caved in. Like everything is still hard, but all bent up. Crunched, crumbled."

"Cops get like that."

"Not really. I don't think so."

"Look, you show me a guy on the street for ten or fifteen years-"

She held up a hand, stopped him. "I'm not saying it's not tough and you don't get burned out. Awful stuff happens to cops. But there are slow times. You can take some time. I never have time. If things get slow, for Christ's sake, I've got to invent stuff. You show me a slow day, where a cop might cruise through it, and I'll show you a day when Jennifer Carey is out interviewing some little girl who got her face burned off two months ago or two years ago because we had to have something by six P.M., or else. And we don't have time to think about it. We just do it. If we're wrong, we pay later. Do now, pay later. What's worse, there aren't any rules. You don't find out until later if you're right or wrong. Sometimes you never find out. And what's right one day is wrong the next."

She stopped talking and Lucas took a swig of beer and watched her. "You know what you need?" he said finally.

"What? A good fuck?" she asked sarcastically.

"I wasn't going to say that."

"Then what?"

"What you need is to leave the job for a while, get married, move in here."

"You think being a housewife is going to fix things?" She looked almost amused.

"I didn't say housewife. You said housewife. I was going to suggest that you move in here and not do a fuckin' thing. Take a class. Think things over. Take a trip to Paris before the kid gets here. Something. That argument this afternoon, those fake tears, my God, that's so tough it's not human."

"The tears weren't fake," she said. "The alibi was, afterward. I was thinking, I couldn't break down and cry on the job. Then I got home, and I thought, why not? I mean, I'm not stupid. You gave me that little lecture about Smithe, you think I don't know I might have hurt him? I admit it. I might have hurt him. But I'm not sure. I'm-"

"But look at what you're putting yourself through the wringer for. You got the name out to Kennedy, and for what? A ten-minute lead on the other reporters? Christ…"

"I know, I know all that. That's why I'm over here. I'm screwed up. I don't know that I'm wrong, but I'm not sure that I'm right. I'm living in murk and I can't stop."

Lucas shook his head. "I don't know what to do."

"Well." She took her leg off the love seat. "Could you come over and sit next to me for a minute?"

"Um…" Lucas stood up, walked around the table, and sat down next to her.

"Put your arm up around my shoulder."

He put his arm around her shoulder and she snuggled her face into his chest.

"You ready for this?" she asked in an oddly high-pitched, squeaky voice.

He tried to pull back and look down at her, but she clung to him. "Ready for what?"

She pressed her face against him even more firmly, and after a few seconds, began to weep.

No sex, she said later. Just sleep. He was almost asleep when she said quietly, "I'm glad you're the daddy."