Wicked Prey

Chapter 26

On Sunday, Weather slept in, until 7:30. Lucas usually got up with her, but this day, after the long week, he groaned and sat up, and Weather looked at him and patted him on the head and said, "Go back to sleep. You deserve it."

He dropped back on his pillow and was gone. When he finally did get up, a few minutes before nine o'clock, the house was unnaturally silent. He showered and shaved, put on fresh jeans-ironed, he thought, but not dry-cleaned-and wandered out to the kitchen in his stocking feet, carrying his shoes.

The place was empty, but a note dangled from the middle of the kitchen doorway, on the end of a strip of Scotch tape.

8:45. Gone to bakery wst Ellen@ingSam. Letty still asleep. Back in hour -W.

He yawned, stretched, put a teaspoon of instant coffee in a cup, filled it with water and stuck it in the microwave, got a box of Honey Nut Cheerios from the cupboard and a bottle of milk from the refrigerator, carried it to the breakfast nook and went back to get the coffee when the microwave beeped.

As he took it out, Letty appeared, clutching her bathrobe, her hair a blond tangle, her eyes still sleepy; she was wearing bunny-rabbit slippers.

"Got more coffee?"

"This is instant."

"Okay…" She shuffled over to the counter and got down a cup, and repeated Lucas's ritual with the Folgers, complete with the yawn and stretch.

"Finish that Mockingbird essay?" Lucas asked.

"Yeah."

She carried the coffee over to the table. "Is it any good?" he asked.

"I don't want to talk about that," she said. "I need to talk to you about something when Mom isn't here."

Lucas looked at her for a second, then said, "I don't keep much from your mom."

"You might keep this," she said. "It's for her own good."

"So ' what?"

She took a sip of coffee and then said, "I didn't tell you the truth about the other night, with Juliet."

Lucas looked at her over his cup. "So what's the truth?"

"I was there-I just got there-when they came out of the house. Randy was yelling at Juliet and Ranch to "get me." Juliet didn't push him, and he slashed her with that stick, and then she took him over the edge. I heard the cop car coming, freaked out, and took off on my bike. I didn't want Mom to know, because it might scare her."

Lucas sighed. "Ah, jeez ' But Briar said she hadn't seen you."

"I taught her how to lie," Letty said. "So she could deal with Randy."

"Letty'"

"That's not all'"

She told him about setting up Briar to get beaten. "I knew it'd happen sooner or later-probably lots of times. I thought if I could get it to happen while I was there, I could call the cops, and they could get there, and Randy'd go back to prison. I didn't know they'd rape her."

Lucas looked at her for a bit, shook his head, poured some Cheerios.

Letty said, "I thought I better say something before, you know, tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" He was confused.

"You know-the court thing."

"What does that have to do with this?"

She took another sip, then said, "You know-in case you wanted to change your mind."

"Aw, for Christ's sake, Letty. We're not going to change our minds. What're you thinking about?"

He actually saw her come unknotted: "I was a little worried," she said.

"I'm a little worried, too," he said. "If you called nine-one-one, that means your voice is on tape and there's no way to get it off. If Briar talks to somebody…"

"Why would anybody care?" she asked. "They know what happened. She got raped and beaten up, and she pushed Randy over the edge. You said they're not going to prosecute her, and besides, she's a juvenile."

"Ranch isn't," Lucas said. "If he brings you up…"

"You told me Ranch doesn't remember anything," Letty said.

"He doesn't-or says he doesn't. And he was so iced up, I believe him. But' there could be fallout. They could put him on trial, they could put Briar on the stand…" He shook his head. "There could be trouble."

"Nothing I can't handle," she said. "I'm a kid. I got scared and ran away after calling the cops, and never told you. What could they do to me?"

He looked at her for a moment, calculating, smiled, one of his smiles that tended to scare people-but not Letty-and said, "Nothing."

"And that's what we tell Mom, right?"

He thought for another moment and then said, "That would be best. We ' let it go."

She stood up and said, "I've got to get dressed. I look like the witch in The Wizard of Oz."

As she was on her way out, carrying the cup of coffee, he said, "Hey."

She stopped.

Lucas said, "I'm not sure I'd have been smart enough to pull it off, when I was your age, but I would have tried. I would have tried the same goddamn thing. You take care of your family and you take care of your friends."

"Goddamn right," she said.

Jesse Lane was standing in the barn watching Max Gomez weld a broken tongue on the hay wagon, the place redolent with the burning metal, when his cell phone burped. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the face of it: "Caller Unknown."

He said, "Yeah?", half-expecting one of those robotic campaign recordings. Instead, he got Lindy.

"Jesse, you know who this is?"

"Where're you at?" he asked, stepping outside into the sunshine.

"That's for me to know and you to figure out' if you want to go to the trouble," she said. "I wanted to call and find out if you're going to hunt me down and kill me."

"I thought about it. Brute would have. He said so," Lane said.

"Yeah, well, if you're gonna try to get me, I'll have to try to get you first. I got the money to do it," Lindy said.

Lane laughed and said, "Hey, Lindy. Don't do that."

"We gonna let it go?" she asked.

"Fine with me," he agreed.

"You heard about what the cops say-that Brute shot Tate and Rosie."

"Don't surprise me none," Lane said. "He'd think that was the efficient thing to do."

"Efficiency isn't everything," she said.

"Nope, it ain't. It ain't even most things."

"I was right about the hotel. If I'd gone in there, I'd be dead, too."

"Yes, you were. Right," he said. A butterfly flittered by, and in the barn, Gomez killed his torch.

In the silence, she said, "I owe you some money."

"I got some money."

"I guess," she said. "I've been reading about it. Should be enough to prop up that fuckin farm, and any other farms you know about."

"I did all right," he agreed.

"But I still owe you," Lindy said. "You know that little bridge over Cross Creek?"

"Yeah." The bridge was three miles down the gravel road. Kids would park there, walk a half mile upstream to a broken-down dam, and swim in the summer.

"If you park, and then go under the bridge, and walk down, away from the dam, to that big oak tree where they used to have that tire swing?"

"Yeah?"

"If you look behind the tree, you'll see a rock, right on the top. There's six hundred thousand dollars under the rock," she said. "Your share. I'm keeping the other shares."

Lane laughed with the joy of life and said, "You're a nice girl, Lindy."

"Brute used to say, "You're not very nice, but you are pretty good."

Lane said, "Yeah. He did say that."

"So we're okay?"

"We're okay-and listen. You take care of yourself, hear?"

Justice Shafer was released by the Secret Service, without the.50-cal, and took off for Oklahoma. He thought about Juliet Briar occasionally, on the way back, but by the time he got home, she'd pretty much slipped his mind.

Juliet Briar was arrested for assault, but nobody much intended to prosecute, not after the rape charges were substantiated, and the beating wounds were photographed by the public defender's office. She was released to her mother, and when school started, went back. She thought about Justice Shafer, off and on for the first week or so, but then he slipped away.

The second week of school, she walked over to a McDonald's on University Avenue and was there, sipping on a strawberry shake, when Dubuque and Moline came in the door, and she took in the low-slung pants and the brass billfold chains, and felt a little thrum in her heart. The two men ordered and Dubuque was looking around when their eyes touched, and Dubuque's face lit up and he said to his brother, "Look what we got here."

Briar smiled at him, and Dubuque came over and said, "How you doin', Mama?"

"I'm doing okay," she said.

They chatted for a minute, then Moline came over, and they sat across from her in the booth, and talked about Randy. Randy had broken his neck and was paralyzed from head to foot.

"That motherfucker is a talking head, that's all he is," Moline said.

"He's a fuckin' paperweight," Dubuque said. "Ain't no good to a woman like you."

"I was gonna take care of him," Briar said, "but everybody said that I can't. He's too hurt. They're gonna put him in a home."

"A little shit falls on everybody's head," Moline said, waxing philosophical. He took a fry, popped it in his mouth, let his eyes sink into hers. "Me'n Dubuque-we been out riding around. That's our truck out there."

She looked out in the parking lot: a black Toyota 4Runner with chrome spinners on the wheels. "So what do you say, Mama?" Dubuque asked. "Wanna go for a ride?"

She laughed: "It's a fuckin' Toyota," she said.

They left without her.

A doctor called Weather on Monday evening, and Weather gave the phone to Lucas, and Lucas took it and listened, and said, "All right. When? All right. I can do that."

He hung up and Weather asked, "What was that about?"

"Randy Whitcomb wants to see me," Lucas said.

"I didn't think he ' I thought he's pretty messed up."

"He is," Lucas said. "I don't know what he wants." He stood up. "I'm gonna run over there. Back in an hour."

He took the Porsche, idling through the evening light, thinking about the past week. Lots of problems out of the way.

The whole business of the moneymen never made it into the papers, because the deaths of the cops rode over it all, and the deaths of Cohn and Cruz seemed to settle it. Mitford, the governor's man, went away happy.

Unless they uncovered a man with two watch-like swastika tattoos, they wouldn't find the third robber, Lucas thought. As for DNA in the apartment, there were so many human traces-the place had been a model apartment, and hundreds of people had been inside, shedding hair and skin cells-that any results would be functionally and legally meaningless, as well as enormously expensive. So they didn't process for DNA.

The county attorney would decide later in the week whether to prosecute Whitcomb for assault and rape. Lucas expected a deal, an arranged guilty plea, which would allow Whitcomb to be remanded to a state hospital. No fuss, no muss, and little paperwork.

Ranch was another problem: the shrinks were having a close look at him. The public defender was claiming that Ranch couldn't assist with his own defense, because of drug-induced brain damage. Ranch, in fact, didn't seem to remember anything after a Fourth of July fireworks display in Stillwater, Minnesota, in 2006.

A lot of problems: gone.

At Regions Hospital, Lucas got the room number from a nurse, and at the nursing station asked for Dr. Grigor Papirian. Papirian came out and they shook hands and Papirian asked, "How's Weather?"

"Good, she's fine. Working all the time," Lucas said.

"Surgeons," Papirian said. Then, "You know about Mr. Whitcomb's accident?"

"Yes. I was actually there that night, after he'd been hurt," Lucas said.

Papirian nodded. "A tragedy. We knew as soon as we saw the film-the spinal cord was crushed. We took the pressure off, but the nerve was like mush."

Lucas nodded. "You know, he and I-we've had some trouble. He blamed me for his paraplegia, even though I didn't do the shooting. I can't think why he'd want to see me."

Papirian shook his head: "I know nothing about that. He said he wanted to see you, but he wouldn't say why. His vocal cords aren't functional, by the way-he can only communicate in a whisper. You may have to lean close."

"What's the prognosis? I mean, I know he's quadriplegic, but will he have any residual movement at all?"

Papirian was shaking his head, sadly. "Doubtful. There was too much damage. He'll probably die in a year or two. That's what happens in these cases. They tend to go more quickly when they don't have family support."

They'd been walking along and now Papirian indicated a room, and said, "In here."

Lucas led the way in. Whitcomb was lying flat on a hospital bed, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. He appeared to be dead, until he blinked, and Lucas said, "Randy."

Whitcomb's eyes shifted toward Lucas, and then widened a bit more. He whispered something, his lips barely quivering.

"You'll have to lean close," Papirian said.

Lucas leaned over him, one ear toward Whitcomb's face, smelling the sweat on him. "Randy?"

Whitcomb's whisper was soft, but clear enough. " Davenport '" Breath. " Davenport." Another breath. Finally, his eyes pleading, sweat shining from his immobile face:

" Davenport ' Killlll meee!"

The next day, Tuesday, in third hour, her gym class, Letty sat on a metal folding chair as the gym teacher handed out fitness books, and held one up and called, "Letty West?"

Letty held up a hand. "My name is changed now. It's Letty Davenport."

A girl named Susan snickered: "What happened, you get married?"

Letty turned and looked at her, held her eyes for a second, showed some teeth, in a thin smile, and the other girl froze. Letty held her for another second, then turned back to the teacher.

"Letty Davenport," she said again.