Easy Prey

by John Sandford

"This is good," Sherrill said. "But you can't stop thinking about Alie'e. If Lansing was killed because she saw something with Alie'e, then there could be a whole 'nother thing going on that we don't see yet."

  "I know. That bothers me. But I can't see any connection between Lansing and Amnon Plain, or Lansing and Jael. Plain has to be hooked into Alie'e, or we're completely off the track."

  "If it's Olson… what, we're talking some kind of revenge trip for what happened to his sister? Taking out the sinners who led her into the pathways of evil."

  "Sounds like a TV show."

  "Everything in this case sounds like a TV show," Sherrill said.

  "You think we ought to start tracking him? Olson?"

  "We oughta think about it," Sherrill said. "We got fifteen guys working on this case, and most of them are standing around bullshitting with each other."

  "I'll talk to Lester," Lucas said. He looked back at the house. "You'll take Jael down for the statement?"

  "Yeah. I'm gonna take off at five, though. Tom Black is gonna pick up at five."

  "Good. Keep her covered."

  "Pretty interesting, isn't she?"

  Lucas leaned forward, dropped his voice. "You know what I'd like to do? Get about three of them, you know, on a king-size bed. Some really funky blond lesbians stacked up around me, this big Davenport-lesbo sandwich…"

  She put her hand on his chest and pushed. "So sad, these erotic fantasies in aging men. Three blondes in bed with Lucas, all that relish and one little weenie."

  They were laughing together when Jael came out. "He can't do it until three. We're supposed to meet him at his office, and we can walk over to City Hall." She looked at Lucas. "He didn't want me to do it. I told him I wanted to."

  Lucas said goodbye and headed back downtown. Del was waiting, ready to go kick doors. "We got a statement from Outer, but his lawyer about had a hernia. He said the deal was a violation of everything sacred in the law."

  "What'd Outer say?"

  "Not much. But we got him cold on the dope, so we're good. And I've got warrants for Logans home, and Bee's home and offices."

  "Where's the first one?"

  "North Oaks. Bee's home." Del read out the address.

  "See you there in twenty minutes," Lucas said. He still needed whatever information Bee and Logan had. Lansing may have been Alie'e's dealer, but she had also been the other victim.

  James Bee lived in a stone-fronted ranch-style house much like Lucas's own, with frontage on a small, dark lake. Lucas arrived as Del's city car, a Minneapolis squad, and a Ramsey County sheriff's squad were turning up the long black-topped driveway. Lucas followed them in through a scattering of big oaks, their dead leaves gone a hard stiff brown color.

  A narcotics cop named Larry Cohen got out of the passenger side of Del's car, the warrants in hand. The Minneapolis cops got with the sheriff's deputies and headed for the door, while Del dropped back, waiting for Lucas. "This is a long goddamn way around."

  "Yeah, but if we can nail him down… I'll bet he knows his competitors."

  The door was answered by a thin blond woman in black spandex tights and a T-shirt advertising the Twin Cities Marathon. Lucas could hear her screeching at the cops, and then one of the sheriff's deputies broke away and started running around the side of the house, one of the Minneapolis cops six feet behind him.

  The other Minneapolis cop was pushing inside, his gun drawn now, while the sheriff's deputy drew his gun and moved up next to a picture window and peeked through. Over his shoulder he yelled, "We got a runner."

  Lucas and Del trotted toward the house, drawing their weapons. Inside, the Minneapolis cop had the blonde lying on the floor, facedown. She was screaming, "There's nobody else, for God's sakes, there's nobody else."

  They took the house slowly, five minutes to work through it. When Lucas came back up the basement stairs, his pistol reholstered, he found the woman sitting on the couch, her hands cuffed behind her. The second sheriff's deputy was standing over her.

  "We got him," the deputy said. "There was no way he was gonna run away from Rick."

  "He runs in marathons," the blonde said.

  "So does Rick," the deputy said.

  Del came out of the back of the house and said, "We're all clear. Office in the back."

  Lucas followed him to the office. A paper Rolodex sat on the back of the desk, and Del started going through it while Lucas cranked up the computer. The phone rang, and Lucas picked it up and said hello.

  "Hey… is this Jim?"

  "He's out back," Lucas said. "Can I have him call you?"

  "Yeah. Tell him to call Lonnie? Is this Steve?"

  "Naw, this is Lucas."

  "Okay, whatever. I need to talk to him pretty quick."

  "You got a number?"

  "He's got it."

  "Just in case?"

  "Yeah, okay…"

  Lucas copied down the phone number and said, "We'll get back to you."

  "Thanks."

  "Very nice," Del said. He was looking at the Rolodex. "He's gotta have two hundred names in here."

  "But nobody from the party list."

  "Not so far. But you know what? I'll bet you a buck that we find at least one. If he's dealing high-end. There were a lot of high-end dopers there."

  The phone rang again, and a woman's voice said, "Lucas?"

  The name startled him; he didn't pick up on it right away. "Yeah?"

  "This is Rose Marie," the woman said.

  "Jesus, I thought I was talking to a fuckin' psychic or something—"

  She broke in. "Listen. I hate this—but Sherrill's been shot."

  Lucas didn't understand for a minute. "What? What?"

  Del looked at him, straightened.

  "Sherrill's been shot. She's on her way to Hennepin."

  "Aw, Jesus Christ, is she bad?"

  "She's bad. She's bad."

  "I'm going."

  He threw the phone back at the receiver and started running, and Del shouted, "What?"

  Lucas shouted back, "Sherrill's been shot. You stay here, take this."

  "Fuck that, Larry can take it." He was right behind Lucas, and together they ran through the front room, and Lucas shouted at Cohen, who was talking to the blonde, "Larry, you gotta take it, Sherrill's been shot, we're going, you know what to do…"

  On the sidewalk, the sheriff's deputy, wet up to his hips, was pulling a handcuffed man up the lawn, a short, slender man with a dude's haircut and a small tight mouth; the dude was soaked from head to foot. The deputy said, "Fell in the fuckin' lake."

  But Lucas and Del ran past him and piled into Lucas's Porsche and they were gone, streaking through the slow streets of North Oaks past a soccer field and south toward Minneapolis.

  Chapter 15

  « ^ »

  Lucas focused on driving, blowing past cars as Del gave a running commentary on gaps in the traffic: "Go left behind this red one, move over left, go, go…" Down the ramp and around the corner onto I-35W, squeezing between an old Bronco and a generic Chevy pickup.

  Halfway back, Lucas said, "We've done this before."

  "That fuckin' Sherrill, she's always got her face in it," Del said. "Last time she goddamned near bled to death."

  "Rose Marie said it's bad," Lucas groaned. "She said it's bad…"

  A pale-faced, blood-spattered Jael Corbeau was standing in the hallway just inside the emergency room door, with two uniformed cops, when Lucas and Del burst in. "Where is she?" Lucas asked.

  "They're operating," Jael said, stepping toward him. "They rushed her right in."

  Lucas headed for the hall to the operating rooms. Rose Marie was standing there with Lester. Lester grabbed Lucas's arm and said, "Slow down," and Rose Marie said, "You can't see anything down there, Lucas." Lester added, "She's already under, man, they've already got her asleep."

  Lucas slowed down, realized Del was right behind him. "How bad?" Del asked, and Lucas asked, "Is she gonna make it?"

  "She was h
it twice," Lester said. "Once in the left arm, once in the left side of her chest. Busted a lung. She might've died except that she rolled up on her left side… they said she might've drowned if she hadn't been on her side."

  "Is she gonna make it?" Lucas asked.

  "She's bad," Lester said, "but she's still alive. If they get you here alive…"

  "Aw, Jesus," Lucas said. He slumped against the wall, closed his eyes. Jael. He pushed away from the wall and headed back toward the entrance. Jael was still there.

  "What happened?"

  The words came out in a spate. "We were coming out of my house, going downtown, and this car came down the street and the window was open and Marcy yelled at me and got her gun out and this man started shooting at us. Marcy shoved me down and then she fell down, and the car kept going, and when I looked at Marcy she had blood all over her and I ran and called 911 and then I came out and tried to stop the blood and when the ambulance got there I rode down here with her…"

  "She got off a couple of rounds," one of the uniformed cops said.

  Jael nodded, stepped toward Lucas, took his shirt in both hands. "She said to tell you, this is all she said, she said to tell you that she shot the car, She said, Tell Lucas I hit the car.' "

  "What kind of car? You didn't get a license number—"

  "No, no, I barely saw it 'cause she pushed me. I went down."

  "You didn't see anything."

  She closed her eyes, still holding on to his shirt, and then said, "It was dark. Long and dark."

  Lucas pressed. "Long and dark. What do you mean, long and dark? Like a Mercedes-Benz or a Cadillac?"

  "No, I don't think so," she said. "It just looked long and dark."

  "American?"

  "I don't know. Like those big cars from twenty years ago. But I don't know what kind, I don't know, God…"

  Lucas put an arm around her and gave her a squeeze. "You did good," he said. "I'm amazed that you saw anything."

  More cops came rolling in. Everybody was doing right: They were looking at all long dark cars, checking for bullet holes, looping the neighborhood down there. But Jael lived within whistling distance of a half-dozen interstate on-ramps. Everybody was looking, but without much hope.

  Another doctor arrived, headed straight back. "Vascular surgeon," a nurse told them.

  "What does that mean?" Lucas asked. "Heart?"

  "No telling," she said.

  One of the on-sterile circulating nurses came out of the operating room on an errand, and they trapped her. "I don't know," she said. "She's alive—they're breathing her."

  After an hour, Del said, "We can't do anything here. All we can do is find out that she died, if she dies."

  "So what do you suggest?" Lucas was angry and scared, his voice a croak.

  "I suggest we go find that fuckin' Olson and look at his car," Del said. Sherrill had been shot once before, and nearly bled to death. Del had ridden with her from the shooting scene to the hospital, in a helicopter, squeezing the artery so hard that for weeks afterward Sherrill had complained about the bruise. "The bullet hole is nothin'," she'd said. "But that goddamn bruise where Del squeezed me… that's killing my ass."

  "We know what kind of car?" Lucas asked.

  "Dark blue 1986 Volvo sedan. And the Olsons said they're staying at the Four Winds. That'd be a place to start."

  "I'll drive," Lucas said.

  The Four Winds was three blocks from the Mall of America, just south of the I-494 link of the beltway. They spotted the Volvo in the parking lot, stopped behind it, and got out to look. The car was old and dark, with patches of gray primer paint on the left front fender. No bullet holes.

  "Goddamnit. That would have been easy," Del said.

  Then Tom Olson turned the corner of the motel, carrying a sack of vending machine potato chips and a can of Coke. He saw them, stopped, and then stalked over. "What are you doing?"

  "Looking at your car," Lucas said.

  "Why?" He set himself squarely, and a half-step too close.

  Lucas moved an inch closer yet, and Del moved a foot to the right.

  "Because somebody in a long dark car just shot the police officer who was guarding Jael Corbeau."

  Olson was amazed, and some of the grimness went out of his face. He shuffled a step back. "You thought it was me? I'd never… Is she dead?"

  "No. She's in the operating room," Lucas said. "Since whoever is doing the shooting may be taking revenge for the death of your sister, and since you drive an older, dark car… we thought we should take a look."

  "I didn't do it," Olson said. "If I were you, I'd take a close look at those hellhounds that Alie'e hung out with. They're the crazy ones. Not me. They're the crazies."

  "You seem a little loosely wrapped yourself," Del said. He'd edged a few inches closer to Olson, to a spot that would allow him to hook the other man in the solar plexus.

  "Only to a sinner," Olson said.

  Del tightened up. "Easy, dude," Lucas said.

  "Where were you at four-twenty this afternoon?" Del asked.

  Olson looked at his watch. "Well, let me see. I must've still been at the mall."

  "Mall of America?"

  "Yes." They all turned and looked at it. The mall looked like Uncle Scrooge's money bin, without the charm. "I spent a couple of hours walking around the place."

  "What'd you buy? Do you have any receipts?" Del was pressing.

  "No, I didn't buy anything," Olson said. "Well, a cinnamon roll. I just walked around."

  "Talk to anybody?"

  "No, not really."

  "In other words, you couldn't find anybody to back up your story, if you had to."

  Olson shrugged. "I don't think so. I was just walking. I'd never been in the place before. It's astonishing. You know, don't you… our whole culture is dying. Something new is being born in places like that. Snake things."

  "Yeah, well…" Now Del shrugged. "What're you going to do?"

  "Pray," Olson said.

  There was nothing more to say, and the need to know what was going on at the hospital was pressing on them. Lucas said, "Let's get back," and Del nodded.

  "Sorry about this," Del said to Olson.

  Lucas had parked behind Olsons car. Olson watched them get back in, then pushed through a set of glass doors to a stair lobby. Lucas rolled the Porsche out of the parking lot. "I got a bad feeling about Marcy," he said, with a dark hand on his heart.

  Del said, "They got her alive, dude…"

  "I got a bad feeling, man." At the end of the motel drive, he slowed to let a car go, took a right, idled a hundred feet up the street to a traffic light, and stopped. "This is the second time she's been hit hard."

  "You been hit just as hard."

  "I never took a shot in—"

  Del interrupted, his voice harsh. "What the fuck is this? What the fuck is this?"

  He was looking out the passenger-side window, and Lucas leaned forward to look past him. Tom Olson was running toward them, across the motel parking lot, waving his arms. They could see that he was shouting or screaming, but were too far away to hear him. There was a craziness in the way he ran—a violent, high-kick fullback run, as though he were fighting his way through invisible tacklers.

  Lucas stopped the car, and both he and Del stepped out as Olson got closer. The traffic light changed to green; the driver of the Lexus that had come up behind them touched his horn. Lucas shook his head at the driver and stepped between the Lexus and the Porsche, heading toward Olson. Olson was fifty yards away when he suddenly stopped, leaned forward, and put his hands on his knees, as though he'd run out of breath. The Lexus guy pushed open his car door and stepped out on the street. The Lexus was trapped behind the Porsche, with more cars behind the Lexus. The driver shouted, "Move the car, asshole" and honked his horn again.

  Lucas shouted back, "Police. Go around it." The man leaned on the horn, shouting unintelligibly; then another car behind the Lexus started. As suddenly as he'd stopped, Olson heaved him
self upright and began running toward them again, crossed out of the blacktopped parking lot onto a grassy verge as Lucas and Del stepped onto the grass from the other side.

  Then, with the horns honking behind them, Olson ran to within a few feet of them and stopped, his eyes wide and anguished, grabbed hair on both sides of his head above his ears, opened his mouth, said nothing, his jaw working—and then pitched facedown on the ground.

  "Jesus Christ," Del said.

  A few of the horns stopped, but one or two continued. They could hear the Lexus driver's voice again: "Hey, asshole, asshole…"

  They crouched next to Olson, and Lucas turned the unconscious man's face, lifted an eyelid with a thumb. Olson's eyes had rolled up, and Lucas could see nothing but a pearly sliver of white. "He's breathing, but he's out," Lucas said. "Call 911."

  Del got his cell phone out and they both stood up, over Olson's crumpled form. A half-dozen horns were going again, and then the sudden brrrrp of a cop touching a siren. A squad car rolled around in front of the Porsche, and the honking stopped.

  Lucas took his ID out of his pocket and started toward the cop car as a Bloomington cop got out of the near side, another out of the far side of the car. They kept Lucas's Porsche between them. Lucas held his badge case above his head and shouted, "Minneapolis police. We need an ambulance and some help."

  The cop behind the Porsche turned to say something to the other cop, and when Lucas closed up he held out the badge case, but the cop on the far side of the squad, the taller of the two, a sergeant, said, "Chief Davenport… what's going on?"

  "We don't know. We just talked to that guy at the motel and were leaving, and all of a sudden he came running across the lot screaming at us and now he's had some sort of fit. We need a paramedic right now, and we need you guys to hang around. Could you hold on a minute?"

  "Sure."

  He walked around to the Lexus; the driver had slid back inside, but Lucas grabbed the handle and jerked the door open. The man was in his fifties, red-faced, wattled. Lucas said, "I'm a police officer. We had a serious problem. My inclination is to jerk your ugly stupid ass out of this car, cuff you, and send you downtown on a charge of interfering with a police officer. A body-cavity search would teach you the real meaning of the word asshole,"