Secret Prey

by John Sandford

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE SUN WAS ONLY TWO OR THREE FINGERS ABOVE the western horizon, the evening rush already starting, when Lucas and Sherrill dropped past the Dunwoody exit on I-394, zigged a couple of times, and rolled into downtown Minneapolis.

  ‘‘Now that was a road trip,’’ Sherrill said, enthusiastically. ‘‘Fightin’, fuckin’, and detectin.’ So what’s next?’’

  ‘‘I’ve got to work tomorrow,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘You’re working, right?’’

  ‘‘Yeah—but there’s not much going on. I could probably get away to help, if you needed me . . .’’

  He shook his head: ‘‘Better not. I told you about the little talk with Rose Marie.’’

  ‘‘I might have a little talk with Rose Marie myself,’’ she said with a flash of anger. ‘‘Pisses me off.’’

  ‘‘Probably wouldn’t help.’’

  ‘‘It’d make me feel better,’’ Sherrill said.

  ‘‘Do what you want,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘And when you get a minute, send me a memo on the whole sequence up there in Oxford. All the details. Make a copy for yourself. Take both copies over to the government center, have them notarized for date, but don’t let anybody read them.’’

  ‘‘Just in case?’’

  ‘‘Can’t tell what’s gonna happen yet.’’

  ‘‘When you say all the details, you want the part where I said, ‘Oh my God, put it in, put it in’?’’

  ‘‘I don’t remember that,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘I think you were looking at your watch. We’re gonna have to talk about that, by the way.’’

  Lucas shook his head: ‘‘Christ, I’m beginning to understand what that old guy meant.’’

  ‘‘What old guy?’’

  ‘‘You know, the old deputy, who once had a woman like you. ‘Flat wore me out,’ he said.’’

  She looked at him critically: ‘‘You still got a little good tread on you.’’

  LUCAS KISSED HER GOODBYE OUTSIDE CITY HALL— what the hell—and went down to his office, whistling, picked up the phone and got the brrnk-brrnk-brrnk message signal. The mechanical operator said there were six: all six were from Helen Bell, frantic, accusatory.

  ‘‘Did you do this with Connie? Did you call Child Protection? Why? Why? Please, please call me . . .’’ and ‘‘Why aren’t you calling? Did you do this? I’m getting a lawyer, goddamn you . . .’’

  He punched in her phone number and the phone at the other end was snatched up halfway through the first ring. ‘‘Hello?’’ Still frantic.

  ‘‘This is Lucas Davenport. What happened with Connie?’’

  A moment of uncertain silence. ‘‘You didn’t have anything to do with Connie?’’

  ‘‘Mrs. Bell, I haven’t even thought of Connie since I last saw you. I was out of town all day yesterday and today, I just got back and got your messages.’’

  ‘‘They came and got her,’’ she wailed.

  ‘‘Child Protection?’’

  ‘‘Child Protection, Child Welfare, whatever they call it. They say I gave her marijuana and beat her up and I never did any of that, she’s my baby, I don’t understand, they said some teacher called, but I can’t find anybody at her school.’’

  ‘‘Let me make a call,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I know a woman over there who might know something.’’

  ‘‘Please, please get her back.’’

  Lucas talked to her for another minute, then hung up, found Nancy Bunker’s name in his address book, and punched her number in. She was just leaving.

  ‘‘Yeah, I know about it. Doesn’t look like much. The girl said her mother slapped her once during an argument, open hand, no injury, more like a girl fight. Said she’s used some marijuana around school, but that was what the fight was about. Her mother was trying to stop her.’’

  ‘‘So what’re you doing with her?’’

  ‘‘Well, she’s out at a foster home right now; we usually keep them a couple of nights, just to make sure. She’ll be home tomorrow.’’

  ‘‘Huh.’’

  ‘‘What’s your interest, Lucas?’’

  ‘‘Did you ever find the teacher who called in the information?’’

  ‘‘No, it was anonymous, but you know how it is—we don’t take chances if there’re reports of physical abuse. Especially drugs and physical abuse. And we want to get the kid off to a safe place, where she feels safe about talking about it . . . So, what’s your interest?’’

  ‘‘I think you were deliberately set up to mess with the kid’s mother. She’s a source of mine in this Kresge murder case.’’

  ‘‘Really? Set up?’’

  ‘‘I think so. I don’t doubt that the kid smokes a little dope, but then so did you.’’

  Bunker laughed. ‘‘Yeah, the good old days. So what do you want me to do?’’

  ‘‘How about releasing the kid to her mother? I’ll pick her up, take her home.’’

  ‘‘Damn it; I’d have to sit back down and turn the computer back on . . .’’

  ‘‘Another little tragedy in your life.’’

  ‘‘You gotta be over here in ten minutes,’’ Bunker said. ‘‘I’m trying to catch a bus.’’

  ‘‘Taking a little undertime today?’’

  ‘‘Nine minutes, now.’’

  ‘‘Be right there.’’

  THE FOSTER HOME WAS IN EDINA, WEST OF MINNEAPOLIS. Lucas picked up the papers for the foster parents, and on the way out, slowed by traffic, he called the medical examiner’s office and got an investigator on the line. ‘‘I’m looking for a file on an Amelia Lamb. About twenty years old.’’

  ‘‘Nothing here, Lucas. Are you sure of the name?’’

  ‘‘Last name I’m sure of; the first name, I don’t know, there may be an alternative spelling.’’

  After a few more seconds, the investigator said, ‘‘Lots of Lambs, but nothing like an Amelia.’’

  ‘‘Can you get into the state death certificates from your computer?’’

  ‘‘I’d have to call, I could get back to you.’’

  ‘‘Could you do that? This is kind of important.’’ The ME’s investigator was back five minutes later. ‘‘You want Dakota County, and specifically, you want Mercy-South. You want that phone number?’’

  ‘‘Give it to me.’’ Lucas got the number, the date of Lamb’s death, and the attending physician, and scribbled it all in his notebook. He called the hospital, spent five minutes working his way through the bureaucracy, and was finally told by an assistant director that he could see the records if he brought a subpoena with him.

  ‘‘Even if the woman’s dead?’’

  ‘‘It’s our policy,’’ she said.

  ‘‘It’s a pain,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘But I’ll get one for you. What’s the name of your director out there?’’

  She gave him the name and he said, ‘‘Ask him to stick around the house tonight, we don’t want to have to have a cop run him down. We can probably get the subpoena out there before midnight.’’

  ‘‘Really? I think he and his wife are going to the chamber orchestra.’’

  ‘‘Well—he should be home before we get the subpoena. If we do get it earlier, we’ll just ask the orchestra people to page him during the concert.’’

  ‘‘Hang on.’’

  And she was back in five minutes: ‘‘The director tells me that I was misinformed. Since Mrs. Lamb is dead, and you’re a police officer conducting an official investigation, we can show you the records.’’ She sounded faintly amused.

  ‘‘Gee. Thanks. That’s really nice. Will somebody be in your records department, about seven o’clock?’’

  ‘‘There’s always somebody there. Around the clock.’’

  ‘‘Tell them I’m coming . . .’’

  CONNIE BELL STARTED CRYINGWHENSHE SAW LUCAS. She had a small bag with her, and the foster mother patted her on the shoulder, and Connie said, ‘‘Did you do this?’’

  ‘‘No.’’
/>   ‘‘Then who did?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know,’’ Lucas said, leading the way to the car. ‘‘But it was pretty mean.’’

  ‘‘My mom is really upset, I thought she was going to fight those people last night, I’ve never seen her like that.’’

  ‘‘Why don’t you call her?’’ Lucas said. ‘‘There’s a phone in the car.’’

  Connie called, told Helen that she was on the way home, and that Lucas was bringing her. She handed Lucas the phone and said, ‘‘Thank you, thank, thank you . . .’’

  And when they arrived at Helen’s home, Helen ran out and wrapped up her daughter, and they both started crying again, and after a moment, Lucas said, ‘‘Could you send Connie inside to get cleaned up? I’d like to talk to you for a minute.’’

  Connie went, Helen watching her running up the steps.

  ‘‘Do you have any feeling who might have done this?’’ Lucas asked.

  ‘‘There was a literature teacher she had last year, who hated Connie—and several other kids too. If this was last year, I’d say her. But I can’t believe that she’d wait a whole year. I’ve been racking my brain . . .’’

  ‘‘This is not the way they do things in the school system,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘They’ve got a whole bureaucratic procedure they follow, and it’s all very routine. This was strange, right from the start. I don’t think it was a teacher at all. Could you think, really hard, about who it might be?’’

  ‘‘Okay, okay . . . but you’re scaring me. Why?’’

  ‘‘Because it might be related to something else. Anyway, think about it. If you come up with anything, you’ve got my number.’’

  ‘‘Okay.’’ She stepped close and gave him a hug. ‘‘Thanks.’’

  TRAFFIC WAS BEGINNING TO EASE AS HE HEADED south, down to Dakota County, finally to MercySouth. He went in through the emergency entrance, was directed by a nurse to Records, and found a dark-haired young woman sitting in a pool of light from a desk lamp, in an otherwise dark room full of file cabinets and computers. Her feet up next to a computer, she was engrossed in a Carl Hiaasen novel. A stack of what looked like thick textbooks sat on the floor.

  ‘‘Good book?’’ he asked in the silence.

  She jumped, turned, saw him, looked down at the book, and said, ‘‘Yes, as a matter of fact.’’ She looked at the photo on the back cover. ‘‘And this Hiaasen is a yummy little piece of crumb cake, if I do say so myself . . . You’d be Officer Davenport, and you need some records.’’

  ‘‘That’s right.’’

  ‘‘I’m supposed to Xerox your credential,’’ she said. She went for the double entendre: ‘‘You’ll hardly feel a thing.’’

  ‘‘Young women these days,’’ Lucas clucked. He gave her his ID, she xeroxed it, and said, ‘‘There’s not much in the computer file—mostly just the bare bones. If you want to look at her actual file, we don’t have the paper anymore, but it’s on fiche.’’

  ‘‘I’d like that, if I could.’’

  ‘‘Sure.’’ She found the right fiche, set him up with a reader, and went back to the novel.

  THE FILE WAS SHORT, AND ECHOED THE OXFORD doctor’s report of symptoms on George Lamb. Amelia Lamb suffered from flulike symptoms—gastric discomfort, sporadic vomiting. She saw the doctor twice, the visits two weeks apart. The discomfort had increased in the two weeks, and he ordered a number of tests. He noted that her blood pressure was high and that she had been asked to come in for a series of blood pressure tests, but there was no indication that any blood pressure medication had been prescribed. Four days after the second visit, she was brought to the hospital by ambulance, and was reported dead on arrival. The record noted that the daughter reported that she’d been suffering chest pains but had refused to come to the hospital because of cost, and she’d called only after her mother had collapsed.

  ‘‘Relative reported that final collapse was accompanied by severe chest pains and rapid loss of consciousness. Myocardial infarction indicated.’’ There was no mention of a rash.

  Lucas looked at the woman with the book: ‘‘Is there a doctor around that I could talk to? Who’d have a little time?’’

  ‘‘I’m a fourth-year med student,’’ the woman said. ‘‘What’s the question?’’

  ‘‘Look at this blood pressure,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Should she have been on medication?’’

  The woman bent over the screen, read the report, and said, ‘‘She would now. That’s definitely way high. But back then, the drugs weren’t so good. You’d have to talk to somebody older, who’d remember. But back then, she might not have been.’’

  ‘‘All right: then look at this. On her second visit, they do some tests. But the tests never show up in the records.’’

  The woman bent over the screen again, skimming through the records: ‘‘You know what?’’ she said finally. ‘‘It looks like she died before the tests could get back. So when they got back, they probably just tossed them.’’

  ‘‘Huh. And the body was sent directly out to a funeral home.’’

  ‘‘Yup.’’

  ‘‘Why wouldn’t they do an autopsy?’’

  ‘‘Again, they didn’t do them so often back then. Not for hospital deaths. And, uh, you’d have to keep this under your hat . . . or at least not say I told you. I’ve noticed this in other records . . .’’

  ‘‘Sure.’’

  ‘‘You see this funeral home?’’ She tapped the screen. ‘‘The predecessor organization to this hospital, which was called Dakota Mothers of Mercy, had a deal with the funeral home. If the relatives didn’t express a preference, they’d send the bodies out to this place, and the hospital would get a . . . consideration.’’

  ‘‘A kickback.’’

  ‘‘An emolument. If they sent them into Hennepin, for an autopsy, the body was up for grabs.’’

  ‘‘So there would be a bias against autopsies,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘Unnecessary autopsies.’’

  ‘‘You shoulda been a lawyer,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘Not enough money in it.’’ The woman tapped the screen: ‘‘Here’s something else for you. The insurance company called about it. That’s the code for Prudential.’’

  ‘‘They called?’’

  ‘‘Yup. That’s what that is—the files were sent out in response to a request from Prudential.’’

  ‘‘They send them out to Prudential, but they’re gonna make me get a subpoena?’’

  ‘‘This was a long time ago,’’ the woman said. ‘‘Things were really different.’’

  The woman went back to the novel while Lucas made notes. When he was finished, he shut down the screen and gave her the fiche. ‘‘Thank you very much,’’ he said.

  She looked up from the desk. ‘‘Do you think if I, like, xeroxed my breasts and sent a copy to Hiaasen with my phone number, he’d call me up?’’

  ‘‘Certainly worth a try,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘In fact, I’d recommend that you do it. How else will you know? If you don’t, you could be like two ships passing in the dark.’’

  ‘‘Cops are weird,’’ she said. But as Lucas left, she was looking at the copying machine.

  LUCAS DROVE TOWARDHOME, THINKINGIT ALL OVER: he’d call Prudential in the morning, hoping that they’d still have a record of the call. In any case, they must have paid somebody some money, if they bothered to make the call. He’d bet that Audrey was the recipient.

  As he crossed the Mendota Bridge, he noticed, for the second or third time, that there was no noise in the background of his brain: no chattering. He’d caught himself whistling again. In the last twenty-four hours, he’d gotten thoroughly laid, hugged by Helen Bell, and double entendred by a nice-looking medical student.

  ‘‘Glacier’s breaking up,’’ he said aloud. ‘‘Ice is going out.’’

  He wasn’t sure what it meant, but it felt right.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  SHERRILL SAW HIM WALKING IN, CAME DOWN TO meet him, took his ha
nd. ‘‘Can I take you to dinner tomorrow night?’’

  ‘‘Sure. But things are starting to cook with Audrey McDonald. Shouldn’t mess us up, but if something comes up . . .’’ He was fumbling with his keys, opened the office door. She stepped in behind him.

  ‘‘Tell me about it,’’ she said. ‘‘About Audrey.’’ He told her, and she said, ‘‘Goddamnit. If we weren’t sleeping together, you could just come down and tell Frank that you need me to work on this, and I’d get another neat case to work on. Now, we’d sorta have to jump through our asses.’’

  ‘‘Nothing happening yet, anyway,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Well, if you’re going out to shoot somebody, call me,’’ she said, as she went out the door.

  ‘‘Do that.’’

  THREE CALLS: TO PRUDENTIAL, TO THE DOCTOR WHO signed the death certificate, and to the funeral home that handled Amelia Lamb’s body.

  Prudential was cooperative, but the right guy would have to get back.

  The doctor was cooperative, but had no memory of the event at all. ‘‘I was doing a surgical residency and working part-time as an emergency room doc,’’ he said. ‘‘I worked emergency rooms for seven years and must’ve signed five hundred of those things. Maybe a thousand. I’m sorry, but I just don’t remember.’’

  The funeral home was confused, but a woman with a quavery, elderly voice finally found the record: Amelia Lamb had been cremated.

  ‘‘Shit,’’ Lucas said aloud.

  ‘‘I beg your pardon?’’

  THE PRUDENTIAL GUY CALLED BACK A HALF HOUR later, as Lucas was pulling together records on the murders proposed by Helen Bell, as well as the two proposed by Annette Ingall.

  ‘‘We paid sixty-four hundred dollars on George Lamb, which was not an inconsiderable sum at the time; and then four and a half years later, we paid fifteen thousand on Amelia Lamb. That insurance policy had been in effect only three years, which was probably why we called the hospital on it,’’ the Prudential man said.

  ‘‘Who was beneficiary on the Amelia Lamb policy?’’

  ‘‘Uh, let’s see . . . this is an older form . . . Um, an Audrey Lamb. Apparently her daughter.’’