Rules of Prey

by John Sandford

  "Whatever. You know how that TV puss goes for the street-cop routine. What's your title again?"

  "Office of Special Intelligence."

  The chief snapped his fingers, nodded, and scrawled "OSI" on his desk pad. "See you at nine," he said.

  ***

  Jeannie Lewis lay on the narrow bed with her hands bound up over her head, where they were taped to the headboard. A look of inexpressible agony held her face, her mouth locked open by the Kotex pad stuffed between her jaws, her eyes rolled so far back that nothing but the whites could be seen beneath the half-closed lids. Her back was arched from the pressure of the bonds, the nipples of her small breasts pointing left and right, nearly white in death. Her ankles were bound to the opposite corners at the foot of the bed, but she had managed to roll her thin legs inward, a final effort to protect herself. The knife still protruded from the top of her abdomen, just below the sternum, its handle almost flat against her stomach. It had been slipped in at an acute angle, to more directly penetrate the heart without complications of bone or muscle.

  "Pushed it in and wiggled it," said the assistant medical examiner. "We can tell more after the autopsy, but that's what it looks like. Just a little entry slit, but a lot of damage around the heart."

  "Professional?" asked Lucas. "A doctor?"

  "I wouldn't go that far. I don't want to mislead you. But it's somebody who knows what he's doing. He knows where the heart is. We want to leave the knife in place until we get downtown and take some pictures, X rays, but from the look of the handle, I'd say it's about the most efficient knife for the work. Narrow point, sharp, rigid blade, fairly thin. It'd slip right in."

  Lucas stepped over to the bed and looked at the knife handle. It was smooth, unfinished wood. "County Cork Cutlery" was branded on the wood.

  "County Cork Cutlery?"

  "Forget it. There's a whole drawer full of it, out in the kitchen."

  "So he got it here."

  "I think so. I did the first woman he killed, Lucy What's-her-name. He did her with a plastic-handled knife, nothing like this one."

  "Where's the note?"

  "In the baggie, over on the chest of drawers. We're sending it to the lab, see if they can print it."

  Lucas stepped over to the chest and looked at the note. Common notebook paper. Even if there were six pads of it in a suspect's home, it would prove nothing. The words were cut from a newspaper and fastened to the paper with Scotch tape: Never carry a weapon after it has been used.

  "He lives by those rules," the medical examiner said. "He didn't even pull the knife out, much less carry it anywhere."

  "Note looks clean."

  "Well, not quite. Hang on a second," the medical examiner said. He peeled off the plastic gloves he was wearing, replaced them with a thinner pair of surgeon's gloves, opened the baggie, and slipped the note halfway out.

  "See this kind of funny half-circle under the tape?"

  "Yeah. Print?"

  "We think so, but if you look, you can see there's no print. But it's sharply defined. So I think-" he wiggled his fingers at Lucas-"that he was wearing surgeon's gloves."

  "That says doctor again."

  "It could. It could also say nurse, or orderly, or technician. And since you can buy the things at hardware stores, it could be a hardware dealer. Whoever he is, I think he wears gloves even when he's sitting at home making these notes, So now we know something else: he's a smart little cocksucker."

  "Okay. Good. Thanks, Bill."

  The medical examiner eased the note back in the bag. "Can we take her?" he asked, tilting his head at Lewis' body.

  "Fine with me, if homicide's finished." A homicide cop named Swanson was sitting at a table in the kitchen, eating a Big Mac, fries, and a malt. Lucas stepped into the doorway of the bedroom and called across to him. "I'm done. Can they take her?"

  "Take her," Swanson said around a mouthful of fries.

  The medical examiner supervised the movement, with Swanson ambling over to watch. They pulled the bag over her head, carefully avoiding the knife, and lifted her onto a gurney.

  Like a sack of sand, Lucas thought.

  "Nothin' under her?" asked Swanson.

  "Not a thing," said the medical examiner. They all looked at the sheets for a moment; then the medical examiner nodded at his assistants and they pushed the gurney out the bedroom door.

  "Lab's coming through with a vacuum. They haven't printed the furniture yet," Swanson said. What he meant was: Don't touch anything. Lucas grinned. "They'll take the sheets down for analysis."

  "I don't see any stains."

  "Naw, they're clean. I don't think there's any hair, either. Took a close look, but she didn't have any broken fingernails, didn't look like anything balled up underneath them, no skin or blood."

  "Shit."

  "Yeah."

  "I want to poke around out here a little. Anything critical?"

  "There's the potato..."

  "Potato?"

  "Potato in a sock. It's out in the living room." Lucas followed him into the living room, and Swanson used his foot to point under a piano bench. There was an ordinary argyle sock with a lump in one end.

  "We think he hit her on the head with it," Swanson said. "First cop in saw it, peeked inside, then left it for the lab."

  "Why do you think he hit her with it?" Lucas asked.

  "Because that's what a potato in a sock is for," Swanson said. "Or, at least, it used to be."

  "What?" Lucas was puzzled.

  "It's probably before your time," Swanson said. "It used to be, years ago, guys would go up to Loring Park to roll the queers or down Washington Avenue to roll the winos. They'd carry a potato with them. Nothing illegal about a potato. But you put one in a sock, you got a hell of a blackjack. And it's soft, so if you're careful, you don't crack anybody's skull. You don't wind up with a dead body on your hands, everybody looking for you."

  "So how'd the maddog know about it? He's gay?"

  Swanson shrugged, "Could be. Or could be a cop. Lots of old street cops would know about using a potato."

  "That doesn't sound right," Lucas said. "I never heard of an old serial killer. If they're going to do it, they start young. Teens, twenties, maybe thirties."

  Swanson looked him over carefully. "You gonna detect on this one?" he asked.

  "That's the idea," Lucas said. "You got a problem?"

  "Not me. You're the only guy I ever met who detected anything. I have a feeling we're gonna need it this time."

  "So what do the other homicide guys think?"

  "There a couple new guys think you're butting in. Most of the old guys, they know a shit storm's about to hit. They just want to get it over with. You won't have no trouble."

  "I appreciate that," Lucas said. Swanson nodded and wandered away.

  ***

  Lewis had been found in the back bedroom by another real-estate agent. She'd had a midafternoon appointment, and when she didn't show up, the other agent got worried and went looking for her. When Lucas had arrived, pushing through the gloomy circle of neighbors who waited beside the house and on the lawns across the street, Swanson briefed him on Lewis' background.

  "Just trying to sell the house," he concluded.

  "Where are the owners?"

  "They're a couple of old folks. The neighbors said they're down in Phoenix. They bought a place down there and are trying to sell this one."

  "Anybody gone out to Lewis' house yet?"

  "Oh, yeah, Nance and Shaw. Nothing there. Neighbors said she was a nice lady. Into gardening, had a big garden out back of her house. Her old man worked for 3M, died of a heart attack five or six years ago. She went to work on her own, was starting to do pretty good. That's what the neighbors say."

  "Boyfriends?"

  "Somebody. A neighbor woman supposedly knows him, but she hasn't been home and we don't know where she is. Another neighbor thinks he's some kind of professor or something over at the university. We're checking. And we're doing
all the usual, talking to neighbors about anybody they saw coming or going."

  "Look in the garage?"

  "Yeah. No car."

  "So what do you think?"

  Swanson shrugged. "What I think is, he calls her up and says he wants to look at a house, he'll meet her somewhere. He tells her something that makes her think he's okay and they ride down here, go inside. He does her, drives her car out, dumps it, and walks. We're looking for the car."

  "Anybody checking her calendars at her office?"

  "Yeah, we called, but her boss says there's nothing on her desk. He said she carried an appointment book with her. We found it and all it says is, 'Twelve-forty-five.' We think that might be the time she met him."

  "Where's her purse?"

  "Over by the front door."

  Now, wandering around the house, Lucas saw the purse again and stooped next to it. A corner of Lewis' billfold was protruding and he eased it out and snapped it open. Money. Forty dollars and change. Credit cards. Business cards. Lucas pulled out a sheaf of plastic see-through picture envelopes and flipped through them. None of the pictures looked particularly new. Looking around, he saw Swanson standing by the bedroom door talking to someone out of sight. He slipped one of the photos out of its envelope. Lewis was shown standing on a lawn with another woman, both holding some kind of a plaque. Lucas closed the wallet, slid it back in the purse, and put the photograph in his pocket.

  ***

  It was cold when he left the murder scene. He got a nylon jacket from his car, pulled it on, and sat in the driver's seat for a moment, watching the bystanders. Nobody out of place. He hadn't really thought there would be.

  On the way back to the station, he crossed the river into St. Paul, stopped at his house, changed into jeans, and traded the nylon jacket for a blue linen sport coat. He thought about it for a few seconds, then took a small.25-caliber automatic pistol and an ankle holster from a hideout shelf in his desk, strapped it to his right ankle, and pulled the jean leg down to cover it.

  ***

  The television remote-broadcast trucks were stacked up outside City Hall when Lucas got back to police headquarters. He parked in the garage across the street, again marveled at the implacable ugliness of City Hall. He went in the back doors and down to his office.

  When he'd been removed from the robbery detail, administration had to find a place to put him. His rank required some kind of office. Lucas found it himself, a storage room with a steel door on the basement level. The janitors cleaned it out and painted a number on the door. There was no other indication of who occupied the office. Lucas liked it that way. He unlocked it, went inside, and dialed Carla Ruiz' phone number.

  "This is Carla." She had a pleasantly husky voice.

  "My name is Lucas Davenport. I'm a lieutenant with the Minneapolis Police Department," he said. "I need to interview you. The sooner the better."

  "Jeez, I can't tonight..."

  "We've had another killing."

  "Oh, no. Who was it?"

  "A real-estate saleslady over here in Minneapolis. The whole thing will be on the ten-o'clock news."

  "I don't have a TV."

  "Well, look, how about tomorrow? How about if I stopped around at one o'clock?"

  "That'd be fine. God, that's awful about this other woman."

  "Yeah. See you tomorrow?"

  "How'll I know you?"

  "I'll have a rose in my teeth," he said. "And a gold badge."

  ***

  The briefing room was jammed with equipment, cables, swearing technicians, and bored cops. Cameramen negotiated lighting arrangements, print reporters flopped on the folding chairs and gossiped or doodled in their notebooks, television reporters hustled around looking for scraps of information or rumor that would give them an edge on the competition. A dozen microphones were clipped to the podium at the front of the room, while the tripod-mounted cameras were arrayed in a semicircle at the rear. A harried janitor fixed a broken standard that supported an American flag. Another tried to squeeze a few more folding chairs between the podium and the cameras. Lucas stood in the doorway a moment, spotted an empty chair near the back, and took a step toward it. A hand hooked his coat sleeve from behind.

  He looked down at Annie McGowan. Channel Eight. Dark hair, blue eyes, upturned nose. Wide, mobile mouth. World-class legs. Wonderful diction. Brains of an oyster.

  Lucas smiled.

  "What's going on, Lucas?" she whispered, standing close, holding his arm.

  "Chief'll be here in five minutes."

  "We've got a newsbreak in four minutes. I would be very grateful if I knew what was going on in time to call it in," she said. She smiled coyly and nodded at the cables going out the door. The press conference was being fed directly to her newsroom.

  Lucas glanced around. Nobody was paying any particular attention to them. He tilted his head toward the door and they eased outside.

  "If you mention my name, I'll be in trouble," he whispered. "This is a personal two-way arrangement between you and me."

  She colored and said, "Deal."

  "We've got a serial killer. He killed his third victim today. Rapes them and then stabs them to death. The first one was about six weeks ago, then another one a month ago. All of them in Minneapolis. We've been keeping it quiet, hoping to catch him, but now we've decided we have to go public."

  "Oh, God," she said. She turned and half-ran down the hallway toward the exit, following the cables.

  "What'd you tell that bitch?" Jennifer Carey materialized from the crowd. She'd been watching them. A tall blonde with a full lower lip and green eyes, she had a degree in economics from Stanford and a master's in journalism from Columbia. She worked for TV3.

  "Nothing," Lucas said. Best to take a hard line.

  "Bull. We've got a newsbreak in..." She looked at her watch. "Two and a half minutes. If she beats me, I don't know what I'll do, but I'm very smart and you'll be very, very sorry."

  Lucas glanced around again. "Okay," he said, pointing a finger at her, "but I owed her one. If you tell her I leaked this to you too, you'll never get another word out of me."

  "You're on," she said. "What is it?"

  ***

  Late that night, Jennifer Carey lay facedown on Lucas' bed and watched him undress, watched him unstrap the hideout gun.

  "Do you ever use that thing, or do you wear it to impress women?" she asked.

  "Too uncomfortable for that," Lucas lied. Jennifer sometimes made him nervous. He felt she was looking inside his head. "It comes in handy. I mean, if you're buying some toot from a guy, you can't be packing a gun. They figure you for a cop or maybe some kind of nutso rip-off psychotic, and they won't serve, won't deal. But if you got a hideout in a weird place and you need it, you can have it in their face before they know what you're doing."

  "Doesn't sound like Minneapolis."

  "There are some bad folks around. Anytime you get that much money..." He peeled off his socks and stood up in his shorts. "Shower?"

  "Yeah. I guess." She rolled over slowly and got off the bed and followed him into the bathroom. The print pattern from the bedspread was impressed on her belly and thighs.

  "You could've brought McGowan home, you know," she said as he turned on the water and adjusted it.

  "She's been coming on to me a little," Lucas agreed.

  "So why not? It's not like you're bored by the new stuff."

  "She's dumb." Lucas splashed hot water on her back and followed it with a squirt of liquid bath soap from a plastic bottle. He began rubbing it across her back and butt.

  "That's never stopped you before," she said.

  Lucas kept scrubbing. "You know some of the women I've taken out. Tell me a dumb one."

  Jennifer thought it over. "I don't know them all," she said finally.

  "You know enough of them to see the pattern," he said. "I don't go out with dummies."

  "So talk to me like a smart person, Lucas. Did this killer torture these women before he killed
them? Daniel was pretty evasive. Do you think he knows them? How does he pick them?"

  Lucas turned her around and pressed his index finger across her lips.

  "Jennifer, don't pump me, okay? If you catch me off guard and I blurt something out and you use it, I could be in deep trouble."

  She eyed him speculatively, the water bouncing off his chest, his mild blue eyes darkened with an edge of wariness.