[Prey 11] - Easy Prey

by John Sandford

  Moore broke in: "Can you get him?"

  "Not yet," Lucas said. "Maybe on drugs. We have no direct connection to the murder, but we can put him at the party, we can connect him with Lansing, we have him denying that he knew her, we can probably show that they dealt drugs together. We can project it as a drug argument that went bad. He killed Lansing, maybe even accidentally, by cracking her head against a doorjamb. Alie'e comes out of the bedroom just at that point, and he kills her, to get rid of a witness."

  Olson stood up slowly, peered at the Bentons and then at Moore. "You mean… she was killed as a bystander? That all this happened because she was at the wrong place?"

  "That's a possibility," Lucas said.

  Olson said, "I don't believe it. This is not a casual killing. All these people dead. It can't just be chance. It can't be."

  "We don't really know that it is," Rose Marie interjected. "Lucas is just outlining one possible theory."

  "My good God," Olson said. He put his hands on the side of his head, as he had the day he found his parents, and pulled the hair straight out, as he had that day, just before his collapse.

  Lucas stood up, stepped toward him, took his arm. "Easy."

  "I can't, I can't…"

  "Sit down."

  Olson stumbled, and Lucas guided him around to the chair. Olson looked around the room, at the faces all pointed toward him, and said, "This cannot stand. This cannot."

  When he was gone, Frank Lester said, "If that doesn't get him cranked, I don't know what will."

  Lane came back. "Took all goddamn day, but the bank examiner conies in on our side. She says the loans are funky."

  "That's the technical expression: funky."

  "Exactly. But there's a problem," Lane said. "I created it. I made the fundamental investigatory error: I asked one too many questions. No—I asked two too many."

  "I've told you about that," Lucas said.

  "Yeah. So I've got this bank examiner—who's got nice legs, by the way, even if she wasn't a big rock 'n' roller—and I say, 'What would you do if you'd caught him doing this? During a bank examination.' And she says, 'We'd tell him that the loan was weak, and depending on the status of their other loans, we might require action.' And I say, 'That's it?' And she says, 'What'd you think we were gonna do? Shoot him?' "

  "So then I make the next mistake. I ask another question."

  "You already had two questions."

  "Naw, that was like question one and one-a. Now I'm at question two. I ask, 'How many commercial loans are there in Minnesota? Gotta be hundreds of thousands, huh?' And she says, 'Well, many tens of thousands, anyway' And I ask—this is question two-b—'How many are this bad?' I figured she'd say something like, we get one or two a year. You know what she said?"

  "I'm afraid to know," Lucas said.

  "Be very afraid," Lane said. "She said, 'There might be a few thousand.' "

  Lucas said, "Goddamnit."

  "Yeah. Our hold on Spooner just got slipperier. On the other hand—I thought of this on the way over here…"

  "What?"

  "Spooner doesn't know it," Lane said.

  "You're a sneaky fuck," Lucas said. "It's a quality I admire in a cop."

  As the earlier darkness settled in and the lights came up, Del came by with an ice cream cone and said, "I'm gonna go see Marcy. Wanna come?"

  "Yeah, let me get my coat."

  On the way over, Lucas told Del about Catrin. Del listened, finished the cone in the cold night, and then said, "She's probably gonna want to jump in bed with you. To prove to herself that she's still desirable and that she's as good as she was in the old days."

  "What am I gonna do?"

  "Well, I don't think jumping her is gonna be the answer." He looked at Lucas. "Or is it?"

  "No. I mean… man, she's really nice, but she's really fucked up."

  "So give her a really understanding talk about how she is fucked up—you might want to find a different phrase—and that she shouldn't do anything until she's gotten herself straight again."

  "That doesn't sound like something Catrin would go for," Lucas said.

  "How do you meet these women, anyway? They're all so fuckin' tangled up."

  "I don't know. It's a special talent."

  "What you need is some chick that comes up and says, 'Wanna see my Harley?' And you say, 'Is it a Sportster?' And she says, 'It's whatever you want it to be.' "

  "I've often wondered if you had a fantasy life," Lucas said. "I guess that question's answered."

  "Yeah, well, if I were you, I'd go home and think about this Catrin chick for a long time. Especially if she's still a friend." They walked along for half a block, and then Del added, "There is one bright side to the problem."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. It's your problem, and not mine."

  Marcy was sitting up, awake, but she looked distant, her eyes a little too bright. "The docs are worried that she might have a touch of pneumonia," Black said. "They say it shouldn't be serious… but they've got to deal with it."

  Lucas squatted to look straight into her face. "How're you feeling?"

  "A little warm."

  "Still hurt?"

  "Always hurt."

  "Goddamnit." He stood up. "There's got to be better drugs."

  "Yeah, but they fuck up my head. I'd rather have a little pain," Marcy said. "How's the case? I understand this Rodriguez guy is out in the open."

  They talked about Rodriguez, and she stayed awake, but she didn't look as good as she had, Lucas thought. She looked like she had the flu. After chatting for a while, he told the others he was going to get a Coke, and wandered out of the room. As soon as he was out, he headed for the desk and asked, "Is Weather Karkinnen… ?"

  The nurse looked past him: Weather was headed down the hall toward them. He walked toward her and said, "You've heard about Marcy? This pneumonia thing?"

  "Yeah, I've been keeping up," she said. "It's not too serious yet. They're managing it."

  "C'mon, Weather. Is this gonna turn into something?"

  She shook her head. "I can't tell you that, Lucas. She's young enough and healthy enough that it shouldn't, and we're right on top of it… but she was hit hard, and her lung took some of it. So… we gotta stay on top of it."

  "That's all."

  "Lucas, I don't know any more," she said in exasperation. "I just don't know."

  "All right."

  They stood, awkwardly, then she touched his arm and said, "I've been seeing this Rodriguez guy on television. That's you, isn't it? Your part of the case?"

  "Yeah. He's the guy. the problem is, how do we get at him? There's almost nothing at the scene that would help. We're building a circumstantial case…"

  They walked along, Lucas talking about the case. They'd done this when they were living together, Lucas talking out problem cases.

  The talking seemed to help, seemed to straighten out his thinking, even when Weather didn't say much. They fell back into the pattern, Weather prodding him with an occasional Why do you think that? or, Where did you get that? or, How does that connect?

  They turned at the end of the long hall, and Del stepped out of Marcy's room, looked down at them, and went back inside. On the way back, Weather said, "What're you doing tonight? Want to go out for pasta?"

  "I can't," he said, shaking his head. "You know what it gets like… I'm going nuts. But could I call you?"

  "Yeah. I think you can," she said. She grabbed his ear, pulled his head down, and kissed him on the cheek. "See ya," she said.

  Chapter 23

  « ^ »

  Lucas ate alone, a quick sliced-beef-and-cucumber sandwich in the kitchen, stood in the shower for a few minutes, soaking, then changed into jeans, a sweatshirt over a golf shirt, a leather jacket, and boots. He thought about taking the Tahoe; it would fit better with the crowd. But Jael really liked the Porsche.

  He took the Porsche, across the Ford Bridge and up the Mississippi, then west to Jael's studio. She'd picked
out an outfit like his: leather jacket and jeans, cowboy boots, and a turquoise-and-silver necklace. "We look like we're going to a square dance," she said.

  "C'mon." Downstairs, in the studio, she said, "I left my house keys in the back, just a minute…" and when she went to get them, one of the ambush cops, sitting on the floor with a PlayStation, looked up and said, "You're breaking my fuckin' heart, Davenport."

  "Hey, we're going to church."

  "Yeah," the cop said, and, "Aw, shit, now I missed the yellow block."

  Jael came back with her keys and said, "We're rolling."

  The cop looked up at Lucas, one eye closed, and Lucas shrugged and followed her out the door.

  Olson was preaching at the Christ Triumphant Evangelical Church, a good part of an hour west of Minneapolis in the town of Young America. The church was a long, narrow-faced white clapboard building with a bell tower, in the New England style, with a nearly full gravel parking lot to one side. Lucas parked between a tricked-out Ford F-150 and a Chew S-10 with a snow blade, in a slot where the Tahoe would have fit perfectly. The Porsche, crouched between them, looked like a cockroach between two refrigerators. And down about ten slots, Lucas noticed, a nondescript city car huddled behind a van.

  Outside the church, a thin pink-faced man in a long black trench coat stood next to a Salvation Army-style kettle, with a sign that said, "Please Donate," and under that, in small letters, "Suggested donation; $2 per person."

  Jael said, "I thought Reverend Olson didn't accept compensation," and the man standing with the kettle said, "This is for the church, ma'am. Reverend Olson doesn't even take gas money out."

  Lucas put a five-dollar bill in the kettle, and the man said, "Thanks very much, folks—you better get inside if you want to get a seat."

  The church was severely plain inside: white walls, natural-wood floors, a center aisle between two ranks of pews, and a rough wooden cross at the far end. The pews were two-thirds full, with a couple of dozen people still milling around; Lucas and Jael sat near the back. The place was warm, and they took off their coats. In the far left corner of the church, two women from Narcotics chatted quietly with each other. In five minutes, the pews were full, and people began sitting in the aisle.

  "The fire marshal would have a heart attack if he saw this," Lucas muttered as people continued to jam into the church.

  Jael leaned toward him and said, "See the women?"

  "What women?"

  "In the dark blue vests." She pointed with her chin.

  Lucas took a minute to pick them out: A half-dozen women were working around the front of the room, passing out sheets of paper, stopping to talk to people, laughing, chatting. Then Lucas picked out a couple of blue-vested men, also working the crowd. "Couple of guys, too. See the guy in the parka? He's got one on underneath."

  "Oh, yeah. I didn't see him… I wonder…"

  They were whispering, and Lucas whispered, "What?"

  "Is this a cult?"

  The lights began to dim, and Lucas shrugged. Then one of the women in blue vests gave them a stack of paper to pass down their pew, and they each took one and passed the rest. Lucas peered at the writing in the dimming light: the words to a half-dozen songs, and on the back, some kind of drawing. He put the paper in his lap and looked up as Olson appeared at the front of the church, stepped up on the dais, and started with, "How're y'all tonight?"

  Some people said, "Fine," or "Good." Olson said, "I'm not very good. How many of you knew that Alie'e Maison was my sister? Hold up your hands."

  Two thirds of the audience lifted their hands.

  "So you know my sister was murdered, and my parents were murdered, and that a man named Amnon Plain was murdered. I want to talk to you about that." He talked about his sister and his parents for twenty minutes; how he and Sharon Olson and their parents lived their lives in Burnt River, a quiet, family-oriented small-town existence for the most part, with the one difference that Alie'e's looks and talents made.

  "I didn't know any difference. I didn't know that even there, in Burnt River, running along the water, fishing with Dad, getting in apple fights with my friends, and BB gun fights—I'm sure more than a few of you have been in BB gun fights, even a few of you women, huh?" A ripple of laughter and acknowledgment ran through the audience. "I didn't know in all of that young, childish fun, even there, the evil was reaching out to us. Long tentacles, reaching out of New York, out of Los Angeles, long wispy fingers of evil settling over the minds of us all…"

  Lucas felt a creepy tingle. Olson had a deep, resonant voice, and knew how to play it: Although it seemed to drop to a whisper, and though it seemed to be aimed at each individual, it was loud enough to be heard perfectly. And he had the deep, stocky build, and the square, powerful head, that gave him a quality of suppressed violence.

  He talked about the evil, and about its expression on television, in the movies, in fast-food businesses and on the Internet. "I have been around a little bit. I was in the Marine Corps, I worked as a shore patrolman at Subic Bay on payday. I know all the trouble that people can get into with sex, and with dope, and with greed and with the need of possession. I knows that there's some of it in all of us—but I also know that an adult can fight it. Maybe not win, but can choose to fight. But have you personally looked into this newest evil, this Internet, that all the schools and libraries now are trying to sell us? Have you looked on the Internet? I have—I looked at a library, with a librarian, one of our people, showing me—and the evil on the Internet is beyond belief, beyond anything you might encounter at Subic, beyond anything you veterans of the world have seen, beyond all of that. And it is flowing straight to our children."

  With that as a base, Olson began to preach: on the evil of the world, and the light to come; on Jesus, who was with us all the time, and who would be visible in the next few years. The end of times was upon us…

  The preaching lasted for twenty minutes, a rising and ebbing of emotion, the emotional appeals coming in waves that would crest, each higher than the last, with Olson wandering halfway down the aisle, talking, calling on the children of God, reaching into the pews to touch people, both men and women. The audience rocked with him in a shoulder-pushing rhythm. The noise of the audience, the heat inside the church, and Olson's voice together finally climaxed in a long, desperate wail…

  And when the wail died, Olson was smiling.

  "But we're gonna be okay, because we're the children of the Lord."

  And that, Lucas thought, was it for the night. Olson, in an almost businesslike way, began talking about Amnon Plain. "A biblical name, Amnon. And Plain, that's important. As soon as I heard the name, I thought this was a message; as soon as I heard of his murder, I was sure of it. I've spoken in this church about my admiration for the Plain people, our brothers the Amish and the Mennonites, and although our beliefs may be different, in that thing, in the belief in the Plain, we agree. The Plain will save you. You have seen some people here in blue vests; those are handmade blue vests, they all made them themselves. If you accept the Plain, make yourself a vest. Put it on. Then kill your TV. Kill your Internet connection. Turn away from the magazines that overflow with the Evil."

  Suddenly they were back in it, but this time it was different, humping along in an almost orgasmic frenzy built around the word Plain, and the evocation of the death of Amnon Plain, and the clear message to God's children.

  As the frenzy built, Jael's fingers dug into Lucas's leg, dug in and held, and as Olson talked, the lights in the church continued to dim until it was nearly dark inside, with the only light around Olson at the front as he preached. He was tying himself in a knot, Lucas thought; his body was shaking with the violence of his words. People began to stand up and cry out—then the entire congregation was on its feet, and the wailing began again…

  And Olson, in the light, reached a new climax, dropped to his knees in an agony and threw up his hands, palms to the audience. Blood ran from wounds in his palms down his forearms, and the wa
iling became so intense that Lucas could hardly bear it.

  Then Olson collapsed, and the wailing stopped as though a switch had been thrown, and the people of the audience looked at each other in stunned appreciation. A man from one of the front rows went to kneel beside Olson, and then another, and between them they got him back on his feet and led him to the side of the room, and then out of sight.

  The thin man who'd been collecting money outside stepped into the light at the front of the church and said into the now-hushed room, "Reverend Olson will be back in a moment. For those of you who are new to the church, or our community, and are interested in Reverend Olson's concept of Plain, I would like to say a few words.

  "There is no church of Plain. No money is collected, there is no organization. If you feel that you can be Plain, and you wish to be Plain, then make a vest. Or don't make a vest, if you don't wish to. Some of us find it easier to make the vest, as a reminder of what we are about. But I don't want any of you women making vests for your men. They should make their own, and if it doesn't come out just right… then show them how, but let them do the work. The vest won't save you, it's just a piece of cloth. But you'll find that it keeps you very, very warm… On the back of your song sheet, we've included a little sketch, a little pattern, for making your vest."

  There was a rustle of paper as people looked, and the man said, "If you'd like to sing, you're welcome to. If anyone is a bit too warm, you're welcome to step outside for a bit. So why don't we start with, 'You Are My Sunshine,' and all of you singers make room for those who need to get out for a breath."

  A number of people started moving toward the back, and Lucas grabbed Jael's arm and they stepped over the last couple at the end of the pew, into the aisle, and out into the churchyard. "I'd say we got our moneys worth," Jael said, looking back at the church. The first chorus of "You Are My Sunshine" broke through the doors.

  Lucas was looking at the paper in his hand. "None of these songs are religious songs," he said. "They're all, like, old-timey sing-along songs."