John Sandford - Prey 01 - Rules of Prey

by Rules of Prey

  "And..."

  "So we think she was dead then. Or dying. Then, about ten o'clock-we're not exact on this time, but within fifteen minutes either way-this kid was walking up toward his apartment and he noticed this guy walking down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Going the same way. Middle height. Dark coat. Hat. This is the street that runs alongside Wheatcroft's house. Anyway, they walk along for a couple of blocks, the kid not paying attention. But you know how you keep track of people when you're out at night on foot?"

  "Yeah."

  "It was like that. They walk for a couple of blocks and the guy stops beside this car, this Thunderbird. The kid noticed it because he likes the car. So the guy unlocks it, climbs in, and drives away. When the kid hears about Wheatcroft, he thinks back and it occurs to him that this guy was kind of odd. There were a million parking places on the street around there, and it was cold, so why park at least two or three blocks from wherever you're coming from?"

  "Smart kid."

  "Yeah."

  "So did you look at him?" Lucas asked.

  "Yeah. He's okay. Engineering student at the U. He's got a full-time live-in. The guy across the street looks okay too."

  "Hmph." Lucas rubbed his lip.

  Anderson shrugged. "It's not a major clue, but it's something. We're checking insurance records on Thunderbirds, going back three years, against people who transferred policies up here from somewhere else. Like Texas."

  "Luck."

  ***

  The meeting was held the next day at midmorning in a Star-Tribune conference room. Everybody wore a suit. Even the women. Most of them had leather folders with yellow legal pads inside. They called the mayor and Daniel by their first names. They called Lucas "lieutenant."

  "You're asking us to censor ourselves," said the head of the Star-Tribune editorial board.

  "No, we actually aren't, and we wouldn't, because we know you wouldn't do it," Daniel said with a treacly smile. "We're just trying to share some concerns with you, point out the possibility of general panic. This man, this killer, is insane. We're doing everything we can to identify and arrest him, and I don't want to minimize the... the horribleness-is that a word?-of these crimes. But I would like to point out that he has now killed exactly five people out of a population of almost three million in the metropolitan area. In other words, your chances of dying in a fire, being murdered by a member of your own family, being hit by a car, to say nothing of your chances of dying from a sudden heart attack, are much more significant than your chances of encountering this killer. The point being, news coverage that produces panic is irresponsible and even counterproductive-"

  "Counterproductive to what? You keeping your job?" asked a Star-Tribune editorialist.

  "I resent that," snapped Daniel.

  "I don't think it was entirely appropriate," the paper's publisher commented mildly.

  "He doesn't have to worry about it anyway," said the Minneapolis mayor, who was sitting at the foot of the table. "Chief Daniel is doing an excellent job and I intend to reappoint him to another term, whatever the outcome of this investigation."

  Daniel glanced at the mayor and nodded.

  "We have a problem here," said the station manager for TV3. "This is the most intensely interesting story in the area right now. I've never seen anything like it. If we deliberately deemphasize the coverage and our colleagues over at Channel Eight and Channel Six and Channel Twelve don't, we could get hurt in terms of ratings. We don't have newspaper circulation counts to go by, the ratings are our lifeblood. And since we're the top-rated station-"

  "Only at ten; not at six," interjected the Channel Eight manager.

  "And since we're the overall top-rated station," the TV3 manager continued, "we have the most to lose. Frankly, I doubt our ability to work out any kind of agreement that everybody would hold to. There's too much in the balance."

  "How about if me and a bunch of other cops went through the force man by man and told them how a particular station was hurting us with their coverage? How about if we asked each and every cop, from the watch commanders on down, not to talk to that station? In other words, shut down one station's contacts with the police force. Froze you out. Would that have an impact on ratings?" asked Lucas.

  "Now, that's a dangerous proposition," said the representative from the St. Paul papers.

  "If we get some media-generated panic, that's a dangerous proposition," Lucas said. "If some kid who's living in the dorm comes home from the university at night unexpectedly, and his old man blows him away because he thinks it's the maddog, whose fault is that going to be? Whose fault for building up the fear?"

  "That's not fair," said the TV3 manager.

  "Sure it is. You just don't want it to be," Lucas said.

  "Calm down, lieutenant," the mayor said after a moment of silence. He looked down the table. "Look, all we're asking you to do is not to hammer so hard. I timed Channel Eight last night, and you gave more than seven minutes to this case in four separate segments. In terms of television news, I think that's overkill. There almost weren't any other stories. I'm just suggesting that everybody look at every piece of coverage and ask, 'Is this necessary? Will this really build ratings? And what if Chief Daniel and the mayor and the City Council and the state legislators get really angry and start talking about the irresponsible press and mentioning names? Will that help ratings?'"

  "Bottom line, then, you're saying don't make us mad," said the news director from Channel Twelve.

  "Bottom line, I'm saying, 'Be responsible.' If you're not, you could pay for it."

  "That sounds like a threat," said the news director.

  The mayor shrugged. "You take a dramatic view of things."

  ***

  As they went through the lobby on the way to the street, Daniel looked at the mayor.

  "I appreciate that thing about the reappointment," he said.

  "Don't go out and celebrate yet," the mayor said through his teeth. "I could change my mind if you don't catch this asshole."

  CHAPTER

  20

  The two days between the taking and the discovery of the body had been days of delicious anticipation. The maddog relaxed; he smiled. His secretary thought him almost charming. Almost. Except for the lips.

  The maddog ran the tapes over and over, watching McGowan report from the Wheatcroft scene.

  "This is Annie McGowan reporting from the scene of the latest in the series of killings by the man called maddog," she said, her lips making sensual O's. "Minneapolis Police Chief Quentin Daniel himself is inside this house just three blocks from the University of Minnesota campus. It was here that a crippled law student, Cheryl Wheatcroft, celebrated as one of the best minds of her law-school class, was tortured, stabbed to death, and sexually mutilated by a man police say is little better than a wild beast..."

  He liked it. He even liked the "wild beast." The "pig farmer" was gone, forgotten. He reveled in the papers, read the stories over and over, lay on his bed and reran the memory of Wheatcroft dying. He masturbated, the face of Annie McGowan growing prominent in his visions.

  The media reaction built through the weekend, culminating in three pages of coverage in the Minneapolis Sunday paper, a smaller but more analytical spread in the St. Paul paper. On Monday, the coverage died. There was almost nothing, which puzzled him. Burnt out already?

  That afternoon, he went to the county recorder's office and politely introduced himself as a lawyer doing real-estate-tax research. He showed them his card and they instructed him in the use of computerized tax files. McGowan? The names ran up the computer monitor: McGowan, Adam, Aileen, Alexis, Annie. There she was. A sole owner. Nice neighborhood.

  The computer gave him square footages, prices. He would need more research. He went from the computer files to the plat books and looked at the neighborhood maps.

  "If you need aerial photos, you'll find them in those cases over there," said the clerk, smiling pleasantly. "They're filed the same way
."

  Aerial photos? Fine. He looked them over, picking out McGowan's house, noting its relationship to the neighboring houses, the garden sheds, the detached garage. He traced the alley behind the house with a fingertip. If he walked in from the north side, he could approach from the alley and go straight to the back door, pop it, and go in. If he came in early enough, when he knew McGowan was on the air, he would have a chance to explore it. What if there was another occupant? Easy enough to find out; that was what the telephone was for. He would call night and day, while she was working, looking for a different voice; he knew hers so well now. Maybe she had a roommate. He thought about that, closed his eyes. He could do a double. Two at the same time.

  But that didn't feel right. A taking was personal, one-to-one. It was to be shared, not multiplied. Three's a crowd.

  The maddog left the recorder's office and walked through another glorious fall day to the library, to the crime section, and began pulling out confessional books by burglars. They were intended, their authors said, to help homeowners protect their property.

  From a different perspective, they were also a short course in burglary. He had studied a couple of them before he went into Carla Ruiz' studio. They helped. The maddog believed in libraries.

  He thumbed through the books, picked the four best that he hadn't read. As he walked out of the stacks, past rows of books on crime and criminals, the name "Sam" caught his eye. Son of Sam. He had read about Sam, but not this particular book. He took it.

  Outside in the sunshine, the maddog took a deep breath and watched the people scurrying by. Ants, he thought. But it was hard to take the thought too seriously. The day was too good for that. Like early spring in Texas. The maddog was not unaffected.

  ***

  The burglary books gave him material for contemplation; the Sam book, even more.

  Sam should not have been caught, not when he was.

  On his last mission, as the maddog thought of it, he had shot a young couple, killing one, wounding and blinding the other. He had parked some distance away, near a fire hydrant. His car had been ticketed.

  A woman out walking her dog had seen both the ticketing and, later, a man running to the car and driving away. When the latest Sam murders hit the press, she called the police. There had been only a few tickets given in the area at that time of night, and only one for parking at a hydrant. The police were able to read the car's license number off the carbon of the ticket. Sam was caught.

  The maddog was reading in bed. He dropped the book on his chest and stared at the ceiling. He had known this story, but had forgotten it. He thought about his last note, the one dropped on Wheatcroft. Isolate yourself from random discovery, it said. He thought about his car. All it would take was a ticket. Now that he thought about it, it was a certainty that police were checking tickets issued near the killings.

  He tossed the book on the bed and padded out to the kitchen, heated water in a teakettle, and made a cup of instant cocoa. Cocoa was one of his favorites. As soon as the hot bittersweet chocolate hit his tongue, he was back at the ranch, standing in the kitchen with... Whom? He shook it off and went back to the bedroom.

  He had done it right with Wheatcroft. He had driven so that he wouldn't be seen leaving his house on foot. He had parked and walked in to the killing so that his car wouldn't be spotted at the crime scene.

  Walk in to the killing. Keep the car out of the way. Make sure, make doubly sure, that the car was legally parked. And get it close enough to the house that he could reach it in a minute or so, at a run, but far enough away that it would not be immediately remembered as being a strange car near the site of a killing.

  Five blocks? What would five blocks be? He got out a sheet of paper and drew streets and blocks. All right, if he parked five blocks away, the cops would have to check some fifty blocks before they got as far out as his car.

  If he parked six blocks out from McGowan's house, they'd have to check seventy-two blocks. It would be double that if it weren't for that damned creek across the street.

  He looked at his map and figured. If he parked north of her house, he could get six blocks out along the end blocks, which were narrow. He would also have access to alleys that came out of the end blocks, good places to hide, if hiding became critical.

  The plat books had indicated that the lots were seventy feet deep, with a fifteen-foot alley. The streets were thirty feet. He figured on his piece of paper. A little over two hundred yards. He should be able to run that in less than a minute. He got up, went back into the kitchen, found a city map in a drawer, and counted up six blocks.

  Not six blocks, he thought. Five blocks would be better. If he parked five blocks up, he'd be on a street that had access to Interstate 35. Once in the car, he could be on the highway in less than a minute, even driving at the speed limit.

  He closed his eyes and visualized it. At a dead run, panic situation, it was two minutes from her house to the highway. Once on the highway, eight minutes to his garage. He would have to think.

  ***

  The maddog got McGowan's phone number from a city cross-reference directory. Called her at home, spoke to her: "Phyllis?... Sorry, I must have misdialed," he said. Called back. Called back again. An answering machine, but never a strange voice.

  The maddog did one reconnaissance. He did it in his midnight-blue Thunderbird.

  Sunday afternoon. Annie McGowan was visiting her parents in Brookings, South Dakota. She was due back to work on Monday. There were still cops watching her house, one in front, from the architect's, one in back, from the retired couple's house. The cops out on the wings, in cars, had been temporarily withdrawn while McGowan was out of town.

  With McGowan gone, it was hard to take the surveillance seriously. The cop at the post in back was reading through a stack of 1950's comic books he'd found in the attic, wondering about the possibility of stealing them. God only knew what they were worth, and the old couple certainly didn't seem to care about them or even remember they were there. Every two or three minutes the cop would glance out the window at the back of McGowan's house. But everyone knew the maddog never attacked on a weekend. He wasn't paying much attention.

  He was reading a Superman when the maddog rolled past in front. If the maddog had driven down the alley behind the house, the cop would have seen him for sure-would have heard the car going by-and might have caught him or identified him right there. But a garbage can had fallen over at the far end of the alley. When the maddog started to turn in, he saw it, considered it, and backed out. No point in being seen outside the car, in daylight, fooling around with somebody else's garbage can.

  The cop in the architect's house, across the street from McGowan's, should have seen him go by in front. He knew the maddog might be driving a dark-colored Thunderbird. But when the maddog went past, he was downstairs, his head in the refrigerator, deciding between a yogurt and a banana to go with the caffeine-free Diet Coke. He was in no hurry to get back to the attic. The attic was boring.

  All told, he was away from the window for twenty minutes, although it seemed like only four or five. When he got back, he opened the yogurt and looked out the window. A kid up the street was washing his old man's car. A dog was watching him work. Nothing else. The maddog had come and gone. And the maddog thought to himself: Tomorrow night.

  CHAPTER

  21

  When Lucas pulled in, Carla was sitting in the yard, wrapped in an old cardigan sweater with a drawing pad in her lap. He got out of the car, walked through the dry leaves, deep-breathing the crystalline North Woods air.

  "Great day," he said. He dropped beside her and looked at the pad. She was drawing the forms of the fallen leaves with sepia chalk on blue-tinted paper. "And that's nice."

  "I think-I'm not sure-but I think I'm going to get the best weavings I ever did out of this stuff," Carla said. She frowned. "One of the problems with the form is that the best of it is symbolic but the best art is antisymbolic."

  "Right," Lu
cas said. He flopped back in the leaves and looked up at the faultless blue sky. A light south wind rippled the surface of the lake.

  "Sounds like baloney, doesn't it?" she asked, smiling, her face crinkling at the corners of her eyes.

  "Sounds like business," he said. He turned his head and saw a cluster of small green plants pushing up through the dead leaves. He reached out and picked a few of the shiny green leaves.

  "Close your eyes," he said, holding his hand out toward her and crumbling the leaves in his fingertips. She closed her eyes and he held the crumbled leaves beneath her nose. "Now, sniff."

  She sniffed and smiled and opened her eyes. "It's the candy," she said in delight. "Wintergreen?"

  "Yeah. It grows all over the place." She took the crumbled leaves from him and sniffed again. "God, it smells like the outdoors."