John Sandford - Prey 01 - Rules of Prey

by Rules of Prey

  "Open the door," she shouted. He nodded and dropped the blind and went out to the door.

  "I figured it out," she said angrily. "I don't know why I didn't see it, but as soon as we heard about the attack, I figured it out." She didn't take off her coat, and instead of walking through to the kitchen as she usually did, she stood in the hallway.

  "Figured what out?" Lucas asked sleepily.

  "You set McGowan up. Deliberately. You were feeding her those weird tips to make the maddog angry and attract him to McGowan."

  "Ah, Jesus, Jennifer."

  "I'm right, aren't I?"

  He waved her off and started back to the living room.

  "Well, she sure as hell paid you back," Jennifer said.

  Lucas turned. "What do you mean?"

  "That awful tape of you confessing. You know, saying it was all your fault. And then the tape of the fight, with you beating up that poor kid."

  "They weren't going to show that," Lucas said hollowly. "We had a deal."

  "What?"

  "I gave them the interview and the producer said he'd call the news director about not using the tape of the fight."

  Jennifer shook her head. "My God, Lucas, sometimes you are so naive. You're supposed to know all about this media stuff, right? But there was no way they wouldn't use that tape. Man, that's terrific action. Big gunfight and two people dead and a police lieutenant beating the crap out of his brother cop who caused it? That tape will probably make the network news tonight."

  "Ah, fuck." He slumped on the couch and ran his fingers through his hair.

  Jennifer softened and touched him on the crown of the head.

  "So I came over here to see if we could use you one more time. And I do mean use."

  "What?"

  "We'd like to get a joint interview with you and Carla Ruiz. You talking about what you know about the killer, with Ruiz chipping in about the attack. Ellie Carlson will do the interview. I'm producing."

  "Why now?"

  "The truth? Because if we don't have something heavy to promo for tonight, McGowan and Channel Eight are going to kick us so bad that we'll hurt for weeks. They'll do it anyway, but with a joint interview we might keep a respectable piece of the audience, for at least one of the news shows. Especially if we promo it right."

  "Is this sweeps week?"

  "You got it."

  "I'll have to talk to the chief."

  ***

  Daniel was gloomy, withdrawn. He gestured Lucas to a chair and turned his own chair, staring out his office window at the street.

  "I saw the interview tape on Channel Eight. Taking the blame. Nice try."

  "I thought it might help."

  "Fat chance. I gave Cochrane two weeks' administrative leave with pay, told him to stay away from the media, get his face fixed up. You really clobbered him."

  "I'll try to find him, talk to him," Lucas said.

  "I don't know," Daniel said. "Maybe it'd be better if you just stayed away for a while."

  Lucas shifted uncomfortably. "This is a bad time to talk about it, but Jennifer Carey wants a joint interview with me and Carla Ruiz. She's up-front about it. It's because of the sweeps this week. But she thinks if they can get some tape, promo it, it might cut down on Channel Eight's impact. At least we'd get something positive out there."

  "Go ahead, if you want," Daniel said. He didn't seem to care much, and continued staring out at the street.

  "Did the guys out at the scene get anything we can use?"

  "Not that they told me about," Daniel said. They sat in silence for a moment, then Daniel sighed and swung his chair around.

  "Homicide isn't going to catch the guy, unless it's by accident," he said. "With this close call, we might scare him off for a week, or two weeks, but he'll be back. Or maybe he'll leave town and start somewhere else. You know something? I don't want him to do that. I want to nail him here. And you're going to have to do it. The McGowan thing was a disaster, all right, but I keep thinking, not a total disaster. I keep thinking that Davenport figured the guy out. And if he did it once, maybe he can do it again. Maybe... I don't know."

  "I don't have an idea in my fuckin' head," Lucas said.

  "You're messed up," Daniel said. "But it'll go away. Your head will start working again."

  "You're wrong about the way we'll break it," Lucas said. "It won't happen because I figured him out, because I haven't. When we get him, we'll get him on a piece of luck."

  "I hate to depend on luck; I'd hoped we could come up with something a little more reliable."

  "There isn't anything reliable, not in this world," Lucas said. "The maddog's had a fantastic game. Ruiz should have been able to tell us more than she did-I mean, she actually had her hands on him. If she'd pulled away his mask... We should have gotten a better description out of the attack on Brown. I keep thinking: If only Sparks had been on the other side of the street. He might have seen him full-face. I keep thinking: If only Lewis had written the guy's name on her calendar. Or if she had written anything about him. We should have nailed him at McGowan's; when he got away, we should have been able to freeze his car, if it really is a Thunderbird. He's been incredibly lucky. But there's one certainty in the world of game-playing: luck will turn. It always does. When we get him, we'll get him on a piece of luck."

  "Christ knows it's our turn for some," Daniel said.

  ***

  Jennifer had already talked to Carla about an interview, and when Lucas called to agree, she told him that Carla was ready. They would shoot it at three o'clock and run an early, tight version at six o'clock. A longer version would be promoed for the ten-o'clock news, which the station had decided to expand to accommodate the interview.

  Wear a suit, she said, and a blue shirt.

  Shave again.

  The interview lasted an hour, Lucas cool and distracted, Carla warm and insistent. With a proper cut, it would look good. Jennifer watched the interviewer talking with them, and halfway through, realized that Lucas and Carla were sleeping together. Or had slept together.

  When the interview was over, she left with Lucas, trailing behind the cameraman and sound technician, who were carrying gear down to the van. Alone in the elevator she said, "I thought you might have been sleeping with McGowan. I see I was wrong. It was Carla Ruiz."

  "Ah, man, Jennifer, I can't deal with this today," Lucas said, staring at the elevator floor.

  "I don't mind so much," she said sadly. "I knew it was going to happen. I was hoping it wouldn't be this soon."

  "I think it's done with," Lucas said dispiritedly.

  "Just slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am?"

  Lucas shook his head. "She gave me a little talk a few days ago. She likes me okay, but she's ready to cut me off when I conflict with her work."

  "Oh, my, that hasn't happened before, has it?" Jennifer asked. Her tone was light, even sarcastic, but a tear rolled down her cheek.

  Lucas reached out and thumbed it away. "Don't do that, for Christ's sake."

  "Why not? You can't tolerate real emotion?"

  He looked at the floor between his feet, then cocked his head at her. "Sometimes people don't know each other as well as they think they do. You're giving me shit and I'm supposed to take it like a man, right? You know what I feel like? I feel like going home and sticking my forty-five in my mouth and blowing my brains out. I've been beat up by a madman. I might recover. I might not. But I'll never forget it. Not in this life."

  The elevator door opened and he walked away and never looked back.

  ***

  Elle watched him across the expansive game board. The bookie and attorney had gone together, the two students followed a few minutes later. The grocer was still staring at the map, figuring.

  Meade was no dummy. After a day's fighting, in which the South controlled most of the heights south of Gettysburg, he cautiously withdrew to the south, toward Washington. There were prepared positions waiting. Now the ball was in Lee's court. Lee-Elle, with advice from
Lucas, as Longstreet-could continue his invasion of the North. That looked increasingly untenable. Or he could go after Meade's army to the south. That army would have to be destroyed in any case. But if Lee went after Meade, it would mean the kind of Napoleonic attack that failed at the real Gettysburg. Once he got down to close-quarters fighting around Washington, with the mountains to his west and a flooding Potomac to his south, it would be kill or be killed. Lucas' game could end the Civil War two years early...

  "You can't keep thinking about it," Elle said.

  "What?" Lucas had been balancing on the back two legs of his chair, staring at the ceiling.

  "You can't keep brooding about the tragedy out at the reporter's house. It's pointless. And you almost had him. You drew him in. If you'd stop feeling sorry for yourself, you'd come up with something new."

  Lucas dropped the chair to the floor and stood up.

  "My problem is, I can't think of anything. My head is frozen. I think he's gone."

  "No. Something is going to happen," Elle said. "You know how there's a rhythm to these games? When we all know something is about to happen, even when it doesn't have to? I feel the same kind of rhythm here. The rhythm says this whole thing is about to resolve itself."

  "The problem is, how?" the grocer interjected.

  "That is the problem," Lucas said, snapping a finger at the grocer. "Exactly. Suppose the guy resolves it by leaving? He could start all over somewhere else, and we wouldn't even know it. And we've really got nothing to go on. Not a real clue in the bunch. If he wants to leave, he can walk."

  "He won't," Elle said positively. "This thing is rushing to a conclusion. I can feel the wheels."

  "I hope so," Lucas said. "I don't think I can take much more of it."

  "We're praying for you," Elle said, and Lucas realized the second nun was also watching him. She nodded. "Every night. God will answer. You've got to get him."

  CHAPTER

  25

  The maddog called in sick from Eau Claire. He lay in bed watching cable television from the Cities and finally left the motel just before the noon checkout time. He got back to his apartment in the early afternoon, cleaned up, drove down to his office, and said he was feeling better. He tried to work. He failed.

  The fiasco at the McGowan house was the big news. The entire office was talking about it. The maddog took no pleasure in the talk, felt no power flowing from it. He had been mousetrapped. Davenport had done it, had lured him to McGowan. Davenport understood him that well. Had stalked him. Had failed only through a set of circumstances so bizarre that they could never be repeated.

  The maddog knew he had been lucky. So lucky. It was time to reconsider the game. Perhaps he should stop. He was far ahead. He had the points. But could he stop? He wasn't sure. If he couldn't, perhaps he could move somewhere else. Back to Texas. Get away from the cold. Rethink the game.

  It took him until well after five to clear his desk, finish the routine real-estate and probate work. When he left, a television was flickering in one of the associates' offices, an indulgence not permitted during the regular workday. Lucas Davenport's face was on the screen, the camera tight on his features. There were dark marks under his eyes, but he was well-controlled. The picture froze momentarily and then the cameras switched to the anchorwoman.

  He stepped closer to listen. "... the complete interview with the survivor Carla Ruiz and Lieutenant Lucas Davenport tonight on an expanded edition of TV3's Ten-O'Clock Report."

  ***

  He was torn between Channel Eight and TV3. Channel Eight had been breaking all the most interesting news during the game, but the interview on TV3 might tell him more about the man who mousetrapped him. He finally decided, after consulting his video recorder's instruction book, that he could tape TV3 while he watched Channel Eight. He tried it with a network comedy. It worked.

  McGowan, so beautiful, led the evening news, dominated it. She recounted the surveillance, showed off the alert beeper she'd worn on her belt. Told of sitting in her bedroom alone at night, listening to every sound, wondering if the maddog was coming. She was taped as she made a single woman's portion of stir-fry. Unused copper skillets hung from the walls. An old-fashioned pendulum clock ticked in the background.

  With the scene set, she recounted the attack, running through the night with a camera bouncing behind her, ending with a camera-activated reenactment of the shootings, McGowan playing all parts. Then across the final fence to the sewer ditch, where she pointed out the maddog's footprints in the yellow clay.

  It was brilliant theater, and like all brilliant theater, ended with a punch: the fight in the harsh light, Davenport destroying the rookie cop, his hands moving so fast they could barely be seen. Then Davenport starting toward the cameras, murder in his eye, until stopped by McGowan's voice.

  Brutal. Davenport was not just a player. He was an animal.

  When the show ended, the maddog stared at the television for a few moments, then punched up the tape of the TV3 interview.

  Davenport again, but a different one. Cooler. Calculating. A hunter, not a fighter. The maddog recognized the quality instinctively, had seen it in the ranchers around his father's place, the men who talked about my deer and my antelope.

  Ruiz still drew him, her face, her dark eyes. The connection was not essential, was not the connection he felt with a Chosen-she had passed beyond that privilege. But there was an undeniable residue of their previous relationship, and the maddog felt it and thought about it.

  Was he being manipulated again? Was this another Davenport trick? He thought not.

  The maddog had never had a two-sided relationship with a woman, but he was acutely sensitive to the relationships between others. Halfway through the interview, he realized that Davenport and Carla Ruiz were somehow involved with each other. Sexually? Yes. The more he watched, the more he was convinced that he was right.

  Interesting.

  CHAPTER

  26

  "Come on. Let's do it." Sloan was leaning in the doorway.

  "No fuckin' point, man," Lucas said. He felt lethargic, emotionally frozen. "We know what he's hiding. He's worried about his reputation. He ripped off the Rices and he's afraid somebody will find out."

  "How do you feel?"

  "What?"

  "How do you feel? Since the Fuckup?"

  Lucas grinned in spite of himself. The disaster at McGowan's had been dubbed the Fuckup. Everybody from the mayor to the janitors was using it. Lucas suspected everybody in town was. "I feel like shit."

  "So come on," Sloan urged. "We'll go over and jack that mother up. That ought to clear out your glands."

  It was better than sitting in the office. Lucas lurched to his feet. "All right. But I'll drive. Afterward we can go out and get something decent to eat."

  "You buying?"

  The shop assistant went into the back room to get Nester, who was not happy to see them.

  "I thought you understood my position," he said, heading for the telephone. "This has now become harassment. I'm going to call my attorney first thing, rather than listen to you at all."

  "That's up to you, Nester," Lucas said, baring his teeth. "It might not be a bad idea, in fact. We're trying to decide whether to bust you on felony fraud or to let Mrs. Rice's attorney handle it as a civil matter. You want to be stubborn, we'll put the cuffs on and drag you downtown and book you right now."

  The shop assistant's head was swinging back and forth like a spectator's at a tennis match. Nester glanced at him, his hand on the telephone, and said, "I have no idea what you're speaking of."

  "Sure you do," Lucas said. "We're talking about netsukes that might be worth a quarter-million dollars, that you were asked to valuate for insurance purposes. You told the owner that they were virtually worthless and bought them for a song."

  "I never," Nester sputtered. "I was never asked to valuate those netsukes. They were offered for sale and I paid the asking price. That is all."

  "That's not what Mrs
. Rice says. She's willing to take it to court."

  "Do you think a jury would believe some... some washerwoman instead of me? It is my word against hers-"

  "You wouldn't have a chance," Sloan said in his soapiest voice. "Not a chance. Here's a guy who fought for his country and brought home some souvenirs, not knowing what he had. Then he goes through life, a good guy, pushing a broom, and finally dies of cancer that slowly eats its way up his body, killing him inch by inch. He wants to sell whatever personal possessions he can, to help his wife after he's dead. She's aging herself and they're living hand to mouth. Probably eating dog food-I can guarantee they will be, by the time their lawyer gets done with it."