Buried Prey p-21

by John Sandford

  The reason to think about it, he thought to himself as he drove away, was that if somebody drove Hanson’s car up to the lake, whether or not it was Hanson faking his own death, or a killer faking an accident, he’d have to have a way to get out, once he got in. If he didn’t have an accomplice, and he couldn’t use the car…

  “Then he’d have to know about the bike before he got here,” Lucas said aloud.

  He passed the casino turnoff a few minutes later and kept going. Called Weather and said, “I’ll be home tonight, late. Don’t wait up, but don’t shoot me, either.”

  “I wouldn’t shoot you anyway,” she said. “But I’ll warn Letty.”

  21

  Del walked up the sidewalk to Lucas’s house, saw Shrake’s Cadillac pull to the curb. He waited, hands thrust in the pockets of his jean jacket, until Shrake and Jenkins had caught up with him.

  “What’s going on?” Shrake asked, as he came up.

  “I don’t know,” Del said. “Weather called, but I just talked to Lucas, and he’s still three hours out.”

  “Let’s find out,” Jenkins said, leading the way to the door.

  Weather let them in and said, “We need to talk in a hurry, before Letty gets back. I don’t want her to see you.”

  “What’s up?” Del asked.

  “You want a beer? We’ve got Leinie’s and Negra Modelo.”

  They took two Leinie’s and a Negra Modelo, and she went and got them, and brought them back to the living room, where the three cops were still standing, looking uneasy. Weather wasn’t exactly a friend, except that she was married to Lucas: she was a little too smart, a little too commanding, a little too tight.

  In other words, a surgeon. She said, “Sit down, everyone. You look like you’re getting ready to stampede.”

  When they were sitting, she said, “The thing is, Lucas is going to kill whoever it was that killed Marcy. About five minutes later, people will start talking about how he and Marcy had a relationship back when they were both working for Minneapolis. Some people will say that Lucas murdered this man, whoever he is-”

  “I already sorta mentioned it to him,” Del said. “He didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “And you might be a little early on getting concerned,” Jenkins said. “Nobody has any idea of who the killer is.”

  “You have any doubt that Lucas will find him?” Weather asked.

  Shrake, Jenkins, and Del exchanged quick glances, and then Del said, “I wouldn’t bet against him. And when I talked to him, I got the feeling he’s got a sniff of the guy. Something’s going on, I could hear it in his voice.”

  “I could, too,” Weather said.

  They all looked around, and took nervous hits on their beers, and Shrake finally said, “So what?”

  “He’s going to find the guy, and then he’s going to kill him. Even if what he does is legitimate, he’ll be in a lot of trouble,” Weather said. “Somebody will come up with the fact that they had this relationship, and it’ll get in the papers and on television, and then the politicians will get involved, and the prosecutors will be talking

  … And Lucas is so angry, I don’t think he’ll be careful enough. I’m afraid he’s so angry that he’ll simply walk up and plug him. That’s what I’m saying.”

  Jenkins shook his head. “He’s too smart to do that out in public.”

  Weather interrupted: “But you see, it’d almost be better if he did it in public. But he can’t. But if he does it where there are no witnesses but you cops, that’s when all the speculation will begin. People will imagine what he did…”

  Shrake said, “Ah, shit… sorry.”

  Weather: “He feels terrible about the Jones girls, like he could have done more back then. And he thinks that letting this man go then probably got more girls killed. And now Marcy, and he sees it all going back to the beginning: he thinks it’s his fault.”

  “That’s nuts,” Del said. “I worked with him on that case, and he was the only guy who did anything. Quentin Daniel was running the show, and Lucas freaked him out. He couldn’t get Lucas into plainclothes fast enough. Lucas was the only guy who did anything.”

  “That’s not the way Lucas thinks, though,” Weather said. “And you know it. He blames himself when things go bad and he’s involved-he thinks he should be able to control everything.”

  Del said, “Okay.”

  “What I wanted to talk about,” Weather said, “is the possibility that you guys could kind of push him around. Make sure he’s not there when this man is caught. Get him out of the way, somehow, so he never has a chance to kill the guy.”

  “So the guy can while away his old age playing checkers in Stillwater?” Jenkins asked.

  “Oh, no. I don’t particularly care if somebody kills him,” Weather said. “I’ve got no problem with that at all. As long as it’s not Lucas who does it. If somebody has to shoot the guy, I think one of you should do it. Or some other cop. If one of you shot him, especially Jenkins or Shrake, because you never worked with Marcy… I don’t think anybody would question it, especially if the guy was carrying a gun.”

  “What if he isn’t?” Jenkins asked.

  “Let’s not go there,” Weather said. “But it would be convenient if he were.”

  Nobody said anything for a few seconds, taking it in, and then Shrake said, “We shouldn’t talk about this anymore. The word ‘conspiracy’ comes to mind.”

  “Had to come out,” Weather said. “We don’t have to talk about what happens to this guy, because I’m just not worried about what happens to him. Thirty years in Stillwater would be okay with me. I’m concerned about Lucas.”

  “Ah, Jesus,” Del said.

  “You think I’m right, don’t you?” Weather asked.

  Del nodded, looked at Shrake and Jenkins, and they both nodded. Shrake said, “I figured that Lucas would waste the guy. The rest of it never occurred to me-the way it would look. You’re right, there’s gonna be a hell of a stink… if we don’t do something.”

  Jenkins, Shrake, and Del were long gone by the time Lucas pulled into the driveway, their beer bottles trashed with the recycling. The house was quiet when he came in through the garage-he turned on the kitchen light, looked in the refrigerator, found a chicken salad sandwich left by the housekeeper, and a bottle of Leinie’s. He sat down to eat in the breakfast nook, and heard bare feet coming down the stairs. A moment later, Letty stuck her head in the kitchen. “Hey.”

  “You’re up late,” he said.

  “Yeah. Mom’s cutting in the morning, so she went to bed at ten. Gotta be quiet when you go up.”

  “Okay. You know what she’s doing?”

  “Rhino, and then she’s covering some burns,” Letty said.

  She watched him chew until he asked, “What?”

  “Mom thinks you’re onto something. You know who killed her?”

  Lucas shook his head: “You might blab to Jennifer.” Jennifer Carey worked for Channel Three, where Letty was an unofficial intern.

  “Would not,” Letty said. “Not unless you told me I could.”

  Lucas said, “All right. I’ve got a couple of ideas.” He told her about Hanson’s mysterious disappearance. “I’m thinking he knew the person who did it, and that person got worried and killed him.”

  “When are you going to find out?”

  “Pretty soon,” he said.

  “So this is the time you gotta be really careful,” Letty said. “If you’re gonna take him out.”

  “You worry too much.”

  “You’re right. And you’re not worried enough.”

  He snuck into bed, quiet and silent as a cat burglar, and then Weather said in the dark, “I hope your daughter gave you a good talking-to.”

  “Ah, yeah… she did.”

  “Good. I’m going to sleep now, so I don’t cut off poor Mrs. Johnson’s nose.”

  Rhino, Lucas thought, as he drifted away, for rhinoplasty. From the Greek rhino for nose, plus plassein, to shape. A nose
job, in other words.

  But he didn’t dream of rhinos; he dreamed of the mysterious Fell.

  I do not like thee, Dr. Fell…

  Weather got up at five-thirty, and Lucas at eight, early for him. He hadn’t felt her go; he usually didn’t. He stretched, yawned, did some push-ups and crunches, got cleaned up, got his gun, sat down in his den, and made a call.

  Quentin Daniel picked up and in an old man’s voice said, “What?”

  “This is Davenport. I need to talk.”

  “That was a bad day,” Daniel said. “That was about as bad a day as I’ve had since Carol died. On top of the Jones kids coming up-”

  “That’s what I need to talk about.”

  “When?”

  “How about now?” Lucas suggested.

  “You know where that Starbucks is, down the street from me?” Daniel asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Meet you there in thirty minutes,” Daniel said.

  Quentin Daniel had been a ranking detective when Lucas first met him, and later, for eight years, the chief of police. He’d done some bad things in his time, and he knew it, as did Lucas, and they’d never been quite square since.

  But Daniel was smart and had been a good investigator, and knew the Jones case and also knew his cops. That, in fact, had been his most serious strength: he knew his investigators so well that he’d match them to cases that he knew would catch their imaginations, and they’d work all the harder for it. He’d also had complete confidence in his own intelligence, and other smart cops didn’t intimidate him. He saw the intelligence of others as simply another weapon in his arsenal.

  Lucas had been his finest weapon.

  Lucas crossed the street to the Starbucks just as Daniel opened the door to go inside. He’d always been a bigger man, but now had thinned down; his hair was longer, and silvery gray, and he was dressed for golf in a red shirt and white slacks, with athletic shoes. He must be in his middle seventies, Lucas thought.

  He held the door for Lucas, said, “You’re looking rich,” and Lucas asked, “What’s your handicap now?” Daniel said, “Same as always: my swing.”

  Inside, Daniel ordered a skinny half-caff no-foam latte and Lucas got a bottle of orange juice from the cooler. “Get a table while I’m waiting,” Daniel said.

  Lucas found a table in the corner, and when Daniel came over, asked, “How’ve you been?”

  “I’ve lost twenty pounds and gotten my cholesterol lower than my IQ. Of course, I’m eating nothing but twigs.”

  They chatted for a minute, and Daniel asked about Lucas’s kids, and Lucas filled him in, and then Lucas said, “You remember, way back when, on the Jones case, I was running after a guy named Fell?”

  “I remember you were running after a guy,” Daniel said. “There was something unusual about him.”

  Lucas filled him in and Daniel started nodding. “I got it now,” he said. Then Lucas told him about the weird death of Brian Hanson, and the timing, and his thoughts about the possibility that somebody on the force had been talking to the killer.

  “So what I want to ask you-you knew these people better than anyone-do you know anyone that Hanson might have been talking to? Did you ever have any feeling that he was worried about it, that there was anything going on there?”

  Daniel took a sip of his coffee, then leaned back and closed his eyes, silent for so long that Lucas thought he might be into a serious senior moment; then he opened his eyes and said, “Hanson had some kind of a family problem. Something criminal, and it involved sex. Not here, though-not in Minneapolis. I remember hearing that he was maneuvering around, trying to get something done, and I had somebody tell him to take it easy. You know, unofficially. Be careful about asking for favors.”

  Lucas said, “Really.”

  “You’re not surprised.”

  “There are some indications, if you have a suspicious mind, that suggest the killer was close to Hanson. I saw a picture of his kid, when the kid was still young, a teenager, and he sort of looks like the description of Fell, except that he wasn’t fat. And the guy who shot Marcy had a black beard-and I’ve been told that Hanson’s son can’t grow a beard.”

  “Maybe if you were planning to gun somebody down in a quiet neighborhood, where it’d get noticed, you’d want to invest two dollars in a disguise,” Daniel said.

  “Could happen,” Lucas said. “Do you remember anything else at all?”

  Daniel leaned back, looked out the window for a minute-a young mom pushing a stroller, looking satisfied with herself-and took a hit on his coffee. Turning back to Lucas, he said, “You know, I don’t. It was something serious, but not for us. Brian fixed it somehow-talked to some pals, got a lawyer. Never had any hint that his kid might have been involved in the Jones case. I think Brian would have told us, if he thought that. But if you think Hanson’s death might be involved, I’d take a look at the kid.”

  “That’s the biggest hint we’ve gotten so far,” Lucas said.

  “And that’s all I got for you,” Daniel said. “I wish I had more. Marcy being killed… goddamnit, I can’t get it off my back. I didn’t know her long, before I retired, but she was a comer. I keep thinking about her. I keep seeing her.”

  Lucas nodded: “So do I. I keep wanting to call her up, tell her some stuff.”

  Lucas drove back to the BCA and found Sandy. She was wearing one of her long light hippie dresses, and a pair of round sunglasses that she thought made her look like Yoko Ono or somebody, but actually made her look like one of the three blind mice. He told her what he needed, and in one minute, she’d found Hanson’s kid’s driver’s license information, including his current address, in a nice neighborhood in St. Paul. In two minutes, they’d downloaded his driver’s license photo. They printed it; he told Sandy he needed everything they could get on him, and headed back to his car.

  His cell phone rang as he was getting in: Sandy. “I dug through the records. He’s got a Chevy van, white in color.”

  “Ah, jeez… Sandy!”

  Dorcas Ryan, the onetime massage parlor hooker, worked the second shift, so she should be home, he thought. Twenty minutes later, he parked in front her house, and through the kitchen window, saw her looking out at him.

  He walked up the sidewalk; she was opening the door as he came up. He didn’t go inside: he simply handed her the digital copy of Hanson’s driver’s license photo, without saying a word. She took it, peered at it, said, “Just a minute,” retreated back inside, returned with a pair of reading glasses, put them on her nose, and looked again at the picture.

  She said, “Ah. It’s been a long time.”

  “The kid… is that Fell?”

  “It could be,” Ryan said. “If I were in a court, and they asked me to swear to it, I don’t think I could. I could say it could be. But it’s been a long time.”

  “Don’t tell anybody about this. If he’s the killer, we want to snap him up.”

  “Who would I tell?” Ryan asked.

  “Anybody,” Lucas said. “You tell a friend, and she tells somebody else, and they call Channel Three… there you are.”

  “Won’t tell a soul,” Ryan said. “Not until I hear he’s dead.”

  “He might not be dead-”

  She snorted. “A cop killer, is what I hear on TV. A lady-cop killer. What are his chances?”

  Lucas walked away, thinking, Everybody thinks we’re gonna kill Fell. He remembered Letty’s warning: gotta be cool.

  After leaving Ryan, he headed back toward the BCA, got on his cell phone as he drove, and called Del. Del had just gotten up, was eating breakfast. “I got a break,” he said.

  “I thought something was up,” Del said. “I told Shrake and Jenkins to hang loose.”

  “See you at the office,” Lucas said.

  He started by pulling all of Hanson’s DMV information. At the time of the Jones killings, he had been twenty-seven. Just right, Lucas thought. He ran the information through the NCIC and came up empty: Hanson had n
o criminal record.

  Del showed up, and Lucas told him about Hanson. “If he’s the one.. you think he killed his old man? I mean, Jesus.”

  “If he’s the one, he’s a fruitcake. A psycho,” Lucas said. “His old man was a cop, and Daniel says, knowing Hanson, if he smelled it on his kid, he’d have let us know. And the kid might have known that. This was a guy who set up that whole Dr. Fell routine… he’s a planner.”

  Sandy came in. “Hanson went to the University of Minnesota, here in the Cities. Got a degree in horticultural science. Last job I can find was at a place called Clean Genes, whatever that means.”

  “Not quite right,” Del said.

  Lucas said to Del, “Did I tell you he drives a white van?”

  “That’s something,” Del said to Lucas.

  “Nothing to say horticultural scientists can’t read nursery rhymes,” Lucas said.

  Lucas asked Sandy, “How’d you do this? Some kind of weird computer shit?”

  “I looked him up on Facebook,” Sandy said. “His Facebook page says he graduated from the U, and I took a quick peek at his records-don’t tell anybody about that. He did pretty well.”

  Del asked, “What are we doing?”

  “I want to look in Hanson’s house,” Lucas said. “Brian Hanson’s. See what I can see. See if there’s anything that would point us at the kid.”

  “St. Louis Park’s been inside of it, when the deputies called from up north,” Del said. “We could give them a call.”

  Lucas called St. Louis Park, talked to a Lieutenant Carl Wright. “I think we can get you in-I’d have to check with the chief,” Wright said. “Part of the investigation into his disappearance?”

  “That’s exactly what it is,” Lucas said. “When you went in the first time, did you move stuff around, or just walk through?”

  “Walked through-for all we knew, he’d be coming back, so we didn’t disturb anything.”

  “Excellent,” Lucas said. “We’ll start your way. If there’s a problem, give me a call on my cell phone. Also, I don’t want the relatives to know about this, if they get in touch with you.”