Buried Prey

by John Sandford

  An IA investigator named John Seat had concluded that both might be telling the truth—that she had been soliciting, and that Packard might have pressured her for freebies. Seat had been unable to come up with any hard evidence, and when the complainant told IA that she was tired of the whole thing and wanted to drop the complaint, the investigation ended and Packard walked.

  Packard continued with the force for another three years, then resigned, with a note that he’d gone to work with a suburban department east of St. Paul.

  “Sounds to me like Seat was pretty sure he was pushing her, but what are you gonna do? It’s all talk, no action, and no witnesses,” Ryan said.

  Lucas looked at a photograph: There was a resemblance to the Identi-Kit portrait, though Packard had a bulbous nose, and Barker had shown the killer’s nose as harsh and angled. But eyewitnesses, like Barker, were notoriously unreliable. That she could assemble a coherent image at all, that was picked out by other witnesses, was unusual. Getting a nose wrong—making it more “evil”—was a small enough thing. “Think I’ll look him up,” Lucas said. “Our guy used to go to a massage parlor. He liked his hookers.”

  “Long time ago, though,” Ryan said. “He could be dead.”

  ON HIS WAY OUT, three different detectives hooked Lucas into quick conversations about Marcy Sherrill; by the time he went out the door, he was hurrying to get away from it. Twenty minutes later, he was back at the BCA headquarters in St. Paul. He called in Sandy, the researcher, and outlined Del’s idea about possible practice teachers. Her eyes narrowed as he talked, and she said, “I’ll try, but I’d be willing to bet that the schools don’t track that stuff. I’d probably have to go out to the teachers’ colleges, teachertraining courses. I don’t know—”

  “Give it a try,” Lucas said.

  When Sandy was gone, he looked up Willard Packard, and learned that he was still on the job. His driver’s license ID showed a square-built balding man with dark hair and glasses—he had a corrective lens restriction on his license—weighing 230 pounds. He was clean-shaven.

  DEL CALLED and asked what Lucas wanted to do: “I’m going out to Woodbury to talk to a cop. You could ride along.”

  “See you in ten minutes,” Del said. “Want me to pick you up a Diet Coke?”

  “Yeah, that’d be good.”

  Lucas needed to check off Packard, just to get the name out of his hair, but had lost faith in the prospect of Packard being the killer—too many things were a bit off. He didn’t look quite right, and the man who shot Marcy, now that he thought about it, hadn’t used the gun like a trained police officer. The gun itself might be a common police weapon, but the shooter apparently hadn’t behaved like a cop.

  Probably. But then you really couldn’t tell how a cop would behave in a shooting situation, until you’d seen him in one. You hoped the training worked, but there was no guarantee.

  He sat thinking about that for a moment, groped for something else, realized he was treading water. He picked up the phone and called Bob Hillestad, a friend in Minneapolis Homicide, on his cell phone. Hillestad said, without preamble, “It’s a bitch, huh?”

  “Yeah, it is,” Lucas said. “Where’re you hosers at? You got anything at all?”

  “No. We got nothin’. Wait: we got that DNA, and we’ll run it through the database. It’s like everybody’s got both hands wrapped around their dicks, saying, ‘He’ll be in the database.’ Maybe he will be, but I don’t believe it, yet.”

  “Heard anything from Bloomington?”

  “A couple of people saw a white van leaving the neighborhood, pretty fast, at the right time. So Bloomington’s getting a list of white van owners. You know how many that’ll be? Someplace up in the five-digit area, is what they’re telling me. They’re saying it could go to six digits.”

  “Good luck on that,” Lucas said.

  “We’re all scratching around like a bunch of hens,” Hillestad said. “You guys got anything?”

  “I decided to look at one guy based on nothing, and he’s not gonna work out. You know who’s getting that list for Bloomington?”

  “No, but they’re going through the DMV. You could check over there.”

  Lucas rang off, called the DMV, got routed around, and finally came up with a database guy who was doing the list for Bloomington. “I’m not a cop, but it’s absurd. What’re they going to do with it? On the other hand, it takes ten minutes and I don’t have to print it out—I’m just sending an electronic file, so, no skin off my butt.”

  “Once you get the file, can you alphabetize it by the owners’ names?” Lucas asked.

  “Sure.” There was a slurp at the other end; the guy had a cup of coffee. “You want me to shoot it to you?”

  “Not yet—but put the list somewhere you can get at it. Hey, wait, could you do something to scan it, see if you’ve got a guy named Willard Packard on it?”

  “Hang on. Give me a couple of minutes.”

  The guy went away, and Del came in and Lucas pointed him at a chair, covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said, “Just a minute. Talking to the DMV.”

  The DMV guy came back and said, “No Willard Packard on the white van list, but I looked up Willard Packard out in Woodbury, and he’s got a champagne Toyota minivan and a blue Ford Explorer. Champagne, white, not that close, but they’re both light.”

  “Thanks. Keep the list active,” Lucas said. He hung up and said to Del, “Our guy owns a champagne minivan, but not a white one.”

  “Eyewitnesses suck,” Del said. “Let’s go jack him up.”

  THEY JACKED UP Packard about one-millionth of an inch, and then he unjacked himself. He lived in an apartment complex behind a shopping center, and came to the door in cargo shorts and a gray Army T-shirt with a sweat spot on the chest.

  His hair, what was left of it, was cropped right down to the skin, giving him what looked like a cranial five-o’clock shadow. That didn’t fit with what Barker had seen.

  A golf bag was leaning against the wall of the entry, and over his shoulder, in the living room, Lucas could see six-foot-tall stereo speakers: the place reeked of a post-divorce crib. Lucas and Del, standing in the hall, told him why they were calling.

  “Jesus—you guys are hassling me on something I was found innocent on, more’n twenty years ago? What’s up with that?”

  “We’re running down everything,” Lucas said. “Since Marcy Sherrill was killed—”

  “All right. But man, you gotta get ahold of Dan Ball at Woodbury PD. You can get him through the station—he’ll be in at three o’clock, or you can call him at home. Or call Bill Garvey, he was supervising yesterday: I was in a squad starting at three o’clock, until eleven. We were sitting outside Cub eating lunch when we heard on the radio about the shooting.”

  Lucas nodded. “So we’re cool. If we come by and ask for a DNA sample, you wouldn’t have a problem with it? Wouldn’t need to mention it to anybody.”

  “I got no problem with that,” Packard said. “So you got nothin’?”

  “We got nothin’,” Lucas said, turning away.

  “I worked that Jones thing, in a squad,” Packard said. “I kinda remember you. You were on patrol. You were a couple-three years younger than me, and I mostly worked west. Wasn’t Brian Hanson big on that case?”

  “Yeah. He was one of the lead guys,” Lucas said.

  “Reason I mention it, see, is he died a couple days ago. Kinda weird way,” Packard said.

  Lucas stopped. “Why weird?”

  “Well, they know he’s dead, but they can’t find the body. They found his boat driving around in the middle of Lake Vermilion, up north, with his hat in it, but no sign of him. There’s a thing in the Star Tribune this morning, inside. His daughter says he used to pee off the back of the boat; everybody tried to stop him doing it.”

  “Huh. Couple days ago?”

  “Yeah. Same day the Jones girls were found. Or maybe the next day. Weird, huh?”

  “Yeah, weird,” Lucas said.
“Huh.”

  OUT IN THE CAR, Lucas said, “You know, Hanson . . . Wouldn’t have to be a cop—it could be a cop’s friend, just asking about the case.”

  “I haven’t had any breakfast,” Del said. “Why don’t we stop over at Cub and get something? And figure this out.”

  They sat in the parking lot eating deli sandwiches, and talked about Hanson, then started back to the BCA. They were a mile out when Shrake called on Lucas’s cell: “Minneapolis SWAT’s outside a place off Portland about Forty-second, not on Portland but over a block, it’s like Fifth Avenue or something, no details but the word is, the guy inside is the one who shot Marcy.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what we’re hearing, man,” Shrake said. “Some biker guy. Supposedly some kind of grudge thing, Marcy had been bustin’ his balls. Jenkins and I are on the way over. We’ll keep you in touch—”

  “That makes no goddamn sense,” Lucas said. “That’s crazy. This doesn’t have anything to do with Marcy, it’s Barker who’s the one. That’s who the shooter was after.”

  “I’m just telling you what I hear,” Shrake said. “The guy’s a doper.”

  “We’re coming. We’re on 494 coming up to 94; get us some better directions. I think we’ll turn around and come up from the south.”

  “Might be quicker,” Shrake said. “And you better hurry.”

  “I bet they got a nine-one-one tip on the guy,” Lucas said.

  “Why? We got DNA on the shooter; giving up the wrong guy won’t help him.”

  Lucas said, “Yeah . . . maybe the guy doesn’t know about DNA. Or maybe he’s just fuckin’ with us. Or maybe he’s playing for time, maybe he’s getting his shit together and trying to get out of town.”

  MINNEAPOLIS HAD BARRICADED a two-block radius from the target home on Fifth Avenue, an older white-stuccoed place on an embankment with a two-car detached garage in back. They parked outside the perimeter, walked past Jenkins’s Crown Vic and through the perimeter, flashing their BCA identification at the uniformed cops barricading the streets.

  They found Jenkins and Shrake loitering outside the SWAT team’s command post. Lucas asked, “What’s happening?”

  “Still in there,” Jenkins said. “They got a negotiator on the phone; he says the guy sounds pretty high.”

  “Probably flushing all their junk down the toilet, what they can’t get up their noses,” Del said. “How many are in there?”

  “A guy named Donald Brett and his old lady, Roxanne. Maybe a kid. Probably a kid.”

  “I know that guy,” Del said.

  “Asshole?” Shrake asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Del said.

  Lucas: “Crazy enough to kill a cop?”

  “Probably,” Del said. “He’s your basic hometown psycho who’s been self-medicating with crank and cocaine for years.”

  “Can’t see anything from here,” Lucas said, peering down the street at the target house.

  “Couple guys went up and were getting ready to take the door down, a pit bull came around the house and started tearing up their ass, and they shot it. Dog’s still there,” Jenkins said. “When they went back to the door, Brett had pushed a table in the entryway. They can’t get the door open now.”

  “That’s a handy table,” Del said.

  “Probably done it before,” Shrake said.

  Lucas: “I’m gonna go find the guy in charge.”

  THEY FOUND the guy in charge, a Xavier Cruz, sitting on a tripod stool behind a SWAT van. Inside, another guy was sitting on the floor of the van, talking into a telephone, a finger in his off-ear: the negotiator. Cruz saw them coming and said, “Davenport. Del.”

  “How’d you figure the guy out?” Lucas asked.

  “Got a nine-one-one tip,” Cruz said. “Guy said he was bragging to friends over at the White Nights.”

  “You got the nine-one-one guy?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “He said he didn’t want to be involved,” Lucas suggested.

  “Something like that,” Cruz said. “Why?”

  Lucas said, “Because the guy on the phone was the killer. He did the same thing to us back on the Jones case. Did it twice; we still got the recordings.”

  Cruz said, “Huh,” like, maybe yes, maybe no.

  The negotiator was saying, “You gotta man up, Don. You gotta man up. You got responsibilities, you got a wife, you got kids. If you’re not involved, it won’t take long for us to figure it out.”

  Del said to Cruz, “If you put me on the phone, I can probably get him out of there in a couple of minutes.”

  Cruz studied him for a few seconds, then asked, “You pals?”

  “Not exactly. But he knows me. I don’t bullshit him.”

  Cruz shrugged: “Gotta ask the man,” and flipped a thumb at the negotiator.

  WHEN THE MAN TOOK a short break, they asked him, and he said, “I’m working him around. I don’t need somebody setting me back.”

  “If you think I’ll set you back, then let’s not do it,” Del said. “But I wouldn’t. I think I could get him to come out.”

  The man looked at Cruz, who shrugged again and said, “Brett’s got us by the nuts—we can’t get in, we can’t shoot in, we can’t even gas in, without knowing who else is in there. We know there are at least two more. . . .”

  They both looked at Del, and then the negotiator said, “I’ll give you a couple minutes with him, if he comes back on the phone.”

  THEY GOT BRETT BACK on the line, and after a little back-andforth, the negotiator gave the phone to Del.

  Del said, “Hey, Don, this is Del. Yeah, it’s Del. I saw you at Einstein’s a couple weeks ago, you were getting a bag of bagels, and we bullshitted for a while. Yeah, the Jewish chick. Yeah, yeah.” He listened for a minute, and then said, “Listen, Don, I know you didn’t do it. I know you didn’t. We’re looking for a guy, and it ain’t you. Not only are we looking for him, the guy was shot in the arm yesterday, and if you don’t have a bullet hole in your arm, you’re good. And we’re getting DNA from the blood from his bullet wound, and if it ain’t your DNA, then it wasn’t you. Yeah, yeah, hey, it was on TV. You been watching TV, haven’t you? Yeah, it’s been on TV.”

  After a moment, Del took the phone away from his ear and said, “He’s talking to his old lady. She was watching TV.”

  He listened on the phone for another minute, then said, “They’re not gonna shoot you. If you want, I’ll come up there, and you can come out behind me. We already told the SWAT boss that you didn’t do it. Yeah, yeah. We told him. He’s right here. Who’s that crying?”

  Another few seconds, then, “Of course she’s scared. She’s probably scared shitless. No point in staying in there, nobody here’s going away. Yeah, they’ll take you downtown, look for bullet holes, probably make you give them a DNA sample. . . . You just take a little swab and swab the inside of your cheek. The cheek in your mouth. Yeah . . . well, yeah, they’re a little pissed about the dog, but you’d be a little pissed, too, if a goddamn pit bull was biting your ass. . . . Wasn’t all that funny, from our point of view. Huh? Okay. Yeah, I’ll do that. I’ll come down and knock.”

  CRUZ ASKED, “You want a vest?”

  “Yeah, might as well,” Del said. “If he shoots me, I trust you to plug him.”

  “Think there’s a chance of that?” Cruz asked. “If there is—”

  “Nah, he’s not gonna shoot me,” Del said.

  “But take the vest,” Lucas said.

  “You want to come with me?” Del asked Lucas.

  “Fuck no,” Lucas said. “He might shoot both of us.”

  “I was planning to stand behind you,” Del said.

  “You guys slay me,” Cruz said, no sign of a smile. “A laugh a minute.”

  SO DEL WENT DOWN to the white house, walked up the bank to the front steps, and up the steps and peered in the window, then pulled open an outer screen door, and they saw him talking, and then talking some more, and then he opened the fro
nt door and they saw Brett in the doorway. He was a large man with a black beard.

  “He looks right,” Cruz said.

  “Yeah, he does,” Lucas admitted. “But it’s not him.”

  “I think it might be,” Cruz said.

  “He wouldn’t be coming out if he had a bullet hole,” Lucas said.

  “We’ll see,” Cruz said.

  Brett stepped out on the porch, Del said something, and he put his hands on top of his head, POW style, and Del backed away and Brett followed him. A SWAT guy came off the corner of the house, then another one, and a minute later, Brett was sitting on the lawn, his hands cuffed, and SWAT was inside the house.

  Lucas asked Cruz, as they walked toward the house, “Can I ask him one question?”

  “Okay with me, if it’s okay with him.”

  Del was standing over Brett, and Lucas came up and asked, “You give him his rights?” He could hear a girl child crying from up in the house.

  “Yeah, the SWAT guy did.”

  Lucas squatted next to the doper: “I got one question for you, about who might’ve told the cops that you were the shooter. The guy who ratted you out. It’s gotta be somebody about fifty years old. Fat. Black hair, big black beard. Know anybody like that?”

  Brett shook his head in exasperation: “Man, I’m a biker. Everybody’s heavy and fat and got a black beard.”

  Lucas stood up and shook his head at Del. “He’s . . . ah, fuck it.”

  Del asked Brett, “You got any kind of bullet hole in you?”

  “No, man, I never been shot.”

  “They’re gonna look at you downtown.”

  “Man, I keep telling you, I haven’t been shot,” Brett said. “They can take all the DNA they want, I’ll jack off in a bottle, whatever they need.”

  A SWAT guy came out carrying the girl. She was maybe five, and still crying, and her mother came out behind her, and she was crying.