Phantom prey ld-18

by John Sandford

  “That’d be philandering,” Lucas said. “Philately is stamp collecting.”

  “That’s what I meant-stamp-collecting.” Lucas scrubbed an index finger across his philtrum, then said, “You’re right about the money and fucking. And when you’re right, you’re right.”

  Lucas said, “Are they arguing?” Del looked across the street, where the old lady was jabbing her finger at Heather. “Looks like it.” Heather laughed and said something, and the old lady laughed. “On the other hand, maybe not.” Lucas said, “You’ve been grousing about your old lady. Everything okay?"

  "Ah, everything’s okay, but she’s been sick for a couple of weeks,” Del said. “Not enough to go to the doctor, but, you know. Doesn’t want to walk around much: her stomach is upset.”

  “Jeez, man, a couple of weeks? That could be something serious. You gotta get her to a doc.”

  “There are two kinds of nurses,” Del said; his wife was a nurse. “There’s the kind who think the sun shines out of a doctor’s asshole, and the kind that think most doctors are running a long- term hustle, and who don’t trust them any further than they could throw them. I got one of the second kind.”

  He turned his head to the window: “Old lady’s leaving,” he said. “Looks like it’s bedtime.”

  “She’ll be changing into her nightgown,” Lucas said. “Can I borrow the glasses?"

  "Get your own fuckin’ glasses.” Eric Clapton: “Willie amp; the Hand Jive.”

  After a restless night-disturbed a last time by Weather getting ready for work-Lucas had breakfast with the kids, talked to Letty about hip- hop music, stuffed creamed corn and whipped ham into Sam’s mouth, and argued with the housekeeper about the lawn service, which wanted, too early in the year, in Lucas’s opinion, to schedule a winter cleanup. At eight o’clock, he was on the phone to Alyssa Austin.

  “I was wondering-have you begun organizing the financial records for Frances’s estate?”

  “Not yet, really-there’s an accountant and a lawyer, but they’re not pushing too hard,” Austin said. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Would it be possible for me to look at her financial records? Checkbook and investment records? All that?”

  “Of course, if you think there might be something in there.” He hesitated for a moment, then said, “There was another Goth killing last night."

  "Oh, no!” Her voice was a groan. “Who was it?"

  "A kid named Roy Carter,” Lucas said. “Middle twenties, I guess, worked in a liquor store and hung out at the A1 and November, at least some of the time. Did Frances ever mention the name?”

  “Not that I remember. She had friends I didn’t know, but he wasn’t one of the long- term ones. What’d he look like?”

  “Tall, pale, red hair, thin-bony, almost,” Lucas said. “That doesn’t sound familiar… Does he have a family?"

  "Yeah, his parents are postal workers, I guess. Out in the country-side, somewhere."

  "That’s awful for them. That’s awful,” Austin said. “So I can get that stuff?"

  "Yes. I’ll put it all out for you. I’ve got a board meeting today, but Helen will be here. I’ll stack it up in the front room. You’re welcome to stay as long you want. Helen can get you Cokes and coffee and sandwiches.”

  “One more thing. Have you heard of a couple…” He looked in his notebook again. "… named Denise Robinson and Mark McGuire?”

  “Sure. They were friends of Francie’s. I should have given you their names, but I didn’t think of them,” she said. “They came by with her a couple of times after Hunter was killed, last fall sometime.”

  “What does Robinson look like?"

  "Mmm, tall, gawky, blondish hair-sandy, maybe-wears big plastic- rimmed glasses. She’s a marathoner. Bony shoulders, drinking straw arms. She told me that she ran it under three, which means she’s pretty serious about it. Why?"

  "Just a couple names I picked up,” he said. “I’m pushing all of Frances’s friends for names.”

  And Robinson didn’t sound like a fairy, he thought after he’d rung off.

  He called Anson, the Minneapolis detective, from the car, on the way to Austin’s house. Anson was sleepy: he’d gotten six hours the night before. “And I gotta have eight, or I’m just not worth shit.” They both yawned together, into their phones, and Anson added, “We got the ID last night, it’s confirmed. I got our guys to make up a mug shot of the fairy-I’m going to run it around this morning, talk to all those people on your list.”

  “Let me know what you get,” Lucas said. “I’m on the way over to Alyssa Austin’s to look at her daughter’s financial records.”

  If nothing came up sooner, they agreed to talk at noon, to compare notes.

  Lucas found four boxes of records waiting for him at Austin’s. The housekeeper met him at the door, took him into the living room, said, “Mrs. Austin said to try to keep all the folders together, because there’s really a lot of paper and if it gets confused, they might not ever get it straight again.”

  Austin had been right about the paper. There were two intersecting sets of records: Hunter Austin’s estate, two million of which went to Frances, while the rest went to Alyssa; and then Frances’s estate, which included not only the two million from Hunter Austin’s estate, but another half- million that she had apparently accumulated earlier, presumably through gifts and investments made on her behalf.

  Hunter Austin’s estate was still mostly intact, because the estate return had only recently been accepted by the IRS; and all of his investment, banking, and retirement accounts and trusts were still operating. That produced dozens of checks coming and going each year, on top of money coming in from his investments.

  Frances Austin had had two major accounts of her own, one with Wells Fargo investment services, and one with Fidelity Investments. As money came in from one or the other-about a quarter of her accounts were in bonds that produced regular income that she apparently used for living expenses-it was deposited in her checking account, which was also at Wells Fargo.

  The totality was confusing. At eleven o’clock, though, his neck and back muscles starting to cramp, he had what could be a breakthrough. In December, Fidelity had issued a check for fifty thousand dollars to Frances. There was no check form where the other check forms were, and there was no record of the fifty thousand going into her checking account.

  Where had the money gone? Had she simply endorsed it to somebody? Had she walked it into a bank and gotten cash-not all that easy to do, in these days of drug awareness and terrorism alerts. What had she spent it on?

  Del had been right, the night before, when he said that people had been killed for a lot less than two million dollars; and a lot less than fifty thousand dollars, too.

  He stood up, stretched, went into the kitchen for another diet Coke, found the housekeeper unstacking the dishwasher. “Do you have a cell phone number for Mrs. Austin?”

  “There’s a list,” she said. She went to a cupboard near the wall phone and opened the door: on the back of it was a list of fifteen or twenty phone numbers: plumber, appliance repairmen, lawn and pool services, Mercedes and Jaguar dealerships, and three different numbers for Alyssa Austin: Office, 1Cell, and 2Cell.

  “Her personal phone is 2Cell; 1Cell is the business cell,” the housekeeper said.

  Lucas called her on the personal phone: she answered on the third ring. “Sorry to bother you,” Lucas said. “I have a question. Frances took fifty thousand dollars out of Fidelity in December, but there’s no record of it going into her checking account. Do you remember anything like that? Did she sign it over to somebody for a car or something, or put a down payment on a condo?”

  There was a long pause, and then Austin said, “Fifty thousand? I don’t know anything about that, at all. I would have known-if she was thinking about spending fifty thousand dollars on something, she would have mentioned it.”

  “She didn’t say anything?"

  "Nothing at all,” Austin said. “I’m go
ing to leave some documentation in a folder on your dining table,” Lucas said. “Could you take a look at it, and the other expenses she had at the time? See if anything rings a bell.”

  “I’ll look as soon as I get home- I’ll come back as soon as this meeting is done.”

  “Good. Let me give you my cell number. Call me anytime.” When he got off the line, he took out his book and found Anson’s number. “Get anything?” he asked, when Anson came up. “I took that photo kit of the fairy woman around to the people who saw her,” Anson said. “And to Frances’s friends. One of her friends said the fairy looked like… guess who?”

  “I don’t know. Lana Turner?"

  "Close, but no cigar. They said it looked like Frances Austin.”

  8

  A slap in the face. “Frances Austin’s dead,” Lucas said. “You know that and I know that,” Anson said. “The question is, does Frances Austin know that?"

  "Man… the blood at Austin’s. You’ve seen the lab reports?"

  "I’m just telling you what I was told. We really don’t know how much blood there was at Austin’s place, whether it was a little that got smeared around or a lot that got mopped up. But here’s a question for you. What if the Fairy is Alyssa Austin? She looks a little like Frances.”

  Lucas had to think it over. Why not? “You’re thinking outside the box,” he said finally.

  “She gets a wig, she gets some black clothes…"

  "She’s forty- five, or something like that. Everybody says the Fairy is in her early twenties,” Lucas said. “Yeah, that’s a question,” Anson said. “Still, I wouldn’t mind getting a peek in her wig drawer.” Lucas thought, I’m right there. He glanced sideways. The house-keeper was twenty feet away, poking a coat- hanger wire down the drain on the left side of the two- basin kitchen sink, her lips moving, as though she were trying to talk it into the garbage disposal. Paying no attention. But how was he going to get into the bedroom? The housekeeper wouldn’t be leaving for hours. And if he found anything, could he tell Anson? It’d be an illegal search and he didn’t know Anson that well. “We’d need something,” he said. “To get a warrant.”

  “Think of something,” Anson said. Disappointed? “Did you get anything?”

  Lucas told him about the missing fifty thousand dollars. “Looks like she just cashed the check, or signed it over to somebody. Or something. Anyway, it doesn’t pop up in any of her accounts that I can find.”

  There was a silence of several seconds, then Anson said, “Fifty grand?”

  “Yeah. The question is, what would she use it for? She doesn’t seem like a gambler. Cocaine? Doesn’t seem like that kind, either. Maybe… who knows, maybe she was buying photography equipment or computers or something. But Alyssa says she doesn’t know, and she thinks that she would.”

  “So now what?"

  "I’ll get my financial guys to look into it. Maybe go back to the A1 tonight. People knew her there. See if she was throwing any money around, talking about anything.”

  “What about the photo kit?"

  "Gotta think about that. Fax one to me, will you? I’ll look at it later.”

  Lucas headed back to the BCA, with copies of the Fidelity documents made on Alyssa Austin’s home- office copier. Give them to the accountants, he thought, and let them figure it out.

  He’d parked, was out of the car, walking toward the door, head down, when Jenkins and Shrake came hustling out of the building, carrying vests.

  He stopped. “Where’re you going?"

  "Antsy Toms is back in town,” Shrake said. “I’m coming,” Lucas said. “Let me get my vest.” He ran inside, up the stairs, down to his office, threw the copies at his secretary, Carol, and blurted, “Give these to Dan Hall, find out who cashed the fifty- thousand- dollar check.” She said, “What?” and he pulled his vest out from behind his file cabinets, shouted, “Dan Hall, find out about the check, the fifty grand.”

  “Where’re you going?"

  "Antsy Toms is back in town,” he said, and he ran past her, down the hall and back down the stairs. Shrake was at the wheel of his personal Crown Vic, waiting in the street. Lucas climbed in the back.

  “Where is he?"

  "At his mom’s house in Frogtown,” Jenkins said, as Shrake jumped on the gas. “We own the guy who lives across the street. He’s on his second continuance on coke charges. He’s been going down to the cathedral, lighting candles, hoping that Antsy would show up so he could turn him in.”

  “He wouldn’t be shittin’ you?” Lucas asked. Jenkins snorted. “He ain’t gettin’ a third continuance."

  "Gotta stay cool,” Lucas said. “Antsy’s got more muscle than Rocky II."

  "And he’s more fucked up than Rocky the Flying Squirrel,” Shrake said. “I’m just praying he hasn’t left."

  "Is St. Paul on the way?” Lucas asked. Long pause. Then Jenkins said, “I guess we forgot to call them."

  "You morons,” Lucas said. Jenkins struggled, turned in his seat, and looked at Lucas: “Call them if you want, you yellow motherfucker.”

  They looked at each other for a minute, then Lucas said, “Whatever.”

  Shrake busted a red light turning onto University, and the Crown Vic took about three turns that the road didn’t, and Lucas said, “I can’t believe you went out and bought this piece of shit.”

  “Couldn’t help myself,” Shrake said. “The seats fit my ass."

  "The experts rated it on Microsoft Network,” Jenkins said over his shoulder. “How’d they rate it?"

  "Six out of ten,” Jenkins said. Then he made a laugh sound that went like “bwa- hahahah,” and Shrake said, “Fuck you,” and then, “We’re four blocks out.”

  “Put it at the Taco Shed,” Jenkins suggested. “Somebody’ll steal the tires,” Shrake said. “Not when they see us getting out of the car,” Jenkins said. He reached between his legs and swung up a pump shotgun. “Maybe we could rob the Taco Shed before we take Antsy,” Lucas said. “Not a bad idea,” Jenkins said, “except that it’s daylight.” A block from the Taco Shed, Jenkins called St. Paul and identified himself: “We’ve got a semi- confirmed tip that Antsy Toms is at his mother’s house.”

  He gave them the details, and help was on the way. It’d get there only a minute or so too late, Lucas thought: as planned.

  The Taco Shed was two houses sideways from Toms’s mother’s place. In addition to being Siggy’s stupid younger brother, and occasional cocaine runner, Toms was a weight guy, a lifter, a bouncer, a steroid freak, and a meth enthusiast. Three weeks earlier, stoned out of his mind, and tired of constant cop probes about his brother, he’d beaten a St. Paul cop unconscious, then pinned him on the floor and methodically kicked his balls until they turned to ravioli.

  The cop’s partner, a twenty- four-year-old woman named Les Cooper, had gotten into it, and Toms had picked her up by the short hair at the back of her head and whacked her face twice against a mahogany bar, crushing the bones around her eye sockets. She was the niece of a BCA agent who worked out of the Bemidji office.

  Toms had always been a cruel, racist, child- beating, dope- taking freak, and had always walked… until now. He’d been hiding out ever since he’d beaten up the cops, but had been seen a couple times in western Wisconsin and north of the Twin Cities in St. Cloud, so they knew he was still around.

  His real name, Lucas had once been told, was Antanas. From there, Antsy was a natural: maybe the name had made him what he was. Like Bugsy…

  They made the Taco Shed parking lot and climbed out of the car, three large men wearing bulletproof vests. Shrake hit the locks and the car beeped at them and they ran across the lawn of the first house and then up the porch steps of the second house and Shrake kicked the door and they were inside and there was Antsy, standing in the middle of the living room with an old- fashioned princess phone in his hand.

  Jenkins pointed the shotgun at him and screamed, “On the floor, you piece of shit,” and Antsy threw the phone at Jenkins’s head and spun and ra
n for the stairs. Jenkins ducked and pointed the shotgun, but shook his head and screamed, “Stop… wait, wait.”

  Antsy’s mother, a large woman in blue Nike workout sweats, appeared in the kitchen doorway carrying a cutting board as though it were a Ping- Pong paddle and she threw it overhand at Lucas, who ducked, and then Shrake was on the stairs going after Antsy and they heard a rumble and Antsy’s mom yelled, “Not the organ,” and an old Hammond electric organ flew down the stairs like a freight train and Shrake jumped down just in front of it.

  As it crashed at the bottom of the stairs, they heard windows breaking upstairs and Lucas yelled, “He’s going out the window,” and Jenkins yelled, “I’m going up, you guys go out,” and he pushed the shotgun out in front of him and took the stairs.

  Shrake ran toward the front door and Lucas toward the back of the house, through the kitchen. Antsy’s mom had run back into the kitchen after the organ crashed, and she pulled a butcher knife out of a drawer and blocked Lucas’s route past the kitchen counter.

  Lucas got in close, then punched her with a good right hand and she flew ass- over- teakettle under the breakfast table. Lucas went out the back door and around to the side, where he saw Shrake coming toward him. Antsy, appropriately dressed in a wife- beater shirt, jeans, and socks, with no shoes, had climbed out of a dormer window, hesitated on the edge of the roof, just above the gutter, thinking about jumping, twelve feet up.

  Then the barrel of Jenkins’s shotgun poked through a broken window and hit him between the shoulder blades, hard, and he tipped forward, tried to catch himself, swinging his hands in little circles, said, “Shit,” and jumped off the roof and landed in the neighbor’s hedge.

  Shaken and maybe hurt, he rolled onto his stomach and Shrake ran up and screamed, “Look out, look out,” and punted Antsy in the teeth. Antsy was flopped over on his hands and knees, still in the hedge, which seemed to be some kind of prickly stuff, roses, maybe, and Shrake took the opportunity to kick him in the balls, hard, with a steel toed brogan.