Chosen Prey (29 page)

"Do we want a bigger one?" she asked.

He looked around: He'd been in the place for better than ten years, and it fit him reasonably well--but if there were children and a wife, things might be a little tight.

"Maybe."

The talk kept him up even after Weather was sleeping: night thoughts about big changes. The idea of a change didn't worry him much, he realized, somewhat surprised at himself. When he really thought about it, he didn't think as much about this house as he did of the house he might have.

More space; a media room and a workshop. A real study, instead of a converted bedroom. A nice master suite, extra bedrooms for the kids. Kids. What all would they need? With Weather committed to surgery, maybe they ought to think about a full-time housekeeper. . . .

He liked the neighborhood, and the neighbors. He would miss it, and them, if they moved. How about this: Maybe live in Weather's place for a while, and remodel this place, or even take it out and design and build something new?

There was plenty of room to expand into the backyard. He'd need a bigger garage, for sure, maybe with four places. A bigger basement workshop would be nice, and maybe they could build a completely dry basement this time.

When he went to sleep, he was thinking about table saws. He didn't have much use for one, but he'd been looking at them in hardware stores. Interesting tools. Lots of parts. You could sit in the basement and fool around with a table saw for hours. Big table saw, and maybe a planer/jointer. He could make furniture. . . . Zzz.

WHEN THE PHONE rang, it was still dark. Weather moaned, "I'd forgotten about this part. The calls in the middle of the night."

"Five-thirty," he said; the clock's green numerals glowed at him through the dark. He found the phone, picked it up, groggy. "Yeah?"

"Chief Davenport?" He could hear traffic in the background.

"Speaking."

"This is John Davis, I'm a St. Paul patrol sergeant. Lieutenant Allport said I ought to give you a call."

Lucas sat up. "Yeah, John, what's going on?"

"I'm with a garbage crew out on East Seventh, out at the Kanpur Indian restaurant? They pulled a body out of the dumpster an hour or so ago. We don't have an ID, but she's young, small, blond, naked, and she's been strangled with a rope. It might not have anything to do with your case, but Allport says to tell you that she fits the profile of all them women you been digging up . . ."

"Ah, jeez."

". . . and she fits the description of a woman who was supposed to be living with Randy Whitcomb. We don't know for sure yet, but we're taking some blood samples and oughta know pretty quick. We're trying to find a neighbor of Whitcomb's who saw her a few times. One of our guys supposedly talked to this neighbor, but we don't have her name yet."

"All right." Lucas thought for a minute, felt the power of the bed pulling him down. "If I came down, would there be anything for me to see?"

"Well, just the body, like they found it. We're giving it the full routine, so it's gonna be here for a while. You could look at the tapes later. Maybe if we get the neighbor down here . . ."

"Ah . . . Listen, keep working. I'm gonna try to make it over."

"You know where it is?"

"Yeah. And listen, let me give you a number. . . ." He gave the cop Del's number and said, "He was looking for some other women who worked for Randy, and they might have seen this chick, too, if you can't find the neighbor."

"All right to call him in the middle of the night?"

"Oh, hell, yes. Del's an early riser--I wouldn't be surprised if he was up already," Lucas said.

HE TOOK THE Tahoe for its cup holders, stopped at a Super America and got two big cups of coffee and a box of powdered doughnuts, and pulled into the Kanpur's parking lot a half hour after the call from the St. Paul cop. The back of the store was dimly lit by two distant orange sodium-vapor security lights, a variety of lights from the cop cars, and the light from a video camera. Several cops turned to look when Lucas pulled into the lot, and when he got out, a sergeant broke away from the group and walked over.

"John Davis," he said, and they shook hands. "She looks pretty bad." The dumpster was against the back wall of the store, and they walked over together. "She might have gone right into the truck, except that the dumpster was overfilled and the driver got out to toss a couple of bags before he hooked it up."

"She was right on top?"

"She was down a way. The driver threw a couple of bags off and saw her arm."

"Pretty dark," Lucas said.

"They have lights on the truck so they can see to hook up the dumpster."

Lucas looked in. The dead woman was naked, as advertised, her face innocent but gray, her eyes half open. She had deep ligature wounds on her neck, a rime of blood around her mouth. One arm was bent sideways and disappeared under the garbage bags to her right. The other was sitting on top of her chest.

"She does fit the profile," Lucas said. "You got a flashlight?"

Davis handed him a flashlight and he pointed it at the visible hand, and bent farther into the dumpster.

"What?" David asked.

"She's got a broken fingernail . . . two broken fingernails," Lucas said.

"Trying to defend herself."

"We've got a guy with a theory," Lucas said. "If he's right, we gotta take a close look at the rug up at Randy's."

As Lucas pushed back from the dumpster and handed the flashlight to Davis, Del pulled into the lot and got out of the car. He didn't look much like a cop, and he held up a badge to the St. Paul cops who started toward him.

"Coffee in the truck," Lucas called.

Del swerved over to the Tahoe, opened the door, and a moment later continued across the lot to where they were standing and introduced himself to Davis. To Lucas he said, "I was planning to kill you for having them call me, but with the coffee . . ." He slurped at the cup.

"There's a possibility that she's Randy's girl," Lucas said.

"John told me," Del said. "There's one chick living with DDT--not Charmin', but the one named Melissa? She might have seen her last week at a party up on Como."

"You called DDT?"

"Yeah. There was a game last night over at the Target Center, and Melissa was working it. She didn't expect to get back last night, and she didn't."

"So she's shacked up somewhere downtown with a fuckin' basketball player."

"Yeah, and I hope one of the Chicago guys," Del said. "She didn't look that healthy."

"Does he have any idea when she might get back?" Lucas asked.

"He thought maybe midmorning."

"Goddamnit. Be nice if he could have tossed her in the backseat and dragged her ass over here."

"Early enough to miss the rush, too," Del said, taking another hit of the coffee.

Davis said, "We rousted the guy who talked to Whitcomb's neighbor, and we got her name and sent a squad over. I haven't heard back yet." He turned and looked across the lot at a couple of St. Paul cops who were blocking the parking lot but not doing much else. "Hey, one of you guys call Polaroid and ask him if he's found that neighbor."

One of the cops lifted a hand and fit himself inside a squad. A few seconds later, he slid out of the car and said, "They're on the way back here. They got her."

Lucas nodded. "All right."

"These other strangled chicks . . . were they on the corner?" Davis asked.

"The idea came up, but it doesn't look like it," Lucas said. "This is"--he waved a hand at the dumpster--"out of whack."

"And Whitcomb can't talk."

THE NEIGHBOR WAS named Megan Earle. She'd put on her red parka for the trip across town, and walked over to the dumpster with the hood up. "Do I gotta look?"

"You gotta," Davis said. "Just a minute, though." He turned to one of the crime-scene cops and said, "Put one of them empty bags over her. You know."

The cop covered the dead woman's body and neck with an empty plastic garbage bag, nodded, and Earle shuffled over to the dumpster and stood on her tiptoes and looked in. "Oh, God," she said. She stepped back, looked at Davis, and said, "That's Suzanne."

"Her name's Suzanne?" Lucas asked.

"That's what she told me. I only talked to her once or twice when she was taking garbage out."

"You're sure it's her."

Earle nodded. "It's her. Oh, God . . ."

The cop who'd been with her peered into the dumpster, then took a camera out of his pocket and fired it into the dumpster--a Polaroid, Lucas realized when the photo whirred out of the front of the camera.

Lucas stepped over to Del but didn't say anything for a moment. Del said finally, "Randy's too young to have done the first ones."

"What if there are two of them, working separately? But then the graveyard doesn't make any sense, does it?"

"What if this is just a big fuckin' coincidence?"

"Then what about the jewelry?"

Del scratched his head. "We got all these pieces, but they don't fit."

"Randy can make them fit," Lucas said.

"If he will."

"He's looking at a murder rap if he doesn't. If this girl's blood is all over his apartment."

"Maybe I ought to go baby-sit him. Just sit there until he wakes up," Del said.

"Not be a bad idea," Lucas agreed. "First guy who talks to him probably gonna break the case."

They hung around long enough to make sure there was nothing under the body. When it came out clean, and the medical examiner's people were bundling it away, Davis said, "We'll do some quick processing, and I imagine we'll know if we've got a blood match by the middle of the morning. Take a while to get people going."

"Gimme a call?" Lucas asked.

"I'll be off. Allport will know, though."

"All right. I'll call him."

"How many murders have you had this year, City of St. Paul?" Del asked.

"I think this is five," Davis said.

"Jeez. We got ten in almost three months," Del said. "Nobody's killing anybody anymore. Even ag assault's way down."

"Same here. Drugs are down. Rape's still cooking along."

"Yeah, rape's a bright spot," Del agreed.

"We're talking about consolidation--moving guys out of violent crimes and hitting property crimes a little harder," Davis said. "Some of the new plainclothes guys are sweatin' a transfer back to patrol."

"No offense, but I couldn't go back," Del said. He shivered. "Patrol, man--I feel for you guys."

"Ah, we like it. Not as many assholes."

"You mean on the force, or on the street?" Del asked.

"Whichever," Davis said, and they all laughed, and Lucas said, "I resemble that remark."

LUCAS WENT BACK home, unplugged the bedroom phone, closed the door, and fell facedown on the bed. The next time he moved, it was after ten o'clock. He groaned, pushed himself up, shaved, showered, and headed downtown.

Marshall was talking with Marcy. He saw Lucas and stood up and said, "I heard about the girl in the dumpster. What do you think?"

"Gotta call St. Paul. They were gonna try to match her blood to the blood at Randy's--but I'd say the chances are about ninety-five percent that it's the right woman. Let me call Allport and see if they've got anything."

Allport had the tests. "She was killed in Whitcomb's apartment, that's her blood on the wall," he said. "It makes me feel a little better about what happened--the docs are pouring on the steroids, but that spine thing is looking worse. They don't think he's gonna walk again."

"Is he gonna be able to talk?" Lucas asked.

"Probably not today. They're keeping him sedated until they get the spine managed. They're going back in this afternoon to try to consolidate it, and now they think they might have some outside soft tissue in the spinal cord itself, which they didn't pick up on the X rays the first time around. Like some of his skin got blown into the cord and they couldn't see it."

"Tomorrow?"

"I don't know. He may be dead tomorrow."

"Not really."

"No, not really, but . . . man, they aren't saying much. He is pretty fucked up, and they really don't know when we can talk to him."

"It's like a goddamn TV show," Lucas said. "The next thing is, he's gonna fall out of the bed and hit his head and get amnesia."

He told Marshall, and Marshall shook his head. "I'd give a thousand dollars if we could take back what happened yesterday," he said. "That boy getting shot."

"He's a major asshole," Lucas said.

"I don't much give a shit about that. That's your problem," Marshall said. "My problem is, I want a name out of him. He gives me the name, and after that, he can get run over by a steamroller. But I want the name first."

"Did you look at that event over at St. Pat's?" Lucas asked.

"Yup. Copied out every one of Miz Qatar's names into a laptop, gave the disk to Harmon, and he ran them late last night," Marshall said. "Didn't come up with much--except that we figured out one more thing. They got a college alumni magazine called the Shamrock. Some pictures from this get-together were in there, and it was all these women out on a lawn and they were all wearing name tags. So if our guy was there, taking pictures, he could take a shot and know who the woman was, without even asking her name. Or even talking to her."