John Sandford - Night Prey

"If we've got time. Lester's got people running around like rats," Anderson said. "Oh-that Junky Doog guy. I got lots of hits, but the last one was three years ago. He was living in a flop on Franklin Avenue. Chances of him being there are slim and none, and slim is outa town."

"Give me the address," Lucas said.

When he finished with Anderson, Lucas carried his phone book down the hall, Xeroxed the Books section of the Yellow Pages, and went back to his office for his jacket. He had bought the jacket in New York; the thought was mildly embarrassing. He was pulling on the jacket when there was a knock at the door. "Yeah?"

A fleshy, pink-cheeked thirties-something man in a loose green suit and moussed blond hair poked his head inside, smiled like an encyclopedia salesman, and said, "Hey. Davenport. I'm Bob Greave. I'm supposed to report to you."

"I remember you," Lucas said as they shook hands.

"From my Officer Friendly stuff?" Greave was cheerful, unconsciously rumpled. But his green eyes matched his Italian-cut suit a little too perfectly, and he wore a fashionable two days' stubble on his chin.

"Yeah, there was a poster down at my kid's preschool," Lucas said.

Greave grinned. "Yup, that's me."

"Nice jump, up to homicide," Lucas said.

"Yeah, bullshit." Greave's smile fell away, and he dropped into the chair Connell had vacated, looked up. "I suppose you've heard about me."

"I haven't, uh…"

"Greave the fuckup?"

"Don't bullshit me, Davenport." Greave studied him for a minute, then said, "That's what they call me. Greave-the-fuckup, one word. The only goddamned reason I'm in homicide is that my wife is the mayor's niece. She got tired of me being Officer Friendly. Not enough drama. Didn't give her enough to gossip about."

"Well…"

"So now I'm doing something I can't fuckin' do and I'm stuck between my old lady and the other guys on the job."

"What do you want from me?"

"Advice."

Lucas spread his hands and shrugged. "If you liked being an Officer Friendly…"

Greave waved him off. "Not that kind of advice. I can't go back to Officer Friendly, my old lady'd nag my ears off. She doesn't like me being a cop in the first place. Homicide just makes it a little okay. And she makes me wear these fuckin' Italian fruit suits and only lets me shave on Wednesdays and Saturdays."

"Sounds like you gotta make a decision about her," Lucas said.

"I love her," Greave said.

Lucas grinned. "Then you've got a problem."

"Yeah." Greave rubbed the stubble on his chin. "Anyway, the guys in homicide don't do nothing but fuck with me. They figure I'm not pulling my load, and they're right. Whenever there's a really horseshit case, I get it. I got one right now. Everybody in homicide is laughing about it. That's what I need your advice on."

"What happened?"

"We don't know," Greave said. "We've got it pegged as a homicide and we know who did it, but we can't figure out how."

"Never heard of anything like that," Lucas admitted.

"Sure you have," Greave said. "All the time."

"What?" Lucas was puzzled.

"It's a goddamned locked-room mystery, like one of them old-lady English things. It's driving me crazy."

Connell pushed through the door. She was wearing a navy suit with matching low heels, a white blouse with wine-colored tie, and carried a purse the size of a buffalo. She looked at Greave, then Lucas, and said, "Ready."

"Bob Greave, Meagan Connell," Lucas said.

"Yeah, we sorta met," Greave said. "A few weeks ago."

A little tension there. Lucas scooped Connell's file from his desk, handed it to Greave. "Meagan and I are going out to the bookstores. Read the file. We'll talk tomorrow morning."

"What time?"

"Not too early," Lucas said. "How about here, at eleven o'clock?"

"What about my case?" Greave asked.

"We'll talk tomorrow," Lucas said.

As Lucas and Connell walked out of the building, Connell said, "Greave's a jerk. He's got the Hollywood stubble and the Miami Vice suits, but he couldn't find his shoes in a goddamn clothes closet."

Lucas shook his head, irritated. "Cut him a little slack. You don't known him that well."

"Some people are an open book," Connell snorted. "He's a fuckin' comic."

Connell continued to irritate him; their styles were different. Lucas liked to drift into conversation, to schmooze a little, to remember common friends. Connell was an interrogator: just the facts, sir.

Not that it made much difference. Nobody in the half-dozen downtown bookstores knew Wannemaker. They picked up a taste of her at the suburban Smart Book. "She used to come to readings," the store owner said. He nibbled at his lip as he peered at the photograph. "She didn't buy much, but we'd have these wine-and-cheese things for authors coming through town, and she'd show up maybe half the time. Maybe more than that."

"Did you have a reading last Friday?"

"No, but there were some."

"Where?"

"Hell, I don't know." He threw up his hands. "Goddamn authors are like cockroaches. There're hundreds of them. There's always readings somewhere. Especially at the end of the week."

"How do I find out where?"

"Call the Star-Trib. There'd be somebody who could tell you."

Lucas called from a corner phone, another number from memory. "I wondered if you'd call." The woman's voice was hushed. "Are you bringing up your net?"

"I'm doing that now. There're lots of holes."

"I'm in."

"Thanks, I appreciate it. How about the readings?"

"There was poetry at the Startled Crane, something called Prairie Woman at The Saint-I don't know how I missed that one-Gynostic at Wild Lily Press, and the Pillar of Manhood at Crosby's. The Pillar of Manhood was a male-only night. If you'd called last week, I probably could have gotten you in."

"Too late," Lucas said. "My drum's broke."

"Darn. You had a nice drum, too."

"Yeah, well, thanks, Shirlene." To Connell: "We can scratch Crosby's off the list."

The owner of the Startled Crane grinned at Lucas and said, "Cheese it, the heat… How you been, Lucas?" They shook hands, and the store owner nodded at Connell, who stared at him like a snake at a bird.

"Not bad, Ned," Lucas said. "How's the old lady?"

Ned's eyebrows went up. "Pregnant again. You just wave it at her, and she's knocked up."

"Everybody's pregnant. I gotta friend, I just heard his wife's pregnant. How many is that for you? Six?"

"Seven… what's happening?"

Connell, who had been listening impatiently to the chitchat, thrust the photos at him. "Was this woman here Friday night?"

Lucas, softer, said, "We're trying to track down the last days of a woman who was killed last week. We thought she might've been at your poetry reading."

Ned shuffled through the photos. "Yeah, I know her. Harriet something, right? I don't think she was here. There were about twenty people, but I don't think she was with them."

"But you see her around?"

"Yeah. She's a semiregular. I saw the TV stuff on Nooner. I thought that might be her."

"Ask around, will you?"

"Sure."

"What's Nooner?" Connell asked.

"TV3's new noon news," Ned said. "But I didn't see her Friday. I wouldn't be surprised if she was somewhere else, though."

"Thanks, Ned."

"Sure. And stop in. I've been fleshing out the poetry section."

Back on the street, Connell said, "You've got a lot of bookstore friends?"

"A few," Lucas said. "Ned used to deal a little grass. I leaned on him and he quit."

"Huh," she said, thinking it over. Then, "Why'd he tell you about poetry?"

"I read poetry," Lucas said.

"Bullshit."

Lucas shrugged and started toward the car.

"Say a poem."

"Fuck you, Connell," Lucas said.

"No, c'mon," she said, catching him, facing him. "Say a poem."