John Sandford: Eyes of Prey

"Fuck retirement…" Lucas looked at his hand, found that he was holding a square of pink paper, a receipt from a tire store. On the back was a list, with the word "Loverboy" at the top. He crushed it into a tight little wad and tossed it toward the big plastic basket that stood in an alcove behind Daniel's desk. The paper wad rimmed out, and they both watched it bounce across the rug. "I dated the letter tomorrow-I've got some official things to clean up. And I want to slide some of my files over to Del."

"Okay. Del… I know he pounded on Bekker, but he doesn't have the history…"

"Sure. If there's a problem, if Internal Affairs gets on his case, tell them to talk to me. I'll take the heat for it."

"Won't happen. Like I said, I can contain it, if you're not around to goad them. And I can do something else, I think. I can take your resignation and put you on reserve…"

"Reserve? What the fuck is that?"

Daniel gestured helplessly. "It's nothing, right now. But maybe, if you get out clean, let things cool down, we could get you back… If not full-time, in some kind of consultant capacity…"

"Sounds like bullshit," Lucas said. He looked at Daniel for a moment, then said, "You could do more than contain it… but you can't, can you?"

Daniel turned, uncertain. "What?"

"You can't have me around. I'd…" He looked at Daniel for another long minute, then shook his head and said, "I'm outa here."

Daniel, still confused, said in a rush, "Do something, Lucas. You're one of the smartest guys I've ever known. Go to law school. You'd make a great attorney. You got money: see the world for a while. You've never been to fuckin' Europe…"

As Lucas was going out the door, he stopped, and he turned back again to look at Daniel, who was standing behind his desk, his hands in his pockets. Lucas looked for a long three seconds, opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head and walked out, pulling the door closed behind him.

From the chief's office he went down to the evidence room, signed for the box on Bekker and started through it. The physical evidence was there-plaster casts of the footprints at the Wisconsin burial site, the pieces of the bottle used to kill Stephanie Bekker, the hammer used to kill Armistead, the notes from Stephanie's lover.

Tape pickups had been used to preserve the lover's footprints from the floor of Stephanie Bekker's bedroom. They'd been sealed in plastic bags, with a label stapled to the top of the bag. They were gone.

After checking out of the evidence room, Lucas got his jacket, locked his office and walked up the stairs to the street level, out past the bizarre but strangely interesting statue of the Father of Waters, and onto the street.

Where to go? He waited for the pull of the guns, down there in the safe in the basement. They'd be glowing, wouldn't they, like a luminescent brand of gravity…

"Not a lot left, fuckhead," he said aloud to himself as he wandered toward the corner. • • • "Hey, Davenport." A uniformed cop was calling from the door to City Hall. "Somebody looking for you."

"I don't work there anymore," Lucas shouted back.

"Neither does this one," said the cop, holding the door open and looking down.

Sarah, in a pink frock and white shoes, toddled through the door looking for him, her face breaking into a happy smile when she spotted him. She had a pacifier in one hand, waved it and gurgled. Jennifer was a step behind, her face flushed with what might have been embarrassment. The whole scene was so blatantly contrived that Lucas started to laugh.

"Come here, kid," he said, squatting, clapping his hands. Sarah's face turned determined and she came on full-steam, dashing toward a soft landing in Lucas' hands.

"So we start talking, if it's not too late," Jennifer said as Lucas tossed the kid in the air.

"It's not too late," Lucas said.

"The way you were the other night…"

"I was full of shit," Lucas said. "You know about…?"

"Sloan heard rumors, and called me," Jennifer said. She poked her daughter in the stomach and Sarah clutched Lucas' neck and grinned back at her mother. "I think Sarah's got a future in the TV news business. I coached her on going through the door, and she did it like a natural. She even got her lines right."

"Smart kid…"

"When do we talk?"

Lucas looked down the street toward the Metrodome. "I don't want to do anything today. I just want to sit somewhere and see if I can feel good. There's a Twins game…"

"Sarah's never been."

"You wanna see a game, kid? They ain't the Cubs, but what the hell." Lucas lifted Sarah to straddle the back of his neck and she grabbed his ear and him with the pacifier. What felt like a gob of saliva hit him in the part of his hair. "I'll teach you how to boo. Maybe we can get you a bag to put on your head."

When Lucas had gone, Daniel gathered his papers together, stacked them, dropped them into his in tray, shut down the computer and took a lap around the office, looking at the faces of his politicians. Hard decisions. Hard.

"Jesus Christ," the chief said quietly, but aloud. He could hear his heart beating, then a rush of adrenaline, a tincture of fear. But now it was ending, all done.

He stepped back toward his desk, saw the paper wad that Lucas had fired at the wastebasket. He picked it up, meaning to flip it at the basket, and saw the ballpoint ink on the back. He smoothed the paper on his desk.

In Davenport's clear hand, under the heading "Loverboy":

– Heavyset, blond with thinning hair. Looks like Philip George.

– Cannot turn himself in, or even negotiate: Cop.

– No hair in drain or on bed: Cop.

– Called me through Dispatch on nontaped line: Cop.

– Extreme voice disguise: Knows me.

– Served with S. Bekker in police review board study.

– Knew Druze was the killer.

– Didn't call back after advertisement in newspaper and pictures on TV: Already knew Druze was dead and that he was S. Bekker's killer.

– Had Redon flower painting on calendar; same calendar at Institute of Arts has cyclops painting for November; changed it for weather calendar.

– Assigns fuck-up to chase phony Loverboy.

Then there was a space, and in a scrawl at the bottom, an additional line:

– Has to get rid of me-that's where IA is coming from…

"Jesus Christ," Daniel said to himself.

He looked up, across the office at the weather calendar, which hung on the wall amid the faces of the politicians, all staring down at him and the crumpled slip of paper. Stunned, he looked out the window again, saw Davenport tossing a kid in the air.

Davenport knew.

Daniel wanted to run down after him. He wanted to say he was sorry.

He couldn't do that. Instead he sat at his desk, head in his hands, thinking. He hadn't been able to weep since he was a child.

Loverboy wished, sometimes, that he still knew how.