John Sandford: Invisible prey

“No, she went along with it,” Lucas said. “But it's about forty years of statutory.”

Sloan looked into himself for a minute, then said, “Not forty. Thirty-six.”

“Enough.”

Another moment of silence, then Sloan sighed and asked, “Why don't you bust him? Don't tell me it's because he's a politician.”

Lucas said to Sloan, “It's more complicated than that.” When Sloan looked skeptical, he said, “C'mon, Sloan, I wouldn't bullshit you. It really is more complicated.”

“I'm listening,” Sloan said.

“All right. The whole BCA is a bunch of Democrats, run by a Democrat appointee of a Democratic governor, all right?”

“And God is in his heaven.”

“If we say, 'The girl says he did it,' and bust him, his career's over. Whether he did it or not. Big pederast stamp on his forehead. If it turns out he didn't do it, if he's acquitted, every Republican in the state will be blaming us for a political dirty trick-a really dirty trick. Five months to the election. I mean, he's the president of the state senate.”

“Does the kid have any evidence?” Sloan asked. “Any witnesses?”

“Yes. Semen on a dress,” Lucas said. “She also told the investigator that Kline has moles or freckles on his balls, and she said they look like semicolons. One semicolon on each nut.”

An amused look crept over Sloan's face: “She's lying.”

“What?”

“In this day and age,” he asked, “how many sixteen-year-olds know what a semicolon is?”

Lucas rolled his eyes and said, “Try to concentrate, okay? This is serious.”

“Doesn't sound serious,” Sloan said. “Investigating the family jewels.”

“Well, it is serious,” Lucas said. “She tells the initial investigator…”

“Who's that?”

“Virgil Flowers.”

“That fuckin' Flowers,” Sloan said, and he laughed. “Might've known.”

“Yeah. Anyway, she tells Virgil that he's got semicolons on his balls. And quite a bit of other detail, including the size of what she calls 'his thing.' She also provides us with a dress and there's a semen stain on it. So Virgil gets a search warrant…”

Sloan giggled, an unattractive sound from a man of his age.

“… gets a search warrant, and a doctor, and they take a DNA scraping and examine Kline's testicles,” Lucas said. “Sure enough, it's like they came out of Microsoft Word: one semicolon on each nut. We got the pictures.”

“I bet they're all over the Internet by now,” Sloan said.

“You'd bet wrong. These are not attractive pictures-and everybody involved knows that their jobs are on the line,” Lucas said. “You don't mess with Burt Kline unless you can kill him.”

“Yeah, but the description, the semen… sounds like a big indict to me,” Sloan said.

“However,” Lucas said.

“Uh-oh.” Sloan had been a cop for twenty years; he was familiar with howevers.

“Burt says he never had sex with the daughter, but he did sleep with her mom,” Lucas said. “See, the state pays for an apartment in St. Paul. Kline rents a place from Mom, who owns a duplex on Grand Avenue, what's left from a divorce settlement. Kline tells Virgil that he's staying there, doing the people's work, when Mom starts puttin' it on him.”

“Him being such a looker,” Sloan said.

“Kline resists, but he's only human. And, she's got, Virgil believes, certain skills.

In fact, Virgil said she's been around the block so often it looks like a NASCAR track. Anyway, pretty soon Burt is sleeping with Mom every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”

“How old's Mom?” Sloan asked.

“Thirty-four,” Lucas said.

“With a sixteen-year-old daughter?”

“Yeah. Mom started young,” Lucas said. “Anyway, Burt says Mom got the idea to blackmail him, because she's always hurting for money. He says she put the daughter up to it, making the accusation. Burt said that she would have all the necessary grammatical information.”

“And Mom says…”

“She said that they had a hasty affair, but that Burt really wanted the daughter, and she was horrified when she found out he'd gotten to her,” Lucas said. “She says no way would she have done what she would have had to do to see the semicolons, or get semen on the neckline of the dress. That's something that her daughter had to be forced into.”

“Mom was horrified.”

“Absolutely,” Lucas said. “So Virgil asks her if she'd gained any weight lately.”

“She was heavy?”

“No, not especially. I'd say… solid. Plays broomball in the winter. Blades in the summer. Or, more to the point, about a size ten-twelve. She said no, she hadn't gained any weight since she had the kid, sixteen years ago. So Virgil points out that the dress with the semen stain is a size ten and the girl herself is about a size four. The kid looks like that fashion model who puts all the cocaine up her nose.”

“Oooo.” Sloan thought about it for a moment, then asked, “What's Mom say?”

“She says that they trade clothes all the time,” Lucas said. “If you want to believe that a size-four fashion-aware teenager is going to drag around in a size ten.”

“That's a… problem,” Sloan agreed.

“Another problem,” Lucas said. “Virgil put the screws on a neighbor boy who seemed to be sniffing around. The neighbor kid says the girl's been sexually active since she was twelve. That Mom knew it. Maybe encouraged it.”

“Huh.”

“So what do you think?” Lucas asked.

“Mom's on record saying she doesn't do oral?” Sloan asked.

“Yeah.”

“Jury's not gonna believe that,” Sloan said. “Sounds like there's a lot of sex in the family. She can't get away with playing the Virgin Mary. If they think she's lying about that, they'll think she's lying about the whole thing.”

“Yup.”

Sloan thought it over for a while, then asked, “What's the point of this investigation?”

“Ah, jeez,” Lucas said. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. “That's another problem.

I don't know what the point is. Maybe the whole point is to push Burt Kline out of his job. The original tip was anonymous. It came into child protection in St. Paul.

St. Paul passed it on to us because there were out-state aspects-the biggest so-called overt act might've been that Kline took the girl up to Mille Lacs for a naked weekend.

Anyway, the tip was anonymous. Maybe Kline said something to a Democrat. Or maybe… Virgil suspects the tip might've come from Mom. As part of a blackmail hustle.”

“Flowers is smart,” Sloan admitted.

“Yeah.”

“And Mom's cooperating now?”

“She runs hot and cold,” Lucas said. “What she doesn't believe is, that she can't cut off the investigation. She thought we'd be working for her. Or at least, that's what she thought until Virgil set her straight.”

“Hmph. Well, if the point is to push Burt out of his job… I mean, that's not good,” Sloan said. He shook a finger at Lucas. “Not good for you. You don't want to get a rep as a political hit man. If the point is to stop a pederast…”

“If he is one.”

Silence.

“Better get that straight,” Sloan said. “Here's what I think: I think you ask whether it was rape. Do you believe he did it? If you do, screw him-indict him. Forget all the politics, let the chips fall.”

“Yeah,” Lucas said. He fiddled with his Coke glass. “Easy to say.”

More silence, looking out the window at a freshly striped parking lot. A battered Chevy, a repainted Highway Patrol pursuit car, with rust holes in the back fender, pulled in. They were both looking at it when Del Capslock climbed out.

“Del,” Lucas said. “Is he hangin' out here?”

“No,” Sloan said. “He's been in maybe twice since opening night. Where'd he get that nasty car?”