John Sandford - Field of Prey

When Lucas arrived at the Black Hole, the crime-scene van was parked across the entrance, and three Goodhue County patrol cars were arrayed across the road, along with Mattsson’s SUV. Lucas parked and walked around the tape, and then along a taped pathway that swung wide of probable entry lanes, to the former hole, which was now just a large square of raw earth.

The woman’s body had been placed exactly in the middle of the square, on her back, arms along her sides, with the palms turned up, as in a yoga corpse pose. She had been in her mid- to late-twenties, mid-height, maybe five-six or five-seven, with narrow shoulders and short-cut black hair. She was wearing a pink cotton blouse, inexpensive fashion jeans, running shoes with white socks.

The crew was working inside a circle of tape. Mattsson was standing outside the tape, looking in, and when she saw Lucas approaching she suppressed what might have become a scowl, and said, “Davenport.”

“What’s the story?”

“She was murdered, strangled,” Mattsson said. “Not by the Black Hole guy. Whoever killed her, dumped her here, so we might think that. A really, really dumb guy. She’s got an old black eye, and an old cut lip, like she might have been in a fight, maybe a week ago. Just eyeballing it, I’d swear it was a domestic.”

Bea, the crime-scene chief, came over, heard the last part of what Mattsson said, and nodded to Lucas. “Manually strangled. You can see the finger bruising. Every one of the Black Hole killings was done with a rope, as far as we can tell-we actually have several of the ropes, and we have a lack of hyoid damage that is consistent with rope. Also, just from what we can see, the bruises, she may have been in an abusive relationship. Almost all the women we’ve identified from the Hole were women who were blond and busty-she’s thin and dark-haired. She’d also be toward the older end of the victims. . So I agree with Officer Mattsson. Probably not the Black Hole guy.”

“Anything in her pants pocket?” Lucas asked. “ID. . anything?”

Bea was shaking her head. “Pockets are empty.”

To Mattsson: “Anybody call with a missing person?”

“First thing I checked,” Mattsson said. “Not here, none of the counties around here, including across the river. But. . I think she’s from Red Wing. I don’t know her, but I think I’ve seen her, and more than once. Not with any crime thing. I think she might work someplace I go shopping. Maybe Target or Walmart or Walgreens or Econofoods.”

“Like a cashier?”

“Something like that,” Mattsson said. “I spend some time in the hospitals, too-could be a nurse.”

“Maybe we should try to get a photo.”

“Already done,” Mattsson said. “We transmitted a mug down to the office, printed them out, and we’ve got a couple of guys running around trying to nail down who she is. . if she actually works in town.”

“Well, shit, Catrin, what do you need us for?”

She looked at him for a moment, then shook her head and said, “I don’t think we do-not on this one.”

Bea told the story of how they found the body-nothing to it, they drove into the site, and there she was. “There will be DNA, when you find the guy who did this.”

“What about the GPR-you gonna go ahead with that?” Lucas asked.

“We’re doing it now, but we haven’t seen anything,” Bea said. “I mean. .” She gestured at the body.

She went back to work, doing an inch-by-inch search down the path from the road to the dirt patch. Lucas turned to Mattsson and asked, “Anything more from Sprick? Or about him?”

“Got a flat tire there,” she said. “I still think there’s something going on with him, but I don’t know what. The thing is, I’ve been back to Kaylee twice, now, and she’s rock solid that she saw Mr. Sprick in the ditch.”

“Sometimes-” Lucas began.

Mattsson rode over him: “Which reminds me, I got some kinda bad news about all that.”

Lucas grinned at her: “Bad news in a case with this many dead. . that’s gotta be really bad.”

“More of an annoyance, than bad,” she said. “First of all, Kaylee’s parents told everybody they met yesterday that Kaylee had seen Sprick, and half the people in Zumbrota believe he’s the killer.”

“Ah, jeez. Is there a second-of-all?”

“Yeah. They’ve been grooming Kaylee for beauty contests and they’re sort of. . exploiting. . this whole thing. She’s being interviewed by Channel Three this afternoon. I tried to talk them out of it, but her father said that this was her ‘big chance.’ Could put some pressure on us.”

“We’ve already got pressure, couldn’t be much more. If you’re careful about it, when you’re interviewed-they’ll come to you, because you’re the one Kaylee’s parents know-you might be able to embarrass the interviewer enough to tone down the whole thing.”

She thought about it for a second, then said, “Maybe I’ll do that.”

“And I need to ask you something, kind of half-seriously,” Lucas said.

She cocked her head.

Lucas asked, “Is there any possibility that somebody’ll get drunk and decide to eliminate the killer? I mean, Sprick?”

“What an interesting question,” she said. “I don’t know the answer to that, but I’ll talk to the Zumbrota chief.”

THEY WATCHED BEA for another minute, then Lucas said, “I’m gonna go talk to the GPR guys.”

The GPR guys were dragging the bright orange ground-penetrating radar antenna through small openings in the brush of the farmyard, well away from the body. They were sweating from the work, and stopped when Lucas came up. “Anything?”

“Nothing. Not so far. .”

He watched for a moment, then saw Duncan walking across the site, to the body. Mattsson was still standing there, watching the processing of the body. Lucas turned back to the GPR guys and asked if he could get a printout of the radar map, and one of them said, “Sure.”

“You ever find any buried treasure?”

“I keep thinking I might, but I never do,” the other one said. “I found a misplaced gas pipe, once.” They came up to an end-marker and turned to drag the antenna back down the field. Lucas glanced over at the body, and saw Mattsson and Duncan, Mattsson with her hands on her hips, Duncan barking at her.

He thought, Uh-oh , and considered going over, but then Mattsson walked away from Duncan and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and put it to her ear. She listened for a minute, then looked wildly around the yard, saw him, shouted, “Davenport! Davenport! We got her. .”

Lucas said, “Excuse me,” to the GPR guys, and trotted after Mattsson. As he passed Duncan, he said, “I got this, Jon.”

He caught Mattsson at the road. Their cars were parked at opposite ends of the abandoned farmstead, and as she turned toward hers, she shouted, “Follow me: I’ll call you.”

Lucas jogged down to the Benz, climbed in, did a U-turn, and followed her down the dusty road toward the blacktop. A half-mile down, his phone rang and Mattsson was there.

“Her name is Harriet Card and she lives a mile south of town, south of Red Wing. She’s a cashier at Target. She got a restraining order against her partner a year ago, but withdrew it a couple of months later. A friend of hers at Target says they got back together, but they’ve been having trouble again. They lived at Card’s place.”

“You got his name?”

“Her name. Her girlfriend’s name is Glenda Hannah Shales and she has two convictions for assault and battery and on the last one, did a year and a day in Shakopee. You know that old dykes-on-bikes business? She’s like that. She’s a drinker and a mean bitch. I’ve dealt with her before.”