John Sandford - Field of Prey

“We’re going to her place?”

“Yes. We’ve got the ERU on the way now, they’ll wait for me before we go in,” Mattsson said.

“Not the Black Hole killer,” Lucas said.

“No, I guess not.”

Lucas thought about turning around, but figured he’d only further annoy Mattsson if he dropped out of what must be a fairly rare murder arrest for Goodhue County. Before he rang off, he asked, “Is she a shooter? Does she carry a gun?”

“Never has. She’s more of the brass-knuckles type.”

When Mattsson rang off, Lucas called Duncan and told him what he’d been told. “Sounds about right. Nobody here thinks it’s the Hole guy-but keep me up on it,” Duncan said.

Mattsson knew where she was going, but Lucas didn’t, so he stuck close behind her as she rocketed along the back roads west of Red Wing, avoiding the town with its clogged-up traffic, to come at the city from its south side.

Card’s house was off Highway 61 a couple of miles south of town, on a frontage road facing the highway, a simple one-story clapboard box with a detached garage in back. A concrete-block stoop led to the front door, which was right in the center of the house. A squat yellow truck was waiting for them at the south end of the frontage road, along with a couple of patrol cars. Mattsson pulled off in front of the truck, and Lucas was pleased to see several guys climb out, carrying rifles; the Emergency Response Unit.

“I didn’t ask for them,” Mattsson said. “I don’t think we need them.”

The team leader said, “Catrin, she murdered a woman last night and dumped the body on the nation’s hottest crime scene. She’s batshit crazy . Nuckin’ futs. She could be in there suckin’ on a gun right now, or she might decide to let us do it for her. Or take a few of us with her.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. .” Mattsson wasn’t convinced.

The team leader was a short black-haired guy with muscles in his face. He nodded when Lucas introduced himself, said to the two of them, “We’ve contacted the neighbors. She’s in there. We’ve got two guys watching the back, they went up through the woods.” He pointed back behind the line of houses that faced the highway. “There’s a hardwired phone inside the house, and we’ve got both their cell phone numbers. Plan is, we’ll set up out front and call her, tell her to come out, and go from there.”

“Far as I know, she’s not a shooter,” Mattsson said, repeating what she’d told Lucas. “Never had a weapons charge. She gets drunk and beats on people.”

“Yeah, maybe, but I’ll give you ten to one that she’s got a gun in there. Everybody on this road will have one,” the team leader said.

Mattsson nodded: “Probably. So take it easy.”

The team leader looked at Lucas then back to Mattsson: “We’ll ask you and Agent Davenport to wait until we’re set up. Then, we see what happens.”

Lucas said, “You guys be careful.”

“Always.”

The team had already worked out the approach. Two cars carried several team members north on the highway, and once past the target house, they came back across to the frontage road and then south to the house. The team leader and three more of his men drove the six hundred yards up the road, parked in a neighbor’s empty driveway.

The leader called Mattsson and said, “We’re making the call.”

“Let’s go on up,” Mattsson said. Lucas followed her truck up the road, and they both pulled into the driveway in the visual shadow of the SWAT van, and got out.

The team leader had moved to the corner of the neighbor’s garage with the talker, who was on the phone. The talker was saying, “. . in which case, you have nothing to fear. But we’re a little nervous out here, you know, given the circumstances. If you’ll just come on out, we’ll check you out, and have a talk. No point in getting everybody upset. . Uh-huh, uh-huh, well, if you look out the side window to the Pauls’ place, you’ll see our truck, you know, that’s no practical joke. . Uh-huh, uh-huh, listen, Glenda, you know how this works, you’re a smart gal. We really, really don’t want anybody to get hurt here, that’s our one and only mission, to make sure nobody gets hurt.”

Mattsson snorted, and the team leader turned to her and raised his eyebrows in a gesture that meant, “Please don’t do that.”

The talker said, “. . okay? Okay? No point in dragging it out, once we know you’re okay, that nobody’s going to get hurt, we can let you have lunch. . uh-huh. .”

It went like that for a couple more minutes, then the talker said, “That’s great. That’s a great decision, Glenda. You come on out, and when you come out, you don’t have to put your hands up, we don’t want to embarrass anyone, just a chat. . Uh-huh. Okay, I’ll look for you.”

He looked up at the team leader and said, “She’s coming out.”

The leader spoke into a shoulder microphone, and a few seconds later, the screen door on the front of the house pushed open, and a tall, heavyset woman stepped out, chunky arms up over her head. She was wearing a T-shirt, worn loose, and Lucas said, “Watch the T-shirt,” and the team leader repeated that to his men, who were moving in on the red-faced woman, rifles not quite pointing at her, but ready.

They ordered her to kneel, and she did, putting her hands up over her head, but when one of the ERU team members stepped toward her, she snapped, “Hey, hey, hey, hands off the merchandise. You want to feel me up, get Blondie to do it.”

She was looking at Mattsson. Mattsson walked over to her and patted her down. More ERU guys came from behind the house, and then Mattsson told Shales she could get back on her feet.

Lucas moved in closer. Shales’s T-shirt said, in gold letters, “Playing for the Other Team,” and under that, in smaller letters, “Since ’69.”

She looked exhausted and was drunk, on wine, and stood with her head down while one of the helmeted deputies read her rights and asked if she understood them. “Yeah, yeah, I heard it all before,” she said. She asked, “Why’re you pickin’ on me? I haven’t seen Harriet since she got pissed off and walked out of here.”

“When was that?” Mattsson asked.

“Couple days ago. .” She peered at Mattsson, seemingly confused; maybe not seeing so well through the fog of alcohol. “Who in the fuck are you, anyway?”

“I’m the investigator for the Goodhue County sheriff’s department, Miz Shales,” Mattsson said. “I’ve talked to you before, when you beat up that guy at the VFW parking lot.”

“I remember you, you’re that fuckin’ Nazi who went to court and lied.”

“You nearly beat the guy to death,” Mattsson said.

“I didn’t beat up nobody,” Shales said, rocking on her feet. “That was a straight-out fight, the guy jumped me .”

“Yeah, right,” Mattsson said. It was the next thing to a sneer, and Lucas thought, Uh-oh , and edged forward.

“You’re trying to pin this one on me, too. I didn’t have nothing to do-”

“With what, Glenda? With strangling your girlfriend and dumping her body like she was garbage? You know, there’s going to be DNA all over her. That’s better than fingerprints, and there’s no way to strangle a woman without. .”

Shales’s face was getting redder and redder. She gestured at Mattsson, who was four feet away, at the same time turning to face Lucas, as though she was about to say something about Mattsson, and Lucas thought again, Uh-oh , and he took another step forward, sensing the sucker punch that Shales was winding up, but he was too late.

With more speed than any of them had suspected, Shales lashed out at Mattsson, hit her on the side of the head below her right eye, and Mattsson went down on her ass. Shales’s belly flopped on her, and she got in three or four good head shots before the other cops ripped her off the cop, rolled her, piled on, bent her arms behind her back, and cuffed her.