John Sandford - Field of Prey

“All right. If Mattsson already picked up the killer on this one, I’m going back to town to jack up the team on the cemetery angle. Stay in touch.”

Lucas turned north on Highway 61. He had the murder books in the back of the truck, and in town, he found a cafe, carried the relevant book inside, and ordered a hot beef sandwich with mashed potatoes, brown gravy, and green beans. He read through the interviews with Carpenter’s parents as he ate, and when he was done with that, called her mother, Sandra Carpenter, and was told that her husband was at work, but could come home for an interview.

The drive to Durand took forty minutes. Lucas had been through the place a couple of times in the past, and it always reminded him of a TV version of an old Western town. The main street ran along the bank of the Chippewa River, with the shoulder-to-shoulder business buildings backing up to the water.

The odd thing about it, to Lucas’s mind, was that there was almost nothing on the other side of the river. Most river towns form a circle around both ends of a bridge; Durand stretched for almost a mile and a half along Highway 25, from southwest to northeast, right along the water for much of it, but on the other side of the bridge, there was almost nothing.

He crossed the bridge shortly after one o’clock, in bright sunlight, followed the navigation system through the town, right on Main Street, left past a park, to a small blue cottage a few streets back from the river. A man was standing in a picture window, watching, when Lucas parked in front, and came to the door as Lucas walked up the sidewalk.

Clark Carpenter was a tall man, too heavy, with thinning blond hair and an untidy blond mustache. He held the door as Lucas walked up, said, “I’m Clark. Come on in.”

Sandra Carpenter was waiting in the living room, sitting on a couch, in front of a silver-plated tray of cookies. She stood up when Lucas came in, with Clark trailing, and said, “Mr. Davenport? Sit down, please.”

Lucas took the easy chair that faced the couch, and Sandra pushed the cookie tray toward him. He took a cookie.

“We heard about Agent Shaffer. We met him here, once. He seemed like a very nice guy,” Clark said. “Smart guy.”

“He was nice, and he was smart,” Lucas said. “We think he tripped over the killer. He had a lot more, mmm, knowledge of this case than I do, and I suspect something that he knew, with something that he saw that last day, led him to the killer. But he might not have known that, somehow, he was a threat to the killer. He turned his back on whoever it was, and was shot.”

“That’s awful,” Sandra said, as Clark sank into the couch next to her.

“Not as awful as what happened to our daughter,” Clark said. “We haven’t been very happy with the investigation over there. Nothing seems to be happening. . until Agent Shaffer got killed.”

“Not much was,” Lucas admitted. “But Shaffer got right next to this guy. We’ll get there, too. This time, we won’t turn our backs.”

“I hope you kill him,” Clark said.

Over the next fifteen minutes, they told him almost nothing that was directly useful, but he noted all of it down, because he didn’t know that for sure. They hadn’t seen their daughter in the three days before she died. She had no boyfriend-she’d broken off a relationship with an Ellsworth man several months before she died, and hadn’t yet started over. The Ellsworth man had been investigated from his scalp down to the soles of his feet, and he was clean.

Mary Lynn Carpenter had run a candy store on Main Street, and told her parents that while she wanted to meet a good man and have children, right now, she wanted to build her business. She’d taken business classes at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, in Menomonie, Wisconsin, a half hour north of Durand, and had bought the store with a loan from her parents.

“She did great with it,” Clark said. “I mean, it was never going to be a huge money-maker, but she was already doing pretty darn well, and she had this idea for a whole chain of these small places, in small towns. See, they’re really efficient: you don’t need much capital to start one, and basically, one person can run it most of the year, with a half-time high school kid in the summer and at Christmas, when you do most of your business.”

“I don’t think Agent Davenport wants to know about the candy business, dear,” Sandra said, touching her husband’s thigh.

“Well, I’m just telling him,” Clark said. “She figured she could put together ten of these places, all within a hundred miles or so, and be pulling down a half-million a year. That’s real good money.”

“Yes, it is,” Lucas said. “What happened to the business?”

“She had this girl working for her, Cindy Tucker, she lives here in town,” Clark said. “Cindy was going to a junior college, and she was gonna run the store when Mary Lynn branched out. Anyway, Cindy bought it from us-got a loan from her folks, and we took back part of the price, she’ll pay it off over five years. We were Mary Lynn’s only heirs, and we gave Cindy a good deal on it. She’s a good kid, and that’s what Mary Lynn would have wanted.”

“Is the store open now?” Lucas asked.

“Sure.”

“And Cindy saw Mary Lynn the day she disappeared?”

“The day before,” Sandra said. “She didn’t work the day Mary Lynn disappeared. Something broke at the store. .”

“Pipe. .”

“They weren’t going to be able to do some of the cooking,” Sandra said. “Cindy wanted to go shopping up in the Cities, so Mary Lynn told her to take off.”

“Who else saw her before she disappeared?”

“Oh, Lord, lots of people,” Sandra said. “Your investigators made a whole list. Half the people in town were in there.”

When Lucas was leaving, Clark asked, “You really think you’ll get this guy?”

“Yes. We will.”

Clark showed a grim smile, more than a little skeptical: “You’re pretty sure about that.”

Lucas stopped just below the porch. “Mr. Carpenter. . if we don’t have this guy sewed up in two weeks, I will come to your house and give you a thousand dollars.”

“I don’t need a thousand dollars, but I like the concept,” Clark said. “If you get him, I’ll tell you what: I’ll give a thousand dollars to whatever charity you want.”

Lucas nodded: “It’s a deal. Or a bet. Whatever. But I’m gonna get him, so get your money ready.”

Carpenter started laughing, an odd whinnying laugh, and tears started running down his face.

The candy store was in the middle of the downtown business strip, a narrow shop, just wide enough for a candy case to one side, an aisle for the customers, and a counter with a cash register at the end of the aisle. It smelled like sweet chocolate and caramel, and featured a row of caramel apples in the glass case.

Two women were working the shop: one maybe twenty, and one who might have been eighteen. Lucas asked the older one, “Are you Cindy Tucker?”

The woman nodded: she was short, fair-haired, with a quick smile. “Yes, I am. Who are you?”

Lucas dug his ID out and said, “I’m with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I need to talk to you for a few minutes about Mary Lynn.”

She grimaced: didn’t want to do it. “I’ve got to tell you, I’ve already talked to three different agents.”

“I know, I need to hear some of it myself,” Lucas said.

“Is this because that other agent was killed?” the younger girl asked.

“Not exactly,” Lucas said. “I would have gotten here sooner or later, if we didn’t catch this guy first.” To Cindy, “It’ll just take a few minutes.”

She suggested that they walk across the street to a cafe. The place was nearly empty, and they took a corner table, ordered a Diet Coke and a root beer.