John Sandford - Naked Prey

First, get a few beers…

He washed his face, bundled up, and walked down to the Duck Inn. The bartender had been at the funeral that afternoon, and they nodded at each other as Lucas came in. "Bad day at Black Rock," the barkeep said. "What can I do you for?"

"Six-pack of Leinies, if you got it… Yeah. That poor kid is the one I think about," Lucas said. "Bad goddamn thing to happen to a kid."

"She just went by-with one of them nuns," the barkeep said. He lifted the six-pack of Leinenkugel's onto the bar.

"Just now? She went by?" Lucas asked, pushing a ten across the bar.

"One minute ago. Heading over to Larson's, the way they were going. She's limping pretty good. She's gonna need some clothes, I guess."

Lucas took the change from the ten, but pushed the six-pack back at the bartender. "Hold on to this, will you? I want to see if I can catch them."

"Larson's-right down the block."

He found them in the women's foundations area, buying cotton underpants. Ruth Lewis saw him coming, and smiled sadly. "Have you heard anything?"

Lucas shook his head. "Not yet." He looked at Letty, who'd been looking at an underwear rack. "How are you?"

"We're both pretty sad, me and Ruth, trying to figure out what's going to happen," Letty said. Her eyes were red, with circles below. Her lip trembled. "I never even got to see Mom."

"What're you doing here?" Lucas asked Ruth.

Ruth tipped her head at Letty. "She's got nothing left. Nothing. No shoes, no underwear. We went through our stores at the church, didn't find much."

"I love to shop," Lucas said.

"Ohhh… " Ruth said. A skeptical smile, not the first time he'd gotten that reaction from a woman. But it was true.

"I'm serious. I really like to shop. Especially for clothes. You wanta party?"

Letty looked at Ruth, and Ruth said, "We don't really need that much."

"I'll let you in on a small secret, which I wouldn't want you to spread around," Lucas said. "Okay?" They both nodded, and Lucas said, lowering his voice, "I'm the richest cop in Minnesota."

"I knew that," Ruth said. "Sister Mary Joseph said you have a ridiculous amount of money."

"So I can spend a few bucks on a good time," Lucas said. "Let's go."

They bought all kinds of stuff, with Letty getting seriously involved: Jockey underpants; a couple of brassieres that Lucas wasn't entirely sure were necessary, but which he wouldn't have remotely thought of questioning; three pairs of jeans and two pairs of slacks; and four sweatshirts, which Lucas thought was too many, but Letty said "they're all I wear." They bought four more shirts at Lucas's insistence, a vest, a watch, some costume jewelry and a pair of pearl earrings, a parka, mittens, two hats, and a duffel bag that would carry everything that she didn't wear.

And though Ruth was skeptical, they spent half an hour and thirty-five dollars at the cosmetics counter.

Out on the street, Letty said, happily, "That was the best time I ever had."

Further down the street, across from an Ace Hardware, they put the packages in Ruth's Corolla, and Letty told Lucas, "I will pay you back every penny."

"I won't take the money," Lucas said. "Not a cent. You gotta learn to take gifts."

"It's charity."

"It's not charity," Lucas said. "It'd be charity if I didn't know you and didn't like you. These are gifts, because I like you."

"Would you loan me some money? Right now? If I pay back every cent?"

He hesitated, then said, "Probably. What do you want it for?"

She nodded at the Ace Hardware. "I want to go in there and get a new gun. They took that piece of crap.22, and the deputy said I wouldn't get it back. It's evidence, if they ever catch the guy I shot."

"Oh, Letty… " Ruth said.

"Lucas?" Letty asked.

Lucas looked at Ruth, and then said, "I'd do it, unless Ruth absolutely vetoes it. The gun would be in her house, at least for a while."

Letty turned to Ruth, who said, "I really don't think you need a gun, Letty."

"But you don't really know me very well, do you?" Letty said. Lucas estimated her working age at a quick forty-three. "I do sort of need the gun."

Ruth said to Lucas, "If you want to loan her the money, I won't say no."

Once inside the hardware store, Ruth went to look at other stuff-went to be away from them-while Lucas and Letty got into the details of the gun purchase. Letty wanted a Ruger 10/22 semi-auto; Lucas suggested a bolt-action Ruger 77/22. Letty said it cost too much, and she'd be more comfortable with the lighter semi-auto. Then the store manager, a thin man with spiky gray hair, and a hunter himself who knew Letty, jumped in and said they had an even lighter semi-auto, a Browning, that split the price difference.

Lucas finally told Letty that he wouldn't buy a semi-auto, because he worried that an auto-loader was not safe enough. "I want you to know when you've got a round in the chamber, because you put it there yourself."

Then Letty got pouty: "I've been doing this for years… "

"Yeah, with a single-shot… "

"… and I know when there's a round in the chamber."

Lucas stood firm, and the manager said, "You know, I've got a Remington pump in the back. It's used, but it's in perfect shape. I could let you have it for three hundred bucks."

Lucas and Letty looked at each other, and Letty said, "Bring it out."

They took the pump, but Letty got it for two seventy-five, with five boxes of.22 long-rifle shells thrown in as a deal-sweetener. She said to Lucas, "I've had enough of that.22 short bullshit. Next time this jerk comes around, he better be wearing a bulletproof vest."

Lucas enjoyed poetry. Couldn't help himself. He was especially fond of haiku, the Japanese form, and in reading haiku from time to time, he'd encountered talk of Zen Buddhism, and the concept of the koan. A koan was a kind of a riddle, or paradox, without a solution. They were used by the Zen master to demonstrate the ultimate futility of logic, and to provoke-with some pupils, anyway-instant enlightenment.

Lucas heard Letty say bulletproof vest and took a step toward enlightenment, though later he thought the enlightenment might have been provoked by the way she'd orally italicized the better be.

Del arrived back the next day at one o'clock, knocked on the door. Lucas was lying on the bed with the door unlocked and called, "Come in."

Del pushed the door open, stuck his head in, and said, "Am I too early? Or have you figured it out?"

"I don't have a name yet," Lucas said. He held up the art pad, and the top page was covered with red and green squares and arrows. "I've got some thoughts."

Del tossed his duffel in the corner, sat on the second bed. "Give."

Lucas said, "One: We figure out in the evening that the killer was probably Sorrell. Then we drive home, and about twelve hours after we leave Armstrong, we arrive at the Sorrell house. He's dead, and he's been dead for at least a little while. That means that the killer had to hear that we'd figured out Sorrell, had to make a plan, and had to drive seven hours, at least-Rochester is more than an hour south of the Cities-and then he has to find Sorrell's house, where the phone number is unlisted, do the killing, and get away. That's pretty amazing, when you think about it.

"Two: Thirty hours after he hanged two people in Armstrong, Sorrell lets his own killer into his house, with his wife standing right there with him. He's unarmed and is shot down in cold blood. He takes no precautions, he never thinks that the guy at the door might be connected to the murders.

"Three: Why did the guy attack Letty? We don't know. But we do know that Letty's mother let him in the house after midnight, when both she and Letty knew there was a killer running around loose.

"Four: Letty claims she shot the guy, but none of the hospitals inside two hundred miles report a guy shot in the chest with a.22, that might possibly be our guy. Why is that?