John Sandford - Mortal Prey

"There she is,"Levy said. He licked his lips once, picked up the phone, and pushed the talk button.

"Clara?… Yeah, this is me… Okay, let me see. One time, I was at the warehouse with John, we were doing some accounting stuff, and you came in and John said to you, 'That tube top looks cheap. You ought to stop wearing them, Clara.' And you said, 'I'll never wear another one in my life.' Okay? It's me."

Mallard was sitting across Levy's ornate desk, with Malone beside him and the tech leaning forward, two agents behind them. Lucas was standing beside the desk, flatfooted, hands in his pockets, watching. He heard the beeping, faintly, like the beeping made by an ATM.

Then BANG.

The phone exploded, and bits and pieces of Levy's face, skull, and brains hit Lucas like a bucket of thrown blood.

Stunned by the explosion, Lucas staggered back, unsure if he was hurt, registered Malone's voice gone shrill: "Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus…"

And then Lucas, losing it, freaking out, began frantically brushing at himself, wiping himself, trying to get Levy's body tissue off his face and chest, backing away from the body, saying, "Get it off me, get it off…"

They had a panic meeting at midnight. By morning, everybody in the country would know about Levy's murder. They'd had to notify the locals, who leaked like crazy, and media calls started coming into FBI headquarters at eleven o'clock, first from the late guy at the Post-Dispatch, and five minutes after that by a local CNN correspondent.

"We're gonna look like utter fools," Mallard said. "We might as well be braced for it."

"The cell phone-no way we should have allowed him to use that," said Lewis, the AIC. By "we" he meant Mallard, and everyone around the table knew it.

"We looked at it," Mallard snapped. "A technician looked at it and didn't see anything. And you tell me who in the hell thought she had that kind of capability."

"I doubt that she does," Malone said. "She had to know somebody.

The only way she'd know somebody is through contacts here in St. Louis. The people who ran her. John Ross?"

"So we talk to Ross, tonight," Mallard said. "Tell him to call around, find some names of people who could have done this."

"He's not gonna give us anything," Lewis groaned. "If he knows who did the phone, then that guy can probably pin all kinds of shit back on Ross. Ross might take care of the guy himself, but he's not going to give him up to us."

"People are gonna go crazy with this," Malone said. "We got to get her soon."

"Ideas," Mallard said. He looked around the table, then at Lucas. "You got anything?"

"Just what I'm doing. We've got most of Soulard webbed up, we're running the names through Sally. We'll get the rest of the place tomorrow and the next day. If Clara's down there, there's a good chance we'll know by tomorrow night."

"Got nothing but false alarms so far. Running around like a goddamn Chinese fire drill," said Lewis.

"Better'n sitting around jerking off with a bunch of census tables and utility bills," Lucas said. "We're actually doing something."

The agent named Brown said, "Setting off false alarms is mostly-"

"Shut up," Mallard said. To Lucas: "You need more people?"

Lucas shook his head. "I think we're all right. We've got guys who know the area, going around talking to people that they know personally… I think we're good."

"We gotta get something else going," Mallard said. He sounded desperate; he was desperate, Lucas realized.

"And we've got to cover Dallaglio and Ross," Malone said. "She's gonna do them all. She did Levy right under our noses. She's not backing off."

"Dallaglio is going to run for it, I think," said Lasch, who was in charge of the Dallaglio watch detail. "I called him tonight after Levy, to tell him, and to tell him to tighten up. He said that he wasn't gonna sit around like a target."

"Makes sense," Lucas said. "He could take off for six weeks, a week here, a week there, see Europe-no way she'd find him."

"If he leaves, and she figures it out, she's gonna take off herself, come back and get him later," Mallard said. "We couldn't find her the first time she took off. Never even got a sniff of her. If she has another spot set up, I doubt that we'll find her there, either."

They were starting to repeat themselves. Lucas stood up: "Call me if anything moves. I'm gonna get some sleep. I've talked to my guys, and we want to get an early start tomorrow. Get people before they leave for work."

Sally asked, "What'd you do with your suit?"

"Threw it in the Dumpster at the hotel. Couldn't wear it again even if we got it clean. I'd keep smelling him," Lucas said. He held his hands to his face. "I'm smelling him anyway."

Malone shook her head. "Can't believe it. Cannot believe it."

Rinker and Pollock were up at first light. Rinker got the paper off the porch. Levy dominated the front page. She read the story, and followed it through to the jump page.

"Anything good?" Pollock asked.

"No, not really…" She looked back at the photo of Levy on the front, and was about to toss the paper when she noticed a smaller headline below the fold: " Webster Groves/Woman Tortured To Death: Police."

And beneath that:

The brutally tortured body of a Webster Groves woman was found in a roadside ditch in Kirkwood yesterday by a highway crew picking up trash.

The woman was identified as Nancy Leighton, 38, who lived at the Oakwood Apartments in Webster Groves. Police said they are following a number of leads, but have made no arrests in the murder.

"This is the worst thing I've ever seen," said Webster Groves homicide detective Larry Kelsey. "This woman suffered a long time before she died."

Rinker read the rest of it-no details of the torture, but plenty of hints, along with vows of revenge from the cops, who apparently had not a single clue-and then crumpled the newspaper in her hands. Nancy Leighton. An old friend, now dead; and dead because of Rinker. Somebody was sending her a message, and the message had been received.

"You all right?" Pollock asked.

"Yeah… just nervous about this whole thing, I guess. Not too late to back out."

"No way. I'm feeling better about it all the time," Pollock said. "Should have done it five years ago."

Rinker balled up the paper and tossed it under the sink. Nancy Leighton. No help for her now; but she had one coming, Nancy did.

Rinker and Pollock had been up late the night before. Pollock had said that there was nothing in the place that she really wanted, but that turned out to be not quite right. They'd gone out twice for packaging tape, and finally had four large boxes to be shipped to Pollock's parents. Pollock knew about a private UPS pickup spot at a strip mall south on I-55, and they'd drop them on the way out of town.

At eight o'clock, everything that could be packed was packed, and all the notes that could be written to neighbors, friends, and the landlady had been written, and they'd eaten almost everything in the refrigerator for breakfast. Pollock started crying when Rinker carried the first box out to the garage. Looked around the apartment and started weeping. Said, "Oh, shit," and went into the back and came out with a framed picture that had been hanging in the bathroom. "I'll mail it home from Memphis," she said.

"Scared?"

"Ah, God."

"You can still chicken out," Rinker said.

"Not now. I finally got up the guts," Pollock said. Still, she looked around. "Like leaving a prison cell, but it's your cell."

"Let me tell you about my apartment in Wichita…"

They took both cars in the early light of morning, a short convoy out to the interstate, the arch popping up in their rearview mirrors. Ten miles out, they stopped at the UPS place and Pollock went in and mailed the boxes.