John Sandford - Buried Prey

“That’s the biggest hint we’ve gotten so far,” Lucas said.

“And that’s all I got for you,” Daniel said. “I wish I had more. Marcy being killed… goddamnit, I can’t get it off my back. I didn’t know her long, before I retired, but she was a comer. I keep thinking about her. I keep seeing her.”

Lucas nodded: “So do I. I keep wanting to call her up, tell her some stuff.”

Lucas drove back to the BCA and found Sandy. She was wearing one of her long light hippie dresses, and a pair of round sunglasses that she thought made her look like Yoko Ono or somebody, but actually made her look like one of the three blind mice. He told her what he needed, and in one minute, she’d found Hanson’s kid’s driver’s license information, including his current address, in a nice neighborhood in St. Paul. In two minutes, they’d downloaded his driver’s license photo. They printed it; he told Sandy he needed everything they could get on him, and headed back to his car.

His cell phone rang as he was getting in: Sandy. “I dug through the records. He’s got a Chevy van, white in color.”

“Ah, jeez… Sandy!”

Dorcas Ryan, the onetime massage parlor hooker, worked the second shift, so she should be home, he thought. Twenty minutes later, he parked in front her house, and through the kitchen window, saw her looking out at him.

He walked up the sidewalk; she was opening the door as he came up. He didn’t go inside: he simply handed her the digital copy of Hanson’s driver’s license photo, without saying a word. She took it, peered at it, said, “Just a minute,” retreated back inside, returned with a pair of reading glasses, put them on her nose, and looked again at the picture.

She said, “Ah. It’s been a long time.”

“The kid… is that Fell?”

“It could be,” Ryan said. “If I were in a court, and they asked me to swear to it, I don’t think I could. I could say it could be. But it’s been a long time.”

“Don’t tell anybody about this. If he’s the killer, we want to snap him up.”

“Who would I tell?” Ryan asked.

“Anybody,” Lucas said. “You tell a friend, and she tells somebody else, and they call Channel Three… there you are.”

“Won’t tell a soul,” Ryan said. “Not until I hear he’s dead.”

“He might not be dead-”

She snorted. “A cop killer, is what I hear on TV. A lady-cop killer. What are his chances?”

Lucas walked away, thinking, Everybody thinks we’re gonna kill Fell. He remembered Letty’s warning: gotta be cool.

After leaving Ryan, he headed back toward the BCA, got on his cell phone as he drove, and called Del. Del had just gotten up, was eating breakfast. “I got a break,” he said.

“I thought something was up,” Del said. “I told Shrake and Jenkins to hang loose.”

“See you at the office,” Lucas said.

He started by pulling all of Hanson’s DMV information. At the time of the Jones killings, he had been twenty-seven. Just right, Lucas thought. He ran the information through the NCIC and came up empty: Hanson had no criminal record.

Del showed up, and Lucas told him about Hanson. “If he’s the one.. you think he killed his old man? I mean, Jesus.”

“If he’s the one, he’s a fruitcake. A psycho,” Lucas said. “His old man was a cop, and Daniel says, knowing Hanson, if he smelled it on his kid, he’d have let us know. And the kid might have known that. This was a guy who set up that whole Dr. Fell routine… he’s a planner.”

Sandy came in. “Hanson went to the University of Minnesota, here in the Cities. Got a degree in horticultural science. Last job I can find was at a place called Clean Genes, whatever that means.”

“Not quite right,” Del said.

Lucas said to Del, “Did I tell you he drives a white van?”

“That’s something,” Del said to Lucas.

“Nothing to say horticultural scientists can’t read nursery rhymes,” Lucas said.

Lucas asked Sandy, “How’d you do this? Some kind of weird computer shit?”

“I looked him up on Facebook,” Sandy said. “His Facebook page says he graduated from the U, and I took a quick peek at his records-don’t tell anybody about that. He did pretty well.”

Del asked, “What are we doing?”

“I want to look in Hanson’s house,” Lucas said. “Brian Hanson’s. See what I can see. See if there’s anything that would point us at the kid.”

“St. Louis Park’s been inside of it, when the deputies called from up north,” Del said. “We could give them a call.”

Lucas called St. Louis Park, talked to a Lieutenant Carl Wright. “I think we can get you in-I’d have to check with the chief,” Wright said. “Part of the investigation into his disappearance?”

“That’s exactly what it is,” Lucas said. “When you went in the first time, did you move stuff around, or just walk through?”

“Walked through-for all we knew, he’d be coming back, so we didn’t disturb anything.”

“Excellent,” Lucas said. “We’ll start your way. If there’s a problem, give me a call on my cell phone. Also, I don’t want the relatives to know about this, if they get in touch with you.”

“Why’s that?”

“Tell you when we get there,” Lucas said.

On the way out the door, Lucas said to Del, “Let’s take your car. It’s a little less conspicuous.”

“Why can’t we be conspicuous?”

“I might want to cruise Darrell Hanson’s house on the way back. See if he’s around.”

St. Louis Park was a few minutes west of Minneapolis, and a half-hour after they left the BCA, they pulled into the redbrick police station, found Wright, who said they’d been cleared to walk through Hanson’s house. “I’ll be coming with you, to keep everything kosher.”

“Fine,” Lucas said.

“So what’s this about the relatives?”

“There’s at least the outside possibility that one of the relatives could be a guy we’re interested in…” He gave Wright a quick summary, without mentioning Marcy, and Wright said, “You know, if this is a criminal investigation, maybe we ought to get a warrant.”

“We’re not investigating Brian Hanson for anything, other than to find out how he died,” Lucas said. “We’re not searching for anything-we’re just looking for signs that he expected to come back to his house.”

“And it’s better not to ask if it’s okay,” Del said. “We can always apologize later.”

“That’s true,” Wright said. “All right. I can live with that. Let’s go.”

Hanson had lived in a fifties bungalow, on a tree-shaded side street not far from the station. The guy next door was trimming his hedge, and stopped when they got out of their cars-Wright was driving a patrol car-and asked, “No sign of him yet?”

“Not yet,” Wright said.

“You see anybody checking around?” Del asked.

“It’s been quiet,” the neighbor said. “And we been kinda keeping an eye out.”

Wright had a key. He explained that they used a locksmith to open the door the first time, and found the key on a hook in the kitchen. When Wright opened the door, they could smell the lack of activity: the house felt shut up, and still. And they could smell cigarette smoke.

“Guy’s still smoking. Must be nuts, his age,” Del said.

“Gonna kill him, for sure,” Lucas said.

They walked through the house, moving quickly. Del stopped once to pop open the washer and drier. Both were empty.

“He’d been home for a few days,” Lucas said.

In the bathroom, they found a dopp kit with a razor, shaving cream, toothbrush and toothpaste, and miscellaneous-antiseptic cream, SPF-30 face lotion, a tube of Preparation H, nose-hair scissors, Band-Aids. “There’s a clue for you,” Del said. “Did he have another kit up north?”