John Sandford - Phantom prey

For Christ’s sakes, she’d been a cheerleader at Edina, one of the toniest high schools in the metro area. How could she…

The answer, of course, was that she couldn’t have predicted any of it. If she’d stopped somewhere for a cappuccino, she might not ever have met Siggy. Now she’d be married to an insurance agent or a cop or a finance guy…

The problem with this view of life, this philosophy, was that it suggested that what happened to Frances Austin, and what happened to the other murder victims, was not the result of a cold calculated plan by anybody at all. The whole thing could have been set off by accident, by a bump in the dark, by a burglar…

But then… three killings? Nope. It might be chaotic, but there were threads in the chaos. He was just pulling the wrong one.

Across the street, Heather was looking at herself in the mirror, holding up an outfit. Then she turned her head, walked to the door. Her mother was there, said something, and Heather disappeared down the hall, leaving the door open, and was back a moment later with the toddler.

She put him on the floor and went back to posing. Lucas watched in the binoculars and thought, Huh. She supposedly had no money. Her mother supposedly paid half her rent, out of her Social Security and pension.

And that maternity stuff she’s looking at cost at least a grand. A light went on: the guy she’d met at the door, the underling, had delivered more than a good time: he’d brought money from Siggy. Dollars to doughnuts; and Heather was flush again.

There was contact. She wants to look nice. Bet Siggy is coming…

The next morning, instead of pushing the Austin file, Lucas sat in Rose Marie Roux’s office in the Public Safety building and they shouted at each other about the Republican convention. Roux was working on a matrix of all possible outcomes of the street demonstrations, from minor disturbances to full- blown call- out- the-National-Guard riots- not to determine staffing levels, but to propose differing political postures for the governor and his pals, depending on what happened.

“If we really had a disaster, there’d be some fallout for us, too,” she said, solemn as a priest. “Wouldn’t just be St. Paul.”

“If there’s a disaster, another Seattle ’ninety nine, there’ll be fallout for everybody,” Lucas said. “Forty thousand demonstrators showed up in Seattle and that was for the World Trade Organization. How many people know what the WTO is? And we’re gonna get the Republican Party and the most unpopular president since Richard Nixon.”

“The biggest horse’s ass since Richard Nixon."

"I can’t stand it when you guys say that,” Lucas said, his voice rising. “Somebody says, ‘The black bloc is coming, the anarchists, we’re gonna have a riot,’ and one of you political guys says, ‘The president is a horse’s ass,’ like that’s an answer. Do you think it makes any difference to Gepetto’s, if some goddamn ratshit anarchist throws a firebomb through the dining room window, if the president’s a horse’s ass? Don’t tell me about him being a horse’s ass, ’cause I don’t give a shit. Tell me how you’re gonna keep the firebomb from going through the window.”

“A giant horse’s ass, a horse’s ass of biblical proportions.” Rose Marie was goading him, and he knew it, and that infuriated him even more.

“… And that’s what Gepetto wants to know, too. He’s full every night, he’s turning tables as fast as he can push food at people. He doesn’t give a shit whether the Republicans come to town. What he wants is police protection…”

“… You’re shouting again…"

"… and when Gepetto asks, ‘How’re you going to protect me?’ all you guys got is, ‘The president’s a horse’s ass.’ That’s a really great answer.”

“There is no Gepetto,” Rose Marie said. “The place is owned by Tommy Reed.”

“I know who it’s owned by. Does that make any difference? Do you-”

His cell phone went off, and he pulled it out and looked at the screen: Dakota County sheriff’s department: “Yeah? Davenport.”

“This is Dick Pratt down in Dakota. A guy walked in the door early this morning with Frances Austin’s purse,” Pratt said. “No cash, but all of her ID is there. Credit cards, driver’s license. He remembered the story, drove it in. He found it in the ditch a couple miles north of the body.”

“Anything good?"

"Maybe,” Pratt said. “You got a guy named Frank connected to her? Heard that name?"

"Uhhh… yeah. Somewhere."

"Figure out where. There was a letter in her purse, handwritten, we think it’s her handwriting, with a felt- tip pen. Water got to it, in the ditch. The paper’s falling apart and a lot of the note is one big ink stain-but we can read the top part of it. Addressed to Frank, it looks like she was breaking off a relationship.”

“That’s good,” Lucas said, standing up, focusing now. “That could be critical. We were told that she didn’t have a boyfriend. You’re sure it’s her handwriting?”

“Pretty sure. There was another thing in there, a list, and the handwriting looks the same to me. We’ll have a handwriting guy give us an opinion. But who else’s would it be? That kind of a letter?”

“Goddamnit."

"And you got a Frank?” Pratt asked. “Someplace in the notes. I’ll find it. The letter’s in really bad shape?"

"Yeah. Our guys got it flat, and got it dry, but it was in the water too long. Even the part we can read is smeared. ‘Frank,’ is pretty clear, though. It looks like she folded it and refolded it about a million times, like she hadn’t sent it. Like she was thinking about it.”

“I’d like to come down and take a look,” Lucas said. “If you want, I can have our guys take a high- res photo of it and e-mail it to you. You could have it in two minutes, save you a trip."

"Let’s do it,” Lucas said. He rang off and Rose Marie asked, “Catch a break?"

"Maybe. I’ve got to get back to the office."

"Nice screaming at you,” she said.

Halfway back to his office, Lucas realized where he’d heard the name Frank. He was so startled by the realization that he pulled the car over and dug out the notebook, to check. Yes: Martina Trenoff made him write the name down. Frank Willett was a trainer at one of Alyssa’s clubs and, she’d said, one of Alyssa’s lovers. Karate, she’d said. Model, bicycle racer, rock climber, surfer, one of those guys who you can’t figure out how they made a living.

The rest of the way back to the office was a fantasy, a story that Lucas made up as he drove: a guy with no money, fucking both an heiress and the heiress’s daughter, who was, come to think of it, also an heiress.

But the mother, in addition to being a little goofy and believing in astrology and probably tea leaves, also had a tougher, business side. In addition, she’d had a number of lovers, and might not have been interested in a long- term relationship with somebody like a bicycle racer/ model/surfer guy.

She might like fucking him, okay, but long- term, she’d want somebody with status in the community, somebody with… good shoes. She’d mentioned the artist, Kidd-a perfect match for her. As an artist, he’d certainly be goofy enough, and hell, he was in museums. That’s what she’d want, not some guy who walked around thinking about his next pair of sunglasses.

The daughter, on the other hand, young, inexperienced, not all that great- looking, might be a bit more influenced by a guy with big muscles and a surfer’s outlook.

And if the guy were looking for money… From there, that one thing, that relationship, all kinds of other things might have fallen out. She tells him she’s going to break it off: they argue in the kitchen, there’s some pushing, she reaches for a knife, he takes it away from her and sticks her. Wonder what kind of truck he’d have, whether there’d be transmission fluid in the truck bed? No doubt in Lucas’s mind that the guy would have a truck, if he was a surfer, a bike- racer, a rock climber, all that.