John Sandford - Phantom prey

“But it looks to me-"

"Me, too. It’s her handwriting, no doubt about it,” Austin said. “Do you have any idea when the relationship might have started?"

"It would have to be after he and I broke it off."

"Why? Why afterwards.” She looked at him, blankly, for a moment, then half-smiled: “Because he would not have had the energy to be sleeping with her, too. I, uh, needed a lot of attention.”

“Okay. So when did you break off?"

"April, the middle of April, right around tax time,” Austin said. “I had a lot to do, he started getting a little testy when I put him off… and finally I told him that we should end it. And I did. We did. Agreed to.”

“Sounds like you did,” Lucas said. “Maybe,” she conceded. “And he would have gotten to know Frances through you?” Lucas asked. “Well, through the spa in Minneapolis, Riverwood. It’s right over in St. Anthony Main."

"By the A1,” Lucas suggested. “Oh, God! I never thought of that. I mean, it’s several blocks, but it’s an easy walk.” She turned her face away from him for a moment, thinking, and then back: “But so what? I mean, what would that mean?”

“I don’t know. But tell me about how they probably met,” Lucas said.

“Well. She was going to the university, off and on, had an apartment over there, and the Riverwood location was the closest one, so she took a locker and would work out over there,” Austin said. “Frank works at several of the sites, usually one morning or one afternoon a week, doing tai chi, yoga, Pilates, meditation, whatever the members want.”

“Did she know that you were seeing Frank?"

"Not as far as I know. But I’m sure a couple of members could have figured it out and let her know. I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that precipitated this letter.”

“She apparently hadn’t sent it,” Lucas said. “It was still in her purse. So they were going on at the time.”

“You think that he might have come here?"

"What if she thought you were still sleeping with him? When she was? He denies it, she comes here to confront you, they argue… I mean, his job is at stake,” Lucas said. “Another thing-that fifty thousand dollars? You may not have noticed it, but your employee is driving a Land Rover. Do you pay him that well?”

Now she blushed, the pale pink tint creeping up her neck to her cheeks. “Actually… Look, I wasn’t paying him to sleep with me. But I have lots of money, and he was driving around in this old Jeep Cherokee with holes in the floor. I was afraid he was going to gas himself.”

“You bought him the Land Rover?"

"I helped him with it, yes,” she said.

“Shit. I thought it could be the fifty thousand. That would have tied things up just perfectly,” Lucas said.

She looked out at the lake, her eyes narrowing, her lips tightening, and she said, “I cannot believe that asshole.”

“And he was gone, your affair was done, before Hunter was killed?”

Her face jerked back toward him. “You don’t think…?"

"There’s nothing to suggest it. But there are a lot of dead people.” She shook her head. “I’ll tell you something: Frank knows nothing about mechanical things. I don’t see him sabotaging an airplane in such a complicated way that Hunter could fly it all over the place, and then up to Canada, and then have it fail at that one moment when it couldn’t, without crashing.”

“If it failed anytime up in the air…” Lucas began. “No. If it had failed at five thousand feet, he could have landed it anywhere with water. They even used to practice it-coming in without using the engine.”

Lucas shuddered: he did not like airplanes. “You mean, just turn it off?”

“No, it was on, but they’d land without using it, just gliding in. From five thousand feet, in a Beaver, you can glide for miles.”

“Huh.” She ticked a finger at him: “The fifty thousand. If he was a drug dealer in California, even if he was small- time-especially if he was small- time-fifty thousand dollars might have meant a lot to him. I mean, what if she just wanted her money back? Found out about him?”

Lucas nodded: “That’s something. I’ll look into it. Now, the Land Rover: he’s had it for at least a year?”She thought, then nodded. “Maybe thirteen months now."

"So he would have been driving it when Frances was murdered,” Lucas said. “Yes."

"Okay… Okay, that’s another thing we can check on."

"So what are you going to do?” she asked. “I’ll nail down everything I can, then I’m going to pick him up on the California warrant, and I’m going to squeeze him."

"You want me to wait until then, before I fire his ass?” A smile flickered on his face. “If you don’t mind.”

Some of the air had gone out of the tire, but Willett still looked good, Lucas thought, as he headed back downtown. Anytime a young woman was murdered, with some indication of passion around it, a boyfriend would be a prime suspect.

If the boyfriend had slept first with the mother, then with the daughter, if he looked to lose the possibility of a marriage to a lot of money, if he was a hustler as Willett apparently was, if he was keeping it all a secret, and kept it a secret even after his girlfriend was murdered… and that Francis/Frances coincidence might have given him the idea of pulling Frances’s money out of the bank. They must have talked about their name similarity.

There was even a possibility that the old movie clichй, the mistaken identity, had been at work-that Willett had come to the house intending to kill Alyssa Austin, and killed Frances instead.

Willett was just too good: half the cops that Lucas knew would simply say, “He did it.”

Just a matter of finding the proof.

Lucas and Del sat watching Heather Toms until she packed it up and went to bed.

“I feel like a slimeball,” Lucas said. “So don’t watch,” Del said. Across the street, Heather, with her back turned, popped her brassiere, took it off, then turned to the window to pull her sleeping T- shirt over her head.

“Has it ever occurred to you that a lot of what we do for a living would be against the law, if we weren’t cops?” Lucas asked.

“You mean like stalking people, being Peeping Toms, doing dope deals with them?”

“Yeah."

"Maybe we just don’t have the guts to be crooks,” Del suggested

“Don’t have the instinct for the big score; we like life insurance and health insurance and pensions too much.” Heather kissed the baby good night and turned off the bedroom lights, and Del put the glasses down.

“That’s not it,” Lucas said. “There’s lots of ways we’re not like crooks. For one thing, we got better hours and make more money. Still…”

“Stop worrying,” Del said. “Okay."

"You ready?” Del asked. “Let’s do it.”

Willett lived in a small house in St. Louis Park, an inner- ring suburb west of Minneapolis. There was an attached garage, which meant they wouldn’t be able to get at the car. But he also had an evening tai chi class at the Maplewood location; they cruised it, spotted the Land Rover in the back parking lot, with a half- dozen other cars scattered around. The class was twenty minutes under way when they took the first look.

“You’re sure this is going to work?” Lucas asked. “The guy who programmed the key says it’ll work perfect,” Del said. “If the car alarm goes off…"

"Not a chance,” Del said. They found the closest parking space, left the borrowed BCA Mustang, and walked on down the street, checking windows, porches, side streets. The night was cold and close, with a touch of sleet in the air; not many people outside.

They cut across the spa’s parking lot and came up to the Land Rover. Del punched the remote key, the truck lights flashed, and Del said, “Should be open.”