John Sandford - Broken Prey

“Gonna be a black eye for the state, letting him go,” Sloan said.

Elle said, “Could I see Pope’s file?”

“Sure. Don’t tell anybody. It’s supposed to be a confidential medical file. . I’ll get Carol to make a copy for you. What about behavior. .?”

Elle had a simple nylon briefcase with her and said, “I’ve got a note. .” As she dug into it, it occurred to him that the old nun’s costume, by isolating her face, had kept her young even as she aged. Now, dressed in the gray-and-black garb of her order, she looked like a thin, middle-aged woman who’d lived an ascetic, but sedentary, life. Her hair, which he hadn’t seen for twenty years after she’d gone into the convent, had turned steel gray, and her wrists and ankles seemed frail.

Then she looked over the note at him, and her eyes were as young as a kindergartener’s: “There are some interesting aspects to the behavior of this man. I think, after looking at the material that Mr. Sloan gave me, that he is probably intelligent. A planner. Nothing spontaneous or extemporaneous about this-he chose his victims, he knew when they would be alone and when he could get them without being interrupted. He knew where to leave Angela Larson’s body where it would have the greatest impact, but at a place where he could stop, take a little time to arrange her, and then leave, without being seen or noticed or monitored in any way. That’s not necessarily easy to do in a large city. Security cameras are everywhere, and as far as we know, he has not been seen by a single one.”

Lucas pointed a finger at Sloan: “Security camera at the store where Rice worked?”

“I’ll call.”

Elle continued: “There’s also something interesting in the way he tortures his victims. He’s methodical. I pointed this out to Mr. Sloan. .”

“She won’t call me by my first name,” Sloan said to Lucas, grinning at Elle. Then, “Sorry, go ahead.”

“He beat both of them with some kind of whip, but not in an uncontrolled frenzy. If he were in a frenzy, he would keep hitting them in the same place, but these victims look like they had been put through a mechanical shredder-some of the slashes cross each other, but most of them are carefully laid in, proceeding down and around their bodies, as though he’s being. . careful. Thorough.”

“Nuts,” Lucas said.

“He’s crazy, but it’s not an uncontrollable frenzy. Not mechanically uncontrollable, at any rate. He’s like a punisher: remote from his victim. Like a paid torturer in a prison.”

“Is he taunting us? Is he going to call somebody? Will he look for publicity?” Lucas asked.

“He could very well,” she said, nodding. “He’s intelligent, but the way he displays the bodies, he’s looking for attention. I don’t think he’ll call the TV stations-he’ll call a newspaper, if he does call.”

Sloan asked, “Why not TV?”

“Because they would record him, and he wouldn’t want his voice on tape. He will be careful.”

“What else?” Lucas asked.

“He’s strong. Probably attractive. Quite likely charismatic-a person who might attract his victims’ attention in some way. Not necessarily a pleasant way, but somebody they would notice.”

“You think they knew him?”

She considered it for a moment, then nodded: “Maybe. That’s a hard call. These two people were unattached-it’s possible that he seduced them in some way before the attack. Or he might simply be visually appealing to them. That would get him close without a fuss. They may have welcomed his attention-he could very well be soft-spoken, somebody you would trust.”

She looked up at Lucas. “One thing I would do is this: I would check on current and previous relationships that the victims had, and see if the men with whom they were involved are similar in some ways. The same appearance, somehow, the same attitude, or some particular status. Did they both like tall, dark men? Then the killer may be tall and dark. .”

“You’re assuming. . a sexual connection with Rice. The sheriff says Rice was absolutely straight,” Lucas said. “A widower with a kid. Nothing we’ve got would suggest that he had any homosexual contacts ever, even as a boy. We’ve talked to people who have known him for his entire life.”

Elle pulled at her lower lip, and Sloan said, “Yeah, but. . in that culture down there, out in the countryside, an interest in homosexuality might be pretty well hidden.”

Elle nodded: “Very much hidden, especially if a man were essentially bisexual-he would always have his relationships with women as a cover. Even if somebody else knew about it, about any homosexual impulses that Rice might have had, that man might not admit it because of the implication that he might be gay. .”

Lucas to Elle: “One of the crime-scene guys said he’d seen similar violence and it was usually gay, and the specific sexual mutilation usually came from a former lover, a jilted lover. .”

“This is not like that,” she said quickly. “I know precisely what your technician was saying, but as I said, this was not done in an emotional frenzy. This was cold and calculated and, I think, enjoyed. This does not seem to me to have been done in anger.” She paused: “I could be wrong. Nothing is for certain.”

“Good.” Lucas made a note.

Carol knocked and stuck her head into the office: “The stuff from St. John’s is here, on the Pope guy. You want paper or electronic?”

“Paper. Three copies,” Lucas said. “Right away.”

Carol’s eyes involuntarily ticked over to Elle, raised perhaps a millimeter, and then she said, “Three copies,” and left.

They talked for another twenty minutes, then Elle looked at her watch and said, “I’ve got a seminar.”

“Pick up the copy of the Pope file on your way out,” Lucas said. “I’ll be on my cell phone.”

“I’ll read it right after the seminar,” she said. “I’ll call this afternoon.”

When she was gone, Lucas asked Sloan, “Are you going to Owatonna with me?”

“Absolutely, but we got some bureaucratic shit to figure out first,” Sloan said. “Pennington absolutely doesn’t want to be the media face on this. And he doesn’t want me involved. He says you guys gotta do it.”

“Ahhh. .,” Lucas said. Pennington was the Minneapolis chief. Lucas didn’t like him. “Nordwall didn’t want to do it, either. Maybe Rose Marie could do it. She can screw something out of Pennington in trade.”

Lucas got Rose Marie on the phone, outlined the problem.

“I’m not going to do it,” she said. “I’m trying to pull the string on this special session. Either you or McCord can do it. I’ll talk to McCord this afternoon and figure it out. I’ll talk to the governor, too. . Be helpful if you could get the guy before he kills anyone else.”

“We might’ve had a break,” Lucas said. He told her about Pope. “If it’s him, we’ll look pretty good. Otherwise. . right now, we don’t have anything that would point at anybody in particular.”

“So he’s going to do somebody else; if he’s not this Pope guy.”

“If he’s careful, he could do a few,” Lucas said.

“Goddamnit, we don’t want that. I’ll talk to the governor, I’ll talk to McCord, and we’ll figure something out and get back to you.”

“I’m on the cell,” Lucas said. He hung up and said to Sloan: “Let’s go.”

Owatonna was an hour south of St. Paul, straight down I-35, back in the sea of corn and beans. A few miles out of Owatonna, they took a phone call from Nordwall. “Where you at?”

“In my car, on the way to Owatonna.” He told Nordwall about Charlie Pope.

“Okay, that’s something,” Nordwall said. “I got something else for you. Bill James, the guy I got doing the biography you wanted? He says that Rice was almost perfectly straight.”