John Sandford - Broken Prey

“Did you talk to Charlie Pope about kidnapping women? About keeping them?” Lucas asked.

And suddenly, everything about Chase seemed to tighten, and his face flooded with color. “I told him what they said I done. I didn’t ask him to do it.”

“What do you think about it. . what he’s doing?”

“Taylor says he’s doing the Lord’s work.”

“But Taylor’s full of shit,” Lucas snapped. “What we want to know is this: Did you talk to Pope specifically about what you did? Exactly what you did? The details? Or did you just talk. .”

“He pretty much knew all about it,” Chase said. “That kind of thing comes out. They say if you don’t get it out in the open, you can’t deal with it. That’s what they say. I don’t remember what they said I did. .” He scratched his head and then began leaking tears again. “I gotta get out of here.”

“Did you tell him how to hide out? Do you have any idea where he might go? What he was thinking about?”

“No. He wanted to get a job in meatpacking. He said there was good money in it. He said he almost got a job at Hormel, but they turned him down because some old bitch didn’t like him.” His lips picked up a little curl, not quite a smile, something with a sneer in it. “I bet she. .”

Then, just as quickly, the expression flicked away. “But where he went, I don’t know. He never seemed to think about it too much. He just wanted to get out. He was desperate. They used to let him look out the window, though. He could see the driveway and people coming and going.”

“Did he talk about razors? Did he talk about whipping women? Did he talk about hunting them?” Lucas asked.

“He didn’t talk about it so much.” Chase started squirming, wrapping his ankles together, like he had to pee, and again, Lucas had to look away. “But he listened to it. He liked to hear about it.”

“I think you might be projecting, Lawrence,” Hart said.

“I’m not projecting,” Chase said. “He used to listen real close.”

They talked for a few more minutes, but Chase had nothing more. Lucas finally shrugged and said to Hart, “Let’s go.”

They stepped away, and then Sloan stepped back to the window and asked, “Hey, Larry. . what’d Charlie Pope do to the woman from Hormel?”

Chase turned at the “Larry,” to protest-but when the question got to him, he tried to rearrange his face into an expression of puzzlement, like a child trying to come up with another reason why his hand was in the cookie jar.

“Why. . why. .”

“What was her name, Larry?” Sloan asked lazily. “I mean, we’re gonna find out. If you don’t tell us, they could give you another twenty years for being an accomplice after the fact. You’d never see the sun.”

“I didn’t have nothing to do with it, I don’t know. .”

“Larry, what the fuck was her name?” Sloan asked. A little steel now.

Chase looked into himself for a moment, and Sloan said, “Lawrence?” and tears came to Chase’s eyes again and he sobbed, then said, “I don’t know, but her first name might have been Louise.”

“When was this?”

Chase couldn’t look at them. “Maybe, maybe in ninety-five.”

“Sonofabitch,” Hart said, peering at Sloan. “Did he just tell you what I think he did? Did you just solve a murder?”

Hart walked them briskly back through the hospital to the administrator’s office and told Ross, “We had something come up with Chase.”

He explained in a few words, and Ross said to Sloan, “My assistant has all those numbers. Would you like her to call around down there? We could probably get you something before you’re back home.”

“Sure,” Lucas said. “And we need an address for this Mike West guy, the guy Pope used to hang with.”

They got the address, and on the way out, the administrator said to Sloan, “This thing you did with Chase. . You have a nice talent. Maybe you should have been a psychologist.”

Sloan almost blushed. “Ah, it might all be bullshit.”

It wasn’t.

Ross called back when they were halfway to Minneapolis. Sloan took the call on his cell phone, listened for a minute, and then said, “Let me take that down.” He took a pad and a mechanical pencil from his coat pocket, jotted down a name and number.

“Could you call him back? Tell him I’ll get in touch in an hour or so-when I’m back in the office. Okay.”

He punched off and said to Lucas, “A woman named Louise Samples, who worked in personnel at Hormel in the city of Albert Lea, was killed in her house in November of ninety-five. The cops say it looked like she walked in on a burglar. He hit her with a hammer and then raped her at least a couple of times, once anally. She was probably dead for most of it. They never got a break on the case.”

A car in front of them suddenly slowed for a left turn, and Lucas swung around it, a quick brake and a quicker acceleration. Then he looked at Sloan: “How the fuck can you talk about quitting when you pull off something like this?”

“For all the good it did Louise Samples or anybody else,” Sloan said.

“Man, you gotta take a couple of aspirin and lie down,” Lucas said. “I’m really startin’ to think you’re losing it.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you, dickweed,” Sloan said. He looked out the window as they crossed the river: “When I get my bar, I’ll want your list of songs. I’ll put them on the jukebox.”

“No Beatles.”

“No Beatles. But how about a couple of Tom Joneses? ‘Green Green Grass’ or something.”

“Sloan-you gotta get help.”

Just off the southwest corner of the metro area, Lucas called his secretary and was told that he had two dozen phone messages, one each from Rose Marie Roux, the commissioner of public safety; from John McCord, the superintendent of the BCA; and from Neil Mitford, the governor’s top political operator. The rest came from various members of the media asking for interviews and updates.

He answered the first three immediately: all three wanted updates, and he gave them a quick recap of the trip to St. John’s.

To McCord: “I got an address for a schizophrenic guy, a Mike West, that we need to talk to. He’s an old pal of Pope’s.”

“Shrake and Jenkins are sitting on their asses; I could send them,” McCord said.

“Okay, but for Christ’s sake, tell them to take it easy.”

“We got a charge?”

“Just hold him for questioning; have them bring him in, we’ll get him a public defender if we need to, and see if we can work something out,” Lucas said. “But if we do find him just sitting around, then maybe he’s clear. If he’s gone, if he’s skipped, that’d be a little more interesting.”

“I’ll send them over,” McCord said.

“Tell them to leave their goddamn saps in their car, okay?”

“I don’t know about any saps,” McCord said. “Saps would be against policy.”

“Then tell them to follow policy.”

“All right. If you need anything else, let me know.”

“Mitford and Rose Marie called, and I told them I’d be doing another press conference this afternoon,” Lucas said. “Same deal as yesterday, except we’ve probably made Pope for another murder.”

He explained, briefly, and McCord said, “Put Sloan in the press conference. Spread the publicity around. We’ll make some points with Minneapolis.”

The publicity cut two ways: by putting Sloan out front, some of the glory was reflected onto the Minneapolis police department; and if they didn’t catch Pope fairly quickly, some of the blame, as well.

“Press conferences are like fuckin’ the neighbor lady,” Sloan said, as he dialed up his own chief after Lucas finished with McCord. “Feels good at the time, but you’re gonna have to pay in the end.”