John Sandford - Wicked Prey

So he'd walked, but had been out of law enforcement for a while-making a lot of money while he was out-until he slipped back in with a political appointment.

Letty went into the files for more on Whitcomb. After the beating by Davenport, Whitcomb had been sentenced to two years in prison for the church-key attack, but had gotten out in thirteen months. He'd been arrested once more, for soliciting for prostitution, and fined; and then, a couple of years later, during an investigation of a serial killer, he'd been involved in a shootout that left him paralyzed. Lucas had been at the shootout but hadn't done any shooting.

In that case, Whitcomb had later gone to prison for perjury and obstruction of justice. He'd lied at a preliminary hearing, which resulted in the release on bond of the murder suspect, and that resulted in the suspect's murder. For the total sum of crime and effects, he'd drawn a six-year term. He'd lied, the Star Tribune's report said, because he hated Lucas, and blamed Lucas for his paralysis.

The six-year term wasn't up, and why he was out, Letty couldn't discover in any of the newspaper records-probably paroled, or maybe because of some medically related problem, but whatever it was, he hadn't escaped. That would have been in the papers.

Letty kicked back from the desk and thought it over. Randy Whitcomb was a pimp, who apparently hated Lucas, and now was tracking her, and making nice. He had something on his mind.

The information was like a winter wind blowing on her face. She turned into the cold, and her nose quivered, like a hunter's.

Lucas sent the New York photos to Jones, and told Carol, his secretary, who was pleased to be working her second straight day of overtime, to put together a list of hotels and motels and to figure out a distribution scheme, so he wouldn't have to hit all the hotels himself. Then he called Lily Rothenburg at her home in Manhattan.

"What'd you get?" she asked, when she picked up the phone.

"Something interesting. We had a couple of guys hit for large amounts of cash money last night'"

He told her the story, and when he was done, she said, "Lucas, that's them. The intelligence and the coordination are right. In the other jobs that the feds put them on, the intelligence was impeccable. They always hit at the moment when they'd get the most money and there was the least chance of getting caught. The coordination, the timing, the intimidation-it's all them. Damnit, I wish I could be out there."

"We're taking the photographs around to every hotel and motel in town. There's no reason for them to know we're coming, so we've got a chance," Lucas said.

"I hope they didn't pull out after last night-but I don't think that's enough money for Cohn. He needs to take out three or four million for himself, so he's probably got to take down ten, when you count the shares going to the gang. I don't think he'll leave any easy money on the table."

"Well, we could put him on CNN," Lucas suggested. "If we can't get him any other way."

"I think he's got a way out of the country. Something slick. Something we'd have a hard time stopping. After the killings here, he vanished," she said. "We don't want to lose him again. If you put him on CNN, he'll probably take off."

"All right. Last resort, only," Lucas said.

"Another thing: the Brits take pictures of everything, everywhere-kind of scares me, actually. It's like 1984 over there," Lily said. "Anyway they backtracked him right out of Heathrow and across London to a train station, and then picked him up getting on the train in York."

"York?"

"Yeah. Like in New York. York. It's up north of London somewhere. Small place, a couple hundred thousand, I guess. He rented a house, told people that he was an American engineer named George Mason. He played golf, had a casual relationship with a woman who worked at a PR firm in another town. Harrogate.

Mmm…" Lucas could hear her shuffling through papers. "That's about it. He cleared out at the end of his lease; the owner of the house was sorry to see him go. He was neat, he was quiet, the rent was always paid a few days early."

"How in the hell did he get to York?" Lucas asked.

"That's the thing that makes him so tricky-I think he chose the place at random. For no reason, except that people speak English. Oh, yeah. He took Spanish lessons while he was there, at a local university."

"Spanish lessons."

"He's headed for Mexico or Central America or Chile or Argentina," Lily said. "When he's gone this time, he's gone."

"What about the photography-the British photography?" Lucas asked. "The pictures might be better than the Photoshop stuff you sent me."

"They're not," Lily said. "The film was good enough to track him, but it's kind of grainy black-and-white. I've seen it-our Photoshop stuff is better."

"Well, we'll push it," Lucas said. "I got yanked out of bed by one of the local political hotshots, and he wants this fixed. Quietly."

"I don't care how it's fixed, as long as Cohn's clock is fixed at the same time," she said.

Carol came back with a list of hotels. "I talked to Jones. He'll take care of Hennepin County. I'll e-mail the Cohn photographs to Bloomington, and the sheriffs' departments in Dakota and Washington

County, and across the St. Croix to Hudson and River Falls and Prescott. So, you've got St. Paul."

"Do we actually have people walking them around, or are we dropping them in a black hole?" Lucas asked.

"I've got commitments," Carol said. "I'll call them every hour or so to get reports. Though, there are quite a few cops from the suburbs already here in St. Paul, working the convention."

"Hell, it's one guy walking the papers around…"

"That's what I told them," Carol said. "One guy, no problem. Trouble is, everybody's so short that it is a problem."

Letty had begged a ride to Channel Three from Weather, and Jennifer Carey was supposed to drive her home-but she had experience with local buses, and decided to head back to St. Paul. When she left, producers and cameramen were coming in, gearing up for convention coverage. Some kind of march was scheduled for St. Paul, and a couple of producers were talking about possible trouble in the streets.

She left a note for Carey and caught the 94 bus out of Minneapolis, transferred to the 84 at Midway Center, rode south down Snelling, then caught a 74, which took her to a couple blocks from the house. On the trip across the river, she mulled the problem. Randy Whitcomb had been feuding with Lucas for years, and now he was coming after her.

What did he want? Revenge, most likely. To hurt her, to get at Lucas.

She'd grown up out in the countryside, and had firsthand knowledge of the kind of focused dislike, hatred, disdain, that might lead to violence. Whitcomb blamed Lucas for a beating that put him in the hospital and in jail, and then for a shooting that crippled him.

So what kind of revenge would it be? Well, he'd cut up the face of one of his hookers with a beer-can opener; that seemed like a possibility. Maybe he'd torture and kill her-though how he'd go about that, she didn't know. He was crippled, and during the encounter at the McDonald's, he didn't look especially strong in his upper body; nor did the woman with him look especially competent. Rape? Could a crippled person rape somebody? She didn't know.

Probably planned to trick her somehow. Or maybe he'd have help. From what she'd read, he didn't seem to be a likeable sort, a leader, the kind of person who'd inspire any particular loyalty, in something as desperate as the kidnapping and murder of a cop's kid. Or almost kid, she thought. But, who knows? Maybe he'd met somebody in prison, somebody who also had a grudge against Lucas.