John Sandford - Rules of Prey

"He lives by those rules," the medical examiner said. "He didn't even pull the knife out, much less carry it anywhere."

"Note looks clean."

"Well, not quite. Hang on a second," the medical examiner said. He peeled off the plastic gloves he was wearing, replaced them with a thinner pair of surgeon's gloves, opened the baggie, and slipped the note halfway out.

"See this kind of funny half-circle under the tape?"

"Yeah. Print?"

"We think so, but if you look, you can see there's no print. But it's sharply defined. So I think-" he wiggled his fingers at Lucas-"that he was wearing surgeon's gloves."

"That says doctor again."

"It could. It could also say nurse, or orderly, or technician. And since you can buy the things at hardware stores, it could be a hardware dealer. Whoever he is, I think he wears gloves even when he's sitting at home making these notes, So now we know something else: he's a smart little cocksucker."

"Okay. Good. Thanks, Bill."

The medical examiner eased the note back in the bag. "Can we take her?" he asked, tilting his head at Lewis' body.

"Fine with me, if homicide's finished." A homicide cop named Swanson was sitting at a table in the kitchen, eating a Big Mac, fries, and a malt. Lucas stepped into the doorway of the bedroom and called across to him. "I'm done. Can they take her?"

"Take her," Swanson said around a mouthful of fries.

The medical examiner supervised the movement, with Swanson ambling over to watch. They pulled the bag over her head, carefully avoiding the knife, and lifted her onto a gurney.

Like a sack of sand, Lucas thought.

"Nothin' under her?" asked Swanson.

"Not a thing," said the medical examiner. They all looked at the sheets for a moment; then the medical examiner nodded at his assistants and they pushed the gurney out the bedroom door.

"Lab's coming through with a vacuum. They haven't printed the furniture yet," Swanson said. What he meant was: Don't touch anything. Lucas grinned. "They'll take the sheets down for analysis."

"I don't see any stains."

"Naw, they're clean. I don't think there's any hair, either. Took a close look, but she didn't have any broken fingernails, didn't look like anything balled up underneath them, no skin or blood."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"I want to poke around out here a little. Anything critical?"

"There's the potato…"

"Potato?"

"Potato in a sock. It's out in the living room." Lucas followed him into the living room, and Swanson used his foot to point under a piano bench. There was an ordinary argyle sock with a lump in one end.

"We think he hit her on the head with it," Swanson said. "First cop in saw it, peeked inside, then left it for the lab."

"Why do you think he hit her with it?" Lucas asked.

"Because that's what a potato in a sock is for," Swanson said. "Or, at least, it used to be."

"What?" Lucas was puzzled.

"It's probably before your time," Swanson said. "It used to be, years ago, guys would go up to Loring Park to roll the queers or down Washington Avenue to roll the winos. They'd carry a potato with them. Nothing illegal about a potato. But you put one in a sock, you got a hell of a blackjack. And it's soft, so if you're careful, you don't crack anybody's skull. You don't wind up with a dead body on your hands, everybody looking for you."

"So how'd the maddog know about it? He's gay?"

Swanson shrugged, "Could be. Or could be a cop. Lots of old street cops would know about using a potato."

"That doesn't sound right," Lucas said. "I never heard of an old serial killer. If they're going to do it, they start young. Teens, twenties, maybe thirties."

Swanson looked him over carefully. "You gonna detect on this one?" he asked.

"That's the idea," Lucas said. "You got a problem?"

"Not me. You're the only guy I ever met who detected anything. I have a feeling we're gonna need it this time."

"So what do the other homicide guys think?"

"There a couple new guys think you're butting in. Most of the old guys, they know a shit storm's about to hit. They just want to get it over with. You won't have no trouble."

"I appreciate that," Lucas said. Swanson nodded and wandered away.

Lewis had been found in the back bedroom by another real-estate agent. She'd had a midafternoon appointment, and when she didn't show up, the other agent got worried and went looking for her. When Lucas had arrived, pushing through the gloomy circle of neighbors who waited beside the house and on the lawns across the street, Swanson briefed him on Lewis' background.

"Just trying to sell the house," he concluded.

"Where are the owners?"

"They're a couple of old folks. The neighbors said they're down in Phoenix. They bought a place down there and are trying to sell this one."

"Anybody gone out to Lewis' house yet?"

"Oh, yeah, Nance and Shaw. Nothing there. Neighbors said she was a nice lady. Into gardening, had a big garden out back of her house. Her old man worked for 3M, died of a heart attack five or six years ago. She went to work on her own, was starting to do pretty good. That's what the neighbors say."

"Boyfriends?"

"Somebody. A neighbor woman supposedly knows him, but she hasn't been home and we don't know where she is. Another neighbor thinks he's some kind of professor or something over at the university. We're checking. And we're doing all the usual, talking to neighbors about anybody they saw coming or going."

"Look in the garage?"

"Yeah. No car."

"So what do you think?"

Swanson shrugged. "What I think is, he calls her up and says he wants to look at a house, he'll meet her somewhere. He tells her something that makes her think he's okay and they ride down here, go inside. He does her, drives her car out, dumps it, and walks. We're looking for the car."

"Anybody checking her calendars at her office?"

"Yeah, we called, but her boss says there's nothing on her desk. He said she carried an appointment book with her. We found it and all it says is, 'Twelve-forty-five.' We think that might be the time she met him."

"Where's her purse?"

"Over by the front door."

Now, wandering around the house, Lucas saw the purse again and stooped next to it. A corner of Lewis' billfold was protruding and he eased it out and snapped it open. Money. Forty dollars and change. Credit cards. Business cards. Lucas pulled out a sheaf of plastic see-through picture envelopes and flipped through them. None of the pictures looked particularly new. Looking around, he saw Swanson standing by the bedroom door talking to someone out of sight. He slipped one of the photos out of its envelope. Lewis was shown standing on a lawn with another woman, both holding some kind of a plaque. Lucas closed the wallet, slid it back in the purse, and put the photograph in his pocket.

It was cold when he left the murder scene. He got a nylon jacket from his car, pulled it on, and sat in the driver's seat for a moment, watching the bystanders. Nobody out of place. He hadn't really thought there would be.

On the way back to the station, he crossed the river into St. Paul, stopped at his house, changed into jeans, and traded the nylon jacket for a blue linen sport coat. He thought about it for a few seconds, then took a small.25-caliber automatic pistol and an ankle holster from a hideout shelf in his desk, strapped it to his right ankle, and pulled the jean leg down to cover it.

The television remote-broadcast trucks were stacked up outside City Hall when Lucas got back to police headquarters. He parked in the garage across the street, again marveled at the implacable ugliness of City Hall. He went in the back doors and down to his office.