John Sandford - Rules of Prey

"Got time for a cup of coffee?" Lucas asked, tilting his head toward the cafeteria.

"Ah, no, I guess not." She glanced at her watch. "I've got to be in the judge's chambers in twelve minutes."

"I'll walk you down to my corner," Lucas said. They fell in together and started toward the tunnel that led to the county courthouse. "Sorry about that weird call last night."

"That's okay. This morning I almost thought it was a dream. Did it help?"

"Oh, I guess. I was thinking maybe a doctor did it. Maybe all the women had the same doctor or something. You just about eliminated that possibility."

"Bet that made you happy," she said, smiling again.

"It's early," he said. They walked along for a minute and Lucas said, "We might have a problem. Involving you."

"Oh?" She was suddenly serious.

"One of the television stations got a tip about you. A reporter, Jennifer Carey, is in talking to the chief right now. She wants an interview."

"Is he going to give her my name?"

"No. He's going to put her off, but it can't hold up. Carey's got good sources over in St. Paul. Sooner or later, she'll find out, and she'll harass the hell out of you."

"So what do we do?"

"We've been thinking it might be better to give her an interview and then give the rest of the stations a press conference with you. Get it over with. That way, we can control it. You won't have people hitting you by surprise."

She thought it over, her face downcast.

"I don't trust those people. Especially TV."

"Carey's about the best of them," Lucas said. "She's a friend of mine, to tell you the truth. I didn't tell her about you, though. I don't know where she got the information. Maybe from St. Paul."

"Would she really be okay?"

"She'd probably do the most sensitive job. After it was done, we'd get you out of town for a few days. When everything cooled off, you could slide back in quietly and probably be okay."

"Can I think about it?" Carla asked.

"Sure. The chief will probably call you about it."

"If I went out of town, would the city pay? It's not like I'm rich."

"I don't know. You could ask the chief. Or if you want to, you can stay in my cabin. I've got a place on a lake up north, in Wisconsin. It's a pretty place, quiet, out-of-the-way."

"That might be okay," she said. "Let me think."

"Sure."

There was a long moment of silence which Lucas broke by asking, "So how long have you been divorced?"

"Almost three years. He's a photographer. He's not a bad guy. He even has some talent, but he doesn't use it. He doesn't do anything. He just sits around. Other people work, he sits. One of the reasons I'm so anxious to get the money out of the house is that it was my money."

"Ah. Good reason."

"I'm looking forward to Aerosmith tonight," she said, "I mean, if it's still on."

"Sure it's on," Lucas said. He stopped at a branching corridor. "I turn here. See you at six?"

"Yes. And I'll think about the TV thing." She walked on, half-turned to wave, and kept going. Nice, he thought as he watched her go.

Mary Rice was not very bright. She sat slumped on a kitchen chair, looking nervously at Lucas and Harrison Sloan, the second detective assigned to talk to her. Sloan had the ingratiating manner of a vacuum-cleaner salesman.

"It's very essentially important that we get a complete list from you," he purred, scooting his chair an inch closer to Rice's. He looked like a gynecologist on an afternoon soap opera, Lucas decided. "We would like to get a calendar or something, so we could figure out week by week and day by day who your husband saw."

"I won't tell you the man who gave me the gun," she said, her lower lip quivering.

"That's okay. I talked to him last night and that's all worked out," Lucas assured her. "We do need to know everybody else."

"There aren't very many. I mean, we never had a lot of friends, and then one or two of them died. When Larry got his cancer, some of the others stopped coming around. Larry had to wear this bag come out of his side, you know…"

"Yeah," said Lucas, wincing.

"There'll still be quite a few people," said Sloan. "Mailmen, neighbors, any doctors or medical people who came here…"

"There was only a nurse," she said.

"But those are the kind of people we're looking for."

Lucas listened for a few more minutes as Sloan worked to relax her, then broke in.

"I have to leave," he told Rice. "Detective Sloan will stay and chat with you, but I have a couple of quick questions. Okay?" He smiled at her and she glanced at Sloan and then back and nodded.

"I'm looking for a white man, probably about my size, probably works in an office somewhere. He might have an accent, kind of southwestern. Kind of cowboy. Probably well-to-do. Does that jog anything in your memory? Do you remember anybody like that?"

She frowned and looked down at her hands, at Sloan, and then around the kitchen. Finally she looked back at Lucas and said, "I don't remember anyone like that. All our friends are white. There haven't been any colored people in here. Nobody with a lot of money that I know of."

"Okay," Lucas said, an impatient edge to his voice.

"I'm trying to remember," she said defensively.

"That's okay," Lucas said. "Did your husband have people here that you didn't know about?"

"Well, he put a sign in the window for some things he wanted to sell. He had some of those little doll things he brought back from the war against the Japs. Those little carvings? Somebody bought those. He got five hundred dollars for fifteen of them. They were real cute things. Like little pigs and rats, all curled around."

"You don't know who that was, who bought them?"

"Oh, I think so. I got some kind of receipt somewhere."

She looked vaguely around the kitchen again.

"Did you ever see the man who bought them?"

"No, no, but I think he was older. You know, Larry's age. I got that idea."

"Okay. Try to find that receipt and give it to Detective Sloan. Was there anybody else?"

"The mailman would stop and talk, he's a younger fellow, maybe forty. And a young fellow came out from the welfare. We weren't on welfare," she said hastily, "but we had some medical assistance coming…"

"Sure," said Lucas. "Listen, I'm going to run. We appreciate any cooperation you can give Detective Sloan."

Lucas went out through the kitchen door, let it close behind him, and walked down the steps. As he passed the kitchen window he heard Rice say, "… don't like that fellow so much. He makes me nervous."

"Quite a few people would agree with you, Mrs. Rice," Sloan said soothingly. "Can I call you Mary? Detective Davenport is…"

"Pushy," said Rice.

" Lot of people would agree with you, Mary. Look, I really hope we can work together to catch this killer…"

Lucas smiled and walked out to his car, opened the door, looked inside for a moment, then shut it and walked back to the house.

Inside, Sloan and Rice were looking at a steno pad on which Sloan had written a short list of names. They both looked up when Lucas came back in.

"Could I use your telephone?" Lucas asked.

"Yes, it's right…" She pointed at the wall.

Lucas looked in his notebook, dialed and got Carla Ruiz on the second ring.

"This is Lucas. How many times were you in the courthouse on the divorce?"

"Oh, four or five. Why?"

"How about before you were attacked? Right before, or when?"

"Let me go get my purse. I keep an organizer…"

He heard the receiver land on the table and looked over at Rice.

"Mrs. Rice, this guy from welfare. Did you have to go down to the county courthouse to see him, or did he come out here, or what?"

"No, no, Larry was disabled when we found out he could get some medical, so this fellow came out here. He came out twice. Nice boy. But I think Larry knew him from before, from work."