John Sandford - Rules of Prey

There was a moment of silence.

"Okay. If you think so."

"It'll be in the afternoon or early evening. I'll get back to you."

"Should I pack a suitcase?"

"Oh… yeah. You want me to go to the chief for a hotel, or you want to try the cabin?"

"How about the cabin? I like the lakes."

"Pack a bag. We'll go up tonight."

Lucas hung up and redialed, calling Daniel on his direct line.

"Linda? I need to talk to the chief."

"He's pretty busy, Lucas. Let me ask."

"Jennifer Carey says she's going with the story about the survivor."

"Hang on."

Jennifer walked down the hall, rubbing her wet hair with a bath towel, and got a bagel out of the refrigerator.

Lucas covered the phone's mouthpiece with the palm of his hand. "Something's happening," he said.

She stopped chewing. "What?"

"I don't know."

Jennifer pulled out a kitchen chair and lowered herself into it as Linda came back on the line. "I'm switching you in," the secretary said.

Daniel was on a second later. "Lucas? I was about to call. You better get down here."

"What's happening?"

"Sloan interviewed this Rice woman about the gun?"

"Yeah, I was there for some of it."

"She mentioned a welfare guy. Sloan put that with your idea that he picks his victims in the courthouse and did some checking. This welfare guy fits a lot of the profile. He's gay. He's in the right age and size slot. And listen to this: he's into art. Sloan was greasing one of the women from the welfare office, got her talking about Smithe, and she was saying what a waste this guy is. Big, good-looking, but she said she went to an opening and saw him there with his boyfriend. Sloan checked with the Ruiz woman. She was at the opening. It was a week before she was hit."

"Damn." Lucas thought for a moment. "I don't know."

"What?"

"Hang on a second. Jennifer Carey is sitting here." Lucas put his hand over the mouthpiece again. "Go on back to the bathroom and shut the door."

"Hey…"

"Don't give me any trouble, Jennifer, please? This is a private conversation. We'll have to work out some rules, but right now…"

"All right." She stood and flounced out of the room and down the hall, and he heard the door close behind her.

He took his hand off the mouthpiece.

"I sent her back to the bathroom. She's pissed… There, the door closed. I'll tell you what, chief, it seems awfully easy. The guy is too smart to be caught that quick. And a week is a pretty short time to check her out."

"Sure, but we only caught him through a freak accident. He didn't plan to lose the gun."

"Then why didn't the brass have prints on them? He used gloves to load the son of a bitch."

"Sure, but I bet he didn't know where the gun came from-that we could trace it. And he is gay. All the shrinks say he will be."

Lucas thought about it. "That's a point," he admitted. "Okay. It sounds like he's worth a check."

"We don't want to fuck up. I think we're going to want you to… develop some intelligence on him."

"Okay." Daniel wanted him to bag the guy's house. "Listen, Carey wants to talk with Ruiz. I think I should set it up. It'll keep her off this other thing."

"What does Ruiz think?"

"She seems to be willing. Or I could talk her into it. We could set it up just the way we talked about. That'd keep all the newsies busy while we work on Smithe."

"Do it. And get down here. We're going to meet at ten."

"Come on out," he hollered. He stepped into the hallway and noticed the bathroom door was open. He walked swiftly to the bedroom and pushed the door open. Jennifer was screwing the mouthpiece back on the phone.

"I needed one more minute," she said. It wasn't an apology.

"Goddammit, Jennifer," Lucas said in exasperation.

"I don't take orders about news stuff. Not from cops," she said, tightening the mouthpiece and replacing it on the receiver.

"We gotta work something out," he said, hands on his hips. "What'd you hear?"

"You've got a suspect. He's gay. That's all. And about Ruiz."

"You can't use it."

"Don't tell me-"

"You might think that listening on my private line is something that a real hard news broad would do, but your lawyers wouldn't think it's so cute. Or the station, after they thought about it. The state news council might have a few words about it too. And to tell you the truth, I kind of think this gay guy might not be the right one. If he's not, and you constructively identify him, he'll be the new owner of the station after the libel suit."

"I'll think about it."

"Jennifer, if we're going to have a kid together, we can't play mind games anymore. I've got to trust you. On the cases I'm working on, you only use what I say is okay."

"I don't make that kind of deal."

"You better start or we're going to have trouble. We'll both be sitting around afraid to talk to each other. Besides, it only applies to the cases I'm working on."

She thought it over. "We'll figure something out," she said noncommittally. "I won't cover for you. If I come up with a tip from another source, I'll use it."

"Okay."

"It won't be so much of a problem when I start producing," Jennifer said. "I'll be concentrating on longer-range stuff. Not police stuff."

"That'd be better for both of us. But what about this thing? Will you hold off for now?"

"What about this Ruiz woman?"

"I already called her, while you were in the shower. She says she'll do it. We should be able to set something up for tonight. You heard Daniel, he says to go ahead."

Jennifer thought it over and finally nodded. "Okay. Deal. I'll hold off on the suspect as long as you promise that I get the first break. If there's a break."

"I promise you'll share it."

"God damn, Lucas…"

"Jennifer…"

"This is going to be hard," she said. "Okay. For now. I'll give you notice if I think I have to change my mind."

He nodded. "I'll call Ruiz again and set up a specific time."

"The guy's name is Jimmy Smithe," Anderson told him as they walked down the hall to the meeting room. "I pulled his personnel file out of the computers and ran it against the psychological profile the shrinks put together and the information we developed. There are some matches."

"How about misses?" Lucas asked. "Does he come from the Southwest?"

"No. As far as I can tell, he was born and raised here in Minnesota, went to the University of Michigan, worked in Detroit for a while, spent some time in New York, and came back here to take a job in welfare."

"You run his sheet?"

"Nothing serious. When he was seventeen the Stillwater cops gave him a ticket for possession of a small amount of marijuana."

"What's his rep with welfare?"

"Sloan says it's pretty good. Smithe is gay, all right, doesn't hide it, but he doesn't flaunt it either. He's smart. He gets along with other people in his department, including the guys. He's up for a promotion to supervisor."

"I don't know, man. He doesn't sound tight enough."

"He's there physically. And we can put him with two people."

When Lucas and Anderson arrived, Daniel was talking to the other eight cops in the room.

"I don't want the word to get out of this group," he said. "We've got to take a close look at this guy without anybody knowing."

He poked a heavy finger at Sloan.

"You hit the neighborhood. Tell them it's a security investigation for a job offer with the department. If we need to back it up, I'll come up with some bullshit about a liaison officer between police and the gay community on AIDS and other problems. What the police can do to help, sensitivity training, all that. They ought to buy it."

"Okay." Sloan nodded.

"Actually, that's not a bad idea," Lucas said.