John Sandford - Rules of Prey

Lucas put his tape recorder on the table, said a few test words, ran the cassette back, and listened until he was satisfied that it was working. Then he started it again and read in the time, date, and place.

"Conducting the interview is Lucas Davenport, lieutenant, Minneapolis Police Department, with Officer Anthony Rubella, Minneapolis Police Department. Interviewee is Miss Carla Ruiz of St. Paul. Carla Ruiz is well-known to Officer Davenport as the victim of an attack in her residence by a man believed to have committed a series of murders in the city of Minneapolis. We will show Ruiz a photo array of twelve men and ask if she recognizes any of them."

Lucas dumped a dozen photographs on the table, all of young men, all shot on the street, all vaguely similar in appearance, size, and dress. Eleven of them were cops or police-department clerical personnel. The twelfth was Smithe. Lucas arranged them in a single row and Carla leaned over them and studied the faces.

"I know this guy for sure," she said, tapping one of the cop photos. "He's a cop. He works off-duty as a security guy at that grocery store at the bottom of Nicollet."

"Okay," Lucas said for the recorder. "Miss Ruiz has identified one photo as a man she knows and she says she believes he is a police officer. Our data indicate that he is a police officer. I am asking Miss Ruiz to turn the photograph over, to mark it with the capital letter A, and to sign her name and put the date below it. Miss Ruiz, will you do that now?"

Carla signed the photo and went back to the display. "This guy looks familiar," she said, tapping the photo of Smithe. "I've seen him on the art scene, you know, openings, parties, that sort of thing. I don't know why, but I've got it in my head that he's gay. I think I might have been introduced to him."

"Okay. Are you sure about him?"

"Pretty sure."

"Okay. Miss Ruiz has just identified the photograph of Jimmy Smithe. I will ask Miss Ruiz to mark that photograph on the back with a capital letter B and sign her name and the date."

Carla signed the second photo and Lucas asked her to look at the photo spread again.

"I don't see anybody else," she said finally.

"I am now showing Miss Ruiz seven additional photographs of Jimmy Smithe and asking her if she confirms her identification of him in the random spread."

Carla looked at the second group of photos and nodded.

"Yes. I know him."

"Miss Ruiz has confirmed that she knows the suspect, Jimmy Smithe. She has also added details, such as she believes him to be homosexual and that he frequents art galleries and that she may have been introduced to him. Miss Ruiz, does anything else come to mind about Mr. Smithe?"

"No, no, I really don't know him. I remember him because he's handsome and I got the impression that he's intelligent."

"Okay. Anything else?"

"No."

"Okay. That concludes the interview. Thank you, Miss Ruiz." He punched the button on the tape, ran it back, listened to it, then took the cassette out of the recorder, put it back in its protective box, and slipped it into his pocket.

"Now what?" Carla asked.

"I've got to use the phone," Lucas said. He went straight through to the chief.

"Davenport? What?"

"She knows him," Lucas said. "Picked him out with no problem."

"We're going to take him."

"Listen. Do it my way?"

"I don't know if we can, Lucas. The media's got a smell of it."

"Who?"

"Don Kennedy from TV3."

"Shit." Kennedy and Jennifer were professional bed-mates. "Okay. I'll be back in an hour and a half. When are you taking him?"

"We were waiting for your call. We've got a couple guys here and we'll get the surveillance people. He's working at his desk over in the county building. We're just going to walk over and get him."

"Who made the call? To make the bust?"

There was a pause. Then, "Lester."

"Outstanding. Stay with that."

Daniel hung up and Lucas turned to Rubella. "Get the chopper cranked up. We've got to get back in a hurry."

When Rubella was gone, he took Carla's hands.

"They've got a case against this guy, but I don't like it. I think they're making a mistake. So just sit tight, okay? Watch the evening news. I'll call every night. I'll try to get back up here in a couple of days, if things cool down."

"Okay," she said. "Be careful." He kissed her on the lips and jogged down the dusty track after Rubella.

The flight back to the Cities and the drive from the airport took two hours. Anderson was sitting at his desk, his feet up, staring distractedly at a wall calendar when Lucas arrived.

"Where've you got him?" Lucas asked.

"Down in interrogation."

"His lawyer in there?"

"Yeah. That could be a problem."

"Why's that?"

"'Cause it's that asshole McCarthy," Anderson said.

"God damn." Lucas ran his hands through his hair. "The usual bull?"

"Yeah. The little dickhead."

"I'm going down there."

"Chief's down there."

"We're not getting anything out of him." Daniel was leaning on the wall outside the interrogation room. "That prick McCarthy won't let him say a word."

"He smells a good one," Lucas said. "If this goes to trial and he gets Smithe off, he can quit the county and make some real money in private practice."

"So what're you going to do?" Daniel asked.

"I'm going to be a good guy. A real good guy. And I'm going to get mad and read off McCarthy."

"Not too much. You could jeopardize what we got."

"Just plant a seed of doubt."

Daniel shrugged. "You can try."

Lucas took off his jacket, loosened his tie and mussed his hair, took a deep breath, and went through the door at a jog. The interrogators, the lawyer, and Smithe were seated around a table and looked up, startled.

"Jesus. Sorry. I was afraid I'd miss you," Lucas said. He looked down at McCarthy. "Hello, Del. You handling this one, I guess?"

"Does the pope shit in the woods?" McCarthy was a short man in a lumpy brown suit. His dishwater-blond hair swelled out of his head in an Afro, and muttonchops swept down the sides of his square face. "Is a bear a Catholic?"

"Right." Lucas looked at the interrogators. "I've been cleared by Daniel. You mind if I ask a few?"

"Go ahead, we ain't gettin' anywhere," said the senior cop, swirling an oily slick of cold coffee in a Styrofoam cup.

Lucas nodded and turned to Smithe. "I'll tell you up front. I was one of the people who questioned the survivor of the third attack. I don't think you did it."

"Is this the good-guy routine, Davenport?" asked McCarthy, tipping his chair back and grinning in amusement.

"No. It's not." He pointed a finger at Smithe. "That was the first thing I wanted to tell you. The second thing is, I'm going to talk for a while. At some point, McCarthy here might tell you to stop listening. You better not-"

"Now, wait a minute," McCarthy said, bringing the chair legs down with a bang.

Lucas overrode him. "-because how can it hurt just to listen, if you're not admitting anything? And your lawyer's priorities are not necessarily the same as yours."

McCarthy stood up. "That's it. I'm calling it off."

"I want to hear him," Smithe said suddenly.

"I'm advising you-"

"I want to hear him," Smithe said. He tipped his head at McCarthy while watching Lucas. "Why aren't his priorities the same as mine?"

"I don't want to impeach the counselor's personal ethics," Lucas said, "but if this goes to trial, it'll be one of the big trials of the decade. We just don't have serial killers here in Minnesota. If he gets you off, he'll have made his name. You, on the other hand, will be completely destroyed, no matter what happens. It's too bad, but that's the way it works. You've been around a courthouse long enough to know what I'm talking about."