John Sandford - Rules of Prey

"City desk." The voice was gruff, hurried.

"When do the papers come out?"

"Should be on the street now. Anytime."

"Thanks." The phone on the other end hit the hook before the word was fully out of his mouth.

The maddog went out to his car, started it, drove across the Washington Street bridge into the downtown. There were two green newspaper boxes outside the Star-Tribune building. He pulled over, deposited his quarters, and looked at the front page: MADDOG A HOG FARMER? TV STORY SAYS "YES."

The story was taken directly from McGowan's news broadcast. A brief telephone interview with the chief of police was appended: "I don't know where she got the information, but I don't know anything about it," Daniel said. He did not, however, deny the possibility that the killer was a farmer. "Anything is possible at this point," he added.

There was no sketch. There was no description.

He went back to his car, sat in the driver's seat, and paged quickly through the paper. There was another story about the killings on page three, comparing them to a similar string of killings in Utah. Nothing more. He turned back to the front page.

Hog farmer, it said.

He would not permit it.

Daniel leaned far back in his chair, the eraser end of a yellow pencil pressed against his lower teeth, watching Sloan. Anderson and Lester slumped in adjacent chairs. Lucas paced.

"What you're saying is, we got nothing," Daniel said when the detective finished.

"Nothing we can use to bag the guy," Sloan said. "When we find him, we've got information we can use to pin him down. We could even run him by Jefferson Sparks, see if he rings a bell. But we don't have anything to point at him."

"What about driver's licenses? Did we get that?"

Anderson shook his head. "They don't track incoming state licenses by individual names."

Lucas paced at the perimeter of the room. "What about those post offices?"

"We're getting some returns. Too many of them. We've had a hundred and thirty-six moves so far, covering the past two years, and we've only heard from post offices covering maybe a tenth of the population we're looking at. If that rate holds up, we'll get about fourteen hundred names. We're also finding out that the most likely moves are young single males. Probably a third of them in that category. That's something like five hundred suspects. And all of it rests on the idea that the guy's maybe got an accent."

"And if he moved here three years ago, instead of in the last two, we're fucked anyway," said Daniel.

"But it's something," Lucas insisted. "How many of the ones that you have so far are single males? Assuming that's what we want to look at?"

"Thirty-eight of the hundred and thirty-six. But some of those apparently moved here with women or moved in with a woman after they got here, or are old. We've had a couple of guys doing a quick scan of the names, and there are about twenty-two that fit all the basic criteria: young, single, male, unattached."

"White-collar?" asked Lucas.

"All but two. People don't move here for blue-collar jobs. There are more jobs in Texas, and less cold," Anderson said.

"So what are we talking about?" Daniel asked.

"Well, we're talking about checking these twenty-two. We should be able to eliminate half or better, just walking around. Then we'll focus tighter on the rest of them. 'Course, we'll have new names coming in all the time."

"Lucas? Anything else?"

Lucas took another turn at the back of the room. He had talked to Daniel the night before about the phone call from the maddog, and told the others at the start of the meeting. He'd taped the call. He was taping all calls now. First thing in the morning, he'd taken a copy of the tape to the university and tracked down a couple of linguists to listen to it.

They had called Daniel during the meeting: Texas, one of them said. The other was not quite so certain. Texas, or some other limited sections of the Southwest. The eastern corner of New Mexico, maybe, around White Sands. Oklahoma and Arkansas were out.

"His accent has a strong overlay of the Midwest," the second linguist said. "There's this one line, 'I'm going to go look at her now.' If you listen closely, break it down, what he really says is 'I'm-unna go look at her now.' That's a midwesternism. Upper Midwest, north central. So I think he's been here awhile. Not so long that he's completely lost his southwestern accent, but long enough to get an overlay."

"Ah," Lucas said. The detectives were looking at him curiously. "Last night, I was watching Channel Eight. McGowan comes on and she has this piece about the pig farmer. So the maddog calls forty-five minutes later. I checked with the Pioneer Press and the Star-Tribune to see what time the first editions came out-they both carried follows on the McGowan story. None of them were out when the maddog called."

"So he saw it on TV," Anderson said.

"And I've been thinking about McGowan," Lucas said. "She fits the type the maddog's been going after…"

"Ah, Jesus Christ," Daniel blurted.

"There was something about that call. There's something special about this 'chosen' one he talks about. I feel it."

"You think he might go after McGowan?"

"He's watching her on TV. And physically, she fits his type. And she's had all these weird stories. The guy seems to want the attention, but from his point of view, everything she's been saying is negative. He talks about being the 'one' and she says he's impotent and smells bad and farms pigs. Last night, he was pissed."

"That's it," Daniel said, his face flushed. "I want a watch on McGowan, twenty-four hours."

"Jesus, chief-" Anderson started.

"I don't care how many guys it takes. Break some of them out of uniform if you have to. I want guys on her during the day and I want a watch on her house at night."

"But delicately," Lucas said.

"What?"

"She's our chance to grab him," Lucas said. He put up his hands to stop interruptions. "I know, I know, we've got to be careful. Not take any chances with her. I know all that. But she might be our best shot."

"If you're right, he might be looking at her right now," Lester said. "Right this minute."

"I don't think he'll try during the day. She's always around people. If he tries, it'll be at night. When she's on her way home or at her home. He could break into her house during the day and wait for her. We should cover that possibility."

"You've thought about this," Daniel said, his eyes narrowing.

Lucas shrugged. "Yeah. Maybe I've got my head up my ass. But it seems like a chance, just like when you put a watch on me."

"Okay," Daniel said. He turned and pressed an intercom lever. "Linda, call Channel Eight and tell them I want to talk to the station manager urgently." He let the intercom go and said, "Lucas, stay a minute. Everybody else, let's get going on the basics. Start processing the list of guys who moved in. It won't do any good if he's really been here for a while, but we've got to check. Anderson, I want you to go back over every note we've got, see if we're missing anything we should have covered."

As the others drifted out of the room, Lucas slouched against a wall, staring at the rug.

"What?" Daniel said.

"This guy is nuts in a different way than I thought. He's not a straight, cold killer. There's something else wrong with his head. The way he was talking about the 'one' and the 'chosen.'"

"What difference does it make?"

"I don't know. Could make it harder to outguess him. He might not react like we expect him to."

"Whatever," Daniel said dismissively. "I wanted to ask you about something else. Where is McGowan getting this crap she's putting on the air?"