John Sandford - Rules of Prey

"What do you mean by panic! People running in the streets? That won't happen. They'll just hunker down-"

"I'm talking about people carrying guns in public. I'm talking about a college kid coming home from the U when his parents don't expect him, in the middle of the night, and having the old man take off his head with the family Colt. That's what I'm talking about. You're probably too young to remember when Charlie Starkweather was killing people out in Nebraska, but there were people walking around in the streets of Lincoln carrying shotguns. We don't need that. And we don't need the National Rifle Association cranking up its scare campaign, a gun in every house and a tank in every garage."

"We should talk to the publishers and the station managers or the station owners," Lucas said after a moment's reflection. "They can order the heat turned down."

"Think they'll do it?"

Lucas considered for another moment. "If we do it right. Media people are generally despised, but they're like anybody else: they want to be loved. Give them a chance to show that they're really good guys, they'll lick your shoes. But it's got to come from you. Like, top guy to top guy. And maybe you ought to take the deputy chiefs with you. Maybe the mayor. That'll flatter them, show them that you respect them. They're going to ask some stuff like, 'You want us to censor ourselves?' You've got to say, 'No, we don't. We just want to apprise you of the dangers of public panic; we want you to be sensitive to it.'"

"Do I have to share those thoughts with them?" Daniel asked sarcastically.

Lucas pointed a finger at him. "Quit that," he said harshly. "No humor. You're dealing with the press. And yeah, say share. They talk like that. 'Let me share this with you.'"

"And they'll buy it?"

"I think so. It gives the newspapers a chance to be responsible. They can do that because they aren't making any money off the deal anyway. You don't get more advertisers because you're carrying murder stories. And they don't care much about short-term circulation gains. They can't sell those, either."

"What about the TV?"

"That's a bigger problem, because their ratings do shift, and that does count. Christ, I think I read in the paper last week that the sweeps are coming up. If we don't cut some kind of a deal with TV, they'll go nuts with the maddog stuff."

Daniel groaned. "The sweeps. I forgot about the sweeps. Jesus, this is supposed to be a police department. We're supposed to catch crooks, and I sit here sweating about the ratings sweeps."

"I'll get the names of everybody you want to talk to," Lucas said. "I'll give them to Linda in an hour. With phone numbers. Best to call them directly. Then they think you know who they are."

"Okay. One meeting? Or two? One for the papers and one for the TV?"

"One, I think. The TV people like to be in the same discussions with the newspaper guys. Makes them feel like journalists."

"What about radio?" Daniel asked.

"Fuck radio."

Anderson propped himself in Lucas' office doorway.

"Something?"

"He may drive a dark-colored Thunderbird, new, probably midnight blue," he said with just the mildest air of satisfaction.

"Where'd that come from?" Lucas asked.

"Okay. The medical examiner figured she was killed sometime Wednesday night or Thursday morning. We know she was alive at seven o'clock because she talked on the telephone with a friend. Then a guy who lives across the street works on the night shift, he got home at eleven-twenty and noticed that her light was still on. He noticed because she usually went to bed early."

"How's he know that?"

"I'm getting to it. This guy works a rotating shift out at 3-M. When he was working the day shift, seven to three, he used to see her going down the sidewalk when he left for work. One time he asked her why she got up so early, and she said she always did, it was the best time of day. She couldn't work at night. So he noticed the light. Thought maybe she had a big test."

"And…"

"So we think she was dead then. Or dying. Then, about ten o'clock-we're not exact on this time, but within fifteen minutes either way-this kid was walking up toward his apartment and he noticed this guy walking down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Going the same way. Middle height. Dark coat. Hat. This is the street that runs alongside Wheatcroft's house. Anyway, they walk along for a couple of blocks, the kid not paying attention. But you know how you keep track of people when you're out at night on foot?"

"Yeah."

"It was like that. They walk for a couple of blocks and the guy stops beside this car, this Thunderbird. The kid noticed it because he likes the car. So the guy unlocks it, climbs in, and drives away. When the kid hears about Wheatcroft, he thinks back and it occurs to him that this guy was kind of odd. There were a million parking places on the street around there, and it was cold, so why park at least two or three blocks from wherever you're coming from?"

"Smart kid."

"Yeah."

"So did you look at him?" Lucas asked.

"Yeah. He's okay. Engineering student at the U. He's got a full-time live-in. The guy across the street looks okay too."

"Hmph." Lucas rubbed his lip.

Anderson shrugged. "It's not a major clue, but it's something. We're checking insurance records on Thunderbirds, going back three years, against people who transferred policies up here from somewhere else. Like Texas."

"Luck."

The meeting was held the next day at midmorning in a Star-Tribune conference room. Everybody wore a suit. Even the women. Most of them had leather folders with yellow legal pads inside. They called the mayor and Daniel by their first names. They called Lucas "lieutenant."

"You're asking us to censor ourselves," said the head of the Star-Tribune editorial board.

"No, we actually aren't, and we wouldn't, because we know you wouldn't do it," Daniel said with a treacly smile. "We're just trying to share some concerns with you, point out the possibility of general panic. This man, this killer, is insane. We're doing everything we can to identify and arrest him, and I don't want to minimize the… the horribleness-is that a word?-of these crimes. But I would like to point out that he has now killed exactly five people out of a population of almost three million in the metropolitan area. In other words, your chances of dying in a fire, being murdered by a member of your own family, being hit by a car, to say nothing of your chances of dying from a sudden heart attack, are much more significant than your chances of encountering this killer. The point being, news coverage that produces panic is irresponsible and even counterproductive-"

"Counterproductive to what? You keeping your job?" asked a Star-Tribune editorialist.

"I resent that," snapped Daniel.

"I don't think it was entirely appropriate," the paper's publisher commented mildly.

"He doesn't have to worry about it anyway," said the Minneapolis mayor, who was sitting at the foot of the table. "Chief Daniel is doing an excellent job and I intend to reappoint him to another term, whatever the outcome of this investigation."

Daniel glanced at the mayor and nodded.

"We have a problem here," said the station manager for TV3. "This is the most intensely interesting story in the area right now. I've never seen anything like it. If we deliberately deemphasize the coverage and our colleagues over at Channel Eight and Channel Six and Channel Twelve don't, we could get hurt in terms of ratings. We don't have newspaper circulation counts to go by, the ratings are our lifeblood. And since we're the top-rated station-"