Rules of Prey (10 page)

Jennifer Carey was staring at him in the dark again.

“What?” he asked.

“What, what?”

“You’re staring at me.”

“How do you know I’m staring? You’re looking the other way,” she said.

“I can feel it.” Lucas lifted his head until he could see her. She was sitting up, looking down at him. The thin autumn blanket had fallen around her hips and the flickering candle gave her skin a warm pink glow.

“I’m thirty-three,” she said.

“Oh, God,” he groaned into his pillow.

“I’m taking a leave of absence from reporting. I’ll work half-time, producing. Do some free-lance writing.”

“You can starve that way,” Lucas said.

“I’ve got money saved.” Her voice was level, almost somber. “I’ve been working since I was twenty-one. I’ve got that fund from my folks. And I’ll still be half-time with the station. I’ll be okay.”

“What’s this about?”

“It’s about the old biological clock,” she said. “I’ve decided to have a baby.”

Lucas didn’t say anything, didn’t move. She grinned. “Ah, the nervous bachelor, already scouting escape routes.”

There was another long moment of silence. “That’s not it,” he said finally. “It’s just kind of sudden. I mean, I really like you. Are you bailing out? Should I be asking who the lucky guy is?”

“Nope. See, I figured you might not be interested in cooperating with my little plan. On the other hand, from my point of view, it’s not that often you meet a guy who is intelligent, physically acceptable, heterosexual,
and
available. I decided I’d have to take things in my own hands, if you know what I mean.”

Lucas was on his back staring at the ceiling. Looking down at him, she saw his stomach muscles tighten, and his chest lifted off the bed as though he were levitating, his head coming up, eyes wide.

“Jennifer . . .”

“Yeah. I’m pregnant.”

He flopped back on the pillow.

“Oh.”

She laughed. “You can be one of the funniest men I know.”

“Why is that?”

“I tried to figure out what you’d say when I told you. I thought of everything except ‘Oh.’ ”

He sat up again, his face deeply serious. “We ought to get married. Like tomorrow. I can fix the blood tests—”

She laughed again. “Yo. Davenport. Wake up. I’m not getting married.”

“What?”

“Just a few minutes ago you said you liked me, not loved me. For one thing. Besides, I don’t want to marry you.”

“Jennifer . . .”

“Listen, Lucas. I’m touched by the offer. I wasn’t sure you’d make it. And you’d make a wonderful father. But you’d make an awful husband and I couldn’t put up with that.”

“Jennifer . . .”

“I thought it out.”

“What about me, goddammit?” he said. He threw off the blanket and knelt over her, his heavy fists in tight balls, and she dropped flat, suddenly, for the first time afraid of him. “It’s my kid too. Right? I mean, it
is
mine?”

“Yes.”

“And I don’t want my kid being a little fuckin’ bastard.”

“So what are you going to do, beat me into marriage?”

He looked down at his balled fists and suddenly relaxed. “No, of course not,” he said softly. He flopped down beside her.

“Look. I’m going to have the kid,” she said. “If you don’t want anyone to know he’s yours, that’s okay. If you don’t mind, I’d love to have you around to help. I’ll be here in the Cities. I assume you will be too.”

“Yeah.”

“So we’ll really be together.”

“No. Not sharing a bed every night. Look, I’m going to tell you. I’m going to spend the next nine months—”

“Seven months.”

“—seven months trying to convince you to marry me. If you won’t, what would you say about moving in here?”

“Lucas, this house is a men’s club. You’ve got everything but spittoons.”

“Listen, I’ll tell you what . . .”

“Lucas, we’ve got months to figure out the exact arrangements. And right now I feel kind of horny again. Something about your reaction. It was much nicer than I expected.”

A few minutes later she said, “Lucas, you’re not paying attention.”

And a few minutes after that she gave up. “It’s like trying to make love with a rope. A short rope. No offense.”

He didn’t laugh. He said, “Jesus Christ, I’m going to have a kid.” And then he reached over and placed a hand on her stomach. “I’ve always wanted a kid. Maybe two or three.” He looked at her. “You don’t think it could be twins, do you?”

The next morning, Jennifer was peering at herself in the mirror over the bathroom sink and Lucas stopped by the door and looked at her.

“Doesn’t show,” he said.

“In a month it will,” she said. She turned her face to him.

“I want the interview with that Chicana chick.”

“The chief—”

“I don’t care about the chief. I got some more background on her, and I’ll go with what I’ve got unless you set something up. Tonight, tomorrow.”

“I’ll check.”

She looked back in the mirror and stuck her tongue out. “This is going to be weird,” she said.

The shower was running when Lucas finished dressing. He hurried in to the kitchen telephone, found Carla’s phone number in his pocket directory, and dialed. The shower stopped just as the phone was answered.

“Carla? This is Lucas.”

“Yes, hi. What’s going on?”

“We’re getting some fierce pressure for an interview with you. The woman from TV3, Jennifer Carey, has a leak somewhere. She knows some things about you and it’s only a matter of time before somebody tracks you down. It might be better if we went ahead and gave her an interview while we can control things a bit.”

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.

“We’ve got enough gays of our own without going
outside,” Daniel said. He poked a finger at Anderson. “Find out everything you can and cross-check it with the other victims. We’ve got him with Ruiz. See if we can match up somewhere else.

“Now, you guys,” he said to the other six detectives, “are going to watch every move he makes. Two guys all the time, round the clock. Overtime, no problem. You see an eighty-year-old society lady getting gang-banged, you call it in and forget it. You never take your eyes off this motherfucker. You got that? Smithe is the
only
priority. And I want fifteen-minute checks on location. Call it into Anderson during the day, the duty officer at night.”