Текст книги "Lucas Davenport Novels 1-5"

Автор книги: John Sandford

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Текущая страница: 62 (всего у книги 105 страниц)

CHAPTER

26

Bekker checked the time as he got out of the car: just four o’clock, right on schedule.

The apartment building was a block away. He had the clipboard under his arm, and the flower box. The gun weighed heavily in one pocket; the tape was much lighter in the other. He walked with his head down against the drizzle.

The rain had arrived just in time, and was a blessing, Bekker thought. The rain suit made perfect sense, and the hood would cover his entire head, with the exception of a narrow band from his eyebrows to his lips. He walked heavily: the PCP always did that, stiffened him up. But it made him strong, too. Focused him. He thought about it, then took the brass cigarette case from his pocket and popped another pill, just to be sure.

He had taken elaborate measures to make sure he hadn’t been followed, driving through the looping streets of the lake district, waiting, doubling back, taking alleys. If he was being watched, they were doing it by satellite.

Walt’s Appliance faced Druze’s apartment building from across the street. The sales level was a rectangular space, four times as deep as it was wide, with wooden floors that creaked when a customer walked among the ranks of white kitchen appliances. The washers, dryers, refrigerators and stoves carried brand names that sounded familiar at first, less familiar after some thought. Walt kept the lights off, unless a customer was on the floor; the interior was usually illuminated only by the weak light from the street, which filtered through the dusty windows with the fading advertising signs.

Like his merchandise, Walt was nondescript. Too heavy. Not so much soft-spoken as noncommittal. A few strands of fading brown hair were combed sideways over a balding head, and plastic-framed glasses perched on the end of a button nose slowly withering with age, like an overripe raspberry. Walt had been a beatnik in the fifties, kept a copy of Howl in his desk drawer. Read it more now, rather than less.

He was happy to cooperate with the police, Walt was: genuinely happy. He’d never used the loft anyway, except to store leftover samples of carpet and rolls of cracking vinyl, the remnants of a brief fling with the flooring business. He provided an inflatable mattress, an office chair, a collapsible TV tray and a stack of old Playboys. The watchers brought binoculars, a Kowa spotting scope, a video camera with a long lens, and a cellular telephone. They were happy, warm, out of the rain. Pizza could be delivered, and there was a bakery just down the street.

Another team, not so lucky, watched the back entrance of the apartment building from a car.

The watcher at Walt’s sat in the chair, facing the street. The TV tray was at his side, on it a Coke in a paper cup. The spotting scope was on a tripod in front of him. The other cop lay on the mattress, reading a Playboy. The watcher saw Bekker lurching through the rain, looked at him through the scope, dismissed him, never even mentioned him to the cop on the mattress. He couldn’t see Bekker’s face because of the hat, but he could see the oblong lavender box under his arm, the kind used to deliver roses all over the metro area. You recognized them even if you’d never gotten flowers, or given them.

Bekker checked the mailboxes, found her apartment number, used Druze’s key to open the lobby door and took the elevator to the sixth floor. Her apartment was the last one on the hall. On impulse, thinking of the gun in his pocket, he stopped one door down the hall and knocked quietly. No response. He tried again. Nobody home.

Good. He slipped a hand in his breast pocket, found the tab of PCP, popped it under his tongue. The taste bit into him. He was ready. He’d primed himself. His mind stood aside, ferocious, and waited for his body to work.

His hand—nothing to do with his mind anymore, his mind was on its own pedestal—knocked on the door and lifted the box so it could be seen from the peephole. There were flowers in the box. If there was somebody with her, he could leave them, walk away. Druze? He’d still have to do Druze, but the package wouldn’t be nearly as nice.

Bekker stood outside Cassie’s door, waiting for an answer.

Four o’clock. Lucas left St. Anne’s, heading west toward the rain. Maybe meet Cassie, he thought. Maybe time to catch her before the play. But yesterday she’d almost kicked him out. And then there were the questions about the handling of dead bodies . . . . He knew a funeral director, down on the south side of town. He could ask about the eyes of the children, although the idea disturbed him.

Old Catholic background, he thought. Killing people wasn’t so bad, but you didn’t want to mess with the dead. He grinned to himself, stopped at a traffic signal. Left, he could take the Ford bridge into south Minneapolis, go to the funeral home. Right, he could cut I-94 and be at Cassie’s in ten minutes.

The lights at right angles turned yellow, and Lucas took his foot off the brake, ready to let out the clutch. Still undecided. Left or right?

“Flowers?” She was smiling, her face completely unaware as she took the box, showing no hint of apprehension. Bekker’s body glanced up and down the hall, then drew the pistol and pointed it at her forehead.

“Inside,” he snapped, as her eyes widened. “Keep your mouth shut, or I swear to Christ I’ll blow your fuckin’ brains out,” Bekker’s body said, his mind applauding. Bekker’s body shoved her back with the left hand, holding the pistol with the right. She clutched the box in both hands, her mouth opening, and as she stepped back, he thought for an instant that she was about to scream. “Shut up,” he snarled. Saliva bubbled at his lips. “Shut the fuck up.”

He was inside then, pulling the door closed behind himself, the gun no more than a foot from her forehead. “Back up, sit on the couch.”

She dropped the box and he noticed the muscles in her arms. He wouldn’t want to fight her. She backed up until her legs touched the couch, and she half stumbled and sat down. “Don’t hurt me,” she stuttered. Her face was pale as paper.

“I won’t, if you pay attention,” Bekker’s body said. His mind still floated, directing traffic. “I just need a place to hide for an hour or so.”

“You’re not with Carlo?” Cassie asked, shrinking back into the couch.

The question caught him, but the drug covered for him. His body was disassociated now, worked by his mind like a puppet on strings, his hands numb. “Who?”

“You’re not with Carlo?”

“I’m not with anybody, I’m just trying to hide until the cops get off the street,” Bekker said. His body was stiff as marble, betraying nothing, but his mind was working feverishly: They knew about Carlo. Christ, were they watching him? They must be. Bekker gestured with the tip of the barrel. “Lie down on the floor. On your stomach. Put your hands behind you.”

“Don’t hurt me,” she said again. She slipped off the couch onto her knees, her eyes large. She was getting old, Bekker’s mind thought: she had tiny wrinkles around her eyes and on her forehead.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” his body said woodenly. He’d thought about this, what to say. He wanted her reassured, he wanted her to go along. “I’m going to tape your hands behind you. If I were going to hurt you, if I were going to rape you, I wouldn’t do that . . . . I wouldn’t put your hands under you . . . .”

She wanted to trust him. She turned, looking over her shoulder, and lay down. “Please . . .”

“The gun will be pointing at your head,” he said. “I tried your neighbor first, but she wasn’t home—so I know I could get away with a shot, if I had to . . . . I don’t want to risk it, but I will if you try to fight. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

“Then put your face down on the floor, straight down, and cross your hands. I’ll be taping with one hand. The gun’s still pointing at you.”

She did it: the marvelous power of the gun. She rolled, her hands behind her, and he awkwardly turned a wrap of the two-inch plastic packaging tape around her wrists, then another, then a third.

“Don’t move,” he said. He didn’t say it viciously, but his tongue was thick, slurring the words. That was more frightening than if he’d been screaming at her . . . . He did her ankles, more quickly now that her hands weren’t a threat, but still staying clear of a possible kick. When they were tight, he slipped the gun in his coat pocket and went back to her hands, added more tape, tighter now.

“You’re hurting me,” she said.

He grunted. No point in talking anymore. He had her. He walked around the couch, put one knee across her back to hold her flat, and slapped a palm-sized strip of tape across her mouth. She fought it, but he held her by the hair and wrapped more tape, tangling her hair across her face, plastering it to the sides of her head.

“That should do it,” his body said, more to his mind than to her. The bottom part of her face had been encapsulated, leaving her nose and eyes uncovered. He put the tape in his pocket, grabbed her under the arms and dragged her to the bedroom. When she started struggling, he backhanded her across the nose, hard. “Don’t do that.”

In the bedroom he laid her facedown on the bed and taped her feet to the endboard. He wrapped another length around her neck, once, twice, and led it to the headboard.

“I’m going in the front room to watch television, see if the cops have figured me out,” he said. “I want you quiet as a mouse; you’re not hurt yet, but you will be if you cause me any trouble.”

He closed the bedroom door and turned on the television. Now the tricky part.

Cassie tried to fold her body against the tape. If she could get enough pressure, she might pull free . . . . If she could get up on her feet, even hobble, there were scissors in the bureau, and she might be able to cut the tape. And if her hands were free, she could push the bureau in front of the door and hold him off—throw something through the window, if necessary, scream for help . . . .

But when she tried to fold herself, the tape around her neck threatened to strangle her. She pulled as long as she dared, then released the tension. The tape on her mouth kept her from gasping for the needed air and she strained to get it through her nose, her vision going red for a moment. No good.

She lay still for a moment, calculating. Nobody coming over? No. If Davenport dropped in, like he had the day before . . . Fat chance. She’d have to do it on her own. She tried rolling, rocking back and forth. She was at it for a minute, two minutes, got over on her back, then another half-turn. Was the tape ripping? She couldn’t see. She pulled her arm in close to her body and tried to roll again . . . .

Bekker left Cassie’s apartment door unlocked and padded down the hall to the stairs. On the way, he wrapped his right hand in a handkerchief. Druze was three floors down and the cops knew something. Bekker didn’t know how they knew, but they did, and they’d be watching.

A camera in the corridor? Unlikely. If the cops were secretly watching Druze, they wouldn’t do anything that might call attention to themselves. His mind equivocated: the woman had seen him, so he’d have to do her. But he hadn’t exposed himself to any watching cops yet, and he might be about to do that. His mind worked at it, and finally told his body to go ahead. To risk it. There was no other way, if the cops were this close to Druze. He opened the door and peeked out: the third-floor corridor was empty. He pulled up his rain hood, hurried to Druze’s door and, about to knock, reconsidered. If the apartment was bugged . . .

He scratched on the door. Heard movement inside. Scratched again. A moment later, the door opened a crack and Druze peered out. Bekker put a finger over his lips for silence and gestured for Druze to step into the hallway. Druze, frowning, followed, looking up and down the hall. Bekker, finger back on his lips, pointed to the door of the stairwell.

“I can’t explain it all right now, but we got a problem,” he whispered when they were on the stairs. “I talked to Davenport and he said they had a suspect but no evidence. I asked how they were going to catch him, and he said, ‘We’ve got to catch him in the act.’ And the way he said it, it sounded like a pun he was making to himself . . . .”

“Aw, shit,” Druze said, worried. “What happened to your hand?”

“She bit me. Anyway, I thought I’d come over here, early enough to catch the girl, like we’d talked about . . . .”

“We hadn’t talked about it for sure . . .” Druze said.

“Something had to be done and I couldn’t risk calling you on the phone,” Bekker said. “You may be bugged.”

“We don’t even know it’s me.”

“We do now. I went up to her apartment, stuck a gun in her face and taped her up. I was planning to wait until you were at the theater, whack her on the head—you know, do it so they couldn’t separate that injury from the injuries in a fall—and then pitch her right out the window. You’d have an alibi, and nobody knows about me.”

“What happened?”

“The first thing she said was, ‘You’re not with Carlo?’ ” The honesty was there in his voice.

“Aw, God damn it,” Druze said, running his fingers through his hair. “And you think the apartment may be bugged?”

“I don’t know. But if this woman goes out the window while you’re at the theater, that’s one more piece of evidence on your side . . . . They’ll know you’re not involved, anyway . . . .”

There was something wrong with the reasoning, but Druze, shocked, couldn’t figure it. And Bekker said, “Come on up to her apartment. You scare her. We need to find out what the cops know . . . .”

“God, I kind of like her,” Druze said.

“She doesn’t like you,” Bekker answered harshly. “She thinks you’re the killer.”

• • •

Bekker led the way quickly up the stairs, feeling the gun bang against his legs. All clear. In the apartment, he gestured at the bedroom and Druze walked back. Cassie was still facedown on the bed, but she had been struggling against the tape, which had been twisted between her legs and the bed.

“Turn her over, so she can see you,” Bekker said, moving to Druze’s right side. Druze stooped and grabbed Cassie’s near shoulder and hip, to roll her over.

His mind was clear as ice, his body moving with the precision of an industrial robot. Bekker pulled the pistol from his pocket—his mind watched it in slow motion, guiding each small movement of the drawing gesture—with the handkerchief-wrapped hand.

In a single move, Bekker’s body put the muzzle an inch from Druze’s temple.

Druze sensed the movement, started to turn his head, his mouth opening.

Bekker pulled the trigger.

Dropped the gun.

Recoiled from the blast . . .

The blast, confined in the small bedroom, was terrific, stunning. Bekker jerked back as Cassie arched up, twisting frantically at the tape.

Druze simply collapsed, the gun disappearing beneath him.

Cassie’s sweater was speckled with Druze’s blood and small amorphous shreds of bone and brain tissue.

Bekker’s robot-controlled body touched Druze’s. Dead. No question of it. The drugs sang in his blood and he went away. He sighed, and came back: Jesus. He’d been gone. How long? He glanced at his watch. Four-twenty. Cassie was staring at him from the bed, her hands working frantically behind her back. He hadn’t been gone long, a few minutes at most. He listened. Anybody coming? Not so far. No knocks, no sound of running feet . . .

He looked at Druze on the floor. He’d have to leave him like that, there might be some kind of blood pattern from the shot or something. He couldn’t do the eyes, of course. He worried about that, but there was nothing to be done. If Druze was going to take the blame . . .

Cassie.

She’d stopped fighting the tape, but her back was arched, her head turning, trying to see him. He had to hurry: he still had to stop at Druze’s apartment, to leave the photos. He started into the kitchen, when a door slammed down the hall, and he stopped. Listened.

Was that a movement? Out in the hall. He strained, listening. The hall was carpeted, would muffle steps. He waited a minute, then a few more seconds.

He couldn’t wait longer. He still had to visit Druze’s apartment. He patted his chest, confirming that the pictures were there. He’d cut the eyes out . . . .

He’d have to be careful. If the cops had bugged Druze’s apartment and realized he was gone, but hadn’t left the building, they might be on the way. Maybe he shouldn’t try it. If he were caught in the apartment . . . that didn’t bear thinking about.

Bekker, the PCP pounding in his blood, went into the kitchen and got a bread knife, the sharpest he could find.

And there again . . . Movement? Somebody in the hall. He froze, listened . . . . No. He had to move.

He didn’t do it well, and he didn’t do it quickly, but he did it: he cut Cassie’s throat from ear to ear, and sat with her, holding her green eyes open with his fingers, as she died.

CHAPTER

27

Lucas spent ten minutes at the funeral home with a cheerful, round-faced mortician who wanted to talk golf.

“Damn, Lucas, I already been out twice,” he said. He had a putter and was tapping orange balls across a plush carpet toward a coffee cup lying on its side. “It was a little muddy, but what the hell. In another two weeks, it’ll be every morning . . . .”

“I need to know about the eyes . . . .”

“So don’t talk to me about golf,” the mortician complained. He putted the last ball, and it bounced off the rim of the cup. “Nobody wants to talk golf. You know how hard it is to talk golf when you’re in the funeral business?”

“I can guess,” Lucas said dryly.

“So what exactly do you want to know?” the mortician asked, propping the putter against an easy chair.

They were in a small apartment above the funeral home, where the night man stayed. A lot of people die at night, the mortician said, and if you’re not there, they might call somebody else. To the average, unknowledgeable member of the general public, one funeral home was as good as another.

“What about the eyes? Do you leave them in or take them out, or what?”

“Why’d we take them out?” the cheerful mortician asked, relishing the conversation. Lucas was uncomfortable, and he could see it.

“I don’t know, I just . . . I don’t know. So you leave them in?”

“Sure.”

“Do you sew the eyelids shut or glue them shut or anything?”

“No, no, once they’re shut, they stay that way.”

“How about the viewings? Is there always somebody around?”

“Well, there’s always somebody around, but not necessarily right there. We go by judgment. If we see a street person going into the viewing room, we’d go with him, of course—we don’t want to get any rings stolen, or whatever. But if the guy looks straight, if he’s a member of the family, then we pretty much let him go. We might check every couple of minutes, but a lot of people, when they’re saying good-bye, don’t like funeral-home people standing around staring at them. They feel like they’re being rushed, you know, like when a salesman stands right next to you in a department store. But it’s judgment. One time this whole family warned us about a particular guy, one of the grandfathers. The deceased had this gold plate, probably worth a couple hundred, and this old guy was a thief. So we hung on him. He was kneeling there praying, and he kept looking at us and then praying some more . . . . He must’ve prayed for half an hour. The family members said that was the longest prayer of his life, by about twenty-nine minutes.”

“But theoretically, if somebody wanted to get in and touch a body, or look at its eyes . . . he could do it. If you didn’t have some warning.”

The funeral home man shrugged. “No theory about it– sure he could. No problem. But what can you do to a dead man in two minutes?”

Lucas kept a handset stashed under the seat, and Del caught him halfway back into the loop.

“Something’s happened with Druze,” Del said. “He’s gone. The surveillance guys swear there was no way he got out of the building, but he doesn’t answer his phone and he’s late for rehearsal.”

“What do you think? Check his apartment?”

“I don’t know. I thought we’d wait a while longer . . . . We’ve been calling every two or three minutes, so it’s not like he’s on the can.”

“Keep watching. I’ll come on up.”

He didn’t think of her, not right away. The traffic was heavy on Minnehaha Avenue headed north and he was stuck for three blocks behind a dump truck that resisted all of his attempts to pass. Cursing, he finally got around it, and got the finger from a scowling, long-haired truck driver. He hit three red lights in a row, and then she popped up in his mind. Same building. A chill ran through him, and he picked up the handset and called through to Del.

“I have a friend in that building. She’s an actress with the same theater Druze is at,” he said. “Would you call her?”

“Sure . . .”

Lucas could see the apartments along I-94, six blocks from the theater, when Del called back. “No answer.”

“Shit.” Lucas glanced at his watch. She should be at the theater. “Could you call the theater, ask for her?”

He was on Riverside, hurrying now, weaving through traffic. He jumped a light, scared a drunk and a student, saw the apartment building ahead.

“Lucas, we called, and she hasn’t shown up.”

“Ah, Jesus, listen, I gotta check on her. We’ve been talking about the case . . . .”

“I’ll meet you out in front. I’ve talked to the manager a couple of times.”

Del was walking across Riverside when Lucas arrived. Lucas dumped the car and met him on the sidewalk.

“Anything?”

“No. I called the manager, she should be . . . There she is.”

The manager was holding the lobby door, and Del introduced Lucas. “This is not official,” Lucas said. “She’s a personal friend of mine, she’s had some serious problems, and she hasn’t shown up at work. We’re worried.”

“Okay. Since you’re the police.”

They rode up to the sixth floor in silence, listening to the elevator rattle against the sides of the shaft, watching the numbers click on the counter. There was nobody in the corridor outside Cassie’s apartment. Lucas knocked on her door. Nothing. Knocked again.

“Open it,” he said to the manager, stepping back. She fitted her key to the lock and pushed the door open. Del shoved past Lucas. An odor filled the small front room . . . .

“You stay right fuckin’ here, Lucas,” Del shouted. He grabbed him by the collar and pulled him out of the doorway, and held the woman back with the other hand. “You stay right fuckin’ here . . . .”

Del headed for the bedroom. Lucas pushed past the bewildered woman, right behind him.

Cassie.

Her face was turned away. He knew, but he thought Maybe she’s . . . But the blood was all over the bed, and when he stumbled up to it, and saw her eyes . . . and the huge red gash under her chin, cutting through layers of tape . . . and Druze on the floor beside her, blood everywhere . . .

Somebody moaned, a long, horrible, low-pitched sound, and he realized that it was coming from his own throat, and he reached out and touched her . . . .

“Cassie . . .” He screamed it, and Del pivoted, grabbed him by the jacket and pushed him away like a linebacker working a blocking sled. Del himself screamed, “No, no, no . . .”

The manager, hands clenched in front of her, looked through the bedroom door and then staggered backward, still looking, her mouth hanging open. She ran to the doorway and began retching, and screaming, and retching again, and the stink of vomit overlay the smell of the butchery inside the bedroom . . . .

Lucas strained against his friend, and Del said, “Stay the fuck out, Lucas, stay the fuck out, we need to process, Lucas she’s dead, Lucas she’s dead . . . .” He pushed Lucas into a chair and picked up the phone.

“We got another one. We need everything you got, apartment six-forty-two. We got two of them, yeah, it’s Druze . . . .”

He looked at Lucas, who was back on his feet, ready to go after him. But Lucas walked away from the bedroom and did something that frightened Del more than any effort to look at Cassie: he stood staring at a wall from a distance of no more than a foot, expressionless, unmoving, his eyes open.

“Lucas?” No answer. “Davenport, for Christ’s sakes . . .”

“You want to go to the hospital?” Sloan asked.

“What for?” Del had pulled him off the wall, stuffed him into the elevator, guided him to the lobby and held him there.

“Get some dope.”

“No.”

“You’re totally fucked, man. You can’t be like this,” Sloan said. He was driving the Porsche, while Lucas slumped beside him in the passenger seat.

“Just get me home,” Lucas said. The storm was back in his head, the storm he’d feared. Cassie’s face. The things he could have done, might have done, that she might have done. Going around, thousands of options, millions of intricate possibilities, all leading to life or to death . . . Sybil’s face popped into his head.

“We saved the life of a woman who’s gonna die in a week . . .” he moaned.

“But we maybe got Bekker, the lawyers are looking at the tapes right now.”

“Fuck me,” Lucas said, dropping his chin on his chest. He had to cry, but he couldn’t.

And then he said, “I went to a funeral home. If I’d come here . . .”

And then he said, “Every fuckin’ woman I see gets hurt. I’m a goddamned curse on their heads . . . .”

And then he said, “I could’ve saved her . . . .”

“I gotta make a call,” Sloan said suddenly, taking the car into a convenience-store parking lot. “Just take a minute.”

Sloan called Elle Kruger, looking back over his shoulder at Lucas in the passenger seat of the Porsche. All he could see was the top of Lucas’ head. The nun’s phone was answered by a woman at a switchboard; Sloan explained that he was calling on a police emergency. The woman said she’d try to find Elle, and began switching. A moment later, she came back on to say that the nun was at dinner, and a friend would get her. She told Sloan to hold on.

“Lucas?” Elle asked when she picked up the phone.

“No, this is his friend Sloan. Lucas has a problem . . . .”

When Sloan returned to the car, Lucas’ eyes were closed, and he was breathing slowly, as though he were sleeping. “You okay?” Sloan asked.

“That fuckin’ Loverboy. If he’d come in, he could’ve looked at the picture of Druze the minute I found it, and we could’ve busted him. But we had to go through this newspaper-ad bullshit . . . .”

“Let it go,” Sloan said. “Nothing we can do about it now.”

• • •

Elle was waiting at Lucas’ house with another nun and a small black car.

“How are you?” she asked.

He shook his head, looking down at the driveway. Meeting her eyes would be impossible, too complicated.

“I’ll call my friend, get a sedative for you.”

“I’ve got this stuff going around in my head . . .” he said. And the guns: he could feel the guns in the basement. Not heavy, not like last winter, but they were back.

“Let me call my friend.” Elle took his arm, then his hand, and led him toward the door like a child, while Sloan and the other nun followed behind.

Lucas woke the next morning exhausted.

The sedatives had beaten him into a dreamless sleep. The storm in his head had dissipated, but he could feel it just over the horizon of consciousness. He slid tentatively out of bed, stood up, swayed, opened the bedroom door and almost fell over the couch. Sloan had pushed it up against the door and was struggling to get up.

“Lucas . . .” Sloan, in a T-shirt and suit pants, with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, looked tired and scared.

“What the fuck are you doing, Sloan?”

Sloan shrugged. “We thought it might be a good idea, in case you sleepwalked . . . .”

“In case I started looking for my guns?”

“Something like that,” Sloan admitted, looking up at him. “You look like shit. How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” Lucas said. “I gotta get some dead kids dug up.”

The blood seemed to drain from Sloan’s face, and Lucas smiled despite himself, smiled as a widow might smile the day before her husband is buried. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not nuts. Let me tell you about Bekker . . . .”