Текст книги "Lucas Davenport Novels 1-5"

Автор книги: John Sandford

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 105 страниц)

“I’d want to know what to get,” Carla said. She took a sip of coffee. “I couldn’t spend too much. And I’d want some help learning to use it.”

“I could loan you one, if you like, just until we get the guy,” Lucas said. “Let me see your hand. Hold it up.”

She held her hand up, fingers spread, palm toward him. He pressed his palm against hers and looked at the length of his finger overlap.

“Small hands,” he said. “I’ve got an older Charter Arms .38 special that ought to fit just about right. And we can get some semiwadcutter loads so you don’t get too much penetration and kill all your neighbors if you have to use it.”

“What?”

“Your walls here are plaster and lath,” Lucas explained. He leaned back and rapped on a wall, and little crumbs of plaster dropped off. “If you use too powerful a round, you’ll punch one long hole through the whole building. And anybody standing in the way.”

“I didn’t think of that.” She looked worried.

“We’ll fix you up. You live about a hundred yards from the St. Paul police indoor range. I shoot over there in competition. I could probably fix it to give you a few lessons.”

“Let me sleep on it,” she said. “But I think so.”

When he was leaving, she closed the door except for a tiny crack and said as he started down the hall, “Hey, Davenport?”

He stopped. “Yes?”

“Are you ever going to ask me out again?”

“Sure. If you’re willing to put up with me.”

“I’m willing,” she said, and eased the door closed. Lucas whistled on his way to the elevator, and she leaned against the door, listening to the sound of him and smiling to herself.

Late that night, Lucas lay in the spare bedroom and looked at the charts pinned to the wall. After a while he stood and wrote at the bottom of the killer’s chart, “Hangs around courthouse.”

CHAPTER

8

He was delighted by the newspapers.

He knew he shouldn’t save them. If a cop saw them . . . But then, if a cop saw them, here in his apartment, it would be too late. They would know. And how could he not save them? The inch-high letters were a joy to the soul.

The Star-Tribune had SERIAL KILLER SLAYS 3 CITIES WOMEN. The Pioneer Press was bigger and better: SERIAL KILLER STALKS TWIN CITIES WOMEN. He liked the word “stalks.” It reflected a sense of a continuing process, rather than a historical one; and work that was planned, instead of random.

Purely by chance, on the night the story broke, he saw a nine-o’clock newsbreak promoting it. The station’s top reporter, a tall blonde in a trench coat, rapped the harsh word “murder” into a microphone set up outside City Hall. An hour later, he taped TV3’s ten-o’clock news report, which replayed key parts of the press conference with the chief of police.

The conference was chaotic. The chief was terse, straightforward. So were the first few questions. Then somebody raised his voice, cutting off a question from another reporter, and the whole conference reeled out of control. At the end, newspaper photographers were standing on chairs in front of the television, firing their strobes at the chief and the half-dozen other cops in the room.

It took his breath away. He watched the tape a half-dozen times, considering every nuance. If only they’d run the whole press conference, he thought; that would be the responsible thing. After thinking about it for a moment or two, he called the station. The lines were busy and it took twenty minutes to get through. When he finally did, the operator put him on hold for a moment, then came back to tell him there were no plans “at the present time” to run the entire conference.

“Might that change?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. She sounded harassed. “It might. About a million people are calling. You oughta check the Good-Morning Show tomorrow. If they decide to run it, they’ll say then.”

When he got off the phone, the maddog got down on his knees with the VCR instructions and figured out how to program the time controls. He’d want to tape all the major newscasts from now on.

Before he went to bed, he watched the tape one last time, the part with Lucas Davenport. Davenport had been shown in a brief cut, sitting cross-legged in a folding chair. He was wearing jeans and an expensive-looking sport coat. Called the smartest detective on the police force. Working independently.

He got up early for the Good-Morning Show, but there was nothing but a rehash of the news from the night before. Later, when he was reading the morning papers, he found a short sidebar on Lucas Davenport in the St. Paul paper, with a small photograph. Killed five people? A games inventor? Wonderful. The maddog examined the photo closely. A cruel jawline, he decided. A hard man.

The maddog could barely work during the day, impatiently rushing through the stack of routine real-estate and probate files on the desk before him. He spent a few more minutes with two minor criminal cases he was also handling, but finally pushed those aside as well. The criminal cases were his favorites, but he didn’t get many of them. The maddog was recognized in the firm as an expert researcher; but it was already being said that he would not work well before a jury. There was something . . . wrong about him. Nobody said it publicly, but it was understood.

The maddog lived alone near the University of Minnesota, in one of four apartments in a turn-of-the-century house that had been modernized and converted to town houses. He rushed home after work, hurrying to catch the six-o’clock news. There was no more hard information, but TV3 had news crews out all over the city getting reaction from people in the street. The people in the street said they weren’t scared, that the police would get him.

A cop in a squad car revealed that he signed himself “maddog,” and the newscasters picked it up. The maddog liked it.

After the news, he spent an hour cleaning and squaring his meticulously neat apartment. He usually watched television at night or rental movies on his VCR. That night he couldn’t sit still. Eventually he went downtown, from bar to bar, cruising the crowds. He saw a James Dean-wannabe at a fashionable disco, a young man with long black hair and wide shoulders, a T-shirt under a black leather jacket, a cruel smile. He was talking to a girl in a short white dress that showed her legs all the way to her crotch and from the top down almost to her nipples.

You think he’s dangerous, he thought of the woman, but it’s all a charade. I’m the dangerous one. You don’t even see me in my sport coat and necktie, but I’m the one. I’m the One.

It was time to begin again. Time to begin looking. The need would begin to work on him. He knew the pattern now. In ten days or two weeks, it would be unbearable.

So far he had taken a salesgirl, a housewife, a real-estate agent. How about one out of the pattern? One that would really mess with the cops’ minds? A hooker, like in Dallas? No need to hurry, but it was a thought.

He was drifting along, deep in thought, when a voice called his name.

“Hey, Louie. Louie. Over here.”

He turned. Bethany Jankalo, God help him. One of the associates. Tall, blonde, slightly buck-toothed. Loud. And, he’d been told, eminently available. She was on the arm of a professorial type, who stood tall, sucked a pipe, and looked at the maddog with disdain.

“We’re going to the Mélange opening,” Jankalo brayed. She had a wide mouth and was wearing fluorescent pink lipstick. “Come on. It’s a lot of laughs.”

Jesus, he thought, and she’s an attorney.

But he fell in with them, Jankalo running her mouth, her escort sucking his pipe, which appeared to be empty and made slurping sounds as he worked it. Together they walked down a block, to a gallery in a gray brick building. There was a small crowd on the walk outside. Jankalo led the way through, using her shoulders like a linebacker. Inside, middle-aged professionals carried plastic glasses of white wine through the gallery while staring blankly at the canvases that lined the eggshell-white walls.

“Who dropped the pizza?” Jankalo laughed as she looked at the first piece. Her escort winced. “What a bunch of shit.”

Some of it was not.

The maddog did not know about art; wasn’t interested in it. On the walls of his office, he had two duck prints, taken from the annual federal waterfowl stamps. He’d been told they were good investments.

But now his eyes were opened. Most of the work was, indeed, very bad. But Larson Deiree did riveting nudes posed against bizarre situational backdrops. Their contorted bodies caught in explicitly sexual offerings, the recipients of the offers, men in overcoats and broadbrimmed hats and wing-tip shoes, their faces averted, shown as alienated strangers. Power transactions; the women as unequivocal prizes. The maddog was fascinated.

“Have a wine and a cracker, Louie,” Jankalo said, handing him a glass of pale yellow fluid and a stack of poker-chip-size crackers.

“Sort of like ‘I argued before the Supreme Court in my Living Bra,’ huh?” she asked, looking at the Deiree painting behind him.

“I . . .” The maddog groped for words.

“You what?” Jankalo said. “You like that?”

“Well . . .”

“Louie, you’re a pervert,” she said, her voice so loud it was virtually a shout. The maddog glanced around. Nobody was paying any attention. “That’s my kind of man.”

“I like it. It makes an argument,” the maddog said. He surprised himself. He didn’t think in those terms.

“Oh, bullshit, Louie,” Jankalo shouted. “He’s just hanging some snatch out there to hype the sales.”

The maddog turned away.

“Louie . . .”

He thought about killing her. All in an instant, he thought about it.

It would have a certain artistic spontaneity to it. It would, in a way, follow the maxim that he not establish a pattern, because it would not be calculated and planned. And it would be amusing. Jankalo, he didn’t doubt, would largely cooperate, right up to the moment the knife went in. He felt a stirring in his groin.

“Louie, you can be such an asshole,” Jankalo said, and walked away. She had said, Louie, you’re a pervert . . . my kind of man. An offer? If so, he’d let it dangle too long. She was headed back to her professor. The maddog was not good in social situations. He took a bite of cracker and looked around, straight into the eyes of Carla Ruiz.

He looked away.

He did not want to catch her eye. The maddog believed that eye contact was telling: that she might look him in the eye and suddenly know. They had, after all, shared a considerable intimacy.

He maneuvered so that he could watch her from angles, past others. The cut on her forehead looked bad, the bruises going yellow. The maddog was still badly bruised himself, green streaks on his back and one arm.

Maybe he should come back on her.

No. That would violate too many rules. And the need to do her had passed.

But it was tempting; for revenge, if nothing else, like the farmgirl he’d blown off the horse. The thought of killing made him tingle, pulled at him, like a nicotine addict who had gone too long between cigarettes.

The need would grow. Better start doing research Monday. At the latest.

CHAPTER

9

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.”

“My husband’s going to love this,” one of the women cops muttered.

“Fuck your husband,” said Daniel.

“I’d like to,” said the cop, “but people keep putting me on nights.”

When the meeting broke, he asked Lucas to stay behind.

“You got the Ruiz thing fixed?”

“Yeah. I talked to her just before I came in. We’ll do it tonight, at her place. Six o’clock. She’s willing, if it’ll help, and it’ll cool out Carey.”

“I hope your dick isn’t getting you in trouble with that woman.”

“It’s under control,” Lucas said. “I’ll tip the papers and the TV people that you’ll be calling a press conference. And I’ll talk to the papers about doing their interviews at the same time Carey does hers. We’ll be back over here for the press conference at nine. Afterward, I’m going to head up to my cabin for a couple of days. I’ve got some time coming.”

“Jesus, this isn’t such a good time for a vacation.”

“I’ve got things covered. I’ll leave my number with the shift commander if you need me.”

“Okay, but tonight prep Ruiz for making some kind of appeal for cooperation, will you? You know the stuff.” Daniel leaned back in his chair, put one foot on his desk, looked at his wall of photographs, and changed the subject. “You know what we need.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll tell Anderson to give you location checks. We already know he lives alone. It’s a little house down by Lake Harriet.”

“Not far from where Lewis worked. The real-estate woman.”

“We thought of that,” Daniel said. “He didn’t buy the house from her agency, though.”

“Look. Don’t get too far out front on this thing, okay? I mean you personally,” Lucas said. “If there’s a leak to the press, tell them that you’re looking at a guy, but you think it’s thin.”

“You don’t believe it?”

“I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“Can you get something going this afternoon? That might tell us something.”

“I’ll give it a shot.”

Nobody said anything about a bag job.

From his office, Lucas called the newspapers and television stations and tipped friends that Daniel would be calling a press conference. He talked separately to assignment editors from both papers and suggested that they keep a soft-touch reporter around late, that there’d be a good next-day story breaking around six o’clock.

That done, he got Smithe’s address and phone number from Anderson and found the house on a city map. He knew the neighborhood. He thought about it for a minute, pursing his lips, then opened the bottom drawer of his desk, reached far into the back, and found the lock rake. It was battery-operated, roughly the same shape but only half the size of an electric drill, with two prongs sticking out where the drill bit would have been. One prong was bent, the other straight. Lucas unscrewed the butt cap, reversed the batteries into working position, and squeezed the trigger. The picks rattled for a second and he released the pressure and sighed.

• • •

Smithe’s house was tan stucco with a postage-stamp lawn. Fifteen-foot-tall junipers flanked the concrete steps that led to the front door. There were only occasional people on the quiet streets around the house. Lucas cruised by twice, then drove out to a street phone.

“Anderson.”

“This is Davenport. Where’s Smithe?”

“Just had a call. He’s at his desk.”

“Thanks.”

Next he dialed Smithe’s number and let it ring. After the thirtieth ring he took a pair of wire cutters from the glove compartment, looked around, nipped off the receiver, and dropped it on the floor of the car. If the receiver was gone, there was little chance that a passerby would manually disconnect the phone.

The Porsche was too noticeable to park outside Smithe’s house. Lucas dropped it a block away and walked down the street, the pick in his jacket pocket. A kid was pedaling a bike along the street and Lucas slowed and let him pass. At Smithe’s house he turned in and walked straight up to the steps without looking around.

He could hear the phone ringing from the porch. The lock was an original, from a door that was probably installed in the fifties. The pick took it out in less than a minute. Lucas pushed the door open with his knuckles and stuck his head inside.

“Here, boy,” he called. He whistled. Nothing. He stepped inside and pushed the door shut.

The house was still and smelled faintly of some chemical. What? Wood polish? Wax. Lucas cruised quickly through the ground floor on a preliminary survey, stopping only to lift the ringing phone, silencing it.

The living room was sparsely but tastefully furnished with an overstuffed couch-and-chair set and a teardrop glass coffee table from the fifties. The kitchen was a pleasant, sunny room with yellow tiles and a half-dozen plants perched on the counter near the window. There was a bathroom with a cast-iron tub, a small bedroom with a double bed pushed into a corner, an empty chest of drawers, and a desk and chair, apparently used as an office and a guest bedroom. He checked the drawers in the desk and found bills, financial statements, and copies of income-tax returns.

The master bedroom had been converted into a media room, with a set of five-foot-tall speakers and a twenty-seven-inch television facing a long, comfortable couch. One wall of the media room was lined with photos. Smithe stood next to a smiling older couple that Lucas assumed were his parents. Another photo showed him with two other men, all showing a strong family resemblance, probably his brothers; they were dressed in high-school wrestling uniforms, flexing their biceps for the camera. There was a picture of Smithe throwing hay off a rack with his father. Smithe with a diploma. Smithe with a male friend on the streets of New York, arms wrapped around each other’s waists.