Buried Prey Part 20

He closed his eyes, and dozed, and his dream seeped back: he was a young man again, driving around in a squad with Fred Carter. Carter's grumpy disposition, his tendency to avoid conflict . . .

Lucas had seen him a few months before, working as a security guard at the Capitol, no longer youngish, still carrying a gun on his hip. Carter was generally happy with the work, but straining toward retirement, now only a year or so away.

"The thing is," he'd told Lucas, "you can never tell where the terrorists will hit next. What if they decide on a big city, but one out of the limelight? One that no one expects?"

"Like Minneapolis or St. Paul," Lucas had suggested.

"Yeah. And what would they hit? The Capitol." Carter had looked up. "That big f.u.c.kin' dome. Man, I can see it: I'm two days from retirement and some f.u.c.kin' raghead with a dynamite belt drops the dome on my head."

"Well, at least your wife would collect your retirement," Lucas had said.

Carter waved his index finger like a windshield wiper: "Don't even joke about that, man. Don't even joke about it."

Carter's whole life had been pointed toward retirement; and he had such an enormous gut on him, Lucas thought it unlikely that he'd live for more than a few years into it.

The thought of Carter again brought up the faces of the dead Jones girls, grinning their bony smiles through the yellow plastic at the bottom of the condo excavation. The Jones girls . . .

JUST AFTER DAWN, Lucas rolled out of bed and padded down the hall in his boxer shorts and T-shirt, down the stairs to the front porch. He cracked the front door and peeked outside. There were three newspapers scattered down the walk, the St. Paul Pioneer Press St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Star Tribune Star Tribune, and the New York Times New York Times.

The Times Times, the one he didn't want at the moment, was closest; the Pioneer Press Pioneer Press was six feet farther out, the was six feet farther out, the Star Tribune Star Tribune five feet beyond that. He didn't want to go running out in his shorts if, say, a troop of Girl Scouts were pa.s.sing by. No young girls were in sight, and he pushed the door open, trotted down the sidewalk to the five feet beyond that. He didn't want to go running out in his shorts if, say, a troop of Girl Scouts were pa.s.sing by. No young girls were in sight, and he pushed the door open, trotted down the sidewalk to the Star Tribune Star Tribune, grabbed it, s.n.a.t.c.hed the Pioneer Press Pioneer Press on the way back, and got to the door two seconds before it closed and latched itself. on the way back, and got to the door two seconds before it closed and latched itself.

Someday, he thought, it'd snap shut with him outside. Probably in the winter. The obvious solution would be to unlock the door, but then he'd forget to lock it, as would everybody else, and the door would be open all the time.

Besides, he got a little thrill from beating the door in his underwear.

The Star Tribune Star Tribune had the Jones story on the front page, front and center. The had the Jones story on the front page, front and center. The Pioneer Press Pioneer Press had it on an inside page. They'd missed the story, Lucas decided, probably saw it on the ten o'clock news, and then tried to recover. They hadn't, very well. had it on an inside page. They'd missed the story, Lucas decided, probably saw it on the ten o'clock news, and then tried to recover. They hadn't, very well.

Lucas dropped the Pioneer Press Pioneer Press on the floor by the door and carried the on the floor by the door and carried the Star Tribune Star Tribune into the den, kicked back in his work chair, read through the story. The into the den, kicked back in his work chair, read through the story. The Strib Strib had gotten to the Jones girls' parents-now divorced, the story said, both remarried, George Jones with more children, though his ex-wife was childless. A second tragic story there, Lucas thought, thinking of Weather, pregnant, up in the bed; of the children who would comfort him in his old age. had gotten to the Jones girls' parents-now divorced, the story said, both remarried, George Jones with more children, though his ex-wife was childless. A second tragic story there, Lucas thought, thinking of Weather, pregnant, up in the bed; of the children who would comfort him in his old age.

He finished the story, read through comments by the Minneapolis chief-they'd throw everything they had at the case. Right. Still sleepy, Lucas went back upstairs, and found Weather getting ready to go in to work.

"Where're you working this morning?"

She yawned: "Regions."

"Anything interesting?" he asked.

"It's all interesting . . . but no."

"I'm going back to bed," Lucas said.

HE FELL ASLEEP immediately, woke up three hours later, feeling sharp, picked up his cell phone from the bedstand, turned it on, and dialed.

Del came up, and Lucas asked, "You read the paper this morning?"

"Yeah. I was wondering if you'd call."

"I want to get in on this," Lucas said.

"I wouldn't mind, but the politics will be a little crude," Del said. "It's a Minneapolis case."

"They won't do it as well as you and I would," Lucas said.

"That's true," Del said.

"Besides, we wouldn't have to tell them . . . right away."

They thought about that for a minute. An unstated rivalry existed between the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the cops in Minneapolis and St. Paul. If you asked a Minneapolis leadhomicide detective, he would say something like, "A guy at the BCA probably handles twenty murders in his career. I see twenty in a year."

The BCA guy would say, "Yeah-g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers. You catch the guy sitting on a couch with a beer and a gun. When we go in, we go in late, and they're always the hard ones."

To which each side would say to the other, "Bulls.h.i.t."

Lucas asked, "You remember John Fell?"

"I remember the name. That's the guy you were looking for," Del said.

"There's a good chance that he's the killer. Even at the time, I thought there was some chance, but now that Terry Sc.r.a.pe is pretty much ruled out, I think we need to find him," Lucas said.

"Long time ago," Del said.

"Yeah."

"We oughta get a cup of coffee, sit and think."

"Give me an hour-I'll see you down at the cafe."

"Bring your notebook," Del said. "We're gonna need a list."

SO THEY went down to the cafe on Snelling, sat in a booth with a coffee for Del and Diet c.o.ke for Lucas, and Lucas opened a sketchbook that he used for planning, and they started making their list.

1. Fell was fairly young-in his twenties-in the mideighties. "That means he didn't quit with the two girls," Del said. "He might've quit by now-a lot of the psychos p.o.o.p out in their forties. But he kept going for ten or fifteen years. We need to look at cold cases where young thin blondes vanished."2. He could have been arrested for a s.e.x crime at some point-most s.e.x criminals were. Lucas couldn't remember everything about the description of the guy, but he was overweight, dark hair, told jokes instead of engaging in regular conversation. "I think he might be missing a finger," Lucas said. "I think I remember that." That combination might be enough to identify him either to investigators, or to serial offenders who had spent a lot of time in jail.3. At the time the girls disappeared, he may have been fired as a high school teacher. "Since he wasn't very old, he must've been fired fairly recently when I was looking for him," Lucas said. "And if he was fired that quickly, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a s.e.x thing involved . . . or suspected, anyway. So we're looking for a guy with a rap sheet involving s.e.x, who was a local schoolteacher back in the early eighties."4. Del said, "If we can find old checks that he wrote to cover the John Fell Visa account, we might pick up some DNA-and if he's in the s.e.x database, we'd have him." Lucas shook his head: "I don't think they keep paper checks anymore. We can look."5. "We gotta check every utility record we can find on that house," Lucas said. "His name should be somewhere." Del nodded, but said, "Minneapolis will be all over that angle." Lucas said, "Wonder if they'll check on next-door neighbors?" Del: "They will if they really pull out all the stops, like they say. But, we oughta check."

"Think Marcy will let us look at the Jones case file?" Del asked.

Lucas said, "I don't know how she could turn us down, if we asked, but she might get p.i.s.sed."

Del suggested that they might find a pressure point, and Lucas asked, "How about this . . . you know James Hayworth at St. Paul?"

Del nodded.

Lucas said, "He just came back from Quantico. He's really big on the behavioral science stuff. He'll know that guys like Fell don't quit . . . so what if we feed him to the Star Tribune? Star Tribune? He's all fired up right now, all that new information in his head, he'll tell them a story that'll scare the s.h.i.t out of everybody." He's all fired up right now, all that new information in his head, he'll tell them a story that'll scare the s.h.i.t out of everybody."

Del half smiled and shrank back into the booth: "Man, if Marcy found out, she'd shoot you."

Lucas said, "Yeah, but if she doesn't, and we perform just the right amount of suck . . . I'll bet we get invited in. You know, to spread the blame."

"Where do we start?" Del asked.

"I can get Sandy to do the research on missing children," Lucas said. "She'd get it a lot faster than we would. We don't want to b.u.mp into any Minneapolis guys any sooner than necessary, so . . . I think maybe we start with the schools."

"When?"

"I'll get Rose Marie to yank you off the task force for a while, and we can start this afternoon. What I'm thinking is, it'll be an employment record, which the bureaucrats hold pretty close, so we might need a subpoena. Maybe we just get a subpoena that applies to all school board employment records in this area . . . we need to know how many school districts there are, and where they're at."

"You find that out, and get the paper," Del said. "I've got some task force stuff I have to clean up. I'll be ready to go tomorrow morning."

AT THE OFFICE, Lucas found Sandy, the researcher, told her his theories about Fell, about what may have been a fight in an alley between Fell and Smith, the crack dealer, and outlined what he needed to know about missing girls; she would start immediately.

Then Lucas started working the schools by telephone-and found there were more than fifty school districts in the metro area, and he'd have to go after them individually. He began with the larger, close-in districts, was told that he would need a subpoena to look at the employment records.

He asked the first record keeper, "Do I need a subpoena to find out if you fired anyone in that period of time? Or could you just tell me 'yes' or 'no'?"

"Sure, I could tell you that," he said. "Let me look at my records, and I'll get back in an hour or so."

So he sat for five hours, breaking for lunch, patiently dialing phone numbers, reciting the same set of facts to all the various record keepers, and by the end of it, he'd learned that twelve of fifty-five districts had fired male schoolteachers during the relevant period.

"I can't give you the name, but I can tell you that this guy's record suggests that there may have been a parental complaint without any follow-through . . . which could mean s.e.x," one man said.

"Straight s.e.x?"

"Uh, can't tell. Didn't occur to me that it might be otherwise, but I can't tell. The thing to do is, get your subpoena, and we'll dig everything out and you can take a look at what we've got."

"See you tomorrow," Lucas said.

Two more of the twelve districts also had fired or released male teachers under unclear circ.u.mstances, which the record keepers thought might suggest a s.e.xual basis for the dismissals. "That stuff doesn't get talked about or written down, because there's the possibility of legal action."

The other nine were fired for a variety of behavior, most often drunkenness or drug charges, which were clearly not s.e.xual.

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AT THE END of the day, he called Marcy Sherrill at Minneapolis: "You get anything on the Jones girls?"

"We're working it-things are a little slow, so we had some folks we could throw at it," she said.

"s.h.i.t hit the fan with the media?"

"Maybe not as much as I expected," she said. "This whole thing happened before the Channel Three reporter was born, and anything that happened before she was born is obviously not important . . . so, yeah, people are calling up, but it's been reasonable."

Lucas said, "So you're saying you got the media under control, and you haven't got jack s.h.i.t on the Jones case."

"I wouldn't say that. Not yet. The ME thinks there's a chance they might take some DNA off the girls."

"I wouldn't hold my breath," Lucas said.

"Well, if it's there, we could be all over this guy in a couple of days. I mean, any strange DNA that we find on them would almost have to belong to him. They were gone for two days, probably getting raped multiple times, so . . . there should be some DNA somewhere."

"Good luck. Did you get any names off the houses in the neighborhood?"

"A few. We're looking at utilities, of course, but they seem to have all been paid by Mark Towne, the Towne House guy. Apparently they were all rented with utilities paid . . . though not telephone. But, we've got no telephone for that address at that time. So, we're looking. Trying to find old neighbors and so on."

"All right. Well, keep me up on it."

"Don't bulls.h.i.t me, Lucas," Sherrill said. "I know d.a.m.n well you're looking at something over there. What is it?"

"Doing some research, is all. I've got a woman looking for other missing children of the same appearance from the same time. We're doing the metro area, then I'll have her do the state, then surrounding states. I don't know if it'll be of any use."

"That's fine," Marcy said. "That's the kind of support we appreciate. If she finds anybody, let me know."

"It's not a matter of finding anybody," Lucas said. "She's already got about twenty possibilities. Probably have fifty by the time she's done. The problem is, figuring out who ran away, who snuck off to the other parent, and who got murdered. It's pretty murky."

"Well, keep pluggin'," she said.

Lucas hung up a minute later and thought, She's really gonna be p.i.s.sed when she finds out. She's really gonna be p.i.s.sed when she finds out.

However dark the killer might have been, Lucas thought, the case lacked the urgency of a crime that happened yesterday: it was interesting in an archaeological way. Solving it would be a feather in Marcy's cap, but she didn't have the visceral drive she would if she'd been chasing a guy who was operating right now right now.

Lucas did-a little, anyway, because he'd been there when the mistake had been made. After talking to Marcy, he leaned back in his office chair and closed his eyes, trying to remember those faroff days. Where had the time gone? Parts of it seemed so close he should be able to go outside and see it; but, on the other hand, it simultaneously seemed like ancient history.

He remembered that during that summer, when the Jones girls disappeared, he'd had a brief and satisfactory relationship with a divorce attorney in her late thirties, and not long ago, he'd heard that she'd retired to Florida.

Retired . . .

SANDY POKED HER HEAD in the office: "Got a minute?"