Prey: Night Prey Part 34

"I don't care how remote," Roux said. "Take him now."

29.

KOOP WAS IN Modigliani's Wine & Spirits off Lyndale Avenue when the cops got him. His arm was actually in the cold box, pulling out a six-pack of Budweiser, when a red-faced man in a cheap gray suit said, "Mr. Koop?" Koop realized a large black man had stepped to his elbow, and a uniformed cop was standing by the door. They'd appeared as if by magic; as if they had a talent for it, popping out of nowhere.

Koop said, "Yeah?" And straightened up. His heart beat a little faster.

"Mr. Koop, we're Minneapolis police officers," the red-faced man said. "We're placing you under arrest."

"What for?"

Koop stood flat-footed, hands in front of him, forcing himself to be still. But his back and arm muscles were twitching, ready to go. He'd thought about this possibility, at night, when he was waiting to go to sleep, or watching television. He'd thought about it a lot, a favorite nightmare.

Resisting a cop could bring a heavier charge than anything else they might have on you. In the joint, they warned you that if the cops really wanted you, and you gave them a chance, they just might blow you away. Of course, it was mostly the spooks that said that. White guys didn't see it the same way. But everybody agreed on one thing: your best shot was a decent defense attorney.

The red-faced cop said, "I think you know."

"I don't know," Koop protested. "You're making a mistake. You've got the wrong guy." He glanced toward the door. Maybe he should make a run for it. The red-faced guy didn't look like that much. The black guy he could outrun, and he'd take the guy at the door like a bowling pin. He had the power . . . but he didn't know what was outside. And these guys were armed. He sensed the cops were waiting for something, were looking at him for a decision. Everything in the store was needle-sharp, the rows of brown liquor bottles and green plastic jugs of mix, stacks of beer cans, the tops of potato chip bags, the black-and-white checkered tiles on the floor. Koop tensed, felt the cops pull into themselves. They were ready for him, and not particularly scared.

"Turn around, please, and place your hands on the top of the cooler," Red-face said. Koop heard him as though from a distance. But there was a hardness in the guy's voice. Maybe he couldn't take them. Maybe they'd beat the s.h.i.t out of him. And he didn't know yet what he was being arrested for. If it wasn't too serious, if it was buying cocaine, then resisting would bring him more trouble than the charge.

"Turn around. . . ." Peremptory this time. Koop gave the door a last look, then let out a breath and turned.

The cop patted him down, quickly but thoroughly. Koop had done it often enough at Stillwater to appreciate the professionalism.

"Drop your hands behind you, please. We're going to put handcuffs on, Mr. Koop, just as a precaution." The red-faced man was crisp and polite, the prefight tension gone now.

The black cop said, "You have the right to see an attorney. . . ."

"I want a lawyer," Koop said, interrupting the Miranda. The cuffs closed over his wrists and he instinctively flexed against them, pushing down a spasm of what felt like claustrophobia, not being able to move. The red-faced cop took him by the elbow and pivoted him, while the other finished the Miranda.

"I want a lawyer," Koop said. "Right now. You're making a mistake, and I'm gonna sue your b.u.t.ts."

"Sure. Step over this way, we'll go out to the car," the red-faced cop said.

They walked down a row of potato chips and bean dip and the black cop said, "Jesus, you sound like some kind of parrot. Polly want a lawyer?" but he grinned, friendly. His hand was hard on Koop's triceps.

"I want a lawyer." In the joint they said that after they warn you, the cops'll get friendly, try to get you talking about anything. After they get you rolling, when you're trying to make them happy-because you're a little scared, you don't want to get whacked around-then you'll start talking. Don't talk, they said in the joint. Don't say s.h.i.t except "I want a lawyer."

They went out the door, a customer and the counterman gawking at them, and the red-faced man said, "My name is Detective Kershaw and the man behind you is Detective Carrigan, the famous Irish dancer. We'll need your keys to tow your truck, or we could just pop the tranny and tow it."

Two squad cars were nosed into the parking lot, one blocking the truck, four more cops standing by. Too many for a routine c.o.ke bust, Koop thought. "Keys are in my right side pocket," Koop said. He desperately wanted to know why he'd been arrested. Burglary? Murder? Something to do with Jensen?

"Hey, he can talk," the black cop said.

He slapped Koop on the shoulder in a comradely way, and they stopped while the red-faced cop took his keys out and tossed them to a patrolman and said, "Tow truck is on its way." To Koop, Kershaw said, "That black car over there."

While they opened the back door of the car, Koop said, "I don't know why I'm arrested." He couldn't help it, couldn't keep his mouth shut. The open back door of the car looked like a hungry mouth. "Why?"

Carrigan said, "Watch your head," and he put a hand on top of Koop's head and eased him into the car, and then said, "Why do you think?" and shut the door.

The two detectives spent a few minutes talking to the uniformed cops, letting Koop stew in the backseat of the car. The back doors had no inside handles, no way to get out. With his hands pinned behind him, he couldn't sit easily, had to sit upright on the too-soft seats. And the backseat smelled faintly of disinfectant and urine. Koop felt another spasm of claustrophobic panic, something he hadn't expected. The d.a.m.n cuffs: he twisted against them, hard, gritting his teeth; no chance. The cops outside were still not looking at him. He was an insect. Why in the h.e.l.l. . . .

And then Koop thought, Softening me up.

He'd done the same thing when there was a prison squabble that they had to look into. When the cops got back into the car, one of them would look at him, friendly-like, and ask, "Well, what do you think?"

The plainclothes cops spent another minute talking to the uniforms, then drifted back to the car, talking to each other, as if Koop were the last thing on their minds. A screen divided the front seat from the back. The black guy drove, and after he started the engine he looked at his partner in the pa.s.senger seat and said, "Let's stop at a Taco Bell."

"Oooh, good call." When they got going, the red-faced guy turned and grinned and said, "Well, what do you think?"

"I want a lawyer," Koop said. The red-faced guy pulled back a quarter inch on the other side of the screen, his eyes going dark. He couldn't help it, and Koop almost smiled. He could play this game, he thought.

30.

LUCAS AND CONNELL watched the arrest from a Super America station across the street, leaning on Connell's car, eating ice cream sandwiches. Koop came out, Kershaw a step behind, with one hand on Koop's right elbow. "I wanted to take him," Connell said between bites.

"Not for burglary," Lucas said.

"No." She looked at her watch. "The search warrants should be ready."

Carrigan and Kershaw were pushing Koop into the car. Koop's arms were flexed, and his muscles stood out like ropes. Lucas balled up the ice cream sandwich wrapper and fired it at a trash can; it bounced off onto the pavement.

"I want to get down to the house," Connell said. "See you there?"

"Yeah. I'll wait until they open the truck-I'll let you know if there's anything good."

LUCAS WANTED CRIME-SCENE people to open the truck. "We might be talking about a couple of hairs," he told the patrolman with the keys. "Let's wait."

"Okay. Who was that guy?" the patrolman asked.

"Cat burglar," Lucas said. "He sure went nice and easy."

"He scared the s.h.i.t out of me," the patrolman confessed, his eyes drifting back toward the store. "I was in the door and he looked over toward me, like he was gonna run. He had crazy eyes, man. He was right on the edge of flipping out. Did you see his arms? I wouldn't have wanted to fight the sonofab.i.t.c.h."

Crime scene arrived five minutes later. A half-carton of unfiltered Camels sat on the front seat. A bag of mixed salt and sand, jumper cables, a toolbox, and other junk occupied the back.

Lucas poked carefully through it but found nothing. He pulled the keys Koop had produced. There were two truck keys, what looked like two house keys, and a fifth one. Jensen's maybe. But it didn't look new enough. They'd have to check.

"Got a nice set of burglary tools back here," one of the crime-scene guys said. Lucas walked around to the back of the truck, where they'd carefully opened the toolbox. Unfortunately, burglary tools were nothing more than a slightly unusual selection of ordinary tools. You had to prove the burglary first. The crime-scene guy picked up a small metal file and looked at it with a magnifying gla.s.s, just like Sherlock Holmes.

"Got some bra.s.s," he said.

"That'll help," Lucas said. Koop was cutting his own keys, by hand. "Anything like a knife? Any rope?"

"No."

"G.o.dd.a.m.nit. Well, close it up and take it down," Lucas said, disappointed. "We want everything-prints, hair, skin, fluid. Everything."

LUCAS DROPPED THE Porsche at the curb and started up the driveway to Koop's house. The front and side doors were open, and two unmarked vans sat in the driveway, along with Connell's anonymous gray Chevy. Lucas was almost to the front steps when he saw two neighborhood women walking down the street, one of them pushing a baby buggy. Lucas walked back toward them.

"h.e.l.lo," he said.

The woman pushing the buggy had her hair in curlers, covered with a rayon scarf. The other one had dishwater blond hair with streaks of copper through it. They stopped. "Are you police?" Neighbors always knew.

"Yes. Have you seen Mr. Koop recently?"

"What'd he do?" asked the copper-streaked one. The kid in the buggy was sucking on a blue pacifier, looking fixedly at Lucas with pale-blue eyes.

"He's been arrested in connection with a burglary," Lucas said.

"Told you," Copper Streak said to Hair Curler. To Lucas, she said, "We always knew he was a criminal."

"Why? What'd he do?"

"Never got up in the morning," she said. "You'd hardly ever see him at all. Sometimes, when he put his garbage out. That was it. He was never in his yard. His garage door would go up, always in the afternoon, and he'd drive away. Then he'd come back in the middle of the night, like three o'clock in the morning, and the garage door would go up, and he'd be inside. You never saw him. The only time I ever saw him, except for garbage, was that Halloween snowstorm a couple of years ago. He came out and shoveled his driveway. After that, he always had a service do it."

"Did he have a beard?"

Copper Streak looked at Hair Curler, and they both looked back at Lucas. "Sure. He's always had one."

One more thing, Lucas thought. They talked for another minute, then Lucas broke away and went inside.

Connell was in the kitchen, scribbling notes on a yellow pad.

"Anything?" Lucas asked.

"Not much. How about the truck?"

"Nothing so far. No weapon?"

"Kitchen knives. But this guy isn't using a kitchen knife. I'd be willing to bet on it."

"I just talked to a couple of neighbors," Lucas said. "They say he's always had a beard."

"Huh." Connell pursed her lips. "That's interesting . . . C'mere, down the bas.e.m.e.nt." Lucas followed her down a short flight of stairs off the kitchen. The bas.e.m.e.nt was finished. To the left, through an open door, Lucas could see a washer, dryer, laundry sink, and a water heater, sitting on a tiled floor. The furnace would be back here too, out of sight. The larger end of the bas.e.m.e.nt was carpeted with a seventies-era two-tone s.h.a.g. A couch, a chair, and a coffee table with a lamp pressed against the walls. The center of the rug was dominated by a plastic painter's drop cloth, ten feet by about thirteen or fourteen, laid flat on the rug. A technician was vacuuming around the edges of the drop cloth.

"Was that plastic sheet like that?" Lucas asked.

"No. I put it there," Connell said. "C'mere and look at the windows."

The windows were blacked out with sheets of quarter-inch plywood. "I went outside and looked," Connell said. "He's painted the outside of them black, so unless you get down on your knees and look into the window wells, it just looks like the bas.e.m.e.nt is dark. He went to a lot of trouble with it: the edges are caulked."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She looked down the sheet. "I think this is where he killed Wannemaker. On a piece of plastic. There're a couple of three-packs of drop cloths in the utility room. One of them is unopened. The other one only had one cloth in it. I was walking around down here, and it looked to me like the rug was matted in a rectangle. Then I noticed the furniture: it's set up to look at something in the middle of the rug. When I saw the drop cloths . . ." She shrugged. "I laid it out, and it fit perfectly."

"Jesus . . ." Lucas looked at the tech. "Anything?"

The tech nodded and said, "A ton of s.h.i.t: I don't think the rug's ever been cleaned, and it must've been installed fifteen years ago. It's gonna be a G.o.dd.a.m.ned nightmare, sorting everything out."

"Well, it's something, anyway," Lucas said.

"There's one other thing," Connell said. "Up in the bedroom."

Lucas followed her back up the stairs. Koop's bedroom was spare, almost military, though the bed was unmade and smelled of sweat. Lucas saw it right away: on the chest of drawers, a bottle of Opium.

Lucas: "You didn't touch it?"

"Not yet. But it wouldn't make any difference."

"Jensen said he took it from her place. If her fingerprints are on it . . ."

"I called her. Her bottle was a half-ounce. She always gets herself a half-ounce at Christmas because it lasts almost exactly a year."

Lucas peered at the perfume bottle: a quarter-ounce. "She's sure?"

"She's sure. d.a.m.nit, I thought we had him."

"We should check it anyway," Lucas said. "Maybe she's wrong."

"Yeah, we'll check-but she was sure. Which brings up the question, why Opium? Does he obsess on the perfume? Does the perfume attract him somehow? Or did he go out and buy some of his own, to remind him of Jensen?"

"Huh," Lucas said.

"Well? Is it the perfume or the woman?" She looked at him, expecting to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Maybe he could. Lucas closed his eyes. After a moment, he said, "It's because Jensen uses it. He's creeping into her apartment in the dark, goes into her bedroom, and something sets him off. The perfume. Or maybe seeing her there. But the perfume really brings it back to him. It's possible, if he's really freaked out, that he used everything in the bottle he stole from her."

"Do you think it's enough? The beard being shaved, and the perfume bottle?"

He shook his head. "No. We've got to find something. One thing."

Connell moved around until she was looking straight into Lucas's eyes from no more than two feet. Her face was waxy, pale, like a dinner candle. "I was sick again this morning. In two weeks, I won't be able to walk. I'll be back in chemo, I'll start shedding hair. I won't be able to think straight."

"Jesus, Meagan. . . ."

"I want the sonofab.i.t.c.h, Lucas," she said. "I don't want to be dead in a hole and have him walking around laughing. You know he's the one, I know he's the one."