Prey: Night Prey Part 5

"So we're looking for a cop with PPP on his hand?"

"I don't know. n.o.body else saw the tattoo, and they never found anybody with PPP on his hand. A computer search doesn't show PPP as an identifying mark anywhere. But the thing is, Price had been in jail, and he said the tattoo was a prison tattoo. You know, like they make with ballpoint ink and pins."

"Well," Lucas said. "It's something."

Connell was discouraged. "But not much."

"Not unless we find the killer-then it might help confirm the ID," Lucas said. He picked up the file and paged through it until he found the list of murders and dates. "Do you have any theories about why the killings are so scattered around?"

"I've been looking for patterns," she said. "I don't know. . . ."

"Until the body you found last winter, he never had two killings in the same state. And the last one here was almost nine years ago."

"Yes. That's right."

Lucas closed the file and tossed it back on his desk. "Yeah. That means different reporting jurisdictions. Iowa doesn't know what we're doing, and Wisconsin doesn't know what Iowa's doing, and n.o.body knows what South Dakota's doing. And Canada sure as h.e.l.l is out of it."

"You're saying he's figured on that," Connell said. "So it is a cop."

"Maybe," said Lucas. "But maybe it's an ex-con. A smart guy. Maybe the reason for the two gaps is, he was inside. Some small-timer who gets slammed for drugs or burglary, and he's out of circulation."

Connell leaned back, regarding him gravely. "When you crawled into the Dumpster this morning, you were cold. I couldn't be that cold; I never would have seen that tobacco on her."

"I'm used to it," Lucas said.

"No, no, it was . . . impressive," she said. "I need that kind of distance. When I said we only had one fact about him, the cop thing, I was wrong. You came up with a bunch of them: he was strong, he smokes-"

"Unfiltered Camels," Lucas said.

"Yeah? Well, it's interesting. And now these ideas . . . I haven't had anybody bouncing ideas off me. Are you gonna let me work with you?"

He nodded. "If you want."

"Will we get along?"

"Maybe. Maybe not," he said. "What does that have to do with anything?"

She regarded him without humor. "Exactly my att.i.tude," she said. "So. What are we doing?"

"We're checking bookstores."

Connell looked down at herself. "I've got to change clothes. I've got them in my car. . . ."

WHILE CONNELL WENT to change, Lucas called Anderson for a reading on homicide's preliminary work on the Wannemaker killing. "We just got started," Anderson said. "Skoorag called in a few minutes ago. He said a friend of Wannemaker's definitely thinks she was going to a bookstore. But if you look at the file when she was reported missing, somebody else said she might have been going to the galleries over on First Avenue."

"We're hitting the bookstores. Maybe your guys could take the galleries."

"If we've got time. Lester's got people running around like rats," Anderson said. "Oh-that Junky Doog guy. I got lots of hits, but the last one was three years ago. He was living in a flop on Franklin Avenue. Chances of him being there are slim and none, and slim is outa town."

"Give me the address," Lucas said.

WHEN HE FINISHED with Anderson, Lucas carried his phone book down the hall, Xeroxed the Books section of the Yellow Pages, and went back to his office for his jacket. He had bought the jacket in New York; the thought was mildly embarra.s.sing. He was pulling on the jacket when there was a knock at the door. "Yeah?"

A fleshy, pink-cheeked thirties-something man in a loose green suit and moussed blond hair poked his head inside, smiled like an encyclopedia salesman, and said, "Hey. Davenport. I'm Bob Greave. I'm supposed to report to you."

"I remember you," Lucas said as they shook hands.

"From my Officer Friendly stuff?" Greave was cheerful, unconsciously rumpled. But his green eyes matched his Italian-cut suit a little too perfectly, and he wore a fashionable two days' stubble on his chin.

"Yeah, there was a poster down at my kid's preschool," Lucas said.

Greave grinned. "Yup, that's me."

"Nice jump, up to homicide," Lucas said.

"Yeah, bulls.h.i.t." Greave's smile fell away, and he dropped into the chair Connell had vacated, looked up. "I suppose you've heard about me."

"I haven't, uh . . ."

"Greave-the-f.u.c.kup?

"Don't bulls.h.i.t me, Davenport." Greave studied him for a minute, then said, "That's what they call me. Greave-the-f.u.c.kup, one word. The only G.o.dd.a.m.ned reason I'm in homicide is that my wife is the mayor's niece. She got tired of me being Officer Friendly. Not enough drama. Didn't give her enough to gossip about."

"Well . . ."

"So now I'm doing something I can't f.u.c.kin' do and I'm stuck between my old lady and the other guys on the job."

"What do you want from me?"

"Advice."

Lucas spread his hands and shrugged. "If you liked being Officer Friendly . . ."

Greave waved him off. "Not that kind of advice. I can't go back to Officer Friendly, my old lady'd nag my ears off. She doesn't like me being a cop in the first place. Homicide just makes it a little okay. And she makes me wear these f.u.c.kin' Italian fruit suits and only lets me shave on Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days."

"Sounds like you gotta make a decision about her," Lucas said.

"I love her," Greave said.

Lucas grinned. "Then you've got a problem."

"Yeah." Greave rubbed the stubble on his chin.

"Anyway, the guys in homicide don't do nothing but f.u.c.k with me. They figure I'm not pulling my load, and they're right. Whenever there's a really horses.h.i.t case, I get it. I got one right now. Everybody in homicide is laughing about it. That's what I need your advice on."

"What happened?"

"We don't know," Greave said. "We've got it pegged as a homicide and we know who did it, but we can't figure out how."

"Never heard of anything like that," Lucas admitted.

"Sure you have," Greave said. "All the time."

"What?" Lucas was puzzled.

"It's a G.o.dd.a.m.ned locked-room mystery, like one of them old-lady English things. It's driving me crazy."

Connell pushed through the door. She was wearing a navy suit with matching low heels, a white blouse with wine-colored tie, and carried a purse the size of a buffalo. She looked at Greave, then Lucas, and said, "Ready."

"Bob Greave, Meagan Connell," Lucas said.

"Yeah, we sorta met," Greave said. "A few weeks ago."

A little tension there. Lucas scooped Connell's file from his desk, handed it to Greave. "Meagan and I are going out to the bookstores. Read the file. We'll talk tomorrow morning."

"What time?"

"Not too early," Lucas said. "How about here, at eleven o'clock?"

"What about my case?" Greave asked.

"We'll talk tomorrow," Lucas said.

As Lucas and Connell walked out of the building, Connell said, "Greave's a jerk. He's got the Hollywood stubble and the Miami Vice suits, but he couldn't find his shoes in a G.o.dd.a.m.n clothes closet."

Lucas shook his head, irritated. "Cut him a little slack. You don't known him that well."

"Some people are an open book," Connell snorted. "He's a f.u.c.kin' comic."

CONNELL CONTINUED TO irritate him; their styles were different. Lucas liked to drift into conversation, to schmooze a little, to remember common friends. Connell was an interrogator: just the facts, sir.

Not that it made much difference. n.o.body in the half-dozen downtown bookstores knew Wannemaker. They picked up a taste of her at the suburban Smart Book. "She used to come to readings," the store owner said. He nibbled at his lip as he peered at the photograph. "She didn't buy much, but we'd have these wine-and-cheese things for authors coming through town, and she'd show up maybe half the time. Maybe more than that."

"Did you have a reading last Friday?"

"No, but there were some."

"Where?"

"h.e.l.l, I don't know." He threw up his hands. "G.o.dd.a.m.n authors are like c.o.c.kroaches. There're hundreds of them. There's always readings somewhere. Especially at the end of the week."

"How do I find out where?"

"Call the Star-Trib. There'd be somebody who could tell you."

LUCAS CALLED FROM a corner phone, another number from memory. "I wondered if you'd call." The woman's voice was hushed. "Are you bringing up your net?"

"I'm doing that now. There're lots of holes."

"I'm in."

"Thanks, I appreciate it. How about the readings?"

"There was poetry at the Startled Crane, something called Prairie Woman at The Saint-I don't know how I missed that one-Gynostic at Wild Lily Press, and the Pillar of Manhood at Crosby's. The Pillar of Manhood was a male-only night. If you'd called last week, I probably could have gotten you in."

"Too late," Lucas said. "My drum's broke."

"Darn. You had a nice drum, too."

"Yeah, well, thanks, Shirlene." To Connell: "We can scratch Crosby's off the list."

THE OWNER OF the Startled Crane grinned at Lucas and said, "Cheese it, the heat . . . How you been, Lucas?" They shook hands, and the store owner nodded at Connell, who stared at him like a snake at a bird.

"Not bad, Ned," Lucas said. "How's the old lady?"

Ned's eyebrows went up. "Pregnant again. You just wave it at her, and she's knocked up."

"Everybody's pregnant. I gotta friend, I just heard his wife's pregnant. How many is that for you? Six?"

"Seven . . . what's happening?"

Connell, who had been listening impatiently to the chitchat, thrust the photos at him. "Was this woman here Friday night?"

Lucas, softer, said, "We're trying to track down the last days of a woman who was killed last week. We thought she might've been at your poetry reading."

Ned shuffled through the photos. "Yeah, I know her. Harriet something, right? I don't think she was here. There were about twenty people, but I don't think she was with them."

"But you see her around?"

"Yeah. She's a semiregular. I saw the TV stuff on Nooner. I thought that might be her."

"Ask around, will you?"

"Sure."

"What's Nooner?" Connell asked.

"TV3's new noon news," Ned said. "But I didn't see her Friday. I wouldn't be surprised if she was somewhere else, though."

"Thanks, Ned."

"Sure. And stop in. I've been fleshing out the poetry section."

Back on the street, Connell said, "You've got a lot of bookstore friends?"

"A few," Lucas said. "Ned used to deal a little gra.s.s. I leaned on him and he quit."

"Huh," she said, thinking it over. Then, "Why'd he tell you about poetry?"