Storm Prey Part 39

Her phone rang five times, then clicked to a message service. He hung up, let it ring another five times, and this time, he left a message. "We got a fix on the grenade guy. We can't wait, I'm putting the BCA SWAT guys on line. If you get this, call me--we're heading for the guy's house down in St. Paul Park. If you come, you need a four-wheeler and it would be better if you had two or three trucks: it's a blizzard out here."

He figured she'd call back in two minutes. It took a minute and a half: "What's his name and how did you find him?"

Lucas gave her the details and said, "We're ready to launch here. Are you coming?"

"Lucas, this is my case--"

"Marcy, bulls.h.i.t. This guy could pull out of town, it could take us weeks to find him. He might already be gone. We're going. I'll be on my phone."

"Give me the address ... G.o.dd.a.m.nit, Lucas, you did this on purpose."

"You can talk to the TV people," Lucas said.

VIRGIL CALLED: "Listen, Weather woke up to go to the bathroom and saw what time it was, and came down, and I told her what happened. She said if I called a couple pals of mine from the St. Paul cops, they could come over ..."

"No. Virgil. Stay there."

THEY LEFT in a convoy of sixfour-wheelers, vans, and SUVs and one truck, eight SWAT guys and four unarmored investigators. St. Paul Park was southeast of the Cities, along the Mississippi, right down Highway 61, the same highway famously revisited by Bob Dylan. They were good as long as the light poles lasted, but after that, it was a matter of staying inside each other's headlights.

Lucas rode down alone, Shrake and Jenkins riding with the rest of the SWAT team; the snow felt soft and slick under his tires: he turned on the radio, picked up Tanita Tikaram singing "Twist in My Sobriety," a good old golden oldie; he'd last heard it trickling out of an overhead speaker at a gas station, years earlier.

Twenty minutes after they left, moving slowly, they crawled past the Ashland refinery, the gas flares burning weirdly through the pounding waves of snow. Close now, he thought, watching the nav screen. They planned to hook up with St. Paul Park cops in the City Hall parking lot, and walk from there, four short blocks.

The first of the trucks took the off ramp, the rest followed, down through the quiet town. The local cops were waiting, and they all went inside, where the SWAT team commander, John Nelson, took the locals through the program.

"As we understand it, the house is owned by an old lady named Ann Wilson, and she probably sleeps in a bedroom in the back, and rents the bedroom upstairs. We're not going to rush the place because the noise will wake the guy up, and at this point, he's got no reason to give it up.

"So, we've got the snow and the dark going for us. We'll set up outside, around the house, and wait for him to come out. If Miz Wilson comes out first, we'll move her out. Then we'll just see--but we're putting the guy's name and ID photo on TV, so we figure he'll be moving early. He needs to get away from here.

"We're all going to go out and get set up, and then half of us will peel off and come back here and get warm and comfortable. We'll change over every hour so n.o.body gets too cold. The whole idea, now, is to stay out of sight ..."

Then there were questions, and when the questions stopped, Nelson said, "Everybody be cool. You all know about the grenades, and the crime-scene guys dug some buckshot out of the hospital walls this evening, so the guy's got a shotgun going for himself. We think he's hurt, but we don't know how bad. The idea is to corner him, squeeze him. n.o.body gets hurt. n.o.body gets hurt." n.o.body gets hurt."

THEY WENT OUT in four squads, like an army patrol, circling the blocks to come in from all sides of the house, Lucas tramping along with Nelson. The St. Paul Park cops took them in, and they set up at the corners of the house, a lot away, behind whatever barriers or cover was available. A light burned in the second-floor window, behind translucent bathroom gla.s.s, but there was no sign of movement.

Nelson and Lucas set up behind a couple of large cottonwood trees across the street from the front door; they could see both the door and the front of the detached garage. Nothing happened for a half hour, when Nelson took a radio call, leaned over and said, "The Minneapolis guy is here. Sherrill."

"She's always wanted to be one of the guys," Lucas said, and, "I'm gonna sneak back there."

MARCY HAD BROUGHT two other investigators with her. She was wearing a ski jacket and had a pair of ski pants, rolled into a bundle, on the floor by her feet. She saw Lucas come in the door and walked over.

"Should have called," she said.

"It's more our jurisdiction than yours, but I don't want to fight about it. We figured out who he probably was--"

"I want to hear about that ..."

And another cop, from St. Paul Park, called. "We got media. We're gonna hold them here."

"Ah, man," Lucas said. "Somebody's been on the phone."

"Not me," Marcy said. They stepped out in the darkened hallway and walked down to the front door, and saw a media truck from Channel Three, two guys standing outside talking to two cops.

"Well, here's your shot--you handle them," Lucas said. "Be nice."

SHE WAS BACK in five minutes: "They say it was a tip, but they know it's a SWAT thing, and they know it's the hospital grenade guy."

"So, what'd you tell them?"

"I told them what's going on, threatened them nicely, and they'll wait here until something happens."

"Any more coming?" Lucas asked.

"They don't know."

Three more stations rolled up in the next forty-five minutes. They let the reporters in the City Hall just to get them off the street. Then Ruffe Ignace, the cop reporter for the Star-Tribune, Star-Tribune, showed up: "Lucas Davenport and the prettiest little ol' detective lady west of the Mississippi," he said. showed up: "Lucas Davenport and the prettiest little ol' detective lady west of the Mississippi," he said.

Marcy said, "Bite me."

"Anytime, anyplace--I mean, anyplace geographically. Or, come to think of it, anatomically. So you got this guy cornered like a rat. When are you going in?"

"Not till morning. There's an old lady sleeping in there and we'd like to get her out first," Marcy said.

"You running this, or the BCA?" Ignace asked her.

"It's a co-op deal," Lucas said, answering for her. "Minneapolis is handling the investigation, but since we're out of their jurisdiction down here, BCA is supplying the SWAT. St. Paul Park knows the territory, and they're setting up with us."

"How'd you get in on it?" Ignace asked. "You're not SWAT."

"I needed the overtime," Lucas said.

"And you're sure he's in there? Last time I went on a SWAT deal, they were outside the house and the guy was at a movie and he comes walking back with a six-pack of Mickey's wide-mouth--"

"We know about that," Marcy said. "No, we don't know that he's inside. We're hoping he's inside."

HE WAS INSIDE. Not sleeping well. His foot throbbed with his pulse, but he could live with it: the pain was dampened by the drugs. The drugs were doing nothing for his head. He thought, and thought, and couldn't see a way out.

If the cops knew enough about him to shout at him in a hallway, and chase him, they knew too much. They'd know his name sooner or later, and then they'd find out where he lived. He didn't know how they'd do that, but they would.

If not for the storm, he would have left already. Stop for gas in Iowa, stop for gas in Kentucky, and then those other states ... He could be in Florida in twenty-four hours.

He tried to plan it out--pack his clothes, not much, put the bike in the van. But what about the van? If they knew his name, they'd find his van plates in California and put out a watch. So he needed new plates ... Needed to sell the van, get cash, buy a new one under another name.

Lay in bed in the dark, sitting up every once in a while, to run his hands over his head, wishing for daylight.

He was sitting up when the yelling started. Sounded like a fight. He rolled out of bed, looked out the window across the street. Howard, he thought that was the name, was on his front porch, porch light on, yelling at somebody, and somebody ran up to him from behind a tree, not a kid s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around, but a grown man, and said something to him, and after a second, Howard stepped back and turned off his porch light and the man followed him into his house.

Cops.

Cops outside the house. It could have been something else, but it wasn't. They'd figured out where he lived, and there they were. He laughed, a short snort: bound to happen sooner or later, and here it was.

He got dressed in the semi-dark: boots, jeans, sweatshirt, parka. Cigarettes, wallet, baggie of cocaine, gun. Stepped over to the bathroom, careful to stay away from the window, checked the cylinder : four shotgun, two .45 Colts. He stepped back to his dresser, dumped the box of .410 sh.e.l.ls into his pocket, took the .45s out of the cylinder and reloaded with .410s. Took four grenades out from under the bed, thought about it, took two more.

"Nothing to do now, man. Run."

Had an image of himself busting out of the garage on the back of the BMW Like a movie. Never happen in the snow. Thought about sliding down a roof, like a movie. Never happen: he'd slid off a roof before and broke his legs.

Peeked at the window, saw the ruts in the snow: no cars gone by for a while. Wouldn't have been many anyway, but the snow had killed whatever traffic there might have been.

But the ruts gave him an idea. He went back to the bed and pulled the sheet off.

THE ST. PAUL PARK chief said to Lucas and Marcy, "We had a problem."

They were sitting on a bench eating Twinkies and drinking coffee. Marcy: "What happened?"

"A guy across the street saw the SWAT guys trading places. He turned on his porch light and yelled at them. They shut him up, but ... it happened."

"Anything happen upstairs?"

"No. But we don't know he's upstairs. We only think he is."

Marcy rubbed her face, then said to Lucas: "The snow m.u.f.fles everything."

"Yeah. I don't know."

They talked about it.

CAPPY CUT a slit in the sheet and draped it over his head, so he was covered from head to toe in white, like a ghost. Said aloud, "Gonna feel like a fool if n.o.body's there."

But somebody was there, he thought.

He was down in the bas.e.m.e.nt, having snuck down the stairs past Mrs. Wilson's bedroom door. Darker than the inside of a coal sack. There was a chair by the washing machine...

He lifted it over to the bas.e.m.e.nt window, a low, eighteen-inch-high double-pane affair that hinged at the top. Probably, he thought, hadn't been opened in years. Didn't want to wake Mrs. Wilson, though she was hard of hearing, and so he didn't have to be absolutely quiet.

He stood on the chair, brushed his hand around the perimeter of the window, until he found the latch, worked it loose. Window didn't want to open. Got his knife out, pried around the edges, had to work at it, first one end, then the other, finally felt it give. A minute later, a rush of cold air and snow blew over him.

The snow was as high as the window. He stepped up on the dryer, put his gloves on, pushed the window up, and started to work through it. Not easy: he was wearing too much clothing and kept getting hung up. He struggled, pushing with his feet, and then with his hands, and finally dragged his feet through the window. He was lying flat on his stomach, covered with the sheet, in fourteen inches of snow.

He began low-crawling his way forward, like a worm, nearly invisible in the dark. He was headed straight out to the back of the lot.

LUCAS SAID, "If he's upstairs, and I don't know why an old lady would want to have her bedroom upstairs... if he's upstairs, you could come in from the side of the house where the roof comes down. You know what I mean? He can't see out that way."

Nelson, the SWAT commander, said, "Yeah, we could do that, but if he saw our guy ... if he's moved downstairs, he could be looking out a window, our guy would be dead meat."

Nelson's radio burped and he put it to his face and said, "Yeah?" Listened, and said, "Can you get over there? Okay. Stay right where you are. I'm going to alert everybody. We'll be there with you in a minute ... Sure it wasn't a dog? Okay."

He said to Lucas, Marcy, and the chief, "Billy Harris thinks somebody, or something, might have just hit the fence in Wilson's backyard. He didn't see it, but he heard it, and thought he might have seen something."

"How could he get out?" Marcy asked.

"Don't know."

"Let's go look," Lucas said. "Let's get a couple guys to go with us."

THEY LEFT the building at a jog, five of them, running around the block, in the night, slowed by the snow. Nelson called up Harris at the end of the second block and said, "Careful, we're coming in."

They went in single-file, groping past hedges and garbage cans; the only light was from the streetlights, and there wasn't much, not in the close-packed older houses, with grown-up trees and bushes. Harris had been set up behind a neighbor's garage at the back of the house.