Secret Prey

  ‘‘When a boat goes down, there’s almost always lots of debris,’’ Ingall said. ‘‘You know the enormous amount of stuff sailors carry around with them—books and logs and guides and all kinds of paper. Andy had even more of it than most people. Business papers and references and so on. Plus the boat had a lot of wood. So if it had blown up, like some people thought, they’d have found something . But they didn’t find anything. So you know what I think?’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘What I think is, it was a cool day, and Andy had the autopilot on and he’d gone below. While he was down there . . . the keel fell off,’’ she said.

  ‘‘The keel?’’

  ‘‘Yes. The keel on our boat was about four thousand pounds of lead, held in place with four huge steel bolts. You normally couldn’t even see the bolts, without pulling up parts of the sole—the flooring.’’

  ‘‘Yeah.’’ He knew what a sole was.

  ‘‘Anyway, I think the nuts worked off the bolts, from vibration, and then, with some sudden strain, the keel simply fell off,’’ she said. ‘‘If that happened, the boat would have turned turtle just instantly, and water would have started pouring down the companionway and the whole thing would have sunk in a minute or two. There are cases known like this. They’re rare, but it sort of explains everything. There wouldn’t have been time for life jackets or anything, and the inflow of water would have kept everything inside. It would’ve been just . . . glug.’’

  ‘‘But that’s a rare thing.’’

  ‘‘Yes—but.’’

  ‘‘But.’’

  ‘‘We kept the boat in Superior, and there’s this old guy up there who pretty much lives on his boat. Not technically, because they don’t allow that, but he’s around day and night. When I was up there during the search, he told me that Andy’d had somebody working on the boat the night before he disappeared. He didn’t pay much attention, but he said he’d noticed the guy had pulled up the sole and stuck it in the cockpit, out of the way of whatever he was doing. He assumed the guy was working on the plumbing, but he could have been working on the bolts. Maybe there was something wrong with them. Or maybe he did something that messed them up.’’

  ‘‘Huh. Was your husband there that day? When the work was being done?’’

  ‘‘No, not that day.’’

  ‘‘Did he often hire people to do work when he wasn’t there?’’

  ‘‘From time to time. I mean, good boat-repair people are like plumbers or electricians. They’ll schedule you for some work, but something happens on another job and it gets stretched out, or they get free earlier than they think. So lots of times we’d just give them the key and the go-ahead to do the work whenever they could get there.’’

  ‘‘Did you know that work was being done?’’

  ‘‘No. But sometimes he didn’t tell me. The boat was more Andy’s thing than mine.’’

  ‘‘Did anybody ever talk to the guy who did the work?’’

  ‘‘Nope. We looked around, but nobody ever figured out who it was. We had a guy we’d used quite a bit, but he said he didn’t know anything about it. And nobody ever really saw the guy doing the work. He did it in the evening, mostly after dark. And he wasn’t there very long—so that made me think it wasn’t the plumbing, which would take a while. The only thing I could think of that you’d pull up the sole for, and wouldn’t take long, would be the bolts.’’

  ‘‘Look,’’ Lucas said, ‘‘I don’t want to upset you, but . . . was there any possibility of suicide?’’

  ‘‘No.’’ She said it positively.

  Lucas said, ‘‘Okay.’’

  ‘‘Andy was a happy guy,’’ she said. ‘‘He was doing great in his job, he was up for a promotion, we were talking about putting a big garden in behind the house, we were talking about another child. I was supposed to bring Toby up to the islands the next day, and we were all going sailing, and Toby was all excited . . . No. He didn’t commit suicide. And he didn’t take off with any money or anything. He was just a heck of a good guy and well adjusted and his folks are nice and my folks liked him and they liked him at the bank . . .’’

  ‘‘This promotion,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Who got it? After he died.’’

  ‘‘Well . . . Wilson McDonald.’’

  ‘‘Would Andy have gotten the promotion if he hadn’t died? For sure?’’

  ‘‘ He thought so. He said he’d aced Wilson out of the slot. I mean, it’s never for sure until it’s done, and Wilson has all those family connections . . . Why?’’

  ‘‘We’re just trying to run down all possibilities,’’ Lucas said vaguely.

  She was too smart for that. One hand went to her throat and she leaned toward him and said, ‘‘Oh my God, do you think Wilson McDonald killed Andy to get promoted, and then shot Dan Kresge? He got Dan’s job, didn’t he?’’

  ‘‘Temporarily. There seems to be some doubt about it in the long run . . .’’

  She pointed a finger at him, excited: ‘‘Do you know about George Arris?’’

  ‘‘Yes . . .’’

  ‘‘Wilson got his promotion too.’’

  ‘‘I haven’t been able to establish that. Not clearly.’’ ‘‘Believe me, George would have gotten the job. My God, this never occurred to me,’’ she said. She pushed the palm of her hand against her forehead. ‘‘How could I have missed it? It’s so obvious.’’

  ‘‘There’s probably nothing to it,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘Oh, bull . . . feathers, Mr. Davenport. Three people dead and Wilson gets all the promotions? My God, he murdered Andy!’’

  ‘‘No-no-no. There’s no evidence of that at all.’’

  ‘‘Then why’d you bring it up?’’

  ‘‘Because I’m checking everything . . .’’

  ‘‘Wilson McDonald,’’ she marveled. ‘‘Who would’ve thought.’’

  ‘‘Please, Mrs. Ingall . . .’’

  He halfheartedly tried to talk her out of the sudden conviction that Wilson McDonald had killed her husband; then said goodbye.

  He was out the door and on the sidewalk when she called after him: ‘‘Mr. Davenport?’’

  ‘‘Yes?’’ He turned and she came down the walk to him.

  ‘‘If this was murder—just say it was, that somebody loosened up the bolts on the keel, okay? They couldn’t have taken them all the way off, because then the only thing that would be holding it on would be some adhesive and sealer. Then, with a good bump, the keel might have fallen off in the harbor.’’

  ‘‘Yeah?’’

  ‘‘So they had to leave the bolts partway on, expecting them to work off, which they eventually would have. But they couldn’t know when . Toby and I usually went up with Andy, so whoever it was . . . wasn’t just killing Andy,’’ she said. ‘‘If Andy’d made the islands, we’d have been on the boat the next day, and it might’ve fallen off with us aboard. This guy, whoever it is—he was willing to kill all three of us.’’

  LUCAS HAD LAST SEEN SHERRILL WHEN SHE LEFT TO pick up Bonnie Bonet, Robles’s friend. When he got back, Sherrill and a uniformed cop were marching a young woman down the hall, her hands cuffed behind her back. Lucas caught up with them, said, ‘‘Bonet?’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ Sherrill said.

  Bonet snarled, ‘‘Who the fuck are you?’’

  ‘‘Sit her down in Homicide,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I’ll be there in a minute.’’

  ‘‘She wants an attorney,’’ Sherrill said.

  ‘‘Got any money?’’ Lucas asked.

  Bonet shook her head defiantly. ‘‘No. You gotta appoint one.’’

  Lucas nodded: ‘‘So call the public defender,’’ he told Sherrill. ‘‘I’ll be right back.’’

  He dumped his coat and the file on Ingall in his office, and made a quick call: ‘‘I want everything we can find on Wilson McDonald. Everything.’’

  BACK AT HOMICIDE, BONET WAS SITTING NEXT TO Sherrill’s desk, while the uniformed cop lounged
at another desk between her and the door. She’d been uncuffed and Sherrill was scratching notes on a legal pad.

  When Lucas walked in, Bonet looked up and said, ‘‘I want the attorney. I’m not answering any questions without an attorney.’’

  ‘‘I called. Somebody’s walking over,’’ Sherrill said.

  ‘‘I’m not going to ask you a question, Ms. Bonet,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I’m gonna make a little speech. Mr. Robles says you told him you shot Daniel Kresge because you thought Kresge was setting up a bank merger and your mother would lose her job. But he says he really doesn’t think you shot him, that you’re making a grandstand play, because you like the attention. For the experience of it. To fuck us over. Do you know the first thing that will happen when the word of your arrest gets out? The bank’s gonna fire your mother.’’

  Bonet, naturally pale, went a shade paler. ‘‘They can’t do that. That’s discrimination . . .’’

  Lucas was shaking his head: ‘‘No. There’s no union at the bank. They can fire her f or any reason they want, as long as the firing isn’t illegal—because of race or religion or like that. If her daughter is accused of murdering the bank president on her behalf . . . you think that’s not a reason? I’ll tell you what: Your mother’s gonna be on the sidewalk in about half an hour, as soon as the Star-Tribune guy checks out the day’s arrest reports. And they check every couple of hours.’’

  Bonet looked at Sherrill, who nodded, then back at Lucas. ‘‘But I didn’t shoot him,’’ she blurted.

  Sherrill dropped her pencil and said, ‘‘Oh, shit.’’

  Lucas said, ‘‘Again, I’m not going to ask you any questions, but I’ll say this: If there’s anything that would prove that you didn’t shoot him, this would be a good time to mention it.’’

  ‘‘Friday night,’’ Bonet said. ‘‘I was at a friend’s house until almost four in the morning, we were on-line, gaming.’’

  ‘‘How many people?’’ Lucas asked.

  ‘‘Four . . . three besides me.’’

  ‘‘She’d still have time to drive up there,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘It’d be tight,’’ Sherrill said.

  ‘‘But she could make it,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘I didn’t shoot anybody,’’ Bonet wailed. ‘‘I don’t even know where the asshole lived.’’

  ‘‘You were never up there?’’

  ‘‘Never. Why would I be?’’

  ‘‘After you left your friends, you went right home? Did you see anybody who knew you?’’

  ‘‘No . . . Well, I bought some Pepsi at the gas station, but they don’t know me there. Maybe they’d remember me.’’

  ‘‘What gas station?’’

  ‘‘It’s an Amoco down off 494, like 494 and France.’’

  ‘‘Did you pay with cash or a credit card?’’

  ‘‘Credit card!’’ Her face brightened. ‘‘The goddamn credit slip has the time and location on it. And it comes on my statement—I bet you can call Amoco and find out.’’

  Lucas nodded and said, ‘‘Why’n the hell did you tell Robles that you shot McDonald?’’

  ‘‘Just to jerk his chain,’’ Bonet said. ‘‘He called me up and he pretended to be all freaking out and worried, and the next thing I know, he’s turned me in.’’

  ‘‘He pretended to be freaking out?’’

  ‘‘Yeah. Pretended. He’s a cold fish,’’ Bonet said. ‘‘I’ll tell you what, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did it, and he deliberately set me up with that talk on the ’net about how to kill McDonald. I mean, he started it, I didn’t. And then he fed me to you.’’

  ‘‘Why do you think he might have done it?’’ Sherrill asked.

  ‘‘Because of the way he plays with guns all the time,’’ she said. ‘‘I think if you pretend to be killing people long enough, pretty soon you want to try it. Don’t you think?’’

  Lucas’s and Sherrill’s eyes locked: they’d both killed people in gunfights. ‘‘I don’t know,’’ Lucas said finally. ‘‘Maybe.’’

  Sherrill said, ‘‘What do you mean, plays with guns?’’ ‘‘He’s always out shooting. You know, rifles and pistols and sometimes he goes out to Wyoming and shoots prairie dogs. He calls them prairie rats. Or prairie pups. And he does that whole paintball thing. You know, runs around in the woods in camouflage clothes with other guys and they shoot each other.’’

  ‘‘Robles,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘Yeah. He doesn’t come off that way, does he?’’

  ‘‘Have you ever done the paintball thing with him?’’

  ‘‘No—he doesn’t even know that I know about it. But I know a friend of his, and he saw us together, and he told me. I thought it was weird.’’

  ‘‘Huh.’’ Lucas rubbed his chin, then looked at Sherrill. ‘‘What do you think?’’

  ‘‘I think I should check with Amoco,’’ Sherrill said. ‘‘And maybe start talking to people about Robles.’’

  Lucas pointed a finger at Bonet: ‘‘If this checks out, we’ll forget about it. But you keep your mouth shut about what happened. And what you told us. You don’t talk to Robles about it, or anyone else. And remember what’s at stake here. I’m talking about mom.’’

  ‘‘Okay,’’ she said, solemnly. A tear started in one eye.

  ‘‘Okay,’’ Lucas said. And to Sherrill: ‘‘Call Amoco.’’

  ON THE WAY BACK TO HIS OFFICE, LUCAS BUMPED into an assistant public defender heading toward Homicide. She was carrying two briefcases, apparently full of briefs, which bumped alternately against her thighs as she walked. Her hair stood out from her round face in an electrocution halo. Her face was drawn with lack of sleep.

  ‘‘on your way to see marcy sherrill?’’ lucas asked.

  She stopped and said, ‘‘Yeah. But if you’re not done with the rubber hoses, I could wait. Maybe catch a nap.’’

  ‘‘We’re all done. We beat the truth out of her and she’s innocent,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘We’re turning her loose in a few minutes.’’

  ‘‘Really?’’ The lawyer yawned and said, ‘‘God, I’ve gone to bed with men who’ve said less pleasant things to me.’’

  ‘‘Yeah, well . . . sleep tight.’’

  ‘‘Won’t let the bedbugs bite,’’ she said with another yawn, and humped the briefcases on down the hall toward Homicide. Had to see for herself.

  LUCAS SAT IN HIS OFFICE, HIS FEET ON HIS DESK, AND added up the accusations. After a while he picked up the phone and called Sherrill. ‘‘All done?’’

  ‘‘Yeah. She checked out with Amoco. She’s gotta do some paperwork, then she’s outa here.’’

  ‘‘Who’s loose? Besides you.’’

  ‘‘Tom Black is sitting in a corner, reading Playgirl ,’’ she said. From somewhere behind her, her regular partner shouted, ‘‘I am not.’’ Black was gay, but still mostly in the closet.

  ‘‘Why don’t you guys come on down? I’ll tell you about it,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘Almost time to quit.’’

  ‘‘It’ll take ten minutes, and we won’t do anything until tomorrow.’’

  BLACK, PRETENDING TO BE DISGRUNTLED, SLUMPED in one of Lucas’s two visitor’s chairs, while Sherrill looked out the window at the street.

  Lucas was saying, ‘‘. . . if somebody accused, say, Sloan of deliberately setting out to murder somebody, and actually doing it, I’d say, ‘Nope, he couldn’t do that.’ The idea might occur to him, but someplace along the way, he just wouldn’t do it.’’

  ‘‘So?’’ Sherrill asked.

  ‘‘We’ve got too many people to worry about, all of them with motives. So what we do is, we go around to people who know them well, and ask for a confidential assessment. Could they do it? Would they do it? What would have to be on the line for them to do it?’’

  Black cocked his head to one side and thought about it for a moment: ‘‘That’s weird.’’

  ‘‘And it could ship us off in a completely wrong direction,’??
? Sherrill said. ‘‘You’ve already decided Bone didn’t do it, because you like him.’’

  ‘‘No,’’ Lucas said, shaking his head. ‘‘I do like him, but I haven’t decided anything about him.’’

  ‘‘But if you like him, you’re sort of predisposed not to believe bad stuff.’’

  Black ticked a finger at her: ‘‘Psychobabble,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Sorry,’’ she said. Then, ‘‘What about O’Dell and the kaffiyeh? Who’s gonna check that?’’

  ‘‘I’ll ask her,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘Tomorrow?’’

  ‘‘Yeah.’’ He yawned. ‘‘Tomorrow.’’

  NINE

  MARY WASHINGTON CALLED AT NINE-THIRTY, AND when Weather Karkinnen picked up the phone, Mary said, ‘‘Oh good, you’re still up,’’ and Weather rolled her eyes and lied: ‘‘Just barely.’’

  ‘‘Henri asked about you again today. He’s interested,’’ Washington said.

  ‘‘Oh, my God, Mary, why don’t you go after him?’’ Exasperation, but also a little tingle of pleasure?

  ‘‘ ’Cause I’m ‘Let’s have a couple beers and go bowling,’ and Henri’s ‘Let’s have a couple of glasses of champagne and talk about monoclonal antibodies.’ ’’

  ‘‘Well, thanks for the news,’’ Weather said.

  ‘‘Would you go out with him if he called?’’

  Henri was six three and had big eyes and long black eyelashes, was thin as a beanpole, balding, and spoke with a French accent. People who knew him well said he was almost too smart: Weather liked him. ‘‘I don’t know, Mary,’’ she said. ‘‘I’m still pretty messed up.’’

  ‘‘I think I’m gonna suggest he give you a ring,’’ Washington said.

  ‘‘Mary . . .’’ Like being trapped in a high school locker room.

  ‘‘Then maybe you can introduce me to one of those cops you know; somebody who bowls.’’

  WEATHER HADBEEN READING THE WALL STREET JOURNAL when Mary called. When she got off the phone, she yawned, tossed the paper in the recycling pile, and headed for the bedroom.

  Weather was sleeping again, finally. Her problem had been no less difficult than Lucas’s, but hers had less to do with errant brain chemicals. Her problem was plain old post-traumatic shock. She’d pulled the academic studies up on MedLine, knew all the symptoms and lines of treatment, recognized the symptoms in herself—and was powerless to do anything about them.