Secret Prey

  THE PHONE RANG AS THEY RAN THROUGH THE TAPE one last time. Sherrill. ‘‘Did you get her?’’

  ‘‘Yeah, I think—but it’s gonna be a close call,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘You want me to come over and comfort you?’’

  He didn’t, especially, but he said, ‘‘Come on over.’’

  ‘‘Nah. You don’t sound like you mean it,’’ she said. ‘‘Tomorrow night, though.’’

  And she was gone.

  ‘‘Fuckin’ cop-women,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘That’s what you’re doing,’’ Sloan agreed.

  ‘‘Fuckin’ was an adjective, not a verb,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘Could’ve been a verb,’’ Sloan said.

  SLOAN LEFT, AND LUCAS SAT IN HIS STUDY FOR A while, doodling, running through the case in his mind, looking for loose ends. He didn’t find many, except to note that they’d have to reinterview half the people who worked at the bank. They’d have to find witnesses who saw Audrey McDonald firing the Contender pistol; they’d have to find witnesses who would testify about promotions, and who was competitive for them . . .

  He finally trundled off to bed, lay restlessly for a while, finally fell asleep.

  IN THE MORNING, HE MOVED SLUGGISHLY AROUND, looked at the clock: already nine. He dressed, stopped at a fast-food place for French toast, then headed downtown. He called the county attorney’s office and got Kirk.

  ‘‘Had the bail hearing yet?’’

  ‘‘Yeah. The judge was a wee bit skeptical about the arsenic. J. B. did a pretty nice job. We got the bail up to a million, but she was ready for it.’’

  ‘‘She’s out?’’

  ‘‘Twenty minutes ago,’’ Kirk said.

  ‘‘How about the arrest warrant on her mother?’’ ‘‘We’re slowing down on that. J. B. brought up this stuff about the old house they used to live in, and we heard about this business with her sister, so we’re gonna have the house checked and depose the sister. I mean, we’ve got her on a million, I don’t think she’ll run.’’

  SHERRILL DROPPED BY AT MIDMORNING, CARRYING A doughnut and two cups of coffee. ‘‘She’s out, I hear.’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ Lucas said in disgust. ‘‘I’ll tell you what: if she was a black guy with a record, she’d be washing dishes in Stillwater by now.’’

  ‘‘Sloan told me about that whole rap about her sister: that’s pretty weird.’’

  ‘‘Yeah, I don’t understand that,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘It’s a fucked-up defense. You put Helen on the stand, the truth is gonna come out.’’

  ‘‘You don’t think there’s any chance that Audrey’s telling the truth? That it’s Helen?’’

  ‘‘No, I don’t.’’

  ‘‘The one thing that’s hard for me to get over is her appearance,’’ Sherrill said. ‘‘She’s only five years older than me . . .’’

  ‘‘Really? I thought you were sixteen . . .’’

  ‘‘Shut up. I’m being serious. The thing is, if you take the attack on Elle, where somebody beat her up with a ball bat, who do you think would be most likely to do that? Helen, who looks pretty active, pretty good shape, still young? Or Audrey, who looks old, slumped over?’’

  ‘‘Whatever she looks like, she’s only thirty-eight,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘She—’’

  He stopped, put a hand to his forehead. ‘‘What?’’ Sherrill asked. ‘‘A stroke?’’

  ‘‘Aw, man,’’ Lucas said. He picked up the phone book, talking fast: ‘‘I think this might have gone through my head the night we were at St. Anne’s, the night Elle got hit, but it went away; it’s like it was a stroke . . .’’

  ‘‘What, what?’’

  ‘‘If Elle takes the phone call, and grabs her keys, and runs out the door and gets jumped . . . whoever called her must’ve been standing right there. Must’ve been calling from the bushes. Must’ve used a cell phone, not a pay phone. All the other tips we’ve had have come from pay phones, it must’ve blocked me off or something . . .’’

  Sherrill snapped her fingers: ‘‘Phone records.’’

  ‘‘Absolutely.’’

  The man who could get the records was away, but was expected back before lunch. In the meantime, the company would try to reach him, to hurry things up.

  Lucas said to Sherrill, ‘‘If this pans out, she’s dead meat.’’

  ‘‘What if it’s Helen’s phone?’’

  ‘‘That’d be a problem,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘So we wait?’’

  ‘‘We wait.’’ Lucas looked at his watch. ‘‘Shouldn’t be more than an hour or so.’’

  DEL STOPPED IN: ‘‘I’M BEING HAUNTED BY THESE OLD ladies,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Tell them if they insist on going to jail, they’ll be raped by bull dykes,’’ Sherrill suggested.

  ‘‘I think some of them are gonna need to be rehabbed,’’ Del said. ‘‘They’re all getting different lawyers; there’s gonna be fifty-eight lawyers to deal with.’’

  ‘‘Too bad the pinking shears thing wasn’t fatal,’’ Lucas said nastily. ‘‘Think how much better off you’d be.’’

  ‘‘That’s the truth,’’ Del said sincerely. ‘‘Jesus, what a mess.’’

  ‘‘When’re you going to Cancu´n?’’ Sherrill asked.

  ‘‘In a week,’’ he said. ‘‘Hope this is done by then. I’d hate to have it hanging over my head for the whole time I’m down there.’’

  ‘‘THE THING IS,’’ SHERRILL SAID, AFTER DEL HAD GONE, ‘‘what if Helen really loves Audrey—they’ve been through a lot together, and they’re sisters—and decides to help her out? What if we go talk to Helen, and she starts taking the fifth? Audrey gets on the stand, blames everything on Helen, and Helen refuses to talk . . .’’

  ‘‘I don’t think that would happen. Audrey killed their mother and . . .’’

  Lucas trailed off and Sherrill said, ‘‘What? Again? Something else?’’

  ‘‘Yeah. What if Helen wasn’t here to defend herself?’’

  HELEN WAS WORKING AT THE AUTO PARTS PLACE. LUCAS found the name in the Yellow Pages, called her. ‘‘You’ve got to take time off, and meet us at your house,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I’m sorry, but this is critical for both you and Connie. I’ll talk to your boss if you want.’’

  Lucas took the Porsche. Sherrill, getting the go-ahead from Frank Lester, trailed in a city car. The bomb squad was ten minutes behind her, a crime scene crew a few minutes behind that.

  Lucas thought of the lie that Audrey had told during the interrogation, how harsh, straightforward, how honest it seemed. But not unrehearsed. And there was a smugness about her when they came to take her away. She must have known that whatever case she could make against Helen would be denied by Helen, and that Helen’s denials might even be provable in some cases. She may have understood that Helen was simply more believable than she was. She might even have understood that finding a hank of hair with arsenic in it didn’t mean much unless Helen was there to swear that the hair had been taken from her mother . . .

  She must have deduced that the police case rested squarely on Helen; and that if Helen was dead, Audrey had all kinds of defenses available.

  And that little spark in her eyes, that smugness at the very end.

  She thought Helen was out of it. How would she do it? She’d used firebombs, guns, and poison. Guns were out, because she couldn’t have known that she’d be free. Some kind of bomb was possible. Some kind of poison.

  • • •

  HELEN ARRIVED: RESISTED. ‘‘I KNOW AUDREY. SHE would never do anything like this. Never. We’ve been together since we were children.’’

  ‘‘Mrs. Bell—we’re pretty sure she killed your mother and father . . .’’

  ‘‘She says she didn’t,’’ Bell said stubbornly.

  ‘‘We think she did. And if you don’t think there’s any chance, why did you give us that lock of hair?’’

  ‘‘I . . .’’

  ‘‘Believe what you wan
t,’’ Sherrill said gently. ‘‘But just let us look. If we’re wrong, no harm has been done.’’

  NO BOMB.

  The bomb squad went in with sniffer equipment, found nothing. They checked the furnace and gas water heater for tampering or gas leaks. Nothing there either.

  ‘‘Pills,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘What kind of pills do you take? Aspirin? Something in capsules, I think . . .’’

  ‘‘Prozac,’’ she said. ‘‘I take Prozac.’’

  ‘‘Where do you keep it?’’ Sherrill asked.

  ‘‘In my bedroom.’’

  She got the bottle of Prozac and they poured the pills out on a clean garbage bag on the kitchen table. One of the crime scene techs had a hand glass, and Lucas used it to look at the capsules. After a minute, he shook his head. ‘‘I don’t see anything.’’

  ‘‘We do have aspirin,’’ she said. ‘‘Not in capsules, though.’’

  ‘‘We could take a look,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘And I’ve got some antibiotics left over from a cold last winter. And there’re some of those timed cold pills; now those are capsules, I think.’’

  ‘‘We’ll take them all,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘The problem is, we don’t want anything Connie would take. How about food? Is there any food that is absolutely yours, that Connie wouldn’t eat?’’

  ‘‘I’ve got some of that diet drink, but the cans are sealed . . .’’

  ‘‘We better take a look,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘Look: I’ve got to get back to work,’’ she said. ‘‘Since it’s not a bomb, maybe we could do it this evening?’’

  ‘‘I suppose,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘Jesus: it’s gotta be something.’’

  ‘‘Unless you’re wrong about her.’’

  ‘‘I’m not wrong,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I’ve got . . .’’

  He heard the tinny music in the back of his head, but didn’t react until he noticed Helen looking at her purse, a peculiar expression on her face. ‘‘What?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘That’s my pillbox,’’ she said. ‘‘I keep a pillbox in my purse, it’s got a little alarm clock so I always take my pill at the same time every day. I just filled it up this morning.’’

  Lucas picked up the purse, clicked it open, found the pillbox. The box was playing ‘‘My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.’’

  ‘‘Push the button to stop it,’’ Helen said, as the two guys from the crime scene crew stepped up to Lucas to look at the box. Lucas carried it into the kitchen, dumped it on the garbage bag.

  ‘‘Gimme the glass,’’ he said.

  He spotted the pill in a half-second: ‘‘Got it.’’

  ‘‘No.’’ Helen didn’t believe it.

  ‘‘That goddamn pill has been messed with,’’ Lucas said. He handed the glass to the crime scene man. ‘‘What do you think?’’

  The crime scene man squinted through the glass: ‘‘And guess what? There’s nothing better in the world than gelatin for picking up a fingerprint.’’

  ‘‘There’s a print?’’ Lucas asked.

  ‘‘A piece of one, anyway,’’ the crime scene man said. ‘‘Gimme a Ziploc, somebody.’’

  ‘‘No,’’ Helen said. ‘‘No.’’

  They pulled the capsule apart with forks, avoiding what appeared to be a fingerprint smudge. White powder spilled out. Lucas pulled apart one of the Prozac capsules from the bottle. ‘‘It’s different stuff,’’ he said.

  The lead crime scene tech got down close to the table, an inch from the white powder, barely inhaled, then straightened up, wiping his nose.

  ‘‘What?’’ asked Lucas.

  ‘‘Almonds,’’ the tech said. ‘‘That stuff is cyanide.’’

  THIRTY-THREE

  LUCAS CALLED THE COUNTY ATTORNEY FROM HELEN Bell’s house, told him about the pill: ‘‘All right, that’s it,’’ Towson said. ‘‘Pick her up. We’ll put her away this time. No bail. No nothing.’’

  Lucas hung up and nodded to Sherrill: ‘‘We’re gonna go get her. Want to follow me over?’’

  ‘‘I’ll ride with you,’’ she said. ‘‘You can always drop me back here to get the car.’’

  ‘‘Let’s go,’’ he said. ‘‘We’ll get a squad to meet us there.’’

  Four miles out, Dispatch called and said a man from AT&T Wireless was on the phone.

  ‘‘Patch him through,’’ Lucas said.

  ‘‘There’re dozens of calls from that account in the past week,’’ the AT&T man said. ‘‘What was the time and date?’’

  Lucas gave it to him and said, ‘‘Look for a 699 prefix.’’

  After a moment’s wait: ‘‘Here it is. Here it is, by gosh.’’

  AUDREY WAS TALKING TO A FIDELITY ACCOUNT MANAGER when the phone rang in her purse. ‘‘I better take that,’’ she said, pleasantly. She was wearing her best, acting the banker’s wife: she wanted to get the money out of Fidelity before some legalism held it up. If she could get the cash and stash it somewhere, she would be good for at least a few years, no matter what else happened.

  ‘‘Let me get the rest of these numbers,’’ the manager said. She was a young woman dressed in a nice Ann Taylor suit, with a pretty silk scarf, nothing flashy, nothing too expensive. Audrey approved; maybe Fidelity wasn’t throwing her money away on exorbitant salaries.

  Audrey answered the phone on the third ring and Helen said to her, ‘‘Did you do it?’’

  And Audrey could hear Connie in the background, saying, urgently, ‘‘Mom, hang up. Hang up.’’

  ‘‘Do what?’’ Audrey said calmly, though she knew.

  ‘‘You’d know, if you did it.’’

  ‘‘That Davenport’s been there again, hasn’t he?’’ Audrey asked. ‘‘May I speak to him?’’

  ‘‘He’s gone,’’ Helen said. She choked on the words, and Audrey heard Connie say, ‘‘Mom, I’m gonna hang this up. You shouldn’t—’’

  And the connection was gone. Audrey looked at the phone for a moment, then punched the power button and turned it off. Davenport had found the pill. She wouldn’t need to talk to Helen again.

  As she walked out through the Fidelity office, she met the young manager on her way back: ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ Audrey said. ‘‘I’ve got something of a family emergency. I have to go home.’’

  She drove back toward her house on remote control. She didn’t have access to any serious money, so running was not a possibility. And with Helen alive, she didn’t really have many options left. She could think of precisely one.

  ‘‘I can die,’’ she said to the car. She was overwhelmed with a feeling of sadness, not for herself, but for the world. She’d be gone. The world wouldn’t have her anymore. ‘‘But they’ll see then,’’ she told the car. ‘‘That’s when they’ll see.’’

  The car seemed to steer itself, but she knew where it was going: North Woods Arms, in Wayzata. The gun shop was a small place, a door beside a picture window, the window laced over with security bars disguised as wrought-iron curlicues. The area beside the door and around the window had weathered-wood siding, to simulate a North Woods cabin; small Christmas lights blinked in the window, around a festive display of nine-millimeter pistols.

  A bell rang above the door as she walked in, and the owner looked up from a magazine. ‘‘Hello.’’

  ‘‘Hello,’’ Audrey said, glancing around at the rack of long guns. ‘‘I’m looking for a gun for my husband for Christmas.’’

  ‘‘You’ve come to the right place,’’ the owner said pleasantly. ‘‘Do you know what you’re looking for, or—’’

  ‘‘Yes.’’ Audrey unfolded a piece of yellow notebook paper. She’d thought that would be a nice touch. ‘‘A Remington 870 Wingmaster twelve-gauge shotgun.’’

  ‘‘No problem,’’ the owner said enthusiastically. ‘‘You know what he’s going to use it for?’’

  ‘‘Ducks, I guess. He mostly hunts ducks. And geese.’’

  ‘‘No problem . . .’’

  She took the 8
70 along with two boxes of No. 2 shells. The store owner took her check, carried the boxes out to the car, and said, ‘‘Tell your husband I said, ‘Good hunting.’ ’’

  ‘‘When I see him,’’ she said, and got in the car. The store owner thought that was an odd thing to say; he would mention it to his wife that night.

  LUCAS AND SHERRILL HAD GOTTEN TO THE Mc-Donald house before Audrey, and a minute before two patrol cops in a squad car. Lucas knocked on the front door, got no response, and while the uniforms waited in front, they walked together once around the house. Nobody. Peering through the deck windows, they saw no sign of movement or light. Back in front, Sherrill rang the doorbell again. Lucas said, looking up at the bedroom windows, ‘‘Nobody’s home. Feels too quiet. I hope she’s not running.’’

  They were standing in the ‘‘L’’ made by the front of the house, the living wing to the front, extending to the left, the three-car garage swinging off to the right. ‘‘Maybe put out a call on her. Or we could just wait,’’ Sherrill said. The uniforms were leaning on the front fender of their squad car, chatting.

  ‘‘I hope she’s not looking for Helen,’’ Lucas said. And thought about Elle Kruger, and his jaw tightened. ‘‘Or anybody else. By God, I’d like to be there to bust her; but maybe we’d better—Whoops. There she is.’’

  AUDREY TURNED INTO THE BOTTOM OF THE DRIVEWAY, saw the Porsche and the police car at the top. She reached up and pushed the garage door opener. The shotgun rode beside her, muzzle down, in the passenger foot-well, the butt resting against her hip. She’d loaded four shells, as many as it would take, and had two more loose on the seat for reloading.

  And she was ready for it. On the way home from the gun store, her vision had seemed to narrow: on the highway, she could see only the road itself. On the driveway, she could see only the garage door, until she made the little left, then right loop that could take her into the garage. Then, she looked out the passenger-side window and saw Davenport walking toward the garage, and her vision narrowed to a small point: Davenport’s face. A mean man, she thought. Harsh. A man like Daddy.