Prey: Night Prey Part 6

"I read poetry," Lucas said.

"Bulls.h.i.+t."

Lucas shrugged and started toward the car.

"Say a poem."

"f.u.c.k you, Connell," Lucas said.

"No, c'mon," she said, catching him, facing him. "Say a poem."

Lucas thought for a second, then said, "The heart asks pleasure first/And then excuse from pain/and then those little anodynes/that deaden suffering. And then to go to sleep/and then if it should be/the will of its inquisitor/the privilege to die."

Connell, already pale, seemed to go a shade paler, and Lucas, remembering, thought, Oh, s.h.i.+t.

"Who wrote that?"

"Emily d.i.c.kinson."

"Roux told you I have cancer?"

"Yes, but I wasn't thinking about that. . . ."

Connell, studying him, suddenly showed a tiny smile. "I was kind of hoping you were. I was thinking, Jesus Christ, what a shot in the mouth."

"Well . . . ?"

"The Wild Lily Press over on the West Bank."

He shook his head. "I doubt it. That's a feminist store. He'd be pretty noticeable."

"Then The Saint, over in St. Paul."

ON THE WAY to St. Paul, Connell said, "I'm in a hurry on this, Davenport. I'm gonna die in three or four months, six at the outside. Right now I'm in remission, and I don't feel too bad. I'm out of chemo for the time being, I'm getting my strength back. But it won't last. A couple weeks, three, and it'll come creeping up on me again. I want to get him before I go."

"We can try."

"We gotta do better than that," she said. "I owe some people."

"All right."

"I don't mean to scare you," she said.

"You're doing it."

THE OWNER OF The Saint recognized Wannemaker immediately. "Yes, she was here," he said. His voice was cool, soft. He looked at Lucas over the top of his gold-rimmed John Lennon specs. "Killed? My G.o.d, she wasn't the kind to get killed."

"What kind was she?" Lucas asked.

"Well, you know." He gestured. "Meek. A wallflower. She did ask a question when Margaret finished the reading, but I think it was because n.o.body was asking questions and she was embarra.s.sed. That kind of person."

"Did she leave with anyone?"

"Nope. She left alone. I remember, 'cause it was abrupt. Most readings, she'd hang around; she'd be the last to leave, like she had nothing else to do. But I remember, she headed out maybe fifteen minutes after we broke things up. There were still quite a few people in the store. I thought maybe she didn't like Margaret."

"Was she in a hurry?"

The store owner scratched his head, looked out his window at the street. "Yeah. Now that you mention it, she did sort of seem like she was going somewhere."

Lucas looked at Connell, who was showing just the faintest color.

The store owner, frowning, said, "You know, when I think about it, the question she asked was made up, like maybe she was dragging things out. I was sort of rolling my eyes, mentally, anyway. Then she leaves in a hurry. . . ."

"Like something happened while she was in the store?" Connell prompted.

"I hate to say it, but yes."

"That's interesting," Lucas said. "We'll need a list of everybody you know was here."

The store owner looked away, embarra.s.sed. "Hmm. "I think, uh, a lot of my clients would see that as an invasion of privacy," he said.

"Would you like to see the pictures of Wannemaker?" Lucas asked gently. "The guy ripped her stomach open and all her intestines came out. And we think he might be hanging around bookstores."

The store owner looked at him for a moment, then nodded. "I'll get a list going," he said.

LUCAS USED THE store phone to call Anderson, and told him about the identification. "She left here at nine o'clock."

"We got her car fifteen minutes ago," Anderson said. "It was in the impound lot, towed out of downtown St. Paul. Hang on a minute. . . ." Anderson spoke to somebody else, then came back. "It was towed off a hill on Sixth. I'm told that's next to Dayton's."

"So she must have been headed somewhere."

"Unless she already was somewhere, and walked back to the store."

"I don't think so. That'd be eight or ten blocks. There's a lot of parking around here. She would have driven."

"Is there anything around Dayton's at nine? Was the store open?"

"There's a bar up there-Harp's. On the corner. Connell and I'll stop in."

"Okay. St. Paul'll process the car," Anderson said. "I'll pa.s.s on what you found out at this bookstore. You're getting a list of names?"

"Yeah. But it might not be much."

"Get me the names and I'll run 'em."

Lucas hung up and turned around. Connell was marching toward him from the back of the store, where the owner had gone to talk with one of his clerks about people at the reading.

"One of the men here was a cop," she said fiercely. "A St. Paul patrolman named Carl Erdrich."

"d.a.m.nit," Lucas said. He picked up the phone and called Anderson back, gave him the name.

"What?" Connell wanted to know when he got off the phone.

"We'll check the bar," Lucas said. "There'll have to be some negotiations before we can get a mug of Erdrich."

Connell spun around and planted herself in front of him. "What the f.u.c.k is this?" she asked.

"It's called the Usual Bulls.h.i.+t," he said. "And calm down. We're talking about an hour or two, not forever."

But she was angry, heels pounding as they walked back to Lucas's Porsche. "Why do you drive this piece of c.r.a.p? You ought to buy something decent," she snapped.

Lucas said, "Shut the f.u.c.k up."

"What?" She goggled at him.

"I said shut the f.u.c.k up. You don't shut the f.u.c.k up, you can take the bus back to Minneapolis."

CONNELL, STILL ANGRY, trailed him into Harp's and muttered, "Oh, Lord" when she saw the bartender. The bartender was a dark-haired pixieish woman with large black eyes, too much makeup, and a bee-stung lower lip. She wore a slippery low-cut silk pullover without a bra, and a black string tie with a turquoise clasp at her throat. "Cops?" she asked, but she was smiling.

"Yeah." Lucas nodded, grinned, and tried to meet her eyes. "We need to talk to somebody who was here Friday night."

"I was," she said, dropping her elbows on the bar and leaning toward Lucas, glancing at Connell. The bartender smelled lightly of cinnamon, like a dream; she had a soft freckled cleavage. "What do you need?"

Lucas rolled out the photo of Wannemaker. "Was she here?"

The bartender watched his eyes, and, satisfied with her effect, picked up the photo and studied it. "She look like this?"

"Pretty much," Lucas said, steadfastly holding her eyes.

"What'd she do?" the bartender asked.

"Was she here?" Lucas asked again.

"Meanie," she said. "You don't want to tell me." The bartender frowned, pushed out her lower lip, studied the picture, and slowly shook her head. "No, I don't think she was. In fact, I'm sure she wasn't, if she dressed like this. Our crowd's into black. Black s.h.i.+rts, black pants, black dresses, black hats, black combat boots. I'd have noticed her."

"Big crowd?"

"In St. Paul?" She picked up her bar rag and scrubbed at a spot on the bar.

"Okay. . . ."

As they started out, the bartender called after them, "What'd she do?"

"It was done to her," Connell said, speaking for the first time. She made it sound like a punishment.

"Yeah?"

"She was killed."

The bartender recoiled. "Like, murdered? How?"

"Let's go," said Lucas, touching Connell's coat sleeve.

"Stabbed," said Connell.

"Let's go," Lucas repeated.

" 'Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day,' " the bartender said solemnly, in a quotation voice.

Now Lucas stopped. "Who was that?" he asked.

"Some dead French dude," the bartender said.

"That was disgusting," Connell fumed.

"What?"

"The way she was throwing it at you."

"What?"

"You know."

Lucas looked back at the bar, then at Connell, a look of utter astonishment on his face. "You think she was coming on to me?"

"Kiss my a.s.s, Davenport," she said, and stalked off toward the car.

Lucas called Anderson again. "Roux's still talking to St. Paul," Anderson said. "She wants you back here, ASAP."

"What for?"

"I don't know. But she wants you back."

CONNELL COMPLAINED MOST of the way back. They had something, she said. They should stay with it. Lucas, tired of it, offered to drop her at the St. Paul police headquarters. She declined. Roux was up to something, she said. When they walked into the chief's outer office, the bony secretary flipped a thumb toward the chief's door and they went through.

Roux was smoking furiously. She glanced at Connell, then nodded. "I guess you better stay and hear this."

"What's going on?" Lucas asked.

Roux shrugged. "We're outa here, is what's going on. No crime committed in Minneapolis. You just proved it. Wannemaker goes to that bookstore in St. Paul, gets dumped in Hudson. Let them fight about it."

"Wait a minute," said Connell.

Roux shook her head. "Meagan, I promised to help you and I did. But we've got lots of trouble right now, and this is St. Paul's killing. Your killing, up in Carlos Avery, is either Anoka County's or Duluth's. Not ours. We're putting out a press release that says our investigation concludes the murder was not committed here, that we'll cooperate with the investigating authorities, and so on."

"WAIT A f.u.c.kING MINUTE!" Connell shouted. "Are you telling me we're done?"

"We're done," Roux said, still friendly, but her voice sharpening. "You've still got some options. We'll get your research to St. Paul, and I'll ask that they let you a.s.sist their investigation. Or you could continue with the Smits case. I don't know what Duluth is doing with that anymore."