Mind Prey Page 9

  Grace nodded. "Mom, why is Mr. Mail doing this? Why is he hurting you?" The question sounded phony, artificial, but maybe on a crude tape it'd be okay.

  Andi counted out a long, thoughtful pause. "I believe he's compensating for sexual problems he had when he was a child. His parents made it worse—he had a stepfather who'd beat him with a club…"

  "You mean, he's a sex pervert."

  Andi shook her in a warning: don't push it too far…

  "There's always the possibility that he has a straight-forward medical problem, a hormone imbalance that we simply don't understand. We did tests, and he seemed normal enough, but we didn't have the tools back then that we do now."

  Grace nodded and said, "I hope he doesn't hurt us any more."

  Andi said, "So do I. Now try to sleep."

  They felt him coming, a sense of impact, a heavy body moving around. Then they heard him on the cellar steps, the footfalls muffled and far away. Grace huddled into her, and Andi felt her mind beginning to slip. No. She had to hold on.

  Then the door opened, the scraping of the slide lock, the screak of the hinge. Grace said, "Don't let him take me alone, like Genevieve."

  Mail's eye appeared at the crack of the door, took them in. Then he closed the door again, and she heard another rattle. A chain. She hadn't heard that before, hadn't seen that when she was outside: he had two locks, so they couldn't rush the door.

  "Don't move," he said. He was wearing jeans and an olive-colored shirt with a collar, the first time they'd seen him in anything but a t-shirt. He had two microwave meals on plastic plates, with plastic spoons. He left them on the floor and backed away.

  "Where's Genevieve?" Andi asked, pushing herself up. She gripped her blouse button-line with her left hand. She did it unthinkingly and only noticed when she saw Mail pick it up.

  "Dropped her at the Hudson Mall," Mail said. "Told her to find a cop."

  "I don't believe you," Andi said.

  "Well, I did," Mail said, but his eyes shifted and a black dread grew in Andi's heart. Then: "They've got Davenport looking for us."

  "Davenport?"

  "He's a big cop in Minneapolis," Mail said. He seemed impressed. "He writes games."

  "Games?" She was confused.

  "Yeah, you know. War games and role-playing games, and some computer games. He's like this rich dude now. And he's a cop."

  "Oh." She put her finger tips to her lips. "I have heard of him… Do you know him?"

  "I called him," Mail said. "I talked to him."

  "You mean… today?"

  "About two hours ago." He was proud of himself.

  "Did you tell him about Genevieve?"

  Again he looked away: "Nah. I called him from this Wal-Mart right after I dropped her off. He probably didn't know about her yet."

  Andi hadn't fully recovered from the attack and felt less than completely sharp, but she pushed herself to understand the man, what he was saying. And she thought she saw fear or, possibly, uncertainty.

  "This Davenport… are you afraid of him?"

  "Fuck no. I'll kick his ass," Mail said. "He's not gonna find us."

  "Isn't he supposed to be mean? Wasn't he fired for brutality or something? Beating up a suspect?"

  "Pimp," Mail said. "He beat up a pimp because the guy cut one of his stoolies."

  "Doesn't sound like somebody you'd want to challenge," Andi suggested. "I wouldn't think you'd want to play with him—if that's what you're doing."

  "That's sorta what I'm doing," Mail said. He laughed, seemed lifted by the thought. Then, "I'll see you later. Eat the food, it's good."

  And he was gone.

  After a moment, Grace crawled over to one of the plates, poked the food, tasted it. "It's not very warm."

  Andi said, "But we need it. We'll eat it all."

  "What if he poisoned it?"

  "He doesn't have to poison it" Andi said, coolly.

  Grace looked at her, then nodded. They carried the plates back to the mattress, and in a second, they were gobbling it down. Grace stopped long enough to get two cans of strawberry soda, passed one to her mother, glanced at the Porta-Potti. "God, I'm gonna hate… going."

  Andi stopped eating, looked at the pot, then at her daughter. A daughter of privilege: she'd had a private bathroom since she was old enough to sleep in her own room. "Grace," she said, "we are in a desperately bad situation. We're trying to stay alive until the police find us. So we eat his food and we aren't embarrassed by each other. We just try to hang on the best we can."

  "Right," Grace said. "But I wish Genevieve was here…"

  Andi choked, forced herself to hold it down. Genevieve, she thought, might be dead. But Grace couldn't be told that. She had to protect Grace: "Listen, honey…"

  "She could be dead," Grace said, her eyes wide, like an owl's. "God, I hope she's not…" She put down her spoon and began to cry and Andi started to comfort her, but then dropped her plate and she began to cry as well. A few seconds later, Grace crawled next to her and they huddled together, weeping; and Audi's mind flashed back to the night when they'd all sprawled on the upstairs rug, laughing, after Genevieve's "God, that guy was really hung …"

  Much later, Grace said, "He didn't say anything about being a sex pervert…"

  "He's not listening," Andi said. "He hadn't heard it."

  "So what are we going to do?"

  "We have to judge him," Andi said. "If we think he's going to kill us, we have to attack him. We have to think about the best ways to do that."

  "He's too strong."

  "But we have to try… and maybe… I don't know. Listen: John Mail is a very smart boy. But maybe we can manipulate him."

  "How?"

  "I've been thinking about that. If he's talking to this Davenport person, maybe we can send a message."

  "How?"

  Andi sighed. "I don't know. Not yet."

  John Mail came back an hour later. Again they felt him coming before they heard him, the vibration of a body on the stairs. He opened the door as he had before, carefully. Andi and Grace were on the mattress. He looked at them both, his gaze lingering on Grace until she looked away, and then he said to Andi, "Come out."

  CHAPTER 8

  « ^ »

  Lucas spent the early afternoon reading the papers, then tripping around to the television stations. After his last stop, he called in to Homicide and asked that Sloan be sent to meet him at Nancy Wolfe's office.

  When Lucas arrived at Wolfe's, Sloan was examining the same NSX that Lucas had cruised in the morning.

  "Heavy metal," he said, as he slouched over to Lucas. "Makes the Porsche look like a fuckin' Packard."

  Sloan was a thin man, a man who looked at the world sideways, with a skeptical grin. He liked brown suits and had several of varied intensity: in the summer he leaned toward off-tans and not-quite-beiges, and striped neckties, and straw hats; in the winter, he went for darker tones and felt hats. He'd just shifted to winter wear, and was a dark spot in the parking lot.

  "The NSX could bite you on the ass," Lucas said, looking at the car. He flipped the engagement ring in the air, caught it, and slipped it over the end of his thumb. The stone sparkled like high-rent fire.

  "What're we doing?" Sloan asked.

  "Good guy-bad guy with Nancy Wolfe, Manette's partner. You're the good guy."

  "What has she got to do with it?"

  "You know about the call from the asshole?" Lucas asked.

  "Yeah, Lester played the tape for me."

  "I've been running around asking questions," Lucas said. "Nobody—none of the papers, none of the stations—carried anything about the shirt. Nobody had anything about me working the case. The only people who knew, outside the department, were the family and a few people close to the family. Wolfe. A lawyer."

  "Christ." Sloan scratched his head. "You think somebody's talking to him? The asshole?"

  "Maybe. I can explain him knowing about me," Lucas said. "I can't explain the shirt, unless he mad
e a pretty big intuitive leap."

  "Huh." They passed the chewing-gum sculpture. Sloan looked up at it and asked, "How about Miranda?"

  "Yep. We do the whole thing… And she asks for an attorney, we say fine. I'm going after her pretty hard. We want to shake her up. Same thing for the rest of the family, when we get to them."

  "Lucas, hey, Lucas." They'd started across the bridge, stopped for just a second to look at the koi, heard the woman's voice, turned and saw Jan Reed hurrying across the street. A TV van was making an illegal U-turn that would take it into the parking lot.

  "This one makes my dick hard," Sloan muttered.

  Reed had large dark eyes, auburn hair that fell to her shoulders, and long, tanned legs. She wore a plum suit and matching shoes, and carried a Gucci shoulder bag. She had a slight overbite; a tiny lisp added to her charm.

  "Are you working this?" Lucas asked as Reed came up. "This is…"

  "Detective Sloan, of course," Reed said. She took Sloan's hand, gave him a two-hundred-watt smile. Then to Lucas: "I'm trying for an interview with Nancy Wolfe. I understand her records were subpoenaed this morning by the local Nazis."

  "That was me," Lucas said.

  Reed's smile widened slightly: she'd known. "Really? Well, why'd you do that?"

  Lucas glanced toward the truck and then said to Reed, "Jan, Jan, Jan. You've got a sleazy unethical microphone in the truck, don't you? I mean, my golly, that's very slimy, a really tacky, disgusting, snakelike invasion of my privacy. In fact, it's very close to criminal. It may even be criminal."

  Reed sighed. "Lucas…"

  Lucas leaned close to her ear and whispered, "Go fuck yourself."

  She leaned close to his ear and said, "I like the basic concept, but I hate flying solo."

  Lucas, backing away, felt the ring in his pocket and said, "C'mon, Sloan, let's see if we can get to Mrs. Wolfe before the media does…"

  "Goddamnit, Lucas," Heed said, and she stamped her foot.

  Inside, Sloan asked, "Do you really think they had a mike?"

  "I'm sure they did," Lucas said.

  "Do you think they heard what I said? About Reed making my dick hard?"

  "No question about it," Lucas said, biting back a grin. "And they'll use it, too, the treacherous assholes."

  "You're giving me shit, man. Don't give me shit, I need to know."

  The receptionist looked like she wanted to hide when she saw Lucas and Sloan coming down the hall. Lucas asked to see Wolfe, and she said, "Dr. Wolfe is with a patient. She should be finished"—she looked at a desk clock—"in five minutes or so. I hate to interrupt…"

  "When she's done," Lucas said. "We'll be in Dr. Manette's office."

  Sherrill and Black were sitting on the floor, working through a pile of manila folders.

  "Anything new?" Lucas asked.

  "Hey, Sloan," said Sherrill.

  "These people are nuts," Black said, patting a small stack of folders. "These are neurotic"—he pointed toward another, larger stack—"and the big stack are just fucked up," he said, pointing at a third pile. "Some of the nuts are in jail or in hospitals; some of them we don't know about. When we get one, we call it downtown."

  "What are we doing about the bank guy?" Sherrill asked.

  "I unloaded it on the chief," Lucas said. "Did you find any more of those?"

  "Maybe. There are a couple where it seems like she's getting cute… cryptic notes. References to other files, which we haven't found. There are computer Piles somewhere, but we haven't found the disks. Anderson's gonna come down and take a crack at her system." She nodded at an IBM computer on a credenza behind Manette's desk.

  Wolfe walked in then, her face grim, her anger barely suppressed, and faced Lucas. Her arms were straight to her sides, her fists clenched. "What do you want?"

  "We need to ask you some questions," Lucas said.

  "Should I get my attorney?"

  Lucas shrugged. "It's up to you. I do have to warn you: you have a right to an attorney."

  Wolfe went pale as Lucas recited the Miranda warning. "You're serious."

  Lucas nodded. "Yes. We're very serious, Dr. Wolfe."

  Sloan broke in, his voice cheerful, placating. "We really are just asking basic stuff. I mean, you have to make the decision, but we're not gonna sweat you, Miz Wolfe, I mean, we're not gonna pull a light down over your head. We're just trying to figure out a few angles. If this wasn't done by one of her patients, why was it done? It was obviously planned, so it wasn't just some maniac picking people at random. We need to know who would benefit…"

  "This man"—Wolfe, talking to Sloan, jabbed a finger at Lucas—"suggested this morning that I would benefit from Audi's death. I resent that. Andi's my dearest friend, a life-long friend. She's been my best friend since college, and if something should happen to her, it would be a personal disaster, not a benefit. And I bitterly…"

  Sloan glanced at Lucas, shook his head, looked back at Wolfe and said, "Sometimes Lucas and I don't see eye-to-eye on these things…"

  "Sloan," Lucas said, in a warning tone. But Sloan held up a hand.

  "He's not a bad guy," Sloan said to Wolfe. "But he's a street guy. I'm sure he didn't mean to offend you, but sometimes he sort of… overstates things."

  Lucas let the irritation show. "Hey, Sloan…"

  But Sloan put up a warning hand. "We're really just looking for facts. Not trying to put pressure on you. We're trying to find out if anyone would benefit from Andi Manette's death or disappearance, and we don't mean you. At least, I don't."

  Wolfe was shaking her head. "I don't see how anybody would benefit. I would get some key-person insurance if Andi died, but that wouldn't make up for the loss, financially or emotionally. I would imagine that George Dunn would get quite a bit—you know, she started out with all the money in her family. George would be a carpenter some place if he hadn't married Andi."

  "Can we do this down in your office? We should be someplace a little more private, huh?" Sloan asked winningly.

  On the way to Wolfe's office, with Wolfe several steps ahead, Sloan leaned to Lucas and muttered: "You know that Sherrill? She makes my dick hard, too. I think something's going on with my dick."

  "That's not what you'd call a big change," Lucas said. He flipped the ring in the air and caught it. Sherrill. Sherrill was nice; so was Jan Reed, and he most certainly would have bundled Reed off to his cabin if it hadn't been for Weather. Lucas liked women, liked them a lot. Maybe too much. And that was another item on the long list of mental questions he had about marriage.

  He was always shocked when a married friend went after another woman. That never seemed right. If you hadn't made the commitment, all right—do anything you wanted. But now, with the possibility of marriage looming… would he miss the hunt? Would he miss it enough to betray Weather? Would he even be considering this question if he should ask her to marry him? On the other hand, he really didn't want Reed. He didn't want Sherrill. He only wanted Weather.

  "What's wrong?" Sloan asked quietly.

  "Huh?" Lucas started.

  "You looked like you'd had a stroke or something," Sloan said. They were just outside Wolfe's office, and Sloan was staring at him curiously.

  "Ah, nothing. Lot of stuff going on," Lucas said.

  Sloan grinned. "Yeah."

  Wolfe's office was a mirror of Manette's, with furniture of the same style, and the same files-and-coffee niche in one wall. Sloan was charming and got Wolfe talking.

  She did not like George Dunn. Dunn was facing imminent divorce, Wolfe said. If Andi died, not only would he inherit and collect any life insurance, he would also save half of his own fortune. "That's what she'd get—when they got married, he had the shirt on his back, and that was all. He made all of his money since they were married, and you know Minnesota divorce law."

  Tower Manette wouldn't get anything from his daughter's death, Wolfe said, except at the end of a long string of unlikely circumstances. Andi and both the children would have to die, a
nd George Dunn would have to be convicted of the crime.

  "All you would get is the key-man insurance?" Lucas asked.

  "That's right."

  "Who'd take Dr. Manette's patients?"

  Wolfe looked exasperated. "I would, Mr. Davenport. And I would make a little money on them. And as quickly as I could, I would bring somebody else in to handle them, I have a full slate right now. I simply couldn't handle her patient load, not by myself."

  "So there's the insurance and the patients…"

  "Goddamnit," Wolfe said. "I hate these insinuations."

  "They're not insinuations. We're talking serious money and you're not being very forthcoming," Lucas rasped.

  "All right, all right," said Sloan. "Take it easy, Lucas."

  They talked for half an hour, but got very little more. As they were leaving, Wolfe said to Lucas, "I'm sure you've heard about the lawsuit."

  "No."

  "We've gone to court to repossess our records," she said.

  Lucas shrugged: "That's not my problem. The lawyers can sort it out."

  "What you're doing is shameful," she said.

  "Tell that to Andi Manette and her kids—if we get them back."

  "I'm sure Andi would agree with our position," Wolfe said. "We'd review the records and pass on anything that might be significant."

  "You aren't cops," Lucas snapped. "What's significant to cops might not be significant to shrinks."

  "You aren't doing much good," Wolfe snapped back. "As far as I know, you haven't detected a thing."

  Lucas took the composite drawing from his pocket; the accumulated memories of two eyewitnesses and Marcus Paloma, the game store owner. "Do you know this man?"

  Wolfe took the picture, frowned, shook her head. "No, I don't think so. But he does look sort of… generic. Who is he?"

  "The kidnapper," Lucas said. "That's what we've detected so far."

  "There's a woman who doesn't think the sun shines out of your ass," Sloan said as they walked down the hall.

  "Yeah, that's what?" Lucas didn't mind being disliked, but sometimes the taste was sour. "Six thousand that we know of?"