Easy Prey (42 page)

 
“Wait a minute,” Rose Marie said. “There's a fairly big jump in there. All the other stuff is linked, but that's a pure jump--”

“Let me finish,” Lucas said.

 
“And we find ashes in the sink at Rodriguez's apartment,” Del said. “Though he could of flushed it.”

“Nothing gets rid of paper like burning,” Lucas said. He continued:

 
“How'd he know about that?” Del asked.

“Who knows? Maybe from hanging around with Rodriguez. Maybe he actually scouted the building the day before. Whatever the reason, if Rodriguez was murdered, the killer
snuck
out, as though he knew the place were being watched.”

“How'd he kill him?” Rose Marie asked.

“Hit him with something flat and hard. Not a baseball bat, because the wound would be wrong. Maybe a two-by-four.”

“Oooh. Sting the hands,” Del said.

“He then hauls Rodriguez over to the railing, hangs him over, head down, and lets go. Rodriguez hits headfirst and he's gone,” Lucas said.

“I'll tell you something,” Rose Marie said. “Remember when those people were doing their swan dives over in the county government building? I saw a couple of those. They didn't go headfirst—they just let themselves fall, and generally landed flat. Rodriguez would have had to made a conscious decision to
dive
—to land headfirst. That doesn't feel right. Even people who want to die don't want their identities erased. Their faces broken up.”

“I hadn't thought about that, but you're right,” Lucas said. Del nodded.

 
 
THEY ALL SAT and thought about it, Rose Marie swinging back and forth in her chair, and finally she asked, “Have you guys figured out the rest of it?”

“We've figured out that we'll never get him, if that's what you mean,” Del said.

Lucas nodded. “We've publicly said, or let it be known, that we think there are two killers working: one who killed Lansing and Alie'e, and somebody who's killing in revenge for those murders. Therefore, the most likely candidate as the Rodriguez killer is that second man, especially since Rodriguez's name was leaked. But
we
know it can't be, because we were watching the guy who's probably the second man, and he was clear over on the other side of town. And the second man, even if it isn't Olson, also wouldn't have known how to lure Rodriguez back to his office, wouldn't have known that Rodriguez had a twenty-four-hour police escort, wouldn't have known about the phone taps. All of which would count about zilch with a jury.”

“And we'd already pretty much pinned the Alie'e and Lansing killings on Rodriguez, and the details were leaking. Even the suicide fits. . . . It's too late to change our minds,” Del said.

“If we did change our minds, and we bust Spooner, the defense would put Rodriguez on trial and they'd win,” Rose Marie said. “You've got me two-thirds convinced it's Spooner, but if you were talking to a jury, it'd still be eighty-twenty for Rodriguez. All we've got as evidence on Spooner is this long chain of Lucas Davenport suppositions.”

“Suppositories,” Del amended.

“That's not totally true,” Lucas said. “We can put him with both Lansing and Deal. Nobody could put Deal with Rodriguez. If we can put him at the party . . .”

“It'd be weak but usable, if Rodriguez wasn't there as an alternative candidate,” Rose Marie said. “You haven't even suggested why he'd kill Lansing. With Rodriguez, we could suppose it was some kind of criminal falling-out between wholesaler and retailer.”

Another ten seconds passed in silence, then Rose Marie said, “So what do I tell Olson? He's coming in here in fifteen minutes, so I can give him the official word on Rodriguez and say that we're satisfied that Alie'e's killer is dead. What do I say now?”

“Bullshit him,” Lucas said. “Tell him that there's some evidence that Rodriguez was the one, but we're continuing to examine other possibilities.”

“He's gonna want some kind of closure,” Rose Marie said.

“Fuck closure,” Lucas said. “Nobody gets closure.”

“With this bunch, nobody deserves it,” Del muttered.

 
 
LUCAS ASKED DEL to check with the Homicide cops who were circulating Spooner's picture among the known partygoers. “I've got to do some paper,” he said. “Maybe when you're up-to-date with Homicide, you could check with Marcy. Tell her I'll be over as soon as I can.”

When Del was gone, Lucas went back to his office, locked the door, looked at his watch, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. Ten minutes later, his eyes popped open. Time to move. He got up, walked back down to Rose Marie's office, and peeked: door closed. He stepped inside and asked the secretary, “The Olson bunch in there?”

“Yup. A pretty sad-looking bunch, too.”

Lucas backed out of the office, got his coat, put it over his arm, and went to the end of the hall, where he could see the chief's office door but where somebody also might think he was waiting for somebody to come in the front door. Out on the street, the media wagons were piled up; a square-jawed trench-coated reporter was doing a stand-up, with City Hall as background. More airtime for Alie'e.

A cop named Hampstad wandered by, leered at Lucas, and said, “You hear the one about the guy with the headache?”

“Aw, Jesus,” Lucas said.

“Guy goes to the doc, and he says, ‘Doc, you gotta help me. I got this terrible headache. It feels like somebody is pounding a nail through my forehead. Like I got a big pair of pliers squeezing behind my ears. It's tension from my job. I can't stop working right now, but the headache's killing me. You gotta help.' So the doc says, ‘You know, I
do
have a cure. Exactly the same thing happened to me—I was working too much, and I got exactly the same headache. Then one night I was performing oral sex on my wife, and her legs were squeezing my head really tight, really hard, and the pressure must have done something, because the headache was a lot better. So I did this every night for two weeks, and at the end of two weeks, the headache was gone.' And the guy says, ‘I'm desperate, Doc, I'll try anything.' The doc said, ‘Well, then, I'll see you in two weeks.' So the guy goes away, and two weeks later he comes back for his appointment and he's the most cheerful guy in the world. And he says, ‘Doc, you're a miracle worker. I did just what you told me, and the headache's gone. Vanished. I feel great. I think it's got to be the pressure, and—by the way, you've got a
beautiful
home.'”

“SAW IT COMING,” Lucas said without cracking a smile.

“Bullshit, saw it coming. You're cracking up inside,” Hampstad said.

“Have I mentioned our sensitivity sessions? We have them--”

“Fuck a bunch of sensitivity,” Hampstad grumbled. “Nobody has a sense of humor around this place anymore.”

At the end of the hall, Olson stepped through the chief's door. Lucas pushed away from the wall. “Gotta go,” he said. He walked down to the front doors, looked at the media wagons for a count of twenty, then started back toward the chief's office. He heard them as he was coming to the corner, and nearly ran headlong into Olson. They milled for a second, Lucas said, “Sorry, sorry, excuse me,” and then Olson said, “Chief Davenport . . . we just talked to the chief.”

“Yes, I knew you were coming.”

“Not very satisfying,” Olson said. “She was much more—I don't want to say evasive, but she was much less positive than I had expected. About this Rodriguez man.”

Lucas looked at him for a long beat, then at the rest of the group from Burnt River. “Could I speak to you privately for just a minute?” Lucas said.

Olson nodded, looked at the Burnt River people, said, “Excuse me for a minute,” and he and Lucas walked down the hall toward the front door.

“The chief is, uh . . . Did you know I came to see you preach last night?”

“I thought that might be you in the back. I wasn't sure,” Olson said.

“I was impressed. I'm not from the same stream of . . . Christianity . . . as you, I'm a Roman Catholic, but I was . . . affected.” Lucas said, letting himself grope for the words. “What I'm trying to say is, I know you're a good man, I could see it last night. I hate lying to you. The chief wasn't lying, but, to tell you the truth, most of us think that Rodriguez was innocent. That he may have been murdered himself.”

“What?”
Olson was stunned, but his voice was hushed. “Then who . . .”

“A banker named William Spooner. He essentially set Rodriguez up in the drug business, showed him how to launder his money. . . . He was carrying on an affair with Sandy Lansing.”

“Then why don't you . . .”

“We're investigating him every way we can, but to be honest—please don't tell anyone I told you this—it's going to be very difficult to get him on this. The two chief witnesses against him would be Sandy Lansing and Rodriguez himself. They're both dead. And even if we arrested him, a defense attorney could simply prosecute Rodriguez during Spooner's trial, and frankly, Rodriguez is a much more inviting suspect. Even if he didn't do it.”

“Are you saying that Spooner'll never be punished?” Olson asked.

“I don't know what's going to happen, I really don't,” Lucas said.

“I don't know what to say,” Olson said. “I should talk to Chief Roux again.”

“Don't do that, it'll just cause problems for her. She's trying as hard as she can with all this media attention. . . . She wants the media to concentrate on Rodriguez for a few days, since it can't hurt him anymore, while we go after Spooner.”

“This is . . . I don't know.”

“I'll tell you what you can do,” Lucas said, trying to
feel
the sincerity. “You can pray for us. After what I saw last night, I believe it will do some good.”

Olson looked at him for a moment, a speculative examination of several seconds, then said, “I will.”

Lucas said goodbye, shaking Olson's hand, then walked through the group of Burnt River people, down the hall, and to his office. Felt the dark finger of hypocrisy stroking his soul. All for justice, he thought. Or for something.
Winning
, maybe.

 
 
LUCAS WAITED IN his office until he figured Olson would be gone, then walked down to Homicide to talk to Lester. “We need to put a couple of people on William Spooner,” he said. “More to cover him than to watch him.”

“What's going on?” Lester asked.

“I just gave Spooner's name to Olson. I didn't tell Rose Marie, so she'll have a little insulation. But if Olson starts wandering around in his car, and we're too far back . . . he could walk right up to Spooner's front door and nail him before we could catch up.”