Rules of Prey (6 page)

“I’ve been interviewed about six times,” she said, touching the cut on her forehead. “I think I’m talked out.”

“That’s okay,” said Lucas. “I don’t work quite like the other guys. My questions will be a little different.”

“I read about you in the paper,” she said. “The story said you’ve killed five people.”

Lucas shrugged. “It’s not that I wanted to.”

“It seems like a lot. My ex-husband’s father was a policeman. He never shot his gun at anybody in his whole career.”

“What can I tell you?” Lucas said. “I’ve been working in areas where it happens. If you work mostly in burglary or homicide, you can go a whole career without ever firing your gun. If you work in dope or vice, it’s different.”

“Okay.”

She pulled a dinette chair out from a table and gestured at it, and sat on the other side. “What do you want to know?”

“Do you feel safe?” he asked as he put his briefcase on the table and opened it.

“I don’t know. They say he got in by slipping the locks, so the landlord put on all new locks. The policeman who was here said they’re good. And they gave me a phone and I have a special alarm code for 911. I just say ‘Carla’ and the cops are supposed to come running. The station is just across the street. Everybody in the building knows what happened and everybody’s looking for strangers. But you know . . . I don’t feel all that safe.”

“I don’t think he’ll come back,” Lucas said.

“That’s what the other cops, uh, the other policemen said,” she said.

“You can call us cops,” Lucas said.

“Okay.” She smiled again and he marveled at her even white teeth. She wasn’t pretty, exactly, but she was extraordinarily attractive. “It’s just that I’m the only witness. That scares me. I hardly go out anymore.”

“We think he’s a real freak,” said Lucas. “A freak-freak, different from other freaks. He seems to be smart. He’s careful. He doesn’t seem to be running out of control. We don’t think he’ll come back because that would put him at risk.”

“He seemed crazy to me,” Ruiz said.

“So talk about it. What did he do when he first came after you?” Lucas asked. He thumbed through his copy of her interviews with St. Paul and Minneapolis homicide detectives. “How did it work? What did he say?”

For forty-five minutes he carefully led her through each moment of the attack, back and forth until every split second
was covered. He watched her face as she relived it. Finally she stopped him.

“I can’t do this much more,” she said. “I was having nightmares. I don’t want them to come back.”

“I don’t want them to either, but I wanted to get you back there, living through it. Now I want you to do one more thing. Come here.”

He closed his briefcase and handed it to her. “These are your groceries. Start at the door and walk past the pillar.”

“I don’t—”

“Do it,” Lucas barked.

She walked slowly back to the door and then turned, her arms wrapped around the briefcase. Lucas stepped behind the pillar.

“Now walk past. Don’t look at me,” he said.

She walked past and Lucas jumped from behind the pillar and wrapped an arm around her throat.

“Uhhh . . .”

“Do I smell like him? Do I?”

He eased up on his arm. “No.”

“What? What’d he smell like?”

She turned into him, his arm still over her shoulder. “I don’t . . . he had cologne of some kind.”

“Did he smell like sweat? Perspiration? Were his clothes clean or did they stink?”

“No. Like after-shave, maybe.”

“Was he as big as I am? Was he strong?” He pulled her tight against his chest and she dropped the briefcase and turned into him, beginning to struggle. He let her struggle for a moment and then she suddenly relaxed. Lucas tightened his grip further.

“Shit,” she said and she fought and he let her go, and she turned into him, her eyes wide and angry. “Don’t do that. Stay away.” She was on the edge of fear.

“Was he stronger?”

“No. He was softer. His hands were soft. And when I relaxed, he relaxed. That’s when I stamped on his instep.”

“Where’d you learn that?”

“From my ex-husband’s father. He taught me some self-defense things.”

“Come here.”

“No.”

“Come here, goddammit.”

She reluctantly stepped forward, afraid, her face pale. Lucas turned her again and put his arm around her neck without tightening it.

“Now, when he had you, he said something about not screaming or he’d kill you. Did he sound like this?” And Lucas tightened his grip and pulled her high, almost off her feet, and said hoarsely, “Scream and I’ll kill you.”

Ruiz struggled again and Lucas said, “Think,” and let her go, pushing her away. He walked away until he was near the door. Ruiz had her hands at her throat, her eyes wide.

“New Mexico,” she said.

“What?” Lucas felt a spark.

“I think he might be from New Mexico. It never occurred to me until now, but he
didn’t
sound quite like people up here. It wasn’t the words. It’s not an accent. It’s almost, like, a
feeling.
I don’t think you’d even notice it, if you weren’t thinking about it. But it was like back home.”

“You’re from New Mexico?”

“Yes. Originally. I’ve been up here six years.”

“Okay. And you said he smelled like cologne. Good cologne?”

“I don’t know, just cologne. I wouldn’t know the difference.”

“Could it have been hair oil?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think it was cologne. It was light.”

“But he didn’t stink? Like he was unwashed?”

“No.”

“He was wearing a T-shirt. You said he was white. How white?”

“Really white. Whiter than you. I mean, I’m kind of brown, you’re tan-white, he was real white.”

“No tan?”

“No. I don’t think so. That’s not my impression. He was
wearing those gloves and I remember that his skin was almost as white as the gloves were.”

“You said when you were talking to the St. Paul police that he was wearing athletic shoes. Do you know what kind?”

“No. He just knocked me down and I was getting up and I remember the shoes and the little bubble thing on the side . . .” She stopped and frowned. “I didn’t tell the other officers about the bubble thing.”

“What kind of bubble thing?”

“Those transparent bubble things, where you can look inside the shoe soles?”

“Yeah. I know. Do you go down to St. Paul Center much?”

“Sometimes,” she said.

“If you’ve got the time, walk over this afternoon and look at the shoes, see if there’s anything like it. Okay?”

“Sure. Jeez, I didn’t think . . .”

Lucas took out his badge case, extracted a business card, and handed it to her. “Call me and let me know.”

They talked for another ten minutes, but there was nothing more. Lucas made a few final notes on a steno pad and tossed the pad and the investigation notebook back in his briefcase.

“You scared me,” Ruiz said as Lucas closed the case.

“I want to catch this guy,” Lucas said. “I figured there might be something you wouldn’t remember unless you walked through it again.”

“I’ll have nightmares.”

“Maybe not. Even the worst ones fade after a while. I won’t apologize, considering the situation.”

“I know.” She plucked at the seam of her skirt. “It’s just . . .”

“Yeah, I know. Listen, I’ve got to make a call, okay?”

“Sure.” She walked back to a stool next to a loom and sat on it, her hands resting between her legs. She was subdued, almost depressed. Lucas watched her as he dialed the information operator, got the number for St. Anne’s College, hung up, and redialed the new number.

“Think about something else entirely,” he said to her across the room.

“I try, but I can’t,” she said. “I just keep going over it in my head. My God, he was right in here . . .”

Lucas held up a hand to stop her for a moment. “Psychology department . . . . Thanks . . . . Sister Mary Joseph . . . . Tell her Detective Lieutenant Lucas Davenport . . .” He glanced at Carla again. She was staring fixedly out the window.

“Hello? Lucas?”

“Elle, I’ve got to talk to you.”

“About the maddog?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“I was halfway expecting you to call. When do you want to come?”

“I’m in St. Paul now. I’ve got to be over in Minneapolis for a meeting at four, I was hoping you could squeeze me in now.”

“If you come right this minute, we can walk down to the ice-cream store. I’ve got a faculty meeting in forty-five minutes.”

“I’ll see you in front of Fat Albert Hall in ten minutes.”

Lucas dropped the phone back on the hook.

“You going to be okay?” he asked as he headed for the door. “I was a little rough . . .”

“Yes.” She continued to stare out the window and he paused with his hand on the bolt.

“Will you check downtown for me? About those shoes?”

“Sure.” She sighed and turned toward him. “I’ve got to get out of here. If you can wait a minute, I’ll get my purse. You can walk me out of the building.”

She was ready in a moment and they rode the old elevator down to the first floor. The elevator operator had plugged a set of headphones into his boombox, but the sound of heavy metal leaked out around the edges.

“That shit can sterilize you,” Lucas said. The operator didn’t respond, his head continuing to bob with the pounding beat of the music.

“This elevator guy . . .” Lucas said when they got off the elevator. There was a question in his voice.

“No chance,” Carla said. “Randy’s so burned out that he can barely find the right floors. He could never organize an actual attack on somebody.”

“All right.” He held the door for her and she stepped out on the sidewalk.

“It’s nice to be out,” she said. “The sunshine feels great.” Lucas’ car was parked a block toward Town Center and they strolled together along the sidewalk.

“Listen,” she said when he stopped beside the Porsche. “I get over to Minneapolis once a week or so. I show in a gallery over there. If I stopped in some morning, could you let me know how things are going? I’d call first.”

“Sure. I’m in the basement of the old City Hall. You just leave your car—”

“I know where you are,” she said. “I’ll see you. And I’ll call you this afternoon, about the shoes.”

She walked off down the sidewalk and Lucas got in the car and started it. He watched her through the windshield for a moment and she looked back and smiled.

“Hmph,” he grunted. He rolled down the street until he was beside her, pulled over, and rolled down the passenger-side window.

“Forget something?” she asked, leaning over the window.

“What kind of music do you listen to?”

“What?” She seemed confused.

“Do you like rock?”

“Sure.”

“Want to go see Aerosmith tomorrow night? With me? Get you out of your apartment?”

“Oh. Well. Okay. What time?” She wasn’t smiling but she was definitely interested.

“Pick you up at six. We’ll get something to eat.”

“Sure,” she said. “See you.” She waved and stepped back from the car. Lucas made an illegal U-turn and headed back toward the Interstate. As he pulled away, he glanced in his
rearview mirror and saw her looking after him. It was silly, but he thought he felt their eyes touch.

Sister Mary Joseph had grown up as Elle Kruger on the near north side of Minneapolis, a block from the house where Lucas was born. They started grade school the same autumn, their mothers walking them down the cracked sidewalks together, past the tall green hedges and through the red brick arches of St. Agnes Elementary. Elle still ran through Lucas’ dreams. She was a lovely slender blonde girl, the most popular kid in the class with both the pupils and the teachers, the fastest runner on the playground. At the blackboard, she regularly thrashed the class in multiplication races. Lucas usually finished second. In the spelldowns, it was Lucas who won, Elle who finished second.

Lucas left St. Agnes halfway through fifth grade, after the death of his father. He and his mother moved down to the south side and Lucas started at public school. Later, at a hockey tournament, he was warming up, swinging down the ice, and he stopped on the opponents’ side of the rink to adjust his skates. She was there in the crowd, with a group of girls from Holy Spirit High. She had not seen him, or not recognized him in his hockey gear. He stood transfixed, appalled.

It had been six years. Other girls, gawky as she had been beautiful, had blossomed. Elle had not. Her face was pitted and scarred by acne. Her cheeks, her forehead, her chin were crossed with fiery red lines of infection. The small part of her face free of scarring was as coarse as sandpaper from attempts at treatment.

Lucas skated away, around the rink toward the home bench, Elle’s face bobbing in his mind. A few minutes later, the players for the two teams were introduced and he skated out to center ice, his name booming from the public-address system, unable
not
to look, and found her grave eyes following him.

After the match he was clumping toward the tunnel to the locker rooms when he saw her standing on the other side of
the barricade. When their eyes met her hand came up and fluttered at him and he stopped and reached across the barrier and took her hand and said, “Can you wait for me? Twenty minutes, outside?”

“Yes.”

He drove her home after a tour of southern and western Minneapolis. They talked as they had when they were children, laughing in the dark car. At her house, she hopped out and ran up to the porch. The light came on, and her father stepped out.

“Dad, do you remember Lucas Davenport, he used to live down the street?”

“Sure, how are you, son?” her father said. There was a sad edge to his voice. He asked Lucas in and he sat for another half-hour, talking to Elle’s parents, before he left.

As he walked out to the curb, she called him from her bedroom window on the second floor of the house, her head backlit against the flowered wallpaper.

“Lucas?”

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t come back,” she said, and shut the window.

He heard from her next a year and a half later, a week before graduation. She called to tell him that she was entering a convent.