John Sandford by 10. Certain Prey (1999)

Author:10. Certain Prey (1999) [Prey, 10. Certain]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-11-06T01:14:01+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Lucas was sitting in his office, pushing deeper into the Equality Report.

Reading the perfect, politically correct prose had become a Zen-like exercise.

The words flowed softly and without meaning through his brain, an unending stream of nonsense syllables that eventually metamorphosed into a cosmic hum, and allowed other ideas to bubble up.

He was on page ninety-four when Carmel knocked. He thought it was Sloan: ‘Yeah, for Christ’s sakes, come in.’

Carmel opened the door and stuck her head in. Surprised, Lucas stood up. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘I thought it was somebody else.’

‘A little mistake like that is nothing compared to what you’re gonna get into,’

Carmel said, stepping into the office, pushing the door closed. She put one fist on her hip and said, ‘A little birdie told me you stuck my face into a photo spread on that Dinkytown murder. The Blanca chick and the other guy. I want to know why’

‘We were looking for photographs of long-legged blondes, and you were available,’ Lucas said, his voice flat.

‘Bullshit,1 she said. Her mouth was like a short stretch of barbed-wire. She dropped into the visitor’s chair opposite him, and stretched her legs out, but didn’t really settle in: she was like a spring, all squeezed down and about to explode. ‘So why? You are fucking with me, and if I don’t get a good reason, I’ll see you in court and let the judge ask you why.’

Lucas nodded: ‘It’d be an interesting lawsuit. I don’t know what you could possibly sue us for…’

‘Some of the best civil lawyers in the U.S. fuckin’ A. sit down the hall from me, and I don’t doubt that they could find ten reasons that a judge would like,’

she said, her voice glassy-edged. ‘For one thing, I represented Rolando D’Aquila and several of his associates in the past, and now you’re hauling my picture around and showing it to people around this crime. Are you trying to discredit me as an attorney? It might seem so …’

‘All right, you’re smarter than I am, Carmel,’ Lucas said. ‘You want the real reason? The reason is that a witness who probably saw the killers described one of the women in a way that you resemble. And you admitted to several people that you knew and represented Rolando D’Aquila, and not only that, that you were representing a man suspected of hiring somebody to kill his wife - a murder committed by the same person or persons who committed the D’Aquila killing. So far, you are the only connection we can find between the killing of Barbara Allen and the killing of the other three. And that’s why we took the photos around; and if you don’t like it…’ ‘What?’ ‘Tough shit.’

They sat staring at each other for a few seconds, then Carmel smiled quickly and said, ‘All right. I wanted to know.’ She stood up to leave. ‘I didn’t have anything to do with any of these killings. I’ve been trying to work out in my head how they could have happened, and I can’t come up with anything.

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