Broken Prey

and Phil Stone, the paper’s attorney. White nodded and said, “It’s a problem,” and Stone said, “You guys look like I feel.”
    “I was sleeping like a baby,” Lucas said. “What’re we doing?”
    “Ruffe is putting together the maximum story that we have,” White said. “You have no approval over it at all. We decide what goes in and what stays out. We’re telling you what we have in advance so we don’t . . . mmm . . . step on some aspect of the investigation.”
    Lucas looked at Stone, who smiled the way an attorney smiles: with his lips.
    “Good of you,” Lucas said. “Could we get Ruffe to give us a couple of printouts of what he has?”
    Ignace looked at White, who nodded, and he hit a button on his keyboard. A printer started humming in the quiet background, and Ignace said, “Fifteen seconds.” The young man who’d brought them up said, “I’ll get them.” He headed for the printer.
    Lucas asked Ignace, “What time did the call come in?”
    Ignace, pitching up his voice: “I think there’s a real question of how much cooperation we owe you guys . . .”
    Lucas put his hands in his pants pockets, sighed, and said, “Ruffe, I’ve sat around with newspaper guys for years having philosophical discussions about this kind of thing, and I’d be happy to talk to you, but we, all of us . . .” Lucas gestured to White and Stone “. . . have sort of worked out an understanding. You don’t help me investigate, so you stay pure, but you don’t fight me on what might help catch a criminal, if I’m going to get the information anyway. If I have to, I can take you in for questioning, we can get lawyers and judges working on it, we can get the paper all kinds of bad publicity and maybe sued by some future victim, and I’ll get the information anyway and all you’ll have done is delay things in favor of the asshole who’s killing these people. Is that what you want to talk about?”
    “He’s not talking about that,” Stone said genially.
    “Yes, I was,” Ignace said.
    “No, you’re not,” Stone said. The young man came back with copies of the story printout, and Lucas and Sloan took them. Lucas scanned it, then said, “What time did the call come in?”
    “A few minutes before eleven o’clock,” White said. “We don’t know the exact minute.”
    Lucas to Ignace: “Was it direct-dial or did it come in through the switchboard?”
    “Probably switchboard,” Ignace said, with a show of reluctance. “We’re not listed individually.”
    Sloan said to Lucas, “I’ll get it.” He stepped away and took a cell phone out of his jacket pocket.
    Stone frowned and asked, “What’s wrong with Sloan?”
    “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t shake hands,” Lucas said. To Ignace: “He said he might call back?”
    “That’s what he said.” Ignace had gotten past his pro-forma objections and was enjoying himself now. He said to White, “I think we should get something for all this cooperation. Some kind of access.”
    White lifted an eyebrow, and Lucas said, “We’ll take care of you, one way or another. You know.”
    She nodded, and Lucas asked Ignace, “How did he sound? He’s supposed to be sort of a shit kicker . . .”
    “His voice was weird. He says Rice kicked him in the throat, he didn’t say when or how . . . so he whispered. It all sounded like . . . something you’d see in a movie. Hoarse whisper.”
    “How about his language?”
    “I took it down verbatim,” Ignace said. He took his notebook off his desk, and Lucas saw that it was covered with shorthand. Despite himself, he was impressed—the kid had some tools. “You want me to read it, word for word?”
    “We don’t have much time here,” White said, looking at her watch. “You got a problem with the story?”
    “If you want to print the penis thing, that’s up to you,” Lucas said. “I think it’s in bad taste. The usual formula is ‘mutilated,’ but I don’t see why you’d want to put this in so Rice’s mother can read it, after she has lost both her son and her grandson.”
    White said to Ignace, “Change it.”
    “Man . . .”
    “We’ve got no time,” White said. “Change it.”
    Ignace’s hand rattled across the keyboard, then he asked Lucas, “Do you have an official comment?”
    “You can say, ‘Davenport said authorities will immediately begin investigating the Star-Tribune report and indicated that there are aspects of inside information in the