Buried Prey

his contention that there were almost certainly more dead girls.
    During the afternoon, Del found four successor companies to the ones who took charges from Fell. “We were right—they were porn and sex toys,” he told Lucas. “None of them have records from back then. Just too long ago.”
    During the afternoon, too, seven calls came in for Lucas, based on the Channel Three broadcast, with tips on people who resembled John Fell. Minneapolis got twelve more.
    Lucas worked biographies on all of them during the afternoon, pulling criminal records, driver’s licenses, credit reports, personal histories. Four had minor criminal records, none for sex. Judging from driver’s license photos and data, two of the seven didn’t have dark hair, and four, including one of the brown-haired candidates, were too young. He was left with two possibilities, and he didn’t have much faith in either.
    He talked to Marcy Sherrill, who said of the twelve tips they got, three were still considered possibilities. “We’ll have more calls coming in overnight,” she said. “I figure the chances we’ll get him are like four to one, against.”
    “That’s about right,” Lucas said. “But if he’s still around, we’re gonna scare the shit out of him. That might get us somewhere.”
    He took another tip, shifted up by the BCA operator. A man who said, “I don’t want to say my name, but the guy you want is named Robert Sherman. He’s a sex freak and he’s the spitting image of the guy on TV, and he’s the right age—early fifties.”
    Lucas checked the number: the guy was calling from a bar.
    The guy said, “He lives on Iowa Avenue. In St. Paul.”
    And was gone.
    Lucas looked at his watch: he could hit Iowa on the way home, check the guy out. Or maybe after dinner . . .
    He did a quick dip into the driver’s license records, decided the guy did look like Fell, but Fell with a mustache. He got an address and date of birth, went out to NCIC to check criminal records, found nothing.
    No record, but he was a sex freak?
    Called Del on his cell. “What’re you doing?”
    “I’m on my way home for dinner. What’s up?”
    “You got time after dinner to make a quick stop up in north St. Paul?”
    “Sure, as long as I don’t get shot. What’re you doing?”
    “Going home,” Lucas said. “But I got a guy I want to look at. Pick you up at your place, at seven?”
    “See you then.”
     
     
    HE WAS HOME by six; watched the KARE broadcast with Letty and Weather.
    “All in all,” Lucas told them, “a fairly satisfactory day. We’ve got the guy’s nuts in a vise.”
    “Lucas, watch the language,” Weather said.
    The housekeeper stuck her head in from the kitchen: “Everybody come on. Food’s getting cold.”
    “Okay, testicles,” Lucas said, as they all headed for the dining room.
    “What do you think about the whole concept of nuts-in-a-vise?” Letty asked.
    “Letty . . .” Weather began.
    Letty said to her mother, “Something I’m curious about. You see these movies where a guy gets racked in the nuts, and they fall down. But I once shot a guy and he didn’t fall down. In fact, he walked away. So what I want to know is, is racking a guy in the nuts really that powerful? Or is that a myth? I mean, what if I’m attacked someday? Should I kick the guy in the nuts, or what?”
    Weather said, “Speaking as a medical doctor . . .”
    Lucas waved her down and focused on his daughter. “Here’s the thing. If you give a guy a really good shot in the nuts—like, if he doesn’t see you coming, and you kick him from behind, right in the crotch, you’re gonna hurt him. He’s gonna hurt bad.
    “But—and this is what you need to know: First, guys whack themselves in the nuts every once in a while, by accident, from the time they’re young. We develop really good reflexes for protecting ourselves. You try to kick a guy in the nuts from the front, all he has to do is flinch, and you wind up kicking him in the leg, instead. And, you piss him off.
    “Second, when you hit a guy in the nuts, from the front, even if you give him a solid shot, it takes a couple of seconds for the full reaction. You don’t drop him like a sack of . . . rocks. And what you’ve done, by kicking him, is you’ve gotten close enough that he can get his hands on you. And no matter how bad his nuts hurt, he can hang on to you. And he can kill you. With all the pain, he is seriously pissed, and he just might do that.
    “Thing to