Eyes of Prey

his thinning hair, his face caught between anger and confusion. “Tell me the truth: Have you been feeding stuff to Channel Eight?”
    “No. I’ve been working a woman from TV3 . . . .”
    “Yeah, yeah, I know about that. Nothing going to Eight?”
    “No. Honest to God,” Lucas said. “What happened?”
    Daniel dropped into the visitor’s chair. “I got a call from Jon Ayres over at Channel Eight. He says he has a source who tells them that we’ve got a suspect under surveillance and we’re about to make a bust. I denied it. They said they had it pretty solid. I still denied it and told them that false stories could damage our investigation. The guy got huffy, we passed some more bullshit, and he said he’d think about it . . . .”
    “That means they’re going to use it,” Lucas said urgently. “You’ve got to call the station manager.”
    “Too late,” Daniel said. He pointed at the wall clock. Twelve-fifteen. “It was the lead story on the noon news.”
    “Sonofabitch,” Lucas groaned.
    “I know, I know . . . .”
     
    Del stopped by late in the day. “We hit it off and now I can’t shut her up about Bekker. She’s insisting that I investigate him. The problem is, she doesn’t know much.”
    “Like nothing?”
    “She thinks he might be on some kind of speed. He gets weird. And here’s something: He does have a thing about eyes.”
    “He does?” Lucas leaned forward. This was something. “What?”
    “Remember how she told us that he liked to humiliate her? Force her to do blow jobs and so on? When she was doing them, he’d always make her hold her head so he could look in her eyes. Used to say something about the eyes being the hallway to the soul, or something like that . . .”
    “ ‘These lovely lamps, these windows of the soul . . .’ ” Lucas quoted.
    “Who said that?”
    “Can’t remember. I once took a poetry course at Metro State, I remember it from that.”
    “Well, he’s apparently got a thing for them. He still scares her, when she sees him around the hospital.”
    “Does she have any idea what he’s doing now?”
    “No. Want me to ask?”
    “Yeah. You’ll be seeing her again, huh?”
    “Sure, if you want me to pump her some more,” Del said.
    “I wasn’t thinking about that,” Lucas said. “I was thinking . . . you look pretty good.”
     
    Bekker learned about the police surveillance from Druze. He half expected a call, to warn of a third killing, and every few hours he checked the answering machine.
    “TV report on Channel Eight says the cops are doing surveillance on a suspect,” Druze said without identifying himself. “I’ve been watching and I don’t think it’s me.” And he was gone.
    What? Bekker couldn’t focus, and played it again.
    “TV report on Channel Eight . . .”
    Surveillance? Bekker reset the tape, his mind working furiously. If they were watching Druze and had seen him make this call, would they be able to trace it? He thought not, yet he wasn’t sure. But it was unlikely that they would be watching Druze—how would they get to him? The alleged picture? Perhaps.
    It was more likely that he was the one being watched, if it wasn’t just some kind of TV fantasy. The image of the student in the men’s room came to him, and the second one at the library . . . .
    Not military shoes, he said to himself. Cop shoes . . .

CHAPTER
22
    The weather patterns were seesawing across the state, Canadian cold and Gulf heat. Druze felt as if he was breathing water. Thunderstorms prowled western Minnesota; TV weathermen said they’d be into the metro area before nine o’clock. From the interstate, Druze could see lightning to the north and west. The storm was too far away for the thunder to be heard.
    Maplewood Mall was the northeastern shopping anchor for St. Paul, out in the suburbs. Low crime, high affluence. Boys in letter jackets, teenage girls trying out their new slinks.
    Druze cruised the parking lot, watching the shoppers. He wanted a woman leaving the mall. Forties, so she’d fit the profile. If he could get her at the right place, he wouldn’t have to move her. Do it right in the parking lot, leave her there. The quicker she was found, the quicker the cops would be turned.
    He stopped at a cross-drive and a woman walked in front of his headlights; she wore a cardigan, slacks and high heels, held a purse with both hands, a determined look on her face. A little too old, Druze thought, and