Mind Prey

Hennepin County Government Center. A helicopter sat in the middle of the plaza, blades turning, and a TV crew was shooting film of it. When the cameraman saw the three running cops, he turned, and the camera followed them to the chopper.
    “Let’s go,” Lucas said to the pilot.
    “Where?”
    “Down toward Eagan. Fast as you can.”

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    T HE CHOPPER TOOK off head-down, Lucas’s stomach clutching as the black-visored pilot poured on the power and threw the machine out of the loop. They crossed I-94, rising over the tumult of the early rush hour, then projected out over the Mississippi and down the valley, past a tow with a barge, past a solitary powerboat running full-out on twin outboards, and past Lucas’s house on Mississippi River Drive. Del tapped him on the shoulder and pointed down, past the pilot, and Lucas pushed up against the safety belt and saw his house, in strobelike flashes between the brilliant autumn maples, and Weather’s car slowly backing out of the driveway. He felt the cut in the palm of his hand, looked down, and found the ring. Weather: Jesus. He strained to see her, but the car was out of sight, lost in the trees.
    “I’ll take us right down to the I-35 intersection with Highway 55. We’ll orbit there until we get better directions,” the pilot said. “I got maps.”
    She handed Lucas a spiral-bound book of Metro area maps, and Lucas held it between his legs. Del, in back, said, “What if this is some kind of dead-drop, like the computer shop?”
    Lucas shook his head. “Then they’re gone, Manette and the kids.” He looked at his watch. “We may be too late now. We’re an hour and fifteen minutes from when he called me. He could make it down there in forty-five minutes, except for the traffic tangles. We gotta hope that he takes her on one last time.”
    The pilot looked at him. “You gotta hope he takes her on…you mean, rapes her?”
    “Yeah, that’s what he’s been doing,” Lucas said. “It’s better than death.”
    “Ah, my God,” the pilot said. She turned away from him, and sent the chopper in a sickening swoop toward a twisted intersection below. “That’s it, there. Look at that mess. Jeez, what happened?”
    Below them, traffic was tied up in all directions, and blue lights winked through the worst jam Lucas had ever seen. “They’re doing it, they’re tying it up,” he said, and he had to laugh, once, a short bark. “They’ll be two hours getting that loose again. Maybe we got a chance. Maybe we got a chance.”
    Lucas found the map for the intersection as they orbited, once, twice, then again, like a bee in a bottle; and Del explained the interrogation scene to Sherrill.
    “So where in the heck is Franklin?” Sherrill asked.
    “Five minutes to the Manettes’ house,” Lucas said. “He oughta be calling.”
    “What’s gonna happen to this guy?” the pilot asked.
    “Gonna chain him in the basement of the state hospital,” Lucas said. “Throw him a cheeseburger once a week.”
    “Better to shoot him,” she said.
    Lucas said, “Shhh,” and they went around again.
    Sherrill, huddled in the back, was greener than Lucas. “If Franklin doesn’t call quick, I’m gonna blow a corn dog all over our pilot.”
    “Don’t do that,” the pilot said. Then: “I’ll try to smooth things out.”
    Sherrill said, “C’mon, Franklin, you asshole, call.”
    And Franklin came then, patched through from Dispatch: “Lucas, we got it. His name is LaDoux. He’s just north of Farmington, about a mile off Pilot Knob Road on Native American Trail. I got the address here.”
    Lucas found the map as Franklin read out the address, and the pilot poured it on, heading south.
    And Franklin asked, “What about Miz Manette? I mean, this one?”
    “Take her back downtown, get her a lawyer,” Lucas said.
    Del, from the backseat, shouted, “And read her rights to her.”
    Sherrill, marginally more cheerful, also shouting: “Yeah, we want it to be on the up-and-up.”
    Lucas, ignoring them, was talking to Dispatch. “Can you get us closer? These street numbers don’t mean anything up here.”
    “Yeah, we’re looking for the mailman on that route, and we’ve alerted Dakota County, but they don’t have a lot of assets down there.”
    “I know, I can see them all from here,” Lucas said. Down below, roof racks were lighting up the major intersections for miles, and he could see cops on the streets, peering into southbound cars. “But get some going