Night Prey

coffee dribble into a cup, and Lucas didn’t know quite what to say. So he said, “There’s a lot more paper than I thought there’d be. I hope we can get through it.”
    “We will,” Connell said. She sipped her coffee and watched Lucas’s dribble into the second cup. “I can’t believe you figured that out. I can’t see how it occurred to you to check.”
    Lucas thought of Weather’s ass, grinned, and said, “It sorta came to me.”
    “You know, when I first saw you, I thought you were a suit. You know, a suit ,” she said. “Big guy, kind of neat-looking in a jockstrap way, buys good suits, gets along with the ladies, backslaps the good old boys, and he cruises to the top.”
    “Change your mind?”
    “Partially,” she said. She said it pensively, as though it were an academic question. “I still think there might be some of that—but now I think that, in some ways, you’re smarter than I am. Not a suit.”
    Lucas was embarrassed. “I don’t think I’m smarter than you are,” he mumbled.
    “Don’t take the compliment too seriously,” Connell said dryly. “I said in some ways. In other ways, you’re still a suit.”

    AT SIX O’CLOCK in the morning, with the flat early light cutting sharp through the window like summer icicles, Greave looked up from a stack of paper, rubbed his reddened eyes, and said, “Here’s something pretty interesting.”
    “Yeah?” Lucas looked up. They had seven possibilities, none particularly inspiring. One cop, one security guard.
    “Guy named Robert Koop. He was a prison guard until six years ago. Drives a ’92 Chevy S-10, red over white, no security agreement, net purchase price of $17,340.”
    “Sounds like a possibility,” Connell said.
    “If he was a prison guard, he probably doesn’t have the big bucks,” Greave said, as though he were thinking aloud. “He says he works at a gym called Two Guy’s. . . .”
    “I know the place,” Lucas said.
    “And he declares income of fifteen thousand a year since he left the prison. Where does he get off driving a new seventeen-thousand-dollar truck? And he paid cash, over a seven-thousand-dollar trade-in.”
    “Huh.” Lucas came over to look at the printout, and Connell heaved herself out of her chair. “Lives in Apple Valley. Houses out there probably average what, one-fifty?”
    “One-fifty for a house and a seventeen-thousand-dollar truck is pretty good, on fifteen thousand a year.”
    “Probably skips lunch,” Greave said.
    “Several times a day,” Lucas said. “Where’s his license information?”
    “Right here . . .” Greave folded over several sheets, found it.
    “Five-eight, one-ninety,” Lucas said. “Short and heavy.”
    “Maybe short and strong,” Connell said. “Like our guy.”
    “What’s his plate number?” Anderson called. His hands were playing across his keyboard. They had limited access to intelligence division’s raw data files. Lucas read it off the title application, and Anderson punched it into the computer.
    A second later he said, surprise in his voice, “Jesus, we got a hit.”
    “What?” This was the first they’d had. Lucas and Connell drifted over to Anderson to look over his shoulder. When the file came up, they found a long list of license plates picked up outside Steve’s Fireside City. Intelligence believed that the stove and fireplace store was a front for a fence, but never got enough to make an arrest.
    “High-level fence,” Lucas said, reading between the lines of the intelligence report. “Somebody who would be moving jewelry, Rolexes, that kind of thing. No stereos or VCRs.”
    “Maybe he was buying a fireplace,” Greave said.
    “Couldn’t afford one, after the truck,” Lucas said. He took his phone book out of his coat pocket, thumbed through it. “Tommy Smythe, Tommy . . .” He picked up a telephone and dialed, and a moment later said, “Mrs. Smythe? This is Lucas Davenport, Minneapolis Police. Sorry to bother you, but I need to talk to Tommy . . .
    Oh, jeez, I’m sorry . . . Yeah, thanks.” He scribbled a new number in the notebook.
    “Divorced,” he said to Connell.
    “Who is he?”
    “Deputy warden at Stillwater. We went to school together . . . He’s another suit.” He dialed again, waited. “Tommy? Lucas Davenport. Yeah, I know what time it is, I’ve been up all night. Do you remember a guard out at Stillwater, six years ago, named Robert Koop? Resigned?”
    Smythe, his voice rusty with sleep, remembered.