Stolen Prey

“It’s your copper.”
    Del said, “Bronze.”
    The guy on the floor moaned, “Man, that smarts. That really fuckin’ hurts.”
    They sat all three of them down and read them their rights, and gave the glasses guy a bunch of paper shop towels to squeeze against his bloody nose. Jenkins wandered over to the pile of metal, peered at it for a moment, then pulled out a semi-sphere the size of a soccer ball and said, “Look, a tit.” To Anderson, “How could you do that?”
    Anderson said, “With a Sawzall.”
    Del called for help from South St. Paul, and five minutes later two squads were parked outside. The three would be booked into the Ramsey County Jail.
    “Four million bucks,” Del said, looking at the scrap. “State Farm is gonna be really unhappy. They’re holding the policy on it.”
    T HEY WERE going through the rigmarole of handing the guys off to South St. Paul when Lucas’s phone rang, and he looked at the screen and saw that it was from an old friend, James T. Bone.
    Bone was president of the third-largest bank in Minneapolis, after Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank. Lucas touched the answer button and said, “Hey, T-Bone. What’s up?”
    “I’ve got a problem, and it could be serious,” Bone said. “Are you at your office?”
    “No, I’m down in South St. Paul, arresting some guys,” Lucas said.
    “Damnit. Well, this is the thing. I saw on television that you’re involved in this murder out in Wayzata,” Bone said.
    “Some,” Lucas said. “I’m not running it.”
    “That’s good enough,” Bone said. “I’ve got a vice president named Richard Pruess. He’s about six tiers down and he’s involved in a bunch of investment funds. Basically, he’s a salesman. If a customer is big enough, and wants an investment adviser, Richard sets that up.”
    “What does that have to do with Wayzata?” Lucas asked.
    “Pruess is missing,” Bone said. “He didn’t come to work today. He’s been sick some, I guess—I don’t see him much, myself. Anyway, he’s been under the weather for a few days, but still working. Today he didn’t show up at all, and he didn’t call in. He had a couple of meetings scheduled and hung up some customers. His supervisor tried to contact him, but couldn’t. His cell phonekeeps kicking us over to the answering service. He’s gay, somebody in the office knew his partner, and his partner said Pruess was getting ready for work this morning, he was fine, when the partner left. The partner went back to their apartment and Pruess isn’t there.”
    “You call the cops? I mean, other cops?” Lucas asked.
    “No, I decided to come straight to you. The reason is, you know … Pruess used to work with Candace Brooks. She was his assistant.”
    “What?”
Lucas had been watching the copper thieves being put into the back of the squads, but now he walked away, across the oily dirt outside the shed.
    “That’s why I decided to call you,” Bone said. “Candace Brooks worked here until a year ago, or fifteen months. Something like that—I don’t have her file yet. She had an assistant VP job in Pruess’s office. I didn’t know that myself—I just heard it from Sandy Bernstein, who runs that end of things. Anyway, I’m wondering if there might be something going on.”
    “Jesus, Jim, I hope not, but there might be,” Lucas said. “Listen, we’re going to a full-court press on this. If you hear from this guy, call me right away. I’ll be there quick as I can. Another guy’s actually running the investigation, his name is Bob Shaffer. I’m gonna call him, I’m sure he’ll want to be there. And some DEA guys, and even a Mexican Federale.”
    “You think it’s dope?” Bone asked.
    “I’m afraid it could be. I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, here, maybe your guy’s just out getting a haircut, but this business out in Wayzata … it’s bad as it can get,” Lucas said. “We can’t let this go, we can’t wait. We’ve got to find out if it’s related.”
    “I really don’t need any of this money-laundering bullshit dropped on us,” Bone said.
    “I can’t help what falls on you, if it’s anything,” Lucas said. “But this Pruess guy could be in the worst kind of trouble. The worst kind. I can’t even begin to tell you…. Listen, I’ll see you in an hour or so.”
    “See you then,” Bone said. “I’ll do some poking around, maybe I’ll turn something up.”
    Lucas got off the phone and told Del, “I gotta go, man, I gotta