Rules of Prey by John Sandford Read Free Book Online Page A

moaning about it, because they always do, but they’ll go along. Besides, I don’t care what they think. Their asses aren’t on the line. Mine is. I come up for new term next year and I don’t need this sitting on my back,” Daniel said.
    “I’ve got full access?”
    “I talked to Lester. He’ll cooperate. He really will.” Lucas nodded. Frank Lester was the deputy chief for investigations and a former head of robbery-homicide.
    “I’ll want to talk to this artist,” Lucas said.
    Daniel nodded. “The woman doesn’t have a pot to piss in. We had to get her a phone two days after she was attacked. Just in case the guy comes back after her. Here’s her number and address.” He handed Lucas a slip of paper.
    Lucas tucked the slip in his pants pocket. “They’re processing this Nokomis killing now?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I better get down there.” He stood and started for the door, stopped and half-turned. “You really didn’t think I did it?”
    Daniel shook his head. “I’ve seen you around women. I didn’t think you could do that to them. But I had to know for sure.”
    Lucas started to turn away again, but Daniel stopped him.
    “And, Davenport?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Be here for the press conference, okay? Dress just like that, the tennis shirt and the khakis. You got any jeans? Jeans might be better. Those whatdaya call them, acid jeans?”
    “I could change on the way back. I got some stone-washed.”
    “Whatever. You know how that TV puss goes for the street-cop routine. What’s your title again?”
    “Office of Special Intelligence.”
    The chief snapped his fingers, nodded, and scrawled “OSI” on his desk pad. “See you at nine,” he said.
     
    Jeannie Lewis lay on the narrow bed with her hands bound up over her head, where they were taped to the headboard. A look of inexpressible agony held her face, her mouth locked open by the Kotex pad stuffed between her jaws, her eyes rolled so far back that nothing but the whites could be seen beneath the half-closed lids. Her back was arched from the pressure of the bonds, the nipples of her small breasts pointing left and right, nearly white in death. Her ankles were bound to the opposite corners at the foot of the bed, but she had managed to roll her thin legs inward, a final effort to protect herself. The knife still protruded from the top of her abdomen, just below the sternum, its handle almost flat against her stomach. It had been slipped in at an acute angle, to more directly penetrate the heart without complications of bone or muscle.
    “Pushed it in and wiggled it,” said the assistant medical examiner. “We can tell more after the autopsy, but that’s what it looks like. Just a little entry slit, but a lot of damage around the heart.”
    “Professional?” asked Lucas. “A doctor?”
    “I wouldn’t go that far. I don’t want to mislead you. But it’s somebody who knows what he’s doing. He knows where the heart is. We want to leave the knife in place until we get downtown and take some pictures, X rays, but from the look of the handle, I’d say it’s about the most efficient knife forthe work. Narrow point, sharp, rigid blade, fairly thin. It’d slip right in.”
    Lucas stepped over to the bed and looked at the knife handle. It was smooth, unfinished wood. “County Cork Cutlery” was branded on the wood.
    “County Cork Cutlery?”
    “Forget it. There’s a whole drawer full of it, out in the kitchen.”
    “So he got it here.”
    “I think so. I did the first woman he killed, Lucy What’s-her-name. He did her with a plastic-handled knife, nothing like this one.”
    “Where’s the note?”
    “In the baggie, over on the chest of drawers. We’re sending it to the lab, see if they can print it.”
    Lucas stepped over to the chest and looked at the note. Common notebook paper. Even if there were six pads of it in a suspect’s home, it would prove nothing. The words were cut from a newspaper and fastened to the paper with