“What does Ruiz think?”
“She seems to be willing. Or I could talk her into it. We could set it up just the way we talked about. That’d keep all the newsies busy while we work on Smithe.”
“Do it. And get down here. We’re going to meet at ten.”
“Come on out,” he hollered. He stepped into the hallway and noticed the bathroom door was open. He walked swiftly to the bedroom and pushed the door open. Jennifer was screwing the mouthpiece back on the phone.
“I needed one more minute,” she said. It wasn’t an apology.
“Goddammit, Jennifer,” Lucas said in exasperation.
“I don’t take orders about news stuff. Not from cops,” she said, tightening the mouthpiece and replacing it on the receiver.
“We gotta work something out,” he said, hands on his hips. “What’d you hear?”
“You’ve got a suspect. He’s gay. That’s all. And about Ruiz.”
“You can’t use it.”
“Don’t tell me—”
“You might think that listening on my private line is something that a real hard news broad would do, but your lawyers wouldn’t think it’s so cute. Or the station, after they thought about it. The state news council might have a few words about it too. And to tell you the truth, I kind of think this gay guy might not be the right one. If he’s not, and you constructively identify him, he’ll be the new owner of the station after the libel suit.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Jennifer, if we’re going to have a kid together, we can’t play mind games anymore. I’ve got to trust you. On the cases I’m working on, you only use what I say is okay.”
“I don’t make that kind of deal.”
“You better start or we’re going to have trouble. We’ll both be sitting around afraid to talk to each other. Besides, it only applies to the cases I’m working on.”
She thought it over. “We’ll figure something out,” she said noncommittally. “I won’t cover for you. If I come up with a tip from another source, I’ll use it.”
“Okay.”
“It won’t be so much of a problem when I start producing,” Jennifer said. “I’ll be concentrating on longer-range stuff. Not police stuff.”
“That’d be better for both of us. But what about this thing? Will you hold off for now?”
“What about this Ruiz woman?”
“I already called her, while you were in the shower. She says she’ll do it. We should be able to set something up for tonight. You heard Daniel, he says to go ahead.”
Jennifer thought it over and finally nodded. “Okay. Deal. I’ll hold off on the suspect as long as you promise that I get the first break. If there’s a break.”
“I promise you’ll share it.”
“God damn, Lucas . . .”
“Jennifer . . .”
“This is going to be hard,” she said. “Okay. For now. I’ll give you notice if I think I have to change my mind.”
He nodded. “I’ll call Ruiz again and set up a specific time.”
“The guy’s name is Jimmy Smithe,” Anderson told him as they walked down the hall to the meeting room. “I pulled his personnel file out of the computers and ran it against the psychological profile the shrinks put together and the information we developed. There are some matches.”
“How about misses?” Lucas asked. “Does he come from the Southwest?”
“No. As far as I can tell, he was born and raised here in Minnesota, went to the University of Michigan, worked in Detroit for a while, spent some time in New York, and came back here to take a job in welfare.”
“You run his sheet?”
“Nothing serious. When he was seventeen the Stillwater cops gave him a ticket for possession of a small amount of marijuana.”
“What’s his rep with welfare?”
“Sloan says it’s pretty good. Smithe is gay, all right, doesn’t hide it, but he doesn’t flaunt it either. He’s smart. He gets along with other people in his department, including the guys. He’s up for a promotion to supervisor.”
“I don’t know, man. He doesn’t sound tight enough.”
“He’s there physically. And we can put him with two people.”
When Lucas and Anderson arrived, Daniel was talking to the other eight cops in the room.
“I don’t want the word to get out of this group,” he said. “We’ve got to take a close look at this guy without anybody knowing.”
He poked a heavy finger at Sloan.
“You hit the neighborhood. Tell them it’s a security investigation for a job offer with the department. If we need to back it up, I’ll come up with some bullshit about a liaison officer between police and the gay community on AIDS and other problems. What the police can do to help, sensitivity training, all that. They ought to buy it.”
“Okay.” Sloan nodded.
“Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” Lucas said.
“We’ve got enough gays of our own without going outside,” Daniel said. He poked a finger at Anderson. “Find out everything you can and cross-check it with the other victims. We’ve got him with Ruiz. See if we can match up somewhere else.
“Now, you guys,” he said to the other six detectives, “are going to watch every move he makes. Two guys all the time, round the clock. Overtime, no problem. You see an eighty-year-old society lady getting gang-banged, you call it in and forget it. You never take your eyes off this motherfucker. You got that? Smithe is the only priority. And I want fifteen-minute checks on location. Call it into Anderson during the day, the duty officer at night.”
“My husband’s going to love this,” one of the women cops muttered.
“Fuck your husband,” said Daniel.
“I’d like to,” said the cop, “but people keep putting me on nights.”
When the meeting broke, he asked Lucas to stay behind.
“You got the Ruiz thing fixed?”
“Yeah. I talked to her just before I came in. We’ll do it tonight, at her place. Six o’clock. She’s willing, if it’ll help, and it’ll cool out Carey.”
“I hope your dick isn’t getting you in trouble with that woman.”
“It’s under control,” Lucas said. “I’ll tip the papers and the TV people that you’ll be calling a press conference. And I’ll talk to the papers about doing their interviews at the same time Carey does hers. We’ll be back over here for the press conference at nine. Afterward, I’m going to head up to my cabin for a couple of days. I’ve got some time coming.”
“Jesus, this isn’t such a good time for a vacation.”
“I’ve got things covered. I’ll leave my number with the shift commander if you need me.”
“Okay, but tonight prep Ruiz for making some kind of appeal for cooperation, will you? You know the stuff.” Daniel leaned back in his chair, put one foot on his desk, looked at his wall of photographs, and changed the subject. “You know what we need.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll tell Anderson to give you location checks. We already know he lives alone. It’s a little house down by Lake Harriet.”
“Not far from where Lewis worked. The real-estate woman.”
“We thought of that,” Daniel said. “He didn’t buy the house from her agency, though.”
“Look. Don’t get too far out front on this thing, okay? I mean you personally,” Lucas said. “If there’s a leak to the press, tell them that you’re looking at a guy, but you think it’s thin.”
“You don’t believe it?”
“I’ve got a bad feeling.”
“Can you get something going this afternoon? That might tell us something.”
“I’ll give it a shot.”
Nobody said anything about a bag job.
From his office, Lucas called the newspapers and television stations and tipped friends that Daniel would be calling a press conference. He talked separately to assignment editors from both papers and suggested that they keep a soft-touch reporter around late, that there’d be a good next-day story breaking around six o’clock.
That done, he got Smithe’s address and phone number from Anderson and found the house on a city map. He knew the neighborhood. He thought about it for a minute, pursing his lips, then opened the bottom drawer of his desk, reached far into the back, and found the lock rake. It was battery-operated, roughly the same shape but only half the size of an electric drill, with two prongs sticking out where the drill bit would have been. One prong was bent, the other straight. Lucas unscrewed the butt cap, reversed the batteries into working position, and squeezed the trigger. The picks rattled for a second and he released the pressure and sighed.