Why didnt you tell me this Saturday? asked Sloan.
Because I didnt think there was any chance shed done it. And if she hadnt done it, talking about it could only get me in trouble. So I wanted to check with her. I came back, and I couldnt find her online, and I didnt know where she lived. Shes unlisted, and Id only gotten together with her at Uncle Tonys. Thats a bar…
We know, Sherrill said. The one with the porno on computers.
Porno? You mean the TV Three story? That was all bullshit…
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Lucas said. Go ahead.
Anyway, when I did find her, yesterday, I asked her if shed heard about it, and she said yeah, shed done it, Robles said.
But you dont believe her.
No. Shes never fired a gun. She doesnt even go outside, for Christs sake. Shes white as a sheet… she doesnt know about walking around in the woods. Her old mans got something wrong with his bowel or something and never worked, and they never went anywhere when she was growing up. She said she shot him with her fathers. 3030, and I bet she doesnt even know what a. 3030 looks like or that he has one.
Could be the right kind of rifle, Lucas said. Themedical examiner says Kresge was killed with a largecaliber rifle, which around here probably means thirtycaliber…
Thats why I decided to tell you, Robles said plaintively. Im ninety-five percent sure she didnt do itbut Im five percent not sure.
And you dont know where she lives, Sloan said.
No, but she uses her drivers license as an ID, and I figured you could get that.
Bonnie Bonet?
B-O-N-E-T, Robles said, spelling it out. Is this gonna be in the newspapers?
Sherrill looked at Lucas: Want me to pick her up?
Yeah. Do that. Get some uniforms to back you up. Call me when youve got her. When Sherrill had gone, Lucas turned back to Robles, looked at him for several seconds, then said, Well need a statement. Detective Sloan will take it.
And to Sloan: Read him his rights on the tape.
My rights? Robles threw his head back to peer at Lucas. To a lawyer? Do I need a lawyer?
Lucas shrugged: Purely up to you… Anyway, talk to Sloan. And to Sloan: Ill be down at my office. Ive got some paper to look at.
TWO FILES WERE WAITING FOR HIM: FILES ON THE PEOPLE mentioned in the anonymous letter as victims of Wilson McDonald.
Lucas took off his jacket, hung it on an antique oak coatrack, and dropped in the chair behind his desk. He picked up the first file, put his heels on his desk, and leaned back. And then let the file drop to his lap for a few seconds. He was not particularly introspective, but he was suddenly aware that the constant mental grinding in the back of his headthe grinding that had gone on for weeks, a symptom of the beast prowling around himwas fainter, barely distinguishable.
A book project, he thought: Serial Murder: A Cure for Clinical Depression? by Lucas Davenport.
GEORGE ARRIS WAS KILLED ON A RAINY NIGHT IN SEPTEMBER1984 while walking down St. Pauls Grand Avenue toward a restaurant-bar generally regarded as a meat rack. Somebody unknown had fired a single shot from a. 380 semiautomatic pistol into the back of Arriss head, and left him to die on the sidewalk.
St. Paul homicide investigators had torn the city apart looking for the killer, because Arris was only the last of four nearly identical killings, spaced about two weeks apart.
All the victims were younger white men, all relatively affluent, all walking alone at night. All of the killings were within twenty blocks of each other. A racial motivation was suspected, and black gang members were targeted as the primary suspects.
Four different pistols had been used in the killings. Two of the guns had been found.
The first, a. 22-caliber Smith amp; Wesson revolver which had been used in the second killing, was found by a city work crew trying to open a clogged storm sewer a halfmile from the killing. That set off a general inspection of storm sewers, and the second pistol, a. 25-caliber semiauto, was found three blocks from the. 22. Neither of the other two pistols was found.
The lead detective on the case was George Jellman.
JELLMAN WAS RETIRED, AND IT TOOK TWO PHONE calls to locate him. Hes out back, his wife shouted. Ill go get him. She must have been shouting. Lucas mused, because they lived in Florida, which was a long way from Minnesota.
Jellman came to the phone a second later: Davenport, you miserable piece of shit. I never thought Id hear from you again.
How are you, Jelly?
Well, Im looking out at my backyard, he said.
There are two palm trees and two orange trees and a lime treeDenise makes key lime pie from it. Its just a bit shy of eighty degrees right now, and I can smell the ocean. About an hour from now, Ill be hitting golf balls on the greenest golf course you ever saw in your life… Hows it up there?
Cool, but nice.
Right. Nice in Minnesota means the snows not over your boots yet. .. So whats happening?
You remember a bunch of killings you handled back in 84, four guys shot in the back of the head?
Oh, hell, yes, Jellman said. Never got the guys who did it.
Im interested in the last oneGeorge Arris.
Why him?
We got an anonymous letter with the name of the supposed killer.
I bet it aint no goddamn Vice Lord, Jellman said.
Why is that?
Is it? A Vice Lord?
No. Its a bank vice president.
Hah. I knew it. Trust the letter, Lucasif it was a bullshitter, he wouldve said it was a Vice Lord, cause that was on all the media. The Vice Lords did the other three, but that fourth one, that was a copycat.
Are you sure?
Pretty sure. That was the word on the street, though nobody had any names for us. But the word was, the fourth one came out of the blue. That the Vice Lords whod done the shooting had split for Chicago before the fourth one ever happened.
So it was pretty much street talk about the fourth one.
There was something else toothe first three were all up there in the colored section. But the last guy was down on Grand Avenue. You look on a map, it looks pretty close, but you dont see many blacks over there. Not walking on the streetespecially not then, not as tight as everybody was about the first three shootings. And theres WyliesMarket used to be over there. You remember Wylies?
Sure.
They had a surveillance camera in the back of the store, looking at the cashiers cage and the front door, get peoples faces coming in. Anyway, on the film, you can see the street through the window, and we picked out Arris strolling down the street, just a minute or so before he was shot. But there werent any blacks, either before or after.
Huh. Is the tape still around?
Yeah, someplace. Since the case is still open… Did you ever look at the people around Arris? Friends and coworkers?
Oh, sure. Went over to that bank where he worked, came up empty. Hed been dating a few women, but hadnt had anything serious in a couple of years. All he did was work: thats what everybody said. Wasnt interested in pussy, gambling, booze. Just interested in work.
Huh. And he was dead when they found him.
Yup. Never knew what hit him. Probably never saw it coming. Entry wound right below the bump on the back of his head, exit wound right between his eyes.
Exit wound? So howd you know it was a. 380was there a shell?
Yeah, we found it in the grass next to the curb. There was a partial print, but really partialnot enough even to start looking for a match.
Slug fragments?
Yeah, one piece. Hollow point of some kind, nothing that would identify a pistol.
Not much of anything, then.
Nope. Listen, if you want, Ill call Doug Skelly over in St. Paul and get him to run down that tape for you.
Thanks, Jelly. Wish you were still on the job.
Wish I was too, man. I hate this fuckin place.
THE FILE ON ANDREW INGALL CONSISTED OF ONE sheet: His boat had been reported missing on Superior ona clear, fine day with good sailing winds. The Coast Guard, the Civil Air Patrol, and the local sheriffs departments in adjacent Minnesota and Wisconsin counties had done a search. Nothing was ever found, not even a life jacket.