Free Night Prey by John Sandford Page A

Davenport, you saved my ass in four hours, finding that bookstore.”
    “So now what?”
    Roux waved her hand expansively. “Do what you want.” She took a drag on her cigarette, then took it out of her mouth and looked at it. “Jesus, sometimes I wish I was a man.”
    “Why?” Lucas was amused by her excitement.
    “ ’Cause then I could take out a big fuckin’ Cuban cigar and smoke its ass off.”
    “You could still do that.”
    “Yeah, but then people who don’t already think I’m a bull dyke would start thinking I’m a bull dyke. Besides, I’d barf.”
     
     
     
    LUCAS TALKED BRIEFLY to Anderson and Lester about wrapping up the paper on the case. “St. Paul will probably want to talk to you,” Lester said.
    “That’s fine. Give them my home phone number if they call. I’ll be around,” Lucas said.
    “Connell thinks it’s a cheap shot, doesn’t she? Dumping the case.”
    “It is cheap,” Lucas said.
    “Man, we’re hurting,” Lester said. “We’ve never hurt this bad. And if you’re looking for something to do, we’ve still got bodies coming out of our ears. Did Greave tell you about his?”
    “He mentioned something, but it didn’t sound very interesting.”
    Sloan wandered in, hands in his pockets. He nodded to them, yawned, stretched, and to Lester said, “You got a Coke or something? I’m a little dry.”
    “Do I look like a fuckin’ vending machine?” Lester asked.
    “What happened, Sloan?” Lucas asked, picking up the signs.
    Sloan yawned again, then said, “A little pissant student named Lanny Bryson threw Heather Tatten off the bridge.”
    “What?” A smile broke across Lester’s face, like the sun coming up.
    “Got him on tape,” Sloan said, ostentatiously studying his fingernails. “She was hooking, part-time. She fucked him once, but wouldn’t do it twice, not even for money. They were arguing, walking across the bridge, and he tried to smooch her but she hit him with her fist, in the nose. It hurt and he got mad and when she walked away, he hit her on the back of the head with an economics textbook—big fat motherfucker—and knocked her down. She was stunned and he just picked her up and pushed her over the railing. She tried to hang on at the last minute, scratched him all the way down his forearms.”
    “Did you use the cattle prods?” Lucas asked.
    “Told us the whole fuckin’ thing in one long sentence,” Sloan said. “We Miranda-ed him twice on the tape. Got Polaroids of his arms; we’ll get a DNA match later. He’s over in the lockup now, waiting for the public defender.”
    Lucas, Anderson, and Lester looked at each other, then back at Sloan. Lester stepped close, took him by the arm, and said, “Can I kiss you on the lips?”
    “Better not,” Sloan said. “People might think you favor me at promotion time.”
    A pizza arrived, too much for somebody’s lunch, so they cut it up, got Cokes from the machine in the basement, had a little party, giving Sloan a hard time.
    Lucas left smiling. Sloan was a friend, maybe his best friend. But at the same time, he felt . . . He looked for a word. Disgruntled? Yes. Sloan had his victory. But somewhere out there, a monster was roaming around. . . .

5
    KOOP WAS SLICK with sweat, eyes shut, counting: eleven, twelve, thirteen. His triceps were burning, his toes reaching for the floor, his mind holding them off. Fourteen, fifteen . . . sixteen? No.
    He was done. He dropped to the floor between the parallel bars and opened his eyes, the sweat running from his eyebrows. The burn in his arms began to even out, and he stumbled over to the toe-raise rack where he’d left the towel, mopped his face, picked up a pair of light dumbbells, and headed back to the posing room.
     
     
     
    TWO GUY’S BODY Shop, with a misplaced apostrophe, was the end unit of a dying shopping center on Highway 100, a shopping center marked by knee-high weeds growing out of cracked blacktop, and peeling hand-painted signs for failing