Free Extreme Prey by John Sandford Page B

wherehe’d been hit, and Leonard’s knuckles had scraped a couple of shallow cuts across the bone.
    Lucas walked back around the bar and said to the bartender, “Gimme a Coke,” and to Leonard, “You sit right there until the cops get here.”
    “I need to get to a doctor,” Leonard moaned.
    “You get out of that chair, you’ll need two doctors,” Lucas said.
    —
    LUCAS SAT ON A STOOL and drank the Coke while Leonard groaned every time he took a breath. Five minutes later, a deputy walked in, looked around, and asked, “What happened?”
    “He beat me up,” Leonard said, jabbing a finger at Lucas.
    The deputy turned to Lucas and Lucas said, “I’m a former Minnesota cop working for Elmer Henderson’s presidential campaign. We’ve gotten some threatening letters . . .”
    He told the story and another deputy arrived, and the first one looked at Leonard and asked, “You have anything to do with those letters, Dave?”
    “Don’t know anything about any fuckin’ letters,” Leonard said. He had his arms pressing his ribs together, his fingers linked over his stomach.
    “Then why’d you jump me?” Lucas asked. “There was no reason for a fight, unless you were trying to intimidate me, trying to keep me from asking questions.”
    “’Cause I don’t fuckin’ like cops, that’s why. I don’t like guys in suits, either.”
    “That’s all true,” said the second deputy. He’d heard what sounded like a confession and asked Lucas, “What do you want to do about this? Looks like you took a hit, you’re bleeding.”
    “Up to you,” Lucas said. “You want me to file a complaint, I will, but I’m okay with calling it even, if Mr. Leonard will give me one honest answer.”
    The first deputy asked Leonard, “What do you think, Dave?”
    “What’s the question?” Leonard asked.
    “Did you know the man in the photo I showed you? Do you know a middle-aged lady with a son who has distinctive gray eyes?”
    “No. That’s nobody in Prairie Storm,” Leonard said. “I know them all, them’s that’s left.”
    —
    LEONARD’S FRIENDS said they’d take him to the hospital to get his ribs checked, and on the way out, Leonard said to Lucas, “I’d kick your ass if I wasn’t drunk.”
    Lucas said, “Of course you would.”
    The deputies hung around while Leonard was helped out to a friend’s pickup, and then as Lucas got the first aid kit out of his truck and smeared some Neosporin on his facial cuts.
    “What do you think about Leonard?” Lucas asked them, as he peered at his cheek in the truck’s wing mirror. “You think this Prairie Storm’s got people we should look at?”
    “Hell, as far as I know, there’re only about three members left and not one of them could organize a decent goat fuck,” said the older of the two deputies.
    They both knew the other members of Prairie Storm, they said,which was mostly a Cass County group. The members were all fairly old and mostly wrote letters to the editor. “Don’t think you’re gonna find an assassin here. Maybe some assholes, no assassins,” said the younger one.
    They said they’d ask around about a white-haired lady with a gray-eyed son, who’d been tied into Prairie Storm. “But I’ll tell you what you need—you need a better description.”
    Lucas remembered the photo on his phone and showed it to them. The younger one looked at it for a moment, then said, “You know who that looks like? Who was that guy, maybe . . . five years ago . . . grew all that weed in the Wilsons’ cornfield?”
    “Not him,” said the older guy. “That’s the guy who ran off with Bob Hake’s wife. They’re long gone to California and they ain’t coming back if they know what’s good for them.”
    “Oh, yeah. Boy, she was one hot kitty, huh?”
    “Okay,” Lucas said. He got out two business cards, wrote his phone number on the back of them, gave them to the deputies, said, “Call anytime, day or night,” and got back on the